unearths some literary gems.
***
The Potter sisters--Muriel and Sissy--were well known in Ashdown Dean, largely because hardly anyone knew them at all.
***
[She imagined a Henry James-influenced mystery story] in which several people have achingly endless, convoluted conversations over tea and biscuits, all of them knowing there was that body in the solarium but, with their Jamesian sensibilities, making such oblique references that no one knew if anyone knew if he or she knew. Including the reader.
***
Getting her to talk about anything at all was like being stuck at a party of clams.
[I didn't know that clams had parties! But then, why would I? After all, I don't know any clams well enough to score an invitation.]
***
[Drunk-lord inflation!]
Carrie had once found her outstretched beside the privet hedge, drunk as three lords.
[I'd never done the math to realize that three equally drunk lords would be drunker than just one.]
***
[Her face] reminded Carrie of a poached egg.
***
When she allowed them an audience, it was in her withdrawing room, where she promptly withdrew her attention.
***
It wouldn't surprise Carrie at all if they'd married because of their names--Regina and Reginald--so they could call each other Reggie.
[Cf. Robyn Hitchcock, "All aboard / Brenda's iron sledge / Please don't call me Reg / It's not my name."]
***
[Flirtatious Rhetorical Questions Silently Answered dept.]
Again, she giggled. "Ain't you a caution?"
Jury didn't think so and wanted to get on with it.
***
Bonus: A minor character called Mrs. Thring (i.e., "thing" with an R added).
