Laura Purcell > Quotes

“Death, once conceived, was rapacious. It took all with it.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Imprisonment was never the real punishment: it was the people you were stuck with.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“She had an urge to confess everything: tell him about the splinters on Rupert’s neck; the nursery; the garret; the handprint; the eyes. But to speak of such things made them a farce. You could not explain fear; you could only feel it, roaring through the silence and striking your heart still.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“That's why Ma took in piecework and flowering from Mrs Metyard: to keep us afloat. Pa always used that term, afloat. And it seemed to me Pa did float - he kept his head above the water and painted his pictures. Beneath was Ma, kicking through dirt and reeds.”
― Laura Purcell, The Corset

“Anger has ever been a failing of mine. When it surges, it sings in my veins like a dram of gin. Any action seems possible, reasonable. It is only afterwards, when the fire fades, that I see the dark soot-stain of what I have done.”
― Laura Purcell, Bone China

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, miss. Charitable people like yourself saved my life. But I wish they’d thought a bit more about what I was to do with it, once it was safe.”
― Laura Purcell, The Corset

“Madness, as we call it, manifests itself in many ways. People do not always wail and shriek as you say your mother did. But it does seem to run in families, I have observed, particularly through the female line. Hysteria – womb to womb. Diseased blood will out. There is no hiding from it, I am afraid.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“She slumped down by the fireplace and sat with her legs stretched out, next to Jolyon. Or what passed for Jolyon: the cruel, blue-grey parody of him. She did not want to store this image of her boy: waxy and puffed; features imprinted with horror; vicious cuts to the dear skin. But she knew it would encroach, stealthily, and overwrite all the happier times. Death, once conceived, was rapacious. It took all with it.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“She had the strangest feeling that it was not her stomach at all – not any more. It was only a shell. She was a shell, and another body, a foreign body, was growing inside.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Imprisonment was never the real punishment: it was the people you were stuck with. Lunatics were the worst; jabbering, yammering, moaning.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“In the shade she looked like a lily; her pale skin and the gossamer veins beside her eyes.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“But then I have noted that murderous thoughts seldom trouble the pretty and the fashionable.”
― Laura Purcell, The Corset

“In his eyes she saw the gleam of interest. This disturbed her more than the attendant’s scowl.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Perhaps the evil is seeking something.’ Sarah’s breath came hot against her skin. ‘Seeking . . . a more permanent host.’ A queasy silence fell as they considered the implications of that. Splinters. On Rupert, on the baby. Something trying to get in.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“She drifted back to the gallery and looked down on the Great Hall. The grey and black flags danced before her eyes. Dear God, she couldn’t do it. They might as well ask her to go to Oxford and sit an exam. She could not be an ordinary mother to an ordinary baby. All those toys, the memorabilia of childhood. Perhaps it was different if you grew up happy, with memories of your father dandling you on his knee and your mother kissing your tears away. But for Elsie there was nothing but fear. Fear for the baby. Fear of the baby. Jolyon had turned out all right, she reminded herself. But it was easier with Jolyon being a boy. What if Rupert’s baby was born a girl? She could not love a daughter that looked like her. She could not bear to glance upon a mirror of her past without being sick.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“How steadily he watched her. He was close enough for her to smell him: carbolic soap, cloves. Memory flickered like a tinderbox. She refused to let the flint spark.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“You could not explain fear; you could only feel it, roaring through the silence and striking your heart still.”
― Laura Purcell

“Did evil have wants and needs? Surely not, surely that would make it too human. No longer a tug from the depths of the abyss, but something sentient that could surface in anyone. In her.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“I am more disturbed in my mind than I can possibly express. How could I be otherwise, with a recital such as this?”
― Laura Purcell

“But instead I shared the fate of all girls who are poor of pocket: I was tied to my work, like a needle tethered by thread.”
― Laura Purcell, The Corset

“Hetta is not like me. That is not her fault, of course, but every difference I find is a little chip in the dream I had of my daughter. The close confidante, who was to be the repository of all my secrets, can confide none of her own. She isn’t at ease with me. I am not to her what I am to the boys. Perhaps it is part of my punishment. A check to my hubris. With herbs and ancient words I can create a daughter, but I cannot make her love me.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“There is nothing more tragic to Agnes's mind than the future that never was”
― Laura Purcell, The Shape of Darkness

“They didn’t get newspapers in the day room – at least, not when she had been allowed in there – but rumours had a way of seeping under doors and through cracks in the walls. Journalists’ lies made it into the asylum long before she did. Ever since she awoke in this place, she had been given a new name: murderess. Other patients, attendants, even the nurses when they thought no one could hear: they twisted their mouths and bared their teeth as they said it, ravenous. Murderess. As if they wanted to frighten her. Her. It wasn’t the injustice she loathed but the noise, its syllables hissing in her ears like – No.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“The baby. It was missing. Amputated. She could not feel its motions or the bubbles inside. I am no longer two. I am alone.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Wind creeps along the walls outside. It sounds like a woman, pouring hushed secrets into her lover’s ear.”
― Laura Purcell, Bone China

“Madness, as we call it, manifests itself in many ways. People do not always wail and shriek as you say your mother did. But it does seem to run in families, I have observed, particularly through the female line. Hysteria - womb to womb. Diseased blood will out. There is no hiding from it, I am afraid.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Ignorant people always fancied that ghosts appeared as shrouded ghouls. Anyone who had suffered loss could tell them differently. Sounds and smells haunted with more persistence, dragged you backwards in a way nothing else could.”
― Laura Purcell

“When Elsie walked away from the girls, she noticed her shoes left prints on the floor, like a person walking in sand. Machinery whirred and splints sprayed into the trough, casting forth a nimbus of dust. The freckled girl from Fayford coughed. Gradually, the dust cleared. And just like that, Elsie’s footsteps were gone. Curious to think of all the hidden steps, all the moments the factory floor had known, buried then swept aside with a broom.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“I stuttered. ‘No . . . I do not know. Deeds so wicked cannot go unchecked, and yet . . . Does not something within you baulk at this? Do you not feel the execution of a child will hang heavy upon your soul?’ ‘In nowise.’ His eyes glittered. I did not like the thread of steel in his voice. ‘I am not responsible for this. The only person responsible is you.’ It hit me like a blow to the face. ‘You let him into the stables, you put the horse in his way. This would not have happened were it not for you.’ His glare pinned me to the spot. ‘If anyone has that boy’s blood on their hands it is you, Anne, and you alone.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions

“Curtsying again, Helen turned and went back through the baize door. They heard her feet through the walls, climbing the spiral staircase. Elsie and Sarah ascended the wider, carpeted steps reserved for the family. ‘There was sawdust here earlier,’ Elsie said, watching carefully. ‘It seems to have gone.”
― Laura Purcell, The Silent Companions