Daily Pym

‘Now if only he were a widower,’ mused Harriet.

‘But he isn’t,’ said Belinda stoutly.

‘No, and Agatha’s very tough in spite of her rheumatism,’ lamented Harriet.

— Some Tame Gazelle, chapter fourteen

‘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 was punctual at the restaurant and I had been waiting nearly ten minutes before Mrs. Gray arrived.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she smiled, and I heard myself murmuring politely that I had arrived too early, as if it were really my fault that she was late.

— Excellent Women, chapter fourteen

‘Of course,’ went on Mrs. Gray in a clear voice as if she were making a speech, ‘I always feel that one ought to give men the opportunity for self-sacrifice; their natures are so much less noble than ours.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ asked Winifred seriously. ‘I have known some very fine men.’

…I felt it was not a very suitable remark for a clergyman’s widow to have made, though it was certainly amusing in a rather cheap way.

— Excellent Women, chapter nine

‘But she’s a clergyman’s widow….’

‘Oh, dear,’ I laughed, ‘I’d forgotten that.’ It seemed like a magic formula. ‘So she’s to be beautiful as well as good. That sounds almost too much. We don’t know how her husband died, do we? She may have driven him to his grave.’

— Excellent Women, chapter five

‘How did she know about the flat?’ I asked.

‘She went to Miss Enders to have a dress altered and I suppose they got talking. Then she mentioned the matter to Father Greatorex and he told me. She felt she did not like to approach me directly. She is a clergyman’s widow, you see,’ Julian added, as if this would explain a delicacy not usually displayed by people engaged in the desperate business of flat-hunting.

— Excellent Women, chapter five