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Tea with Aldridge

“Mama?”

At the sound of Aldridge’s voice, Eleanor, Duchess of Haverford composed her face, smoothing the slight frown that creased her forehead and forcing a smile as she turned from her desk to greet this beloved guest.

“My love,” she said, as he crossed to press a kiss on the hand she raised for him, and then on one cheek. The boy looked well. He had a spring to his step that had long been missing, his eyes were clear and bright, and his cheerful grin had lost the cynical twist so pronounced a bare few months ago—to her eye, at least.

Eleanor hoped what she had to say would not cast him back into melancholy.

Aldridge had been raised with the finest manners money could buy. He took the seat he was offered, complimented her on the success of her most recent entertainment, asked about the book her companion was reading, discussed the likelihood of rain on Tuesday next, and generally kept up his end of the conversation without once showing impatience or asking why she had sent for him.

He must be wondering, though. “Cousin Judith,” Eleanor said to her companion, “I would like a few minutes of private conversation with my son. Would you leave us, please? I will send when I want you.”

“What do you plan for that one, Mama?” Aldridge asked. Haverford had an army of indigent relatives, with nothing to do but hang on the ducal coat tails. Eleanor had long since formed the habit of taking the women one by one as companions, finding their talents and interests, and helping them into positions that suited their skills.

“Not, I think, a marriage, my dear. A library perhaps. She is happiest with her head in a book. Or, I begin to think, perhaps she might be persuaded to try her hand at a memoir or a Gothick. She writes the most delightful letters. I can see her living with Cousin Harriet in a comfortable little house, writing spine-chilling stories and having a most wonderful time.”

Aldridge chuckled. “Cousin Harriet, is it? The one that breeds dogs and hates men? Mama, you are a complete hand.”

“I collect that is a slang expression, Aldridge darling,” she said attempting to be disapproving, but twinkling back at him. He really was a sweet boy.

“You must be wondering why I sent for you,” she began.

He leaned over to kiss her cheek again. “Because you missed me?” he suggested. “I have neglected you shamefully, Mama, these past weeks.”

An opening. Eleanor took it. “These past six months, Aldridge. Since you took Mrs Winstanley into your keeping. You have been much engrossed, I take it.”

Aldridge sat back, his eyes suddenly wary. “I am sure discussing one’s mistress with one’s mother is not de rigueur,” he complained.

“Introducing one’s mistress to one’s Mama opens one to such comments, dear,” Eleanor teased, ignoring the subtle withdrawal evidenced in the suddenly bland voice, the stiffness of his posture.

As she’d hoped, Aldridge relaxed, a fleeting grin lifting one corner of his mouth.

But the matter was serious enough. “One hears remarks, my dear. Hostesses who lack the Merry Marquis at their affairs; gentlemen who must play their merry japes without their boon companion; even His Grace your father has commented you have abandoned your usual pursuits.”

“His Grace has no reason to complain. I do my work.”

“Yes, my love. You are an excellent manager. But, Aldridge, I am concerned.”

“You have nothing to be concerned about, Mama.” It would be an exaggeration to say her tall elegant son flung himself to his feet, but he certainly rose more quickly and less smoothly than usual, and then stalked with controlled deliberation to the brandy decanter she kept for him on the sideboard. “May I…?”

She nodded her permission, and he poured a drink while she decided how to approach her topic. It was harder than she expected. She yearned to tell him to do what pleased him, to stay in the fools’ paradise he was building with the lovely Becky.

But she could not ignore the duty owed to the young woman. Eleanor, who seldom allowed herself to feel such a plebian and useless emotion as guilt, was aware she should have given Becky the means to escape when they met six months earlier. She had quite deliberately put Aldridge’s need for Becky’s brand of comfort ahead of Becky’s evident desire to abandon the life of a courtesan. She did not feel guilty. But she did acknowledge a debt.

“You are not the one for whom I am concerned, Aldridge,” she said.

He had been studying his brandy, but glanced up at that, a quick look from beneath level brows before he drew them into something of a frown.

“Who, then?”

“Mrs Winstanley, dear. I am concerned for Mrs Winstanley.”

Another quick movement, this one sending the brandy sloshing in the tumbler, but he steadied his hand before it spilled. “No need, Mama. Becky and I are very happy.”

“You spend all your time with her, Aldridge. If you are not at her townhouse, she is in the heir’s wing. If you travel, she travels with you. Last time you went to Margate, you stayed with her in the town rather than at Haverford Castle.”

