November 3, 2016 by judeknight

First words on WIP Wednesday

I tend to cast around for a long time till I find the start of a book—and even then, I often get it wrong, either deleting what I have in favour of a later passage, or writing something earlier that leads up to my original first chapter. As a writer, I want to start in the middle of the action, but in a place that lets me bring readers into the story quickly, without a lot of explanation. I want to avoid the acronym SDT in the margins. Show Don’t Tell. My friend and editor Mari Christie sends my drafts back with that plastered through them, but so far I’ve been able to avoid the dreaded letters in my first chapters.

So my methodology for starting a book is to write until I recognise the beginning, then second guess that decision once I’ve finished the first draft. Next month’s new release didn’t get its beginning until the final edit. The current work in progress still starts with the first words I wrote in May.

How about you? How do you begin? And does your beginning change as you work your way towards publication?

Here are the first words of A Raging Madness, the first draft I’m hoping to finish by the end of the month. As always, please post your extracts in the comments.

The funeral of the dowager Lady Melville was poorly attended—just the rector, one or two local gentry, her stepson Edwin Braxton accompanied by a man who was surely a lawyer, and a handful of villagers.

Alex Redepenning was glad he had made the effort to come out of his way when he saw the death notice. He and Captain Sir Gervase Melville had not been close, but they had been comrades: had fought together in Egypt, Italy, and the Caribbean.

Melville’s widow was not at the funeral, but Alex was surprised not to see her when he went back to the house. Over the meagre offering set out in the drawing room, he asked Melville’s half brother where she was.

“Poor Eleanor.” Braxton had a way of gnashing his teeth at the end of each phrase, as if he needed to snip the words off before he could stop chewing them.

“She has never been strong, of course, and Mother Melville’s death has quite overset her.” Braxton tapped his head significantly.

Ella? Not strong? She had been her doctor father’s assistant in situations that would drive most men into a screaming decline, and had continued working with his successor after his death. She had followed the army all her life until Melville sent her home—ostensibly for her health, but really so he could chase whores in peace, without her taking loud and potentially uncomfortable exception. Alex smiled as he remembered the effects of stew laced with a potent purge.

Melville swore Ella had been trying to poison him. She assured the commander that if she wanted him poisoned he would be dead, and perhaps the watering of his bowels was the result of a guilty conscience. The commander, conscious that Ella was the closest to a physician the company, found Ella innocent.

Perhaps it had all caught up with her. Perhaps a flaw in the mind explained why she tried to trap Alex and succeeded in trapping Melville into marriage, why she had not attended Melville’s deathbed, though Alex had sent a carriage for her.

“I had hoped to see her,” Alex said. It was not entirely a lie. He had hoped and feared in equal measure: hoped to find her old before her time and feared the same fierce pull between them he had been resisting since she was a girl too young for him to decently desire.

“I cannot think it wise,” Braxton said, shaking his head. “No, Major Redepenning. I cannot think it wise. What do you say, Rector? Would it not disturb the balance of my poor sister’s mind if she met Major Redepenning? His association with things better forgotten, you know.”

What was better forgotten? War? Or her poor excuse for a husband? Not that it mattered, any more than it mattered that Braxton used the rank Alex no longer held. It was not Braxton’s fault Alex’s injury had forced him to sell out.

The Rector agreed that Lady Melville should not be disturbed, and Alex was off the hook. “Perhaps you will convey my deepest sympathies and my best wishes to her ladyship,” he said. “I hope you will excuse me if I take my leave. I have a long journey yet to make, and would seek my bed.”

October 29, 2016 by judeknight

Counting the bastards

A sub-theme of my Revealed in Mist is illegitimacy, and the way that illegitimate children were regarded in Georgian and Regency England. I’m conscious that we see that period through the lens of the Victorian era, as I’ve comment in the article on rakehells I wrote for Dirty Sexy History. I figured I’d better do some research, and — of course — I got sucked in.

Births per women, the number of children born within eight months of the wedding, the percentage of women never married, and maternal mortality rates all turned out to be relevant. No, really.

Uncovering the secrets

Genealogists have done some useful research on the percentage of children born outside of wedlock or in the first few months after a wedding. The second is simply a matter of dates, and in the early 19th century, around a third of brides were already carrying when they made their vows.

The first is usually clear enough, too. From a level of two children out of every hundred, the rates rose over the long 18th century until, in the early Victorian, seven percent of all children were illegitimate.

(Of course, this doesn’t count those who had a legal father to whom they were not biologically related. Research in other fields gives figures for the number of offspring not related to the putative father, with figures ranging from one or two percent up to as many as forty percent, depending on things like the conditions of the research, socio-economic status, and social norms. One in ten across the Georgian population seems reasonable, with lower figures in the homes of the middle sort, for reasons we touch on below. EDITED)

The birth or baptismal records might state the name of the father and the status of the child. Or perhaps the mother wouldn’t name the father, though such stubbornness could see her jailed. The local parish authorities, who were required to pay for the care of a child whose mother was a resident, had a vested interest in making sure that the man took his responsibilities seriously.

