ADA GOTH 3: THE WUTHERING FRIGHT

ADA IS BACK IN SPAIN THIS WINTER!!!

Look up to the entourage of Lord Goth.

THE HALL IS VAST AND FULL OF AUTHORS...

It's Christmas in the Regency countryside in which Ghastlygorm Hall is situated. Sleigh bells ring in the crisp winter air, snowflakes twirl around, and Lord Goth hosts a Literary Show which fills his estate with renowned authors of the historical period. Though ominous howls echo throughout the Hall, and thus, Ada and friends, with their newfound club members the Brontë... er... Vicarage siblings, find themselves entangled in another sinister, addictive, and thrilling Regency mystery...

Inventor Charles Cabbage is now finished with his difference engine (a device that will surely make a difference!), but he also has time to invent a new remarkably simple toy he calls hooligan hoop (we now call it hula hoop), as his children William and Em return from their respective boarding schools for winter break having made the acquaintance of the Vicarage siblings: wannabe writers Charlotte, Emily, and Anne in their sonnet bonnets, and their awkward, shy brother Bramble (Spoiler alert: Bramble is a werewolf, since he was wounded in a gorse bush and injected with some drool from werewolf typographer the Hound of the Baskervilles.), aside from Rugby School bully/jock Harry Flushman (the scourge of Bramble Vicarage and William Cabbage!), eldest son and heir to water-closet tycoon Josiah Flushman...

The authors who visit Ghastlygorm include historical novel writer Sir Walter Scott... er... Splott (not in a kilt, but tartan trousers will do); romance novelist (Ada's handmaid's favourite) Jane... er... Plain Austen; balletic wordsmith (female in men's clothing) George... er... Georgie Eliot; sharply dressed society satirist William Makepeace... er... Timepiece Thackeray... Foreign authors are present as well: representing the former Thirteen Colonies, poetess Emily... er... Homily Dickinson; and, straight from Scandinavia, Danish fairytaler Hans Christian... Hands Christmas Andersen and Swedish Countess (slender though super strong, able to lift two horses, sporting twin braids but blond and freckle-less... an ancestor?) Pippi Shortstocking (it would be Kortstrump in Swedish). 

What's more, renowned British illustrator Sir Christopher Riddle-of-the-Sphinx R.A., founder of the Arts and Crufts Movement, also makes a stellar appearance (yes, the author has placed himself, drawn in his own style and Regency clothes, in his own novel!!). Just like Velázquez in Las Meninas, Sir Christopher crosses the fourth wall to literally live among his characters.

After all, Zacharias Topelius opens his Surgeon's Stories (Fältskärns berättelser) with a preface, adscribed to the titular Surgeon, the third-person narrator of the epic historical saga, from which I stress the following quote:

"Därför - har du förmågan att lida eller jubla med släkten som varit, att hata med dem, att älska med dem, att hänryckas, att beundra, att förakta, att förbanna, såsom de gjort, med ett ord, att leva bland dem med hela ditt hjärta och icke blott med ditt kalla betraktande förstånd, välan så följ mig! Jag leder dig ned i dälderna; min hand är svag och mina tavlor ringa, men ditt hjärta skall leda dig bättre än jag, på det förtröstar jag - och begynner. "

"Therefore, if you have the capacity to suffer or rejoice with the generations that have been—to hate with them—to love with them—to be transported—to admire, to despise, to curse as they have done—in a word, to live among them with your whole heart and not alone with your cold, reflecting judgement, then follow me. I will lead you down into the veil. My hand is weak and my sketch humble, but your heart will guide you better than I. Upon that I rely - and begin."

These words, a real creed for readers of historical fiction and fantasy, make me reflect upon what Riddell has done here in this book. Literally lived among his creations with his whole heart and soul, for who knows Ada and her friends better, or who would take the plunge head first into their Regency estate and take to its ways like a fish takes to water? Which is what makes his appearance far more interesting than any other simple author's cameo, comparable to Velázquez is Riddle's endeavour.

There are more references scattered all over the pages of The Wuthering Fright:

The inventor Cabbage has got three monkey assistants, dressed in Oz-style fezes and waistcoats, but without any wings, called William, Heath, and Robinson.

What's more, Marianne Delacroix (who still covers her tits under a blouse) is revealed to have a little son called Eugène, with a remarkable artistic talent.

And also that she taught Ada needlework (think Mme. Defarge...)

Hebe Poppins, married to her chimney-sweep Bert, has also become a mother, but of a daughter (Eugène's age), called... Mary, of course!

Nanny Darling guards a kindergarten in Kensington Gardens.

Jane Ear once overheard a pupil of hers, one Charlie Dodgson, as he drew a comic strip in his Maths textbook, say: "And what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?" Jane Ear liked to repeat those words as if they were her own, and she passed the sentence on to Ada Goth.

And the ghosts of Tudor queens Anne Bowl-in and Anne of Peeves, both of them killed during a cricket match, also make a cameo...

Charles Cabbage's hooligan hoop was inspired by two unruly child workers, Noel and Liam (read: Gallagher), who, fortunately, when they came of age, became musicians instead

Lord Goth keeps busts of Trajan, Domitian, Vespasian, Julius Caesar, Hadrian, and Augustus on a shelf. And he's also writing a narrative poem titled The Pilgrimage of Harolde the Kid!

The local roadhouse has got a room full of Pickwicks (all of them bald, beer-quaffing, bespectacled, jolly, and overweight) reading newspapers. The Pickwick Snug.

Andersen, who here wrote a story about a mermaid barmaid called "The Little Barmaid", has got a flying trunk which came all the way from Turkey in a hot-air balloon, decorates the Ghastlygorm Christmas tree topping it with a (rather Elsa-like) Snow Queen figurine, and a snowman is made in his likeness by Ada and friends.

Furthermore, here's an excerpt of the opening of a Plain Austen novel, Miss Ambridge's/Fancyday's (Ambridge is the Spanish translation surname, Fancyday the original one) (Ada's new handmaid's) favourite read: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a talented singer in possession of a good voice must be in want of a musical production." The novel, Prompt and Prejudice, is all about Elizabeth Bonnett, a simple country girl with a song in her heart who meets a dashing dancing master, Mr Darcy-Bussell.

Plus, like every other Ada Goth book, this one has a little tie-in booklet for an Easter egg: here it is an illustrated summary of Bramble Vicarage's stage career, featuring portraits of him in costumes and also portraits of the authors of the plays, operas, and musicals he has starred in: works of Mozart (The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro), Jack London (Call of the Wild), Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest), Lady Baa-Baa (101 Dalmatians, done by a Lady Gaga parody), and the Lieder of my soulmate Franz Schubert.

The first Ada delighted me with one historical or literary allusion at every turn. So did the second. The third surpasses both of them exceedingly (the Scandinavian characters [I LUV both Andersen stories and Pippi Lângstrump], the Brontë... er... Vicarage siblings, all of the authors at the literary show, the mystery of the ominous howls that echo round the Hall, Harry Flushman already a jock and a bad boy in his teenage years at Rugby School [foreshadowing his expulsion!], the children of Hebe Poppins and Marianne Delacroix...) Here, Riddell really ups the ante, tripling the allusions and the British humour, and even featuring himself in the third installment of this richly-illustrated and highly intertextual Regency fantasy series. Addictive and intoxicating, even more than its predecessors, this third Ada Goth book is truly the jewel in the Snow Queen's icy crown!

And thus...

LET US POP A CORK OF MOËT CHAMPAGNE AND DRINK IT ON ICE! TO THE HEALTH OF ADA GOTH AND TO THAT OF SIR CHRISTOPHER RIDDLE-OF-THE-SPHINX, R.A.!

COMMENTARY:

Even richer layers of allusion are reached when it comes to the referees of the ‘literary show," Hands Christmas Andersen, and especially Countess Pippi Shortstocking, who appears to be a complex melange between the title character from the beloved children’s series Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Princess Anna of Frozen fame. Riddell’s humorous metafictionality is taken even farther in Wuthering Fright by the introduction of the episodic character of ‘Sir Christopher Riddle-of-the-Sphinx R.A., ‘a founder of the Arts and Crufts movement’. This seems like a very ‘meta-meta-‘ gesture, but it actually leads back to a whole tradition of painters more or less subtly inserting self-portraits into their paintings, like Sandro Botticelli in Adoration of the Magi, or Diego Velázquez in Las Meninas, a gesture of auto-mimesis that acts not only as a signature, but also as a meditation upon authorship. This all sounds terribly academic, and whilst it may convince an adult readership that Chris Riddell’s book is full of intellectual goodies, why would a child be willing to read it?

PS. AND THE PIRATE QUEEN?
Ada Goth book 2.5, The Pirate Queen, was only released in the UK because it was a special event book (don't blame me, blame the publisher!)

MADAME ADÈLE MONTRÉVILLE, LADY OF WAR

Here's another female character worth mentioning

and praising: 

Madame Adèle (Adela) Montréville, created by 

Walter Scott.

The widow of an officer of fortune, self-made into

a female figurehead of power, wealthy and in command

of a host of soldiers. This lady Wallenstein is even 

compared to the Queen of Sheba, Semiramis, 

Zenobia, Boudicca... called an Amazonian princess...!

It's such a shame that she is meant for the role of

the rival in the story where she appears.

The hero calls her "unsexed woman" as an insult 

(compare Donegild as "mannish" in the Man of Law's 

Tale), which sounds rather unfair.

Her entourage is also all-male (once with the demure

heroine for a single female floozy, then she left).

In the end, having lost her fortune to the heroine and

her power-base to the crown, she dies poisoned either by

herself or by another person.

Read here:

A Semiramis-looking person, of unusual stature
and amplitude, arrayed in a sort of riding habit,
but so formed, and so looped and gallooned with
lace, as made it resemble the upper tunic of a native
chief. Her robe was composed of crimson silk,
rich with flowers of gold. She wore wide trousers
of light blue silk, a fine scarlet shawl around her
waist, in which was stuck a creeze, with a richly
ornamented handle. Her throat and arms were
loaded with chains and bracelets, and her turban,
formed of a shawl similar to that worn around
her waist, was decorated by a magnificent aigrette,
from which a blue ostrich plume flowed in one direction,
and a red one in another. The brow, of
European complexion, on which this tiara rested,
was too lofty for beauty, but seemed made for
command; the aquiline nose retained its form, but
the cheeks were a little sunken, and the complexion
so very brilliant, as to give strong evidence that
the whole countenance had undergone a thorough
repair since the lady had left her couch. A 

female slave, richly dressed, stood behind her with

a chowry, or cow's tail, having a silver handle,
which she used to keep off the flies. From the
mode in which she was addressed by those who
spoke to her, this lady appeared a person of too
much importance to be affronted or neglected, and
yet one with whom none desired further communication
than the occasion seemed in propriety to
demand.

 ``For Heaven's sake, what is that for a Zenobia?''

 ``Is it possible you do not know the Queen of
Sheba?'' You must know, then, that she is the

daughter of a Scotch emigrant, who lived and died
at Pondicherry, a sergeant in Lally's regiment. 
She managed to marry a partisan officer named
Montreville, a Swiss or Frenchman, I cannot tell
which. After the surrender of Pondicherry, this
hero and heroine---But hey---what the devil are
you thinking of?---If you stare at her that way,
you will make a scene; for she will think nothing
of scolding you across the table.''

With

a voice which in the force of its accents corresponded
with her commanding air, Mrs Montreville
addressed him in English, which savoured slightly
of a Swiss patois,---``You have come to us very
fast, sir, to say nothing at all. Are you sure you
did not get your tongue stolen by de way?''

 ``Some fair-skinned speculation of old Montreville's,
I suppose, that she has got either to toady
herself, or take in some of her friends with.

---Is it possible you have never heard of old Mother
Montreville?''

``Well, this lady is the

widow of a Swiss officer in the French service, who,
after the surrender of Pondicherry, went off into
the interior, and commenced soldier on his own
account. He got possession of a fort, under pretence
of keeping it for some simple Rajah or other;
assembled around him a parcel of desperate vagabonds,
of every colour in the rainbow; occupied a
considerable territory, of which he raised the duties
in his own name, and declared for independence.
But Hyder Naig understood no such interloping
proceedings, and down he came, besieged
the fort and took it, though some pretend it was
betrayed to him by this very woman. Be that as
it may, the poor Swiss was found dead on the ramparts.
Certain it is, she received large sums of
money,  under pretence of paying of her troops,
surrendering of hill-forts, and Heaven knows what
besides. She was permitted also to retain some
insignia of royalty; and, as she was wont to talk
of Hyder as the Eastern Solomon, she generally
became known by the title of Queen of Sheba. She
leaves her court when she pleases, and has been as
far as Fort St George before now. In a word, she
does pretty much as she likes. The great folks here
are civil to her, though they look on her as little
better than a spy. As to Hyder, it is supposed he
has ensured her fidelity by borrowing the greater
part of her treasures, which prevents her from
daring to break with him,---besides other causes
that smack of scandal of another sort.''

``Your old acquaintance,
Mr Tresham, or Mr Middlemas, or whatever else
he chooses to be called, has been complimented by
a report, that he stood very high in the good graces
of this same Boadicea. He certainly commanded
some troops which she still keeps on foot, and
acted at their head in the Nawaub's service, who
craftily employed him in whatever could render
him odious to his countrymen. The British prisoners
were intrusted to his charge, and, to judge
by what I felt myself, the devil might take a lesson
from him in severity.''

  ``And was he attached to, or connected with,
this woman?''

  ``So Mrs Rumour told us in our dungeon. Poor
Jack Ward had the bastinado for celebrating their
merits in a parody on the playhouse song,

    `Sure such a pair were never seen,
     So aptly formed to meet by nature.' ''

...such a woman...

into an apartment. The room opened on one

side into a small garden or parterre, filled with the
brilliant-coloured flowers of eastern climates; in
the midst of which the waters of a fountain rose
upwards in a sparkling jet, and fell back again into
a white marble cistern.

A step was heard---the door opened---
a female appeared-but it was the portly form of
Madame de Montreville.

  ``What you do please to want, sir?'' said the
lady; ``that is, if you have found your tongue this
morning, which you had lost yesterday.''

``How is this, my dear?'' said Mrs Montreville,
with unruffled front;

"`are you not gone out for two or three days, as I
tell this gentleman?--mais c'est égal--it is all one
thing. You will say, How d'ye do, and good-bye,
to Monsieur, who is so polite as to come to ask
after our healths, and as he sees us both very well,
he will go away home again.''

 ``That is to say, get you gone? but I do not
allow that---I do not like private conversation between
young man and pretty young woman; cela
n'est pas honnête. It cannot be in my house.''

The Queen of Sheba,
notwithstanding her natural assurance, was disconcerted
by the composure of Miss Gray's manner,
and left the room, apparently in displeasure. 

--why with this woman?''

``She is not, indeed, every thing that I expected,

but I must not be prejudiced by foreign manners, 

after the step I have taken---She is, besides, 

attentive, and generous in her way, and I shall 

soon be under better protection.''

