Jude Knight's Blog, page 121

The detainees of Verdun

He says: “Madame, permittez me, to pay my profound esteem to your engaging person! & to seal on your divine Lips my everlasting attachment!!!” A cynical and sensual grin indicates the character of his advances. She smiles with coy complacency, saying, “Monsieur, you are truly a well-bred Gentleman! – & tho’ you make me blush, yet, you Kiss so delicately, that I cannot refuse you; tho’ I was sure you would Deceive me again!!!” Above their heads are oval bust portraits of Napoleon (left) and George III (right), the two men extending their arms as if to shake hands; the King scowls, Napoleon regards him with brooding suspicion. The frames are bordered by olive branches and palm-branches. 1 January 1803

Even before the Peace of Amiens was officially signed in March 1802, people from England came flooding back into France. The country had been closed to them for ten years. Many had property in France they wanted to check on, others came as tourists or on business or to visit family.

Most came and went during the eighteen months of the peace. Some were trapped when, on 23 May 1803, Napoleon signed an edict to detain every male Briton between the ages of 16 and 60. The orders were carried out quickly and efficiently. At first, women and children were allowed to go, but soon every Briton, of whatever age, male and female (even British spouses of French citizens), found themselves prisoners of France for the next 11 years.

At first, they could remain where they were, but soon Napoleon ordered them to various cities, notably Verdun.

It was a sizeable town a long way from the sea, and the influx of (usually) wealthy English was welcomed. John Goldsworth Alger, in his 1904 account of the detentions, says a French newspaper compared the detainees to sheep enclosed in a fold to manure the soil.

The English were able to hire lodgings (at extortionate prices) and live much as normal, though if they could not afford living costs, or if they misbehaved in any way, they were liable to be imprisoned.

Verdun was a walled town, and within its walls the detainees lived much as they would have lived in London, though paying double the normal price for food and everything else.

Some behaved badly. One was sent to prison for seducing a townsman’s wife. Another struck a gendarme who reprimanded him for behaving indecently with his French mistress at the theatre. Still more gambled, insulted the French, and fought with the townspeople and one another.

Others occupied themselves with hobbies or work, or social activities, or raising subscriptions with which the wealthier detainees sought to help the poor.

General Virion was in charge of the detainees and the prisoners of war who soon joined them. The detainees made many complaints about his extortionate practices. One man, a regular social contact of the General, reported he had leave to go out into the country on a day that all leave was recalled. He was heading back into the town when two gendarmes stopped him and told him the order didn’t apply to him. Later, when he did return, he was arrested and faced with a choice: pay a huge fine or be imprisoned.

The general was summoned to Paris in 1810 to explain himself to a commission appointed by Napoleon, but shot himself before the investigation could begin. His successor was likewise asked to explain himself, but blamed all extortion on a subordinate. This man also shot himself, leaving a note that said he was innocent, but — having been blamed by the boss — he could not face dishonour.

I’m finding some wonderful stories and hints of stories about people caught up in the detentions; not just in Verdun but in other towns. As I continue to research for Concealed in Shadow, I’ll share some here.

 

 

Festivals on WIP Wednesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like its predecessor in the Golden Redepenning Series, part of  A Raging Madness takes place against a backdrop of every day village life. In early 19th Century England, the changes of the season and the festivals of the church gave the year a rhythm and a pattern, celebrated with feasts and fasts, particular traditions and practices, and foods specific to the time of year and often the place.

This week’s excerpt is about Easter in the Lincolnshire Wolds, where pride of place is given to Tansy Pudding. Do you have special celebrations in your books? Weddings? Birthdays? Feasts? Or perhaps a superstition or special practice? Share it with us in the comments.

Amy agreed that she was looking forward to the afternoon’s egg-rolling. “Grandmama says I shall soon be too old for such things, but I plan to enjoy it while I may.” She screwed up her nose at her Grandmother Cunningham’s opinion.

“Why, Miss Cunningham, then you shall be old enough for other traditions. Do you know, in Lincolnshire they say if you wait in the church porch on St Mark’s Eve, at midnight you will be passed by those who will be married during the year? I daresay half the maidens of the parish shall be there next Sunday evening, all trying to be silent.”

“In Gloucestershire, we try that kind of fortune-telling on All Hallow’s Eve,” Susan told him. “I can remember bobbing for apples, and then putting the apple I caught under my pillow so that I would dream of my future husband.”

