The Unknown Ajax Quotes

“Does it ever occur to you, Mama, that my grandfather is a lunatic?”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“I'm not talking nonsense, lass. I'd give you the whole of the moon if I could, and throw in the stars for good measure,' he said, taking her hand, and kissing it. 'You couldn't be content with less?”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Miss Darracott, an intelligent girl, now perceived that in harboring for as much as an instant the notion of marrying a man who fell so lamentably short of the ideal lover she was an irreclaimable ninnyhammer. Ideal lovers might differ in certain respects, but in whatever mold they were cast, not one of them was so unhandsome as to make it extremely difficult for one not to giggle at their utterances. This hopelessly overgrown and unromantic idiot must be given a firm set-down.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Surely, cousin, you cannot mean to jilt her?' said Anthea, in accents of reprobation.
'Nay, it wouldn't be seemly,' he agreed. 'I'll just have to dispose of her, as you might say.'
'Good God! Murder her?'
'There's no need to be in a quake,' he said reassuringly. 'No one will ever know!'
'If only - oh, if only I could do to you what I *long* to do!' exclaimed Anthea. 'If you were but a few inches shorter -- !'
He said hopefully: 'Nay, don't let that fatch you, love! It'll be no trouble at all to lift you up: in fact, there's nothing I'd like better!'
Furiously blushing, she retorted: 'I didn't mean that I wished to *kiss* you!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“I don't ask you - fribble!' snapped his lordship, rounding on him, with the speed of a whiplash. 'You may keep your tongue between your teeth!'

"Yes, sir - happy to!' uttered Claud, dismayed. 'No wish to offend you! Thought you might like to be set right!'

'Thought I might like to be set right?'

