Tory Foyle unwound the black chenille scarf from her hair. She was what was once held to be the typical English Beauty, her pink face, bright hair and really violet eyes. ‘I had a letter from Edward.’ She took a small piece of lined paper from her pocket and smoothed it. Beth poured tea and […]

‘I am consumed by a desire to see your house,’ Amy read. ‘Laurel House, Laurel Walk sounds so English.’ Martha’s spidery, American hand-writing. Ernie, bringing in a pot of coffee, asked, ‘Everything all right, madam?’ His new teeth clicked badly. If they were to do it for ever, she felt that she could not bear […]

‘It’s not a secret,’ said Leopold haughtily.‘Oh, Miss Fisher said it was.’‘Did she tell you not to ask me things?’‘How do you mean?’ she said, flustered.Leopold smiled to himself. ‘She told me not to answer, whatever you said. She hopes I won’t say anything.’‘Then ought you to?’ said Henrietta, reproving.‘I don’t have to be obedient […]

Following the meal, the group usually moved to the small Tapestry Room to discuss the latest news: the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Virginia Woolf’s suicide, Nancy’s brother-in-law who was missing in action. After thoroughly covering the topics of the day, they’d turn to savagely reviewing books and friends. The nights ended with Eddy and Helen […]

Boud and I both avoided the company of the Grown-Ups at this time as much as we could. At Swinbrook, we lived in the DFD except for meal-times. We divided it down the middle, and Boud decorated her side with Fascist insignia of all kinds – the Italian ‘fasces’, a bundle of sticks bound with […]

“[…] Cecil All over again. He daren’t let a woman decide. He’s the type who’s kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he’s forming you, telling you what’s charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice […]

There was a general air of relief to be safely back indoors, for the party to begin ‘properly’. A quick glance round the room told Emma that it was not a very interesting gathering, or at least it did not look to be, for most of the people standing round, clutching glasses of sherry or […]

I used to spend my coffee-break and my tea-time with Connie, sometimes in her office, sometimes in mine. My job was to collect from her those few new manuscripts that had a faint possibility of being shaped into a book for publication, or whose authors should perhaps be nurtured. It was a very tentative affair, […]

Dear Editor,I was interested to read your article ‘Men No Longer Needed for Reproduction’ in last week’s paper. I have always believed my own daughter (now ten) to have been born without the involvement of any man. If you would like to know more information you may write to me at the above address. The […]

I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and […]

It was a relief to return to normal life again and to get through New Year’s Eve, with its feeling of sadness. The days began to lengthen and the first signs of spring appeared. In the meantime social life had started up again, by which Leonora meant her ‘new’ social life with Humphrey and James. […]

Elizabeth had formed the Thursday Murder Club with Penny. Penny had been an inspector in the Kent Police for many years, and she would bring along the files of unsolved murder cases. She wasn’t really supposed to have the files, but who was to know? After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever […]

The day was bright again, as if England had forgotten how to rain. The bracken is always the first to turn, bronze already coming through at midsummer, but it was still a steadfast deep green. It seemed as if all the flowers were out at once, purple and yellow vetch, foxgloves, of course the heather […]

Edith, in her veal-colored room in the Hotel du Lac, sat with her hands in her lap, wondering what she was doing there. And then remembered, and trembled. And thought with shame of her small injustices, of her unworthy thoughts towards those excellent women who had befriended her, and to whom she had revealed nothing. […]

Letty and Marcia began a more leisurely tidying up. They did not speak of or break into gossip about the two men, who were accepted as part of the office furniture and not considered worthy of comment unless they did something surprisingly out of character. Outside, the pigeons on the roof were picking at each […]

At this point perhaps I should say a word about myself. My name is James Donaghue, but you needn’t bother about that, as I was in Dublin only once, on a whiskey blind, and saw daylight only twice, when they let me out of Store Street police station, and then Finn put me on the […]

Oliver Davenant did not merely read books. He snuffed them up, took breaths of them into his lungs, filled his eyes with the sight of the print and his head with the sound of words. Some emanation from the book itself poured into his bones, as if he were absorbing steady sunshine. The pages had […]