“And did you, Mama?” Amy asked.

Susan demurred and turned the subject to putting bride cake under the pillow for the sake of the dream. Ella told the story she had heard from her mother about the Dumb Cake made on St Mark’s Eve in February. Two friends, working in silence, would mix and bake the cake, then break it in half, eat it, and walk backwards up the stairs to bed. If they had managed the whole process in silence, they would see a vision of their future husband below them on the stairs.

Mr Morris had yet another story, and even Mr Smithers joined in with a piece of folklore from Cheshire.

The dinner proceeded so merrily that the triumphal entry of the Tansy Pudding caught Ella by surprise. It looked magnificent in its deep pie dish, with its rich layer of golden orange preserve, and Mrs Broadley stood by beaming as Alex served Amy, who sat between him and Ella, and passed the plate on for Mr Morris to serve Susan.

As the men then served themselves, a maid put a much smaller dish—a little blue bowl—in front of Ella. She picked up a mouthful on her spoon and had it almost to her lips when Mrs Broadley gave a wordless shout and darted forward to dash it from Ella’s hands.

Conversation, movement, everything stopped. Mrs Broadley broke the silence. “I am so sorry, my lady. I don’t know how it happened, but you were meant to get the red bowl. Betty, you fool. I told you the bowl on the dresser. I used the blue dishes for the leftover mix from the main pudding, my lady. Oh I am that upset. You silly girl, Betty.”

The maid protested that she’d bought the only dish on the dresser, everything else for the Viscount’s table being lined up on the servery, and Ella assured Mrs Broadley that no harm had been done, thanks to the housekeeper’s quick action.

It soured the end of the dinner, though Alex sent Mrs Broadley off to the kitchen to investigate. Ella and Alex both tried to return the conversation to folklore, passing the incident off as a foolish mixup, but when griping pains hit first Amy, then Mr Morris, then all of those who had eaten the pudding, the mistake took on a much more sinister cast.

Tea with Susan

Unrelieved black suits few women, but Susan Cunningham is one of those whose beauty it enhances, her guinea-gold hair glowing under the black lace that covered it, her porcelain skin looking whiter by contrast.

“I sent my condolences when I heard, Susan, but may I say in person how sorry I was to hear that your husband’s ship was lost?” the Duchess of Haverford says, as she takes the younger woman’s hand and kisses her cheek.

“I still do not believe it,” Susan answers, taking her seat once the duchess does. “I keep expecting to get another letter from him, or have some false friend commiserate about his misbehaviour in some foreign port or see him walk in the door, upset the children, and waltz back out to find someone to get drunk with.”

She flushes. “Oh dear. I have no idea why I just said that, Aunt Eleanor.”

“Because you know that I knew the Captain,” the duchess says dryly, “and because you are tired of pretending to agree with all those false comforters that want only to sing his virtues.”

“His mother has him fitted for a halo,” Susan agrees, “but then, she never could see a fault in him.”

“Which is undoubtedly why he had so many.” Her Grace’s tone is drier still.

“He had virtues too, Aunt Eleanor. And I find I miss him far more than I expected. It is odd. He was seldom home, and that was just how I like it after we grew so far apart. But now that he will never come home again, I miss him.”

 

 

 

Today’s visitor appears in Farewell to Kindness and A Raging Madness as a support character. She is Rede’s cousin and Alex’s sister. She will be the heroine of The Realm of Silence, which is the next book in the Golden Redepennings series. She was not looking for a second husband. But I have my eye on her.

I write refreshment fiction

I have a few friends who say they’re backing away from writing, reading, or posting about what they call escapist fiction, because they feel world events are such that they have no right to be indulging in, or promoting, anything so frivolous.

They have a right to their view and their feelings. For my part, I don’t feel that way.

Why is it bad to escape?

We know, from the tone and context in which the term is used, that escapist fiction is a bad thing. But we don’t know why. Fiction, by its nature, permits the reader to leave their everyday world and enter a different reality, a world where events have some kind of structure and resolution. The qualifier ‘escapist’ at least implies that the fictional world will be different from the real world in that the resolution will be pleasing to the reader.

Escape has social, emotional, and health benefits, which is why we take weekends and holidays; why we go for a walk in a park or along a beach. If we need a break, we tend to do something that we find refreshing. Escape helps us return fit and ready for whatever life throws at us.

