Lolly Willowes quotes

During the last few years of her life Mrs. Willowes grew continually more skilled in evading responsibilities, and her death seemed but the final perfected expression of this skill.

It was as if she had said, yawning a delicate cat’s yawn, “I think I will go to my grave now,” and had left the room, her white shawl trailing behind her.

Laura mourned for her mother in skirts that almost reached the ground, for Miss Boddle, the family dressmaker, had nice sensibilities and did not think that legs could look sorrowful.

Laura was nursing her when she had influenza; Caroline wished to put on a clean nightdress, and Laura, opening the third drawer of the large mahogany wardrobe, had commented upon the beautiful orderliness with which Caroline’s body linen was arranged therein.

“We have our example,” said Caroline. “The grave-clothes were folded in the tomb.”

Looking into the large shadowy drawer, where nightgowns and chemises lay folded exactly upon each other in a purity that disdained even lavender, Laura shuddered a little at this revelation of her sister-in-law’s private thoughts.

Most of their acquaintance were people connected with the law. Laura grew familiar with the legal manner, but she did not grow fond of it. She felt that these clean-shaven men with bristling eyebrows were suavely concealing their doubts of her intelligence and her probity.

Their jaws were like so many mousetraps, baited with commonplaces.

They made her feel shy and behave stiffly.

“Really, I think it would be a good plan. I should like to live alone in the country. And in my heart I think I have always meant to, one day.

But one day is so like another, it’s almost impossible to throw salt on its tail.

If I don’t go soon, I never shall. So if you don’t mind, I should like to start as soon as possible.”

“Well, then, you will do nothing of the kind. I’m sorry to seem harsh, Lolly. But you must put all this out of your mind.”

“Nothing is impracticable for a single, middle-aged woman with an income of her own.”

Henry paled slightly, and said: “Your income is no longer what it was.”

It did not matter about the donkey, nor the house, nor the darkening orchard even. If she were not to pick fruit from her own trees, there were common herbs and berries in plenty for her, growing wherever she chose to wander.

It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.

As she left the room she turned and looked at Henry. Such was her mood, she could have blessed him solemnly, as before an eternal departure. But he was sitting with his back to her, and did not look round.

During the afternoon she learned other valuable facts like these, and fell asleep. On the following morning she fell asleep again, in a beechwood, curled up in a heap of dead leaves. After that she had no more trouble.

Life becomes simple if one does nothing about it.

Laura did nothing about anything for days and days till Mrs. Leak said: “We shall soon be having Christmas, miss.”

Mrs. Leak did most of the talking. She talked well. She knew a great deal about everybody, and she was not content to quit a character until she had brought it to life for her listener.

Mrs. Leak’s favorite subject was the Misses Larpent, Miss Minnie and Miss Jane.

Miss Minnie was seventy-three, Miss Jane four years younger. Neither of them had known a day’s illness, nor any bodily infirmity, nor any relenting of their faculties.

Mr. Saunter leaning on the gate was a pleasant, unaffected young man enough, but no more. Quitting him, Laura soon forgot him as completely as she had forgotten Caroline.

Caroline was a tedious bluebottle; Mr. Saunter a gentle, furry brown moth; but she could brush off one as easily as the other.

Laura even forgot that she had invited the moth to settle again; to come to tea. It was only by chance that she had stayed indoors that afternoon, making currant scones. To amuse herself she had cut the dough into likenesses of the village people.

“I shouldn’t think young Billy Thomas would make much of a footman,” said Laura.

“I don’t know,” he answered consideringly. “He’s very good at standing still.”

Laura had brought her sensitive conscience into the country with her, just as she had brought her umbrella, though so far she had not remembered to use either. Now the conscience gave signs of life. Mr.

It was comfortable, it was portable, it was a reasonable appreciative appetite, a possessive and masculine love. It almost estranged her from Great Mop that he should be able to love it so well, and express his love so easily.

He loved the countryside as though it were a body.

She had not loved it so. For days at a time she had been unconscious of its outward aspect, for long before she saw it she had loved it and blessed it.

it is his destiny, and whether he hunts with a gun or a butterfly net, sooner or later the chase must end. All finalities, whether good or evil, bestow a feeling of relief; and now, understanding how long the chase had lasted,

Laura felt a kind of satisfaction at having been popped into the bag.

She was distracted from these interesting thoughts by the sounds of footsteps. The kitten heard them too, and sat up, yawning. The Leaks coming back from their lecture, thought Laura. But it was Titus.

