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Tea with a gallant teenage rescuer

The Duchess of Haverford examined her two sons as they waited for her to pour them a cup of tea each. To an outsider, they would seem totally at ease — Aldridge relaxed on the sofa, an amused twist to his lips and his cynical eyes fond as he teased his brother about the horse the boy had bought on a jaunt into Somerset; Jon laughing as he defended his purchase, suggesting warmly that the marquis’s eye for a filly blinded him to the virtues of a colt.

To their fond Mama, they appeared worried. Eleanor saw strain around the younger man’s eyes, and quick darting glances at her and then at his brother when Jon thought she wasn’t watching. Aldridge had that almost imperceptible air of being ready to leap to Jon’s defence in an instant; a watchfulness, a vague tension.

Aldridge’s cup was prepared as he liked it, and he came to fetch it from her hands, thanking her with a smile.

She would let them raise the subject, if that was their plan, but she did not intend to let them leave this room without knowing about the new addition to her nursery: a nervous withdraw little girl of three or four years old. “If she was a bumptious little lordling and not a poor trembling mouse,” Nanny said, “she could be one of my lads come again. Same shaped face and eyes. Same colour hair with the curls that won’t brush out. Their lordships have your eyes, Your Grace, and this wee sprite doesn’t, but I’ll tell you who has eyes just that colour: so close to green as never so.” Not that Nanny did tell the duchess. She did not need to. Those eyes were more familiar to Eleanor than her own.

She handed a cup to the younger son of the man with those eyes.

The child came from Somerset. Jon had brought her home in his curricle, leaving his groom to ride Jon’s horse and manage the colt. On finding out about the little girl, and learning that Jon had deposited her in the nursery and then gone straight out to search town for his older brother, Eleanor had been tempted to question the groom.

However, she wanted Jon to tell her the story.  Or Aldridge, perhaps. It was more likely to be his story than Jon’s, given the age of the child. Jon was only 19. Furthermore, it was in Somerset that a certain outrageous scandal blew up five years ago, resulting in the exile of the sons of two dukes: Aldridge to a remote Haverford estate in northern Scotland, and his accomplice overseas.

Nanny didn’t think the little girl was old enough to be a souvenir of Aldridge’s visit to the Somerset town, but her size might be a result of neglect. She had been half-starved, poor little mite. The bruises might be from falls or other childhood accidents. Nanny suspected beatings, which made Eleanor feel ill to think about.

She sat back with her own cup, and took a sip. As if it were a signal, Jon gave Aldridge another of those darting glances and spoke.

“Mama, I expect you’ve heard about Frances.”

Ah. Good. She was to be told the story. “Is that her name, Jon? Nanny didn’t know it, and little Frances isn’t talking.”

Jon nodded, and smiled. There was a sweetness to the boy that the elder never had, perhaps because he was a ducal heir from the moment of his birth. “She is a little shy, Mama.” His smile vanished and he frowned. “She has been hardly used, and for no fault of her own. I could not leave her there, Mama. You must see that.”

Eleanor arched one brow, amusement colouring her voice as she answered. “If you tell me her story, my son, we will find out.”

It was much as Eleanor already suspected, though the villain in the piece was neither of her sons. Lord Jonathan Grenford, arriving in Fickleton Wells to inspect and pay for the offspring of a horse pairing that he coveted, found that the whole town, except for the owner of the horse, gave him a cold shoulder, and no one would tell him or his groom why.

Only on the last night of his stay did he hear the story. He came back to his hotel room to find a woman waiting for him. “A gentlewoman, Mama, but with a ring on her finger, and quite old — maybe 30. I thought… well, never mind that.”

Aldridge gave a snort of laughter, either at Jon’s perspective on the woman’s age or at his assumption about her purpose.

Jon ignored him. “Anyway, I soon realised I was wrong, for there on the bed was a little girl, fast asleep. The woman said she belonged to Haverford, and I could take her. I argued, Mama, but I could see for myself she was one of us, and that was the problem. The woman’s husband had accepted Frances when she was born, but as she grew she looked more and more like her father.”

