A Countess Below Stairs Quotes

“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“And so they played some of the world's loveliest piano music - the exiled homesick girl, the humiliated, tired old man. Not properly. Better than that.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“When you're sad, my Little Star, go out of doors. It's always better underneath the open sky.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose]....”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Shadows are cool and peaceful places for those whose minds are overstocked with treasure.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“How dare you suppose that I don't know who you are or what you are? That I don't understand what I see? Do you take me for some kind of besotted schoolboy? It is unspeakable! You could weigh as much as a hippopotamus and shave your head and wear a wig and it wouldn't make a difference to me. I never said you were beautiful. I never thought it. I said that you were you.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“For an instant she felt his touch on her cheek then he stepped back. There that was my ration for all eternity. People have died for less I dare say.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“To show too much joy in a place such as this would be unseemly but, as he padded toward her, his tail was extended in a manner which would make wagging possible should all go as expected.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up!”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“It was a night to dream about: windless, warm and scented, with a streak of gold and amethyst still lingering in the sky.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“When you’re sad, Little Star, go out of doors. It’s always better underneath the open sky.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“A faint terror lest she begin to curtsy took hold of Rupert.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Now, tell me everything, please. Of course if he has harmed you I shall kill him, whoever he is,” he added matter-of-factly. “But otherwise, perhaps something can be done.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Love begets love. As he grew, Petya followed his sister everywhere… “Wait for me, Annoushka!” … And Anna did wait for him. She was to do so always.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Lord Byrne looked at his wife. He’d married her blind, knowing nothing about her except that she had a quiet voice, a sensible manner and some spare cash. Now, eight years later, he would have died for her without a moment’s hesitation. To dress up as a hussar in Wellington’s army would be harder, but he would do it.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“A countess, eh?” Mr. Cameron, into whose ear trumpet the news had duly been shouted, had begun to wheeze with unaccustomed and silent laughter. He knew, now, what to call his new rose, and the joke—obscure, private, pointless—was just the kind he particularly enjoyed.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Now the old woman who had known him since his birth saw in the new lines round his eyes, the skin stretched tight across the cheekbones, the price paid by those who force themselves against their deepest nature, to excel in war.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“Rupert looked down at the little upturned face with its mass of freckles and marigold curls and a wave of tenderness for Muriel swept over him. She could so easily have wanted to choose someone of her own. “I think you’re going to be absolutely beautiful,” he said.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“No.” She waited, holding back with an innate sense of drama while they floundered hopelessly among lesser materials and commonplace outfits.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“She smiled, her face tender in the lamplight. “I wish you had known him. He could make just being alive seem like an act of triumph. People used to smile when they saw him coming… he made everything all right.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“For attached to every wedding is that font of hope, that potential piece of manna, the best man.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“The comical dusky down that had covered Anna’s head in early childhood had become a waist-length mantle, its rich darkness shot through like watered silk with chestnut, indigo, and bronze. “Over my dead body will you cut your hair.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“it had been no hardship to grow up in his brother’s shadow. Shadows are cool and peaceful places for those whose minds are overstocked with treasure.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Secret Countess

“Muriel sprinkled salt over her haddock mousse. ‘It is not easy to be specific, but both morally and hygienically there is . . . a kind of laxness which I had not expected.’ Dr Lightbody leant forward. The discussion of hygienic and moral laxness with a beautiful woman in a softly shaded restaurant was exactly to his taste.”
― Eva Ibbotson, The Secret Countess

“He had just spent half an hour cross-examining his butler. Proom’s attempts at honorable evasion had withered before the tactics that Rupert had perfected in four years of dealing with his men…. His anger, though perfectly contained, far outstripped Muriel’s own.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“If the medieval saints had gone to their deaths as to a wedding, the Earl of Westerholme, thought the kind and scholarly vicar, looked as if he was preparing to invert the trend.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“What the devil are you doing here?” continued the earl, his customary good manners quite banished by the shock of seeing this girl whose treachery had not prevented her from haunting his dreams, sleeping and waking, ever since she had gone.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“To this waltz, born in a distant, snowbound country out of longing for just such a flower-scented summer night as this, Rupert and Anna dance. They were under no illusions. The glittering chandeliers, the gold mirrors with their draped acanthus leaves, the plangent violins might be the stuff of romance, but this was no romance. It was a moment in a lifeboat before it sank beneath the waves; a walk across the sunlit courtyard towards the firing squad. This waltz was all they had.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs