Daily Pym

The Dominion of the Birds

‘And that’s not the worst,’ she went on, rummaging in a small desk which stood open and seemed to be full of old newspapers. ‘Read this.’ She handed me a cutting headed OWL BITES WOMAN, from which I read that an owl had flown in through a cottage window and bitten a woman on the chin. ‘And this,’ she went on, handing me another cutting which told how a swan had knocked a girl off her bicycle. ‘What do you think of that?’

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

‘You will hardly believe this, Miss — er — but I was sitting in the window this afternoon and as it was a fine day I had it open at the bottom, when I felt something drop into my lap. And do you know what it was?’ She turned and peered at me intently.

I said that I had no idea.

‘Unpleasantness,’ she said, almost triumphantly…

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

‘She came to my flat the other night after ten o’clock, alone, and stayed for nearly three hours talking, although I did everything I could to get her to go.’

I felt I could hardly ask what methods he had employed.

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

It was not for the pleasure of my company that Everard Bone had asked me out this evening — or rather not even asked me and given me the chance of appearing better dressed and without my string bag, but had waylaid me in the street.

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

‘What would you like to drink?’

‘Beer,’ I said uncertainly.

‘What kind of beer?’

‘Oh, bitter, I think,’ I said, hoping that it wasn’t the kind that tasted like washing-up water, but not being certain.

When it came I found that it was and I was a little annoyed to see that Everard himself had a small glowing drink that looked much more attractive than mine.

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

One evening a few days later I was coming out of my office at six o’clock when I noticed Everard Bone…I was thinking of hurrying past him as I was not very well dressed that day — I had had a ‘lapse’ and was hatless and stockingless in an old cotton dress and a cardigan. Mrs. Bonner would have been horrified at the idea of meeting a man in such an outfit. One should always start the day suitably dressed for anything, she had often told me. Anybody emergency might arise. Somebody — by which she meant a man — might suddenly ring up and ask you out to lunch.

— Excellent Women, chapter sixteen

‘What was her name?’ he asked with a faint show of interest.

‘Oh, I don’t know. She was tall with greyish eyes and brown hair, not pretty but quite a pleasant face.’

‘Oh, Mildred,’ he looked at me seriously, ‘there were so many. I couldn’t possibly recognise her from that description — “not pretty but quite a pleasant face” — most Englishwomen look like that, you know.’

I realised that it was probably how I looked myself and was sad to think that after a year or two he might not remember me either.

— Excellent Women, chapter fifteen

After the service I went home and cooked my fish. Cod seemed a suitable dish for a rejected one and I ate it humbly without any kind of sauce or relish.

— Excellent Women, chapter fifteen

‘The fatherless and widow,’ said Julian in what seemed a rather fatuous way.

‘Is she fatherless too?’

‘Yes, she is an orphan,’ he said solemnly.

‘Well, of course, a lot of people over thirty are orphans. I am myself,’ I said briskly. ‘In fact I was an orphan in my twenties. But I hope I shan’t ever be a widow. I’d better hurry up if I’m going to be even that.’

— Excellent Women, chapter fifteen

‘…I thought it would be nice if you got to know each other better, became friends, you know.’

‘Yes, men do seem to like the women they know to become friends,’ I remarked, but then it occurred to me that of course it is usually their old and new loves whom they wish to force into friendship. I even remembered Bernard Hatherley, the lay-reader bank clerk, saying about the girl he had met on holiday in Torquay, ‘You would like her so much — I hope you’ll become friends.’ But as I had been at home in my village and she had been in Torquay the acquaintance had never prospered.

— Excellent Women, chapter fifteen