Author: judeknight

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Candle’s Christmas Chair – in which our hero takes our heroine out for tea and meets an old foe

afternoon-teaCandle’s Christmas Chair excerpt 1

Candle’s Christmas Chair excerpt 2

Min changed into an afternoon dress, while Lord Avery waited for her in the office downstairs. He hadn’t blinked at the price she asked for the two chairs, writing a bank draft for the first chair, and promising payment on delivery for the other. Rumour had it he’d inherited a fortune from an uncle. Perhaps, for once, rumour spoke true.

As she buttoned her pelisse and tied her bonnet strings, she thought wistfully about the far more fashionable clothes that she had at home. How silly. Lord Avery was a client like any other, and she would no more dress up for him than she would for… she cast about for the person she wanted least to impress. Daniel. She would no more dress up for Lord Avery than for Daniel.

They walked down Cornwall St into Walcot Street, Polly Stample keeping a pace behind.”

“How did you come to be making chairs, Miss Bradshaw?” Lord Avery asked. He couldn’t really be interested, but she would tell him, since he asked.

“I began when my mother broke her hip, Lord Avery. She was not entirely happy with the chair made by one of my father’s workmen, and I designed some improvements. It has grown from there.”

“An unusual hobby for a woman,” he commented.

A hobby, indeed. Every man Min knew, from her father down, insisted on seeing her work as a hobby. Never mind that invalid chairs were one of their most profitable lines. And she managed it all, from designing the chairs to keeping the accounts.

“It is a business, not a hobby,” she told Lord Avery.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then visibly thought better of it.

“Go on,” she said.

He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “I don’t wish to make you cross,” he told her. “I value my skin.”

“I will try to resist tossing you into the Avon.”

He laughed out loud. “You would need to trip me, Miss Bradshaw. I’m rather too large for you to lift.”

“Are you changing the subject, Lord Avery?”

He spread his hands in surrender. “I was just going to say that business is rather an unusual hobby for a lady,” he said. “I meant it as a joke, but I decided it wasn’t very funny. Truly, Miss Bradshaw, after the last six months, I have nothing but admiration for anyone who can run a business.”

He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. He couldn’t possibly be sincere. Min knew what the gentry thought of trade. She’d heard it often enough while she was at school. “Mini, darling, whatever is that smell? Have you not washed today? Oh, but I forgot. You cannot wash off the shop, can you darling?”

But Lord Avery was continuing. “I was raised to run the family estate, of course. But I inherited from my uncle six months ago. He ran a huge business, and now I’m trying to learn how to do it. So far, I’ve been lucky in my managers, but Mother says I need to know the impact of every decision made in my name, and how everything works.”

Min nodded. “That is what my father, says, too. My mother says the same applies to running a house. You have to know how to do everything in order to know everything is being done well. This is Pursell’s.”

Lord Avery opened the door to the showroom.

At first the sales assistant was keen to serve him, but he said, “I am just here to escort Miss Bradshaw.”

Min pulled out an off-cut of the velvet they were matching, and leafed through the sample book until she found a match. They didn’t have that colour in stock, but she was assured they could have it dyed and ready for her within a week. Min reviewed her schedule. If Lady Avery was happy to trial the chair for three weeks instead of a month, they could still make the Christmas deadline.

“I wish to select the skins,” she told the sales assistant.

In the storeroom, she inhaled a deep lungful of the smell of fresh leather, then laughed when she realised Lord Avery was doing the same.

“It reminds me of the saddle room at Avery Hall when I was little,” he said. “What about you?”

“My father’s harness shop. When I was little, my mother was in charge of it, and I spent a lot of time there. My mother was a Conti.”

“Conti? Your mother is related to Gavriel Conti?” Lord Avery whistled. “I am sorry, Miss Bradshaw. That was most impolite of me. But Conti Saddlery is a legend. I have a Gavriel Conti saddle, and I wouldn’t part with it for the world.”

“Gavriel Conti was my grandfather,” she had found the stack of skins she wanted and the sales assistant was pulling them out so that she could inspect them.

The sales assistant’s superior attitude had changed to reverence when he realised that he was serving the granddaughter of the great Conti. He must be new. She seldom bought skins herself, usually picking what she wanted from the manufactory’s stores, but she’d been coming here with her parents since she was a babe in arms.

He and Lord Avery were exchanging stories about Conti harnesses and saddles that had come unscathed through trials that would have shredded lesser leatherwork.

He was not what Min had expected. For a brief week, she had convinced herself that he was not like other offspring of the nobility–that he saw past her modest birth and liked her as a person. Then, for three years, she believed he was just like all the others; an idler who thought his noble birth entitled him to a life of ease and plenty, and who looked down on those whose labours made his leisure possible. Now, he confounded her.

If he wasn’t after her money–and if the fortune he had inherited was a tenth of what people said, he didn’t need her money–why had he come seeking her? She discounted the story that he’d told; it was, after all, highly unlikely the Master of the Pump Rooms would send him to her.

She would have to watch him carefully, and guard her heart.

Chapter two

Miss Bradshaw chose the skins she wanted and arranged for them to be dyed and delivered. Out in the street, it was raining again. Candle unfurled his umbrella. He was so much taller than her, that if he held it over both of them, she would be soaked in every gust of wind. When he tried to hold it just over her, though, she objected.

“My bonnet will keep me dry, Lord Avery. I must not take you out of your way.”

“I promised to escort you, Miss Bradshaw. Surely you will allow me to keep my promise? Do you return to your workshop?”

“I am for home on Henrietta Street. Polly and I will be fine.”

Candle turned, and handed the maid his umbrella. One of them might as well be dry.

“Then we will brave the weather together, Miss Bradshaw.” He offered her his arm.

They hurried down Northgate Street and turned towards the bridge. Miss Bradshaw leant into him as she jumped over the puddles he strode past. The magic was still working; she still made him feel strong and capable.

Three years ago, fresh out of university and new to the Guard, he’d been nervous in company, expecting the teasing he’d endured at school to follow him into society. And it did.

But Miss Bradshaw had talked to him about books, and gardens, and animals. She’d listened as he explained his plans for a military career. She’d leant on his arm on walks and waved admiringly as he showed off his one skill, outriding all the other male guests.

Tiny though she was, she never made him feel over tall and clumsy. Indeed, she had confided that she was always nervous in crowds, but not when he was there to protect her. Was it all a tease?

On an impulse, he pulled her into the doorway of Crofts Tea Room, at the entrance to the bridge.

“Miss Polly,” he said to the maid. “Your mistress and I will take shelter in here while you hurry home and fetch another couple of umbrellas.”

The maid turned uncertain eyes to Miss Bradshaw. Would she agree? Candle held his breath.

“Run along, Polly. We will wait in the Tea Room.”

He opened the door for her as the maid hurried off, almost invisible under the big umbrella.

Following close behind her, he almost collided with her back when she stopped suddenly. He was close enough to feel the tension radiating from her, and the effort she made to relax, and continue into the little tea shop.

A servant hurried up. Candle absently asked for a table for two and for tea to be served. Most of his attention was on the couple already seated at the far side of the shop. Guy Kitteridge was one of those who had made his life miserable at Eton and later at Oxford. Kitteridge was with his sister Genevieve, Lady Norton, a slender blonde with a waspish tongue.

They were absorbed in their conversation, and with luck wouldn’t notice Candle and Miss Bradshaw. He waved Miss Bradshaw ahead and followed her and the waiter to a small table near the window that looked out onto the street across the bridge.

Interesting that Miss Bradshaw reacted as she did. Lady Norton had been a great friend of hers three years ago. Although, come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any signs of closeness between them during the house party. It was only after Miss Bradshaw left that Miss Kitteridge, as she was then, told him that they’d been at school together.

Miss Bradshaw had seated herself so that all the brother and sister would see was her back. Candle angled his chair so that he, too, would be hard to recognise.

Lady Norton was the one who told him why Miss Bradshaw left so precipitously. Wasn’t that interesting? Candle beamed. Miss Bradshaw raised her eyebrows. No. He would not explain to her why he was suddenly happy. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps one day.

The servant brought a laden tray. Two cups, a teapot, milk and sugar, a three-tier cake plate filled with delicate sandwiches on the lowest tier, iced cakes on the middle tier, and candied fruit and flowers on the top.

As Miss Bradshaw poured the tea, he tested his new theory. “Mr Kitteridge and Lady Norton are over there in the corner,” he said. Yes. That was a slight grimace, quickly controlled. But it was definitely a grimace.

“No doubt you wish to greet your friend,” was all she said. But the warmth that had begun to creep back into her voice during their afternoon was markedly absent.

“He’s no friend of mine,” Candle assured her.

“You have had a falling out?” She handed him his cup, prepared just the way he had liked it three years earlier.

“We never had a falling in,” Candle said. He was watching the pair from the corner of his eye. They’d seen him–it was hard to be inconspicuous when you were well over 6ft tall and had red hair.

“Don’t look now,” he told Miss Bradshaw, “but they’re coming over.”

“Lord Avery? It is Lord Avery. I told Guy it was you.” Lady Norton was fluttering her eyelashes at him. She must have heard about his inheritance. Three years ago, she had barely acknowledged his existence, except that one time at the end of the house party, and even then she had let him see her contempt. Even when she’d made eyes at him a few months later, she’d made it clear she was stooping to do so.

The contempt was well veiled today, at least in his direction. She didn’t acknowledge Miss Bradshaw’s existence at all.

Well, he could fix that. “You remember Miss Bradshaw, of course,” Candle said.

Candle’s Christmas Chair excerpt 4

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How to tell what novel you’re in

These beautiful images of characters being sucked back into their books is by Canadian photographer Lissy Larichhia.

These beautiful images of characters being sucked back into their books are by Canadian photographer Lissy Larichhia.

The Toast has been running a series of posts on how to tell what novel you’re in. The latest is how to tell whether you’re in a Regency novel. Here’s a sample:

4. You have a maiden aunt who despairs of you. You have a gaggle of sisters of marriageable age and they are all silly.

5. You are an incorrigible womanizer and you have lived in France. You are squandering your sizeable inheritance on loose women and card tables. You may very well be a pirate.

6. Your best friend is a notorious flirt and not as pretty as you. She weds a buffoon for convenience and immediately regrets her decision. Her sole ambition in life is to orchestrate a marriage for you that’s ever so slightly beneath hers.

7. A gentleman of your acquaintance once addressed you by your Christian name as he brushed his fingers against the lace filigree of your fichu. You still blush at the recollection.

And these four are just a few from how to tell you are in a Jane Austin novel:

You attempt to befriend someone slightly above or slightly below your social station and are soundly punished for it.

A girl you have only just met tells you a secret, and you despise her for it.

You have five hundred a year. From who? Five hundred what? No one knows. No one cares. You have it. It’s yours. Every year. All five hundred of it.

There are three men in your life: one true love, one tempting but rakish acquaintance, and a third distant possibility — he is courteous and attentive but only slightly interested in you. He is almost certainly the cousin or good friend of your true love, and nothing will ever happen between you two.

You can also find out how to tell if you’re in a novel by Noel Streatfield, Iris Murdoch, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, and a heap of others.

Thanks, Doreen Knight, for pointing me in this direction.

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Candle’s Christmas Chair – in which our hero decides our heroine is not indifferent

Under the image is another excerpt of my current work in progress, Candle’s Christmas Chair. I posted the first 800 or so words a few days ago, so read them first if you want to follow the story. (Or wait a few weeks – I’ll be publishing the whole thing as a free book. I’m aiming at having it out before Christmas.) DISCLAIMER: this is raw. No editing, no proofreading.

workshop

Miss Bradshaw was as lovely as he remembered. Such a shame that she preferred other women! He’d refused to believe it at first, when her friend hinted it to him after she had run off. What a fool he had made of himself over her.

“So can you sell me an invalid’s chair, then,” he asked her.

She sighed, and in a patient voice explained, “I need to know more about how the chair will be used, Lord Avery. We have chairs suitable for street use, chairs that work well in a park, chairs that can be easily pushed inside a house, even chairs that can be propelled by the occupant. What sort of chair do you require?”

