Carry On Matron Quotes

The gold-speckled eyes were the most cherished trait in their Clan for a reason Manon had never bothered to learn—and when her grandmother had seen that Manon’s were wholly of pure, dark gold, the Matron had carried her away from her daughter’s still-cooling corpse and proclaimed Manon her undisputed heir.

to exonerate him. Given the personalities involved, Skarpellos and Lama, I would suddenly discover that Tony was playing cribbage with a dozen elderly matrons the night Ben was killed. “Suspects are your job,” I tell Nelson. “I think we’re satisfied with the defendant we have. All we need to know is who helped her. Who carried the body, used the shotgun,” he says. “It’s an offer made to fail. Even if she were willing to enter a plea to a crime she didn’t commit in order to save her life, she can’t fulfill the terms.” He looks at me, like “Nice story, but it won’t wash.” Lama kicks in. “Have you heard,” he says, “we got a photo ID party goin’ down at the office? Seems the lady was a creature of habit. Ended up at the same place every night. A motel clerk from hell says she brought her entire stable of studs to his front door. We got him lookin’ at pictures of all her friends. Only a matter of time. Then the deal’s off.” Harry meets this with some logic. “To listen to you, our client already had all the freedom she could ask for. Lovers on every corner, and a cozy home to come home to when she got tired,” says Harry. “Why would she want to kill the meal ticket?” “Seems the victim was getting a little tired of her indiscretions. He was considering a divorce,” says Nelson. “You have read the prenuptial agreement? A divorce, and it was back to work for your client.” Harry and I look at one another. “Who told you Ben was considering a divorce?” I ask. “We have a witness,” says Nelson. He is not the kind to gloat over bad news delivered to an adversary. “You haven’t disclosed him to us.” “True,” he says. “We discovered him after the prelim. We’re still checking it out. When we have everything we’ll pass it along. But I will tell you, it sounds like gospel.” Lama’s expression is Cheshire cat-like, beaming from the corner of the couch. I sense that this is his doing. “I think you should talk to your client. I’m sure she’ll see reason,” says Nelson. “If you move, I think I can convince the judge to go along with the deal.” “I’ll have to talk to her,” I tell him, “but I can’t hold out much hope.” “Talk,” he says. “But let me know your answer soon. If we’re going to trial, I intend to ask for an early date.

I have come, my lovely,” Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, “in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-“ he continued, “before I presented myself at the Willingtons’, exactly as your message instructed.” At 5’10”, Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. “Did you hear about Kensington?” “Who?” Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done. “The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?” he continued, studying Alex’s tense face as he continued, “Two years ago we wouldn’t have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he’s worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he’s the heir to a dukedom, and we’ll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are”-Roddy grinned-“when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot.” In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. “Oh, Roddy,” she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “You always make me laugh, even when I’m in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You could make things so very much better-if you would.” Roddy helped himself to a pinch of snuff, lifted his arrogant brows, and waited, his look both suspicious and intrigued. “I am, of course, your most obedient servant,” he drawled with a little mocking bow. Despite that claim, Alexandra knew better. While other men might be feared for their tempers or their skill with rapier and pistol, Roddy Carstairs was feared for his cutting barbs and razor tongue. And, while one could not carry a rapier or a pistol into a ball, Roddy could do his damage there unimpeded. Even sophisticated matrons lived in fear of being on the wrong side of him. Alex knew exactly how deadly he could be-and how helpful, for he had made her life a living hell when she came to London the first time. Later he had done a complete turnabout, and it had been Roddy who had forced the ton to accept her. He had done it not out of friendship or guilt; he had done it because he’d decided it would be amusing to test his power by building a reputation for a change, instead of shredding it. “There is a young woman whose name I’ll reveal in a moment,” Alex began cautiously, “to whom you could be of great service. You could, in fact, rescue her as you did me long ago, Roddy, if only you would.” “Once was enough,” he mocked. “I could hardly hold my head up for shame when I thought of my unprecedented gallantry.” “She’s incredibly beautiful,” Alex said. A mild spark of interest showed in Roddy’s eyes, but nothing stronger. While other men might be affected by feminine beauty, Roddy generally took pleasure in pointing out one’s faults for the glee of it. He enjoyed flustering women and never hesitated to do it. But when he decided to be kind he was the most loyal of friends.

