Although it was the Roaring Twenties, when public morality changed dramatically as a result of the War, as a Christian and a clergyman’s daughter, Dorothy’s
views on pre-marital sex were not that liberal. She had always hoped to get married rather than be a man's mistress...
But she didn't intend her affair with Bill to be a serious one; it was meant to be a pleasant consolation for the misery of her relationship with John Cournous.
But to her dismay in 1923, after a short time of enjoying the relationship with Bill White she found out that she was pregnant. It was an accident and a disaster. To have an illegitimate child, for a respectable middle class woman, was a major problem. It wasn't unknown, as single women were beginning to have a sex life... but to become pregnant outside marriage was disastrous and something that a respectable lady had to conceal...
She didn’t want to tell her parents, and then she found that Bill her child’s father, was not single at all....but a married man who already had a child with his wife. Mrs White, in an attempt to save her marriage, seems to have approached Dorothy and helped her, by making arrangements for her to conceal her pregnancy and have the baby discreetly. She took leave from her job, and gave birth to her son John Antony. When he was born , she returned to London and gave him to her cousin Ivy Shrimpton, to look after, believing that she might be able to take him in herself at a later date, and “adopt” him.
Ivy made a living looking after children, whose parents were not able to care for them, and John Antony had a happy home with her…and she was discreet enough to conceal Dorothy’s secret. Dorothy hoped she would later be able to take him into her own home. She visited him and as time progressed, she made arrangements for him to have a good education.
Dorothy went on writing her Lord Peter novels and working in her advertising job, making enough money to pay for her son’s care. She claimed not to want to do too many “Peter” novels and at times she seems to have wished she could write more serious works. However her novels were popular and well written, and sold well. In 1926, she married a divorced man Oswald “Mac” Fleming, a journalist, who was several years her senior and a veteran of 2 wars. Because he was divorced, they had to marry in a registry office.
The marriage was happy enough at first. Mac was interested in cooking and helped with her detective stories and also with publicity, for he had long years of PR and journalistic experience. He also agreed to adopt her son and take him into their home. But he didn’t share all her intellectual interests and he had unresolved issues from the War. This had left him with poor health and depression and as time went on, he became more difficult and his drinking increased. He had arrears of income tax to pay and this increased the financial burden on Dorothy.
She worked very hard, producing novels, editing book series for her publisher at night and working in the office by day. Her parents both died a few years after her marriage, and Dorothy helped out other elderly relatives, some of whom had lived with her parents…
She often had an elderly aunt sharing the home where she and Mac lived, but he seemed reluctant to take on their son or to adopt him legally.
Dorothy’s novels became longer and more serious, while still keeping to the detective story format, but she wanted to write real novels and to deepen the character of Lord Peter. He evolved from a “silly ass upper class twit” with some resemblance to Bertie Wooster, to a more serious highly intelligent scholar and gentleman.
But she didn't intend her affair with Bill to be a serious one; it was meant to be a pleasant consolation for the misery of her relationship with John Cournous.
But to her dismay in 1923, after a short time of enjoying the relationship with Bill White she found out that she was pregnant. It was an accident and a disaster. To have an illegitimate child, for a respectable middle class woman, was a major problem. It wasn't unknown, as single women were beginning to have a sex life... but to become pregnant outside marriage was disastrous and something that a respectable lady had to conceal...
She didn’t want to tell her parents, and then she found that Bill her child’s father, was not single at all....but a married man who already had a child with his wife. Mrs White, in an attempt to save her marriage, seems to have approached Dorothy and helped her, by making arrangements for her to conceal her pregnancy and have the baby discreetly. She took leave from her job, and gave birth to her son John Antony. When he was born , she returned to London and gave him to her cousin Ivy Shrimpton, to look after, believing that she might be able to take him in herself at a later date, and “adopt” him.
Ivy made a living looking after children, whose parents were not able to care for them, and John Antony had a happy home with her…and she was discreet enough to conceal Dorothy’s secret. Dorothy hoped she would later be able to take him into her own home. She visited him and as time progressed, she made arrangements for him to have a good education.
Dorothy went on writing her Lord Peter novels and working in her advertising job, making enough money to pay for her son’s care. She claimed not to want to do too many “Peter” novels and at times she seems to have wished she could write more serious works. However her novels were popular and well written, and sold well. In 1926, she married a divorced man Oswald “Mac” Fleming, a journalist, who was several years her senior and a veteran of 2 wars. Because he was divorced, they had to marry in a registry office.
The marriage was happy enough at first. Mac was interested in cooking and helped with her detective stories and also with publicity, for he had long years of PR and journalistic experience. He also agreed to adopt her son and take him into their home. But he didn’t share all her intellectual interests and he had unresolved issues from the War. This had left him with poor health and depression and as time went on, he became more difficult and his drinking increased. He had arrears of income tax to pay and this increased the financial burden on Dorothy.
She worked very hard, producing novels, editing book series for her publisher at night and working in the office by day. Her parents both died a few years after her marriage, and Dorothy helped out other elderly relatives, some of whom had lived with her parents…
She often had an elderly aunt sharing the home where she and Mac lived, but he seemed reluctant to take on their son or to adopt him legally.
Dorothy’s novels became longer and more serious, while still keeping to the detective story format, but she wanted to write real novels and to deepen the character of Lord Peter. He evolved from a “silly ass upper class twit” with some resemblance to Bertie Wooster, to a more serious highly intelligent scholar and gentleman.
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