“I see.” That made sense. What didn’t make sense were the signals he was receiving. Three years ago he’d been as close to an innocent as a 19-year-old with a father like his could be. But his time in the Coldstream Guards had taught him a great deal, including what to think when a women’s pupils dilated, and she became breathless and flushed.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking. Certainly, his own anatomy had a strong opinion about what to do with the delectable Miss Bradshaw and his own arousal might be predisposing him to misread hers.

Inspiration struck.

“Can you show me each different type and explain what the different uses are, please, Miss Bradshaw?”

There. That should win Candle at least 15 minutes to observe her while she showed him around.

She stood her ground. “Who is the chair for, Lord Avery.”

Good point. He needed to remember his key purpose in coming here, which had nothing to do with pursuing the elusive Miss Bradshaw.

“My mother was injured in the same accident that killed my father,” he told her baldly. “She is paralysed from the waist down. I wish to buy her a chair so that she is not totally dependent on being carried to go where she wishes.”

Mis Bradshaw’s lovely grey eyes softened and warmed. He remembered how changeable those eyes were. They go cold with disdain, hot and stormy with anger, and warm with compassion. Lying eyes. He had to keep reminding himself that she had made a fool of him.

“Ah, your poor mother. Yes, we will certainly find a chair for her. And what sort of places does she wish to go?”

#*#

Min showed Lord Avery the inside chairs first. He was very taken with the Merlin chairs, named after the inventor, a clockmaker who had built a self-propelled chair after he’d broken his leg. Lord Avery asked her to demonstrate how to turn the handles on the arms, and then insisted on trying the chair himself, folding his great length in order to fit.

“I think we should have one of those,” he said, brushing past her as he circled the chair, examining it from all sides. He skimmed his hands down the chair’s sides, gently caressing, and Min’s mouth went unaccountably dry.

“Yes, well,” she said. “Over here we have the outdoor chairs.” She had designed them for different types of surface, changing the size and pitch of the large wheels on either side of the chair, and lengthening or shortening the undercarriage to change the distance between the chair and the small front wheel that the occupant could turn in order to steer.

Once again, Lord Avery insisted on trying the chairs, handing her into each one, parading her solemnly up and down the workshop, and then handing her out. Fortunately, he seemed focused on the chairs, and didn’t notice her fingers trembling. His effect on her seemed stronger than ever.

“I like this one,” he said, finally, pointing to the one chair they hadn’t tried.

“I am sorry,” she told him. “That one is not for sale.”

“But it would be perfect,” he said. “The wheels are broad, so Mother won’t sink into the grass when she strolls in the garden, and they are slightly skewed to give her greater stability. The longer undercarriage also improves stability, but it isn’t long enough to impair turning, so she will be able to manage even the paths in the maze. It’s perfect.”

He’d listened to her every word. More; he’d understood exactly what she was trying to do.

“It is a prototype,” she explained. “I do not sell my prototypes, and I do not manufacture until the prototype has been thoroughly tested.”

He was nodding before she’d even finished. “That’s even better. Let us test it for you. And once you are satisfied, you can sell us one of the new models.”

He took both her hands as she opened her mouth to reply, speaking before she could. “Please, Miss Bradshaw. It would mean so much to her. She used to practically live in her garden, rain and shine. To be able to get there again without being carried; to be able to move around and decide where she wants to go–it would mean the world to her.”

His big hands cupped hers, his thumbs stroking across her trapped fingers. For a moment, she was almost mesmerised, but then she tugged her hands away, and he released her instantly.

“But you wanted it for Christmas.” It was a weak protest, close to a capitulation, and he clearly knew it.

“But this is even better, don’t you see? She’ll get the use of a chair immediately, without waiting for Christmas, and at Christmas she’ll have one made just for her. Oh. But will there be enough time?”

It was late October. Not quite two months to go. Yes, they could do it. Min would need to start building the model before she got the prototype back, but the final testing was unlikely to turn up anything.

“I will need to upholster the chair and to run some final tests, then your mother could have it for perhaps a month? I will need to talk to her after that.”