“He resented being cuckolded, I suppose,” Eleanor said, “Men do, my sons, and I trust you will remember it.”

Both boys flushed, the younger one nodding, the older inclining his head in acknowledgement, the glitter in his eyes hinting he did not at all appreciate the gentle rebuke.

“He took his frustrations out on Mrs Meecham, which she surely didn’t deserve after all this time when I daresay he has sins of his own, and on little Frances too, which was entirely unfair. Mrs Meecham said that if Frances remained as a reminder, the Meechams could never repair their marriage, and that she feared one day he would go too far and seriously hurt or even kill the baby. So I brought her home. Can we keep her, Mama?”

Eleanor looked at Aldridge, considering.

“She is not mine, if that is what you are thinking, Mama,” her eldest son told her. “She might have been, I must admit, but she was born fifteen months after I was last in Fickleton Wells. I’d been in Scotland for six months when Mrs Meecham strayed outside of her pastures again.”

Six months after the scandal, His Grace the duke had travelled back to Somerset, to pay damages to the gentlemen of Fickleton Wells who claimed that their females had been debauched. He had greatly resented being made a message-boy, and had been angry with his son and the females he had shamed for their indiscretions and beyond furious at the cuckolded gentlemen of the town for imposing on his ducal magnificence with their indignation. The mystery of Frances’s patrimony was solved.

“She is so sweet, Mama, and has been through so much. She needs tenderness and love. Don’t tell me I must give her to foster parents or an orphan asylum. I know His Grace will not be pleased, but…”

Eleanor smiled. “The problem with Fickleton Wells, Jon, as I’m sure Aldridge is aware, is that it is a Royal estate. Wales was mightily annoyed at what he saw as an offence against his dignity. He insisted on Haverford making all right.”

Jon’s shoulders slumped. He clearly thought this presaged a refusal.

Aldridge was seven years more sophisticated and had been more devious from his cradle. His eyes lit again with that wicked glint of amusement. Eleanor nodded to him. “Yes, Aldridge, precisely.”

Aldridge put down his cup. “Wales is not best pleased with His Grace at the moment. A matter of a loss at cards.”

Eleanor and her elder son grinned at one another, and her younger son perked up, looking from one to the other.

“Should one be grieved by the loss of a fostering,” Eleanor mused, “and take one’s sorrows to, let us say, a Royal princess who might be depended on to scold her brother for the behaviour of one of his favourites…” Eleanor stopped at that. Jonathan did not need the entire picture painted for him. He gazed at her, his eyes wide with awe.

“His Grace will not dare make a fuss. If His Royal Highness finds out that the very man he sent to save him from the offended citizens left a cuckoo in the nest of an esteemed leader of the community…”

“Precisely,” Aldridge agreed. “Mama, you are brilliant, as always.”

The duchess stood, leaving her cup on the table, and both boys . “Let us, then, go up to the nursery, and make sure all is well with your new baby sister.”

***

The foster-daughters of the Duchess of Haverford appear as secondary characters in the Children of the Mountain King series. The eldest, Matilda, is also to be the heroine of an associated (as yet unnamed) novella that is coming out early next year. The Fickleton Wells story was co-written with Mariana Gabrielle, and Aldridge’s co-rogue is her hero Nick Northope, later the Duke of Wellbridge and the hero of Royal Regard.

Aldridge, once he is Duke of Haverford, and Wellbridge continue to be friends and appear in Never Kiss a Toad, a co-written novel starring Sally Grenford and David Northope. We’re publishing it on Wattpad, and will be finished soon. Then back to the drafting board to lose more than half the words.

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We are all story tellers

I’m a story teller. It isn’t just what I do; it’s an intrinsic part of who I am. That said, it is a matter of degree. I’m more infected by the need to make stories of all I see, think, and experience than most, but to a degree, all human beings are storytellers. It’s part of our nature to seek patterns, to join things together in our minds in order to make sense of them, and what is that but a story?

We don’t experience life; we experience our story about our life, and in that story we are always the central protagonist. We may be the victim, the triumphant champion, the martyr, the beloved—we probably change roles depending on who we’re with, in fact. But we are the heroine of our own story.