I dare say a number of those pregnant brides went to the altar to meet a groom constrained to be present by the local Vestry committee. And if the man could not or would not marry the girl, he was expected to pay a weekly amount until the child was seven, and could be apprenticed.

Of course, then as now, there were men who successfully denied responsibility, or who absconded. And, with urbanisation, the old village system, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, became less significant for most of the population. The cities provided greater opportunities for anonymity and escape, and fewer opportunities for social sanctions, so the rise in illegitimacy rates is hardly surprising.

Septicaemia as birth control

Now I needed to know average family size. After all, five percent in 1800 is only one in twenty, but how many families had an illegitimate child?

In 1800, women could expect, on average, five live births in their childbearing years. Several sites suggested this implied some form of contraception, and I think I’ve figured out what it was. Women had a twenty percent chance of dying in childbirth, which correlates in a horribly fascinating way. The most common way of limiting the number of births per women was maternal mortality.

We can’t say that the average family size was five children. The odds were slightly skewed because it seems likely that a third of women never married (although presumably some of those had children anyway). And fathers could and did take new wives and have more children.

Calculating average family size

So let’s do it this way. [WARNING: If you are allergic to Maths, read no further.]

750 children would be born to 150 women. One hundred of those women would be married. Thirty-seven of those children would be born outside of marriage, so the remaining 713 children were born inside of marriage.

This gives us an average family size of around seven, and, in those hundred families, 71 children whose biological sire was not the father of record, and 34 who were conceived before the marriage but born within it.

Class differences in attitudes to illegitimacy

The idea that a woman with a bastard was damned forever and had no choice but to sell her body on the street is part of our Regency writer vocabulary, but it isn’t entirely accurate. The rural lower classes were more practical than that. A girl who was found to be pregnant, and without a lover willing to marry her, might be producing another mouth to feed, but in a few years that mouth would become a set of hands. Genealogy studies have found that unmarried mothers often married later on, their ‘mistake’ absorbed into the new family without a ripple.

For the urban poor, forced to work in factories and workshops, babies were more of a problem. Many were cared for in baby farms, where the death rates were horrific.

The middling sort always set greater store by moral behaviour that those below and above them on the social scale. They tended to expect morality of their men and their women, so perhaps the daughter of a shopkeeper or a lawyer or a wealthy tenant farmer might expect her suitor to marry her if he anticipated his marital rights.

The double standard

Not, though, if she were foolish enough or unfortunate enough to attract the attention of one of the upper sort. They had two sets of rules. If you’ve seen the movie Georgiana, you’ll remember the Duke of Devonshire, who had a series of mistresses he preferred to his wife, brought his bastard children to live in his house, and expected the duchess to be friends with the mistress who lived with them, and mother to the entire brood: hers and those of his lovers. Yet he was exceedingly miffed when she had an affair resulting in a child, and insisted that the child be given to its paternal grandparents.

In some ways, little Eliza Courtney, Georgiana’s daughter, was fortunate. She went to relatives who were well able to care for her, though it seems she was kept very much in the background. She made a good marriage, and her descendants include Sarah, Duchess of York. Other noble bastards were put into foster care with unwilling or careless carers, or they remained with their mothers, but only because the poor fallen ladies were turned from their homes.

Women were to be pure (or at least discreet). Men could do pretty much what they liked, as long as they were a little subtle about it.

In fact, reactions varied as much as families. Whatever you’ve read in a romance probably happened somewhere.

For a linked topic, see my post this week on Jessica Cale’s Dirty Sexy History: The Rakehell in Fact and Fiction

October 26, 2016 by judeknight

Opening and ending hooks on WIP Wednesday

I tend to write drafts in scenes, then decide later where the chapter breaks go. This means that at edit stage I need to find page-turning line to end a chapter on, and an enticing line to begin the next. Or I need to write one.

We call these hooks. They catch on the readers’ mind, and then we reel them in.

This week, I’m looking for your hooks. Give me an excerpt that makes me want more. Here’s one of mine, from Revealed in Mist.

She transferred the contents of the tray to a table beside Miss Diamond’s chair: the pot, a cup, a plate of neatly sliced ham, cheese, pickles, and bread, and a plate of tiny iced cakes. Madame watched and Miss Diamond sat compulsively eating one marzipan shape after another. “That will be all,” Miss Diamond said. “Dupont will serve me.”

Dupont followed Prue across the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

Would there be time to get into the book room while they were occupied? She could at least find out whether she could easily pick the lock with the tools she had been carrying in her apron pocket all afternoon.

She had just taken them from her pocket and bent to examine the lock when a loud scream from below sent her jerking upright then plunging back downstairs.

October 24, 2016 by judeknight

Building a village

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the arrival of my hero and heroine of A Raging Madness at the tumble-down Renwater Grange, the estate gifted to Alex by a grateful king. They woke up the next morning, went for a walk to investigate the stables, and met the husband of their temporary housekeeper. And then I got stuck.

