The Edge of the Cloud Quotes

“He did not know girls were learning to fly, let alone girls that looked like this.”

“Where was romance now, in the cold house of her great-aunt? Her eyes fell bitterly on the sensible underwear and the sombre skirt. The ball-dress had fallen off the chair out of sight, as if quenched by the stark uniform of everyday. It symbolized exactly Christina’s feelings.”

“I know you’re after my job. Well, I’ll take a chance and keep Dorothy company a bit longer. I hope you break your darned neck, then I can relax.”

“Now he was on his feet and about to fly. William, although nervous, felt his confidence flooding back. This was a chance, and up to now he had never been given even that.”

“She had nothing, now. Only Aunt Grace’s charity. She could not get out of bed, because she did not even have a dress to wear for everyday.”

“William was right to have chosen Aunt Grace for refuge. Although surprised, she was entirely practical. Her life was in order, her house clean and neat, her advice would be to the point.”

″...she knew now that she was afraid of what she had done, not afraid of loving Will, but of having turned herself out of Flambards, which was the only real home she had ever known.”

“Its steaming atmosphere, laced with purely technical conversation, was both bliss and torture to William. He was drawn to it like a homing pigeon to its loft, yet, once arrived, it was as if the loft door was shut and he was perched outside, only able to watch the other fat, contented pigeons through the wire mesh.”

″‘We’ve eloped,’ Christina said to Aunt Grace. She had not meant to use the silly word, but it had got stuck in her head, and she was too befuddled with cold to catch it before it slipped out.”

“Ever since the age of five, when her parents had been killed, she had been anxious- understandably- as to what was become of her, and had looked for her fortune in every teacup, and every fireback.”