I have spent much of my life with ill health, and have at the same time been through the usual curve balls life throws at us (children with disabilities, financial downturns, betrayals by friends and family). Yes, fiction has always been my escape—an opportunity for a micro holiday someplace where whatever was happening wasn’t real, and I wasn’t the one who had to fix it.

No. Escape in itself is not a bad thing.

Is escapist fiction fundamentally bad fiction?

I was one of those young people told to stop reading rubbish and spend my time with worthwhile books, by which my mentors meant the classics or the earnest works of the current literary mavens. Leaving aside the fact that many of the classics were regarded as escapist in their day, what exactly do the critics consider escapist?

The following table is adapted from a university source.

Escapist fiction
Literary fiction


Designed to entertain
Designed to make the reader think


Simplistic, predictable, and often linear plots
More complicated plots, often non-linear


Clear unambiguous endings, usually happy
Ambiguous or unhappy endings


Simplistic, predicatable, flat characters
Characters are more rounded, and neither wholly good nor wholly bad


Moral to the story is obvious and often cliched
Moral may be non-existent


Plot driven, that is, the emphasis is on action rather than character
Character driven, that is, the emphasis is on character development rather than action


Plot is the primary focus, with characters merely players in the action
Plot is merely an aid to showing character

It’s a continuum, with books defined by these two columns at opposite ends. It should be easy to see that much genre fiction fits more to the literary end of the scale than the escapist. Some of the great works of the 20th Century were speculative fiction works like The Word for World is Forest and The Handmaid’s Tale. No open-minded person reading Grace Burrowes’ Captive Hearts series would deny that it ticks most of the boxes on the right side.

And the fact that a happy ending is regarded as more escapist than an unhappy one lights all kinds of fires for me, as I’ve discussed before.

But leaving that all aside, what in any of that list makes one book less escapist than another? I just don’t buy the basic idea that a book that shows ‘realism’ (by which the critics appear to mean one that mirrors the worst of the world) is somehow less worthy than one offering an adventure or a romance.

Is literary fiction better for us?

But, we are told, we should be reading fiction that makes us think, that improves us, that deals with real life issues.

You can keep your ‘shoulds’, but even if I admitted the point (which I don’t), the great writers of genre fiction show us that escape doesn’t mean denying or avoiding real life issues. Rather, it means packaging them in a way that helps readers to understand them. In fiction, we walk a mile in another person’s shoes, see the world through their eyes, feel what they feel, and come back into our own lives changed by the experience.

Fiction at its best provides both an escape and a way to understand, and perhaps improve, our reality.

Of all the genres, romance attracts the most censure. I’ve written about why I think this might be, and I think it a shame. Jane Austen’s books are widely recognised as literary (though not in her day), yet her modern successors, who also write about human character as developed in the crucible of a developing intimate relationship, are derided.

I don’t write escapist fiction, but I do write refreshment fiction

Looking down the list above, I’d say my books ignore the two extremes, which is not surprising. I’ve been a fence-sitter all my life. My stories are designed to both entertain and make people think. They generally have complicated plots and happy endings (though not necessarily happy for everyone). The plot is full of action, but exists to show the characters of my protagonists, and the development of those characters is the key point of the story. The characters are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, and my stories do have a moral.

So not escapist according to the definition above, nor entirely literary. But it is what I do and what I will continue to do. And it is my devout hope that readers will escape into my worlds, take a holiday from their real life, and returned refreshed and maybe armed with some strategies and understandings that will serve them well in the future.

Who wears the pants?

I went on a search to find out when fall fastenings on men’s trousers gave way to fly fastenings and fell down a lovely research rabbit hole. How did it come about that men wore trousers and women didn’t?

That turned out to be a Euro-centric question, but since my interest is the Regency period, where breeches were giving way to trousers, let it stand.

Riding horses on a cold winter’s day

Some researchers attach the whole dichotomy to horse riding, claiming that trousers provide better protection for vulnerable portions of the anatomy during the riding process. They suggest trouser wearing began with the hordes of the Eurasian steppes, who successfully invaded more southern, robe-wearing, civilisations, until their victims adopted trousers in order to ride more effectively and win.

Seems to me that the freedom of movement trousers give, as any Western woman can attest, may have factored into that. A fighter in a voluminous robe might be at a disadvantage when matched by one with both legs separately covered.

Other think that cold was a huge factor, and point to the fact that men and women in the far north both wore trousers and tunics of fur, and Pacific Islanders to this day wrap themselves in a length of cloth, with the way the garment is tied often the only difference between the clothing of men and women.