I knew where the house was; in the village of Renbridge, in the Lincolnshire dales. I’d done quite a bit of research about agriculture and horse breeding in the dales, and the type of land ownership and architecture. But who lived in Renbridge? What were their names, their characters, their habits and their interrelationships?

I realise that most of the villagers won’t have a mention in the book, and that even those who wriggle their way into the first draft might be cut in the second. But I have no idea which ones are a permanent part of the story, and—in any case—their existence, mentioned or not, is texture in the background. Who are these people?

So for the past fortnight, I’ve been writing a village. I thought you might like to see the raw results.

Renbridge village

10.2 miles from Horncastle, 6.9 miles from Louth, 8.7 miles from Alford

The church and rectory

The church is St Ninians, the living is at the gift of the King as Duke of Lancaster. The Rector is Reverend Daniel Morris, a single man, an elderly widower with no children. His housekeeper is Mrs Kelk, wife of his handyman and general servant. He also has an all purpose maid, Aggie Nevis. Mr Morris (74), Kelk (56), Mrs Kelk (57) (the five Kelk children are all gone — two dead as children, a boy and a girl, one married and in Alford, one in the army, and one in the US after a run in with the law). Aggie (48) never married, has been with the living longer than the others.

Mr Morris is kindly, scholastic, and sharp as a tack. Very social, has a lovely little dog that he takes walking. He is a classics scholar with a speciality in Republican Rome and takes students. One is currently living across the road with the Mullens.

The inn

Innkeeper is Silas Hancock (48), and his wife Betsy (46). They have grown sons and a daughter who also work at the inn. Sons are Fred (27), Sam (25) and Dick (19). Their daughter is Mattie (19). Four children died between Sam and Dick, two during a village cholera epidemic, one of smallpox, and one in an accident. Dick and Mattie are twins. Also various servants who may or may not get names. Fred manages the stables with Dick’s help. Silas is mine host. Betsy and Mattie rule the kitchen. Mattie is being courted by a farmer’s son. Inn has been in the Hancock family for generations.

The inn, church, and grange are on the Y intersection.

Cottages on the road to Alford

Mirs Rycroft lives in a substantial detached cottage.

On the road to Alford between the church and the grange are three cottages, all detached. On the east of the road, next to the rectory, is the Fox house, then Widow Bycroft’s cottage, then the bridge over the Ren. On the west of the road next to the bridge is the Broadley cottage. The rest of the west is grange land.

The Fox family is large and unruly. Jeb Fox (35) is a drunkard and a lout. He does farm labour when he can get it, but most of the farmers around will only use him if they have to, as he cannot be relied on. Pansy Fox (28) takes in washing, cleans, and (it is rumoured) supplements her income by lifting her skirts. Fox beats her when he suspects such a thing, and so her lovers are circumspect, but she has 7 children to feed, and those are just the survivors. She has buried 4, two in the same cholera epidemic as the Hancocks. The children are one a year, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6, 3, 1, with the dead ones fitting in the gaps. She is pregnant again. Not all of the children look like her or Fox.

The widow, Harriet Rycroft (61) lives in a house that is slightly more substantial than a cottage. She and her maid of all work and dear friend, Jane Harper (59), came here from far away and have lived quietly in the village for 25 years. The villagers would be surprised to know that they are retired prostitutes. They often give work to Pansy Fox, but pay her in food and clothing. Mrs Rycroft runs a dame school for the village children.

A visual reference for Renwater Grange

The Broadleys are both from families that have long been in the area. Jack Broadley (47) is a farm labourer, a large quiet man that will turn his hand to most things. Because work is scarce in the area and farmers can usually take their pick, it is significant that he is usually among the first chosen. Bee Broadley (Phoebe, 43) is Silas Hancock’s sister. She has been hired as temporary housekeeper at the grange, and is the first person Alex and Ella meet when they arrive. The Broadleys have one son (John, 24), who was impressed by the navy but who loves the life, and a daughter (Molly, 22) who has married a local farmer.

A row of cottages on the road to Horncastle

On the road to Horncastle, the grange takes up the northwest side of the road, and there is a row of three cottages on the southeast, with the Roses, Mullens, and Pecks.

Bill Rose (67) runs the village shop, with the support of his two daughters, Martha (34) and Jemima (32). His wife died when the girls were teens. Bill’s son Willy married and moved away years ago. Willy is horse mad, used to work in the inn stables, and took a job to be closer to horses. The innkeeper, Bill, is in failing health and Willy wants to be closer, so will apply for job as stable master. Bill has chased off any suitors for his daughters, so they are still single. They are involved in all village activities, especially church activities.

George Mullen (27) and his wife Millie (20) are newly weds. He is a farm labourer, son of farm labourers from another village closer to Alford. She is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Hewitt, who live further along the road. They can only afford the cottage because they have a gentleman boarder, a scholar who is studying with Mr Morris. He is a young man who hopes to take religious orders, which will work better if he can keep his eyes of Mattie Hancock. Peregrine Fairweather (23) is the second son of a family of comfortably situated gentry, and a nice enough young fellow.