It probably can’t be avoided, given we can never know all the facts. Our senses—even the instruments we make to extend our senses—can’t detect beyond certain wavelengths of light and sound. We know of animals with senses we cannot even name, and have to describe in terms of those we have: feeling sound or smelling light. Even with our limited range, we can’t handle the constant sensory bombardment, and have to learn to filter out what our brain classifies as unimportant, in order to comprehend what is left.

That’s why police interview more than one eye witness to a crime; why historians seek more than one contemporary account of an incident; why three people can each take a completely different message from a conversation, and all swear that their own is the only true report.

What we can do is avoid embellishing. I can only report the facts as I experienced them, but I don’t have to add to them (at least in real life—in story space, adding to them is my job).

What we can do is be gentle with one another. I tend to be cautious about telling someone else they are wrong, or suggesting that they lie. All I can say for certain is, ‘that is not how I experienced it.’

What we can do is remember that every other person on the planet has just as much right as us to regard themselves as the centre of their story, and those around them as the supporting cast, the characters dignified with personal names and backstories. I am the heroine of my own life, with my own personal romantic hero, friends, relatives, and neighbours. But to other people, I’m just part of the faceless crowd.

After all, that’s their story.

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Lighting London

‘The Blessed Effects of Gas Lights or a new method of Lighting as practised in Great Peter Street, London.’ Hand-coloured engraving published by S W Fores (50 Piccadilly, London) 10 November 1813. A humorous illustration of a group of men, a chair, floorboards and a dog being thrown upwards by an explosion from a gas pipe. Three men surround the blast exclaiming that gas smells, is poisonous and will kill many.

Until the 19th century, people going out at night needed strong moonlight, torches, or lanterns. In London, those enjoying an active social life would employ link boys with torches. The term derives from the word for the cotton tow (link) commonly used for the wick.

By the early 18th century, technology had progressed to oil lanterns, with fish oil and wicks. People carried lanterns, and some progressive businesses had a lantern hanging at their door to show that they were open. Certain types of business used red glass in their lantern, and to this day, areas where such businesses cluster are called red light districts.

In 1750, London installed a system of street lamps on important main thoroughfares. These were oil lamps, lit at dusk and dowsed at dawn by a lamplighter with a long brass pole with a flame on the end. To this day, London still has lamplighters (for their remaining 1,500 gas lamps). In 1760s, reflectors were added.

Oil lamps are supposed to have made the streets safer, though they gave little light and were as much as 65 yards apart. At least they were a bright point to aim for in the darkness, so perhaps lives were saved because fewer people strayed into dark alleys. Keep in mind the pools of deep shadow though, when you read of London prostitutes transacting their business up against a wall. It wasn’t necessarily the public display that we, accustomed to our never-dark cities, might imagine.

By the early nineteenth century, street lamps and lighted window displays had banished the worst of the night from the most public places.

The shop-keepers of London are of infinite service to the rest of the inhabitants by their liberal use of the Patent Lamp, to shew their commodities during the long evenings of winter. Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London During the Eighteenth Century, James Peller Malcolm, 1810,  P 383,

The first gas lights were on 13 posts set up in Pall Mall in 1807, and used several times during the next couple of years to demonstrate the feasibility of gas lighting. The pipes were made from musket barrels, and all thirteen lamps could be lit by sending a spark down the pipes.

As you’ll see from the cartoon that heads this post, people were skeptical, but by 1812, the first gas company had been approved, and plans were underway to light London. Westminster had lamps by 1813, Westminster Bridge by December of that year, and Piccadilly in 1814.

By 1823, 40,000 gas lamps covered 215 miles of streets. Gas lights were ten times brighter than oil, which still left some dark patches, but was at least an improvement.

Electric were still nearly 70 years away, but the darkness in which crime flourished had been driven back, at least a little.

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Quarrels on WIP Wednesday

The course of true love can’t possibly run smooth, or we wouldn’t have a story. Quarrels between the lovers are a standard part of most romances, and if not outright quarrels, as least misunderstandings.