“Of course. I’m going to take that – did you call it a Merlin? I’ll take the Merlin with the red cushions. She loves red. Could you cover the new chair in the same fabric?”

“I could possibly do the same colour,” Min agreed. Did she have enough red leather? No; she’d cut the last skin a few days ago. Perhaps she could get some from the main carriage works. If not, she would have to make a trip to the leather merchants.

He nodded, running a hand over the plush surface of the Merlin and immediately leaping to the right conclusion. “You use leather for the outdoor chairs, don’t you? They might get wet, I suppose.”

“Minnie, are you in here?” That was her cousin Daniel’s inevitable greeting, as if her presence in her own workshop was a perpetual surprise to him. He followed his voice into the room, and drew himself up to his full height, still a good eight inches shorter than Lord Avery.

#*#

The man who called Miss Bradshaw ‘Minnie’ in that familiar way was built like a bull: broad in the shoulders and chest, with massive arms and a thick neck. Candle grudgingly admitted he was handsome enough, in a thick-set kind of way, his blonde hair slightly overlong, even somewhat blocky features, and fine hazel eyes currently fixed on Avery in challenge.

Miss Bradshaw kept her smooth calm. “Lord Avery, may I present Daniel Whitlow? Daniel, Viscount Avery is here to purchase a chair for his mother.”

The bull relaxed slightly, returning Candle’s nod. “Minnie–Miss Bradshaw–designs the best chairs in Bath, Lord Avery.” He rested a proprietary hand on Miss Bradshaw’s shoulder. “You won’t regret choosing one of her chairs.”

“Two,” Candle said. “Two chairs.” How proprietary was this cousin? Not that Candle cared. Not after what she did three years ago. Or did she? If her friend was mistaken about her preferences, did she tell the truth about Miss Bradshaw’s reasons for leaving? He needed to pay attention. The bull was saying something else.

“One for indoors, and one for outdoors,” Candle explained.

“Daniel, I need dark red leather for the outdoor chair. Can I purchase some from your stock?”

The bull nodded. “Yes, we got a whole cart load of skins dyed for the big order. We could spare you a skin or two.”

“The one you’re using is a bit more yellow. I had in mind this colour.” She ran her hand over the chair as Candle had a few minutes ago. In precisely the same place, in fact. He wondered if she realised that. He shifted his hat, strategically.

The bull shook his head again. “No. Nothing that colour.”

Candle was opening his mouth to say that he’d choose another colour when the bull went on, “And I can’t spare anyone today to take you down to buy some. We’re going to be all hands working late as it is.”

“I could escort you, Miss Bradshaw?” Candle offered.

The bull examined him with narrowed eyes.

“After all, the sooner the chair is covered, the sooner my mother can try it out,” Candle went on, looking as innocent as he knew how.

It was enough. The bull nodded again. A beast of few words. “Take your maid, Minnie. Your servant, Lord Avery.”

>Candle’s Christmas Chair excerpt 3

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Judging a book by its cover

BookcoverCCCIn less than a month, I’ll have a cover out there in reader land. And I’ve been reading a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

If you google using the search term ‘creating professional book covers,’ you’ll find heaps of superb advice. I particularly liked Sherry Thomas’s article about the process Courtney Milan took her and other authors through when they were creating Midnight Scandals.

It’s fascinating to read, and raised issues I’ve never thought of. How would my covers look in greyscale? How about in tiny, tiny format on a Goodreads ‘What I’ve been reading’ post?

If you’re creating a cover, read the post. And here’s an article from Courtney Milan about typography on book covers. And here are 300 fonts that work for book covers, divided by genre.

Meanwhile, I have five book covers on my books page. I’ve asked for permission to use the photo on three of them, and I intend to do a photo shoot to get the right photo for the two Redepenning books, but I think the typography is moving in the right direction. What do you think?

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Making a joyful noise to the Lord

Thomas_Webster_-_A_Village_ChoirFrom the beginning of the 18th century until the spread of the church organ in the mid 19th century, many villages had a quire (choir) of psalm singers. Often called ‘West Gallery Singers’ because they sat in the west gallery above the rear end of the nave, they sang the psalms and other selections from the Book of Common Prayer to tunes composed by local teachers and quire members.

