Category: historical background

A Formulaic Romance

This is the start of another story Amelia and I are putting together. There’s a pun in the title that will become obvious in time.

It starts with the trope, Lady Rachel on her way to London, is stranded in the country by an unfortunate accident. They’ve made their way to the house in the distance, but not without slipping in the muddy lane.

The Master was introduced in the last installment. He was somewhat annoyed at the disturbance, but willing to see that his guests were properly entertained.  The housekeeper, Mrs Hobbes, leads Rachel and Lucy to their rooms at the start of the last snippet.

This snippet continues their story.

An Interruption, continued.

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Mrs Hobbes curtsied to him and said, “Rupert, Lord Hartshorne. May I present Rachel, Lady Hayforth?”

He bowed and said, “Enchanted. I see Mrs Hobbes has seen to your needs. Mother’s dress becomes you.”

Rachel curtsied to him, and blurted out as she rose, “Your eyes, what did you do to them?” Then she blushed and said, “I’m sorry. That was impertinent of me.”

“Not to mention impolite,” he chuckled, “You most likely have noticed the rings from my goggles. I wear them in the laboratory to protect my eyes.” He paused, and then added, “From the fumes.”

Lucinda’s nose wrinkled at the sharp odour that emanated from him. She could not help but ask, “What’s that smell?”

“A product of my research. You get used to it.” Neither Rachel nor Lucinda was sure she wanted to get used to it.

“Is that what happened to your hair?”

His hair had a peculiar bleached look, blonde streaks among the dark black of his natural colour. His deeply coloured eyes and eyebrows, protected from the fumes, gave him a piercing glare and offset his hair.

“Well, yes. Rather dashing, don’t you think?” Then remembering his manners, he offered her his arm and said, “I presume you are hungry. Would you care to dine? You and your companion.”

“Miss Holloway.”

“Miss Holloway, then.”

One of the Master’s footmen interrupted them when they turned to enter the dining room. “Sir,” he said, “There is a person at the door. He wishes to talk with Lady Hayforth. About her carriage.”

“Ma’am?” Lord Hartshorne said, “I do not like to be delayed.”

“Sir, I should attend to this. May I?”

“If you wish.”

Rachel followed the footman. Lord Hartshorne, uncharacteristically, decided to delay his repast and followed her.

The footman did not exaggerate, ‘a person’ somewhat described the local carriage-wright. Even Lord Hartshorne, his nose immune to many smells from its exposure to the less appealing aspects of the chemical arts, wrinkled his nose at the odour. It steamed off the man and filled the front hall with a distinctive miasma.

“Miss Heppleworth. That carriage of yours, it’s fair broke.”

“Meaning?”

“The brace snapped; then the body landed on the axle. Snapped one.”

“So?”

“Close on fifty pound to fix. Almost as much work as building a new one.”

“Fifty pounds!” There weren’t fifty pounds to spare in Rachel’s calculations. Maybe, if she were lucky, fifty shillings, and in reality, more like fifty farthings.

“Aye, if that little. Be a week at least before we can get to it. Have to wait out this rain. The thing is well stuck in.”

Lucinda turned to her mistress, “What are we going to do? We’re due in London. Lord Bromley expects us.”

“If I may,” Rupert interjected himself, “is that all it will take? Only fifty pounds.”

“Sir?”

Rupert looked at the two young women; one was decidedly pretty, dashed pretty at that, but still a distraction for his serious endeavours. “One hundred pounds, if you’re done tomorrow.”

The carriage-wright stared at him. Fifty pounds was an opening shot across the bows, in hopes that the price wouldn’t be bargained down to a more realistic twenty-five or even less. “One hundred, sir?”

“Only if the carriage is ready tomorrow. Next day, seventy five.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Sir.” For one hundred pounds, he’d undertake to move the mountain to Mohammed, with a soup-spoon.

“Excellent. Now Lady Hayforth and Miss Holloway, would you care to join me in our repast. If it isn’t too cold.”

---

I always liked the smell of chemistry labs. A whiff of whatever in the morning.

A Formulaic Romance

This is the start of another story Amelia and I are putting together. There’s a pun in the title that will become obvious in time.

It starts with the trope, Lady Rachel on her way to London, is stranded in the country by an unfortunate accident. They’ve made their way to the house in the distance, but not without slipping in the muddy lane.

The Master was introduced in the last installment. He was somewhat annoyed at the disturbance, but willing to see that his guests were properly entertained.  The housekeeper, Mrs Hobbes, leads Rachel and Lucy to their rooms at the start of this snippet.

An Interruption, continued.

---

She led them upstairs, “Lady Hayforth, this is your room. I’ll tell the servants to send warm water up for you.”

Not many minutes later, with her face, arms, and hands, cleaned and her gown drying by the fire, Rachel smiled at her companion from a warm bundle of blankets. “I think we’ve landed on our feet.” She stretched her legs toward the fire, “At least the mud has washed off.”

“I don’t know Miss Rachel. This ‘Master’ seems to command almost oriental obedience from his servants.”

“And I don’t?”

Lucinda gave her mistress a playful tap on her shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, and believe me, I believe you’d walk into the flames for me. Still, Lucy, I can’t imagine inspiring such awe in you or any of my servants.”

“I just wish, Miss Rachel that we hadn’t broken down on the road. If it costs you your chance at a London season, that old carriage was a poor bargain.”

