The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Grapevine Press)

by Dorothy L. Sayers

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bully. One has an ancestral idea that women must be treated like imbeciles in a crisis. Centuries of the “women-and-children-first” idea, I suppose. Poor devils!’ ‘Who—the women?’ ‘Yes. No wonder they sometimes lose their heads. Pushed into corners, told nothing of what’s happening, and made to sit quiet and do nothing. Strong men would go dotty in the circs. I suppose that’s why we’ve always grabbed the privilege of rushing about and doing the heroic bits.’ ‘That’s quite true. Give me the kettle.’

‘Some things are so beastly.’ ‘Oh, yes—quite a lot of things. Birth is beastly—and death—and digestion, if it comes to that. Sometimes when I think of what’s happening inside me to a beautiful suprème de sole, with the caviare in boats, and the croûtons and the jolly little twists of potato and all the gadgets—I could cry. But there it is, don’t you know?’ Ann