'No, no! Spoke without thinking!' said Claud hastily. ' I know you don't!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“I knew you’d make a champion wife, love!’
‘On the contrary! My husband will live under the cat’s foot.’
‘I’m very partial to cats,’ offered the Major hopefully.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“You can't go about smelling of April and May, the pair of you, and then expect to gull people into thinking you don't mean to get riveted!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“One or two of the villagers have seen it, too, though not as clearly as he did. Old Buttermere said it was a white thing, that glided over the ground, and vanished into the shrubbery.'
'And a very good place for it to vanish, too,' said Hugo, wholly unimpressed. 'Give me a sheet, and a night without too much moonlight, and I'll engage to do the same!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“But he has been telling me about his scheme to furbish up the Dower House if you should not dislike it - and I can't think why you should, dearest, for he says the ghost is nothing more than Spurstow, trying to keep everyone away, which wouldn't surprise me in the least, for I always disliked that man, and even if there is a ghost, it cannot possibly be more disagreeable to live with than your grandfather!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“You seem to forget that you wished to purchase the moon for me!’
‘Nay, I don’t forget that! The thing is I can’t purchase it, so there was no harm in saying it. Now, if I’d said I’d like to give you a diamond necklace, or some such thing, you might have taken me up on it. I remembered that just in time to stop myself,’ he explained, apparently priding himself on his forethought.
‘I should like very much to have a diamond necklace,’ said Anthea pensively.
‘Wouldn’t a paste one do as well?’ he asked, in a voice of great uneasiness. She had been so sure that he would fall into the trap that she was taken, for an instant, off her guard, and looked up at him with such a startled expression on her face that his deep chuckle escaped him, and he lifted her quite off her feet, and kissed her.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“even if there is a ghost it cannot possibly be more disagreeable to live with than your grandfather”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“I must own, too, that I can't be astonished at his being vexed to death over this business. It is excessively awkward! However, he doesn't lay the blame for that at my door: you mustn't think that!"
"I should think not indeed!" exclaimed Anthea between amusement and indignation. "How could he possibly do so?"
"No, very true, my love!" agreed Mrs Darracott. "I thought that myself, but it did put me on the fidgets when Richmond said he wanted to see me, because in general, you know, things I never even heard about turn out to be my fault.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“he disclosed that he had been set upon by two Bedlamites, both of whom had jumped out from behind a bush, roaring at him like a couple of ferocious wild beasts ... The Sergeant cast a doubtful glance at Lieutenant Ottershaw, for, in his opinion, this had a false ring. His men, as he frequently informed them, put him forcibly in mind of many things, ranging from gape-seeds, hedge-birds, slush-buckets, and sheep-biters, to beetles, tailless dogs, and dead herrings, but none of them, least of all the two raw dragoons in question, had ever reminded him of a ferocious wild beast. Field-mice, yes, he thought, remembering the sad loss of steel in those posted to watch the Dower House; but if the young gentleman had detected any resemblance to ferocious wild beasts in his assailants, the Sergeant was prepared to take his Bible oath they had not been the baconbrained knock-in-the-cradles he had posted (much against his will) within the ground of Darracott place.
But Sergeant Hoole had never, until this disastrous evening, set eyes on Mr. Claud Darracott. Lieutenant Ottershaw had beheld that Pink of the Ton picking his delicate way across the cobbles in Rye, clad in astonishing but unquestionably modish raiment, and holding a quizzing-glass up to his eye with one fragile white hand, and it did not strike him as remarkable that this Bartholomew baby should liken two overzealous dragoons to wild beasts.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“When he was pleased he looked what nature had intended him to be: a placid man with a kindly, easy-going disposition; but when harassed his expression changed to one of peevishness, a frown dragging his brows together, and a pronounced pout giving him very much the look of a thwarted baby.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“You must never marry. Don’t, I do earnestly beg of you, allow yourself to be taken in by any lure thrown out to you! You cannot hope to find a lady who will like you better than you like yourself.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Downright malten-hearted, that’s me!’
‘Yes, but I don’t think you are! Well, how could you be? You are a soldier!’
‘Ay, and a terrible time I had of it, keeping in the rear,’ he said, falling into reminiscent vein. ‘When I wasn’t being a Belem-ranger – that’s what we – they! – used to call the fellows who were always going off to hospital in Lisbon, you know–’
‘No doubt that’s how you became a Major!’ she interrupted.
‘No, you’re out there: I had my majority by purchase, of course. Mind you, if it hadn’t been for the losses we suffered at Waterloo –’
‘If you mean to continue in this style,’ she exclaimed, reining in her mare, ‘I shall go home immediately!’
‘I was being modest,’ he explained. ‘It wouldn’t become me to tell you what a devil of a fellow I was. However, since I see you’ve guessed it, I’ll own that Hector was nothing to me. You’d have thought I was one of the Death or Glory boys!’
‘Well, what I think now is that you are the most shameless prevaricator I ever encountered!’ retorted Anthea.
‘Eh, there’s no pleasing you!’ he said, heaving a despondent sigh. ‘Now I’ve perjured myself to no purpose at all!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“You do mean to remain, then?'
'If I get what I want.'
'The Dower House?'
'Nay, that's a small matter! I'll tell you what it is one of these days, but I'm not so very sure I can get it yet, so happen I'll do best to keep it to myself.'
'Well, I wouldn't tell anyone!' she exclaimed.
'The thing is you might say I'd no hope of getting it,' he explained. An odd little smile came into his eyes as he saw her puzzled frown. 'I'd be all dashed down in a minute,' he said, shaking his head. 'That would never do!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“That's what you think of me, is it, girl?" said his lordship, a glint in his eyes.

