Cousin Kate Part VI

 Kate begins to feel an attraction towards Philip Broome, who is clearly a much more solid character than his cousin Torquil.  But she feels that Philip may think poorly of her and that he feels that she is a "hanger on" of Lady Broome's.  

She is aware that as a penniless girl, it is unlikely that a man of her own class would want to marry her.. and that as a girl who has not many accomplishments, she will not be likely to get a good job as a governess.. 

Lady Broome begins to hint that marriage to Torquil would be a solution to her problems..  Kate is not sure why her aunt is willing to allow her only son to marry a girl who does not have grand connections or a fortune but concludes that Lady Broome is a controlling mother and wants to continue as an active mistress of Staplewood.  So she hopes to marry her son off to a girl who is not willing to argue with her and will let her go on ruling the house and estate, rather than choosing an heiress. 

Kate indicates that she does not love Torquil and would not be happy to make a marriage of convenience to him....

Cousin Kate Part V

 Kate has a horrible experience, when she finds an animal who has been caught in a snare, and been gruesomely mangled... Dr Delabole tries to persuade her that it was probably village boys but she is not sure.  She is upset that  her nurse has not replied to her letters, and she seems to have no real means of escape from Staplewood.  However, she has grown fond of Sir Timothy and she feels a certain gratitude towards her Aunt Minerva..and pity for Torquil.

Meanwhile Philip's presence continues to irritate Lady Broome..

Gurney tells the family that his youngest sister, Dolly is now engaged to a suitable young man in London.. and Torquil who had fancied himself in love with her,  becomes angry and sullen.  However, Kate realises that he has recently been attracted to her - and she feels uneasy.  She talks to Lady Broome, believing that her aunt would not wish for the marriage between a penniless girl and her son, but she finds that Lady Broome is disposed to favour the match.  

Cousin Kate Part IV

 Kate's feelings of isolation continue.. when after a dinner party, she hears noises outside and finds that she can't get out of her bedroom.  She tries to talk to her aunt about it, but for once her Aunt Minerva is rather sharp tongued towards her.  

Torquil seems restless and difficult.. Kate wonders if he has been drinking or if there is something more serious going on.  

At this stage, the Broomes have a visitor, Sir Timothy's nephew Philip, who is the son of Julian, the younger son of the house.  Philip has a small estate some distance away, and is close to his uncle but it becomes clear that Lady Broome dislikes him very much and he dislikes her.  Kate feels uneasy in his presence.. because she thinks that  he suspects her of scheming to marry Torquil for ambitious reasons.  

Philip is the heir to the title and to the Staplewood estate, after Torquil.  He is also good friends with Gurney Templecombe, their neighbour.   Kate's maid tells her that everyone likes Mr Philip and wishes that he was the heir, more than Mr Torquil. 

Cousin Kate Part III

 Kate enjoys being at Staplewood at first, as she has always been busy with her duties.. and it is pleasant to be able to relax.  Prior to being a governess, she had looked after her father during his time in the army, "following the drum".. buying food, and making arrangements for her father and keeping house for him after he retired from army life.  

However, she finds the leisurely life at Staplewood a little boring after the first few weeks and wishes that she had something to do.  Her aunt is busy with running the big house, doing charity work and helping to run the estate as the elderly baronet is now too frail to take an active interest in his farms.  

Lady Broome is not bored at Staplewood, and can't understand Kate finding it dull.   Torquil is also rather bored and restless and does not seem to have any friends in the neighbourhood, and his mother tells Kate that he is socially above the country gentry who lives around them and that the Broome family dont mix with them that much.  Kate is a little amused at her aunt's snobbery but is lonely, since Torquil is not much of a companion for her.  He is very good  looking but he's 5 years her junior, and is frequently sulky and bad tempered.  They go riding together but he does not seem to enjoy anything very much.  

On a ride, they meet neighbours, the Templecombes, who are going to London soon for the Season.  Dolly, the youngest of several daughters is  a very pretty girl and Torquil is clearly a little infatuated with her.  Gurney, her older brother, seems pleasant and well bred but he does not seem to like Torquil much,  Kate writes to Sarah, her nurse and becomes worried when she does not receive a reply but Lady Broome reminds her that Sarah is probably too busy to write back and that she's not much of a writer.  Kate feels increasingly isolated since she does not want to stay indefinitely at Staplewood but her aunt seems to take it for granted that she will.  However with no  job, and without any contact with Sarah, she is not sure where she can go. 