‘Maurice, what shall I do?’‘Well, have you been to see him yet?’‘Not yet. But of course I ought to. As soon as I can find someone to stay with the girls, for a night or two if it’s necessary, I’m going to go. Thank you for making my mind up.’‘No, don’t do that.’‘Don’t do what?’‘Don’t […]

‘I can’t think why you’re so inquisitive. It isn’t as if you’d even met Neville Forbes.’‘No, but it’s like a kind of game,’ said Dulcie. It seemed – though she did not say this to Viola – so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of other people – to observe their […]

When we grow older we lack the fine courage of youth, and even an ordinary task like making a pullover for somebody we love or used to love seems too dangerous to be undertaken. Then Agatha might get to hear of it; that was something else to be considered. Her long, thin fingers might pick […]

‘Perhaps you will see Piers’s lodgings,’ said Sybil, when I told her of the invitation, so much more respectable than my secret expedition would have been.‘Lodgings’ sounder old-fashioned and sordid, and for a moment I felt as if it were wrong to be looking forward to the afternoon so much.‘He asked me to have tea […]

It’s Tom’s thesis,’ said Deirdre in a reverent tone. ‘He’s just given me a copy to read. Look,’ she unwrapped the paper, ‘four hundred and ninety seven pages. How does he do it?’ ‘Well,’ said Catherine, ‘writers of fiction would tell you that one just goes on and on until one reaches page four hundred […]

Jane realized from Nicholas’s laugh and the uncomfortable silence that followed that she ought not to have spoken. ‘I wonder whether a cup of tea would help us to see things in better perspective,’ she said quickly. ‘I will just go and see Mrs Glaze about it,’ she added, hurrying from the room.‘A cup of […]

More images come then, one superimposed on the next. And I abandon chronology in favour of waves of memory, overlapping and merging. My final look through the judas hole: I am kneeling on the bare boards of my attic bathroom at Lyntons, one eye pressed to the lens that sticks up from the floor, a […]

When one of the ships moved purposefully towards the quay, our spirits rose immediately; this manoeuvre was clearly the precursor of the promised evacuation and no one regretted having to leave. The crowd was getting impatient, and there were loud cheers and cries of “Let’s go!” When the gangplank was dropped, there was a strange […]

Perhaps there can be too much making of cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. We had all had our supper, or were supposed to have had it, and were met together to discuss the arrangements for the Christmas bazaar. Did we really need a cup of tea? […]

Now the story of Warrender Chase was in reality already formed, and by no means influenced by the affairs of the Autobiographical Association. But the interesting thing was, it seemed rather the reverse to me at the time. At the time; but thinking it over now, how could that have been? And yet, it was […]

From the lower-floor dormitories the people in the street looked larger, and the paths of the park were visible. All the nice people were poor, and few were nicer, as nice people come, than these girls at Kensington who glanced out of the windows in the early mornings to see what the day looked like, […]

Tuesday, 8 July 2008 The phrase ‘rollercoaster of emotion’ gets a lot of airtime in obs and gynae but I’ve never seen the big dipper hurtle round its loop quite as fast as today. Called to the Early Pregnancy Unit by one of the SHOs to confirm a miscarriage at eight weeks – he’s new […]

After twenty minutes of waiting as instructed – in an unforgiving wind – a Bedford bus pulled up in front of Juliet. It was a single-decker and on its side it announced ‘Highland Tours’ and Juliet thought, crumbs – were they going to Scotland and shouldn’t someone have told her so she could have packed […]

December 9 1959 Dear Mr Thornton, A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity. Yours sincerely, Florence Green Penelope Fitzgerald: The Bookshop Törmäsin Storytelissa kirjaan, jolla oli kirjanystävää houkutteleva nimi ja melko […]

We are foolish as teenagers. We say wrong things, do not know how to be modest, or less shy. We judge easily. But the only hope given us, although only in retrospect, is that we change. We learn, we evolve. What I am now was formed by whatever happened to me then, not by what […]

The missing girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. She had been thirteen at the time of her disappearance. She’d been wearing a white hooded top with a navy-blue body-warmer, black jeans, and canvas shoes. She would be taller than five feet now, and her hair may have altered in both style and colour. […]