February The Shortest Month of the Year by Rosemary Morris

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February the Shortest Month of the Year

“February brings the snow.
“Makes our feet and fingers glow.”

3rd and 4th lines of a nursery rhyme. Anonymous.

Hertfordshire. S. East England. 2019
Extracts from My Garden Diary
6th February. First thing in the morning a baby blue sky and sunshine followed by banks of cloud rimmed with gold. Later the sky darkened, and baby snowflakes fluttered to the ground. I wish I was as tolerant in every condition of my life as the trees and plants.
8th February. Patchy snow on the raised beds. Light frost changing the hue of the grass from bright green to silvery green. My nose glowed red when I ventured outside.
* * *
Miscellaneous.
The origin of February’s name is either from the ancient Italian God, Februus or februa purification festivals observed in Rome.
Aquarius is the sign of the zodiac for those born between the 1st and 18th. People born between the 19th and 28th/29th are influenced by Pisces. Violets, primroses, and irises are the month’s birth flowers. The birthstone is amethyst, symbol of piety, humility, sincerity and spirituality.
The Roman Catholic church dedicates February to the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
2nd February.
This the day on which it is thought Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord in the temple.
Shrove Tuesday. Pancake Day
Shrove Tuesday is on the first Tuesday before Lent. During the two previous days, known as shrove tide, Christians confess/ed their sins. On this day pancakes are made with eggs, which symbolise creation, flour, the staff of life, salt considered wholesome and milk for purity. This day was one of revelry and pancakes are still served in many homes.
Ash Wednesday the Beginning of Lent
Ash Wednesday lasts for forty days which represent the days Jesus spent in the wilderness. At church the priest or minister might mark Christian’s foreheads with the sign of the Cross, with ashes from palms burnt in the previous year after Palm Sunday. This is a sign of mourning and repentance. It also represents the cross Jesus sacrificed his life on. As a child during Lent I was encouraged to renounce sweets, which made chocolate Easter eggs very welcome.
14th February - St Valentine’s Day
There are several saints called Valentine but the martyrdom of two falls on this day. In times past it was believed birds mate on this day and sweethearts were chosen. The custom of sending anonymous cards developed from that belief.

Classic Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels. False Pretences. Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books One to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child, and Friday’s Child. (The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are sometimes referred to and characters reappear.) Saturday’s Child will be published in July 2020.

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book

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Cat Wrangling For Christmas

Mozart’s Wife Intimate Mozart

aka Mozart's Wife

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I'm writing about our primary Christmas present, Tony from Long Island, because this little devil is just about a full time project at the moment. Tony is the new kitty kid in our household, bringing our total to three. His evolving relationships with our older felines is about all that's doing around at our house this past few weeks.

Here's little Tony when he first came, sitting on my knee.

Tony arrived in early December. The agreement between my husband and me was that if I took him from friends who already had one too many cats, he would represent our major "house" gift. He came


When Tony arrived--a long day's round trip for his tender-hearted rescuers from Bayshore--he was still small. However, like the monster in 20 Million Miles to Earth, he's grown by leaps and bounds.

Tony has been assisted in this astonishing growth spurt by lots of Purina Kitten Chow(c) and the testicular rocket-fuel contained in two cute gray and white fuzzy balls placed tidily beneath his ringed smoke-gray tail. The presence of these feline superchargers adds another element of uncertainty to our cat integration story. Our elder cats (both 9 years, one with muscular-skeletal issues and the other with PTSD) can scent that this young tom is in super-hero mode, all strength, activity and wacky, climbing the walls cat-a-tude.

Tony at Doctor Mimnaugh's office for his first check-up

His energy level is a bit much for his humans, too, as we are not getting any younger ourselves. He and Willy-Yum had fun playing for a couple of days, but then, I have come to believe, Willy-Yum over-exerted himself and hurt his already weak and injured back. This left him limping and hissing and most definitely not wanting to be jumped upon. This abrupt rejection, in turn, hurt the kitten's feelings.