In 1700, the nave was already ‘owned’ by the more affluent members of the congregation. Galleries to the north and south were built to seat the poorer members of the flock, and the west gallery became home to the singers and musicians.

And they took their job seriously. Here’s an extract from the Rules of a quire in Kent:

1773 Oct. 28th Ann agreement made for the Company of Psalm singers in Kenardington. We Do gree to forfitt two pence on all Sundays for not being at Church in Divine Sarvis time to joyn to sing to the praise an glory of GOD and to meet on Sunday Evening at Six o’clock and forfitt one penny and to meet on all Thursday evenings at Six o’clock or forfitt one penny for each Neglect of not being there at the time. The mony to be gathered by One Whom the Company apoint for that purpus and the forfitt mony to be Spent on January 1st 1774 at a place apointed by the Company. Agreed and aproved of by us Who have hear unto Sett our Names.

Wm Chittenden
Thos Noakes
Wm Durrant
Thos Kingsnorth
Jn Austen
Thos Tolhurst X his mark
lsaac Dadson X his mark		 Thos Leads X his mark
Wm Hills
James Backer
Thos Hampton
Henry Holit
Wm Jones X his mark
James Huld

And here’s what they might have sounded like.

They used their skills in other settings, too:

There is no doubt that the mixed groups of instrumentalists and singers which we refer to as ‘quires’ to distinguish them for the organ-driven, surpliced latter-day groups, became very important in parish life. Those who played for the singing in church would also have played a major part in parish social life on feast days, high days and holidays. They had status within parish society, the nature of their jobs often gave them a measure of independence, and they were not infrequently in conflict with the parson or the squire. Their music often travelled far and wide, and in surprising forms. For example, few people today realise that when they sing the Yorkshire anthem ‘On Ilkley Moor Bah’t ‘At’ they are actually singing a west gallery hymn called ‘Cranbrook’, composed by the Canterbury shoemaker Thomas Clark who alone wrote hundreds of such splendid tunes.

The following far more secular song (just listen to the repeated chorus) might well have been sung on the village green on the night of the Whitsunale celebration that is a central event in Farewell to Kindness. If I do a book trailer, this is the song I want in the background. I couldn’t find a version sung by a West Gallery quire, but this one is pretty and the words are clear.

________________________________________________

Much of the material for this article and all the quotes came from the West Gallery Music Association.

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Candle’s Christmas Chair – in which our hero and heroine meet after 3 years

Bath chairFirst few 100 words from WIP – a short story I want to give away for Christmas.

‘”Tha’ wants to talk to Min about they chairs,” said the man in the office, and directed Candle Avery  to the far corner of the carriage-maker’s yard.

Candle strode through the light rain, dodging or leaping the worst of the mud and puddles. Min. Short for Benjamin, perhaps? Or Dominic?

No, he concluded, as his eyes adjusted to the light inside the shed. The delightful posterior presented to his eyes belonged to neither a Benjamin nor a Dominic. The overalls were masculine, but the curves they covered were not.

She was on a ladder, leaning so far into a bank of shelves that lined the wall opposite the door that her upper half was hidden, but he had no objection to the current view–said delightful posterior at his eye level and neatly outlined as she stretched, a pair of trim ankles showing between the top of her sensible half boots and the hems of the overalls.

“Botheration.” Whatever she was reaching for up there, it was not obliging her by coming to her hand. Perhaps his lofty height might be of service?

“May I help, Ma’am?” he asked.

There was a crash as she jerked upright at the sound of his voice, and hit her head on the shelf above. As she flinched backward from the collision, the ladder tipped sideways, spilling its occupant into Candle’s hastily outstretched arms.

The curves were everything he thought, and the face lived up to them. A Venus in miniature, black curls spilling from the kerchief that held them away from the heart-shaped face, that quintessentially English complexion known as peaches and cream, grey eyes fringed with dark lashes.

Grey eyes that had haunted his dreams for three long years, ever since she had bedazzled him at a house party for the amusement of her friends, and then left without saying goodbye.

