A Stranger in Mayfair Quotes

“‎He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“‎'He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Mr. Lenox, have you heard of a man of Ludovic Starling’s age and position becoming a baron out of the blue? It was the purest fantasy.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“You’ve no idea what it’s like to have as your first landed ancestor a common man—a blacksmith, no less. We could have owned three-quarters of Wiltshire and none of the families there would have cared about us.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“And attacked you! Lady Macbeth ain’t in it!”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“And you—you let Collingwood believe Paul was a murderer? Your son?”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“As she sobbed, dispossessed now beyond a doubt of whatever life she had made for herself, he almost felt pity for her. Then he remembered the other mother, the one in a hotel in Hammersmith, slowly coming apart at the seams.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Both Ludo’s careless life—marrying a maid, having a child with her, and later accepting him in as a footman (the madness!)—and more importantly Elizabeth Starling’s raging anger, her dark heart.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“It makes sense to me now. Poor Ludo isn’t a violent type. He’s happy with a game of cards and a glass of brandy. But you—you’re a plotter.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Yes, you can make all the unpleasant faces you want, but while I was living there you were in your father’s house, looked after by nannies, eating off of silver, learning about what your old ancestors did at, at Agincourt … no, we’re very different, you and I.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Really, this infernal and constant intrusion into official matters of the Yard cannot stand a moment longer! Good Lord, Mr. Lenox, do you have no sense of boundary? Of decorum? Of—”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“The real shame in it all is that Freddie Clarke would have made an admirable gentleman. He read philosophy, he boxed. He was quite plainly intelligent. Well liked.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Worse still, you were married to his mother. He was legitimate. Not a bastard. My question is this: How could you have let your own son work as a footman for three years, and in your house? What sort of man would tolerate such a circumstance?”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Something else, though, made sense: the intellectual reading, the philosophy and great literature; the tailored suits and shoes; the aristocratic boxing club, where he spent money freely; and the ring, most of all having his own initials engraved on the Starling ring. Frederick Clarke was setting himself up, in his own mind, as a gentleman.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“After I had the child I thought perhaps he would wish to speak to me, but he never did, and in my pride—in my foolishness—I decided I hated him. Though I love him still, God curse me for it!”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Dallington had cause to feel more strongly than any of them, because for a brief while they had been engaged. The end of the engagement, some years before, had been the talk of London, and in truth it was he who had jilted her. Quite unreasonably he hated her for it, in particular because she tried to be friends with him, putting a brave face on things.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Beyond all that, it was a tremendous thing to have him in the house. It meant that Lenox was a serious participant in the grand game of London politics, someone on the move. Disraeli wasn’t any longer a very sociable fellow; his visit here would be on people’s lips the next morning.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“There hadn’t been any uncle’s inheritance. What kind of London housemaid had an uncle rich enough to see her retire upon his death? She had bought her pub with Starling money, and raised Clarke with Starling money, too. It all made so much sense.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Ludo Starling was Frederick Clarke’s father. This page intentionally left blank.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Oh, yes, you and Edmund can sit in the corner and grumble together while the adults make conversation”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“He needed someone. A real father would have protected him,” she said. “That’s what he needed—he should have had a real father. Ludovic—Mr. Starling—he could have been that, when I entrusted my poor Freddie with him. Or at least a friend. It’s not right to leave a boy alone in a city like this. I should have been here—I should have come down from Cambridge more often …”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Unfortunately Schott and Son was closed again. It was strange, of course, for a prominent butcher in the heart of Mayfair to close on consecutive days without any explanation”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“What will it take, money? Let me pay your standard fee, and we shall be done with each other.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Oh, please! He’s only a boy! You can’t send him to hang! He’ll be out of the country soon—gone from England forever—he has time to change!”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“More than just losing a teacher, I worry at London losing you. Many men can sit in a room and talk nonsense, as they seem to do in Parliament, but fewer can go to a prison and phlegmatically sit with a confessed murderer.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“What was missing, he knew, was a clear motive for Collingwood to kill Freddie Clarke. Would such an apparently genial soul—loved by Paul, Alfred, and Tiberius Starling—commit murder over a few coins? No. But then what could the real motive be?”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“I think perhaps it takes time, Jane. We’re not used to being married yet. On the Continent it was all somehow unreal— somehow child’s play. Now we’re back to real life.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Does your meddling reach no end? Would you not leave us to our lives? Our footman is dead—our butler in prison—my husband attacked—and still you annoy us with your impertinences! Have you heard nothing of the honor which may shortly be bestowed upon my husband, and the very real danger of losing it by indiscretion?”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“The answer, you’ll have deduced, is no. I did not stab the man who has employed me these dozen years.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair

“Suddenly Lenox understood the cost to his pupil of this occupation: dismissed for so long because he didn’t work, because he drank and played, and now dismissed because he did work.”
― Charles Finch, A Stranger in Mayfair