With those afore-mentioned super-chargers attached, Tony decided to chase and wrestle with the one who had first been fun to romp with and who now, inexplicably, was refusing. That rough play led to Willy-Yum hiding under the bed and not eating. And that led to his kitty parents, who'd only seen the play part of the new relationship, pushing the panic button and taking Willy to the vet for a blood panel.  After we got the bill, I knew that the "Christmas present" agreement was a realistic one, at least as far as keeping our budget under some semblance of control went.

Willy after an impressive leap onto the dryer

We have learned that Willy was not as strong (or maybe even as young) as we'd thought, and that he did indeed have some lurking physical problems we had not known about before. When you take an elder cat from a Kill Shelter as we had done with him, you're most likely getting a pig in a poke. While Willy is a great lap cat, he'd also been frisky and playful. We'd never expected that the addition of a kitten would be so physically hard on him.

Fortunately, I'd been smart enough to get  new laser for red dot games and a new feather toy, so that I can give Tony some of the exercise he desperately longs for. Years ago, in another age, we might have let this rambunctious boy outside, but this has begun to feel owner irresponsibility. First off, this sweet and absolutely NOT streetwise boy could instantly get himself killed or lost--as in "curiosity killed the ... ".  Besides, who knows what feats of ill-advised daring those testicles might urge him to undertake in the exciting out of doors?

So, until we get those fractious appendages are removed--we are counting down the days to the surgery date--I'm doing a lot of cat wrangling. This means supplying litter boxes all over the house, as well as beds and dishes of food and water in various rooms, and these must be washed and refreshed daily. Sometimes Willy-Yum and I are in my bed room for some private time; sometimes Tony is in his bedroom for a time out; sometimes Kimi has to be carried out of the cellar, is her default PTSD retreat. Afterward, she must be placed gently on the couch, combed and brushed a little and protected until Tony's interest goes elsewhere.

Kimi, our anxious girl

We are making use of the elusive antics of the red dot and the tease toys, too. In short, Kitty Mom and Dad are kept pretty busy, while, at the same time, trying not to be "helicopter parents," and allow the cats to work out things for themselves. It's much like adopting a kid in many ways, this delicate business of integrating another sensitive being into our home.  We're doing our best to be responsible, thoughtful caretakers of all of our animal companions.

While this may all sound a bit over the top, as the little old woman next door used to say about her pets, "They are a whole lotta company." and so they are! And if I'd wanted a "new toy" to entertain me, I've certainly got one in Tony. We've never had a cat who watched T.V. before--I mean ALL television--not just birds and small mammals--Tony watches everything, from cop shows to football games. We have to keep the squirt gun handy in order to prevent him hurling himself into the screen.

He's going to be a great cat, our little Tony the Tiger! We think he's pretty great Christmas present, despite all the work involved. 

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~~Juliet Waldron

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OB/GYN and the historical

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For women's history month, I thought I'd check into a topic that isn't exactly hearts and flowers, but which (perversely, maybe), drew my searching feminist interest. After all, what did our fore-mothers' experience in their real lives? Inevitably, after the romance comes the babies. It's Mother Nature's plan to trick us that way.) Women then had to cope with their bodies as well as their emotions when caught up in an amorous physical relationship. Exactly what, in the 18th Century, did that mean? 

The very first historical novel I wrote, Mozart's Wife, got me researching a kind of social history that has, until lately, been little regarded.  Back in the 1980's when I began to write a novel from the POV of a young Viennese woman  who had the fortune/misfortune to marry the Rock Star of her day, I had to do some serious digging to unearth information about these female rites of passage, from birthing customs, feminine hygiene to contraception. It's top secret info into caring for what--believe it or not--one of our modern (?) politicians is still referring to as "lady parts." 

