Magali composed herself, taking her time to find the right formulation. ‘It’s just that I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the way you are.’
‘Really? How am I?’
‘Just… To me you’re kind of glamorous. Smooth. And good at whatever you do. You make everything seem so effortless. You have a sort of grace and I’m in awe of you. There.’
‘Priceless! Now who’s the dolt?’
Some characters impose themselves. When a sunken, shattered Charlotte Perle appeared on Magali's doorstep in One Green Bottle, it soon became clear to me that she wouldn't just be a grieving mother in the first book of the series but would feature prominently in all. Something about her, a dignity shining through her bereavement, told me she would be second only to Magali in shaping the series as a whole. Which she did to such an extent that the four books containing it, gathered in a box set, are called The Perle Quartet.
Magali saw it too of course, though she didn't suspect at first quite how important Charlotte would become to her. But she noticed the quiet strength, the elegance and poise, and it wasn't long before she found herself drawn inexorably towards her.
The glamour Magali sees in her doesn't come from designer clothes or jewels, though Charlotte has plenty of those as well. But that remains on the surface - what Charlotte has is the sort of glamour philosopher Carol Gould sees in actor Judi Dench: ”Glamour requires distance. Dench, who is no Garbo or Dietrich, manufactures this not through stage-managed aloofness but through a natural sense of containment.” Glamour, notes Gould, "radiates from the complexity of an individual human character as a particular expression of imagination and personal uniqueness."
A dolt to be in awe of her? Perhaps. But when someone radiates glamour like that, it's difficult not to be.
The Perle Quartet: available now for a limited period at a 50% dicount.