Mrs Montreville, a lady of
rank, having large possessions and high interest in
the Mysore, would receive me on my arrival at
Fort St George, and conduct me safely to the dominions
of Hyder. It was further recommended,
that, considering the peculiar situation of Mr Middlemas,
his name should be concealed in the transaction,
and that the ostensible cause of my voyage
should be to fill an office in that lady's family.

The
references given, the sum of money lodged, were
considered as putting all scruples out of the question,
and my immediate protectress and kinswoman
was so earnest that I should accept of the offer
made me, as to intimate that she would not encourage
me to stand in my own light, by continuing
to give me shelter and food, (she gave me little
more,) if I was foolish enough to refuse compliance.

...this unsexed woman, who can no longer be
termed a European.

"Tell me only,

do you, of your own positive knowledge, aver that
you consider this woman as an unworthy and unfit
protectress for so young a person as I am?''

  ``Of my own knowledge I can say nothing; nay,
I must own, that reports differ even concerning
Mrs Montreville's character. But surely the mere
suspicion------''

" What, indeed, must

he be, should this Madam Montreville be other than
he represented her?''

 Meantime, Madam Montreville, followed by her

domestic, entered the apartment.

It appeared from
the conversation which follows, that they had from
some place of concealment overheard the dialogue
we have narrated in the former chapter.

  ``It is good luck, Sadoc,'' said the lady, ``that
there is in this world the great fool.''

  ``And the great villain,'' answered Sadoc, in
good English, but in a most sullen tone.

  ``This woman, now,'' continued the lady, ``is
what in Frangistan you call an angel.''

  ``Ay, and I have seen those in Hindostan you
may well call devil.''

  ``I am sure that this---how you call him---Hartley,
is a meddling devil. For what has he to do?
She will not have any of him. What is his business
who has her? I wish we were well up the
Ghauts again, my dear Sadoc.''

  ``For my part,'' answered the slave, ``I am half
determined never to ascend the Ghauts more. Hark
you, Adela, I begin to sicken of the plan we have
laid. This creature's confiding purity---call her
angel or woman, as you will---makes my practices
appear too vile, even in my own eyes. I feel myself
unfit to be your companion farther in the daring
paths which you pursue. Let us part, and part
friends.''

  ``Amen, coward. But the woman remains with
me,'' answered the Queen of Sheba.*

*    In order to maintain uninjured the tone of passion
     throughout this dialogue, it has been judged expedient to discard,
     in the language of the Begum, the patois of Madame
     Montreville.

  ``With thee!'' replied the seeming black---
``never. No, Adela. She is under the shadow
of the British flag, and she shall experience its
protection.''

  ``Yes---and what protection will it afford to you
yourself?'' retorted the Amazon. ``What if I
should clap my hands, and command a score of my
black servants to bind you like a sheep, and then
send word to the Governor of the Presidency that
one Richard Middlemas, who had been guilty of
mutiny, murder, desertion, and serving of the enemy
against his countrymen, is here, at Ram Sing Cottah's
house, in the disguise of a black servant?''
Middlemas covered his face with his hands, while
Madam Montreville proceeded to load him with
reproaches.---``Yes''; she said, ``slave, and son of
a slave! Since you wear the dress of my household,
you shall obey me as fully as the rest of them,
otherwise,---whips, fetters---the scaffold, renegade,
---the gallows, murderer! Dost thou dare to reflect
on the abyss of misery from which I raised
thee, to share my wealth and my affections? Dost
thou not remember that the picture of this pale,
cold, unimpassioned girl was then so indifferent to
thee, that thou didst sacrifice it as a tribute due to
the benevolence of her who relieved thee, to the affection
of her who, wretch as thou art, condescended
to love thee?''

  ``Yes, fell woman,'' answered Middlemas, ``but
was it I who encouraged the young tyrant's outrageous
passion for a portrait, or who formed the
abominable plan of placing the original within his
power?''