This week, I’d love to see an expert where one protagonist is offended by or suspicious of the other. Maybe it isn’t an outright quarrel, yet. But we can sense one coming!

Mine is from Unkept Promises. Jules has returned home to find that the wife he hasn’t seen in seven years has moved in while he was away.

His little wife had grown. Not ‘up’ exactly. She was still a tiny creature, her head no higher than his chest, but no-one would take her for a schoolgirl now! Was it the modern fashions that gave her curves he’d not seen seven years ago—not a lush endowment but decidedly female?

Annoyed with her though he was, he could not deny that his body responded to hers, as if something primitive within him rejoiced in the link formed by their long-ago wedding and yearned to set seal to his claim. A physical lust. That was all. It could be ignored.

But the change in her was not only physical. She had been an endearing mix of child and adult. Her isolated life as the only child of a reclusive scholar had given her a wisdom and maturity beyond her years and the innocence of a much younger girl. Now she was a woman. Confident and in charge.

Which was extremely irritating, since she had placed herself in charge of his house! As he allowed his two daughters to drag him back upstairs and show him and Dan around their domain, he had to concede she was competent. No. More than competent.

He couldn’t complain about the changes in the nursery—new paint, shelves instead of trunks for books and toys, new furniture—sturdy painted furniture that would withstand much more activity than the rejects from the rest of the house that had been there before.

“Sit in Ibu Mia’s chair, Papa,” Ada commanded.

Marsha scoffed. “Not Ibu Mia’s. Papa is too big. Sit in Hannah’s chair, Papa.”

“Is Hannah looking after you while she is visiting?” Jules was not above finding out his wife’s intentions from his children, if he could.

“Hannah is not visiting. Hannah is our new nurse,” Ada explained. She was dragging his duffel bag from where Dan had dropped it by the door.

Marsha offered her morsel of information. “Hannah used to be nurse to our cousin Daisy, but Daisy has a governess now, so Hannah came to be our nurse.”

“And to look after Ibu Mia,” Ada corrected. “Hannah said Lord Henry said Ibu Mia could not travel all this way on her own. Is Lord Henry our grandfather, Papa? Hannah says he is.”

“Yes, sweetheart,” Jules confirmed. “Lord Henry is my father, so your grandfather.” Father had approved this trip, had he? He had never been happy about Jules’s irregular living arrangements, Jules was sure of that, though his letters were devoid of any criticism. Susan, Jules’s sister, was more direct in her letters, castigating him for leaving his wife for so long. They probably sent Mia to bring Jules to heel.

But he wouldn’t be leashed by her or anyone else, either.

 

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Tea with a bereaved aunt

When Mrs Watterson had asked for this meeting, she had seemed so nervous that the Duchess of Haverford had offered to meet her in the housekeeper’s sitting room, thinking the woman might be more at ease on her own ground. It had made no appreciable difference. The housekeeper sat bolt upright, not sipping from her cup, her knuckles white with tension, her voice strained as she tried to make conversation.

Mrs Watterson praised the baby, little Miss Matilda, reminding Eleanor that she would far rather be upstairs in the nursery than down here in the cluttered little room, where the furniture was overstuffed and the fire too hot.

Eleanor was discovering the joys of mothering a baby, and would have spent the whole day in the nursery with her little ward, had her duties allowed. The duchess was a mother twice over, but both the ducal heir and the spare had been taken from her at birth, handed over to a retinue of servants, and thereafter presented for a ceremonious inspection for a few minutes a day whenever she and they happened to be in the same residence.

When Aldridge was born, she had been so oppressed by her marriage and the expectations that crushed her, she had accepted the duke’s dictate: that aristocratic women had little to do with the children they produced for the well being of the title. By the time Jonathan arrived, she had recovered some of her confidence, but the pregnancy and birth, coming after years of miscarriages, left her frail both emotionally and physically, and her little boy had been nine months old when she wrested control of the nursery from the despot who had ruled there since Haverford appointed her in the early days of their marriage.

The woman had been gone for more than five years, and sweet little Matilda was in the care of her replacement: a woman chosen by Eleanor, with testimonials from people Eleanor trusted, and completely devoid of the physical attributes that were the only qualifications of interest to the duke when he interviewed a female for any position.