Grey eyes that turned stormy as he held her a moment too long. He hastily set her down.

“Miss Bradshaw.”

“Captain Avery. No, it is Lord Avery, now, is it not? My condolences on the death of your father.

He bowed his acknowledgement, his mind racing. Bradshaw Carriages. He hadn’t made the connection. Had he known when he was courting her that she was a carriage-maker’s daughter? He didn’t remember anyone mentioning it.

But he did remember that her friends called her Minnie. Miss Minnie Bradshaw. Min.

#*#

Lord Avery was broader than she remembered. He’d been little more than a boy at that horrid house party, but even then the tallest man she had ever met. Isolated and nervous in that crowd of scheming cats who only invited her to humiliate her, she’d believed him when he claimed to care.

With him at her side, she’d braved the crush at the ball. Short as she was, she usually found such occasions overwhelming. People looked over her, bumped into her, ignored her. But Lord Avery – Captain Avery he’d been then – kept her safe. She’d even, for the first time in her life, been enjoying herself at a ball. Right up until she overheard his best friend explaining that Avery despised her common origins and was only courting her for her money.

That had been Min’s last venture into the aristocratic world her parents had educated her for. She’d come home to Bath, and told her mother that she would marry, if marry she ever did, in her own class. But none of her suitors had ever measured up to the tall red-headed guards officer who even now, standing here in her workshop, turned her knees to jelly.

What was he doing in her workshop? Why would he tracked her down?

“Can I help you, Lord Avery?” She couldn’t do much about the colour that pinked her cheeks, or the way her heart pounded. But she could, and did, keep her voice level and and her tone cool.

He was immediately all business. “I am after a chair, Miss Bradshaw. It is still Miss Bradshaw?”

She nodded, seething. How dare he comment on her marital status. She wanted to tell him that she’d refused five proposals in the last three years. But he was continuing:  “The Master at the Pump Rooms told me that Bradshaw’s makes the best chairs in Bath, and the man in the office sent me here.”

“I see. And what sort of a chair do you require?”

His brows drew together. “An invalid’s chair. That is what you make, is it not? What your father makes, I mean?”

He might as well know the whole of it. She was not ashamed. And if his eyes turned cold and scornful, what was that to her? She was, no doubt, just imagining the warmth she saw. As she had imagined his admiration so long ago.

“You were right the first time, Lord Avery. I design the chairs. And I make each prototype for my assistants to copy.”

“I say,” he said, “good for you!” And he smiled at her. She remembered those smiles. And, though her mind knew he couldn’t be trusted, her foolish heart didn’t believe her.

Excerpt 2 posted on 25 November.

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The happy endings myth

happy endingOne of the criticisms I’ve heard of romance novels is that they have happy endings, and ‘happy endings are not realistic’.

The critics are, of course, quite right. Happy endings do not happen in reality. And neither do sad endings. In fact, endings of any kind are a totally artificial construct. My personal story didn’t begin with my conception; my conception was simply an event in the story of my parents, and my story is an integral part of that. Nor will it end at my death. What I’ve made (children, garden, quilts, books) will carry on after me.

Whenever we write and whatever we write, we impose an artificial structure on reality. We choose a point and call that the beginning. And we choose another point and call that the end.

In the continuing story that was the life of my fictional character Stephen Redepenning, I could have chosen a different place to start and to stop. I could, perhaps, have started with the intrepid young adventurer boarding a ship for Canada. I could have followed with the adventure of his life as he found a place in the wilderness, entered into a trade agreement with locals that he sealed by marrying one of their daughters, and built his own small fur trapping empire. I could have ended as he stood in the smoking ruins of his log cabin, looking at the graves of his wife and children and swearing vengeance on their murderers.

It might have been a good story. But it isn’t the part of his life that I chose to tell.

I like stories that end on an upward trajectory, not a downward trajectory. If I like the protagonists, I want them to have hope. I want to feel that they have a chance for a happy future. To me, the end of the story is more about the writer giving me food for what happens next. In my imagination, the story continues.

(And, if I don’t like the protagonists, I have no objection to someone else in the story having the happy ending. Hamlet’s tragedy turned out rather well for Fortinbras.)