Cousin Kate part II

 Kate finds it hard to find a job as governess, and Sarah Nidd decides to try and contact her charge's family.  The Malvern family cut off her father when he married a girl of lesser birth and fortune, and Kate does not want to ask them for help.  But Sarah writes to her father's half sister, Minerva, who married a wealthy Baronet, Sir Timothy Broome.  

Soon afterwards Lady Broome arrives in London and persuades her half neice to come and visit her country home for a time.. Kate insists that she wants to support herself, and Lady Broome suggests that she come to their house, Staplewood, and later, she can find a job.  Minerva has married well but her husband is elderly, many years her senior and frail.  They have one son, Torquil who is heir to the baronetcy.  Lady Broome says she is a lonely woman, who wishes to have a daughter.  

They travel to Market Hayborough, where the Broomes' home is located and Kate can see that her aunt is very proud of the fine house.  Sir Timothy seems gentle and kind and Torquil, her cousin, is handsome but rather socially awkward.  Lady Broome tells her that Torquil has a frail constitution and has never been to school.  Dr Delabole looks after the elderly baronet and his son.. and lives in the house. 

While it is a fine house, it seems rather unhomelike.  Lady Broome seems a little distant from her husband and Torquil does not seem to be warmly attached to either of his parents. 

Cousin Kate (Georgette Heyer)

 This is one of Georgette Heyer's last novels, written in the 1970s.. when Heyer was in poorer health and writing less.  She tried her hand at a Gothic novel, as these became quite popular in the 70s.  The style of Gothic novel was usually set in the English countryside, in a large country house or castle.  Like Rebecca, it tended to be about a young impoverished but well bred girl who comes to a house either as a governess or as the wife of the owner, and who finds the place sinister, isolated and scary.  

Victoria Holt wrote several of these, (this was Eleanor Hibberts pseudonym,  the author best known as Jean Plaidy) and they were usually about a young wife who becomes scared of her distant and forbidding husband and discovers that there is some frightening secret in his past.  Terrifying things happen and she begins to believe that her husband may be trying to kill her or that he has killed a previous wife or mistress. 

Heyer was a more comedic writer and the Gothic wasn't really her style but while many fans dislike it, I enjoy Cousin Kate.  It starts with the arrival of Kate Malvern, a young English girl of good birth but no money, in London.  Kate has become a governess on the death of her father, and has been dismissed from her job because her employer's brother in law tried to kiss her.  She is a very pretty girl, and has had trouble finding work because  her youth and good looks make employers wary of her. 

Kate goes to London to find refuge with her old nurse, Sarah, who has married a man with a modest but successful carrier's business.  She loves her nurse and grows fond of Sarah's new family, the Nidds, who run the business... but when she tries to find a new genteel job, she has no luck. 

End Part I. 

Dorothy Parker

 Dorothy Parker was an American writer and wit.  She was famous for her wry poems about modern life, bitter jokes and also for being a left wing activist.  She was born in 1893, to a Jewish father and a mother who had Scottish ancestry.  Her family lived in New York and were comfortably off.  Her mother died when she was small and her father remarried.  Parker claimed to dislike her stepmother and to accuse her of unkindness but in fact her childhood was mostly a comfortable one.  She attended a Catholic school and was to be ambivalent about  her Jewish ancestry.  She was born a Rothschild but when she became a writer she used her first husbands name Parker as her writing name.  She claimed that she had only married to get rid of her surname. 

Dorothy wanted to be a writer and began to publish some of her short poems.  She got regular work for the smart New York magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair and in 1917, she got married.  Her husband Edwin Parker, was a stockbroker, who left to serve in the Army...  Their marriage fell apart and they divorced later, in 1928.   Dorothy became friends with various other American wits and writers who met regularly in the Algonquin Hotel.. and she had a barbed tongue.  When Calvin Coolidge, the very silent dull President died, Dorothy quipped, "How can they tell?"  

She mused on suicide a lot and some of her comic poems were about this... 

Beds and Blue jeans a Country Music story

 Beds and Blue Jeans is set in present day America (Pre Covid)....  It is about a love affair between a young couple who drift into living together and having a baby, and how they make things work

http://www.amazon.com/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443265304&sr=8-2&keywords=nadine+sutton

Rough Music By Nadine Sutton

 It is a story set in the USA, in the late 1970s.    It is a story about work and life, as well as love.   It doesn't have a happy ending.   Its more about finding a satisfying life, than about love or marriage... 

I’ve based it on what I’ve read about country and rock singers in the days when touring was a constant part of their lives.  It was hard work and took its toll on the marriages of many singers.   Women were just beginning to look for more in their lives than marriage but marriage to rock and country singers was likely to be an up and down ride for both genders. 
 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton