"You see, I am not a marrying woman. I don't want to have to put up with someone else's crochets, someone else's demands, someone else's colds in the head. Mother and I suit each other perfectly because we make no demands on each other. If one of us has a cold in the head, she retires to her room without fuss and doses her disgusting self until she is fit for human society again."
Written in 1949, The Franchise Affair is acknowledged to be one of the best mysteries of all time. It has been cited in real-live cases. A journalist, reporting on a case of some celebrity a few years ago wrote: "How could such a thing happen? Hadn't any of them read The Franchise Affair?"
My copy is a paperback printed in 1988. Beautiful cover. I regret that this particular edition is out of print and that it is only available in a less-pretty trade-sized edition.
The story revolves around an attorney who is hired by a woman who has been accused of enslaving a young girl and keeping her a prisoner in her house. The attorney believes in the woman's denials and does his utmost to find out what really happened to the girl during the two weeks she claims she was held prisoner. It is well-plotted, tightly written, and very snarky. Many mystery mavens rank Tey higher than Christie, and I have to agree. Christie was more prolific (Tey wrote just eight mysteries), but Tey's books are all better than Christie's best.
A friend of mine is flying to Korea tomorrow and I lent her another Tey, Brat Farrar, to take with her. "Is it good?" she asked. I pointed out the broken binding and the banged up corners. "I've read it at least 20 times. Judge for yourself."
The same goes for The Franchise Affair. I've read it at least 20 times. Judge for yourself.
...But even before he had left the house, the problem was solved for them. The solving of it lay in the note Miss Vanderpoel had written the night before at StornhamBetty is basically Sara Crewe, if she had been American and her father had not died after he found the diamond mines. She does rescue her sister. And Mount Dunstan finally comes off his high horse. And the evil brother-in-law gets what he deserves, pretty much.
...[the vicar] opened the note and read it gravely, and then as gravely, though with a change of expression, handed it to Mount Dunstan.
"Yes, she is a creature of action. She has heard and understood at once, and she has done something. It is immensely practical - it is fine - it - it is lovable."
"Do you mind my keeping it?" Mount Dunstan asked, after he had read it.
"Keep it by all means," the vicar answered. "It is worth keeping."
But it was quite brief. She had heard of the outbreak of fever among the hop pickers, and asked to be allowed to give help to the people who were suffering. They would need prompt aid. She chanced to know something of the requirements of such cases, and had written to London for certain supplies which would be sent to them at once. She had also written for nurses, who would be needed above all else. Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly call upon her for any further assistance required.
...She had, in fact, gone to London to consult an eminent physician, who was an authority of world-wide reputation...he had experienced a new sensation in the visit paid him by an indubitably modern young beauty, who wasted no word, and whose eyes, while he answered her amazingly clear questions, were as intelligently intent as those of an ardent and serious young medical student. What a surgical nurse she would have made! It seemed almost a pity that she evidently belonged to a class the members of which are rich enough to undertake the charge of entire epidemics, but who do not usually give themselves to such work, especially when they are young and astonishing in the matter of looks.
-Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfield (pp 6-8, from the second printing of the 1951 edition.)One particularly beastly day, when it looked every minute as if it were going to rain and never quite did, Harriet was coming home from the river feeling as blue as a lobelia, when a car stopped beside her.
"Hullo, Harriet. How are you getting on?"
Harriet had been so deep in gloom because she was cold and tired that she had not noticed the car, but as he spoke she saw Doctor Phillipson. Quite suddenly everything she had been thinking about spindly legs and fresh air and not going to school came over her in a wave and she did what she would never have done in the ordinary way: she told the doctor exactly what she thought of his treatment.
"How would you feel if you were made to walk up and down a river in almost winter, all by yourself, getting colder and colder, and bored-er and bored-er, with absolutely nothing to do, and not allowed to stay indoors for one minute because you'd been ill and your doctor said you'd got to have fresh air? I feel simply terrible, and I shouldn't think I'll ever, ever get well again."...
..."I must say," he agreed, "you do look a miserable little specimen. I hoped you'd pick up after that convalescent home the hospital sent you to."
Harriet looked at him sadly, for she thought he was too nice to be so ignorant.
"I don't see why I should have got better at that convalescent home."
"It's a famous place."
"But it's at the top of a cliff, and everything goes on at the bottom of the cliff, sea-bathing and the sands and everything nice like that. I could never go down because my legs were too wobbly to bring me back."
The doctor muttered something under his breath which sounded like "idiots"...
Yoda is a cake all by himself, then there are little star cakes holding candles, then there are little action figures on a desert of raw sugar. 
That's MM in the striped shirt. LovesHighSchoolMusical is next to him (with the ponytail), MomBakesBrownies is on the far left, and CanYouBelieveShe'sOnlySix is upper right.How was your weekend?
