The Quiet Gentleman Quotes

“Depend upon it, you are just the sort of girl a man would be glad to have for his sister! You don't even know how to swoon, and I daresay if you tried you would make wretched work of it, for all you have is common sense, and of what use is that, pray?”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Their fond Uncle Martin looked anything but gratified, but managed to control his feelings until he found himself out of earshot of his sister. He then declared that if Louisa imagined that he meant to waste his time in amusing her children she would find herself very much mistaken.

‘Good God, Martin, are you mad?’ demanded Gervase. ‘You will take those brats for rides as soon as they have swallowed their breakfasts, if Theo and I have to tie you to the saddle! Did you not hear Louisa say that she could not tear them from us until they had been granted this indulgence?”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Lady Cinderford,’ said the Dowager, referring to her widowed sister-in-law in accents of loathing, ‘will act as hostess at Stanyon over my dead body!’
‘That would be something quite out of the ordinary way,’ murmured the Earl.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“I am shocked— excessively shocked! Your father would have been very glad to have left his ring to Martin, let me tell you, only he thought it not right to leave it away from the heir!"

"Was it indeed a personal bequest?" inquired Gervase, interested. "That certainly must be held to enhance its value. It becomes, in fact, a curio, for it must be quite the only piece of unentailed property which my father did bequeath to me. I shall put it in a glass cabinet."

Martin, reddening, said: "I see what you are at! I'm not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!"

"No, you are to be felicitated," said Gervase.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“How came you to tumble down the stairs as soon as my back was turned?' ... The Earl slipped his arm behind her, and raised the hand he was still holding to his lips ... Miss Morville, finding his shoulder so invitingly close, was glad to rest her head against it ... Her overstrained nerves then found relief in a burst of tears. But as the Earl chose to kiss her at this moment, she was obliged to stop crying, the merest civility compelling her to return his embrace. As soon as she was able to speak, she said, however, in a voice meant only for his ears: 'Oh, no! Pray do not! It was all my folly, behaving in this missish way! You felt yourself obliged to comfort me! I assure you, I don't regard it - shall never think of it again! ... You would become disgusted with my odious commonsense. Try as I will, I *cannot* be romantic!' said Miss Morville despairingly.
His eyes danced. 'Oh, I forbid you to try! Your practical observations, my absurd robin, are the delight of my life!'
Miss Morville looked at him. Then, with a deep sigh, she laid her hand in his. But what she said was: 'You mean a sparrow!'
'I will not allow you to dictate to me, now or ever, Miss Morville! I mean a robin!' said the Earl firmly, lifting her hand to his lips.
This interlude, which was watched with interest by the three servants, with complacence by Mrs Morville, critically by the Viscount, who was trying to unravel the puzzle just set before him, and with hostility by the Dowager and Mr Morville, seemed to break the spell which had hitherto held the rest of the company silent.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“This embittered thought brought to her mind the several occasions upon which she might, had she been the kind of female his lordship no doubt admired, have kindled his ardour by a display of sensibility, or even of heroism ... To have thrown herself between the foils, when she had surprised the Earl fencing with Martin, would certainly have been spectacular, but that it would have evoked anything but exasperation in the male breast she was quite unable to believe. She thought she need not blame herself for having refrained upon this occasion; but when she recalled her behaviour in the avenue, when the Earl had been thrown from his horse, she knew that nothing could excuse her. Here had been an opportunity for spasms, swoonings, and a display of sensibility, utterly neglected! How could his lordship have been expected to guess that her heart had been beating so hard and so fast that had felt quite sick, when all she had done was to talk to him in a voice drained of all expression? Not even when his lifeless body had been carried into the Castle had she conducted herself like a heroine of romance! Had she fainted at the sight of his blood-soaked raiment? Had she screamed? No! All she had done had been to direct Ulverston to do one thing, Turvey another, Chard to ride for the doctor, while she herself had done what lay within her power to staunch the bleeding.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“She holds views, which are thought to be very advanced, on Female Education.’ ‘And have you been reared according to these views?’ enquired Gervase, in some misgiving. ‘No, for Mama has been so fully occupied in prescribing for the education of females in general that naturally she has had little time to spare for her own children. Moreover, she is a person of excellent sense, and, mortifying though it has been to her, she has not hesitated to acknowledge that neither I nor my elder brother is in the least bookish.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“My dear sir, I wish you will give me leave to address your daughter at once!’ said the Earl, quite entranced by this sudden and unexpected declaration of war on the part of his chosen bride.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Because I have not spoken, do not imagine that I have not felt!’ said Miss Morville. ‘I had no right to speak, but I have very often burned to do so!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“The servants were letting down the steps of the two coaches, and in another instant Miss Morville’s worst fears were realized: Lord and Lady Grampound had brought their interesting offspring with them to Stanyon.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“He was clearly a person of affluence, if not of taste.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“I don’t know what I mean! Spoke without thinking! Often do! Runs in the family: uncle of mine was just the same. Found himself married to a female with a squint all through speaking without thinking.’‘Oh, to hell with your uncle!’ Martin said angrily. ‘No use saying that, dear boy. The old gentleman took a pious turn years back. Won’t go to hell – not a chance of it! Aunt might – never met such a queer-tempered woman in my life!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Providence has decreed that he should succeed to his dear father’s honours,’ pronounced the Dowager, thinking poorly of Providence.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“You were not acquainted with my father, Mr Morville. I have often been sorry that you were not, for you would have been excessively pleased with one another. My father was a great reader, though not, of course, during the hunting-season.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Mr Warboys, without putting himself to the trouble of deciding which of the more ferocious animals his friend resembled, stated the matter in simple, and courageously frank terms. "You know, old fellow," he once told Martin,"if you had a tail, damme if you wouldn't lash it!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“Martin,' interrupted Gervase, 'why were you stunned, kept in durance vile, and finally rolled into a sand-pit?”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“His steward and his housekeeper, both persons of sentiment, hoped that upon his death-bed he would remember her, and speak of her with a forgiving tongue, for it seemed to them incredible that so gentle and lovely a lady should hold no place in his heart or memory. They even indulged their fancies by supposing that his overt dislike of his elder son was caused by the secret pangs the sight of the fair boy, who was indeed the image of his mother, caused him to feel.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

“The Earl, having, as he would have said, galloped the fidgets out of Cloud, was hacking gently down a narrow lane when he came, round a bend, upon an unexpected sight. A lady was seated on the bank, engaged in gathering primroses from a clump within her reach. This in itself, however imprudent in such damp and blustery weather, would not have attracted more than the Earl’s fleeting attention had he not perceived that the lady was attired in a riding-habit. Here, plainly, was an equestrienne in distress. He brought Cloud trotting up and caused him to halt alongside her.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman