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Candia Comes Clean

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Category Archives: short story

Not Proven

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Candia in Arts, History, Romance, short story, Social Comment, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

arsenic, Blythswood Square, Bridge of Allan, Damocles, genealogy, High Court of Justiciary, Lord Handyside, Madeleine Smith, Mary Magdalen, Mt Hope Cemetery, Not Proven, Pierre L'Angelier, Prussic acid, Rhu, Rossetti, Sauchiehall Street, The Glasgow Sentinel

You’ve been very quiet these last few days, Candia, remarked

Clammie. What have you been up to?

Oh, this and that.  Digging about in my genealogical tree.

Found any murderers?  she laughed.

Actually- yes and no.  My great-aunt times goodness knows what was the

best friend of Madeleine Smith, the alleged arsenic poisoner of Victorian

infamy.  She gave evidence at her trial, though she was innocent of any

involvement.  She had been with Madeleine when she bought the poison.

Her name was Mary Buchanan.

Interestingly, the Lord of the Court of Session was Lord Handyside,

someone else on my father’s tree- related, but not so closely.

Wow! So what have you written about all this?

The following, I said, passing over my typewritten sheets.

NOT PROVEN

I was glad that I had chosen to wear my straw bonnet, with the pure white trimmings, the one which sits at the back of my head and which enhances my profile so effectively.  As I passed through the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, the crowd parted and I felt the vibrations of the verdict: Not Proven, ringing in my ears. The glass phial of smelling salts, which I had had no recourse to during my nine day trial, fell out of my purse and it smashed.  I disdainfully ground it into

powder beneath my heel.

So, I had been “cleared” of the attempted murder of my erstwhile lover, Pierre Emile L’Angelier and I had ousted the Indian Mutiny from the pages of the press. Taking my brother Jack’s arm, the only relative who was willing to be seen in my presence, I turned on that same heel and, returning Lord Handyside’s stare with compound interest, stepped into the street.

At least I would not be returning to the gloomy gable ends and gaslight of Glasgow, nor the over fervent protestations from my nervous fiancé. Now he has stated honestly that he wishes to withdraw his former proposal.

It was the ninth of July, 1857 and I had been supposedly cleared of guilt.  However, even my legal defender had joked, in rather poor taste, I felt, that he would rather dance than dine with me.

It does not seem so long ago that I was gossiping with Mary Buchanan of Cardross, my best friend, at Mrs. Alice Gorton’s Academy for Young Ladies, near London.  Then we exchanged confidences, remedies for depilation and recipes for whitening our complexions.  We had vowed to be each other’s bridesmaids.  I wonder if Mary will “cut” me now.  Will she be amused by the press describing me in titillating fashion as a “burning passionate Juliet of decent society, fresh from the school-room”?

Yes, I suppose we were indulged, but my father was trying to be the architect of my destiny, as well as pursuing that literal profession throughout his working week.  I was wilful and headstrong, I admit, but how can I be blamed for falling for the flattery of romantic avowals of such passion and intense devotion?

Emile seemed exotic to me then, albeit entirely unsuitable socially.  Papa was planning a match for me and was furious that I was engaged in a correspondence with a warehouse clerk, let alone keeping clandestine appointments with him.

Naturally, prohibition only fanned the blaze of our desire.  You would not believe the initiative and Machiavellian scheming that I employed in order to smuggle Emile into our house in Blythswood Square, after dark.  Our middle-aged neighbour, Miss Perry was drawn into the preparations for our assignments, but, to tell the truth, the cunning machinations eventually proved to be more stimulating than the relationship itself.  I sought to extinguish the ardency of our torrid affair.  The embers reduced to ashes and should have been swept up efficiently by our housemaid’s dustpan and brush and have been scattered unceremoniously on some unhealthy rose garden, to strengthen the weaker horticultural specimens.

My self-esteem had been nourished sufficiently by then and the older man who was being presented to me was the more attractive option- especially financially.  I decided to drop Emile.  I may have deceived my family, but I could no longer deceive myself.

It is said that Adam was deceived, but Eve bore greater guilt, because she was clear in her decision to yield to temptation.  I would say that we shared our blameworthiness.  Emile unreasonably refused to return my letters and I admit to a certain lack of tact in my request:  “as there is coolness on both sides, our engagement had better be broken.”

When the post-mortem revealed eighty-two grains of arsenic in Emile’s stomach, I volunteered the information that I had acquired such a substance as a cosmetic enhancer, though I confess that I had lied to the apothecary. I had informed him that I wished to employ it for rodent extermination.  My parents would never have permitted me to utilise it for vanity’s sake and my sister, Bessie, would have told tales.

Bessie would not support me in court.  She has always been envious of me, ever since we met Emile together in Sauchiehall Street.  She probably told Papa about our rendezvous, the little rat.

Emile always preferred me to her; he thought her choice of dress and headgear vulgar and her personality vapid.  She was happy to pay calls with mother and to simper for Papa’s merchant friends at interminable supper parties.  Emile and I had a lot in common: we were both the eldest of five children and longed for adventure.

Ah, Emile, was it your very white fingers that attracted me- so elegant and unlike the reddened, horny, calloused knuckles of those podgy colleagues of Papa’s?  Eventually those pale digits metamorphosed into worms that insinuated themselves into the core of my being, thrusting with greed to possess, not only my body, but my birthright itself.  Your avarice for Papa’s approval was the torsion that twisted into your own guts and not any concoction of mine.

For a time I was your slave, and I tried to improve my temper, just to please you, silly jade that I was!  Yet even “The Glasgow Sentinel” suggested that I was the seducer as much as the seduced.”  It had the impertinence to imply that once my veil of modesty had been thrown aside- and from the first it had been a flimsy one-I then revealed myself as a woman of libidinous passion, an abnormal spirit that rose up to startle and revolt the general public.  Still others have wondered whether I am the most fortunate of criminals, or the most unfortunate of women.

The judge was repelled by my candour regarding our shared embraces. Small wonder that Papa refused to leave his room and was driven to sell our beautiful house in Rhu, to avoid scandal.  What happened to my little pug?  I do miss it, though I used to provoke it intentionally on many occasions.  The nasty “Examiner” said that if the trial had been for poisoning a dog, my indifference could not have been greater.  What do they know?

I was frank with my lover, telling him of my courtship with Mr. Minnoch and how he accompanied me to concerts and suchlike.  I repeatedly confronted Emile with the fact that he no longer loved me.  It was to our mutual convenience that he should honestly bow out.  Yet he would not release me from our situation and I entered a period of emotional turbulence and vacillation.  I felt Papa’s wrath as an impending Dies Irae, or a sword of Damocles hanging over us.  I had supped with horrors long enough.

If I had premeditated Emile’s demise, then why would I have sent a messenger, quite openly, to make the purchase of some Prussic acid and why would I have signed The Poison Books on subsequent occasions, with my own name?  I appeal to you, dear reader: am I the most unfortunate of women, or the most fortunate criminal?

The powder I purchased was stained with dye and the physician who performed the autopsy did not detect any such colouring agent.   Odd that I should later take up with someone who made their fortune through the manufacture and processing of such dyestuffs!  All of this after my ex- fiancé disentangled himself from what was considered to be my Black Widow embrace.

Emile, your self-dramatising was impressive.  Death by cocoa.  How very enterprising of you to blame your end on the corruption of such an innocuous beverage!  You were eager enough to drink the laudanum-laced potion provided by your careless doctor and no one knows what you might have ingested in Bridge of Allan, though I grant that the Poison Books there bore no trace of your signature.

So I sat for nine days, as unresponsive as I had been when discovered in the summerhouse, staring out to The Firth of Clyde.  Edinburgh broiderers pricked out their sewing in the gallery, like Madame Defarges before the guillotine, yet the feeling in the east was more supportive of me than in the west, the Glasgow/ Edinburgh opposition even evident in court.  Fifteen jurymen could not come to any consensus.  The foreman kept clearing his throat, as if something was choking him. I kept thinking of the hundreds of written proposals of marriage that I had received in the East Jail.  Later in life I had to turn down offers from Hollywood to take part in films of my supposed life.

I watched those women sticking in their needles and later I joined Janey Morris and her circle in many sewing bees.  Rossetti even depicted me as Mary Magdalen, but I only played the penitent in paint and remained true to myself as Madeleine. My faithful brother came to my wedding and scattered white grains of rice over us.  He visited our home in Bloomsbury; he adored our children, Tom and Kitten.

When that union was over, I was a veritable widow and I married a much younger man in the United States, remaining an enigma to the end, with my puzzling death certificate.  The spider had spun its own web for nearly a century.  I was buried in Mt Hope Cemetery, they say: a triumph, or a travesty?

When winter comes with a vengeance I think of Pierre Emile L’Angelier, my angel/ demon and the soft caresses of snowflakes remind me of our sensual lovemaking.  Then I say to myself: “I do not regret that-never did, and never shall.”

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The Equivocation of the Fiend

16 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Candia in Arts, History, short story, short story, Suttonford, Theatre, Writing

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Tags

Act of Attainder, Ancient Mariner, Chief justice, Colchester oysters, Dame Alice Lisle, Ellingham, equivocation of the fiend, Great Hall, Habeas Corpus, John Hickes, Judge Jeffreys, Kings Bench, Lord Chancellor, Machiavelli, meteor showers, milk of human kindness, Monmouth Rebellion, Moyles Court, Nelthorpe, The Eclipse, The Hambledon, The Rising Sun, Wapping, Whigs, Winchester Castle

Clammie bumped into me on High Street, Suttonford.

What did you give Brassica to read yesterday, Candia?  She says that

she was up all night and couldn’t sleep.

Oh, just a short story.  I expect she was disturbed because Cosmo and the

twins are in the observatory, watching the meteor showers till dawn.

No, she was spooked.  I saw her down in Wintoncester, in The Square.

She was coming out of The Hambledon with several carrier bags.

Oh, I forgot about their sale.  I must go in and buy The Husband a new

Panama hat.  I love shopping in The Square.  That’s where The Eclipse

is, site of the execution of Dame Alice Lisle.  It put The Rising Sun opposite in

the shade as it were.

Who was Dame Alice Lisle? asked Clammie.

Do you want to be spooked out too?  Mind you, not as much as Cosmo will

be when he sees Brassie’s credit car statement!

Don’t tell me you have another story to tell, Candia!  You are becoming a kind

of female Ancient Mariner.

I’ll e-mail it to you tonight.  Then you can keep Brassie company in the wee

sma’ hours!

What’s it called?

The Equivocation of the Fiend.

How very Shakespearean!  I’ll look forward to it clogging up my inbox!

THE EQUIVOCATION OF THE FIEND

Maybe a writ of Habeas Corpus will liberate me from my confinement

and then I can steal away from this loathsome Tower and gain passage

abroad, but there is no Court competent to assist me in this wise and now

I am fast losing strength.  I am supposed to be thankful for the protection

I have, while the country demands that a retrospective Act of Attainder

should result in my condemnation for multitudinous murders.

The wheel has come full circle.  A mob had congregated outside my

house in Duke Street and mocked the bills which announced the sale of

my property.  Women screamed, offering me their garters, so that I should

hang myself thereby and men raged, advising me to cut my own throat.

I glugged another bottle of brandy to shut out their clamour.

However, I seemed to have one remaining friend – someone who knew of

my predilection for Colchester oysters.  A barrel had been left for me at

the Tower and I burst its bands eagerly.  Inside there was naught but

shells and a halter.  I apprehended its hint. The delivery youth jeered:

“Canst tell how an oyster makes its shell?”

He is not so dim as he looks.

Photo of the top of an oyster

Imagine! Chief Justice of the King’s Bench at thirty five and Lord

Chancellor before my fortieth birthday.  I followed orders and to this

attribute my rapid promotion and even more sudden declension.

I had another birthday recently and there was none to exercise common

charity towards me, or to share a celebration.  I stand accused of a

lack of the milk of human kindness.

I will never be permitted to forget the trial of Dame Alice Lisle.  In

contrast, she was deemed to have shown exemplary, even saintly,

compassion and hospitality towards distressed fugitives, but there was

considerably more to the case than was imputed.

I was compared unfavourably to Nero, Satan, Cain and Judas, but I only

sent Whigs to Heaven.  It was common practice to lash rogues with the

tongue and, after all, I had cross-examined some of the deepest-dyed

criminals in the land.  Their weeping and cries for mercy only served as

an irritant, much like the grit in an oyster shell, but without any valuable

outcome.

How difficult it was to extract the truth from Presbyterian liars! I grew

adept at sniffing one out at forty miles. (Hence the posy of herbs that I

was wont to hold to my nostrils.)  Severities may be properly used, I

believe, in common with Machiavelli.  Particularly in times of threat t

national security.

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito.jpg

Yes, Dame Alice, I turned a deaf ear to your pleas and you could not hear

the foreman’s delivery of the verdict, by virtue of your three score years

and ten’s consequent infirmity.