For no doubt that was the beginning, and a very good beginning, too. Well begun is half-done; she could see Titus bending over his suitcase.

The Willowes tradition was very intolerant of peas under its mattress.

Though she tried to think clearly about the situation—grapple, she remembered, had been Caroline’s unpleasantly strenuous word—her attention kept sidling off to other things:

A familiar discouragement began to settle upon her spirits. In spite of her hopes she was not going to enjoy herself.

Even as a witch, it seemed, she was doomed to social failure, and her first Sabbath was not going to open livelier vistas than were opened by her first ball.

She remembered her dancing days in Somerset, Hunt Balls, and County Balls in the draughty Assembly Rooms. With the best intentions she had never managed to enjoy them. The first hour was well enough, but after that came increasing listlessness and boredom;

“How are you enjoying your first Sabbath, Miss Willowes?” he said.

“Not at all,” answered Laura, and turned her back on him.

Without glancing to left or right she walked out of the field, and the dancers made way for her in silence. She was furious at the affront, raging at Satan, at Mrs.

Ensconced in her private warmth and stillness she had almost fallen asleep when a moving figure on the opposite hillside caught her attention. Laura’s grey eyes were very keen-sighted, she soon recognised that long stride and swinging gait. The solitary walker was Titus.

There is an amusing sense of superiority in seeing and remaining unseen.

Laura sat up in her form and watched Titus attentively. He looked very small, human, and scrabbly, traversing that imperturbable surface. With such a large slope to wander upon, it was faintly comic to see Titus keeping so neatly to the path;

Laura knew this to be very truth. Nevertheless she stood out against going until Pandora manoeuvred her into a corner and said in a desperate whisper: “O Miss Willowes, for God’s sake, please come.

You’ve no idea how awful it is being left alone with someone you love.

”

They had an assured income, nothing could disturb their calm. The silly, vain, passionate heart that lay buried there had bequeathed a sum of money for their perpetual upkeep.

The Satanic Baronet who mocked at eternal life and designated this place as a lasting testimony of his disbelief had contrived to immortalise himself as a laughingstock.

It was ungenerous. The dead man had been pilloried long enough; it was high time that Maulgrave’s Folly should be left to fall into decent ruin and decay. And instead of that, even at this moment it was being trimmed up afresh.

“Is.

Once a wood, always a wood.

”

A slightly malevolent smile crossed the Devil’s face. For some reason or other her modesty seemed to have nettled him.

“Some people would say that you had flung yourself at my head.”

“Other people,” she retorted, “would say that you had been going about seeking to devour me.”

“Some people would say that you had flung yourself at my head.”

“Other people,” she retorted, “would say that you had been going about seeking to devour me.”

“Exactly. I even roared that night. But you were asleep while I roared. Only the hills heard me triumphing over my spoil.”

“I think”—she began cautiously (while he hid his cards it would not do to show all hers)—“

I think you are a kind of black knight, wandering about and succouring decayed gentlewomen.

”

But they are like trees towards the end of summer, heavy and dusty, and nobody finds their leaves surprising, or notices them till they fall off. If they could be passive and unnoticed, it wouldn’t matter. But they must be active, and still not noticed.

Doing, doing, doing, till mere habit scolds at them like a housewife, and rouses them up⁠—when they might sit in their doorways and think⁠—to be doing still!

”

that’s better worth looking at. And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret like a gentleman out killing tigers.

Her soul⁠—when no one else would give a look at her body even!

And they are all so accustomed, so sure of her! They say: ‘Dear Lolly! What shall we give her for her birthday this year? Perhaps a hot-water bottle. Or what about a nice black lace scarf? Or a new workbox!

“Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety? I used to take my nieces to scientific lectures, and I believe I heard it then.

Anyhow, even if it isn’t true of dynamite, it’s true of women.

But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they’re all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real.

But you say: ‘Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.’

That’s why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life’s a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure.

It’s not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—‘blight the genial bed.’

But it’s a poor twopenny housewifely kind of witchcraft, black magic is, and white magic is no better. One doesn’t become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick.

It’s to escape all that⁠—to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day, the workhouse dietary is scientifically calculated to support life.

As for the witches who can only express themselves by pins and bed-blighting, they have been warped into that shape by the dismal lives they’ve led. Think of Miss Carloe! She’s a typical witch, people would say.

That strikes them real. Even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are.

Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there⁠—ready!

Respectable countrywomen keep their grave-clothes in a corner of the chest of drawers, hidden away, and when they want a little comfort they go and look at them, and think that once more, at any rate, they will be worth dressing with care.