"Notwithstanding" by Mary Cholmondeley Mary Cholmondeley was an English novelist known for her satire and wit. takes place in a small village in the English countryside. She questions the rigidity of certain moral visions of the time, justifying human frailties and offering them her perspective as the reader follows Annette Georges in the process of choosing between her two fates once she's been taken in by a kind woman and then her aunts.