The romance novel’s ‘happily ever after’ is not about perfect resolution of all problems; it’s about convincing the reader that the protagonists will support each other through whatever problems arise. Romeo and Juliet was always going to be a tragedy, not because the lovers died, but because of the type of character that Romeo was. If they’d lived, he would have been on to the next hot chick within a month or two.

But Bassanio and Portia, in the Merchant of Venice, face trials together and win through, and we’re confident that they’ll be able to continue to do so.

I met my PRH at a prayer meeting nearly 46 years ago. Our lives together have hit rough patches here and there, with internal and external trials. But facing them as a couple has made us stronger. Whatever happens in the years left to us, we’ll cope. Now that’s a happy ending.

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Candle’s Christmas Chair

bath chair#2In Farewell to Kindness, Lord and Lady Avery are at the assembly where Alex comes a cropper in his Bath chair. Lady Avery rushes up to inspect the pieces. It transpires that she was the chair’s designer.

How, I wondered, did Viscount Avery come to marry Minerva Bradshaw, Bath chair designer and daughter of a Bath carriage maker?

Candle’s Christmas Chair is the result. I have my plot outline, and one and a half character sketches. I should begin writing this weekend.

I plan it as a short story or novella. If I can stick to the plan, it’ll be out for Christmas (just). Five weeks? We’ll see.

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When you break eggs, make omelettes

I’ve set myself a challenge in the epilogue of Farewell to Kindness. My secondary character David, who is hero of the book I plan to write next, is reported to be missing. No-one has heard from him for four months.

I don’t know where that came from. It was in the plan to send him searching for his heroine, known in Farewell to Kindness as Mist. But four months? Where did she go? Where did he go? What is holding them up and why? I have absolutely no idea. And I don’t know how the answers are going to affect the already plotted chapter outline of Encouraging Prudence.

I started Farewell to Kindness thinking I was a planner. And I am. But the bits of the book that excite me most are the ones that came out of nowhere and insisted on changing all of my carefully structured plans. My main villain turned out to be someone quite different to who I intended, the book ended a month earlier than intended and in a different locale, and several characters that weren’t even in the first draft demanded their own place in the 3rd.

I’m tentatively learning to trust my subconscious. When I find I’ve dropped a whole heap of eggs all over my plot, I’m learning to give a cheer and enjoy the ensuing omelette.

I came across this article by Juliet Marillier that talks about characters taking overeggs. What she says rings true to me:

So here I am, getting to the pointy end of this manuscript with my characters in increasing peril from external sources and at the same time beset by internal conflict (there’s a strong thread in the Shadowfell books about conscience and responsibility – can lies, deception and violence be justified if they’re the only way to achieve a greater good?) I know already that my two protagonists can’t come out of the story without significant psychological damage. And now one of those protagonists has started making choices I didn’t plan for him. Awful choices. Crazy, unwise choices. What’s going on?

I find while I’m writing the last part of a book, the part where I ratchet up the tension and present my characters with impossible choices, I sleep fitfully, dream vividly, and think about the story and characters most of the time, often to the detriment of whatever else I’m supposed to be doing. I get a lot of ‘brain churn’, a not-especially-helpful overload of story details bubbling around in my mind. I become quite disturbed when my characters have to face terrifying situations or sink into a mass of dark thoughts. Perhaps that’s because their stories, though fictional and including fantasy elements, are not so different from the situations some people still face in our world, in places where tyrannical regimes use terror as a tool of control. Or perhaps it’s because my protagonists feel like real people to me, and I, the author/God of this creation, have chosen to subject them to hell on earth. Now one of them is challenging me in a way that makes me uncomfortable.Go on, push me. Push me to the edge. See how much more I can take before I jump.

Characters don’t exist independently, of course, however real they may become to us. They are indeed all in our minds. If another writer came to me for advice on the situation outlined above, I’d say keep writing, let the character have his head, finish the novel, then go back and rewrite that section if you’re not happy with it. If a character seems to be pushing or pulling hard, chances are that’s the natural direction for the story to take. If the guy is in your head all the time, urging you on, what you write may well be inspired.