Bianca Columbina
Character
Also appears as: Miss B, Miss Bianca Columbina, Mrs Bianca Corby, The Mayoress, the Mayoress
Immaculate dove of Stroud and St Peter Port, nurse, lover, Mayoress and victim. Passes from Hawksmoor’s protection to Ian Corby’s marriage bed, then from public ridicule to fatal collapse.
Appears in
Connections
Meets
- Hawksmoor Perroquet betrothed to (1 passage)
- Ian Corby spouse of
Attends
- Aviary lives in (1 passage)
- Southville lives at (1 passage)
- St Peter Port lived in (2 passages)
- Stroud hatched in (1 passage)
- The Old Council House in Corn Street marries at (1 passage)
- Westbury-on-Trym lives at (1 passage)
Linguistic associations
- charivari target of (1 passage)
- Lex Matrimonia Avum relationship governed by (2 passages)
From the books (10 passages)
…being a dove, and a most demure and reticent dove at that, who went by the name of Miss Bianca Columbina.
In order to explain the association between Miss Bianca Columbina and Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, it will be necessary for me to allude to a trip to St Peter Port in Guernsey, undertaken a year or two previously by the Mayor. I am of the opinion that the Mayor made this trip at the behest of Sir Hearty Luncheon, inasmuch as his purpose in going there seems to have involved the…
…captivities in the lock-up of Mr Francis MacMahon and the inner sanctum of Dr Mark Wankstain, Mr Ian Corby did not perch on ceremony, and saw no need to exchange his roost in Dogging Woods for a more salubrious habitation. However, there was upon the evening of his release a lock-in at the Fruit & Nut Flake, and I rather think that Mr Ian Corby, after making his way thither…
…under the Lex Matrimonia Avum; whereas the other hen, a most respectable creature - let us call her Miss B - is betrothed and purposing to be likewise respectably wedded under that selfsame Lex Matrimonia Avum. Do you follow me thus far?”
“Oho! Ah’ll be scunnered if his Wurrrshipfuleness be no payin’ court to the meesterius Miss B.”
Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet found Miss Bianca Columbina as he normally found her, which is to say poking that immaculate white head of hers through the gap afforded by the unreplaced pane in the aviary.
“Please not to be discomposed Papa,” urged the flesh of his flesh, “Mr Corby has been introduced to me, during the time when Mama and I lived here, and he has always behaved very properly towards Mama and myself.”
Miss Bianca Columbina had lately found herself the recipient of polite attentions from a swart gentleman with a Caledonian burr. Being in possession of a trusting and, it must be confessed, superficial nature, she was not at all put out of countenance by the solicitations of this gentleman, such being the niceness and delicacy of the addresses which he made to her, and appeared to be thoroughly susceptible to the…
…I was wondering whether you might oblige me by returning to Miss Bianca Columbina the correspondence between us. I would not wish to undertake this task myself. It would not be very nice.”
…Thus, whereas Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet had previously in one of his expansive moments floridly pressed upon Miss Bianca Columbina the plenitudinous accoutrements of the Cathedral for the wedding then envisaged between those parties, Mr Ian Corby soberly resolved, in a manner very much in keeping with the Presbyterian garb in which he presented himself to the world, to splice himself unto the aforementioned party under the unpretentious aegis of the…