Probably both cold and ease of movement factor in to why, in colder climates, trousers have always been common working wear for both men and women, often under a robe or long tunic.

Once a knight is enough

But as I noted above, the strong line between trousers for women and dresses for men was a European thing, and the reason for that might go back to the knights.

The Celts and other tribes of Northern Europe wore leggings and tunics. Once the Romans, with their prejudice against such barbarous clothing, retreated to Rome and then to Constantinople, leggings and tunics became the favoured wear for everyone.

At that time, trousers were literally a pair — two tubes, usually made from woollen material. They were worn over an undergarment with a belt, and the tubes were attached to the belt. Men wore them, and women too when it was cold or when they were travelling.

Then came armour, first chain mail and then plate. If you’re strapping hunks of metal on and riding around in them for hours, you don’t want hunks of cloth creasing underneath it, so clothing for wealthy and powerful men adapted. Close-fitting one-piece lower garments answered the need for a measure of comfort when fully armoured. And, since one hardly wishes to hide the evidence of one’s social status under a long robe, tunics for the knightly class crept up to waist height and became doublets.

The parting of the ways

From that point on, the clothes of upper class men and women parted ways for centuries. The men’s hose and the breeches they developed to wear over them evolved into some fairly wonderful forms, and women went on wearing gowns.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that women could wear trousers to a business meeting or a classy social event without attracting comment and censure.

Culottes, sans-culottes, and men’s fashion

Breeches, by then reasonably form fitting and fastened just below the knee, continued as the wear for gentlemen until the French Revolution. The French called them culottes, and the sans-culottes, the men in working men’s trousers (called pantaloons in England) rather than breeches, became the heroes of the revolution.

In England, the fashionable adopted French pantaloons, if not French politics, as the 18th Century became the 19th. By the Regency, breeches were consigned to soft leather breeches for riding and silk for evening wear. And, of course, the unfashionable, the conservative, and the elderly.

Pantaloons slowly took over, or trousers as they came to be called. That term was first used in the military, and probably became common usage as the soldiers and sailors of England came home from the Napoleonic wars.

By the 1820s, the term was common, but ‘pants’ is an Americanism from the 1830s.

Keep it buttoned, darling

So there you have it. A brief history of men’s lower wear. Skipping shorts and knickerbockers, not to mention overalls and jeans. But then, why wouldn’t you?

Oh, and fly buttoning versus fall buttoning? The single row of buttons up the front first appeared some time in the 1830s and became common around the middle of the century, though it co-existed with fall buttoning for quite some time. (The fall became wider, requiring a row of at least four buttons along the waist line.) In case you wondered, Zippers didn’t get into our pants until the 1930s.

Beginnings in WIP Wednesday

I typed THE END twice yesterday: once on the novel A Raging Madness and once on the short story for my February newsletter. I hope today to finish the slightly longer short story I’m writing as a party prize, but meanwhile, I’ve edited the short story and written an entirely new beginning.

Novels show a journey: the beginning and the end might mirror one another, but they show the distance travelled. In short stories, we see a mere glimpse of the journey, and the focus is on one transformative moment for the main character. Since I mostly write romance, the focus is usually on making the relationship, and therefore the love, believable. So my beginning needs to kick us into the story quickly, and my end needs to tie the last knot neatly, preferably linking back to the beginning.

And the original beginning of ‘A souvenir from Scotland‘ just didn’t work.

This week, I’m inviting you to share a few paragraphs of beginning from your work in progress (novel, novella, or short story). The beginning of the work, if you will, or the beginning of a chapter if you prefer.

Here’s mine. (If you’d like to know what happens next, the full story will be a gift in my February newsletter):

York, 23 December 1815

Her brother was home. Megan Walsh almost rushed straight out into the evening air when her husband told her he had passed Ned’s place and seen lights on the floor that Ned rented, but Thomas persuaded her to wait for morning, and she managed it, just, though she read the cryptic note Ned had sent another twenty times before at last it was a sufficiently civilised hour to go calling.

Yes, the landlady agreed, Mr Broderick was home, and Mrs Walsh would never guess…

But Megan hadn’t waited, hurrying up the stairs to knock on Ned’s door. He opened it himself, and she threw herself on him.