Matthew Peck (56) and his two sisters Katie (57) and Pauline (59) live in the last cottage on the way out of the village. Matthew is a farm labourer. Katie and Pauline do piece work for a dressmaker in Hardcastle.

Cottages on the road to Louth

Leading out of the village to the east on the Louth road, the Arnotts and the Hills are on the north side in detached cottages.

Charlie Arnott (48) is the village smith, and also the verger. His father, also Charlie (78) was both of these things before him but is now suffering from dementia. His mother Maggie (67) looks after Charlie and also helps with the house and children. Charlie is a widower, his wife having died in childbed some 10 years ago, leaving four children: Charles Jnr, who is 19 and his father’s apprentice, Becky (16), Tom (14) and Ben (12).

Nathan Hill (34) and his wife Lucy (28) live in the eastmost cottage with children Fanny (6), Jenny (4), Ninian (2), and Lucy is heavily pregnant. Nathan is a carpenter and general handyman. Lucy spins, sews, and makes bonnets to supplement the family income.

The remaining villagers, the Woods, Farrows, Hewitts, and Dodds, live in the row of cottages on the south side of the Louth road.

Moses Wood (46), the carter, is married to Hester (39). They have one son, Aaron, who is in the army (22). Hester is a baker at the inn.

There';; be work for bricklayers and carpenters up at the Grange

There’ll be work for bricklayers and carpenters up at the Grange

Tim Farrow (36) is a farm labourer living with his mother, Alice Farrow (61). He was a rival for Lucy Hill’s hand and has been miserably single ever since. Jemima Rose has hopes of him, but he hasn’t noticed.

Ted (62) and Mary (61) Hewitt are the parents of a large brood, mostly dispersed. Millie is the youngest, and recently married George Mullen. They also have 3 sons and 2 other daughters, as well as 2 who died as children. The eldest is Eddie, 34, an assistant stable master in Hardcastle. Mary-Kate (31) is married to one of Alex’s tenant farmers. Suzy (27) went into service and is now assistant housekeeper for a baron near Lincoln. Twin brothers Wally and Bart (23) both live at home and are farm labourers with their father. Mary helps out at the inn.

Gabe Dodd (38) and his wife Abbie (35) live in the last cottage on the road to Louth. They have three children, Matthew (10), Mark (7), and Luke (4). Abbie has just discovered that she is with child again, but has not yet told anyone because she is prone to miscarriage. Gabe is a builder/bricklayer.

Five farms pay rental to Alex

Jerry Ashton (62) and his wife Agnes (58) are Lucy Hill’s parents. They also have two sons who work the land with their father, Frank (34) and Harry (31). Both are married, Frank to Nan (28) – two small children, 5 and 3—and Harry to Dinah (27, and Nan’s sister)—two small children, 3 and newborn.

Jonas Catchpole (43) and his wife Clara (46) live with Clara’s elderly parents (Seth 74 and Mary 71). Their one daughter is married to Rafe Bracey. They have a live-in farm worker, Johnny Harper (32) who had hoped to marry Rachel himself.

Billy Horrell (52) is a widower with two grown sons. William (28) is single and Henry (25) recently married Molly Broadley

Rafe Bracy (33) is married to Rachel (21), the daughter of the Catchpoles. Rafe and Rachel live with Rafe’s brother Mike (35), who is a widower with two small children (7 and 3). Rafe was in the army, but returned home when his brother’s wife Mary died.

Ambrose West (39) lives with his sister Heloise (37). He is sweet on Martha Rose, and has been since they were children. Their mother was gentry who married down. She is a doddery old woman of 66, who sews by the fire and occasionally discomforts people by noticing what is going on. They hire their farm labour from the village.

October 16, 2016 by judeknight

Win a kitten in the Holly and Hopeful Hearts kitten tour

A kitten from the Bluestocking Belle’s box set Holly and Hopeful Hearts needs a home.

Meet Snowball, the kitten who captured the heart of the Earl of Hythe

In my story, The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Snowball is tempted from hiding by dangling gold tassels on James’ boots.

“I reckon gold tassels on the boots would be right proper, my lord,” the footman ventured.

He was right, too. Gold tassels that swung as James walked, catching and then losing the light. Not that gold tassels were going to make up the ground he’d lost with Sophia, but still…

“See what you can find,” he told the servant. “Adam, go on ahead and find your lady. I’ll be down in a minute.”

So it was that when he left his chamber, three gold tassels dangled from the front of each boot and proved a tempting target. A white kitten darted out from under an occasional table when James stopped to close the door behind him and took a flying leap at the tassels, as James discovered when he felt the sudden weight.

He took a careful step, expecting the small passenger to drop away, but it buried its claws and its teeth into its golden prey and glared up at him.

“Foolish creature,” he told it, going down onto the knee of the other leg so he could remove it, carefully lifting each paw to detach the tangled claws. “These gaudy baubles are to attract my lady, not a fierce little furry warrior.” He lifted the kitten in one hand and held it up to continue his lecture face to face. “Now where do you belong, hmmnhmmn? Have you wandered off from your mama? Do you belong to this house, I wonder, or did you come with a guest?”

