Maenad

“she could see Sylvie and her friends on the lawn below, their dresses fluttering like moths in the encroaching dusk.”
― Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

“Winter dark, five o'clock in the morning by the little gold carriage clock on the bedroom mantelpiece. The clock, an English one ('Better than a French one', her mother had instructed), had been one of her parents' wedding presents. When the creditors came to call after the society portraitist's death his widow hid the clock beneath her skirts, bemoaning the passing of the crinoline. Lottie appeared to chime on the quarter, disconcerting the creditors. Luckily they were not in the room when she struck the hour.”
― Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

“Fox Corner - that's what we should call the house. No one else has a house with that name and shouldn't that be the point?'
'Really?' Hugh said doubtfully. 'It's a little whimsical, isn't it? It sounds like a children's story. The House at Fox Corner.'
'A little whimsy never hurt anyone.'
'Strictly speaking, though,' Hugh said, 'can a house be a corner? Isn't it at one?'
So this is marriage, Sylvie thought.”
― Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

“Pamela, even at a distance, was the voice of her conscience, but then it was very easy to have a conscience from a distance.”
― Kate Atkinson, Life After Life