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Reading Sundays: THE MARRIED MAN (Part 11) a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

As 1915 turned into 1916, things didn’t improve. Father passed away, and Mother moved to Deptford, to stay with one of my sisters. When Beat suggested that her parents come and live with us, I agreed. I’d always been fond of Ma Hough, who was a good cook, and Pa Hough was quiet, and unobtrusive. By then, everyone was tightening their belts as the U-boat raids continued on Merchant shipping. My younger brother Sid got caught up in one of those torpedo attacks, when the boat he was on caught fire, and he was trapped there, breathing in the burning creosote. It damaged his lungs, but at least he survived. I hoped that having her parents around would be good for us economically, and restore Beat’s good cheer.

It didn’t work out that way. As time wore on, her parents gradually took Beat’s part against me, and so I began disappearing, often for weeks at a time. In 1916, conscription began, and I was assigned to the Labour Corps.

After the war, I found a job in Thurrock, to be near Emmy. My best course of action for avoiding Beat was to disappear, but Emmy was close to her family in Thurrock, and I couldn’t persuade her to leave without lots of explanation. On the other hand, it would be very convenient if my family thought I’d gone abroad, so that when Beat contacted them, if she did, they would have something to tell her of that nature. Fortunately, 1921 was also the year that my younger brother married. Sid found Doll,[image error] a sweet young woman down on her luck, and the following year they had a baby girl, Anita.

The last time I visited Sid in his modest home in Hook, Surrey, was in the summer of 1922. His lungs still bothered him, but now he had Doll to fuss over him, and Anita to give him a future. I placed a silver sixpence in my niece’s chubby hands, and said my goodbyes, hoping that this time when I disappeared, Sid would follow up on the hints I was dropping, about going off to Australia to start a new life away from Beat. [To be continued.]

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THE LANTERN BEARERS (DOLPHIN RING CYCLE #4) by Rosemary Sutcliff

[image error]THE LANTERN BEARERS is set roughly 300 years after her first, THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH in around 427 CE. 18-year-old Aquila is just starting out on life, and has spent a year as a commander of the Rhenus Horse Auxiliary Cavalry. What happens in the first few pages of this novel changes him for life, from an open-minded pleasant young man to someone who is not well-liked.

But Ms. Sutcliff has done such a wonderful job in showing us Aquila’s life both before and after, that even though he is not a likable character, one cannot help rooting for him.

By and by he acquires a wife and a son, but nothing can take away the awfulness of what happened to him. Eventually, however, he finds a certain kind of peace, and the last image of the book is both consoling and realistic. This book won the Carnegie Medal in 1959. More than just a fictional account of history, this book engages the reader at a deep level, forcing us to feel the agony of the difficult choices Aquila has to make. Five stars.

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FRONTIER WOLF by Rosemary Sutcliff (DOLPHIN RING CYCLE #3)

[image error]Rosemary Sutcliff’s FRONTIER WOLF concerns a young man, Alexios, who is in his early twenties. He is given the responsibility of commanding a unit in what is now Germany, but when the German hordes threaten his fort, he decides to leave.

It turns out to be a terrible mistake.

As punishment, he is sent north to what is now Scotland to command a unit known as the “Frontier Wolves”. Again, his fort is overrun by the local tribes, and he has to choose whether to stay or go.

As usual, Ms. Sutcliff’s wonderful prose lifts this novel beyond the ordinary, even though a great deal of the novel (like her others) has to do with the day-to-day ordinariness of everyday life. 5 stars.

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Victoria Holt’s MISTRESS OF MELLYN

[image error]Mistress of Mellyn really creeped me out. There I was sitting up in bed at midnight, the dark only relieved by the light from my iPad screen. And I really felt uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough to turn on my bedside light.

That is how good Victoria Holt’s writing is. She had me swept up in this Gothic romance set in Cornwall. Even though there were obvious references to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Wilkie Collin’s The Woman in White, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw,” nevertheless this story of the governess’s love for her employer and her attempts to solve the mystery surrounding his wife’s death kept me up. Until 4 am!

What is it about Victoria Holt that is so compelling? She immediately creates sympathy for her heroine by writing in first-person in such a way that we are in Martha’s head, and privy to Martha’s thoughts. And what does Martha think of herself?

“…my brown velvet bonnet, tied with brown velvet ribbons under my chin, was of the sort which was so becoming to feminine people like my sister Phillida but, I always felt, sat a little incongruously on head like mine. My hair was thick with a coppery finger, parted in the center, brought down at the sides of my too-long face…My eyes were large, in some lights the color of amber, and were my best feature; but they were too bold…”

Re-reading this passage in the light of the events that happen to Martha it is possible to see that she is a beautiful young woman. However, she doesn’t think she is, and that is what makes her so endearing to the reader. So we are invested in Martha from the start, and as we follow her on that train down to Cornwall, meeting an impertinent young man who pretends to read her hand:

“I see a child there and a man…perhaps it is the child’s father. They are wrapped in shadows. There is someone else there…but perhaps she is already dead.”