The kitten squeaked a tiny meow.

“No, little one. I will not put you down to chew my tassels, or to trip one of the great ladies or to be trodden on by one of the gentlemen. You are a pretty little fellow, are you not?” He tucked the cat against his chest and rubbed behind its ears, prompting a loud rusty purr incongruously large for the small frame of the kitten.

Although focused on the kitten, he was aware of footsteps approaching. It was Hythe, who looked uncomfortable in a tight-fitting jerkin over short ballooning breeches that allowed several inches of clocked stocking to show between the hem of the breeches and the thigh-length fitted boots. The short robe, flat cap, and heavy flat chain gave a further clue, and Hythe had tried for authenticity by stuffing padding under the jerkin—a pillow, perhaps?

“Henry the Eighth?” James ventured, half-expecting Hythe to walk past without speaking or make another intemperate verbal attack.

Instead, the younger man nodded. “My sister Felicity picked it. Er… I wanted to speak with you… I owe you an apology, Winder… Er… Elfingham. My sister Felicity told me that… Well, the fact is I made an accusation without checking my facts.” Hythe nodded again, clearly feeling that he had said what he needed to say.

“Very handsome of you, Hythe,” James said.

Hythe ran a finger around inside his collar, flushing slightly. “Yes, well. The thing is… You will tell Sophia that I apologized, will you not?”

Ah. Clearly Sophia had expressed her discontent.

“Sisters can be a trial, can they not?” James said, and Hythe warmed to the sympathy.

“Just because she is older, she thinks she can…” He visibly remembered his audience. “Sophia is of age and will make her own decisions, but I think it only fair to tell you that I have advised her to wait until after the hearing at the Privileges Committee before she makes any decision.”

James inclined his head. “I understand your position.” Which would not prevent him from doing his best to persuade Sophia to ignore the advice.

Time to change the subject. He held up the little kitten. “Do you happen to know where this little chap belongs?”

Hythe flushed still deeper. “So that’s where he got to. He… ah… appears to be mine. In a way. The housekeeper’s cat had kittens, and this one seems to have adopted me. Little nuisance.”

But Hythe’s hands were gentle as he took the kitten from James, and he tucked it under his chin, his other hand coming up to fondle the furry head.

“I’ll just put him back in my room so he doesn’t get in anyone’s way. Foolish boy, Snowball. Do you wish to be lost? Was the fish not to your taste?”

Hythe retreated back down the hall. James could not hear individual words, but from the sound of his voice, he was continuing his loving scold. And James had managed to have what almost amounted to a conversation with his intended brother-in-law. He would count that as a win.

Follow the book links to learn more about the stories. Enter the rafflecopter below to be entered for the random draw to win the kitten.

The winner will be announced at the Book Launch Party on November 13th. The other kittens in the novellas are also looking for new homes, so be sure to keep an eye out for them! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

October 15, 2016 by judeknight

How a disease of cows saved hundreds of millions of lives

Would people innoculated with cowpox become cows? The cartoonist James Gillray lampooned the fear.

Would people inoculated with cowpox become cows? The cartoonist James Gillray lampooned the fear.

I’ve been looking back over 250 years of growing knowledge about the human body, the ills that befall us, and how to treat them. In her book Smallpox, Syphilis, and Salvation, Sheryl Persson points out that the idea of curing disease is a very new one. For most of history, and for many illnesses even today, physicians have treated symptoms and tried to keep the body alive long enough for it to cure itself.

As for eradicating a disease, we’ve managed to get rid of one, and it took us 180 years from the time a country doctor in England first published a pamphlet suggesting not just the possibility, but the method.

How can we who live in the West in the 21st Century imagine a society where a single illness killed one tenth of the population every year? Where a quarter of the entire population was killed or permanently scarred by that same illness?
Smallpox was no respecter of persons, killing kings and street beggars alike. It was responsible for one out of every three deaths in childhood at a time when a third of children died before they were nine.

It changed the course of history several times, contributing to the fall of Rome, altering the succession of the British throne and ushering in the Georgian era, killing the rulers of the Aztec and Incan nations and crippling their nations so the conquistadors could sweep all before them… The list goes on and on.

Death among the Mezo-Americans

By the middle of the 18th century, England had learned the practice of variolation; fundamentally, the practice of rubbing a cut or scratch with material from a smallpox scab to give a healthy person a case of smallpox. As long as the person administering the treatment avoided both of the two major risks, the person had a far better chance of surviving the disease, and then they wouldn’t catch it again.

The risks? Doctors tried to find milder strains of smallpox by looking for people who were recovering, but sometimes they got it wrong. And—without a germ theory of disease transmission—some of them weren’t that careful about washing their instruments (or even their hands) between patients. Variolation was common during a smallpox epidemic, and doctors carried contagion from their dying patients to their well ones.

George III of England lost two infant sons to variolation within six months of one another. Still, a death rate of less than one in fifty was an improvement over the status quo.

