Miss Hartwright responded by fastening her cloak. “I can’t linger. Mrs. Bainbridge expects me straightaway.” She pulled her hood up over her hair. “Though I hope to be back soon, if all goes well.”

Neville followed her to the doors of the stable. She glanced back at him once over her shoulder before ducking out into the rain.

“Goodbye,” she said. “And thank you again, sir.”

He made no reply. It was too difficult to muster one. He wasn’t calm or clear-headed enough. And it was her fault, however unintended. She’d flustered him. Rattled him to his core. He could do nothing but watch her stride away through the mud and rain. A small cloaked figure on the cliffs.

Clara Hartwright.

Miss Clara Hartwright.

He heaved a sigh as he returned to his work. It was going to be a very long holiday.

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Author's Note

Victorian seaside holidays are a favorite topic of mine in my non-fiction writing and research. I endeavored to bring the same authenticity to Alex and Laura’s ill-fated trip to Margate. To that end, the descriptions of the beach, bathing machines, telescopes, and seaside fashions are accurate, as are the descriptions of the York Hotel and Margate’s Public Assembly Rooms.

Laura’s near drowning was based, in part, on several actual Victorian era drownings at Margate that didn’t have such a happy ending. As for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, though still a novel concept, it wasn’t completely unheard of in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1744, a treatise on the practice by Dr. John Fothergill appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In it, Fothergill explained why mouth-to-mouth was preferable to the use of the bellows when reviving a victim of drowning. One of the main reasons being—as Alex Archer discovered—that bellows weren’t generally close at hand when on the beach.

I tried to be equally as accurate in depicting 1860s Paris, Grasse, and Cannes. However, I did take some authorial license when it came to French hotels. I imagined that Alex and Laura would have stayed in smaller hotels and guest houses, and it was more efficient to make those up than to base them on actual nineteenth century establishments.

If you’d like to learn more about Victorian sea bathing, seaside clothing, and fashionable perfume, please check out my non-fiction book A Victorian Lady’s Guide to Fashion and Beauty, or visit the blog portion of my author website at MimiMatthews.com. I’ve linked a few articles below which you may find relevant to Alex and Laura’s story:

Promiscuous Bathing at Margate

Inside a Victorian Bathing Machine

Seaside Fashions of the 19th Century

Acknowledgments