Lucinda Elliot's Blog, page 39

Kenrick – Ooh, he’s rebarbative!

I loved creating the villain of the piece, Kenrick. His lank hair, his glassy eyes, his florid complexion, his habit of drooling on pretty young woman’s hands, his dirty mind, his loud guffaws at the jokes he tells that nobody else finds funny.

He was a delight to write about.  I don’t think many other vampire are greedy about trifle and insists on wearing glasses because he has the sentimental attachment to them that he doesn’t forany living human.

Sometimes he giggles – as when he nips at Sophie’s hand ‘like a playful, unattractive puppy…giggling almost coyly’.

He’s pretty nasty altogether – when he’s taunting Emile outside Plas Cyfeillgar he repeats the inevitable rumours about Sophie’s hasty marriage to her grand relative; – ‘Is there really to be a premature heir? Did you pull up her skirts by way of diversion in this out-of-the-way place?’

Worse, he mistakenly assumes the worst of Emile’s taking young Katarina from Kenrick’s own, dismal household, and though he knows her to be barely in her teens, dismisses this; – ‘I would not fall out with one who may be so useful to me over a scullion.’

Emile takes the view that Kenrick, whom he and his cousin Lord Ynyr knew in childhood was ‘Ever a cold fish’. Lord Ynyr remembers him as ‘comparatively jolly’.

All agree that he was been devastated by the death of his wife over in Transyvlania – though the lusty Emile of course, own mouth waters at the thought of his new one, Ceridwen.

I also thought it would be intriguing to create a sort of totally unattractive Heathcliff who obsessively mourns the loss of his true love and cannot reconcile himself to life without her.

Kenrick, with his interest in what we call science, and what at that time was called ‘Natural Philosophy’ is determined to reverse the natural passage of time if need be in order to achieve this reunion.

That is some obsession, love – whatever one cares to call it, but it is hard to symptathise with a character quite as unappealing as Kenrick (only one reader has, so far).

He doesn’t have the looks to be seen as a ‘Byronic Anti Hero’ and has even called into question the forcefulness of his passion for his first wife by marrying Ceridwen,having first got rid of her first rakish husband in the time honoured manner…

If he ever felt passion for her, he doesn’t now, and Ceridwen clearly finds him unappealing. Now a Woman Vampire herself (a vampire who likes a nice drink of blood but doesn’t have to sleep in a coffin, etc pleases herself with a whole string of hunks – the dark, dashing heroic naval Captain Alek MacKenzie, her footman, Arthur Williams, and Emile.  But she is useful for his plans, able to draw in accomplices as she is.

Sophie develops as the story goes on…

To continue then, with Sophie; I always see her as being, like Lucie Manette in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ the embodiment of loving kindness. Unlike Lucie Manette, though, she is a female character who the author wanted to show developing in independence as the story goes on.

She starts off submissive (as becomes a true Regency heroine) foolishly romantic, beguiled and in awe of her rich relative Émile Dubois, for so long her hero for his determined attempts to save his parents in France.

In true Gothic style, Émile on marrying Sophie takes her off to live with him in an isolated mansion staffed by brigands (in his case, fellow villains from his highwayman days, his fellow highwayman cum valet Georges and their jolly accomplice Mr Kit, plus his redoubtable wife Dolly).

In fact, Plas Gwyn is a comparatively modern house and situated jsut outside the village. I am unable to find a picture of a white plastered house, but perhaps it looked something like this. Monsieur thought it rather cramped, while Sophie finds it perfect.

Sophie found the house Emile rented near Llandyrnog perfect – but he thought it very small.

This is something like my image of Dubois Close, Emile’s own house (then rented out) in North Buckinghamshire…

Even then he is changing, though mostly he is his old, good natured if rascally self, and no doubt he can’t see how convenient it will be for him should he decide that the threat from the Kenrick’s is such that she must live as a virtual prisoner in the house.

As he starts to change, and the threat from the Kenrick household increases, he decides that it really is not safe for Sophie to leave the grounds without being accompanied by himself, or Georges, or Mr Kit…

The sensible thing would be for her to join him. It would not only serve his bloodlust, it would protect her from the Kenrick threat.