“You are very well informed, my dear.” Eleanor knew that cold ducal tone, but from her husband’s lips, not her son’s. Almost, she stopped. But no; she would do her duty; she had always done her duty.

She matched his tone with her own. “You employ Haverford servants, Aldridge. They answer my questions, as they should.” But this was not to the point. Better to just spit it out.

“If you continue as you are, you will break Rebecca Winstanley’s heart, Aldridge. She deserves better from you.”

Whatever he expected, that wasn’t it. He was too controlled to openly gape, but the muscles of his jaw relaxed. He recovered himself and took a sip of his brandy, gaining time while he thought. It was a trick she used herself.

“What can you offer her, Aldridge? A year? Two? And then what? You cannot marry her, of course…” Was that a flare of longing she saw, quickly suppressed? Merciful heavens, had it gone so far, then?

“You cannot, Aldridge. Even if we could find a way to conceal her past—and with the interest your marriage will attract, every tiny detail of your wife’s history will be uncovered and inspected—she is lower gentry, if gentry at all.”

“Lower gentry,” he conceded, reluctantly. “But what does that matter, Mama? Peers have married beneath them before. What of Chandos? Or, if you want a more recent example, Marquis Wellesley? ”

Eleanor struggled to show no hint of her alarm, keeping her voice level as she said, “And their wives have suffered for it, Aldridge. Their estates, too. You would be doing Mrs Winstanley no favour, Aldridge, even if her past did not come to light. And it would.

“Besides, your duty to your name precludes such an action. You will be Haverford. Your wife will be mother of the next Haverford.

“And consider your little half-sisters, who will only be able to overcome the circumstances of their birth if Society continues to pretend they are my protégées and not your father’s base-born daughters.

“You cannot marry your mistress.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but suddenly the fight drained out of him, taking, it seemed, his ability to stay upright. He sank into a chair, all the joy gone from his face leaving it bleak and lonely.

” I know, Mama. Truly.”

He fell silent again, cradling his brandy in front of his chin and staring into nothing.

She had to ask. “Does she seek marriage, my son?”

Aldridge’s short laugh was unamused. “Becky? Of course not. She has no expectations at all. Not even of common courtesy or kindness, let alone of being treated like the lady she is.

“And I am a scoundrel for taking advantage of that. Were I the gentleman I pretend to be, I’d set her up as a widow somewhere and leave her alone. After the life she has had…

“I doubt she would marry me even if I asked. She is grateful to me, but gratitude only goes so far.”

He glared at his mother. “But I will not give her up, Mama. We have the rest of this contract term, and another after that if I can persuade her to a second term.”

“I am not asking you to surrender your domestic happiness, my dear. Just to reduce it a little for Mrs Winstanley’s sake.”

Aldridge cocked one eyebrow in question, but said nothing.

Should she tell Aldridge his mistress was in love with him? She had seen them in the park:  Becky, her little daughter, and Aldridge—by chance as she returned from an unusually early errand and then deliberately several more times. Her son was so absorbed in the woman and the little girl he never noticed the stopped carriage where she sat observing the three of them together.

No. She would say nothing. If he had already considered the logistics of marrying the woman… “You will have to let her go, Aldridge—at the end of the contract, or in any case when you find a suitable bride. The parting will be much harder, for both of you, if she fancies herself in love with you.”

“Spend a few nights a week away from her, my dear. Let her know you are seeing other women. Help her to armour her heart against you, if you love her.”

“Love, Mama? Can Grenfords love? I like her. I respect her. I enjoy being with her. She makes me happy, Mama. Is that so terrible? I’m not sure I know what love is, but I know I don’t want Becky to leave me, or—worse—to hate me and stay.”

“I have every faith in your charm, Aldridge. You will be kind. You will be gentle. And you will do your duty by your mistress as you always do your duty in all things.”

As Eleanor always did hers, she reflected after her son left, and duty could be a cold and thankless  master. Aldridge would not soon forget her role in this day’s work, and Becky would be ungrateful if she ever found out. But it was for the best. She had to believe it was for the best—not just for the Grenford family and the Haverford duchy, but for Aldridge and Becky as well. She hoped it was for the best.

I wrote this piece for The Teatime Tattler two and half years ago, at the time I published A Baron for Becky. It gives a bit of backstory to what happens between Part 1 of that book and Part 2. Poor Aldridge. Poor Becky.

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An end and a new beginning

Yesterday morning, I wrote the final scene of The Realm of Silence, ending with those welcome and wonderful words ‘THE END’.

Not, of course, that the task is finished. I have a first draft, with plot threads still dangling, new ideas in the second half that need to be woven back earlier into the book, passages that make outrageous leaps and others that limp like a wounded snail — meandering, slow, and purposeless. The next task is a paper read through, and the book has been printed and is sitting waiting for me. I’ll make notes as I go this first time, but I won’t map anything.

That’s next. Story analysis. I’ll open the spreadsheet with my plot lines and all the other things I need to track, and I’ll read the book again, this time writing a brief synopsis of each scene and filling in the columns across the spreadsheet. Which plots were advanced? Which characters were involved? (And what were they called? — I have a bad habit of changing people’s names in mid-stream.) What is the hero arc for each of my protagonists, and how does it match the arc I planned when I began? If I’ve changed it, is it for the better?

Are the characters true to themselves? If not, how do I fix it? What about my secondary and background characters? Are there too many? Can I remove some, or fade them into the wallpaper? Are they real people with hints of their histories and personalities?

Once I have the storylines mapped, I can see what I’ve dropped or failed to resolve, or where an earlier hint or clue would help build tension. I go back through the draft, and use the spreadsheet as my guide to scrawl all over, giving myself instructions for the rewrite.

Which is just that. A rewrite. Scenes changed, expanded or cut. New scenes added. This is the point at which I add chapter breaks, because up until now I’ve only had scenes. Each chapter needs a lure to end on and a hook to start. I don’t much worry about length. A chapter is as long as it needs to be.

At last (and by end of January, all going to plan) I have a draft for my beta readers, and off the baby goes, out into the world, ready to face the critics. I hope.

My wonderful team of beta readers will have The Realm of Silence for  February and I’ll be back working on it, making final changes in response to their comments, in March. It will still need a copy edit and a proofread after that, but I’m aiming at publication in late April.

Meanwhile, I have created a hero’s journey and character interviews for the hero and heroine of my next book, written a plot synopsis, and begun to write. I’m going to follow the same process that finally got me going on The Realm of Silence — a first cut that is mostly dialogue, then a second pass to fill in the rest of story and give me a first draft. I’m aiming at 60,000 words for House of Thorns, which is for a Marriage of Inconvenience line for Scarsdale Publishing. It’s due to them on 1 March, so the first draft needs to be done by 10 February. With 5,000 words on the page so far, I’d better get writing.

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Twelfth Night, the end of Christmastide

The twelve days of Christmastide, celebrated with extravagant gifts in the Christmas carol, begin with Christmas day and end with the Feast of the Epiphany. The Epiphany was the day on which the Christian church remembered the ‘manifestation’ (which is what the word Epiphany means) of the Christ child to the Gentiles, in the form of the wise men, or Magi. Since at least medieval times, the Feast has been celebrated with gift giving in emulation of the Magi. And other party stuff. Those medieval types knew how to party.

Like all the great traditional Church feasts, the celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany begins the night before. AS did the Jews before them, the church counted (and counts) the new day as beginning at sundown, and  Twelfth Night Eve is part of Twelfth Day, just as Christmas Eve is part of Christmas Day, and All Hallows Eve (now called Halloween) is part of All Saints Day.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, the English Catholic tradition had long been buried under a mix of Puritan reforms and pagan accretions, but many of the medieval traditions survived. The king still offered gold, myrrh, and frankincense at the Chapel Royal at St James. Mummers paraded, masked balls abounded, wassailers saluted the apple trees and one another with hot spiced cider, and at parties, a king and queen for the day were chosen to rule the festivities, usually by the randomising method of who found a bean (king) or a pea (pea) in their slice of Twelfth Night Cake. In this blog post written for a Christmas blog hop three years ago, I show Avery Hall, Candle’s home, during a Twelfth Night Eve party.

Like most of the West, my household follows the Victorian tradition of presents on Christmas Day rather than spreading them through Christmastide or giving them on the Feast of the Epiphany, but one tradition we stick to is taking down all the Christmas decorations before sunset on 6th January. Not that we believe goblins will invade if we ignore the tradition. But still. That’s my job for tomorrow.

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Stubbornness, pride and other gagging devices in WIP Wednesday

Why doesn’t she (or he) just tell him (or her), we yell at the page, when a few words would solve the misunderstandings and end the book in a fraction of the time. And that’s why, of course. Without the hero and the heroine at cross purposes, at least in some respects, the story would be over, and where is the fun in that?

Our challenge as authors is to make the communication blockages realistic. We don’t want our heroes or our heroines too dumb to live or too prideful to bear. They need strong, sympathetic, and realistic motivation to avoid giving the person they love the information they need to hear. And oh, how we can torture them in the meantime!

So this week, I’m inviting you to give me a scene where two of your characters are talking past each other, and not saying what they mean. Mine is a scene from quite near the end of The Realm of Silence, the title of which comes from a quote about this very issue. ““I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved… the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.” George Eliot

“Gil, David wishes me to go to London to describe what I saw at the tower.”

Gil sucked his upper lip between his teeth, his face otherwise expressionless. “You will want to get home to your children. You should go.”

“I do not wish to leave you.” Ever. I do not want to leave you ever, you stupid man. You wonderful, confusing, stubborn, stupid man.

“I am in good hands. Chloe and Flora — yes, and Nanna and the girls — are martinets in the sick room, and I shall be back in top form in no time.”

He wasn’t hearing her deeper messages. She should take her dismissal in good part. Their idyll was over before it had begun, and she had promised herself that whatever he could offer would be enough.

“You think I should go, then.”

“I wish you could stay, goddess.” For a moment, his eyes flooded with something that spoke to the longing in hers, but then he shuttered them. “But it is best that you go.”

The following morning, Susan came to Gil’s new quarters to bid him goodbye. The sisters had transformed a screened porch into a comfortable half-bedroom half-sitting room for an invalid. He was sitting up in a chair set in a flood of sunbeams, and the heat would soon have him pushing the rug Moffatt had insisted on off his knees.

Damnable weakness. He yearned to be well enough to go with her — to string their time of closeness out by a few more days. Instead, he set himself to make a clean break of it, for her sake as well as his.

“I’ve come to say goodbye, Gil,” she said. “Or farewell, I hope. Goodbye sounds so final.”

It did. It sank like iron into his soul, tying his half-formed hopes in chains and sinking them fathoms deep. “We will always be friends, goddess,” he said, some of the ice in his heart leaking into his voice despite his best intentions.

Susan blinked rapidly and her own face stiffened, her bland Society hostess expression forming between him and what she really thought. “Of course we will, Rutledge. I am so pleased we have had this time to get to know one another again.”

Gil cast about for something to say. Something that would soften the parting. “Thank you for coming with me to meet Chloe, Susan. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

It was the right note. The tension in her eased a little, though the mask was still in place. “Your nieces are delightful, and Chloe is stronger than she thinks. You will all do very well, I think.”

“I would have made a ham-fisted mess of it without you.” As he would, undoubtedly, of the rest of his life.

She must have heard the wistful note he could not repress, because she hesitated, examining his face.

Behind her, Chloe appeared at the door. “Susan? The little girls hope you will come up and say goodbye before you go.”

Susan considered Gil for a moment more, then looked over her shoulder at his sister-in-law. “Yes, Chloe, I’ll be right there.”

Chloe withdrew and Susan faltered and then seemed to make up her mind, crossing the room at a rush and bending to kiss Gil’s cheek. He clutched the rug to anchor his hands, which threatened to break free from his control and seize her, and never let her go.

“Come to me in London, Gil,” she commanded, her voice ragged. “This cannot be finished.”

“If you need me, I will come,” he promised, even as he shook his head.

She straightened, biting her lips until they were white, then turned and hurried out of the room, but not before he had seen the tears in her eyes.

What a bastard he was, making her cry.

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Tea with [Insert your character here]

The Duchess of Haverford is resting from her New Year’s Charity Ball by planning her social calendar for the coming year. “Take dictation, please, Emmaline,” she says to the poor relation who is currently acting as her secretary, until such time as the duchess finds her a husband, a career, or a hobby fitted to her talents.

“The Duchess of Haverford invites authors from throughout the fictionsphere to send their characters to her regular Monday for Tea afternoons,” she begins, and Emmaline obediently writes the words down. Eleanor holds up a hand to stop Emmaline’s pen, as she explains, “I have had people from the far past and the distant future, even from a time after any of the authors are themselves in existence. How it works, Emmaline dear, I do not know. But it is very exciting.”

She gives a wave to indicate that Emmaline might record what she says next. “Please send Jude a note through the contact page on her website, with the date of your preferred Monday and, if you will, the name of the book you are promoting and the character or characters who will visit.”

She pauses, gathering her thoughts. “For the post, Jude will need a purpose-written piece that can be no more than a few paragraphs or up to 1000 words, in which your characters and I hold a conversation over a cup of tea or the beverage of their choice. If you wish, Jude and I can arrange a time and place to write this with you.”

Another aside to Emmaline. “We have a little space on Facebook we cowrite in. Don’t write this down, Emmaline dear. Facebook is a most peculiar fictional space where very little is as it seems, but Jude enjoys it. On the other hand, many writers prefer to simply produce their own piece after reading about visits from previous weeks, and that is perfectly all right. I have, occasionally, had to edit words that have been put in my mouth, but that is to be expected and I do not at all mind.”

She gives her skirts a flick to settle them more becomingly around her. “I look forward to entertaining your characters, and to promoting your book. Yours sincerely etc etc. Eleanor Haverford. There. That should do it.”

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No looking back, no promises

Okay, I can learn from past errors. Last year’s letter to 2017 had exactly the opposite effect I intended. Instead of responding to my pep talk and improving over 2016, 2017 managed to exceed 2016’s ill effects in every way. Let’s not even go there.

Instead, let’s look forward. Here are my wishes for the coming year.

On a personal note, I hope 2017 will bring good health to me and mine. Above all, I pray for health, happiness, and peace within my family.

I look forward to the opportunity this year, as I untangle and resolve a mass of health issues, to spend more time with friends and less time just completing the next item on my daily lists.

But I love those lists. Thanks to them, in the worst year I have ever experienced, I’ve still kept up with the day job, published one novel and almost written another, published two lunch-time read collections and two other novellas, one new, and had novellas in three co-authored boxed sets. I haven’t done much else, but I have done that.

My target for 2018 is ten thousand words a week on a first draft of something. That’s around ten hours original writing a week, which is feasible. In 2017, I managed around half that. (Did I mention it has not been my favourite year of all time?)  But with better health and less stress, I’m hopeful I can do the ten thousand words, which will split out something like this:

  • the last 12,500 needed to finish The Realm of Silence
  • 60,000 for House of Thorns, a marriage of inconvenience story
  • five original anthology stories of between 15,000 and 20,000 words each for four different groups of authors
  • 40,000 to 50,000 more words to expand The Bluestocking and the Barbarian into a full-length novel
  • 80,000 for Concealed in Shadow, the sequel to Revealed in Mist
  • 80,000 for Unkept Promises, the fourth Golden Redepenning novel, which tells Mia’s story
  • 30,000 in subscriber-only newsletter stories, one every two months.

So that’s just under 400,000 words, leaving me a little in the tank for another project I have in mind, and for the things that steal time from beleaguered authors, such as selling the house we’re in, since we want to downsize before the end of the year.

I’m not going to say that’s the plan. Far be it from me to make an actual plan! And it certainly isn’t a promise. But it’s feasible, isn’t it? Bring on 2018, I say.

 

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The year without a summer

The volcanic gases and particulates in the atmosphere led to spectacular sunsets, such as those later painted by Turner.

In 1816, after an unusually severe winter, the United Kingdom experienced ‘a summer more unseasonable than any former one in my remembrance’ (from correspondence between Susan Farington and Antony Hamond). Nurseryman Samuel Curtis called it ‘the most unpropitious season ever remembered’, and diariest Pegge Burnell called August ‘a most unseasonable month’, describing it elsewhere as ‘dismal, wet, and cold’.

Various studies in the United States, England, and Europe have concluded that this was more than regular climate fluctuation, although winters in the last decade of the eighteenth and early part of the century had been exceptionally cold. Sunspot numbers were down; volcanic activity was up. And then, in 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted in the largest volcanic eruption in, perhaps, thousands of years. For hundreds of miles, the sea was covered in pumice. Ash darkened the sky so that candles were needed throughout the day, and even with candles, people could see only a few metres. Tens, and perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people died. And high in the atmosphere, tonnes of sulfur dioxide thrown out of the volcano turned in sulfuric acid, making an aerosol that would block incoming solar radiation for years to come.

It took time for the effects to reach the other side of the world, but the record shows that the spring, summer, and autumn of 1816 were exceptionally wet and cold, with frequent storms and floods. Harvest failed in the United States, Britain, and across Europe and Asia, leading to famine on a wide scale and starvation among the poor. In China, peasants turned to growing opium in order to make money, and the boom in production led in time to the Opium Wars and the opium trade that still exists today.

In England, people were already suffering severe hardship and food shortages because of the long years of war, harsh economic policies that favoured the wealthy, and the vast mass of unemployed swollen by more than 400,000 men from dismissed from the army and navy after the war. Adding a volcanically enhanced winter to the mix was devastating.

…despite the long run of generally cold wet conditions experienced in the 1810s, extreme weather recorded in the spring, summer and autumn months of 1816 may have been ‘truly exceptional’ and ‘of a degree for which it is reasonable to invoke an external forcing mechanism’ (Sadler and Grattan 1999, 187).

Our sources also add further evidence in support of 1816 being a difficult year for many people across the UK. In Upper Annandale (Dumfries and Galloway), the correspondent to the Farmer’s Magazine (17, 483) described a year ‘having neither spring, nor summer, nor harvest’ and our sources too emphasise the need to recognise a sequence of unusual weather, most of it unfavourable for agriculture, within 1816. The weather hampered agricultural (and other outdoor) work, and harvests of grass, grain and vegetables were of poor quality and quantity. There was a shortage of fodder and livestock was lost in floods or heavy snowfall in some places. Storms and floods uprooted trees, and damaged homes and other buildings. Normal routines were disrupted and travel difficult. An impact on physical and emotional wellbeing is also inferred. [Veale, Endfield. Situating 1816, the ‘year without a summer’, in the UK. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geoj.12191/full]

(I am researching conditions in summer 1816, because my next book, House of Thorns, take place at that time.)

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Where to start on WIP Wednesday

When I write, I have trouble starting at the beginning, because I have to find it first. In life, all beginnings continue from an earlier story, and all ends transmute into a later story. But in fiction, we need to start each book and each chapter at the beginning. At that point in time and space where at least one of the characters we care about is revealing their story, and making it matter to us.

Dear fellow authors, share a beginning with me and the blog readers, if you would. Something from a current work in progress. The start of a chapter or perhaps the start of the whole book. Mine is from The Realm of Silence, and it is the first scene in the book. At least, it is at the moment. Anything could happen in edit.

Stamford, England

1812

Gil Rutledge sat in the small garden to the side of the Crown and Eagle, and frowned at the spread provided for him to break his fast. Grilled trout with white butter sauce, soft-boiled eggs, grilled kidney, sausages, mashed potatoes, bacon, a beef pie, two different kinds of breads (one lightly toasted), bread rolls, a selection of preserves, and a dish of stewed peaches, all cooked to perfection and none of it appealing.

Two days with his sister, Madelina, had left old guilt sitting heavy on his stomach, choking his throat and souring his digestion. And the errand he was on did not improve matters.

He cut a corner off a slice of toast and loaded it with bits of bacon and a spoonful of egg. He was too old a campaigner to allow loss of appetite to stop him from refuelling. He washed the mouthful down with a sip from his coffee. It was the one part of the meal Moffat had not trusted to the inn kitchen. His soldier-servant insisted on preparing it himself, since he knew how Gil like it.

No. Not his soldier-servant. Not any more. His valet, butler, factotum. Manservant. Yes, his manservant.

Gil raised the mug to the shade of his despised older brother. “This is the worst trick you’ve played on me yet,” he muttered. The viscount’s death had landed the estranged exile with a title he never wanted, a bankrupt estate, a sister-in-law and her two frail little daughters left to his guardianship but fled from his home, and an endless snarl of legal and financial problems. And then there were Gil’s mother and his sisters.

Lena had at least consented to see him; had assured him that she no longer blamed him for her tragedies. Her forgiveness did not absolve him. He should have found another solution; should have explained better; should have kept a closer watch.

With a sigh, he took another sip, and loaded his fork again. The sooner he managed to swallow some of this food, the sooner he could be on the road.

Beyond the fence that bordered the garden, carriages were collecting their passengers from the front of the inn. Stamford was on the Great North Road, and a hub to half of England, with roads leading in every direction. As Gil stoically soldiered his way through breakfast, he watched idly, amusing himself by imagining errands and destinations.

Until one glimpsed face had him sitting forward. Surely that was Amelia Cunningham, the goddess’s eldest daughter? No. This girl was older, almost an adult though still dressed as a schoolgirl.

He frowned, trying to work out how old little Amy must be by now. He had last seen her at the beginning of 1808, just before he was posted overseas, first to Gibraltar and then to the Peninsular wars. He remembered, because that was the day he parted with the best horse a man had ever owned. More than four years ago. The goddess had been a widow these past two years and Amy must be— what? Good Lord. She would be sixteen by now.

He craned his head, trying to see under the spreading hat that shielded the girl’s face, but she climbed into a yellow post chaise with a companion — a tall stripling boy of about the same age. And the woman who followed them was definitely not the goddess; not unless she had lost all her curves, shrunk a good six inches, dyed her golden hair black, and traded her fashionable attire for a governess’s dull and shapeless garb.

No. That was not Susan Cunningham, so the girl could not have been Amy.

The door closed, the post boy mounted, the chaise headed north, and Gil went back to his repast.

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Tea with Sally

Sally Grenford roamed the room, bewildered by the way it mixed familiar and unfamiliar. The note had invited her to take tea with her grandmother this Christmas afternoon, and she recognised many of the room’s appointments as treasures her grandmother kept in her private sitting room. But many were also missing; gifts she and others had given Grandmama, the experimental dagguerreotype of her and Jonny that Papa had commissioned as part of an investment in the new process, keepsakes from the merchant wanderings of the Winshires.

The proportions of the room were familiar, too, but not from the palatial townhouse where Grandmama lived with her second husband. No, Sally could swear that this was her own mother’s private suite, though from the window all she could see was fog with an occasional swirl of snow.

The portrait of Grandmama over the mantel belonged in the portrait gallery, where it had hung for as long as Sally could remember. Longer. Since Mama became Duchess of Haverford and Grandmama married her second duke, and became Duchess of Winshire.

A stir at the door had her turning, and there stood the woman in the portrait. The self-same woman. Her grandmother, but as she had been nearly thirty years before. This duchess stood to one side of the door, allowing a small troop of maids and a butler to hurry in and out setting up a side table with tea makings.

Both the duchess and Sally waited until they completed their tasks and left the room, then Sally took a tentative step forward. Familiar, but not familiar.

“Grandmama?” she asked.

The duchess hurried forward, reaching with both hands for Sally’s and in moments Sally was enveloped in Her Grace’s familiar scent, hearing the voice she had loved since before she could speak.

“Lady Sarah Grenford. You are my granddaughter, are you not? My dear, when I saw the name I hoped so much — Aldridge’s or Jonathan’s? But let me look at you. Yes, there are the Haverford eyes, and I see something of my boys about your chin. I’ll warrant you are stubborn.”

“What is happening?” Sally asked. “Where am I?”

The duchess led Sally to the sofa next to the tea table, and they sat, the duchess still holding Sally’s hand. “It is odd, is it not? I have quite recovered from being unsettled by the different people who visit me on a Monday afternoon, from many different places and times, Sarah, and I have no idea how or why. I see the names on the invitation and then they appear here in my room at Haverford House. But you have not told me whose daughter you are, dear.”

“Haverford’s,” Sally explained. “Aldridge in your time, of course.” She nodded at the portrait. “But Haverford long before I was born.”

“He finally married then. I am so glad. And so tempted to ask for more detail, but one must not, of course. Just tell me, dear, has he found love? Is he content with your mother? Oh dear. Do not answer that. What a question to ask a child!”

Sally laughed confident of the answer and delighted to reassure her grandmother, whose rattle of conversation made her more familiar by the moment. “Papa and Mama deeply love one another, and are never happier than when they are together.”

Papa had been a rake and a scoundrel when he was young, by all accounts, but Sally could not imagine him loving anyone but Mama.

The duchess gave a pleased sigh. “Then I shall be patient. It will be easier knowing that he will marry, and happily. And a beautiful daughter, too!”

“And a son.” Sally was five years older, but Jonny, the Marquis of Aldridge, was the pride of the house. Sally mostly didn’t mind.

Another pleased sigh. “Excellent. Your papa must be very proud. Now, dear, tell me what you have in your hand. Something you have brought to show me?”

On receiving the summons, Sally had picked up her favourite Christmas present; perhaps the best Christmas present she had ever received. It was not just because that the box of precisely engineered mathematical tools was exactly what she wanted, though she had not felt the lack until she unwrapped them. It was also — even mostly — that the boy who held her heart had known, acknowledged, and respected her passion for understanding the infinitely wonderful universe of numbers.

“Look, Grandmama,” she said, opening the box on her lap, eager to share. “Look what David Abersham gave me.”

Sally’s Grandmama is in 2011. Sally is fifteen, and is visiting from  1838, on the afternoon of the Christmas morning featured in God Help Ye, Merry Gentleman, the story that starts the collection of the same name, which Mariana Gabrielle and I released just before Christmas. For blurb and buy links, click on the title.

Excerpt from God Help Ye, Merry Gentleman

As she began unwrapping the first box, he murmured a bit closer to her ear, “Have you found all eight, then?”

Blushing, and with a quick glance at her parents, completely immersed in discussion with the Wellbridges, she whispered, “No, not yet. But I will.”

“I will give you the key if you promise to never ask me another question about any of it.”

“I do not need to give up my questions, for I shall find the latches without your help.”

Toad rubbed his right hand over his face and groaned. “Of course you will.” He brightened, though, as he added, “But I am afraid your questions must wait, for Etcetera and I ride out this afternoon to my cousin Smythe’s place.” Another of their set at Eton. “We will return next week for your mother’s ball, but I’d like to see my aunt and uncle and cousins before I go off to school.”

Sally sighed. “Of course, you must go, and I hope you will remember me to Lord and Lady Ostelbrooke. But we only have such a short time left before you go away to school.” She stopped herself a second too late. She mustn’t whine. She mustn’t impose herself on his time, or annoy him.

“I’ll not neglect you, Monkey. I promise. On my return, you shall have first pick of every moment of every day before I leave. And you’ll hardly know I am gone, with all the activities your mother has planned.” She hardly wished to consider what sorts of activities he, Smythe, and Etcetera had planned, once outside their parents’ purview.

“You are right, but I will miss you, Toad.”

“I will be back in no time.”

She opened the top box, a finely wrought wooden case with brass latches, that opened on three hinged tiers of mathematical instruments, a full set of more than two dozen items also wrought of brass, each piece engraved with her initials and set snugly in its own velvet-covered place.

“I found them in Germany.”  Running his finger along the side of the box in a way that made Sally shiver, Toad offered, “They are Swiss, so of course, they are as precise as can be.”

Sally couldn’t explain why she had to suddenly blink away tears. It was such a functional gift. Not something frilly or girlish or decadent, like practically every other gift she’d ever been given in fifteen years. But something that acknowledged her intellect; acknowledged and applauded the love of numbers that others, even Papa, found inexplicable and unfeminine. That Toad should give her such a gift moved her, soul-deep.

“Toad, I… thank you. I think I shall surpass Mr Galbraith’s knowledge of mathematics with these at hand.”

“Then the other box will see you the first woman admitted to Oxford.”

Something in her chest was shifting with every word he said, and she couldn’t explain it. It was seismic—and perfectly right in every respect. And completely foreign.

by

Be joyful! It’s Christmas!

As the United Kingdom and then the United States and Canada wake up to Christmas Eve, here in New Zealand we are watching the sun go down with Christmas Day just a few hours away.

In our local parish, the vigil mass is over, which I reckon means Christmas is here, and certainly by the time you read this, I’ll either be at church or putting the finishing touches to the dinner.

So here’s the joyful song that sums up how I feel about Christmas.

It is an ancient Latin hymn, with the lyrics below (rough English translation after).

Gaudete, Gaudete!
Christus et natus
Ex maria virgine,
Gaudete!

(Rejoice, Rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the virgin Mary,
Rejoice!)

Tempus ad est gratiae,
Hoc quod optabamus;
Carmina laetitiae,
Devote redamus.

(It is now the time of grace
That we have desired;
Let us sing songs of joy,
Let us give devotion.)

Deus homo factus est,
Natura mirante;
Mundus renovatus est
A Christo regnante.

(God was made man,
And nature marvels;
The world was renewed
By Christ who is King.)

Ezechiellis porta
Clausa pertransitur;
Unde lux est orta
Salus invenitur.

(The closed gate of Ezechiel
Has been passed through;
From where the light rises
Salvation is found.)

Ergo nostra cantio,
Psallat iam in lustro;
Benedicat Domino:
Salus Regi nostro.

(Therefore let our assembly now sing,
Sing the Psalms to purify us;
Let it praise the Lord:
Greetings to our King.)

Merry Christmas to you all.