“Ned! I was so worried when you were a fortnight overdue and then I got your note. What a note, Ned. ‘On my way home. I have a surprise for you; something I found in Scotland. You told me I needed one, and you were right.’ I have racked my brains, Ned, and I cannot think what you mean.”

Ned took her arm, and led her through into the sitting room, and Thomas trailed behind. But they both stopped short when they found it was already occupied.

A small dark-haired woman, neatly dressed in a slightly old-fashioned gown, sat sipping tea by the fire, and she stood when they entered, looking wary.

“Ariadne, may I present my dear sister and her husband, Mr and Mrs Thomas Walsh? Megan, Thomas, please meet Mrs Broderick. Megan, I took your advice and got myself a wife.”

Ned looked so proud, and the woman so nervous, that Megan swallowed the sharply worded comment that came first to her tongue and instead just said, “How?”

 

Folklore ways to find the man of your dreams

Folklore has so many different ways to divine a future spouse, or at least, most commonly, a future husband. It makes sense that girls were more the target for such foretelling methods than men. For much of history and in most cultures, marriage put a girl into the hands of her husband or her husband’s family. When husbands could do almost anything they liked, short of murder, a girl might be wise to be wary, and anxious to know what was ahead of her.

Divination on certain nights

In my current work-in-progress, it is Easter, and coming up to St Mark’s Eve (24 April, which in that year was a week after Easter), when good Lincolnshire maidens wait in the church porch to see who passes them at midnight. In other parts of England, they might expect to see the shades of those who will die during the year. A Lincolnshire girl could see those visions, too, but she might also see her future spouse, if she is going to marry during the year.

Another night for such divination is this Saturday, St Agnes Eve, 21 January. In Scotland, girls would go out to throw grain, saying:

“ Agnes sweet, and Agnes fair,

Hither, hither, now repair;

Bonny Agnes, let me see

The lad who is to marry me. ”

The shadow of their destined groom would be seen in their mirror later that night.

In other parts of the country, girls would fast. If they kept St Agnes Fast, their future husband would appear in a dream.

Midsummer Eve, 23 June, was the time to lay out a clean cloth with bread, cheese, and ale, and sit down with the street door open. The girl’s future husband would then, according to folklore, enter the room and drink the ale, bow, refill the glass,  bow again, and leave. That’s a pretty detailed vision.

Halloween came at the time of apple harvest, and in some parts of the country girls would bob for apples, then put their apple under their pillow to fetch a dream of the man they would marry. Others would walk upstairs looking in a mirror to see a vision of their future spouse walking behind them.

And on New Year’s Eve, some maidens would sweep the room backwards while looking into a mirror.

Finally, girls had an opportunity every new moon to try this rhyme:

New moon, true moon,

Dressed in blue,

If I should marry a man,

Or he should marry me,

What in the name of love,

Will his name be?

Or any other time of the year

But if you couldn’t wait for one of those special evenings, you could try one of these:

When you go to bed, place your shoes at right angles to one another, saying “Hoping this night my true love to see, I place my shoes in the form of a T”
Pass a piece of wedding cake three times through the bride’s wedding ring, then put it under your pillow (or, in some places, a piece of cheese)
Knit your left garter around your right stocking and keep knotting, at each line of the following rhyme tying another knot:

This knot I knit,

To know the thing I know not yet,

That I may see The man that shall my husband be;

How he goes, and what he wears,

And what he does all days and years.

If you’re a Shropshire lass, fetch a half-brick from the nearest churchyard, and put that under your pillow
Lay a four leaf clover under each corner of your sheet
Eat a salt herring before you go to sleep
Count thirteen stars for thirteen nights
Clip your fingernails and drop the clippings into the flame of your lamp. Then hang your shift (petticoat) over the lamp, and while the fingernails are burning, the shadow of your future husband will appear on the shift.
Peel an apple and throw the peel over your shoulder. The letter it falls into will be the initials of your future spouse.

Surprises on WIP Wednesday

I’m on the home straight with A Raging Madness. Ten more scenes, I think, and the mystery will unravel, but not before Alex and Ella have to decide what matters to them most.

They have several more surprises in store;  the book has been a series of them, mostly nasty. They’re almost due a nice one. Almost. Meanwhile, one of the latest incidents has provided today’s excerpt.

As always, I invite you to post an excerpt on the day’s theme in the comments. Surprises. Of any kind: exciting, unpleasant, spoken or in action. Mine is snakes.