Here, to his outrage, he runs up against stubborn resistence.

Sophie has been brought up, like all girls of that era, to believe that a wife should be obedient {at once stage, Émile points out cynically that she has after all, sworn to obey him during the marriage service).

However, Émile forgets that her favourite reading has been Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ and ‘Clarissa’. In these, the virtuous heroine is compliant towards the dominant male in all things but in the matter of spiritual integrity.

And this is the ideology that gives Sophie the strength to oppose Émile determinedly’ she wont’ become a Semi Vampire like him because it would be tantamount to despairing of God’s mercy, and a serious sin…

Besides, she has the support of Agnes, as determined a girl as anyone could meet, who sees Émile’s transformation to a monster as clearly as it is obscured from his own understanding.

Émile has an unexpected fight on his hands…

Sophie de Courcy; Much More Open to the Reader than Emile, alias Monsieur Gilles… .

.

Sophie I felt I soon came to know easily. She is motivated by the normal desires of a middle class girl of the late eighteenth century (her branch of the family having lost most of their status). As I said earlier, her career options are dismally limited; she must either marry, become a governess or resign herself to being a burden on her relatives (though the generous Lord Ynyr and the Dowager Countess hardly find her to be so when she is packed off by her brother John and his wife to life with them).

She is fond of children and wants to marry, but she wants romance and excitement too; she continues to read books like Samuel Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’ at Plas Uchaf as she did in Chester (where Harriet no doubt forbade reading in bed as a waste of candles).

At that date, girls couldn’t go off on adventures on their own behalf; they had to be passive, hoping to become involved in one through a man.

That certainly happens to Sophie…

Although foolishly romantic in some ways (she hero worships Emile and used to draw him as Theseus, Achilles and Robin Hood) she is earthy enough to sense the importance of physical attraction in a marriage and it perturbs her that the handsome Lord Ynyr’s touch leaves her unmoved.

Of course, having no mother to arrange a match for her, she has no choice but to  do it for herself, and she has a try at Lord Ynyr, as any spirited girl would do. His title could hardly fail to appeal to her. She uses all the old tricks, laughing at jokes, flirting eyelashes, listening to him talk about is interests, besides, of course, her playing and singing.

She has, luckily, the most lovely singing voice. Emile likens it to that of a siren.

The young Count’s passions are hardly easy to heat up; but he becomes sufficiently drawn in by Sophie’s blonde and voluptuous sweetness to feel torn betwen herself and Morwenna, his cousin on the Welsh side of the family, who cannot believe that he can really be impressed with such an insignifificant little chit.

That is, this is Sophie’s scheme until Emile turns up on a visit; within days, she’s unaccountably lost all interest in that title.

She’s untried – when she gets the opportunity to marry Emile, with whom she has become besotted, she jumps at the chance, though she knows a gothic doom of vampire infection and time warps hang over them. She’d rather take the risk of marrying her hero than remain safely unpicking the Dowager Countess’ Sad Tangles any day.

It’s  lucky that she has Agnes, who is anything but subjegated by the then current views of female weakness and dependence, as an ally.

Agnes has her own ideas about everything, including the right of the Vicar to prohibit fortune telling and the absurdity of conventional moral codes for young woman. Her influence soon starts to tell on the compliant, sweet-natured Sophie…

Emile – what a rascal…

My characters Emile Dubois and Sophie de Courcy took over the book I was writing almost of their own accord.

I started the story of Sophie and Emile off in a summary way in a children’s book I was then writing about Lord Ynyr, which moved between the present day where he half lived on, an embittered two-hundred-year old vampire, and the past where he realised that he’d been turned into a vampire by his cousin, who’d been attacked in turn by a rebarbative scientist neighbour of theirs when they were staying in a castle in Transylvania.

I remember thinking, “This cousin is French – What’s a French name?- ah, yes, Emile as in Zola ( by the way, sorry everyone, I can’t find the wherewithal to put in the accents on the words on this blog at the moment, very sloppy, I know…).”