An apology dragged Eleanor’s attention back to the conversation. Mrs Watterson had finally begun to approach the matter that had her so anxious. “Forgive my impertinence, Your Grace,” she said, “but is it true that Miss Matilda… that her mother…?”

Seeing Eleanor’s raised brows, she rushed on. “I don’t ask out of idle curiosity, ma’am. It is just that…”

All suddenly became clear. Eleanor sighed. “One of the  maids? Or a villager’s child?”

Much of the tension rushed out of Mrs Watterson, expelled in a huff of air. “My niece, Your Grace. I would not have said anything, but…” Tears began to roll down the pale cheeks.

Eleanor patted her hand. “I shall help, of course. A pension. A place to live in a village where she isn’t known.”

Mrs Watterson shook her head, the tears increasing in volume. Eleanor suppressed a sigh for her lost afternoon with Matilda, and devoted her energies to soothing the housekeeper and eliciting the rest of the story.

It was a sad one, but one she had heard before during nearly fifteen years of marriage to the Duke of Haverford. Jessie, the orphaned daughter of Mrs Waterson’s only sister, worked for a neighbouring household. “I would not have her in this house, Your Grace, saving your pardon,” the housekeeper said. It did not save the girl. She was returning from an errand to the village when a gentleman (Mrs Watterson began ‘His Gr…’ then changed the word) overtook her on the road. He saw that she was young and pretty, and led her off into the woods on the side of the road. Having exercised what he regarded as his rights, he rode on his way.

Jessie told no one until six months later, when one of the maids with whom she shared a room noticed the swelling she had managed, until then, to conceal. Of course, she was dismissed, but her aunt found her lodgings in the village, and paid for her keep and the services of the midwife. “It was a hard birth, Your Grace,” Mrs Watterson explained. “Little Jessica survived, but my niece did not. I’m the only kin she has, poor little baby, and what is to become of her?”

Haverford had only just noticed Matilda, and had not been pleased. Eleanor had managed to threaten him in a way that did not cause his unstable temper to explode. Another of his by-blows in his nursery might be a straw too far, and when Haverford was angry, he cared nothing for consequences.

On the other hand, Matilda would benefit from growing up with another little girl of much the same age. The seven year age gap between Aldridge and Jonathan meant they both lacked companionship, except for that of their servants.

Eleanor temporised. “Where is the baby now, Mrs Watterson?”

“The midwife knew a woman who could feed her, Your Grace, having recently lost her own youngest. Mrs Fuller. It was the best I could do, ma’am, but I don’t want to leave her there.”

Eleanor didn’t blame her. Cold, neglect, and disease carried off Mrs Fuller’s children with alarming frequency. She was one of those woman that every village seems to produce — almost certainly not entitled to the honourable honorific, making a living for herself and her surviving offspring by serving drinks and food in the local tavern, and other more intimate services wherever a man with a coin might care to take her. Eleanor had tried to help the female into an honourable job, but whether she was too beaten down by life or just preferred earning her living on her back, the experiment had not worked out.

Eleanor stood. “Very well, Mrs Watterson. We shall visit Mrs Fuller and meet little Jessica. Then we shall see.”

She had, of course, already made up her mind. No need to tell His Grace this was another of his unwanted children. This time, she would not even wait until he noticed. She would simply announce that she had taken in another orphan to keep Matilda company. She would not discuss the child’s origins. As long as he did not feel she was censuring his behaviour, he probably wouldn’t care.

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Where marquesses came from

A castle on the Welsh marches.

The title ‘marquess’ (or sometimes ‘marquis’) reaches all the way back to the Carolingian monarchs, who appointed royal officials as military governors for their border provinces. (The Carolingians were the dynasty founded by Charles Martel that ruled much of medieval Europe. Charlemange, was one, as were the Kings of France and of the Holy Roman Empire when those two territories survived Charlemange’s Empire.)

These border provinces were called ‘mark lands’ or ‘marches’. The word was Germanic, from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning ‘edge’ or ‘boundary’.

The original Carolingian title for this military governor was markgraf, graf being the word for count. Because keeping the borders safe was a huge part of keeping the kingdom safe, the markgrafs were the most competent lords available, ranked higher than other grafs, and only a little lower than dukes.

The title came down to all the countries that the Carolingians once ruled, or that were influenced by Carolingian rulers. To this day, some provinces in Europe carry evidence of once being borderlands, including La Marche in France, Ostmark in Austria, and the entire country of Denmark (the borderland of the Danes).

As you can see from the table below, the title pops up in some form or other all over Europe.

It was imported to England in the 14th century. Up until then, the crown had appointed marcher lords. These were earls who governed land on the border with Wales (the Welsh marches) and Scotland (the Scottish marches — the monarchs of both Scotland and England relied on their marcher lords to keep the borders safe). Just as the margraves of the continent were more powerful than other counts, the marcher lords were more powerful than most earls, and governed more than one county.

The term marchis (as it was then) was introduced from France in the late 14th century. Shades of the old marcher lords survive in the English name for a female holder of the title or wife to the holder of the title: marchioness.

The French spelling became marquis, and that was the form most used in Scotland, but the usual English spelling is marquess, and that is now used today for marquesses of the peerage of Scotland and Ireland, as well as England.

Some sources say that marquess was the usual spelling in England by the 16th century, but many English marquises were spelling their title the old way all the way through to the end of the 18th century. I’ve heard quite a bit of discussion about which is correct for English lords of the regency period. In 1802, Debrett’s and other peerage books used marquis. By 1828, they’d changed to marquess. I’ve found both spellings in newspapers of that transition period.

That being the case, I’ve kept my Aldridge as Marquis of Aldridge, since he was born in 1780 and was a marquis from his cradle. His son Jonny will need to become a marquess, I think, in line with the change that had taken place by 1828, not long after his birth.

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Inspiration on WIP Wednesday

Writers are commonly asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” I might be asked that more often than many, since my brain teams with characters and plots. So this week, I want you to share your inspiration for a character, a plot, a scene, or something else for your story, and an excerpt from the story.

The scene below is near the end of my next newsletter subscriber story, Look Into My Eyes. Every two months, I give away a story with my newsletter. The subscriber only page now has links to eleven stories, and this one will make twelve. To subscribe, please fill in the form on the newsletter tab or in the right menu bar.

My inspiration was the song by Peter Sarstead, Where do you go to (my lovely), released 1969. My version is around 3,500 words long, and is set against the glittering world of the English ton just after the end of the Napoleonic war.

The end-of-season ball thrown by the Duchess of Fambrough — the current duchess, though one does not doubt the dowager assisted — will be the talk of Society long after the Season ends. Not for its appointments, or the excellence of the supper or the musicians, though these were fine, indeed. Not for the quality of the assembly, though the invitations had gone out to everyone of significance, and many who merely hoped they were.

No, the defining moments of the Fambrough ball came shortly before the supper waltz, when Lord Charming, arriving late but impeccably dressed with his usual elegant flair, strolled down the stairs into the ballroom, his arms full of roses, and marched straight across the floor, his eyes fixed on the Paragon herself.

Some say he had hailed the duke when that gentleman was riding in Hyde Park that morning, and that the two of them had spoken earnestly for close to half an hour, their horses pacing side by side. Others report he visited during the time for calls, carrying even more roses and attended by two footmen similarly burdened. The ducal house was not receiving, being consumed with preparations for the ball, but he left the roses behind when he departed.

So tonight was Lord Charming’s third encounter with the ducal household, and the assembled onlookers held their collective breath in order not to miss a moment of the drama that played out before them. The duke was between the viscount and his stepmother. His Grace moved to one side as she stood. The scandalous gentleman approached close enough to touch, and those close enough heard him say, “I promised you roses, Marie.”

Those who murmured at his familiar address were shushed by those around them. His lordship ignored them all as he handed her his roses. “These are from the rose garden at Welling. The plums are ripening on the trees. I had hoped to bring you cherries, but my gardener says they will be next week.”

These were not the loverlike words we expect from Lord Charming, and his expression was unexpectedly open. Serious, too, as was the lady’s.