A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid' Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid's hand while a farmer (?) passes another physician a lancet. Coloured etching, c. 1800. Published: [ca. 1800]

A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid’
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images, http://wellcomeimages.org

Edward Jenner, the country doctor I mentioned, drew on folklore to find a better way. While not the first to inoculate healthy patients with cowpox, he was the first to press his treatment on the medical community. Cowpox was a related disease, seldom fatal or even serious, and country folk had long known that milkmaids were immune to smallpox.

When, in 1796, Jenner inoculated his gardener’s son with cowpox taken from a local milkmaid, he founded the science of vaccination, and took the first step in the long road to the last natural case of smallpox, a hospital cook in Somalia in 1977.

I’ve been reading about illnesses and deaths in the 18th and 19th centuries, and about medical knowledge, for some of my books. In A Raging Madness, (Book 2 of the The Golden Redepennings) the hero is crippled after being hit by a canister shell (today we’d call it shrapnel) and the heroine is a doctor’s daughter and was her father’s apprentice. In the Mountain King series, the next book after The Bluestocking and the Barbarian is The Hermit and the Healer. My healer takes on a cholera epidemic at a girls’ boarding school, and needs to deal with the prejudice of the locals as well as the suspicion and anger of the reclusive parent of one of the girls.

I have one of my regular background characters dying of syphilis (the great pox—more about the medical history of that scourge next week).

And I’m still working out what will kill Mia Redepenning’s husband’s Javanese wife so that Mia can finally have her happy ending in Unkept Promises, Book 4 of The Golden Redepennings. (Something lingering, so she has time to send a letter halfway around the world to her English ‘sister wife’ to beg Mia to be a mother to her four little children.)

The first vaccination

October 13, 2016 by judeknight

Scolds, gossips and harpies on WIP Wednesday

VFS109732 Ladies Gossiping at the Opera (oil on canvas) by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896) (attr. to) oil on canvas 39.3x37.4 Private Collection English, out of copyright

Ladies Gossiping at the Opera, by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896)
English, out of copyright

The scandalmonger is a staple of Regency romance. I like my protagonists (of either sex) with a bit more meanness to them, and lean therefore to malicious gossiping. But maybe yours is just a garrulous person, or a mother with a bit too much interest in the actions of her adult children. Or maybe your work in progress has an outright villain (male or female) who uses social position to exert power.

Please share. Mine is an ex-lover of my hero, expressing her jealousy by supporting an attack on poor Ella, the heroine of A Raging Madness.

Ella, watching Alex treating a crowd of admiring females to his best imitation of a man pleased with his lot, was surprised when Mrs Fullerton spoke at her elbow. “Silly . He is being polite, of course, but I dare say our new Lord Renshaw is hating every minute.”

Ella controlled her surge of irritation. She had no place objecting to Mrs Fullerton’s possessive ‘our’, or her implicit claim to understand Alex. Diplomatically, she replied, “I was surprised at how quickly the news had travelled. He only heard this afternoon.”

“I owe you an apology, Lady Melville. I was very rude when we last met. I was jealous, you see. Alex never looked at me the way he looks at you.” Mrs Fullerton gave a deep sigh. “But one must accept reality. He has eyes only for you, and I was quite horrid. I am ashamed of myself, truly.”

She seemed sincere, her eyes meeting Ella’s, a tentative and apologetic smile just touching the corner of her lips. Ella suppressed the urge to ask how Alex looked at her, and gave way to the impulse not to correct Mrs Fullerton’s misconception about Ella’s and Alex’s relationship.

“We all do things we later regret, Mrs Fullerton. Think nothing of it.”

“You are very gracious.” Mrs Fullerton lifted her glass to her lips. “Bother!” Somehow she had managed to spill quite a large splash of the drink on one shoulder of her gown, a red spreading stain against the pastel green. “Lady Melville, I hate to impose, but could you…”

What could Ella say? She accompanied Mrs Fullerton to the ladies’ retiring room, helped her sponge out the liquid, and waited by the door to the large drawing room while Mrs Fullerton went out to the front hall to retrieve a shawl to cover her shoulders.

She returned with a footman in tow. “Have you tried the punch, Lady Melville? It is strongly spiced, but hot and quite pleasant.”

She collected two glasses from the footman’s tray and pushed one into Ella’s hand.

“Drink up, Lady Melville, and then we shall go and rescue Lord Renshaw.”

It was over spiced, but Ella did not wish to be rude. She took a large sip, and another.

An instant before the drug in the drink hit her, she saw the flare of triumph in Mrs Fullerton’s eyes, and knew she had made a mistake. She opened her mouth to shout for Alex, but suddenly the footman had a hand over her mouth and another under her elbow, and was hustling, half carrying her through the door Mrs Fullerton held open.

“I will give you a few minutes to make it look good,” she said, and whipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

Ella was struggling against the footman and the fog trying to close in on her mind, the dizziness that wanted to consume her. She stamped at his foot, kicked back at his chin, but her soft indoor slippers made no impression. She squirmed, trying to jab her free arm as low as possible, and he twisted away with an oath, pushing her from him so that she fell face forward onto a sofa.

