unearths some literary gems.
Catriona McPherson tidbits:
"And it's marvellous of darling Hugh to embrace his horizons expanding into such lightness and ..." Here Pearl lost hold of the metaphor and let it float away.
***
“All we need is the right French mistress and we shall be fine. Absolutely fine.” But she did not sound absolutely fine, or even one good French mistress short of it. [Btw, "French mistress" here is to be taken, not in the ooh-la-la sense, but in the schoolteaching sense.]
***
"The plot doesn't exactly thicken but it far from dilutes, wouldn't you say?"
"It curdles," I said.
***
"But I like things not to make sense, Alec dear, as you know. For then there is something to catch hold of and straighten out about them." We smoked in silence for a while, each hoping to catch hold of a loose end immediately, each failing to do so.
***
"Elf-f-f-f is the rather silly nickname of Edward Lionel Frederick Forrester-Franklin." [I note that he has somehow ended up with a surplus "f."]
***
"Marigold did some Lady Bracknelling about, seeing what she thought of Fleur as a daughter-in-law."
***
There was a short silence, whose source and whose journey I could not fathom.
***
“Well there’s the Haunted Ram, of course.”
“A public house?” I asked.
“A ram,” she corrected. “Haunted.”
[...]
Fifteen minutes later, I came reeling out into the uncertain sunshine with my wee map in my hand and my head swirling with phantasms too many to number; Moffat most certainly was a place where the dead seemed to go about their business unimpeded by their change of state and with no thoughts of lying down quietly and mouldering.
[...]
Bruce and Wallace and even Malcolm had paused at Moffat on their travels . . . imbuing the hills and fields with the sort of vanquished hopes and tragic disappointment which inevitably end up as grey ladies and headless pipers.