“No thank you, Miller. I have had sufficient to drink. Indeed, you can put the rest of this into the slop bucket.” Ella handed her cup to Miller.

“But you must have your chocolate, my lady. I made it especially for you.”

Ella looked at the cup, and almost picked it up. Whether it was her irritation with the maid’s insistence or her revulsion at the thought of any more liquid, she decided against it.

“No, Miller. I thank you for making it, but I will not drink it this afternoon. In fact, please do not make it unless I ask for it.”

For a moment, she thought the maid would argue some more, but Miller pressed her lips together and turned away to take the remains of the tea into the bedroom.

“Amy, I will have my wash now, darling. And you should find your room and freshen up from your journey.”

Ella was about to follow Miller when the maid screamed.

*****

“Your Hounslow has won my admiration, Susan,” Alex told his sister over dinner after the fuss was all over. Hounslow had joined Jonno and Alex in recapturing the snakes Miller had released when she knocked the slop bucket over in her shock at its contents.

He was now directing an inch by inch search of the room to make sure they’d not missed any of the creatures, and proposed to spread the search to the whole house to prevent further nasty surprises. After he finished supervising the dinner service to his new employers and their guests.

Adders! They were shy creatures, on the whole, slithering away from an encounter with human beings. But, as Miller discovered, they would bite if they saw no alternative, such as if they were woken from hibernation as these were, disturbed with no way out except through a person.

The maid had been put to bed, her bite washed and Miller herself dosed with elderberry wine. Apart from some pain and swelling, she had not yet evinced symptoms of severe poisoning, but adder venom was not to be trivialised. Ella had set another maid to watch Miller, with a list of symptoms of which to beware.

The whole household was on alert to regard all receptacles with caution. Hounslow, however, had taken firm charge of incipient hysteria amongst the maids, and had fostered a competition in bravery amongst the footmen, grooms, and carpenters by suggesting the maids could depend on their protection.

“But how could the snakes have got there, Uncle Alex?” Amy asked.

Alex had just finished a frustrating and unproductive hour questioning servants and carpenters about who had been into the room, or seen carry the bucket or a bag that could have contained snakes. “I don’t yet know, Amy, but I intend to find out. Meanwhile, Jonno has gone into the village to see if he can find anyone who has recently uncovered a nest of the pests, and to borrow a couple of dogs to help search the house.”

Tea with Prue Virtue

Today’s post is an excerpt from my latest novel, Revealed in Mist. (Click on the link to read the blurb and find buy links.)

Prue hesitated in the street outside her next destination. Callers needed to present their card at the gate, be escorted to the front door and delivered to the butler, then wait to be announced. On most days of the week, uninvited guests below a certain rank in society would have difficulty making it past the first obstacle, but on Thursday afternoons, the Duchess of Haverford was ‘at home’ to petitioners.

Past encounters had always been initiated by Her Grace. A scented note would arrive by footman, and Prue would obey the summons and receive the duchess’s commission. Though she was always gracious, never, by word or deed, had Her Grace indicated that she and Prue had any closer relationship than employer and agent.

The entrance and public rooms of Haverford House were designed to impress lesser mortals with the greatness of the family—and their own lesser status. Prue was ushered to a room just off the lofty entrance hall. Small by Haverford standards, this waiting area nonetheless dwarfed the people waiting to see the duchess.

Two women, one middle-aged and the other a copy some twenty years younger, nervously perched on two of the ladder-backed chairs lining one wall. Next to them, but several chairs along, a lean young man with an anxious frown pretended to read some papers, shuffling them frequently, peering over the tops of his spectacles at the door to the next room. Two men strolled slowly along the wall, examining the large paintings and conversing in low whispers. A lone woman walked back and forth before the small window, hushing the baby fretting on her shoulder.

Prue took a seat and prepared for a wait. She would not tremble. She had nothing to fear. Both Tolliver and David said so, and Aldridge, too. But how she wished the waiting was over.

It seemed a long time but was only a few minutes, before a servant hurried in and approached her.

“Miss Virtue? Her Grace will see you now.”

Prue gave the other occupants an apologetic nod and followed the servant.

The duchess received her in a pretty parlour, somehow cosy despite its grand scale. Prue curtseyed to her and the woman with her. Were all petitioners waved to a seat on an elegant sofa facing Her Grace? Addressed as ‘my dear’? Asked if they should care for a cup of tea?

“Miss Virtue takes her tea black, with a slice of lemon,” the duchess told her companion. Or was the woman her secretary?