I later abandoned this story partly because of the difficulties in combining a story involving travel on the continent around the time of the French Revolution but mainly because I had become more interested by Count Ynyr’s rougish cousin as a character and his relationship with Lord Ynyr’s poor relative, Sophie, than I was by Lord Ynyr, the once main character.

So, Lord Ynyr was demoted;  his scoundrel of a cousin not only won the heart of the girl they both wanted, this despite his being a monster (in the original text, this was one of the things that had so soured the Count’s temperment as he brooded on this (for two hundred years – move over Heathcliff!) but intruded his prenence over the story as well and changed its genre to the present one, which is anything but suitable for children…

There was a scene in the earlier story where Emile, looking out over the scene of the bears raiding the rubbish tip in the castle courtyard in Transylvania, broods on the corrosive influence of mankind on the natural environment and comments that man is more savage than wild animals (an appropriate reflection for one turning into a vampire).

Sophie arouses the luke warm passions of Lord Ynyr as well as the more heated ones (and blood lust) of his cousin Emile Dubois; in the original version of my story, his treatment at the hands of his cousin and his poor relative embittered the poor Count for two hundred years…

He’s certainly a lively fellow, this Emile. A real rascal, as is shown by his willingness to take to highway robbery as a ‘Gentleman of the Road’ on finding his financial affairs tied up on arriving in England, but hopefully I have made him  likable through his gallantry, courage and open hearted generosity.

Yet he isn’t a simple character; his love of a game of chess, and his later ability to outwit the self-conscious intellectual Kenrick (who despises him as a criminal type) show a tricky side to his character. I leave the reader in doubt as to what goes on in his head, as though he is one of the two main characters in the story, we never find out.

I deliberately made a point of showing Emile only from the outside – the narrator is not omniscent regarding him. He’s seen through the eyes of the besotted, romantic Sophie, and through those of his companion in crime, the strutting Georges, even through the eyes of the grand-daughter of the terrible old lady who runs the lodgings where he and his fellow villains live in Paris, but the reader never has access to his thoughts, only his actions.

This woman has some of what I imagined as Sophie’s charm, a sort of voluptuous innocence that so overpowered the cynical Emile.

He’s not a liar (except to the forces of law and order) and I leave it to the reader to assume that he generally means what he says, but there is a lot that he doesn’t say, as Sophie is to find out…

In this, I owe a massive debt to that of the maddeningly amb iguous character Charley Kinraid in Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’, and how he is potrayed. He is almost always seen ‘from the outside’, through the beguiled eyes of Sylvia (who is to suffer a bitter disillusionment at his hands at the end of the novel)and through the jealous eyes of her other admirer Hepburn.

I’ve read that novel three times, and there are only two times when we have any access to Kinraid’s thought processes, once when he is impressed and once when he thinks he is dying,  and even then, little is revealed.

He remains a mystery; we never know exactly what his motivations are, a true token of her skill as a writer.

So, I borrowed this technique for Emile. Whether the reader agrees with Kenrick that he should have ended his days on Tyburn, or takes to him and longs for Sophie to be able to overcome the Gothic doom hanging over them, Emile, with his apparent lazy good humor and violent fits when provoked by other aggressive males,  is to some extent a puzzle.

Back in the First Drawing Room…

Above stairs, Miss Morwenna has taken in Monsieur’s apparent fascination with the Dowager’s companion; she’s unable to make any sense of it, and accordingly dismisses it; for sure she’s a pretty girl and Miss Morwenna has suspected her of Unbecoming Ambitions since she spied Miss making eyes at Lord Ynyr when she thought herself unobserved.

Miss Morwenna curls her lip at such a hopeless endeavour, and a seasoned rake like Ynyr’s cousin Emile would be an even harder goal to attempt.

After all, he only six months since lost the last surviving member of his family of origin; if Miss hopes to attract a reputable offer from him (and surely, the girl, who seems quite modest, wouldn’t consider anything else) then she is deluding herself; he’ll be on the look out for some catch.

After all, though still wealthy enough, half of his family fortune has disappeared in France and he owes it to the memory of his late parents not to bring down the family name.

