Summerset Abbey (35 page)

Every writer of historical fiction comes up against the question of how far to bend history to accommodate plot and how far to bend plot to accommodate history. For this project, I had an amazing historical researcher and fact checker, Evangeline Holland (
www.edwardianpromenade.com
), who was quick to let me know when I had strayed too far. Then I had to make the decision of plot versus history. Most of the time, history won out. I dearly wanted to keep the details of the book as close to La Belle Époque as possible, but there were times when the story itself came first. For instance, the funeral customs set in the first and second chapters of the book more closely resemble modern American customs than they do Edwardian customs, but here story trumped history. (You can read more about the funeral customs of the Victorians and Edwardians at Evangeline’s great site.)

Besides Edwardian Promenade, I had many wonderful historical resources, both primary and secondary, to help me on my way. But I apologize in advance for any historical inaccuracies contained within the book and claim each mistake as my own and not the responsibility of my incredible fact-checker or resources.

NONFICTION RESOURCES

The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
by Juliet Nicolson

Manners and Rules of Good Society: An Etiquette Classic
by Anonymous

Victorian and Edwardian Fashions
from
“La Mode Illustrée”

The Opulent Eye
by Nicholas Cooper

Below Stairs
by Margaret Powell

The World of Downton Abbey
by Jessica Fellowes

Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey
by Alison Gernsheim

FICTION RESOURCES

A Room with a View
by E. M. Forster

Howards End
by E. M. Forster

The Edwardians
by Vita Sackville West

The House at Riverton
by Kate Morton

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from

Summerset Abbey:
A Bloom in Winter

Book Two in the
Summerset Abbey Series

T. J. Brown

March 2013 from Gallery Books

T
he next time Victoria opened her eyes, the light was on. She blinked a couple of times and was startled when a woman with a thick East End accent said, “You’re awake now, so don’t you be playing possum, and don’t start your screaming or else the doctor will be sending you to the asylum, and trust me, darling, you would rather be here.”

Victoria froze. The scent of bleach and urine still assaulted her nose. The one small window above her head let in no light and she could see bars at the top. Her heart pounded a little faster. “Tell me where I am!”

“You can say please, you know. Just because I’m a nurse and you’re a suffragette doesn’t mean you needn’t use your manners.”

Victoria tried to move and realized that not only was her arm chained, but her leg was as well.

The woman laughed. “You’ll not be kicking me again.”

“I’m sorry,” Victoria said earnestly. “Please. Where am I?”

The woman came closer. She wore a blue and white striped shirt, a long skirt of cheap wincey, and a crisp white apron that covered her head to toe. A white linen cap covered her hair. She smelled strongly of lye soap, but it was infinitely better than the urine stench. Her eyes were a bright, saucy blue. “That’s more like it. You’re in Holloway prison.”

Victoria whimpered, her heartbeat accelerating and her chest tightening. She closed her eyes and counted, taking little breaths until the vise on her chest eased. Once she could breathe easily again, she asked, “Why am I here?”

“You don’t know?” The nurse sounded surprised. “That’s a new one. Most of you suffragettes are proud of your exploits! Don’t you remember?”

Victoria thought hard. She remembered being at the National Gallery with Mary and then Mary had . . . memories came flooding back and Victoria groaned.

“I see you’re remembering.”

She struggled to sit again and then gave up, settling back against the mattress. The pillow under her neck scratched, and she prayed it was the cheap linen rather than bugs. “Prison is different than I thought it would be.”

The woman snorted. “This isn’t prison, this is the clinic. You were almost dead when they brought you in. You have a breathing disorder?”

Victoria nodded. “Yes, I’m . . .” Victoria choked a bit on the word but used it anyway. It’s what she was, no matter how much she denied it. “I’m an asthmatic.”

The woman nodded and made a note on a chart. “That’s what the doctor thought. And don’t worry. You’ll be seeing the inside of a prison cell soon enough, though you suffragettes usually rate one to yourselves. Just don’t try to starve yourself. We
will
force-feed you, and it’s the most God-awful thing I’ve ever seen or done.” Her face wrinkled into a stern look as she took Victoria’s pulse.

“Why wouldn’t I eat?” Victoria asked. She’d heard of suffragettes going on hunger strikes, but she thought trying to kill oneself was a poor way to give to the cause.

“Why would any of them stop eating?” the nurse asked reasonably. “But I’m sure a young woman such as yourself, who has struggled for her very life’s breath, would look at death a great deal differently than most idealists. You’re very lucky to be alive, Miss. I thought you were a goner. You were as blue as my shirt. Now, do you need to use the privy?” Victoria nodded and the woman indicated a bucket in the corner.

Victoria blanched.

“I know it’s not fancy, but then, I suspect the wardens don’t feel the need to roll out the fancy for those that break the law. Now, if you promise not to throw another fit, I’ll let you loose long enough to do your business. Give me a single moment’s worry and I’ll call in Ed and you’ll have to do whatever you need to do in front of him.”

Horrified, Victoria promised. After the nurse had gotten her back into the bed, she told Victoria to try to sleep. “I won’t cuff you, if you promise me no more trouble. If you do, it’s my arse on the line and I’ll have to truss you up like a Christmas goose.” The woman rattled the cuffs for emphasis.

The blood drained out of Victoria’s face. “I promise,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

The nurse got Victoria into bed and settled the covers over her. Victoria’s bones ached, and even the roughness of the gray woolen blankets and the hard mattress felt wonderful. When the woman moved to leave, Victoria caught her arm. “Wait,” she pleaded. It seemed as if this woman was the only person between Victoria and unknown terrors. “When will I see a judge? When can I see my family?”

The woman shook her head and flicked a switch off. The only light now came from the open door, and long shadows spilled over Victoria’s bed “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

“What’s your name?” Victoria pleaded. Anything to keep the door from shutting.

“Eleanor. I’ll check on you before my shift is up. Now try to get some sleep.”

The light slivered and then was gone. The darkness, once the door had closed, was absolute, and Victoria trembled. She’d never liked being alone at night, and for years she had slept with Prudence to keep the nightmares away.

There was no one to keep the nightmares away now. Of course, how could anything her mind conjured be worse than her current reality?

Tears rose and fell down her cheeks in the darkness. How did she get here? Why, oh why, hadn’t she just ignored Mary’s note? The woman was mad, crazy. Victoria wondered where she was and then realized that Mary was no doubt locked in a cell in this very prison.

She wiped the tears with her hands. Her uncle would get her out if he could. He was an important man and a rich one to boot. Surely he could do something.

With a sinking heart, she remembered some of the newspaper articles she’d read over the preceding months. Public opinion might be mixed on the suffragettes, but the justice system was not. Most judges had no sympathy whatsoever, and they had been known to throw a suffragette in jail and toss the key at the same time. And if they really thought she had plotted to destroy the painting . . . Victoria shuddered.

Something dropped outside the door and she stilled. She could hear muffled voices for a bit as the nurses and orderlies worked their way from room to room, checking on patients, and she listened intently. At least she knew there were people out there and she wasn’t all alone. But the noises grew fainter and
fainter and soon there was only the sound of her own ragged breathing. Then a soft moaning began and her heart leapt jaggedly in her chest. She screwed her eyes up tight against the darkness and began to recite:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe. . . .

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Victoria paused with a shudder. No. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” was much too frightening for this situation. Her father used to run his fingers through his hair and recite it while making the most horrible faces.
Father!
She swallowed and began again. This time choosing Rudyard Kipling’s, “The Bee Boy’s Song.”

BEES! BEES! Hark to your bees!

“Hide from your neigbours as much as you please,

But all that has happened, to us you must tell,

Or else we will give you no honey to sell!”

She started softly and then got louder and louder as the words chased the last of the shadows from her mind.

A maiden in her glory,

Upon her wedding-day,

Must tell her Bees the story,

Or else they’ll fly away.

Fly away—die away—

Dwindle down and leave you

But if you don’t deceive your Bees,

Your Bees will not deceive you.

Her heart beat and her breathing had both returned to normal, and she settled further down under the blankets, racking her brains for the vast reserves of Kipling poetry she had stored there. She wouldn’t think about being alone in a dark place. Alone in a notorious prison where they sent murderers and robbers. Where women lived out their entire lives, forgotten by the world. Victoria whimpered and sank down further under the blankets.

Desperately she moved from poetry to stories: “
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment . . .”

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from
New York Times
bestseller Jane Feather’s charming Edwardian novella

AN ENGAGEMENT AT BEAUFORT HALL

When Imogen Carstairs discovers that her fiancé Charles Riverdale has been carrying on an affair with another woman throughout their betrothal, she immediately calls off the engagement, just three days before the wedding. In the wake of social scandal and a broken heart, Gen retreats to her family’s sprawling country estate with her sister, Esther. But Beaufort Hall proves not as distant an escape as she’d hoped when she discovers that Charles has purchased the neighboring estate . . . and received permission to hunt on her land. With Charles so close by, passions quickly reignite, and Gen is left reeling. Can she let herself trust this man again after such a betrayal? Should she follow her head . . . or her heart?