A good part of Constanze’s life, and rarely mentioned by Wolfgang’s biographers--who, for many years, loved to pile on her for not being the same sort of caretaker of genius that his father had been--the poor girl was pregnant or convalescent from childbirth. For six  out of the nine years their marriage lasted, she was expecting. The longest interval between her pregnancies was seventeen months, the shortest (on two occasions) six months. In 1789 she was bedridden for months. Her legs swelled, she had intermittent fevers and racking pains in her legs and abdomen throughout the entire pregnancy. The daughter she bore that year died at birth and very nearly took Constanze with her. No wonder the poor creature was often distracted. Not only was she struggling to manage a household with an income that came in and went out like some kind of wildly irregular tide; her energies were concentrated upon staying alive.

From the Mozart Family Letters, and from what I’ve read to research her symptoms, it would appear that Constanze nearly died of puerperal fever on two separate occasions. Childbirth and the resulting illnesses brought doctors, midwives, wet-nurses, and prescriptions--and attendant expense. It would be difficult, even today, to keep a woman with such an obstetrical record “in good general health.” And the cure for her ailments? Trips to the spa to bathe in the hot water--and who knows what microbes lurked in those pools, in continual use since Roman Times--and, of course, leeches. The leeches actually might have helped, as they draw blood through areas where swelling or infection has caused circulation to stagnate. They are so used in hospitals today. There is also an anesthetic the critters secrete when they latch on which may have a welcome local effect.

All large European cities were dirty. There were backhouses behind the apartment buildings. If the latrines were inside, this meant a collection point at the bottom of the house which was occasionally scooped out. What this meant for the summer water supply is not hard to guess. The brief life of four of Mozart’s children and the illnesses of the parents are not unusual for the 18^th Century. However, it can only be imagined how difficult the birth and death of four infants in such a short space of time was upon the mother.

“Congratulations, you are a grandpapa! Yesterday, at half past six in the morning, my dear wife was safely delivered of a fine sturdy boy, as round as a ball. Her pains began at half past one in the morning so that night we both lost our rest and sleep. At four o’clock I sent for my mother-in-law and then for the midwife. At six o’clock the child began to appear and at half past six the trouble was all over. My mother-in-law by her great kindness to her daughter has made full amends for all the harm she did her before her marriage. She spends the whole day with her.”

Raimund Leopold, as he was named, was born strong and healthy, but what the proud father originally wrote to his father is an 18^th Century tale, one that today sounds totally crazy. 

“My dear wife….will make a full recovery from her confinement. From the condition of her breasts I am rather afraid of milk-fever. And now the child has been given to a foster-nurse against my will, or rather, at my wish! For I was quite determined that whether she should be able to do so or not, my wife was never to feed her child. Yet I was equally determined that my child was never to take the milk of a stranger! I wanted the child to be brought up on water, like my sister and myself. However, the midwife, my mother-in-law and most people here have begged and implored me not to allow it, if only for the reason that most children here who are brought up on water do not survive as the people here don’t know how to give it properly. That induced me to give in, for I should not like to have anything to reproach myself with.”

It was a good thing that Grandma Cecelia, tactful for once, managed to persuade Mozart that babies do not live long on sugar water! And, certainly, Constanze doubtless did have milk fever more than once, because while they had money, Mozart, that 18th Century husband-whose-word-must-be-obeyed, never allowed her to nurse. Of their six children, only two survived to adulthood. Her last baby, Franz Wolfgang, was probably nursed by his mother, but this was only because that final summer of 1791, the couple were stony broke. In Mozart's mind, breast feeding was "lower class," a stigma that, if you think about it, has lasted for a very long time in our western "civilized" society.  

After Mozart died, Constanze never bore another baby, though she did marry again. I had to assume that such a fertile woman had at last learned the unholy secret of contraception. When I did a little research into that veiled subject, I learned that there weren't a whole lot of options for a "decent" married couple in the late 18th Century. Perhaps she'd learned the trick with the natural sponge and lemon juice or vinegar douche. Perhaps her new husband used a sheep gut condom--there are images of these quaint relics online--complete with a red ribbon to keep it snugly fitted.

