stories

My stories that I wrote as Clova Leighton (historical romances) are available on the blog. They include Regency stories, some based in Roman Britain and some in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Diana III

Diana and Jan get married and she decides that she wants to use her money to set up a home for children whose lives have been destroyed by war. Jan feels that her good side is now coming out more. He is fed up with the war and wishes it were over. Diana is eager to have a baby. She wants a son by Jan, but in the end she has to tell him that it seems unlikely that she will manage it. She tells him that when she asked him to come to France with her on the mission to get Yves' papers, she was pregnant by one of her lovers. She felt that she could not go on with dangerous war work, in such a condition so she hastily arranged an abortion. It didn't go well and her womb was damaged. Jan knows little of female reproduction and is shocked. He had guessed at the time he met her that Diana was pregnant, and then on a second meeting, she did not seem to be pregnant. Diana tells him she could try to have an operation to fix her womb, but she also has a bad heart. She has had heart trouble before and the adventures in France have added to the strain on her heart. So having a gynaecological operation might kill her.

Consequences III

Ten years pass, and we learn that Alex is now a nun (Sister Alexandra) in the convent in Belgium. But she is still not very happy. She hasn't got any real skills to use in her work. She does a bit of teaching but one of her little pupils gets a crush on her and the nuns are nervous about this sort of thing. Alex still loves Mother Gertrude, who is now a senior nun in the Liege convent, but she is getting worn out. She has been struggling for years to persuade herself that she has a vocation and that she is in the right place, but she is running out of energy. She is often ill. But she felt when she came to stay at the convent that she had no real option but to go into the order. Her family didn't want her, the upper class world didn't want her. Mother Gertrude and the convent seemed to be the only people who cared for her or wanted to give her a place in life. In the past years, things have changed a lot in England. Her parents are both dead. Her brother Cedric has married and so has Barbara. She married a young artist who went to South Africa during the Boer war and became ill and died. He left her very badly off. Alex feels lost. Her family keep in touch but she has no real connexion with them. Her youngest sister, Pamela, is now growing up and ready to take her place in society. She then learns that Mother Gertrude has been transferred to a convent in South America and will be leaving soon. Mother Gertrude believes she did the right thing in encouraging Alex to become a nun, but now she finds out her mistake. When she hears that her idol is going to be sent far away, probably for life, Alex becomes hysterical. Gertrude is severe with her and tells her that she is very wrong to think like this.. She has a vocation and she must obey her religious superiors. She cannot attach herself to an individual or love someone more than God. Alex has always thought of herself as "bad" and these unkind words from Gertrude drive her to despair. It seems to confirm that she is really a bad person and that Mother Gertrude never cared for her. She breaks down completely. Mother Gertrude leaves and Alex tells the senior nuns that she has decided she can't stay in the convent.

Consequences II

Noel is a little like Monica's admirer in Thank Heaven Fasting.. that young man, Carol, was very vain and tiresome, but Monica put up with him because she had no other prospects of a husband. However, Alex begins to find Noel increasingly annoying. Her parents let them get engaged, privately but do not announce it. Within a few weeks, Alex feels she can't live with Noel's lack of any real affection for her any longer and she breaks off the engagement. Her parents are horrified. They suspect that she will not have many more chances of getting married and that if news gets out that she jilted Noel, she will ruin her chances altogether. Alex is very upset but feels she had no option. Her parents continue to take her into society but she dislikes it more and more and she does not have any suitors. Barbara, the next girl, is now over her accident, when she fell off the "tightrope". The Clare parents decide to send her to a friend in France to learn about society. She goes off happily and takes to life in France very well and soon becomes sophisticated and fashionable, though she is not as pretty as Alex. After a year or so, she returns. She is only 17, but she seems very well able to come out in Society and tells Alex that she has had an admirer in France who writes her love letters. Alex is getting furiously jealous of her younger sister. Barbara decides to make her come out early at just 17. It is the Diamond Jubilee year and the family go to various events. Alex is coming home from one such event, with only her maid as chaperone. She is tired and hot, and the maid, who is a Catholic, suggests that they go to a nearby church to rest for a little. It appears that the order where Alex went to school now has a house and church in London. It is a Belgian order and Alex has had nothing to do with them since she left school. She agrees to walk to the church and rest up.. and when she gets there, she does feel a little happier. She wonders if perhaps something good is finally going to happen for her. In the church, she is waiting for her maid to find a cab, and she finds to her shock that there is a nun in the chapel. It is Mother Gertrude, one of the senior nuns. Gertrude sees how unhappy Alex is, as they talk, and she begins to persuade her to turn to religious life. Over the next couple of months, she visits the church often and develops a crush on Mother Gertrude. Gertrude believes that Alex has a vocation and encourages her to think so too. The Clares are not happy with her for becoming so religious and "Slumming"... and arguments break out in the house. Barbara's French beau lets her down. She had thought he was going to propose and he marries his cousin Marie in France. She is in a bit of a bad mood. Alex withdraws more and more from society and her parents get more annoyed with her. Another row escalates. Her father tells her that if she can't be happy with her own family and the upper class way of life, she can leave. Her mother reminds her that the family are not very rich, and that the house and most of their money is left to their 2 sons, so she and her sisters won't be very well off, if they do not marry. Feeling pressurised and unwanted, Alex decides to leave. She contacts Mother Gertrude, who invites her to come and stay at the convent and she goes.

Consequences by EM Delafield

This is one of Delafield's best known works. It is set in the late Victorian era - at the time when she herself was growing up. The work has been described as a very angry book. It seems as if Delafield was angry and rebelling about the way she and other Victorian girls were brought up. Alexandra Clare is her heroine. She is a neurotic and unhappy girl, whose father is a well to do gentleman. He is a Roman Catholic but her mother Isabel is not much interested in religion. Their children are brought up strictly, however and Alex is not very happy all through her childhood. Her parents criticise her all the time. She does not get on well with her siblings, and she is not even much liked by her hyper critical Nanny. She believes that when she is grown up, she will be a success "like people in books". But for the present, she indulges in passions for friends, whom she admires extravagantly. Her parents don't like her emotional nature or the people she chooses to adore. As a young girl, she tries to dominate her younger siblings but tends to end up in scrapes. The most serious is when she bullies her younger sister Barbara into playing "tightropes" with her. Barbara does not want to play, but Alex gets her to stand on a makeshift tightrope, and she falls, hurting her back though not seriously. Her parents are angry at her "nearly killing Barbara" and send her away to a convent school as a punishment. She is not particularly religious then, and does not like the school in Belgium. She spends a few years there, and during her time, she "falls" for an older girl, Queenie, whom she adores. Queenie is not really interested in Alex. She is preoccupied with getting ready to come out in society. She is friendly to Alex but it's clear that she does not want to be friends with the girl - she is just cultivating her because Alex is from a better class family than hers. When she goes back home, she asks her mother if she can ask Queenie to stay but her mother is horrified at the idea of her befriending a girl who is not their social equal. When she comes out, she finds that she is not a success. She is too anxious to please and she does not make any real friends. She does have one suitor Noel Cardew, who is a vain "full of himself" young man who simply wants her to listen to him while he talks about how clever he is.

Diana Part II

When his wife is killed, John joins SOE. He speaks good French and learns how to kill and how to survive undercover in France. Then to his amazement, Diana turns up again. She is still living in France. She tells him that she is being asked to persuade him to take part in a Resistance attack. She is married to a wealthy industrialist, who has been collaborating in France for years. He believes in fascism, as it means that he can make more money under a fascist government. SOE wants to get into his factory to get hold of some documents. Diana works for them, but she would need help with this difficult task. Jan does not want to undertake it. He does not know whether he loves or hates Diana. When she comes to see him, he can see that she is in a highly nervous state and he's not sure she is up to undercover work. He agrees in the end to do the job with her and is flown into France. Diana's husband is Yves De Royden. He has a cousin, Raoul, who is disgusted at Yves' fascist beliefs and who is in the Resistance. With Raoul's help, Jan and Diana embark on kidnapping Yves to force him to hand over some papers which will be valuable to the SOE. Things go wrong and while they get away and get the papers, Yves is killed and this raises a hue and cry. Jan is injured. Back in the UK, Diana realises that she is now a widow, and free to marry again. She tells Jan that Yvonne, her daughter is his child. She became pregnant by him just before her father killed himself - and that was why she panicked and married Yves. They plan to get married. Diana is reconciled with her mother.

Johnny and the Four - short dark humour Story by Benedict Brooke

Johnny Davies was only short when they told him the story. About the four men who had lived next door. But then you’re not that tall at only two. Anyway, one day, Johnny was crossing the road and one of the men, the tall thin one, offered to help him to cross. How they got out of the way of that truck, I’ll never know. Funny guy. Funny peculiar- that is, dressed a bit like a monk. You know, long black habit, cowl, guess he was a gardener or some such with that scythe he carried. Do you remember the riot? Johnny does, when those five guys started up on the black family next door, (on the left hand side, not on the right hand side where the four guys were). Before you knew it, Combat 18, NF, the Anti-Nazi League and a representative of the Monster Raving Loony party, who had gotten lost while canvassing, all turned up with knives, skewers, corkscrews and whatever other implements they had managed to borrow from the other 4 guys next door. Do you remember how the police turned up? After the majority of the crowd had dispersed, and they arrested anyone remaining, bleeding or drunk (apart from the off duty officer of course.). Johnny meanwhile, looking aghast from the window, was moved to throw on his dressing gown and shove his feet into slippers and bugger off down the road, to a safe distance, to absorb events. The gentleman standing beside him in the gawking throng was smiling at this time, although Johnny, in his combination of shock, amazement and excitement, didn’t notice this. Anyway, Johnny grew older, as unfortunately and inevitably one does. He didn’t move. His parents were victims of a car crash when he was eighteen, when he was of an age, to take charge of the house. By this age, Johnny had a problem with his weight. Despite incipient anorexia and the earnest but terrible cooking of his mother, (in earlier years obviously... even I’m not stupid enough to confuse my continuity that much)… no matter how little he ate, he steadily piled on the pounds. So that at the age of 20, he realised that the only career he could embark on was that of professional wrestler. Fortunately, one of the gentlemen next door came to visit dear old Johnny. This neighbour was the pale rather slim one -with the ash blond hair and albino eyes. This gentleman suggested a high- quality though rather unnerving diet. Anyway, luckily for Johnny -he was never brought to book for his – ahem –cannibalistic crimes. Though he was rather foolish in that he used the same cab firm each time. But the desired effect was achieved. Johnny soon became a fine figure of a man (albeit rather short). So his thoughts began to run to courting. Joanna was tall, fair and graceful. Johnny met her at the Jim. He had intended to go and work-out, but was unfortunately dyslexic and had in fact walked into a bar. He managed somehow to work his way into her favour, and after the obligatory “coffee”, her knickers. Indeed, with the very marriage arranged and a stag night in view, Johnny was left, as one is, deciding whom to invite to the “almighty piss up”. But he had few friends, more like “acquaintances”, due to his earlier more unsociable activities. So Johnny thought it might be appropriate to invite the four men next door (Although he was very insecure concerning their ménage a quartre). Anyway, a jolly old evening was had by all, apart from the barman who experienced an attack of scrofula, and the knife fight about whose pint was whose? Johnny hadn’t realised that the Farmers Arms was a gay pub, and what with all the pub grub being out of date, and the old guy at the corner table being found dead, when everyone thought that he was just taking his time over his pint. Mind you, the tall skinny man was winning at pool. And when Johnny got home (he’d invited them all in for a drink) there was the message on his voicemail, from the hospital. Joanna was critically ill with pneumonia, pleurisy, and something that they’ve only just discovered and hadn’t given a name to, yet. (They were sure they’d be able to think of something in time for the TV news.) "Oh and she's dead,” they added. “Never mind, better luck next time?” However Johnny remained single, and heartbroken. Mourning his lost love, until, some 10 years later, all four chaps who lived next door, (who had been his emotional and physical crutch), popped up on the doorstep. “Hello Johnny” they said, in an affable manner. “We’ve come to cheer you up.” And give you a good haircut,” remarked the stocky one... although not in a way that anyone could hear clearly. “Anyway” the thin one said, affixing a tourniquet on his upper arm as they all sat at Johnny’s kitchen table, "Anyway,” he reiterated, “We think – that is we collectively –“ “Hold on -” the deep voice of the tall one said, “Who the fuck’s in charge here?” “Just get the fucking clippers” the stocky one replied. Johnny, proud of his lush and flowing locks (and the fact that he hadn’t had to pay for a haircut in 11 years), was taken aback at this. However, when held down by Mr Skinny, Mr Pale and with his head held firmly in place by the muscular forearms of Mr Stocky, he resigned himself to the robust attentions of Mr Grim (I think you’ve all guessed it by now!). Time passed – as it does – and here we find Johnny sitting bemused and shorn, upon his kitchen floor. Rubbing his shaven and rather itchy denuded head. He is heard to mutter to himself, “That fucking tattoo, what does it mean anyway? And what did he mean by that?” For as the tall one had left, tattooing equipment still in hand, he had said softly, smiling. “You’re ready now Johnny, you’re ready.” Mind you, with a face like that, there’s not much you can do but smile. And why, as the sign was engraved on his head, and he had yelled “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” had the pale one replied “How apt, how apt.” Three years later, at the age of 33, Johnny was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The rest will be history, (Or Prophecy depending on how you look at it.).