“What of the conservatory, Rick?” she asked. Another murmur at the intimacy of first names, again subdued by ferocious gestures.

“We are owed clement weather, are we not? But it stands ready, Your Grace, to protect us through storms.”

The duchess looked up from her roses and their eyes met. Lord Charming moved to take Her Grace in his arms. “Will you honour me with a waltz, Marie?”

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Tea with Angel Kelly

Tolly advised against the meeting. He would deal with Miss Kelly’s problem. He quite agreed with Her Grace that Haverford ought to do something to assist the opera dancer, given he was the immediate cause of the  young female losing her job and needing to spend all her savings. Haverford would not, so it was for Tolly and Her Grace to intervene, as they had before. Her Grace should not speak to such persons herself, however. Tolly was quite firm on the subject, which Eleanor found sad, since his mother had been another such person.

Eleanor had insisted, so here was Miss Kelly, sitting in one of the smaller parlours at Haverford House, a delicate tea cup cradled in both hands.

She was exceptionally pretty; slender, with a heart-shaped face framed by dark curly hair, and blue eyes that were currently wide with wonder as she looked around the parlour.

The duchess allowed her a few minutes, until she overcame her curiosity and remembered her manners. “I beg yer pardon, Your Grace. It’s rude, it is, to be staring at yer things like this. I can’t be telling ye how grateful I am that ye agreed to see me.”

“I must also admit to curiosity, Miss Kelly,” Eleanor replied. “The gentleman who brought you here advised against my seeing you, but I ignored him.”

The question, ‘and why was that?’ sparked in Miss Kelly’s expressive eyes, but she simply repeated, “I am grateful.”

Eleanor leaned forward to examine the unfortunate consequence of Miss Kelly’s association with the Duke of Haverford, currently asleep in a basket at Miss Kelly’s feet. The little girl was well wrapped against the cold, but the tiny face was adorable. Dark wisps of curl had escaped from the knitted bonnet, and a tiny hand clutched the blanket, pink dimples at the base of each chubby finger.

“My friend tells me that you seek a home for the baby,” Eleanor commented.

Miss Kelly heard the question. “I cannot be taking her home, you see. I have a chance… There’s a man. He wanted to wed me when my Ma and Pa died, but I had my head full o’ dreams. He went home without me, but he’ll take me yet. He knows how it is for girls like me. He’ll not blame me for not being a maid, but — Patrick is a proud man, Your Grace. He’ll not raise another man’s babe. Or if he does, he’ll make it no life for her, and we’d finish up hating one another and the poor wee girleen.”

Eleanor could see the point. “So you will leave her behind.”

Miss Kelly must have assumed a criticism in that. “I’d keep her if I could, Your Grace, but here in London? How can a girl like me earn enough to support her and keep her with me? I want a good home for her; somewhere safe where she can grow up to better than her Ma. Then what happens to me don’t matter, so I might as well take Patrick as not. Better than another protector. Leastwise, if I get another baby in my belly, I’ll have a man to stand by me.”

As Haverford had not. He had turned his pregnant mistress out of the house in which he’d installed her, with a few pounds to ‘get rid of the brat’. Miss Kelly did not have to tell Eleanor that part of the story. She knew it well enough from past liaisons. Tolly proposed to find a childless couple who wanted a daughter to love.

At that moment, the baby opened her eyes, looked around with apparent interest, then fixed her gaze on Eleanor, or — more probably — on the diamonds sparkling in Eleanor’s ear bobs. The little treasure smiled, and reached up her arms, babbling an incomprehensible phrase.

Eleanor was on her knees beside the basket, reaching for the dear child before she thought to look up and ask permission. “May I?”

When she called for her secretary, thirty minutes later, little Matilda was still in Eleanor’s arms. “Ah. Clara. This is Miss Kelly. She will be staying in the nursery for the next few days. I need you to hire me a wet nurse and a nanny to look after Matilda after Miss Kelly leaves. I also want to purchase a smallholding in — Kinvara, was it not? It shall be your dowry, Miss Kelly.”

It was nearly five months before the Duke of Haverford discovered that the nursery, recently vacated by his younger son Jonathan, was once again occupied. He was moved to challenge his wife on her presumption, but her only response was tell him the child’s full name — Matilda Angelica Kelly Grenford — and to add that the scandal of her presence was long past, but the scandal of her removal would be ongoing. As his duchess and a leading figure in Society, the woman had the power to make the outrageous threat stick. He dealt with the impertinence in his usual fashion. He left, and never mentioned the little girl’s existence again.

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Honour, selfishness, and social groups

 

On one of my author discussion groups, someone has asked whether honour is a lost virtue for today’s readers. Her general thesis was something to the effect: In today’s society, every one is out for themselves, without thinking of the impact on others. This makes for selfish heroes in romance, who pursue their own wants and needs without thinking of others.

Honour doesn’t have quite the same ring to it for me. It all depends what it drives people to do. Do we agree with Richard Lovelace, poet of the English Civil War, who wrote, in To Lucasta, Going to the Wars, “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more”? To our ears, formed by the culture of our times, it sounds like he’s using honour as a convenient excuse to do what he wanted to do.

What about the touchy aristocrats of the eighteenth century, duelling — even killing — because of a perceived insult?

Or, in our own times, look at honour killings. A loved sister or daughter, murdered to restore the reputation of the family.

I’ve been thinking about this in the light of the hero I spent the last couple of days creating for a newsletter subscriber short story. I wanted someone almost ethereally beautiful and brimming over with charm and seeming confidence. He lives a life of hedonism, and appears to care for nothing and no-one, himself included. That isn’t the whole story, of course — he is a Jude Knight hero, and a fundamental decency is a given. But it got me thinking. He is not so much selfish as self-centred — an issue that afflicts some of my other heroes, and that they need to overcome for their lives to take a turn for the better.

I’ve long seen human behaviour in terms of care circles. People behave differently to those they regard as human (and for human, read ‘like them’). People will make tremendous sacrifices and do incredible tasks for those within their closest care circle. For most people, this is their partner, parents, and children. For others, it might be comrades-at-arms, or best friends. In the next circle out might be casual friends, and then (perhaps) work colleagues, or neighbours. Beyond that, depending on the person, are those of the same ethnicity, or belief system, or gender, or some other classification. Or, it might be, animals, or the amorphous network of life people most commonly mean when they say ‘the planet’. (The actual planet is not at risk from human activity, short of some as yet unknown technology for blowing it to smithereens — otherwise it will survive, even as a vaguely spherical inanimate object, with a crust of lichen covered rock and dead seas.)

Some poor unfortunates have a single care circle, and it comprises one person: them. But even those with an every increasing number of circles encompassing the universe still rank some circles closer than others.

In many historical novels, we leave the poor, people of colour, those with a different religion, even servants, outside of the care circles of our hero and heroine. Or, we include a single representative of those groups, or political action on behalf of those groups, as signs that the protagonist is morally responsible.

My protagonists do their best for others, but only because I have to make them that way. I don’t see it as a virtue, but as a part of being human ourselves. Virtue is stepping outside our care circles to look after those we don’t love. Those who ignore the problems of others just because they are not me or mine are a step closer to the other end of a continuum that leads to terrorism and genocide.

Thinking about honour has led to me to envisage another circle entirely. The brother who kills a sister for action that brings the family into dishonour (or the Regency father who claims to have thrown his daughter into the street for the same purpose) believes they are doing it out of care — care for other members of the family that overrides care for the ousted sister. Lovelace and the motor cycle gangs give me a different perspective. When we talk about honour, whether in the current day or the stories we love to read (and write), we see an ethic that transcends the care group.

I call it an ethic, but I’m not entirely sure it is ethical. At its base, honour is about being true to one’s sense of self — “I am the sort of person who…” the hero or heroine says, when they are impelled take a certain action, even if it hurts those close to them. Their honour circle includes those who agree with the value of being that sort of person, and who therefore support the actions.

So no, I don’t think honour is a lost virtue, because whether or not it is a virtue depends entirely on what it causes us to do.

What do you think?