VICTORIAN
DEPARTMENT STORES
Maggi Andersen
My heroine, Vanessa Ashley, visits
Harrods department Store and climbs the new escalator. She is offered a glass of
brandy to settle her nerves at the top!
The industrial revolution and the Great
Exhibition of 1851 allowed the drapers shops to evolve into full-blown
department stores. They began catering to all members of the family and to all
of society’s needs. Specialist department stores, called warehouses, opened and
sold all manner of goods. There were mourning warehouses, sporting dress
warehouses, waterproof clothing warehouses and tartan warehouses. After Queen
Victoria purchased Balmoral, in Scotland, she used tartan fabrics on the
upholstery, curtains and sofas throughout the castle.
When aristocracy continued to shop in
specialist stores or with tradesmen who offered them personalized shopping in
their homes, omnibuses were carrying more and more shoppers into the main
retail areas of every city. After 1840, half of London’s shops opened for
business after 10 A.M. on Sundays.
In the 1880s, store fittings such as
dress forms, arm forms for displaying gloves and bent wood counter chairs could
be found in most stores. There were no tills and customers had to wait while
clerks took money to the office for change.
During this year, Lambston’s Cash Balls were invented.
These were hollow, wooden balls that could be unscrewed. The customer’s cash
was placed inside, and then the clerk it the ball onto an overhead track above
the counter. The balls would arrive at the cash office, where change was made
and a receipt written, and both were returned to the counter.
The larger shops still offered custom
dressmaking departments, which were thought to be exclusive. These stores, and
smaller tailoring establishments, began putting their labels into garments in
1869.
Review:
The author deserves high praise for her ability to capture the reader's attention and engage one in both the mystery and the romance of this delightful story!
Margaret
Faria
*****InD’Tale Magazine
Vanessa Ashley felt
herself qualified for a position as governess, until offered the position at
Falconbridge Hall. Left penniless after the deaths of her artist father and suffragette
mother, Vanessa Ashley draws on her knowledge of art, politics, and history to
gain employment as a governess. She discovers that Julian, Lord Falconbridge,
requires a governess for his ten-year-old daughter Blyth at Falconbridge Hall,
in the countryside outside London. Lord Falconbridge is a scientist and
dedicated lepidopterist who is about to embark on an extended expedition to the
Amazon. An enigmatic man, he takes a keen interest in his daughter's education.
As she prepares her young charge, Vanessa finds the girl detached and aloof. As
Vanessa learns more about Falconbridge Hall, more questions arise. Why doesn't
Blythe feel safe in her own home? Why is the death of her mother, once famed
society beauty Clara, never spoken of? And why did the former governess leave
so suddenly without giving notice?
EXCERPT:
The
maid’s head appeared over the banister rail. “The master will see you now.”
Vanessa
walked up the wide oak stair to where the maid awaited outside a door. A deep
voice answered her knock. Vanessa turned the knob thinking how she would have
liked to wash before meeting her new employer; it was difficult to appear cool
and in control when so hot.
The
room she entered was also gloomy. A gas lamp glowed where a man sat in
shirtsleeves and braces, his dark head bent over a desk. She took two uncertain
steps and paused in the middle of a crimson Persian rug. Vanessa clasped her
hands together and inspected the room. Shelves of leather-bound books lined one
wall. Heavy bronze velvet drapes, pulled halfway across the small-paned
windows, framed a narrow but magnificent view of parkland where broad graveled
walks trailed away through well-grown trees. She suffered a sudden urge to walk
across, pull the curtains back and throw open a window.
Lord
Falconbridge put down the butterfly under-glass he had been examining and
pushed back his leather chair, rising to his feet. As she edged closer, he
donned his coat and came to shake her hand. “Miss Ashley.”
“How
do you do, my lord?”
He
motioned her to sit then sat himself.
He
would be in his mid-thirties, she guessed. His good looks made her feel even
more untidy. His dark hair swept off a widow’s peak, and he had a deep cleft in
his chin. He removed his glasses, and his eyes were a similar bright blue to
the butterfly. Dark brows met in an absent-minded frown as if she was an
unwelcome distraction. “Welcome to Falconbridge Hall. I hope you had a good
journey?”
“Yes,
thank you, my lord.”
“You’ve
come quite a long way. You must be tired.”
“I
broke my journey with an aunt in Taunton, my lord.” Her aunt was quite elderly,
and Vanessa had slept on the sofa, but she didn’t feel at all tired. She
expected fatigue would strike once the initial rush of excitement had faded.
“My sympathies for your loss, Miss Ashley.”
“Thank
you.”