In an instant he was on her, tugging her head back by the hair, straddling her torso. “This will do well enough,” he commented, lifting himself enough that he could push up her skirt and petticoats.

Ella fought to retain consciousness, the pain of her pulled hair helping to keep her from sinking into the fog. “Scream,” she instructed herself, as her assailant’s free hand fumbled at her buttocks, and she shrieked as loud as she could.

Doors burst open: the one onto the hall and a double set into the drawing room next door, and the room filled with people.

It was her worst nightmare come again: the indrawn breaths of shock, the buzz of excited comments, the avid staring eyes. The last thing Ella heard before she sank into oblivion was the amused drawl of the man on her back. “Oh dear, Lady Melville. It seems we have been caught.”

October 8, 2016 by judeknight

Running away very very slowly

This is a rerun of a post I wrote for Caroline Warfield’s Highlighting Historical Research blog, several months ago.

I love research. I even love research when I have a perfectly delightful plot that falls apart when research proves it couldn’t have happened. Working out what might be historically probable instead, or at least plausible, has allowed me to drop down many an exciting rabbit hole into research wonderland.

For example, in my current work-in-progress, A Raging Madness, my hero Alex has a leg full of shrapnel, and is currently helping my heroine to escape from relatives who are determined to lock her up in an asylum for the mentally unwell.

Shrapnel? What kind of shrapnel? What munitions carried shrapnel at that time? What battles were they used in? How were shrapnel wounds treated? What was the long term prognosis? How about complications?

It took me a while to find a suitable battle, but eventually I put Alex the right place to be on the business end of a canister shell, a cannon ball with a weak outer shell filled with scrap metal. When the cannon fired, the shell burst apart, and a broad fan of metal caused devastation among the enemy troops. And, in my case, on the body of the assigned escort of a British diplomat who was observing the battle. (And, no, it was not called shrapnel at the time.)

Ella, my heroine, was the daughter of an army doctor, and I figured she’d solve all of Alex’s problems by removing the shrapnel. But not so. Then, even more than now, removing shrapnel or even bullets (unless they are lead) was a very bad idea.

Even today, going in after a splinter of metal might cause more harm than good, and the world is full of people walking around with bomb fragments buried inside. Back then, with no antibiotics and no anaesthetics, the treatment of choice was to leave the mess alone.

Over time, one of three things would happen. The body and the shrapnel would adjust to one another. The body would reject the shrapnel, moving it piece by piece slowly out to the surface. An abscess would form, and the poisons from the infection would kill the patient unless someone acted to drain the abscess.

Hurrah! I had my intervention. Poor Alex developed an abscess.

But escape? Alex can barely walk, let alone ride. Ella is recovering from addiction to the laudanum that her relatives have been force-feeding her. (Another rabbit-hole: what does laudanum withdrawal look like? Feel like?)

I needed a plausible way for two such invalids to escape.

I chose a canal narrowboat for a number of reasons.

The narrowboats were designed at the maximum size to fit in the smallest locks. An inch too big, and they couldn’t go wherever they needed to for the operator to earn his living. The early designers decided on a boat around seven foot wide, up to ten times as long as wide, and drawing about three feet of water when fully loaded.

One: I loved the idea of the villains haring all over the countryside looking for them while they ran away by the slowest form of non-pedestrian transport ever invented.

Two: I’ve always wanted to go on a canal cruise, and this way I got to watch YouTube clips and call it working.

Most of the boat was given over to cargo, covered by canvas. In the cabin at the rear, everything did double service, with fold down beds and tables. Some boats also had a small cabin at the bow.

Three: By 1807, when my story is set, the canal network stretched from the Mersey (with access to Manchester and Liverpool) all the way to London. Travelling by narrowboat was feasible. Canals were a supremely profitable way to move goods in the early 19^th century, and had been for a number of years. At a steady walking speed, a horse could move fifty times as much weight on a boat as it could on a road. The canals provided still water and tow paths to ease the travel, and locks, tunnels, and viaducts to overcome obstacles. Later, canal boats were mechanised, and later still the railways put the canals out of business. But in 1807, Alex and Ella hitched a lift with a charming Liverpool Irishman called Big Dan.

Four: I could put my hero and my heroine in close confines, calling themselves married, for five to six weeks. Not only did they have heaps of time to talk and even to succumb (or nearly succumb) to their

A healthy strong horse was vital. Each horse needed a stall in a stable each night, and copious quantities of high energy food.

mutual attraction, they were also in deep trouble (or Ella was) if anyone found out. They used false names. They stayed away from fashionable places. But even so, their novelist made sure that someone with no love for Alex saw enough to cause trouble.

Five: The time frame let Alex develop an abscess and recover from the operation, all before he needed to be on hand to save Ella when rumours spread about the two of them and their canal interlude.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

October 5, 2016 by judeknight

Danger on WIP Wednesday

I’ve been summarising the scenes in A Raging Madness so that I can map them against the internal and external journey of my hero and heroine, as I did with Revealed in Mist. I came across the excerpt below, and decided to share it with you. A moment of danger for my heroine; and this is only the first in a book of them.