“It was the deep sepulchral note in his voice rather than the words he said which momentarily unnerved me.

“I snatched my hand away. “What nonsense!” I said.

He ignored me and half closed his eyes. Then he went on: “You will need to watch little Alice, and your duties will extend beyond the care of her. You must most certainly beware of Alice.”

“I felt a faint tingling which began at the base of my spine and seemed to creep up my neck. This, I supposed, was what is known as making one’s flesh creep.”

Here, Victoria Holt deftly drops in hints that all is not well at Mellyn House where Martha is to take up the post of governess. Is this young man just toying with Martha? Or should she heed his warning? And who is Alice? The little girl she is to take care of is called “Alvean.” The reader is intrigued and hooked, and turns the page wanting to find out more. If you have never read Victoria Holt before, you are in for a treat. Five Stars.

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Reading Sundays: THE MARRIED MAN (Part 10) a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

But Christmas 1914 wasn’t happy. Beat lost her baby, and was laid up for several weeks. It never occurred to me to reach out to my wife. She was seemingly content, surrounded by her female relations, and I thought I shouldn’t intrude. But if I have to pinpoint when a certain coldness seeped into our relationship, I would say that it dated from that time. Why Beat blamed me for stoically going to work every day, I’ll never know.

When she rose from her sick bed, my pretty wife was replaced by a termagant, who sniped at me from dawn to dusk. She chided me for dressing too noisily in the morning, for splashing water on the floor, for forgetting to clean the sink, for opening the door too loudly, or for messing up one of her precious napkins when eating. She would scold loudly, shrilly even, right there in front of company. People would drink tea, their faces averted, as she dressed me down. Occasionally, Ma Hough would attempt to intercede.

“Beat, dear,” she would say tentatively. “I’m sure Bob didn’t mean to upset you.”

But Beat always ignored her. “Just look at the mess he’s made,” she would screech. “You’d never think I’d spent all day scrubbing that floor. Look at the trail of mud he’s brought in. He never thinks about me, oh no, that’s definitely too much to ask.”

So I’d clump out of the house, and go to the Stanley Arms[image error] for supper.

“How’s Beat?” the Publican’s wife would ask as she brought me my food. “Still poorly is she?”

“Yes,” I would answer. “She’s not well. I don’t want to bother her.”

“What a good husband you are,” she would say, before returning to the other customers, while I sat there, wondering why I’d bothered to marry Beat at all.

As 1915 turned into 1916, things didn’t improve. Father passed away, and Mother moved to Deptford, to stay with one of my sisters. When Beat suggested that her parents come and live with us, I agreed. I’d always been fond of Ma Hough, who was a good cook, and Pa Hough was quiet, unobtrusive. By then, everyone was tightening their belts as the U-boat raids continued on Merchant shipping. [To be continued.]

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Rosemary Sutcliff’s THE SILVER BRANCH (DOLPHIN RING CYCLE #2)

[image error]THE SILVER BRANCH is set about 200 years after THE EAGLE. Marcus Flavius Aquila’s namesake grandson (called Flavius rather than Marcus) and his cousin Justin come across something that points to treason in the Emperor’s general staff. Young and naive, they immediately find a way of informing the emperor.

In what follows the cousins find themselves caught up in the messy politics of divided loyalties as the people who live in Britain put up a fierce resistance against the Saxon invaders.

If one could fault Rosemary Sutcliff’s writing craft, it would be to say that her characters are not very emotional, and that large things happen via small reactions. Which, of course, is very British. Or at least the way the British were famously so in the 19th and 20th centuries. But were the Romans like that? Or the Painted People? I somehow doubt it. While there is no doubt that some people are unemotional, I would say that the majority express their emotions quite vividly. And this is something that Ms. Sutcliff just fails to capture.

In THE SILVER BRANCH, which centers around the friendship of two young men, the emotions are muted as before. But in this context that seems to work. I think it worked less well between Marcus and his fiancee Cottia in THE EAGLE and between Aquila and his wife Ness in THE LANTERN BEARERS. I thought those scenes between a man and a woman whose lives are so closely bound together should have and could have been a whole lot more passionate. Especially as the women were both strong-willed and opinionated. Four stars.

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My sister & I have 5 relatives on the Mayflower…

[image error]As most everyone knows, today, 16 September 2020 is the 400th Anniversary of the departure of the Mayflower from Plymouth, England before it sailed across the Atlantic and made landfall in Massachusetts, in a place those settlers called “Plymouth Rock.”

I knew that I had American ancestors, because my grandmother Stephanie Treffry (whom some of you have met elsewhere on this website) was half American. Her mother was Mary Emelin Davis, daughter of George Washington Davis of Acworth, New Hampshire.