“You
have had no experience as a governess, I believe.”
“No.”
“Do
you like children?”
“Very
much, my lord.”
“Then
you have had some involvement with them.”
“Yes,
I was very fond of my neighbors’ children. I minded them quite often as their
parents were both in business.”
“You
had no opportunity to marry in Cornwall?”
“I
had one offer, my lord.” The widowed vicar, Harold Ponsonby, had offered, in an
attempt to rescue her from the heathenish den of iniquity in which he found
her.
He
eyed her. “And you refused him?”
Might
he think her imprudent? “Yes.”
“Do
you have a particular skill, Miss Ashley, which you can impart to my daughter?”
“No,
my lord.” She drew in a breath. She had not expected such a question. “Sadly, I
did not inherit my father’s artistic talent, but I have my mother’s enquiring
mind and her interest in history and politics.”
“Politics?”
He stared at her rather long, and she wished again that she’d had time to tidy
herself. “We shall see how you get on. The rest of the day is your own. We will
discuss your duties in the library tomorrow at ten. Mrs. Royce, my housekeeper,
will show you to your room.” With an abstracted glance at his desk, he rose and
went to pull the bell.
The
mahogany desktop was completely covered with pens and papers, a microscope, a
probe of some kind, a set of long-handled tweezers, a large magnifying glass
and a small hand-held one, tomes stacked one on top of the other in danger of
toppling, and the butterfly in its glass prison, its beautiful wings pinned
down, never to soar again. Caught by its beauty and premature death, Keats’s
poem Ode to a Grecian Urn, rushed
into her head. “Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought…As doth
eternity.”
The
viscount swiveled, and his eyebrows shot up. “Pardon?”
Vanessa
jumped to her feet as heat flooded her cheeks. She'd said the words aloud. She
must have had too much sun. “Keats, my lord.”
“Are
you a devotee of the Romantics?”
“Not
especially.” Annoyed with herself and, irrationally, with him for pursuing it,
she said, “Forgive me, it was a random thought.”
He
folded his arms and studied her. “You are given to spouting random
philosophical thoughts?”
She
tugged at her damp collar. “Not usually. I’m a little tired, and it’s been so
hot.” Hastening to change the subject, she stepped over to the wall covered in
framed butterflies of all sizes and colors. One particular specimen caught her
eye. “Exquisite.”
She
felt his presence disturbingly close behind her. “Which?”
She
pointed. “This one, with patches of crimson and deep blue on its wings.”
“You
have a good eye. That’s a Nymphalidae
from Peru. Do you know much about butterflies?” She looked at him, finding his
blue eyes had brightened.
“Very
little, I’m afraid,” she said, aware her contribution to this discussion would
prove disappointing. “We get many orange ones with black spots in Cornwall.”
“Dark green Fritillary.” The interested
light in his eyes faded.
“That
can’t be. They’re orange,” she said.
“That
is their name, dark green Fritillary.”
“Why
would they call it dark green when …?” Her voice died away at the impatience in
his face.
“That
species is common and of little interest.” He studied her. “Unless you took
notice of some interesting aspect of their habitats?”
“No,
not precisely, my lord … uh, they seemed to gather in trees and grasses ….” She
nipped at her lip with her teeth, as he nodded and turned away. Would a
governess be required to know much about butterflies or botany? Beyond
Cornwall, her knowledge of flora and fauna was barely worthy of comment.
A
woman entered the room, her neat figure garbed in black bombazine, with a lacy
cap over her brown hair and a watch pinned to her breast. A large bunch of keys
jangled at her waist. Vanessa thought her to be in her early-forties. She had a
pointed nose and sharp eyes that looked like they would miss little.
“Ah.
Mrs. Royce, this is the new governess, Miss Ashley. Please give her a tour of
the day nursery and school room and introduce my daughter to her before you
take her to her quarters.”
“Yes,
milord.”
“Miss
Ashley.” His lordship nodded. “I shall see you here again at ten o’clock
tomorrow. We’ll discuss your plans for teaching my daughter. I’m extremely keen
that she becomes proficient in mathematics, the French language, and botany.”
“Botany,
my lord?” Vanessa’s fears were realized. Completely unprepared, she looked
around wildly at the books lining his shelves. Might she have time to bone up
on it? She read some knowledge of her discomfort in his eyes and lifted her
chin. “Surely English and history are equally as important?”
“That
goes without saying.” He turned back to his desk. “Tomorrow at ten.”
Research: The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England Kristine Hughes
Labels: Victorian mystery, Mystery romance, Historical Romance, English Murder Mystery, Maggi Andersen