A witch, I thought, whose husband had been a regicide and now the old

crone was denying knowledge of the nature of the indictments against

John Hickes and Nelthorpe, initially denying their presence in her house,

Moyles Court. Subsequently she pleaded that she had understood Hickes’

offence to be merely illegal preaching.  She stressed that she had no

sympathy with the Monmouth rebellion, but I persuaded the jury to re-

consider their verdict and, on the third occasion, she was pronounced

guilty, and rightly so, for the Law recognises no distinction between

principals and accessories to treason.

“Let the old witch burn,” I ranted, “and let it be this very afternoon.”

The interfering Winchester clergy made an appeal to me on account of

her age and sex and they gained a respite.  Our sovereign commuted

the sentence to beheading, out of his merciful bounteousness.

Now the populace desire that I should share her fate.  I am eclipsed – ha!-

a play on the title of the marketplace inn where she spent her final night,

before walking out of the first storey window, onto the scaffold.  They

said it should be ever after “The Eclipse,” as it drew all attention from its

neighbouring public house : “The Rising Sunne.”

Barter gave us the information.  She had entertained, concealed,

comforted and maintained the fugitive rebels. The Devil had inspired her

to quibble, as do all witches.  Equivocation is the nature of the Fiend and

all his subjects.  I have oftimes heard his voice in the courtrooms and the

serpent-tongued dame tried to move me by a reminder that she had bred a

brat to fight for James, but if she had been my own mother, I should have

found her guilty, notwithstanding her prevarication that she was being charged

with sheltering Hickes before he was convicted of treason. She stated that

subsequent evidence should not be admitted, since it had not been available.

Very clever: but anyone who harbours a traitor is as guilty as any who bears

arms, I believed, and I hold fast to the same conviction to this day.

“Nay, peace thou monster, shame unto thy sex,

Thou fiend in likeness of a human creature

See thyself, devil!

Proper deformity shows not in the fiend

So horrid as in woman.

Shut your mouth, dame,

Or with this paper shall I stople it.”

The reference was lost on most in court.  Fools pity  villains who

are punished.  Know this: that men are as the time is; to be tender-

minded does not become a sword.

WinchesterCastle.jpg

It is more than three years since that fateful day in August in the Great

Hall of Winchester Castle.  Some say that a lady in grey haunts the inn

and that a driverless coach has been seen in the grounds of the Dame’s

Ringwood estate, drawn by headless horses and containing her phantom.

What is that nonsense to me?  Her head and body were given up to her

family, for burial at Ellingham, and now the Whigs have all but canonised

her, raving about judicial murder.

Yet, when I attempted to escape from this hell-hole, no one would shelter

me in a cupboard, nor a malthouse, and I was discovered at Wapping and

my disguise removed.  No port is free to me; no place that unusual

vigilance will not not attend my taking.  So, here I lie, and suffer the

agony of passing these stones: a pain as sharp as the gravel of her drive,

or an oyster’s grit.

Yet I still resort to my brandy. I am bound upon my own wheel of fire.

My reins are rubbed with sulphurous flames. The gods are just and of

our pleasant vices…  I waken to hear myself cry in the night and then a

distant rumble of carriage wheels approaches, or is it a more horrific

apocalyptic explosion?  Who is it that dare tell me who I am?

“What is that wailing?” I shout to the guard.

“It is the cry of women, my good lord,” he replies through the grille, most

caustically.  “Come here, most learned justicer.”  And then he laughs,

showing black tombstones in place of teeth.

“I have almost forgot the taste of fears.  I have supp’d full of horrors,” I

remark, before I remember the context. How malicious is my fortune that

I must repent to be just.

Equivocation – the only means of survival.  She was more skilled in its

employ than I.

George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys of Wem by William Wolfgang Claret.jpg

(The grave of Judge Jeffreys was bombed by German aircraft during the War and his remains scattered.  The grave of Alice Lisle can still be visited in Ellingham churchyard.)

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Death and the Maiden

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Candia in History, short story, Summer 2012, Suttonford, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Auld Reekie, Blaw Wearie, Canongate, Castlehill, Edinburgh, Girth Cross, Heart of Midlothian, Holyrood, James VI, Janet Murdo, JeanLivingstone, Kincaid, Lady Warriston, Leith, Lord Dunnipace, Pimms cake, Rev Andrew Cant, Robert Weir, The Boot, The Maiden guillotine, The Wheel, Tolbooth, Winderstrawlee

So, you enjoyed your trip to Edinburgh, Candia?  Brassica asked me,

when we had settled down to our regular routines back home and had

sneaked off for a sly cappuccino .

Yes, its history still breathes and I was inspired to write a short story

in a rather macabre style, adopting the persona of Lady Warriston’s

servant, who witnesses her execution.

Rather grim! commented Brassie. But what is it about?

Read it and see! I said, passing her the copy.

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

 

It was the summer of 1600 when I was permitted to abandon my loom

and I climbed onto the roof of my mistress’ tenement in the Canongate,

from which an excellent view of the Girth Cross of Holyrood could

easily be discerned.  All around, the citizens of Auld Reekie had

adopted the same strategy and were well-established, in spite of the

early hour.  A  unison intake of breath unbalanced me on my precarious

eyrie, so that I had to grab Nelly’s sleeve for support.

The sinister outline of the Maiden, transported from Halifax, dominated

the scene, looming over the slender figure approaching it.  Well might the

Memorial later describe her as a woman and a bairn.  Apparently, like

myself, she was twenty one, but, she had a child of her own, whereas I

only minded my employers’ weans.

The buzz of conversations receded and I first heard snatches of that

melody which would quickly enter the consciousness of all

Lowland ballad lovers:

O Warriston, ye acted ill

To lift your hand to your ain lady…

Then a ripple of wheeshts surged through the crowds below and Jean

Livingstone, Lady Warriston, removed her gold brocade, stepped

forward on her twa weel-made feet and knelt in her sark.

The parlourmaid, Nelly, poked me in the ribs, observing, She is

as cheerful as if she were going to her own wedding.

The cook shifted her bulk and craned forward dangerously, before adding

sententiously: She appears ravished by a spirit higher than that of man

or woman.

We giggled; she always speaks like her aptly named minister, The Rev.

Andrew Cant.

However, we soon sobered up as the blade began to fall.

Later our chimney sweep, Peter, told us that the blade had fallen just as

she began to pray: Into Thy hand, O…  She had got no further.

He also reported that he had tried to make his way up to Castlehill, to

witness the strangulation and burning of her nurse, Janet Murdo, but the

authorities had arranged the ghastly ceremony simultaneously, in order,

unsuccessfully, to create a counter-attraction, drawing attention away

from the young noblewoman’s plight.

Both punishments had been well- publicised, although the crime had

only been perpetrated a matter of days beforehand.  However, the

timing had been set to maximise and to demonstrate the very satisfying

show of repentance by the Lady, who had been well-rehearsed by the

Revs. Balfour and Bruce, God rest her soul!

Peter said that many in the mob were surprised that her father, the Laird

of Dunnipace, had not exerted himself on her behalf.  He was a well-

known sook, or favourite of King James, who had apparently expressed

His regal regret that such a beautiful young woman should be sacrificed

to Justice:

I never saw a woman’s face

I was sae sorry to see dee.

James I of England by Daniel Mytens.jpg

However, the Laird had seven other daughters to give in marriage and

seemed to want to wash his hands of his errant flesh and blood, in spite of

His Majesty’s hints of potential clemency.

Dunnipace was reputed to have stated:

Gar nail her in a tar barrel

And hurl her in the sea.

Though macabre, these words were to remain in folk memory for many a

month, assisted by their musical setting.

Later, when the ballads were printed on broadsheets, we had the

opportunity to piece the narrative puzzle together, trying to reason why

such a bonny lassie was to lose her head over such a diabolical affair.

Apparently, Jean Livingstone, as she had been christened, had felt ill-

prepared for wedlock and had told her hired woman that she hadna wit

to guide a man. She had learned her rede with admirable haste, many

would say, at the scaffold.

At fifteen she had been sent to John Kincaid, the Laird of Warriston and

her woman claimed to have witnessed violent altercations between them.

A dinner plate had been hurled at her mistress’ face by her furious

husband, cutting her lip badly.

Once when he returned to harbour, having been absent for nigh on a year,

Lady Warriston went to meet him on the shore, with the nurse cradling

their newborn son. Kincaid flew into a rage, struck his wife and cursed

the child, saying it was none of his.  Afterwards, the nurse told the hired

woman that her mistress had an impression of her husband’s teeth deeply

incised into her forearm.

Faithful though the nurse was to her mistress, she ill-advisedly interfered

and persuaded Lady Warriston to contact a groom who had worked for

her father, by the name of Robert Weir.  She pressurised her

by claiming that if they were not able to persuade the groom to do away

with the Laird, then she would do it herself.

Maybe it was the same young ostler who had led her mistress’ pony,

while the master was at sea.  Anyhow, it is too late for Jean Murdo, the

nurse, to express regrets, at the time of this conversation, as by now she is

a heap of ashes.

As for Robert, he was conspicuous by his absence, though

officers were scouring the Borders for him.

Weir, when summoned, came willingly enough and was secreted in

the cellar until the Laird and his brother had been plied with sufficient

alcohol and staggered to their repose.

Jean retired with her husband, but later rose and gave a signal at

midnight.  Her brother-in-law must have been more affected by his cups

than the Laird, who was awakened by the commotion the conspirators

created on entering the marital chamber.

Weir threw himself at Warriston and struck him in the jugular vein,

knocking him off the bed and kicking him on the floor.  Eventually he

strangled him.

Jean ran into the Hall and later admitted that though she had heard his

deathly screams, she had failed to produce even a counterfeit tear.

The groom escaped, gallantly telling Jean that if the crime were to be

discovered, he would take the blame. None dare pursue you, he

foolishly stated.

Perhaps the Laird’s brother had been roused, or the servants disturbed, for

the next morning, officers of justice arrived and took Lady Warriston,

Janet Murdo and two women to the Tolbooth, in The Heart of Midlothian.

Jean attested that the two female servants were innocent, but only one

was released.  It was this woman who had met Peter in a tavern, after the

event on Canongate and who had supplied the missing information over a

pint of porter.

She added that the Laird’s son bore an uncanny resemblance to young

Robert Weir.  Having narrowly escaped the stricture of the Boot, one

would have expected her to keep her trap shut.  She became a member of

the Rev. Balfour’s congregation thereafter and thanked God that she had

been spared.

Theresiana-Beinschrauben.jpg

Balfour told his flock that Lady Warriston’s dramatic repentance was a

miracle of grace.  At first she had repudiated spiritual counsel and

blasphemed, throwing his Bible to the floor of her cell.  Yet, once her

relatives cast her off, she naturally showed a greater interest in flitting to

God.

The title page's central text is:"THE HOLY BIBLE,Conteyning the Old Testament,AND THE NEW:Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties speciall Comandement.Appointed to be read in Churches.Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie.ANNO DOM. 1611 ."At bottom is:"C. Boel fecit in Richmont.".

Even her brother-in-law forgave her, kissed her and wished that he could

take her to himself, she was so jimp about the middle/ As ony willy-

wand.  Fifteen Presbyterians kept her company on the night before her

execution, so I expect that she slept little and took their spiritual medicine

meekly.

Her father, Lord Kincaid, arranged for the child to be cared for by the

hired woman who was telling us the tale and this same servant afterwards

led a disguised Weir back to catch a glimpse of the sleeping boy in

his cot, four years later. Unfortunately Weir was apprehended as he bent

over the child and practically throttled before being taken to the scaffold

to be broken on the wheel.

Breaking wheel in action

For months thereafter his corpse was

exhibited on the road between Warriston and the town of Leith. Fortune

had turned full circle, but sometimes a passing stranger will detect what

appears to be a female voice singing, when the breezes blow over from

Winderstrawlee and Blaw Wearie:

Now a’ ye gentle maids,

Tak warning now by me

And never marry ane

But wha pleases your ee.

Candia, you’ve scared the living daylights out of me,

Brassie said in a dry-throated voice.  Can we just

return to twenty first century Suttonford, where things are a little less

brutal?  I think I need a slice of cake to give me a calorie boost.

And so it was that we fell on a plate of Pimms cake as if it was our last

meal on Earth.

 

 

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My name is Candia. Its initial consonant alliterates with “cow” and there are connotations with the adjective “candid.” I started writing this blog in the summer of 2012 and focused on satire at the start.

Interspersed was ironic news comment, reviews and poetry.

Over the years I have won some international poetry competitions and have published in reputable small presses, as well as reviewing and reading alongside well- established poets. I wrote under my own name then, but Candia has taken me over as an online persona. Having brought out a serious anthology last year called 'Its Own Place' which features poetry of an epiphanal nature, I was able to take part in an Arts and Spirituality series of lectures in Winchester in 2016.

Lately I have been experimenting with boussekusekeika, sestinas, rhyme royale, villanelles and other forms. I am exploring Japanese themes at the moment, my interest having been re-ignited by the recent re-evaluations of Hokusai.

Thank you to all my committed followers whose loyalty has encouraged me to keep writing. It has been exciting to meet some of you in the flesh- in venues as far flung as Melbourne and Sydney!

Copyright Notice

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012-2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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