The Turnspit Dragon

In which the author does a thing.

I’ve been doing a retrospective at my site, Random Bits of Fascination on backlist this month and realized I had 29 books to features, but there were 30 days in the month. Well, I could skip Thanksgiving as it’s a holiday and all. But that was too easy, so…

I give you…

The Turnspit Dragon and other Tales of the Blue Order

How about an excerpt?

A Little  Sea-Bathing

Who knows who you might come upon while sea bathing?

This takes place between the events of a Proper Introduction to Dragons and The Dragon of Kellynch

May, 1804             Portsmouth, England

Sophy Croft, proud (and occasionally described as eccentric for her love of sailing) wife of Captain Croft, walked along the pebbled beach of Portsmouth’s southern shore. April’s chill was just giving way to the budding warmth of May and the steady stream of holiday-makers who found Portsmouth as agreeable a place as any for sea-bathing.

While she agreed that Portsmouth was an agreeable place for a naval wife who found herself beached, unable to sail along with her husband on his most recent assignment—no, she was neither bitter nor resentful over that, certainly not—the whole notion of sea-bathing was a different matter entirely.

In the most polite terms possible, sea-bathing was highly over-rated.  Not that she would ever speak the thoughts aloud, but the men who recommended it were vile barbarians who supported paying brutal women for the privilege of being assaulted by them and half drowned in bone-chilling, soul-killing, cold, salty water.

And Captain Croft—who might soon be Commodore Croft—who regularly engaged in the practice himself, thought it bracing, invigorating, and healthful. So, he insisted she take advantage of her proximity to the sea and partake regularly in that all-but-medieval form of torture.

Because it was an expression of his loving protective nature, and because she missed him—and loved him more than such a stubborn, aggravating fellow deserved, she would go sea-bathing.

But it would be on her terms. There would be no bathing machines.

Salty wind, with the vague tinge of fishiness that tickled her tongue not quite pleasantly, caught the edge of her straw bonnet and threatened to pull it away. But her clever sailor’s knot in the ribbons held fast under her chin. The breeze always played petulant little tricks here, at a break in the trees where the multi-colored pebbled beach faded into golden sand. The spot where the dippers with their bathing machines awaited their willing, paying victims.

The gaily painted little huts on wheels stood facing the breaking waves. Lying little temptations promising far more comfort than they provided. Their masters, the dippers and bathers, wandered the walkways looking for holiday-makers with shillings to spend on that which might improve their health and well-being.

Once coins were exchanged, the bathers would be loaded into the cold, damp, reeking-of-old-sea-water huts on wheels. Jolting and lurching behind the poor horses resigned to their miserable lot, the bathing machine would be drawn into the chill waves, swaying sickly with each buffet.

If that were not insult enough, upon arriving in water “deep enough,” one was expected to disrobe and change into a filmy ‘bathing protector’ or if one could not afford one of Mrs. Bell’s fashionable creations, a rented bathing dress that rarely felt fully dry and smelt like the bathing machine. And in that state of vulgar undress a lady was expected to put herself into the hands of a dipper.

Not even if Martha Gunn, Queen of the Brighton Dippers, knocked on her door to plead for the privilege of dipping her would Sophy ever, ever put herself in the hands of another dipper. No one was going to plunge her into the cold water and hold her there against her will, until her lungs screamed for breath and the cold penetrated her soul in the process.

Never again.

No less than three such mercenary individuals began to approach her, hoping for her patronage. She turned on her heel and marched away from the shore and toward the shambling road leading back toward her cottage.

She would sea-bathe—she had promised Croft that—but on her own terms.

Sophy had grown up in a loud boisterous household with three brothers whom she adored. The heir to the estate was proper and studious, the clergyman was proper and kind, and the naval officer was smart, strong, and loyal, but rather less proper. Not unlike Croft, and quite probably some of the reasons she fell in love with him.

Long rainy days, like the last two, used to be her favorite sort of days, when she could revel in her brothers’ company, selfishly having them to herself. But those days were long since past and these long days of rain were simply lonely.

She could have shared a house with several other naval wives. Many women found that arrangement quite agreeable—sometimes more agreeable than living with their husbands, but that opinion was another issue altogether. When one was the sort of woman who generally found male company more agreeable than that of her own sex, sharing a house lost all appeal.

Which all came to mean she was lonely. Not the simple kind of loneliness of merely being without company. But the sort of loneliness a creature felt when separate from their own kind. A kind of deep isolation that came from being unlike those around you, an oddity, some might say a misfit. She paid all the required social calls, attended dinners and card parties, but some days she was weary of play-acting a role in which she did not fit.

Before he left, Croft suggested she talk to the local Blue Order office to see if there were any minor dragons in want of a Friend. He had never met a dragon he did not get on with and could not foresee any possibility that any Friend of hers would disapprove of him.

He was probably right. She might do that—after she did the other thing he had asked of her and went sea-bathing.

The next morning, she rose just after dawn, to clear skies and barely-not-cold salty breezes. Those who knew called early morning the best time for sea-bathing. Might as well do it and have it done.

She donned the sea-side bathing dress Croft insisted she have before he sailed—a gift to encourage her to sea-bathe whilst he was away. A rather sturdier than average, pale pink muslin gown, with a simple green trim along the hem and yoke around the shoulders, its greatest appeal was its clever design making it especially easy to change out of (and back into, one would assume). A necessary amenity if one was to attempt changing in the dark, awkward confines of a bathing machine. It came with a lovely matching drawstring bag, barely larger than a reticule, containing a silk bathing gown. The height of fashion and thoughtfulness. It did not hurt that the sea-side bathing dress complimented her figure rather smartly.

It would be pleasanter if he were here to see.

Bag (with a small towel discreetly inside) tucked under her arm, she strode out into the morning in the opposite direction of the bathing machines.

The sky still clung to its deep evening garb even as the sun forced a bright, rosy frock at it. Sea birds cawed from the direction of the fishing boats, waiting for their return, hungry, greedy, little bandits.  Salt and the vague odor of fish hung in the air, leaving a vague taste on the back of her tongue. She liked fish as well as the next person, but on her plate, not in the air. After living seaside for so much of her life, one would think she would have learned to ignore it, or so the other wives had said. Since that was not possible, she just stopped mentioning that she noticed it instead.

She followed the narrow, winding street past a row of neat little cottages, similar to her own, mostly thatched-roof affairs. Some had been built of sensible, regular bricks, lined up in tidy rows along the walls, orderly soldiers at their task. Others had walls of irregular stones that somehow nestled in together to form steady, serious fortifications without losing their merry abandon. Occasionally someone attempted to dress them in formal white paint, like a white muslin gown on a young woman, with varying degrees of success. Some cottages seemed ready to attend an assembly ball and dance the night away, while others would hardly have received any invitation to dance at all, frowsy, blowsy things.

Many of the homes boasted blooming vines for which they were often named. Rose Cottage, though, should not to be confused with Wild Rose Cottage, nor Tea Rose Place, nor White Rose Cottage—especially if one had been invited to call at one of those homes. Wisteria Place, bathed in lavender glory, stood out from the rest, wearing its spring splendor before the others got their frocks.

She turned at Ivy View, covered in shiny, bright-green new leaves, and again at the still spindly trees of Beech Lodge and finally at Laurel Haven. The latter was all but obscured by a thick hedge of deep green shrubbery dotted with sweet smelling fuzzy-looking white flowers and buzzing with bees.

After a quarter of an hour, that street ended rather abruptly in a sandy patch of shoreline, perhaps fifty yards wide flanked by dense trees on either side. Strong regular waves did not reach the dark line in the golden sand—the tide was receding, and there was no one else around, exactly as she had hoped for.

Here, she could sea-bathe without enduring the trial of a bathing machine or its servants. That notion made the reality of cold water almost tolerable.

Almost.

Clutching her bag close to her chest with one arm and lifting the hem of her skirt with the other, she picked her way into a clump of trees until all signs of civilization were obscured by leafy branches. Here, in the trees, even the sea water did not smell so pronounced, mingled with the perfume of trees and flowering things. Much, much better.

She quickly shed the sea-bathing dress in favor of Mrs. Bell’s pink bathing preserver and the little silk cap that was supposed to guard her hair. The bathing preserver hung like a sack, with virtually no structure, barely hemmed around the edges. The bottom seemed to have some sort of weights sewn into it, probably to help keep it in place in the water. Whether that would work or not remained to be seen. She tucked the chain with her Blue Order signet under the bathing protector. Thought it was unlikely her things might be found and meddled with, she would take no chances with the mark of her membership to the Blue Order.

Best not procrastinate any further, lest she succumb to the calls of the warm dress she was leaving behind. She hung her gown on a convenient branch, tied her bonnet beside it, and placed her shoes beneath it, then picked her way onto the beach.

How surprising, the most charming soft crunch of the moist sand under her toes! A delightful sensation, despite the cold.  Did she simply feel it or hear it as well? Difficult to tell with the constant low roar of the lapping waves and bluster of sea breeze constantly in her face. She stared into the horizon, toward the sunrise.

If only the silhouette of Croft’s ship were on the horizon on its way home. But that was just a pipe dream. There were still many weeks before she could hope for such a sight.

No more procrastination, if she were going to do this, it should be now. She waded out into the waves.

Oh, oh! It was as awful as she had remembered. Chill waves turned cold as she foundered past the shallows toward the deeper water. She only had to go deep enough that she could duck down to get her shoulders into the water, perhaps waist high. One dunk, maybe two, and she would be finished.

Almost there …

Her feet were swept out from beneath her, the water itself wrapping invisible arms around her, dragging her deeper, forcing her down. Cold water closed over her face, smothering, cutting off all sound, all air.

Find the rest here.