The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce, #6)

by Alan Bradley

“And have you, also, acquired a taste for pheasant sandwiches, young lady?”

Mr. Churchill stared intently into my face, taking my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze with his remarkably long fingers. “Yes,” he said at last, almost as if to himself, “yes, I do believe you have.”

“Tell your father that the Gamekeeper is in jeopardy. He’ll understand. I must speak to him. Tell him that the Nide is under—”

Unless I was greatly mistaken, the words on Harriet’s lips had been “pheasant sandwiches.” Pheasant sandwiches?

It’s things like this that really shake me: sudden terrifying glimpses into the world of being an adult, and they are sometimes things that I am not sure I really want to know.

There are certain sounds which are meant never to be heard by children—even though I am no longer really a child—and the chiefest of these is the sound of a parent crying.

I would bring my mother back to life! And this time, it would not be just a dopey dream, but an actual scientific accomplishment. There was so much to do—and so precious little time.

One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.

“The poet Cowper,” he said, “who knew whereof he spoke, once wrote, ‘God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.’ We mere mortals must never question what we sometimes take to be the blind workings of Fate.”

Why is it, I wondered, that the facts closest to our noses are so often the most overlooked?

“A spy,” Dr. Kissing echoed. “A short, nasty word with long, nasty consequences.”

“You must never be deflected by unpleasantness,” Aunt Felicity had told me. “I want you to remember that. Although it may not be apparent to others, your duty will become as clear to you as if it were a white line painted down the middle of the road. You must follow it, Flavia.”

↓↓↓

“Even when it leads to murder?” I had asked. “Even when it leads to murder.”

My father’s sister had been guiding my life for ages—maybe forever.

“You’re the Gamekeeper, aren’t you?” I asked. Aunt Felicity stared at me, her face a mask.

“Yes,” she said.

“The word ‘bereaved’ comes down to us from the Old English word beréafian, meaning ‘to be deprived of’—to be stripped, to be robbed, to be dispossessed—

I’m trying hard to be a better person, but it doesn’t always work.

“What are we going to do, Dogger?” It seemed a reasonable question. After all he had been through, surely Dogger knew something of hopeless situations.

“We shall wait upon tomorrow,” he said. “But—what if tomorrow is worse than today?” “Then we shall wait upon the day after tomorrow.”

“Kipling was no Tory, nor was he a jingoist. He was a spy in the service of Queen Victoria, and a damned good one at that.

“I keep six honest serving-men

↓↓↓

They taught me all I knew; Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.

my aunt Felicity: the Gamekeeper. She has already taught me this: Never underestimate either an old woman—or old blood.