~~Juliet Waldron

The Arc of the Story..."Where the River Narrows"

Billie Burke as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North

“It’s always best to start at the beginning.” Wise words from the Good Witch of the North in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Wizard of Oz.

Then again, I doubt old Glinda ever wrote a novel or she probably would have come up something a bit less confusing. Unlike Dorothy, I would have asked, “What is the beginning?”

Okay, in the context of the movie, this is pretty much self-explanatory: If you’re heading from Munchkin Land to the Emerald City, you start out on the Yellow Brick Road and keep going until you reach the big gate with the broken door bell. But with a novel, it ain’t that easy. You can start in media res (in the middle of the action) or at square one, as in Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding, with the lead character as a baby. You can start at the end and work backwards, or with a prologue…. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Today’s readers are not so forgiving as Mr. Fielding’s in the middle of the 18^th century, or Charles Dickens’s in the 19^th  or even Margaret Mitchell’s in the early 20^th century. They want something more fast-paced. They want to jump into a book without the long preambles and slow development our pre-multimedia-consuming ancestors found so appealing. Gone are the days of the family sitting around the fire, by candle- or lamplight after supper on a long winter night, reading aloud as the sole form of entertainment.

The fact that I write historicals places certain restrictions on how I approach the arc of a book. The characters are vital to the plot, and the setting has nearly equal weight when planning how the book will be structured. I like the deep third person point of view that allows the reader to see through the eyes of more than one character, and I try to include just enough details of time and place without them being overwhelming.

In Where the River Narrows (with fellow BWL author Ron Ady Crouch, to be published

cover photo © Janice Lang

         cover photo © Janice Lang

by in July 2018), I’ve chosen to begin the book at a what I consider to be a logical start-off point. The Exposition introduces the characters (Elisabeth Van Alen, her family, servants and neighbors, and Gerrit Bosch, the groom-to-be in this “Brides” story) without a lot of preamble. The goal is to show them going about their normal lives while painting in the features and subtleties of the era as a natural offshoot of their daily activities. But to simply present a bunch of people running around in costumes performing out-dated tasks would be boring without a hint of something about to happen. Something is brewing that will upset this idyllic scene and have far-reaching consequences.

Before the proverbial cart is overturned, relationships between the characters are established, the groundwork laid for the “bride” aspect of the book, and the external conflicts put in place that are responsible not only for capsizing the wagon but for trampling its contents under foot.

Following the “Exposition,” we move on to the “Rising Action.” After the inciting incident (the event that sets the wheels turning), the story takes on an entirely different feel. What had been normal and comfortable no longer is so. War does this, and war, in the form of the American Revolution, has dire consequences for Elisabeth and Gerrit. There are losses and separations. Loved ones die, confidences are betrayed, and the survivors are forced to carry on amid harsh and forbidding circumstances. In this part of the book, Elisabeth and the remnants of her family and servants make a perilous trek to Canada where they hope to seek asylum among the British troops and loyalists to wait out the conclusion of the war. On the way, they meet up with an assortment of colorful characters based on historical accounts from a variety of sources. Once they arrive in Quebec Province, they need to survive further hardship and privation.

The Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement haven’t been written yet. (Neither, for that matter, has much of the Rising Action). But the arc of this story plays out nightly in my mind before I fall asleep. Even though I do not “plot” per se, this book is already as indelible as it could be. There is room for change…but not much. That depends on the research materials I continue to pore over. As anyone who’s ever written a historical novel will tell you, there are gold nuggets waiting to be mined from some dusty old tome that can put a new spin on even those story elements that today seem untouchable.

We shall see….

~*~

Kathy Fischer Brown is a BWL author of historical novels, Winter Fire, Lord Esterleigh’s Daughter, Courting the Devil, The Partisan’s Wife, and The Return of Tachlanad,  an epic fantasy adventure for young adult and adult readers. Check out her BWL Author page for more information and links to order, or visit her website. All of Kathy’s books are available in e-book from a variey of online retailers, and in paperback.