Chapter 4
Geneva, Switzerland
November
I’VE FOUND MY British soldier. At first, I named him James Hathaway. Then I watched the British television series, Lewis, where James Hathaway was a detective. I wanted to keep the name James because it was my father’s. I changed my James’s last name to Holloway.
Matching a character’s name to time and place can be a challenge. I couldn’t have any early American woman named Madison or Mackenzie, for example. I find names in graveyards, telephone books, lists such as those giving favorite names for any given year.
There are also national considerations. Simon might be common in England, but not in America. Hamish definitely has a Scottish flavor. I decided on Gareth for one character because I know a number of Brits about the age of my character with that name.
For this book, the Mayflower passenger list was a help for Boston names in 1774.
I’ve wanted to use my grandmother’s name Florence for a French character. Flow-Rence would be the pronunciation the French way. I don’t yet know the part Florence or Flow-Rence will play. Maybe it will come to me some sleepless night.
YouTube has some great historical documentaries. There was a series that I watched about bread making at different times throughout history. There were other documentaries about bread making featuring the Romans, Vikings, and peasants, as well more scientific ones about the chemistry of bread making.
Watching them made my mouth water for freshly made bread. When we’re in Argelès, we can wander around the corner for bread still warm from the oven. In Geneva there’s an excellent bakery about a five-minute drive from the studio.
I’ve begun to create James Holloway’s life.
Where should he come from? Because of the pandemic, I can’t visit the UK. One friend suggested Richmond. Then I thought of Ely where I researched Murder in Ely. The members of the historical society helped me with that location for the book. I toured Oliver Cromwell’s house and spent hours in the local museum. A known setting is a definite timesaver.
In the case of Ely, I have to be aware that 245-plus years can produce massive changes in a place. Also, my artist friend Pauline, who still lives there, can verify certain facts if I can’t locate the answers elsewhere.
Some writers have their characters completely worked out. I have a form that I give in writing seminars for aspiring writers to help them develop a character. I’ve used it, but with James, I just write, creating his life as I go. He will reveal himself.
Chapter 5
Ely, England
February 1773
JAMES HOLLOWAY PULLED an armful of faggots from the shed behind his family bakery. He estimated they had enough for another week before needing to forage for more in the woods outside Ely.
Too bad it was so time consuming, but broken branches on the ground from winter storms were free. If they bought wood from Jonathan Herrick, it would rob them of some of their profits. When the damned rain stopped for more than a couple of hours, they would go to the woods and restock before they ran out.
No, not they. Him. His older brother William gave James the chores he himself didn’t want to do.
His brother hated leaving the bread baking to James, claiming he never added the right amount of salt or flour. He didn’t knead it long enough. The loaves weren’t quite regular. The oven cooled too quickly. According to William, only he and sometimes his wife Alice could turn out the quality bread that made their bakery successful. It didn’t hurt that theirs was the only bakery in Ely.
From under the shed roof, James stared at the second-floor window that peeked out between the half timbers where he lived over the bakery.
In his imagination he could still hear the screams of his late wife Bess bringing their daughter into the world. The baby had not lived long enough to scream even once.
Rain pelted down. Tiny rivers filled the ruts between the shed and house. The Fens hadn’t flooded this year, but if rain continued it would happen. Again.
James wished he had the courage to throw himself in the River Ouse. He had gone so far as gathering rocks for his pocket to guarantee that he would sink.
With Bess gone, he had little to live for.
People said men die in battle. Women die in childbirth. Three other neighborhood women had not survived the births of their fifth, second and eighth children, respectively in the last year.
He’d felt sad when they died. They had been neighbors since he was a little boy starting his apprenticeship under his parents’ instructions. The women rested forever in the Cathedral burial ground along with his Bess. All had died before her.
He never thought it would happen to her. She had been too strong. Why he thought that his wife would be different from all the other women who died in childbirth, he didn’t know. Had she lived she would have been 22 next month, the same age as he was now.
He often dreamed of Bess’s last moments. He’d been called into the room where she lay on blood-soaked sheets. All she said was, “I’m sorry.”
At least his brother wouldn’t mock him for the tears running down his face. Rain would mingle with them.
He found the cloth that they kept in the shed for days like this and wrapped it around the faggots before dashing across the yard.
In the bakery his brother William paused from scooping foam from the beer before pouring it into a wooden trough where the bread would be mixed. Not only did the beer give their bread a special taste, it helped it rise.
“It took you long enough,” William said.
“Can you help me get this bag of flour down?” Alice, William’s wife, pointed to the sack on one of the upper shelves over the mixing trough. She was forever diffusing tension between the brothers.
William was two years older than James. The other three surviving children of the ten his mother had given birth to had been girls. They were married into other local families where they now worked. One was married to the shoemaker. One had become a farmer’s wife and the third had married the baker in Little Thetford, three miles away.
The rest of the morning the two men worked without speaking: mixing flour into beer foam, kneading the dough, letting it rise, punching it down, heating the brick oven with the faggots and then cleaning out the ash. They shaped the dough into round loaves.
James didn’t need to think. He worked automatically as his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had done. Maybe even longer than his great-grandparents. He didn’t know any other life or even if any other life was possible. As a small boy of seven, he, like William before him, had begun to work in the bakery before and after school.
They had gone to the village school to learn to read, write and handle the math necessary to run the bakery. James had loved school: his parents had allowed him to go three years longer than William, who had declared being in the classroom was a waste of time.
After school, James would be sent into the village with the loaves still warm in a twig basket. Most villagers were their customers. Three times a week he went into the countryside where there were no bakeries, and the farmers were far too busy to bake their own bread most of the year.
Today was one of the days he would visit villagers. Considering the weather, he was not looking forward to being drenched to the skin. If he suggested to William that he not go or that William take his place, his brother would have a tantrum and throw things.
James noticed that when William threw things, he was careful not to break anything.
Note: The full novel and other D-L Nelson novels can be purchased from Amazon and other on-line book sellers. Check out her website at www.dlnelson7writer.com
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