Grace kicked over the corner of a rug, pursing her lips
as a coin was revealed. That was five now.
Some might think her lucky if they did not know the
trick.
𑽇
It’s another day working in
Marchant manor for Grace Beckett, but will today bring something new, exciting…
and vibrant?
In Part 2 of The Country Maid, Grace realises her employer expects high, perhaps impossible standards. The maid throws herself into her tasks and gains a friend in fellow maid Eliza, but can they prove to the rest of the household that they’re capable?
Laundry work during Victorian times
could take the entire day for an ordinary family. With somewhere that also
housed staff, the work was tripled.
The dirty clothes were left to soak overnight. Come morning, the lucky maid tasked with laundry had to get rid of any stains, either scrubbing them over a washboard or using a washing dolly/posser, which was a stick about waist high with little feet and handles. The dolly was placed in the tub’s centre and turned to agitate the clothes in much the same way a washing machine does nowadays. It was hot, sweaty work and it could feel as if there was no air in that muggy laundry room.
“They’re a different sort of folk in the city. Don’t let no-one think they can trick you because you don’t know their ways.”
Earlier this month, The People’s Friend published an interview with me online about my upcoming Victorian Upstairs, Downstairs series The Country Maid. Now, with the first part in this week’s magazine (available online and at most stores) I thought I would post a companion blog. This will showcase my writing process and inspiration alongside an in depth look at story locations and historical research. This will be posted a few days after each part comes out, so you’ll need to read that first before coming here :D
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| Illustration by Mandy Dixon |
As a lookback on my past works, this blog post is going to focus on my short story Lavender and Leeches. This was previously published in The People’s Friend magazine back in 2019.
Alongside it was this lovely illustration by Jim Dewar.
It was my sixth story with the magazine and was heavily inspired by watching reruns of Victorian Pharmacy, a BBC documentary series starring Ruth Goodman where historians recreated working in a 19th century pharmacy.
Other influences came from the pharmacy display at the Bridewell Museum in Norwich, which, while based on a 20th century pharmacy, certainly has a varied and interesting selection of old medicines. There’s even a carboy 😊
The Wherryman’s Daughter
Part One
Charity spied her father from where she knelt amongst the
reeds and rushes. Owen stood at the tiller of their wherry, the Marsh Lady.
The moon was a smooth pebble
throbbing with light but, like waves slowly dragging across, night mists
covered it. The painted white snout on the wherry, used to help other boats
spot her in the gloom, had been covered with ropes.
Wavering, Charity dug her feet
into the riverbank. Mud smeared over her skirt and legs, yet a bit of dirt was
better than tipping into that dark, grasping water.
Her father could not sail the
wherry alone. She should be there with him, helping guide the boat through the
river bends.
He had not dared to ask for her
help, though. Her father knew she would have disapproved of his reason, and
demanded he give the goods back to whomever had got him into this wicked
business.
At the stem of the wherry, there
was the hunched figure of another man. She could not tell who he was, as his
face was concealed by his downturned hat. He was too big and hulking to be her
cousin Alf. Could he be the smuggler or just another one of his lackeys?
Oh, Father, she thought, gritting her teeth, why do you do this? Couldn’t he see he was the one taking all the
risk, while some unknown person reaped the profits?
Charity was tempted to stand and
call for him to take the wherry home. However, she knew he was too stubborn. If
only her mother were still here, then she would have been able to get him to
listen.
She crept further along. Rain
still glistened on the grass. Damp reeds stuck to her cheek, tugging like a
child desperate for attention. Annoyed, she scraped them away, shivering as the
cold crept past her shawl.
A misstep, and the squelching
splash of mud seemed to echo. Her lips snapped together as she held her breath,
waiting for her father to cry her name.
The brim of the stranger’s hat
twisted in her direction. Her pale blue eyes seemed to stand out even more as
they widened. Breath spluttered out of her as her heart writhed, wanting her to
run.
Do not call out, Charity prayed desperately in her head. I am nothing but a shadow, a trick of the
mind.
Then a barley bird shot out from
a bush nearby. The stranger and her father chuckled, though it was empty of
humour.
Her father turned back to the
tiller. They were just as nervous. The sound of the boat cleaving through the
water and the groan of the oak body pierced the silence.
A bright leaf green flag at the
very top of the mast fluttered and danced at the slightest of breezes. It
curled around the little tin Marsh Lady
vane: a woman with a hat of feathers and a long river weed dress.
The wind blew Charity’s way and
her nose wrinkled. No matter how long she worked on the wherry, she would never
be fond of the whiff of tar and herring oil that the sail had been dipped in.
The Marsh Lady slowed. This was it. She had an idea of what her father
planned. Although they were far from the fields, there would be one man sowing
the crops, as men down the Copper Rose Inn said as they laughed into their
tankards.
Heaving and grunting, straining
his already weak back, Owen lifted up a cask of something. Brandy, most likely.
There was a rope attached and she knew a stone was tied at the end.
Last week, she had curiously
watched him pick stones from the path back home from church. He even had such
plans on a Sunday!
The cask was pushed overboard,
and it made a deafening splashing sound. He stiffened, anxiously turning his
head side to side. Was he checking that the customs and excise men weren’t
about to leap out of the water?
After a while, he started up
again. Charity quietly counted under her breath as each cask struck the water.
One, two . . . thirteen!
None rose. They were weighted
down and hidden until someone came to dredge up the booty and carry it down to
Norwich.
The Marsh Lady continued on. Charity hurried home, scowling.
She had seen all she needed to
prove her suspicions. Now, all she had to do was figure out how to get her
father safely away from the smugglers.
****
“Have you seen anything strange these past few nights,
Charity?” was the first thing she heard that morning, upon opening the front
door.
Her fingers tightly clenched the
door handle to try and contain the tremor in her hand.
Josiah Thiske, the local customs
man, stood there with his hat in his hand. He was only five years older than
her, twenty-nine, yet he had a sunken, craggy face. Sharp winds had whittled
his skin from when he had hunted for smugglers along the coast.
He was smiling at her, revealing
the crooked, chipped front tooth that looked like a fang. Apparently, it was
caused by a Dutch smuggler who had struck him with his cosh. It gave him a
hungry, wolfish look.
A shiver was scraping up Charity’s back. Was she the prey? Had she been watched and followed as well, as she had done to her father?
Illustration by Tracy Fennell
The horse bolted across the shoreline, dragging the bathing machine and Chastity. They thundered through the holiday-goers.
Brightly coloured beach huts are a common sight along the British seafront, but they weren’t always so static. Back in the 18th century, as can be seen throughout classic books, the latest health craze was ‘taking the waters’ – going to the spas in Bath – or a ‘change of air’. With poor sanitation and smog in crowded cities, a fresh sea breeze was often what doctors prescribed. Seaside holidays were gaining appeal.
The only problem was the need for propriety jarred with enjoying the beach. Men and women were banned from mixing and specific areas were cordoned off. Swimming costumes for men only became a rule in the 1860s. Women’s swimming costume weren’t very comfortable. These dresses were made of heavy flannel and would even have small weights attached to the skirt to stop the waves from lifting it up and exposing the lady’s – shock and horror! – covered legs.
Bathing machines were a way of allowing women and men the privacy of sea bathing without causing a scandal. Even Queen Victoria owned one.
These machines were huts on wheels, some a basic changing room while others were quite fancy with decorations and a looking glass. Horses would pull them to the shoreline. When the holidaymaker was ready, they opened the door and went down the little steps – more getting their feet wet than actually swimming. Dippers were also employed to plunge the swimmer in and out of the water for something more bracing.
I rather like the thought of a bathing machine to relax in, able to wheel myself wherever I fancied, but there could be some peril involved. I was surprised to discover deaths connected with bathing machines. In the Illustrated Police News dated 1871, a young woman died in Great Yarmouth after leaving her bathing machine. There was also something similar in Dieppe. Although it was after almost drowning in the sea rather than the actual machine, but that did not stop the newspaper titling the article – Death in a Bathing Machine!
By 1901, separate swimming areas were no longer imposed. There was no need for modesty and so the bathing machines lost their appeal. Rather than being broken up and forgotten, most had their wheels removed and were turned into the beach huts we know today.
What are your memories of the beach and their huts? Would you have preferred the privacy of a bathing machine?
In my latest short story,
Surprise at the Seaside, in The People’s Friend Summer Special, Lady Ashworth
finds herself in peril when a clandestine meeting leads to her struggling with
a runaway bathing machine.
Some research links from when I was writing the story :)
http://www.victoriana.com/library/Beach/FashionableBathingSuits.htm
http://www.regrom.com/2019/03/22/regency-reader-questions-spas-and-bathing/
http://www.ourgreatyarmouth.org.uk/page_id__162.aspx?path=0p5p99p
https://www.visitnorfolk.co.uk/inspire/history-of-norfolk-seaside-holidays.aspx
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/audio-stories-victorian-seaside/zfxjkmn
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| Illustration by Tracy Fennell |
