George H. Thomson places The Trap between October 1904, following immediately after Miriam’s summer holiday stay with the Wilsons during September and her return to the dental practice on Wimpole at the end of that month. Then, there is a leap from sometime in November (Chapter 4) to the spring of the following year (Chapters 5 through 8). The book ends in August 1905 and her decision to move from the flat she has been sharing with Selina Holland.
Chapter 1. A Saturday in October. Miriam visits the flat she will be renting with Selina Holland in Flaxman Court and meets the landlord, Sheffield. Later the same day, she returns to the flat and finds Selina already moved in. Going back to Mrs. Bailey’s, she reads Henry James’ The Ambassadors while her things are being packed up and transported to the new flat. After she settles in, she and Selina go for tea.
Chapter 2. That evening, she takes Selina to Donizetti’s restaurant. Selina does not approve of it. Back at their flat, Miriam goes to bed but is awakened by fleas. The next day, Miriam sees William Butler Yeats (yes, the real Yeats) in a room across the road. Miriam and Selina spend the day in their flat, having lunch and tea. Miriam relates meeting Mr. Hancock’s fiancée.
Chapter 3. Six days later. Miriam returns from work and pays her share of the rent. The Broom sisters visit her and she takes them to tea.
Chapter 4. A month or so later — November. Returning from work, Miriam meets Mr. Perrance, the ground floor tenant. She and Selina talk about Perrance and other tenants.
Chapter 5. Spring 1905. Miriam thinks about some guests she’s had in for tea. She recalls a note from Hypo Wilson and has dinner with Michael Shatov and other guests at her club. Together, they go to a Lycurgan [Fabian] society meeting. Afterward, she walks home with Dr. Densley, one of her new acquaintances.
Chapter 6. Miriam quarrels with Selina. Then, at work, she is both happy and fatigued.
Chapter 7. Miriam attends a Lycurgan party. She encounters Dr. Densley there and dances with “old Hayle-Vernon,” a elegantly-dressed older man. Afterward, they are joined by Arnold Engelhart, a passionate adherent of socialism and H. G. Wells. She reflects on marriage and free love and feels herself somewhat out of place among the Lycurgans.
Chapter 8. Miriam reflects on the passing of spring.
Chapter 9. Midnight on the Monday of August Bank Holiday. Selina is away, and Miriam’s thoughts range from life in the flat to seeing Yeats, hearing the quarrels of the Perrances, the departure of her sister Harriett and her husband Gerald to Canada, and her continuing relationships with Michael Shatov and Hypo Wilson. She decides to move out, “to take responsibility for oneself.”
What is this passage about, referring to the death of Eve?
”It was strange, one of those strange hints life brought that she should have appeared at the very time of the other Eve’s unbearable death, bearing not only her name, but her gentle certainties. And her way of gathering all spears to her own heart.” end of section 2
Near end of ch VI
That’s pretty much all Richardson gives us. Eve is based on Alice Mary Richardson, of whom both Richardson biographers confess that little is known. After appearing in her little shop on the coast in Deadlock, Eve is subsequently only referred to in the past tense. George H. Thomson says that “Much later her marriage and death in France are mentioned,” but I haven’t been able to locate anything but the sentence you quote.
Thanks. You would think there would be some kind of death notice. (Something for a PhD student to track down in future years.)
Ancestry.com or the General Register Office in the U.K. are the most likely sources, but from my experience, there are plenty of individuals, even with deaths into th 1970s, for whom there is no record.