Underrated: Barbara Pym, whose unpretentious, subtle, accomplished novels, especially Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings, are for me the finest… - Barbara Pym

'What do women do if they don't marry,' she mused, as if she had no idea what it could be, having been married once herself and about to marry again.

'Every man should have a wife,' declared the rector firmly. 'A single clergyman is the prey of every spinster in the parish. He should marry for safety, if for no other reason.'

Oh, but it was splendid the things women were doing for men all the time, thought Jane. Making them feel, perhaps sometimes by no more than a casual glance, that they were loved and admired and desired when they were worthy of none of these things – enabling them to preen themselves and puff out their plumage like birds and bask in the sunshine of love, real or imagined, it didn't matter which.