A Snibble for the Holiday Season

As an unabashed lover of Christmas Specials -- particularly those of "Call the Midwife", "Blackadder", "Only fools and Horses" and "Still Game" - I decided this year to write a Christmas-themed novella. It is not something I ever attempted before and for a few years I have not been in a particularly Christmassy frame of mind, until its too late. But this year, in late October, I had a visit from relatives who travelled thousands of miles to see me, which put me in a festive, "larking about" mood.

Well, I should have realized that a novella was not going to fit my story. You know how I am, by now. And, unlike Charles Dickens, I am not paid by the word. Sadly.

In any case, my characters soon decided they needed more space and more attention than might be afforded by the constraints of a novella. Thus, their story developed into a short novel -- for which, I am told, there is no name. "Shnovel"? "Novort?" I'll settle for "Christmas Snibble." (You know, one of those treats that is  meant to be just a nibble, but turns into a bit more, because you can't stop eating it and -- hey, it's Christmas!)

I hope you, my readers, enjoy The Snow Angel. Out on December 5th, it is now available for pre-order  (another thing I don't often try) on Amazon.

Here is a very sneaky peek that might whet your appetite for egg nog and "Quality Street" chocolates.

 

 

(Excerpt from The Snow Angel).

 

 



"That Deverell still not here yet?" her landlady called out as she passed through the hall with the tea tray. "It's well after five, surely. Near six by now."

            Anne Follyot ceased humming mid-note and put on her most sensible, patient face, carefully holding the candle away with both hands, rather than be accused of playing fast and loose with that precious commodity. "I daresay he will come when he can, Mrs. Smith. He's a busy gentleman, I understand, and it is very good of him to make room in his plans for me at all."

            Mrs. Smith plainly thought the word "gentleman" unsuitable in this case, for as soon as those polite syllables were uttered, her lips shriveled to the size and texture of a small dried prune. "'Tis a shame your aunt could find no better, more respectable companion for your journey. And that's all I have to say in the matter."

            "I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Smith, but I'm sure it will work out very well. Mr. Deverell's private carriage is a vast improvement on the mail coach."

            She'd lived in London several months now, long enough to know that few folk there had much good to say of the Deverell family, who were disdainfully considered "new wealth" and upstarts— and those were some of the kindest epithets. But who was Anne Follyot to sneer? She wasn't even "old" wealth.

            Deverells, so the saying went, did things differently. They were filthy rich, reputedly shameless, lawless, and mostly unprincipled.

            She could not help but think it must be exhausting, not to mention logistically impossible, for a handful of males to "ruin" such a vast number of women and leave quite so much chaos in their wake.  They would never have a moment to sleep or read a good book.

            As a lover of good stories herself, she was certain a great many tales of Deverell debauchery were entirely made up to keep life interesting for those who told them.

            "You're a naive young miss," her landlady muttered. "I wish you had firmer hands to guide you, but it's not my business. I've got enough to do, and it's not my job to act as your mother. You'll end up ruined, no doubt, like many a wide-eyed chit before you. Fancy sending a Deverell for your innocent young niece. Like sending a fox to fetch a hen to market! What can your aunt be thinking?"

            "Mrs. Smith, you are a very dear lady to worry so about me. But I am not nearly as helpless as I might look. I am, after all, a woman of the modern age."

            Her landlady looked skeptical of this claim. She was not, however, the first person to think Anne a little light in the head— a consequence, perhaps, of her spirits refusing to be crushed under the weight of misfortune. They thought she must live in her own strange, fantasy world, but her feet were quite well grounded in this one. She simply made the best she could of it, which, she had sadly come to realize, made her puzzling and insufferable company to most. As if to see her happy with so little made their own fortunes decline rapidly.

            "You were raised in a one bull country village, Miss Follyot. What do you know of men like Deverells?"

            "I know that they pull their breeches on one leg at a time, just as other men do. Men like my father and brother. They have all the same parts and require all the same handling."

            The landlady huffed. "I would not be so certain of that. Not from the stories I've heard."

            "But I have familiarity with all manner of beasts. I've stared down an escaped seed ox and helped lance an abscess on the ear of a particularly peevish sow more than twice my size. Few things cast any fear in my heart."

            "You'll be soft clay in that man's claws, mark my words!"

            Before Anne could give any further words of assurance, Mrs. Smith walked into the parlor, still shaking her head, and nudging the door shut swiftly behind her to keep out the cold breeze that

blew through the hall of her narrow boarding house. The other young ladies who rented rooms there were gathered around a cheerful fire in that parlor, waiting to enjoy a hot cup of tea and some buttered crumpets. Very likely, in the anticipation of these delights, they had all forgotten about Anne. Not that she was ever very memorable.

            Now she was abandoned to whatever gruesome fate awaited her at the hands of a Deverell. The way Mrs. Smith said that name— as if it had to be got out as quickly as possible, under cover of darkness, before curious neighbors witnessed its departure— the syllables rolled together and made it sound like "Devil".