One day, about six years ago when I had nothing better to do, I followed the leaves on ancestry.com, that led me to the discovery that my sister and I have 5 relatives on that Mayflower. I was so sure that my American relatives had shown up on these shores in the Speedwell, or some other boat. But no. We are (despite our British accents & manners) American Royalty!

So who were our relatives?

They were ISAAC ALLERTON (1586-1659), great-grandson of Sir William Allerton of Allerton near Dartington, Devonshire. Unfortunately, Isaac was not the most moral person in the world. He is most famous for marrying Fear Brewster, the daughter of William Brewster, who became the leader of the new community in Massachussetts. And for bilking his fellow colonists of money.

But before he married Fear, he married MARY NORRIS (1588-1622), daughter of Sir Edward Norris of Rycote, Oxfordshire. Mary Norris  died on 25 February 1622 in Plymouth Massachusetts, after a harsh New England winter during which the colonists were near to starvation.

Also on the Mayflower, were their three children: BARTHOLOMEW (born 1612, and therefore around 7 or 8 years old), REMEMBER (born 1614, and therefore around 5 or 6 years old), and MARY (born 1616, and therefore 3 or 4 years old.) My sister and I are descended from little Mary, who died in 1699 at the ripe old age of 83, in Plymouth Massachusetts, the last surviving Mayflower Pilgrim.

You can imagine how astonished (and delighted) I was. Everyone loves to have famous ancestors, even those who don’t behave in ways we would wish…like King John the Bad (1167-1216).

But that is a story for another time.

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THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH (DOLPHIN RING CYCLE #1)

[image error]No-one knows what really happened to the Ninth Legion, the Hispana. All that is known is that it marched north into what is now Scotland to deal with the Painted People, and disappeared into the mists. A battered eagle, shorn of is wings is in the museum at Reading, having been found during the excavations of Silchester, formerly known as Calleva Atrebatum.

Out of these two facts, Rosemary Sutcliff has written a wonderfully resonant story about hard choices, bravery and the ways in which that bravery is rewarded. Or not. Along the way, she creates a protagonist who is a real hero, but does not see himself that way.

Marcus Flavius Aquila has only fragmentary memories of a father whom he adored. He lost that father at the age of 8, when, in 117 CE, the father marched north with the Ninth Legion and was never heard of again. Marcus wants to know what happened to his father. And out of that longing, Ms. Sutcliff spins a thread.

THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH is an impressively researched novel with lots of period detail to draw you into the world of the Roman Empire of circa 127 CE. But Ms Sutcliff is also a fabulous stylist who uses adjectives so brilliantly, you are glad she didn’t edit them out as we are so often told to do. Five stars.

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A fairy tale set in the years 1859 to 1870 in Germany…(ON THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTH MOON)

[image error]ON THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTH MOON by Victoria Holt is a fairy tale set in the years 1859 to 1870 in Germany. A young English girl gets lost in the mists and is picked up by a young man on horseback, who takes her to his hunting lodge for the night.

Too innocent to realize that he has ungentlemanly designs on her, she nevertheless locks her door at night, as instructed by an old woman, who appears to be the young man’s nurse.

Next morning, the old woman takes her back to her boarding school.

And there, things would have ended, except that he cannot forget her.

This plot bears some similarity to THE TIME OF THE HUNTERS MOON, also by Victoria Holt, but instead of a young man and his sister working to murder wealthy young women to inherit their fortunes, ON THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTH MOON is a tale of true love. Five stars.

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Reading Sundays: THE MARRIED MAN (Part 9) a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

“I’m forty-one years old and getting married for the first time tomorrow, on Saturday June 21, 1930. At least, that’s what I tell my wife-to-be. I wasn’t thinking of marrying Emmy, until Mother Nature took her course, and now my girl’s in the family way. Though Emmy’s a girl no longer, being over thirty, another reason for being a bit surprised at her condition.

At first, things weren’t so bad between Beat and myself. I enjoyed the status that comes with being a married man, the pay rise, the respect from my mates. I was never madly in love with my wife, I didn’t want that in a marriage. When Dora jilted me, I thought my life had come to an end. That’s actually how I came to marry Beat, she was there when I was feeling sore.

Beat and I got a small house right next to Southwark Park in Bermondsey, [image error]just a few doors down from my parents, and in those first few months of marriage, Beat enjoyed setting up house. Then she got in the family way. By that time, Britain had declared war on Germany, and everyone was excited by the thought of a good old fight with the Hun, sure that we, the greatest nation on earth, would prevail by Christmas.

But Christmas 1914 wasn’t happy. Beat lost her baby, and was laid up for several weeks. It never occurred to me to reach out to my wife. She was seemingly content, surrounded by her female relations, and I thought I shouldn’t intrude. But if I have to pinpoint when a certain coldness seeped into our relationship, I would say that it dated from that time. Why Beat blamed me for stoically going to work every day, I’ll never know.

When she rose from her sick bed, my pretty wife was replaced by a termagant, who sniped at me from dawn to dusk.

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