yonmei

But yes. I'd guess your average Morag would more likely belabour the young pillock with a rolling pin and make a dismissive joke about his willy than ... that.

YES. Seriously. I mean, there's a village nearby, and working at the big house is going to be a serious source of income for the locals, whether guiding parties of tourists or cleaning up the cows whose turn it is to go into the front garden to Look Picturesque, or making soup - but that silent "I'll just wrap a gown round you and make no comment" is something that... well, would only happen if Morag regarded the werewolfiness as a serious and embarrassing disability which it was rude to make jokes about - which later on, it appears she doesn't.

I think what's massively brilliant about Wodehouse - well, one of the things - is that he makes me able to tolerate the existence of Mayfair and its ilk by rendering it wholly unreal. Mayfair makes me so cross every time I walk through it, which admittedly isn't very often, because it has real inhabitants and there are real people whose real job it is to open doors for people who can't be faffed. Then I think about Bertie and suddenly it's all a big ridiculous impossible cartoon world of fluff and comedy and slash and I don't mind so much.

Meh. I suppose these days I think, well, most people who work at jobs like that must do it because they quite like it - it's not like it was back in the 19th century where being a servant was just about the only decent indoor job a working-class woman could get. (There's a couple of novels that I read years ago, about a girl who leaves school at 12 just before WWI, who goes "into service" with a local family, and while the family are very nice to her in their way, and she's treated quite well, it was still weird: she's not even a teenager yet and she's doing a full day's work of other people's housework, and in fact this is considered a good thing for her because she's very bright and doing well at school - she has a good career ahead of her as a servant and the sooner she gets started on it the better.)

All I could really think while reading what you'd quoted of her work was 'EB's really not from around here'. Not that you have to be, but if you're not that oughtn't really to be the one thing that shines through.

It would surprise me if EB's ever been to Scotland. If she has, I doubt if it was for more than a week to admire the landscapes.

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