"Oh, no!" she responded, dropping him a curtsy. "It's what I say, sir! You must know that my featherheaded Mama has taught me to behave with all the propriety in the world! To tell you what I think of you would be to sink myself quite below reproach!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Next you will say that you don’t intend to have more than one house in the country!’ ‘Nay, I shan’t say that! I want one in Leicestershire.’ ‘Oh, in that case there’s no more to be said, for I’ve set my heart on one in the moon!’ ‘You don’t mean that, love! Nay then, you can’t have thought!’ he expostulated. ‘It’s much too far from town!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Dash it, coz! Been searching for you all over! Even took a look-in at the church. If I hadn’t thought to ask pretty well everyone I met if they’d seen a mountain moving about on legs I might be hunting for you still!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“I would give much to see you fleeing in terror from a matchmaking mother,’ remarked Anthea wistfully. ‘Or, indeed, from anyone. But as you are utterly brazen–’
‘Nay!’
‘… and much in need of a set-down–’
‘I’m not in need of that, lass, for I’m getting one,’ he interpolated ruefully.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“You sent for me to lick me into shape, sir, because you couldn't stomach the thought that a regular rum 'un would step into your shoes, if naught was done to teach him how to support the character of a gentleman. Well, it may be that i'm not quite such a JackPudding as I let you think. I own, it was a ramshackle thing to do, but when I saw how there wasn't one amongst you that didn't believe I'd been reared in a hovel, I could no more resist trying how much I could make you swallow than I could stop drawing breath! But by what road you thought I came by a commission in such a regiment as mine, if I'd been an unlettered rustic, the lord only know! I was no more bookish than Richmond, but I got my schooling at Harrow, sir! However, when it comes to the management of large estates, I'm no better than a raw recruit - and that's what I'm hoping you mean to teach me.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Now, where will I come by a book on etiquette? You wouldn't know if his lordship's got on win the library, would you, love?'
Her colour somewhat heightened, she disengaged herself from his embrace, saying: 'No, but I shouldn't think so. He has one about ranks and dignitaries and orders of precedency: is that what you mean?'
'Nay, that's no use to me! I want one that'll tell me how to behave correctly.'
'I am well aware that you are trying to roast me,' said Anthea, resigned to this fate, 'and also that you don't stand in any need of a book on etiquette - though one of *propriety* wouldn't come amiss!'
'I'm not trying to roast you!' declared Hugo. 'I want to know how long you must be acquainted with a lass before it's polite to propose to her!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Recollect that we have been acquainted for less than a month! You cannot, cousin, have fallen - formed an attachment in so short a time!'
'Nay, love, don't be so daft!' he expostulated. 'There's no sense in saying I can't do what I *have* done!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Well, have you a tongue in your head?’ ‘I have,’ responded Hugo, ‘but I was never one to give my head for washing.’ ‘You’re not such a fool as you look,’ commented his lordship.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“Dashed if I don't think he's begun to get queer in his attic! Well, what I mean is, hubble-bubble! I don't set up as one of these clever coves, but I've got more sense in my knowledge-box than to say such an addle-brained thing as that! Seems to me it don't make a ha'porth of difference whether you keep the dashed mill, or whether you don't, because that's where all your gingerbread came from, whichever way you look at it. And don't you tell me it's repugnant to him to have you coming down with the derbies, because all I've got to say to that is, Gammon!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“finding that she was determined to get to the bottom of what seemed to him a very trivial affair, extricated himself without hesitation or compunction by advising her to apply to Vincent for information, since he was the instigator of the quarrel. Before he could make good his retreat, however, he was incensed and appalled by a command to go immediately to Vincent's room, and to inform him that his mama desired to have speech with him before he went down to breakfast. Since it was the time-honoured practice of the brothers to sacrifice each other in such situations as now confronted Claud, it was not fear of Vincent's wrath at finding himself betrayed which prompted Claud to despatch Polyphant on the errand, but the knowledge that not even a messenger bearing gifts of great price would meet with anything but the rudest of receptions from Vincent at this hour of the morning.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“It chances that I'd a letter myself by today's post, from Uncle Jonas Henry.' He chuckled. 'Seemingly he's as throng as he can be, and a trifle hackled with me for loitering here. I shall have to post off to Huddersfield next week, sir - and a bear-garden jaw I'll get when I arrive there, if I know Jonas Henry!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“If I were you, I'd put up that pistol, Mr. Ottershaw,' said Hugo. 'Were you meaning to challenge the ghost with it? You'd catch cold if you did, you know. It's no crime that I ever heard of to caper about rigged up as a boggard.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax

“The Hawkhurst Gang was a pernicious set of ruffians – smugglers, you understand – that held a rule of terror over the countryside when your grandfather was a boy. They committed every sort of atrocity, and were so strong in numbers – how many men was it they were able to muster within an hour, Father?’‘I forget,’ returned his lordship shortly. ‘Five hundred,’ supplied Richmond. ‘And they used to have regular battles with rival gangs!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Unknow Ajax