Dancing the Maypole
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Miss Lily Leigh’s life is like a badly written fairytale. The fat younger sister is pretty, but her parents only have enough love and money for the beautiful older sister. When her parents die she’s denied an inheritance and enslaved to Rosamund, her heartless older sister, without a hope of being rescued. After more than a decade of pain and humiliation, the only thing that keeps her from throwing herself into the Thames is the possibility that one day she’ll catch another glimpse of Mr Penryth Bowen, the man her sister jilted eighteen years ago.
When her spoilt niece, Grace, wins the heart of William, Mr Bowen’s nephew and ward, Lily’s life momentarily brightens as the man who unknowingly owns her heart comes to call. Watching him from the shadows, she’s overwhelmed by the beautiful man’s kindness. But when Mr Bowen refuses to give his permission for an immediate wedding Lily knows her sister will blame her. A vicious beating is followed by the humiliation of being sent to beg Mr Bowen to allow the wedding in return for the chance of bedding Rosamund. Mr Bowen accepts the offer and Lily returns home wishing she was dead.
Mr Penryth Bowen is aware that Lily is in dire need of rescue, but his chivalrous impulses are hampered by an irrational desire for the woman. Her fleeting adoring glances cause a strange warmth in his chest while the thought of exploring her ample curves heat his blood to a pleasant simmer. He knows if he makes her a part of his life in some way he’ll be tempted to make her smile, tempted to give into his baser desires. He’s undecided until he discovers Lily has been battered black and blue. Penryth’s impulsive decision will change his life, but true kindness is a condition that requires self knowledge of one’s motives and an understanding that even well meant actions can have unforeseen consequences that are anything, but kind.
Background to A Companion for Life
This is the fastest novel I’ve ever written. I’ve been working almost exclusively on this one story for the last six months. When I started I thought it was a short story, but it turned out to be a novel. Every time I tried to end the story I’d run into a brick wall and then I’d find write three or more chapters and think I was at the end. I apologise to all my members who I kept telling, “It’s almost finished…” only to find it wasn’t.
Going forward, if I ever forget myself and tell you something is nearly finished, just ignore me until I send you the e-mail saying its online!
The hero for A Companion for Life is my first Welsh hero. Wales is a small very separate country that happens to be a part of the United Kingdom. If you look at what most people consider a map of England, Wales covers left hand corner that juts out parallel with Ireland. When you cross the border into Wales you know you’re not in England and not just because all the signs are in Welsh and English! The two times I’ve been to Wales it’s been like driving into the Twighlight Zone. I loved it! The Welsh have their own traditions, stories, values and its there in the landscape. It’s just totally different even in the age of television and mass immigration.
Wales is one of the last places in the world where a remnant of the Celtic language is still spoken, though the Welsh weren’t actually Celts. We won’t go into that, however, at some point back in the mists of time they adopted the Celtic language which thankfully has survived concerted attempts by the English to wipe it out. The Welsh accent, when a Welsh person speaks English, is really lovely. It has a particular lilt that I didn’t even attempt to write, but in my head Mr Bowen, the hero, does have a Welsh accent. Most of the time when I use Welsh words in the story I’ll translate it in the story. I think the only two I don’t do are ‘O Mam bach!’ which translates as ‘Oh little mother!’ It’s something the Welsh say in a predicament. And ‘twt lol!’ which means ‘Nonsense!’ I’ve used a number of Welsh idioms (unique expressions or sayings). One that I came across that appears to be widely used is ‘to put the fiddle in the roof’ it means to give up or quit. The two main Welsh characters, Mr Bowen and his nephew William Bowen often use idioms. They should all make sense, but if they don’t look up ‘Welsh idioms’ on the internet or ask me. This website; http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/welsh_language/61915 has an excellent fairly basic explanation on how the Welsh pronounce their words which I found helpful.
Mr Bowen ends up calling Lily Cariadon which is Welsh for Beloved. I understand it sounds like Caw(the r is rolled) ee-adon. If you’re a Welsh speaker please do feel free to write and correct me. And for any Welsh speakers, when he tells her in Welsh that he loves her I’ve used the old formal way of saying it.
If you’re an adventurous soul and want a realistic sample of the language, I found several singers on itunes (you can probably find them on Amazon). Aled Jones, the boy who originally sang the snowman song “I’m walking in the air…”, he’s Welsh and all grown up and still singing. He has a beautiful tenor and on his album New Horizons he sings the Welsh national anthem, ‘My Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau…’ it’s really lovely. He sings it in Welsh and then English. It’s a really good auditory sample of Welsh. A couple of other singers; Bryn Fon a Welsh pop singer His albumn ‘Dyddiau Di-Gymar’ sounded worth a listen and then there was a folk singer, Dafyff Iwan ac Ar Log Yma oHyd’. It was different! I could see myself buying a copy and loving it after twenty or thirty listens.
If you’ve already read the book and think you might read it again, I highly recommend two songs (which happen to be in English) which I’ve mentally woven into the story. Penryth’s song is ‘Falling’ off Richard Marx’s My Own Best Enemy. Lily’s song is ‘Ready to Fly’ from the same album.
Miss Lily Leigh is English and as you learn in the first few paragraphs, very overweight. I didn’t plan for her to be fat. I didn’t sit here and think to myself that I needed a fat heroine. When I started the first paragraph I just knew she was fat. I actually have a particular mental image of her size, but I’ve left it to the reader to come up with their own image.
As a point of interest, Lily, the heroine, in passing wonders if Mr Bowen has been adding lettuce opium to his tobacco. He smokes a pipe. I found this great book called The Land of England, by Dorothy Hartley; it’s an encyclopaedia of how people used to live in England throughout the year. It has all sorts of bizarre facts and one of the things I came across is that there’s a native English plant, ‘wild lettuce or Lettuce verosa’. In her book she writes, “The white juice of the lettuce was dried into brown cakes and used as a form of opium – it is strongly narcotic. A mediaeval ‘House Book’ of the early fifteenth century mentions this dried juice being given to produce sleep for surgery. When Britain produced her own drugs, quantities of Lettuce virosa were grown in Forfarshire. It was used for agues and fevers.” The misspellings are from the book. I looked up lettuce opium on the internet and found people are still using wild lettuce to make this mild narcotic. Apparently it’s non-addictive and people/men used to mix it with their tobacco to smoke in their pipe and some still do. It doesn’t make you high, it makes you feel calm and as suggested can help you sleep. When I read the ingredients on my grocery store bought sleep aids…there it was, wild lettuce extract. It’s just one of those trivial points that I thought was quite fascinating. Sometimes history is closer than we think!
I hope you enjoy reading A Companion for Life!