 

            Anne felt a little like the heroine in a Brontë novel, hovering on the cusp of an adventure, unfathomable in its awfulness, bursting with dire and dreadful possibilities. Perhaps something remarkable was finally about to happen to her and this time she would not have to make it up while standing at her wash bowl or peeling potatoes.

            She'd had her eye on a length of rose madder silk taffeta from Lockreedy and Velder, you see, but would feel a fraud wearing a gown made of it until she had a reason. Rose madder was not the sort of color associated with plain, ordinary, unexciting girls to whom nothing ever happened.

 

The flame of her candle went out. She caught her breath.

            A shadowy shape suddenly formed at the end of the alley and then proceeded to fill the frosty window as it drew nearer with an uneven gait. At first she thought the beast had three legs, until she realized that one of them was a cane, swung impatiently ahead of him between every step. Sometimes he slipped and then she saw the bristling fog of his breath as he exhaled a curse into the crisp winter's air.

            It could be nobody else but the man himself. The Deverell. Gentlemen visitors were not permitted at Mrs. Smith's boarding house, except on errands of urgency, and tradesmen came only in daylight. So who else could it be?

            The relief she felt at seeing him was surprisingly warm, considering she had already told herself that she wouldn't mind if he didn't come. There were, after all, crumpets to be had by way of compensation and now she would have to forgo the treat.

            But there he was.

            Before he could ring the bell, she swept the door open in anxious haste.

            "Mr. J.P. Deverell, I presume?"

            He was six foot tall and about as happy as a bull that had somehow got wind of its imminent castration. At least he had the manners to remove his hat and there were no horns visible beneath. But it was a brief gesture, clearly made under duress, and as a tight sigh oozed out of one side of his mouth, he confirmed his identity with a gruff, "Regrettably."

            It was instantly clear that there would be no apology for his lack of punctuality, for as his gaze drifted over her smoking candle wick, old brown coat, dented trunk and wicker basket, he exhaled a weary, "You're ready then." A sneer turned up the corner of his mouth. "That's something, at least." As if, because she was a woman, he'd expected much more fuss and fanfare around her departure.

            "And you're better late than never," she exclaimed cheerily. "We're doing well already, aren't we?" With that, and holding her basket in the crook of one arm, she reached down for a handle of her trunk. He had begun to turn away, so she said, "Could you be so kind as to get the other? I have not much within it that is of value and tossing it all about will do little harm, but I do hate the noise it makes when it drags along the cobbles."

            His lips parted for another plume of breath as he looked back at her. "Why do women require so much baggage?" He looked like a mythical creature, Anne thought suddenly. A dragon whose flames were temporarily dampened and reduced to puffs of smoke. Before she could respond, he bent and grabbed the other handle— so violently that it came away with a spirited crack.

            "Ah. I fear my trunk was quite unprepared for such a forceful handling," she murmured, looking at the broken, bent and now useless brass ring in Deverell's large fist. "It is generally accustomed to a more delicate grip. I just had that handle re-affixed too, alas!"

            "Apparently the job was not done well enough."

            "Take pity on my poor trunk, sir, for it is much older than I and has, I believe, traveled mostly in the service of maiden aunts, postulant nuns and missionaries' wives. I suppose you'll be quite a shock to it."

            He glowered down at her. "And vice versa." The words rumbled out of him on another cloud of mist and then he tossed the broken handle across the alley, thrust his cane at her to catch and lifted the trunk onto his shoulder, as if it weighed as much as a sack of feathers. "Why do you stand there gawping, woman? One foot before the other, if you please. If you can manage that much on your dainty stumps. I haven't all damnable night and if you imagine I might be prevailed upon to carry you too, let me disabuse you of the notion."

            Having balanced her trunk thus, he limped away toward the lamp post, his coat flapping around him like the wings of a raven, speckled with glittering snowflakes that had already begun to form a crust upon his shoulder until her trunk displaced them.

            She was very tempted to go back inside and eat crumpets. Dreadful, rude man!

            But suddenly she felt a warmer whisper of air against the back of her neck and knew that somebody had opened the parlor door, just a crack, to peek around it. They were all most curious, naturally, about the Deverell at the door. They must wonder how she, plain Miss Anne Follyot, previously of Little Marshes, Oxfordshire— population forty-nine, and all her business, or lack of it, known to them, as theirs was to her—and owner of mostly brown garments, had any connection to such a man.

            For once she was a person of interest.

            Anne recovered her breath, lifted her chin and decided that despite his surly lack of manners there was nothing else to be done, but follow the Deverell.

            For the sake of her abused and kidnapped trunk, if for no other reason.

            Besides, she wanted adventure, did she not? There was not a moment to waste if she was to get away before Lizzie arrived and ended all hope of excitement.

            Perhaps she would accomplish just a smidgen of rose madder scandal, before she was too old to have any and they buried her in brown.

* * * *

 

You can find The Snow Angel now for pre-order or on official release on December 5th!