“What else could we have done, Lucy? There wasn’t enough of the needful in that legacy to be worth investing in any other way and we couldn’t waste it until we get to the City. It will work. I’ll find a stupid rich young man who is tolerable and break the entail. Or failing that support us in the manner to which we are accustomed, if not better.”

“If you say so Miss.”

“Lucinda, that I’ve never had much choice in the matter. Had my parents lived, they’d have sold me to the highest bidder. This way I get something of a say in who I marry. I intend to pick someone who is conformable to my wishes.”

“Yes, Miss. I still think this adventure is ill-fated.”

“Five hundred pounds in the four-percent’s would give me twenty pounds a year to live on. That’s barely enough to keep body and soul together, not enough to support a genteel life, let alone make me attractive to any sensible man. My, our, only hope is to find someone who thinks the manor is worth the cost of marrying me before the entail takes effect and we lose it. Failing that, at least some man I can tolerate, who isn’t too stupid, lazy or poor. And who, when he strays, is at least discreet about it.”

A loud knock on the door delayed Lucinda’s response. When she answered it, Mrs Hobbes entered, bearing a gown.

“Lady Hayforth. The cart that we sent for your baggage is stuck in the lane. Supper will be served within the hour.”

“Oh. My gown … not dry and we’ve only managed to scrape some of the mud from it. I can’t be seen in my stays.”

“I thought as much. This gown, if you would, it was my Mistress’s, and I’m sure she would lend it to you were she still with us.”

“Your mistress’s”

“The Master’s late mother. She was about your size, and if Miss Holloway would assist, we could fit you before your trunk arrives.”

“And in time for supper?”

“That too, My Lady.”

Between them, Mrs Hobbes and Lucinda had Rachel dressed in record time. The gown, while old-fashioned, was made of a fine blue silk. The colour complimented Rachel’s eyes, but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she said, “I wish I had the raven black or dashing auburn hair, this gown requires. Not this mousey brown.”

Mrs Hobbes stood back from her creation and said, “My Lady, I’d say it becomes you. My Mistress herself, before her illness, wore this gown to great effect.”

“Swain’s falling at her feet?”

Lucinda said, “Do be serious Miss Rachel.”

Mrs Hobbes attracted their attention, saying, “The Master does not like his supper delayed.” Then she pointed to the door, and added, “Shall we?”

The Master stood in the room, impatiently tapping his foot, and waiting for them when they arrived.  Having removed his goggles and the thick coat he wore in his laboratory, he was elegantly dressed.

He looked at Lady Hayforth in surprise, and said, “Mother?” before catching himself. There were no such things as ghosts, and in any case, his mother would never stoop to haunt her son’s home. It would have been so unbecoming and simply beneath her dignity. His late father, on the other hand would have enjoyed it, but then he would never have appeared as a female.

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Happy Halloween.

A Formulaic Romance

This is the start of another story Amelia and I are putting together. There’s a pun in the title that will become obvious in time.

It starts with the trope, Lady Rachel on her way to London, is stranded in the country by an unfortunate accident. Her carriage is a wreck, the thoroughbrace, a leather strap that holds the cabin up, broke. When the cabin fell, it broke the axle. It’s snowing and they’re in trouble.

They’ve made their way to the house in the distance, but not without slipping in the muddy lane. At least it wasn’t full of “slough” – a wonderful and now disused word for that unique mixture of horse apples, mud, and muck that so characterized roads in the days before the automobile.

This week we see what ‘the Master’ says.

An Interruption, continued.

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A knock on the laboratory door interrupted Rupert’s intense concentration on his latest experiment, electrolysing a molten salt to determine what metal he could recover.  He had opened the windows in the laboratory to disperse the thick yellow gas that rose from one electrode, and a cold wind blew through the room. The thick coat he wore, because of the cold, concealed a wiry yet muscular frame. Striking blonde streaks in his dark hair showed where the caustic fumes had partially bleached it. The fumes had also bleached his face, giving him a ghastly white pallor. He wore goggles to protect his eyes. Without looking away from his apparatus, he said, “Brindle, what is it. This time?”

“Sir, there are two women at the front door. They asked for refuge from the storm, their carriage having had an accident on the main road.”

“I told you my opinion about visitors. Send them away.”

“One of them is uncommonly pretty, sir. She would be a diversion.”

“I don’t want to be diverted, but,” he paused, “Are they suitable company?”

“One claims to be Lady Hayforth, the other her maid. They are young.”

“Suggesting something again, Brindle?”

“I wouldn’t take that liberty, Sir. Still, may I remind you about the entail?”

“Yes, I know, I shall marry, sometime, if I ever meet the right woman.” Rupert shrugged, “Which seems rather unlikely. My experiment is at a critical stage. Ensure that they are warm and send someone for their bags. I’ll be ready at the regular time for supper.”

“Sir.” Mr Edward Brindle bowed. Then he shuffled off.

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Rupert is doing an experiment that is dangerous (an understatement). Electrolysing a molten salt to extract the metal. Chemistry in the early 1800’s was decidedly heroic. The 1803 paper in the Royal Academy on synthesizing mercury fulminate – an explosive that will enter into this work – had the chemist analyzing his product by tasting it. There is no way on heaven, Earth or hell that I would do that.