Six Must-have Accessories for a Regency Heroine

There are a number of objects which every self-respecting Regency lady had to hand - each of them very useful for a novelist.

The most important was probably her writing desk. It was the laptop/smart phone of the day and no lady would travel without it. Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey has one. We know how much she valued it because, as she was setting off with the Tilneys to Northanger Abbey, such was the General’s impatience that ‘she had some difficulty in saving her own new writing-desk from being thrown out into the street.’

 

Wooden portable writing desk with brass fittings

 

The writing desk shown here has neat brass bands for strength and brass corners to save it from knocks; it also has a lock as well as two square wooden holders for glass ink wells and a longer container for quill pens and a knife to sharpen the nib. Catherine Morland would probably have kept her journal safely locked inside.

 

The hero, Henry Tilney, teases her about it. ‘Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenor of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion and curl of your hair to be described, in all their diversities without having constant recourse to a journal?’  

 

I’m sure we can all think of a modern equivalent!

Writing desk open with cut glass inkwell. Writing slope covered in green leather. Underneath are storage spaces and three very small drawers. 

 

Writing desks are not just for heroines; a competent villainess could make very good use of one, too. A writing desk could be quite big enough to hold a pistol, for example, and there are some small, discreet drawers inside which could hold billets doux, stolen jewels, an important document, any number of secret things.

 

Beaded reticule with draw-string

 

Then, our heroine will also, of course, have a reticule. I have chosen the larger of the two I possess to show you; it is U-shaped, 7 x 7 inches and has a draw-string. It was once lined in cream silk. I’m guessing that a heroine would keep more in it than just her purse.

 

Brass etui with tassel, about 2 inches long.

 



So, what else might be inside it - a handkerchief, perhaps, or a small notebook with a pencil? What about this pretty brass sewing etui? Inside, it contains a thimble which sits on top of a very small china tube with a brass cap. Various coloured cotton, or possibly silk lengths, are wound round the outside and, if you take the cap off, there are a few needles inside. However, the thought instantly struck me that you could put anything inside – smelling salts, say, or even poison.

 

Inside the etui: thimble, cotton/silk strands, needles

 



In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most of the everyday objects a Regency lady owned could be used for other things. A villainess could make very good use of an etui, or a writing desk, I felt sure.  

 

Glass powder bowl with silver rim

The next object is a powder bowl with a silver rim – for loose face powder. It would have had an ostrich feather powder puff with a small ivory stick to hold it with. So why might a Regency lady need it?

Suppose our heroine has enjoyed a few stolen minutes in the conservatory with a delightful man. She knows that he’s a detrimental but … he has other talents which she is only just discovering. Horrified, she spots her mother coming across the room. Quickly she nips behind the curtains, races upstairs to her bedroom and looks at herself in the mirror. Her hair is a mess and her face is pink and glowing. This won’t do! She reaches for the powder puff, dips it in the bowl and frantically pats her face to restore it to its fashionable pallor. Whew!

China hairpin container 

 

But what about her hair? She has left several hairpins on the conservatory floor. Fortunately, she has a small china knick-knack on her dressing-table which holds her hairpins, so she can easily repair the damage the handsome Mr Detrimental did to her coiffure.

 

Little does our heroine know that the gentleman in the conservatory has picked up several of her dropped hairpins and is studying them thoughtfully. Could he be contemplating blackmail? Or perhaps the villainess finds one an hour or so later – it looks just the right size to pick a lock …. If the hairpin was distinguishable in some way, she might even use it to get the heroine into serious trouble, if it were discovered somewhere suspicious.

Ebony and silver spangled fan

 



Lastly, her fan. This one, with carved ebony sticks and discreet silver spangled design, is a mourning fan. In an age which demanded physical restraint from ladies, a fan could be very useful. From a body language point of view, a fan can be used as a 'body extension' tool. A lady cannot touch a gentleman but a touch of her fan on his forearm, or a light tap on his hand, allows her to touch him by proxy. Not to mention holding her fan to hide her face, but allowing herself to peep at him from over the top of it. What gentleman could resist?  

 

So there you are. Make sure that your heroine has the right accoutrements for the period and you will have all the props you need for a gripping story which will keep the readers turning over those pages.

 

Elizabeth Hawksley

Inspirational Ruins

This month I’m thinking about ruins: castles, abbeys, more humble dwellings – it doesn’t matter. As a writer of historical fiction, I have always known, as I’m sure you have, that a ruin can be immensely useful in a novel, both as a suitable location to test your hero or heroine, and for what it can add to the atmosphere.   

I’ve just come back from a holiday in Northern Ireland where I saw a number of ruined monastic buildings. And the thought stuck me immediately that they’d offer ideal opportunities for hiding or pursuit.

 

 Grey Abbey; the east wall - note the buttresses

Take Grey Abbey, a Cistercian abbey dating from 1193, overlooking Strangford Lough. What my novelist’s eye noticed at once, was that, at some point, part of the abbey had become unstable; you can see three buttresses propping it up along the east wall.

 

Looking from a doorway along the line of buttresses; note the deep shadows

Take a Regency heroine (let us call her Angelica); she is in jeopardy – naturally. We find her inside the ruined abbey, peering cautiously through a side door, desperate to escape from the loathly Sir Tancred . She spots the line of buttresses, their width and depth could be useful in concealing her. But, could Sir Tancred be hidden behind one of them?  The abbey’s architecture allows your characters to play a deadly game of hide and seek amid the shadows.

Grey Abbey from another angle

It is evening, and the shadows begin to lengthen. In one corner, where plants grow in the crevices, there are some protruding stones going up the wall. Could that be an escape route? Angelica spent her childhood climbing trees but does she dare crawl over that huge arch?

 

Dog tooth decoration on the ceremonial arch at the west end of the church

Angelica freezes. The moon has floated out from behind a cloud and a dark figure has just stooped under the arch and there is a glint of a sword. Could it be Sir Tancred? But he’s too tall…   

 

Struell Wells, the ruins of a medieval church and the beehive-shaped drinking well

However, ruins can also be useful in other ways. Take the complex of buildings at Struell Wells, once a healing centre, dating from at least the 8^th century. St Patrick himself is supposed to have visited it. The buildings spread out over a field, and comprise the Drinking well, the Eye well, and two separate bathhouses for men and women, as well as a medieval chapel. A stream with exceptionally pure water runs through the field and connects them all. The historical evidence suggests that this has been a place of healing since pagan times. An 1831 map shows that a holy thorn also once grew in the field.

 

 

 Close up view of the drinking well

Suppose your heroine (who needs a name change – Agneta?) lives in pagan times and comes from a long line of women healers. We all love proactive heroines, and pagan healing women were powerful and respected in the community. The arrival of Christianity brings problems to Agneta’s community, and St Patrick arrives to convert the holy springs and wells to Christianity. He is known to have spent hours in the Drinking well building, singing psalms.

 

And I don’t imagine priests at that date would have been keen on pagan women healers as guardians of Struell Wells, either.

 

The Eye well. Note the Men and Women’s bathhouses in the background.

The Eye well is a small rectangular building with a corbelled roof which is pyramidal in shape. Very little is known about it but this is an area which is rich in wild flowers and I don’t doubt that once special herbs were used to help cure eye complaints. Again, this could useful for a heroine. What Agneta actually does at the eye well is up to the author and you don’t need me to tell you that there could be much at stake… even her very life.

 

 

The Women’s bathhouse is small and poky compared with the men’s; you can just see a low ledge, perhaps for a bench on the right.



 

The Women’s bathhouse was once also known as the Limb well, and the Men’s bathhouse as the Body well. The current building dates from somewhere between the 13^th and15^th centuries. The men’s section is much larger; whether that was true originally, we don’t know. The water running (via a tap) in the Women’s bathhouse is silky smooth. 

 

General view of the landscape around Struell Wells

Society continued to have problems with powerful women who were trained in anything – and accusations of witchcraft continued until well into the 17^th century. Even midwifery underwent an attempted male takeover. (Would Princess Charlotte have died with an experienced female midwife, one wonders.) The notorious ‘witch finder’ Matthew Hopkins hanged sixty women in Essex alone in 1645. Agneta could be a healer anytime up to the 18^th century, which gives writers a lot of scope.

 

So there we are. All the imagination needs are a few ruins! 

 

Elizabeth Hawksley

 

 

 

Elizabeth Hawksley Writing Tips: 3

Good morning, Elizabeth here. Spring has arrived, a time of new beginnings, so I thought I'd offer a couple of kick-starting Writing Tips.

 

                                                    

Sometimes scenes can get so bogged down that it feels like being stuck in a peat bog. Somehow, you need to get things moving again. Here are a couple of suggestions which work for me.

What’s at stake?

Each scene needs to push the action forward in some way and you may have lost the emotional connection with your hero or heroine. Try asking yourself: is what’s at stake strong enough? 

 

Fling in a problem

Chuck in something that stops the action in its tracks, and causes your hero/heroine maximum embarrassment, anguish or whatever.  Lydia Bennet running off with Wickham in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a brilliant example of this; it brings Lizzy and Darcy’s increasing intimacy to a sudden halt and throws a serious spanner in the works. Suddenly, a whole lot more is at stake.

Good luck.

Elizabeth Hawksley

Photo by Sally Greenhill