Please share your excerpts showing your hero or heroine putting themselves at risk, whether physical risk, risk of rejection or scorn, or whatever you like. Here’s mine.

As soon as the key turned in the lock, Ella slid out of bed to find the chamber pot, and spit the remaining laudanum into it. She washed her mouth once, twice, three times. She had ingested a little—enough to further fog her brain, but not enough to douse the sharp flame of purpose. She had to get away. She had to escape. She had no idea why her brother and sister-in-law were keeping her alive, but she could not count on it continuing.

The room moved a little, wavering at the edges, and Ella wanted nothing more than to crawl back onto the bed and let the dreams come. Did it matter, after all? What good did it do to struggle?

No one in this village would help her, as she had found when they brought her out to display her before the squire and, on another occasion, the rector. She had been drugged both times, of course. She had been drugged these past four weeks. But when she told them, they patted her hand soothingly, looked at her jailers with sympathy, and went away shaking their heads.

But this evening, standing in the shadow of the curtain peering out to see the funeral goers returning to the house, she had seen him. Major Alexander Redepenning. Alex. Perhaps he was just a dream sent by the opium to torture her with hope, but if he were truly here, he would help her. She had to escape now. Tonight.

Alex was a stubborn, opinionated, arrogant fool—and what he had said to her last time they met still scalded her with shame and anger every time she thought of him. But he had known her since she was a child, and he would not abandon her to whatever the Braxtons planned.

She could not run away in her shift, but they had left her no clothes. A blanket? She could wrap a blanket around herself against the chill air.

If she could just open this window without making a noise… So. One obstacle overcome. She dropped the blanket to the ground below. Now she needed to climb from the second floor, dizzy and confused as she was, walk to the village, and find Alex. He would be staying at the inn, surely? He would not have gone on tonight?

She had heard he had been injured; seen the difficulty with which he had descended from his chaise, leaning heavily on his groom. He would not want to travel on tonight. He had to be there at the inn. He had to be willing to help her.

September 30, 2016 by judeknight

Globalisation ancient central Asian style

Not so much a road as a route, and only one of them, at that. Imagine a procession of heavily laden camels, donkeys and carts.

I’ve been fascinated for most of my life by the histories I didn’t learn at school. According to the wisdom I received from my teachers, enlightened thinking began with the Greeks, was codified by the Romans, and was resurrected after the Dark Ages in the Renaissance where it grew into the humanist and democratic beliefs that bubbled up in Europe in the 18th Century and reached its culmination is the set of beliefs and practices widely known as western civilisation.

(Gandhi was once asked what he thought of western civilisation, and said he thought it would be a good idea.)

This view, of course, completely ignores the fact that Europe was a backwater until at least the 16th Century, and all the time inventions and advances and discoveries in the rest of the world laid the foundations upon which Europe would later stand.

Let’s leave for today the great kingdoms of Kush, Nri, Songhai, and Asumite in Africa, the Olmec, Aztec, and Mayans of the Americas, Kutai, Khmer, Dvaravati in South East Asia. In the past months, I’ve been filling my head with the broad swathe of city-states, kingdoms, principalities, and empires that created, maintained, and thrived because of the Silk Road. Not so much a road, but rather a rambling plaided string of trade routes from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea by diverse ways.

This was the mixing ground of cultures, ideas (including religious ideas), new technologies, and products. Above all, products: silk, paper, and spices travelling West; carpets, jewels, drugs, metal, glass, and other trade goods travelling East.

To hear the Venetians tell the story, they started the whole thing. In fact, they were very late into the game. One of the main western arteries did come first, established in Persia. It was the old Persian Royal Road, with postal stations along the route. The pony express was nothing new. The Persian route was established close to 2,500 years ago.

2,250 years ago, an emperor of China, struggling to keep the horse nomads of the north out of his land, sent an envoy west looking for help. Zhang Qian’s expedition led to trade deals to purchase the larger faster horses the envoy found in central Asia. Silk for horses. The Chinese beat of their enemies, and settled down to consolidate the trade, while from the other end the Parthians (who now controlled Persia) were doing the same.

For 2000 years, the Silk Road was how China got its western goods, and places as far distant from China as England got its silks and spices. Then, in the 15th Century, the rising Ottoman Empire blocked European merchants from using the routes, impelling them to find a sea route. Columbus went west, and Vasco da Gama south. And the rest is history.

If you’d like to know more, this 10:30 minute video is entertaining and interesting.

Huh! How about that. I set out to write about the Kopet Dag mountains between Turkmenistan and Iran, and the place of their inhabitants in the silk routes, and I’ve got all excited about ancient history. Another time, perhaps. Meanwhile, feel free to look at the novella I have in the Bluestocking Belles 2016 box set. Called The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, it features as hero a young man who grew up in a small kaganate high in the Kopet Dag mountains. The link is to my book page, which in turn links to the first two chapters.

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