- [last lines]
- Mrs. St. Maugham: [on the verge of tears] Is it a crime to want to be remembered?
- Miss Madrigal: No. The Pharaohs built the pyramids for that reason.
- Mrs. St. Maugham: What do women do in my case?
- Miss Madrigal: It wouldn't hurt to go on gardening.
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Have I've a muddle of my garden... and my heart? Will Olivia forgive me?
- Miss Madrigal: In time, perhaps.
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Would you stay with me? Would you?
- Miss Madrigal: I'll stay... as long as I'm wanted. You know, we could make this place so full of life - a good life - and people would come from everywhere to see us. What do you think?
- Mrs. St. Maugham: I must know one thing.
- Miss Madrigal: What's that?
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Did you do it?
- Miss Madrigal: What many learned men at the top of their profession couldn't find out after a long, long trial. Why should you know.
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Forty years ago, I should have said the same thing, but I warn you, before I die, I'll find out.
- [the two walk off together]
- Anna: They say five have left already.
- Miss Madrigal: Really?
- Anna: There must be something terribly frightening in this house!
- Laurel: That sounds like a perfect description of me!
- Judge McWhirrey: Alcohol in the middle of the day is exciting when one is thirty, but disastrous when one is seventy.
- [first lines]
- Anna: Excuse me. Would Mrs. St. Maugham live here?
- Maitland: She would.
- Anna: [pointing to the newspaper in her hand] I'm sorry, I came in answer to the advertisement.
- Maitland: There's no need to be sorry... at least not yet. Come in please.
- Anna: [entering the house] Ooh, goodness me, it's very grand, isn't it.
- Maitland: Built like a fort. It has to be.
- Anna: [grabbing Maitland's arm] Pardon me, but are there many others?
- Maitland: You're number six.
- Anna: [shocked] So many?
- Maitland: Numbers one to five have already left... or rather fled.
- Anna: [nervously] Ooh dear, but Mistress must be very hard to please.
- Maitland: True. But in fairness, the other ladies didn't really want the job.
- Anna: Why not?
- Maitland: Because, uh, let us say that this is a nervous age.
- Anna: [worriedly] Oh.
- Maitland: You're not the usual thing in governesses, are you?
- Miss Madrigal: Are you the usual thing in servants?
- Miss Madrigal: Laurel has good instincts. I think I time they will serve her well.
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Miss Madrigal. I did not engage you as a fortune-teller.
- Laurel: Hush! Judge, we don't speak of her here.
- Judge McWhirrey: My dear child, is she living?
- Laurel: In sin, Judge, in sin.
- Laurel: Oh, if I could only be somewhere other than where I am, someone other than who I am!
- Miss Madrigal: There now, where and what do you want to be?
- Laurel: Dead... and in Hell!
- Mrs. St. Maugham: Hurry, Maitland, is the curse of civilisation.
- Maitland: The fact that I hurry, Madam, gives certain people the leisure to make such observations.