“Miss Virtue, my companion, Miss Grant. Miss Grant, Miss Virtue has been of great service to me and to those I love. I am always at home to her.”

Was Miss Grant one of the army of relatives for whom Her Grace had found employment, or perhaps one of the dozens of noble godchildren she sponsored? The young woman did not have the look of either Aldridge or his brother, nor of their parents. Prue murmured a greeting.

“I was not expecting you, Miss Virtue, was I? Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, Your Grace. I just… I have some questions, Ma’am.”

“You should have sent a note, my dear. I will always take time to see you. I was happy to give a good report of you to my friend Lady Georgiana, of course.” As she spoke, the duchess took the tea cup from Miss Grant and passed it to her.

“Your Grace, I would like to speak with you alone, if I may. I beg your pardon, Miss Grant. I do not mean to be discourteous.”

The duchess stopped her own cup partway to her lips and put it carefully back into the saucer, examining Prue’s face carefully.

When she spoke, it was to Miss Grant. “Celia, my dear, will you let those waiting know that I will be delayed…” she consulted her lapel watch, “…thirty-five minutes, but I will see them all today? Perhaps you could arrange refreshments for them? Return on the half hour, please. That is all the time I can spare, Miss Virtue. If you need longer, I will ask you to wait or return another day.”

Prue shook her head. “The time will be ample, Ma’am. Thank you.”

As Miss Grant left the room, Prue was silent, collecting her thoughts. The duchess waited.

“You knew. You have known all along.” Prue shifted uneasily. She had not intended to sound accusing.

The duchess inclined her head in agreement, her face showing nothing but calm.

Messier than fiction

I’ve been reading — or more accurately dipping in and out of — the trial transcripts of the Annesley case.

It was the sensation of 1743. A sailor returned from many years in the American colonies with the claim that he had been kidnapped at the age of twelve and sold into indentured servitude by his uncle after the death of his father, the Earl of Anglesea.

Said uncle had inherited his brother’s title, and strenuously denied that the sailor was his nephew, that he had anything to do with the disappearance of his nephew, and that his nephew was the legitimate son (and therefore heir) to his brother.

We’re all familiar with the story of the wicked uncle who arranges for the rightful heir to be sold away overseas in order to embezzle his heritage. Robert Louis Stephenson made it part of our literary heritage in Kidnapped (possibly prompted by the Annesley case), but even before that we see it in folk tales. It pops up again and again in all kinds of genres. I’ve used a variant myself in Magnus’ Christmas Angel.

The Annesley case bears out the truism that truth is stranger, and certainly less neat, than fiction.

James Annesley claimed to be, and in fact was proved to be, the son of Arthur Annesley, Baron Altham, and his wife Mary Sheffield.

Altham was, even by the standards of the time, a loose living sort of a person. Did his wife take exception? Perhaps. He threw her out of the home, keeping her two-year old son. Four years later, one of his mistresses persuaded him to throw the boy out too, and James was apparently left to more or less raise himself from the age of six.

He must have had some support somewhere, because later several of his school-friends recognised him, and gave evidence about his identity to the courts.

Altham died when James was twelve, and shortly after that, Richard Annesley (Uncle Dick) found the boy and sent him to Delaware to work as an indentured servant.

Later claims that the boy was not legitimate foundered at least in part on the question of why Uncle Dick would have bothered to get rid of someone who could not threaten his claim to the Altham title, and later to the title of Earl of Anglesea, inherited from his cousin.

James returned in 1740, but his claims didn’t become public until 1742. The case notes mention a number of attempts on his life, which James blamed on Uncle Dick, whose comfy state was clearly threatened by his nuisance of a nephew, who had not had the good manners to die in Delaware.

After hearing many witnesses (and an incredible barrage of lies), the Irish court found in favour of James, but that wasn’t the end of it. His estates were returned to him, but Uncle Dick took an appeal and continued to hold the title while it was working its way slowly through the courts. (But note the comment below from a correspondent.)

As an interesting side note, the Annesley vs Anglesea case is the basis for the principle of lawyer-client privilege. The court ruled that a solicitor could not be called on to testify about whether or not his former client took a mistress, and laid out three of the reasons still used today to support the principle.

James died in 1760, and Uncle Dick in 1761. Uncle Dick’s son did not inherit the Anglesea title, which became extinct with the death of the wicked uncle.

Truth is considerably messier than fiction.