Thus Morwenna, unaware of Monsieur’s adventurer as Gilles Long Legs, as a character fitting for the Beggar’s Opera.

John Gay’s famous play ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ – set earlier in the eighteenth century, at a time when highwaymen’s lives hadn’t been complicated by toll gates and patrols

She turns the conversation back to it’s proper course. “So it snows?!”

She claps her hands. “Ynyr – if so, can we go out on the sleigh tommorow, with the bells, please.”

Lord Ynyr exclaims, “An excellent idea, Morwenna!” The young men look delighted – as she knew they should be, as here is a opportunity to show off their driving skills – though Monsieur immediately looks back to his aunt’s companion.

“You will come with us, Mademoiselle?”

“I would be delighted, Sir…”

“I shall not, with Emile just united here with us, remind him of a sorry occasion half a dozen years since when he near overset me in a sleigh…”

Everyone laughs. “I should have known you wouldn’t let me forget that, Morwenna.”

Sophie stands in amazement, and dismay, too, hecause of the Unmaidenly Tinglings she had when Monsieur took her hand. Where does he imagine they have met since that long ago wedding? No matter. She waits until Lord Ynyr has taken them all to the window to see how hard it snows, and then leaves quietly.

She pauses in the chill of the dim passage, only to hear quick footsteps behind her.

“Mademoiselle Sophie!” As she pauses, he rushes up to seize her hands. “Ah, chérie, I cannot believe my luck!” He bends to kiss them passionately.

She sometimes makes up a fantasy where an attractive, rich, dashing young man takes one look at her and for some reason best known to himself, falls violently in love with her, once and forever. She never dares dream about Monsieur Émile, though, as she knows him and he is out of reach. It would just make it embarrassing should they ever meet again, as they have…

She had imagined that the emotion that would quiver in her suitor’s voice as he declared himself would stir her likewise to passion. Now, her reaction is horror; this despite finding him attractive, and his having been for so long her hero. She feels like running away.

She must look stunned. He goes on, “It is a shock to you. I could scarce believe it myself. I had given up hope of seeing you again. To meet you, my lovely girl, as Madame ma Tante’s companion! Alors, it will not continue so. You shall have my status, anyway. If you will take a rascal like Gilles Long Legs, that is? You look alarmed, Sophie. I hope you are not scared of me? You did not seem alarmed by me back then. Those innocent’s kisses that you gave me led me to hope that you forgave me for being a ruffian.” He squeezes her hands passionately, meanwhile staring at her as if he would swallow her up with his eyes.

She was speechless. She began to fear that he had been driven mad by his terrible experiences. All she could think of to say was, absurdly, “Oh, gracious!”

“But where did you go, chérie? Do you know how I have suffered on your account? I had men looking for you all night, but you were vanished. So many nights since I have been awake till dawn wondering what became of you. To see you here, and in the same dress, too!”

Georges Says Kenrick will Do Himself a Mischief…

Eloise swishes her skirts out, calling Agnes the French equivalent of ‘bold face’.

Agnes, not to be outdone, calls after her; “Caed yr geg, twpsin!”

“Agnes.” muses Georges. “Not Welsh, that, for sure. What did you say to her?”

“I told her to shut her mouth. She is such a vain, pert tight lacing creature as I cannot abide. Generally, though, except for that old stick Mistress Brown – she’s the Countess’ maid, and as bitter as an old prune – people are nice here. I’m lucky; I work for Miss Sophie; is lovely she is.”

No doubt Eloise wore her handkerchief pinned less modestly…

“Miss Sophie cannot be that haughty Mademoiselle greeted Monsieur outside?” Georges keeps his hgh opinon of ‘them dugs’ to himself.

“Oh, no, Miss Sophie is but a distant relative, and the old Countess’ companion to boot. In most households she would never have a maid all of her own, but that is just like the Countess and young Lord Ynyr.”

“If they’re so generous they could spare me a bit of wine.” Georges sighs. “So I may have to wait at table this evening, eh? I don’t think I will please that old butler.”

“Roberts, that is. Of course, he has the keys to the wine cellar, sadly, along with Madame Blanche. The sickness is just some affliction of the stomach, but there is another scourge started up hereabouts has plagued the sister of a friend of mine straight from a tale of terror. She was walking up in the top lane, making for home at twilight and claims she saw some red eyes and only came to herself, sprawled in the hedge with her neck bleeding.”

“Alors, pretty Agnes, most like she stratched it on the hedgerow.” Georges snorts, with the sophistication of one who has spent years in a city. “I know the tales that go about in these country areas.”

Agnes smiles and jerks her head in the direction of Plas Cyfeilgar, invisible from here. “There’s long been tales of the nasty sights to be seen at Plas Cyfeillgar. For sure the master, Kenrick, gets up to mischief enough in his laboratory to stir folks’ imaginations sore.”

“Kenrick…” Georges murmers. “Monsieur Gilles mentioned him. Met him in Town and took against him at once. They discussed mathematics, or some such foolisness. I’m always telling Monsieur that if he don’t watch out, he’ll overtax his brain. It’s lucky he likes to ride a horse or empty a bottle or have a brawl as much as any.”

“Monsieur Gilles? I thought his name was Emile.”

“I call him so, it suits him better.” Georges’ teeth flash in a smile of  reminiscence, and then he turns that smile on Agnes, thinking that perhaps this enforced stay in the wild mountains will not be so dull, after all.

Meanwhile, the Wicked Georges is making friends…

Perhaps the uniform for footmen at Lord Ynyr’s would be on these lines; however luxurious it was, Georges didn’t like it.

Meanwhile, Georges has arrived too late for dinner time  in the servants’ hall. Madame Blanche, the housekeeper, has him served some cold meat and bread.  Eloise, her chestnut haired, full bosomed niece, takes one look at this handsome new arrival and is eager to do the serving.

“This English habit of porter instead of wine is indefensable.” He winks at her. “I see I must demand some wine from Monsieur. What, my pretty, may your name be?”

“Eloise.  Your services may be needed, later.” He looks eager, and she giggles. “At table; there is a sickness that goes about, and we are three footmen down.”

Georges snorts. “So, I must stand like a stuffed dummy and pass plates, eh? Don’t tell me I must wear the foolish livery I saw on them others.”

She nods, smiling mischievously. Madame Blanche’s voice penetrates through the heavy door. “Ma tante. I must go.”

She meets Agnes in the door. “Oh, I do declare Agnes has come to make friends.”

“Are we not friends already, Eloise?” Agnes’ eyebrows shoot up. “You hurt me quite.” She glances at Georges, who is eyeing her keenly, and wondering why he is quite so taken with a girl with such a bumpkin, who sports such a ridiculously short nose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lord Ynyr Chats of the Highwaymen on the Roads out of London….

Sophie makes some bland remark about possibly Monsieur has seen her since that wedding. He retains her hand and seems positvely to gloat on her.

Meanwhile, Lord Ynyr is more lively and cheerful than Sophie has seen him yet (in fact, everyone has become more lively; even the ancient butler, Roberts, is slightly more sprightly as he offers them refreshments). He’s delighted to see his sole-surviving – and Sophie knows, always favourite – cousin on his mother’s Provencal side of the family.

He’s delighted too because it looks as if it is about to snow, and he agreed that it must with the head gardener. he goes to draw aside the heavy drapes and look out. There are indeed some specks whirlng outside the panes, and a chill draught penetrates the glass.

In the winter daylight, the top windows and the roofs of Plas Cyfeillgar are visible from here. Often,  at dusk,   Sophie, seeing a light glowing there, has given an involuntary shudder, and then rebuked herself, ‘It isn’t Kenrick’s fault that he has an excess of saliva and sharp teeth, too, so that he slobbered upon my hand when he made to kiss it, and almost seemed to nip at it, for all the world like a canine… ‘

Now, she is too astonished by Monsieur Emile’s strange, staring look to think about that.

Lord Ynyr says cheerfully from the window, “It begins to snow, as we thought. It is as well, Emile, that you are arrived safely, it would be no pleasure to journey in such weather and herabouts the roads become impassable very quickly.”

He comes swiftly back to the centre of the room, delighted that he has proved himself the sort of   countryman who can predict the weather. “By the by, Cousin, talking of roads, I trust that you had no trouble with those highwaymen who have been terrorising the roads out of town of late? But with your robust attitude towards settling disputes, no doubt you would have enjoyed such a meeting.’

Monsieur Emile and Sophie are still looking at each other, and she sees a slight consciousness in his look – passing so quickly that she wouldn’t have noticed it at all normally – as he says, “We had no troube with them, Cousin. Perhaps they are taking a holiday away, like me…”

For some reason, this odd look of his makes her uneasy.

Sophie’s Grand Relative Insists That They have Met Before…

“Sophie, this is my nephew. I believe you met long since.”

Miss Morwenna has seen Monsieur Emile’s astonished stare at Sophie, and she watches Sophie with more interest than she has ever shown in her as Sophie makes her curtsey.

Monsieur, all gallantry, takes Sophie’s hand and kisses it as he hardly needs to do, with his aunt’s companion. He says he’s enchanted. All the time, his eyes are dilated, and he breathes fast. “But surely we have met before, Mademoiselle Sophie?”

She smiles happily; “Indeed yes, Sir, years since, when I was quite a child and you were perhaps twelve, at a wedding where you were teaching His Lordship the art of handstands.”

Everyone smiles, but the Dowager Countess says querelously, “That was the occasion when Ynyr ruined bis breeches. His father was put out quite about it.”

“It would seem then, Mademoiselle, that my lessons were not of much use.” Monsieur Emile is over a foot taller than Sophie, smiling down at her with an expression that seems to verge on adoration. It is very odd! “I recollect me the occasion. Yet, surely we have met, since then?”

“Since…?” Sophie is in a quandry. For her rich releative to say that he remembers meeting her is a compliment in itself, and to indicate that she could forget a meeting with him an impertinence; yet she looked out for him at every large family occasion when he might possibly have been present (before the outbreak of the war with France, that is) and she was always disappointed that the lanky good-natured freckled boy wasn’t there.

So many times she had drawn him since their meeting at that wedding, as a hero, as Achilles, as Theseus, as Sir Lancelot, as Robin Hood…People were forever asking her why she drew them with those ridiculous freckles. Sophie copied a girl in one of her copy books, and ‘maintained a discreet silence’.

He has those same freckles now.

OOh, an Award. That’s exciting…

I’m breaking off to accept the Silver Quill  Award from Thomas Cotterill, with many thanks. His blog appears to be very accomplished, and it was nice of him to nominate me.

My answers to the seven questions: -

1.  Do you prefer rhyming or non rhyming poetry?

Rhyming, without a doubt.

2.  Favourite Shakespeare play?

‘All’s Well That End’s Well’. I would seem to be in a tiny minority   here.  I’ve read it three times, having first discovered it in 2010, I love it and I really enjoyed the BBC version, which I own. I’m looking forward to the Goodreads discussion on it next month(I think).  Geekish, or what? I’ve got my carrot juice ready…

3.  Favourite author?

At the present, June Rachuy Brindle for her wonderful books on the Theseus legend, ‘Ariadne’ and ‘Phaedra’.

4.  Name three people you admire.

Margaret O’Hara for setting up the PregnancySicknessSOS  website, Van Gogh and Handel, who didn’t do that, but who were marvellous at what they did…

5. What is your favourite music album?

Andreas Scholl ‘Ombra Mai Fu’.

6.  Which colour do you most dislike?

None.

7.  Name a poem or song which makes you feel emotional.

‘The Light of Other Days’ by Thomas Moore. Very haunting.

According to the rules, I must nominate five other bloggers.

These are : -

1. Ellis Nelson http://ellisnelson.com 

2.  Bluebirdsunshine, on http://bluebirdsunshine.wordpress.com

3.  The intrepid RA Lochlann on http://rebeccalochlann.wordpress.com

4.  Tersiaburger http.tersiaburger.wordpress.com 

5.  My wonderful friend Jo Danilo on http://mymykerikeri.wordpress.com