Home > Author > Elizabeth Fair
1 " To Miss Conway this was a challenge. Things which were somewhere had been stored by herself and could be located, but things which Alice had put in a safe place were often lost forever; the safeness of the place seemed to absolve her from the necessity of remembring where it was. "
― Elizabeth Fair , A Winter Away
2 " Mrs. Woodfidley was inviting the guests to assemble for drinks, which were being handed out by Mr. Woodfidley and Garson from a long table in the bay window. The bottles and glasses had been visible from the first and their serried ranks must have drawn longing glances from more persons than herself - it would have been so much easier to sing and talk if even a single drink had been given one at the start of the party. But now she had guessed that the party was organized in set figures, like a formal country dance, and that the delay in serving drinks must be due to this plan. The figure in which drinks were consumed had just begun; it would succeeded by another after a fixed interval of time, and therefore she had better make sure of a drink before the music changed. "
3 " Clichés really do describe emotional experiences, you know. The mere fact that hundreds of people use them proves it. People who are truly suffering don’t bother about looking for elegant new ways of expressing their feelings. "
― Elizabeth Fair , The Mingham Air
4 " If he hadn’t made her laugh she would have cried; and the relief of being able to dissolve into laughter was so great that she felt quite dizzy, as if after months of being shut up in one room she had suddenly emerged into wind and sunlight. "
5 " Maggie said tolerantly that it would do the parents good to be taken for a picnic. And she told herself, even more tolerantly, that it would do Hester good if she drove the car into a ditch. But this was just a private joke; for her common sense told her that it would do the precious car no good at all. "
6 " She recognized it as one of her “good” days; a day when nothing was too difficult, nothing could vex or depress her, when she felt at the top of her form and able to tackle anything. "
7 " That girl's still here," old M . said, as if he were reading her thoughts."Yes, I know.""She's been here a month. I told Hat she could come here for Christmas and now she says she can't afford to go home. Doesn't want to, I expect, for she says it's all ruins and Russians and her mother's dead and I don't know what. Boo-hoo and all that, when I mention it. Can't get much out of her."Maud wondered how he got anything, since he and Who's-it spoke different languages. "Well, why not let her stay?" she suggested."Stay! Stay here? My dear Maud, think what she eats. This place isn't an orphanage..."Old M. rumbled on, and when he had finished she said calmly, "You'd have to pay her, of course. She has a permit to work in England and she wants to stay, and I think...""Pay her! Do you think I'm made of money?""No. But I think you can afford to pay Who's-it, and you must remember that she'd be a wonderful bargain. She works far harder than the others. She'd be like two housemaids for the price of one."It was hard for old M. to resist a wonderful bargain, and perhaps like Oliver he had noticed the hot bath-water and the other improvements Who's-it had brought about... "