He had been assessed as having a mental age of eight, but Rosie had discovered he could read a little and she was privately convinced that if books, jigsaw puzzles and board games were provided in the day room, then he could learn a great deal more than he already knew. ‘Get up, Donald,’ she said, resisting the temptation to tickle him and make him laugh more. ‘You can come and help me with the cleaning and making the beds. If you carry on like that all morning, everyone will get cross with you. Me included.’ One of the saddest things of all in Carrington Hall, as far as Rosie was concerned, was that all the patients were lumped together and treated as being on the same level as the most severely retarded ones. Even though she’d only been here for such a short time, with no previous experience of people with mental handicaps, she felt there should be times in the day when the more able ones should be separated and given things to do. She had suggested this to Mary once, but she just laughed at her, and said Matron wouldn’t like it because they’d need more staff. Rosie wasn’t brave enough to do anything Matron didn’t like; she sensed that would be asking for trouble. Besides, no one else on the staff shared her views; they all liked to just sit, chat, read, or knit while the patients shuffled about aimlessly

A notorious broadcast occurred on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1949, when an attempt was made to do a remote from the Shamrock Hotel in Houston. As Taylor recalled, reservations were oversold, and when the doors opened, some 1,600 people “were in near-mortal combat for the possession of 1,000 seats.” The bedlam extended to the booth and became critical when guests began shortcutting across the soundstage. Again, from Taylor’s recollection: “One hefty matron grabbed a microphone and, before I could intervene, announced, ‘I don’t give a goddamn about your broadcast—I want my dinnertable seat!’” In a moment of despair, an NBC engineer uttered the most-dreaded four-letter expletive, which was carried coast-to-coast before the show was cut off the air. A transcription survives at SPERDVAC, the radio historical society of Southern California.

Only a plain wooden cross stood at the head of each pile of earth. Identity was unimportant—each of these men, coming to monastic life, had cast off all selfhood, subsumed who he was in the greater brotherhood of Christ. That was the theory, anyway. It didn’t quite work out in life. Wulfhere had sung like an angel. Andreou had been a fat gossip who had loved Theo more than God. Aethelstan’s booming laugh had carried out over the noise of his forge, and Petros had made wooden bowls of such exquisite finish that matrons scrapped over them like cats in the village market. And Leof… In death, the theory worked well. Only Cai and his brethren knew which grave was which, and with them would vanish the knowledge that Leof lay closest to the wall, sheltered by hawthorns, cradled in the sacred ground he had loved.

An obviously married older couple trundled up to the booth beside us and began unloading a simple cargo tote. The woman—a mousy, gray-haired matron in boots, a pair of jeans, a checked shirt, and a vest—began directing the man. He was nearly bald and wore a utility jumpsuit. Her voice carried over the rising noise level as she bossed him around. “Not there, Virgil, I need that here.” Her smooth alto carried a whip-crack undertone that made me instantly feel sorry for him.

A closer look at the calendar reveals that for every cultic action performed by women there was a corresponding activity that involved men. This theme of interdependence between female and male actors played itself out throughout the Roman calendar. Importantly, these ritual actions were carried out in a defined space, in other words, a sacred landscape.

The Vestals were the keepers of the palladium and the ignis perpetuus (the perpetual fire). The festival day of Vesta, June 9, was also a special day for bakers (pistores). Pliny records that Romans did not have bakers until the early second century BCE.108 Each citizen (quiris) prepared his own bread, but baking was women’s work (mulierum opus). During the Vestalia, the donkey, usually bound under terrible conditions to millstones, was freed from work. The Vestals were not related to the bakers through the element of fire but through the use of wheat, the main ingredient for bread. The Vestals prepared special salted cakes (mola salsa) on June 9, thus ritually carrying out the socially and culturally assigned task of women.

In the human world, the only time a croc and a fox got together was when a rich society matron carried one as a purse and the other as a fur stole. But in her world, the world of shifters, anything was possible, even a love between cold blooded and hot.