The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

am a grown woman—mostly—and I can guzzle champagne with whomever I choose.

Dawsey to be groom.

Are you surprised? Probably not – but I am. I am in a constant state of surprise these days. Actually, now that I calculate, I’ve been betrothed only one full day, but it seems as though my whole life has come into existence in the last twenty-four hours.

I took the opportunity to snoop through his books. He hasn’t got very many, but his taste is superior – Dickens, Mark Twain, Balzac, Boswell, and dear old Leigh Hunt, The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, Anne Brontë’s novels (I wonder why he had those) and my biography of her. I didn’t know he had that: he’s never said a word – perhaps he loathed it.

and a small leather book of Rilke’s poetry with the inscription, For Elizabeth, who turns darkness into light, Christian.

All because he was Born in Sin – and there he’d stay until the last minute of his life, when he would receive God’s Mercy.

‘Think of it, friends,’ Augustus said, ‘a lifetime of misery with God not letting you draw one easy breath. Then in your last few minutes – POOF! you’d get Mercy. Thanks for nothing, I say.

That’s not all, friends: man must never think well of himself – that is called the sin of Pride. Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I’ll show you a man who hates his neighbours more! He’d have to – you wouldn’t grant anyone else something you can’t have for yourself – no love, no kindness, no respect! So I say, shame on the Parson! Shame on Chaucer!’ Augustus sat down with a thump.

Her text is called The Common Place Book of Mary Margaret Minor. Everybody already knows what Mary Margaret thinks about everything, but we said ‘Aye’ because we all like Mary Margaret.

You should probably burn this letter as well as the last one. I’ve refused Mark finally and irrevocably, and my elation is indecent.

ns had awakened Kit, who looked suspiciously at Mark and wanted to know where Dawsey had gone – he hadn’t kissed her goodnight. Me neither, I thought to myself.

the moment Dawsey held out both his hands to me at the bottom of the gangplank, I felt an unaccountable jolt of excitement. Dawsey is so quiet and composed that I had no idea if it was only me, so I’ve struggled to be reasonable and casual and usual for the last two months. And I was doing very nicely – until tonight

Which did I think would make the best companion for a man’s nether years? I told him that if one had to ask which, it generally meant neither.