  ``No---for to do so required brain and wit. But
it was thine, flimsy villain, to execute the device
which a bolder genius planned; it was thine to entice
the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence
of a love, which, on thy part, cold-blooded
miscreant, never had existed."

  ``Peace, screech-owl!'' answered Middlemas,
``nor drive me to such madness as may lead me to
forget thou art a woman.''

  ``A woman, dastard! Is this thy pretext for
sparing me?---what, then, art thou, who tremblest
at a woman's looks, a woman's words?---I am a
woman, renegade, but one who wears a dagger,
and despises alike thy strength and thy courage. I
am a woman who has looked on more dying men
than thou hast killed deer and antelopes. Thou
must traffic for greatness?---thou hast thrust thyself
like a five-years' child, into the rough sports of
men, and wilt only be borne down and crushed for
thy pains. Thou wilt be a double traitor, forsooth
---betray thy betrothed to the Prince, in order to
obtain the  means of betraying the Prince to the
English, and thus gain thy pardon from thy countrymen.
But me thou shalt not betray. I will not
be made the tool of thy ambition---I will not give
thee the aid of my treasures and my soldiers, to be
sacrificed at last to this northern icicle. No, I will
watch thee as the fiend watches the wizard. Show
but a symptom of betraying me while we are here,
and I denounce thee to the English, who might
pardon the successful villain, but not him who can
only offer prayers for his life, in place of useful
services. Let me see thee flinch when we are beyond
the Ghauts, and the Nawaub shall know thy
intrigues with the Nizam and the Mahrattas, and
thy resolution to deliver up Bangalore to the English,
when the imprudence of Tippoo shall have
made thee Killedar. Go where thou wilt, slave,
thou shalt find me thy mistress.''

  ``And a fair, though an unkind one,'' said the
counterfeit Sadoc, suddenly changing his tone to
an affectation of tenderness. ``It is true I pity this
unhappy woman; true I would save her if I could
---but most unjust to suppose I would in any circumstances
prefer her to my Nourjehan, my light
of the world, my Mootee Mahul, my pearl of the
palace---''

  ``All false coin and empty compliment,'' said the
Begum. ``Let me hear, in two brief words, that
you leave this woman to my disposal.''

  ``But not to be interred alive under your seat,
like the Circassian of whom you were jealous,'' said
Middlemas, shuddering.

  ``No, fool; her lot shall not be worse than that
of being the favourite of a prince. Hast thou, fugitive
and criminal as thou art, a better fate to offer
her?''

  ``But,'' replied Middlemas, blushing even through
his base disguise at the consciousness of his abject
conduct, ``I will have no force on her inclinations.''

  ``Such truce she shall have as the laws of the
Zenana allow,'' replied the female tyrant. ``A
week is long enough for her to determine whether
she will be the willing mistress of a princely and
generous lover.''

  ``Ay,'' said Richard, ``and before that week
expires------'' He stopped short.

  ``What will happen before the week expires?''
said the Begum Montreville.

  ``No matter---nothing of consequence. I leave
the woman's fate with you.''

  ``'Tis well---we march to-night on our return,
so soon as the moon rises. Give orders to our
retinue.''

  ``To hear is to obey,''  replied  the  seeming  slave,
and left the apartment.   

  The eyes of the Begum remained   fixed   on   the
door through which he had passed.  ``Villain---
double-dyed villain!'' she said, ``I see thy drift;
thou wouldst betray Tippoo, in policy alike and in
love. But me thou canst not betray.---Ho, there,
who waits? Let a trusty messenger be ready to set
off instantly with letters, which I will presently make
ready. His departure must be a secret to every
one.---And now shall this pale phantom soon know
her destiny, and learn what it is to have rivalled
Adela Montreville.''

  While the Amazonian Princess meditated plans
of vengeance against her innocent rival and the
guilty lover...

 ``Doubt it not---the soldiers of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, whom the Europeans call Montreville,
are less hers than mine. I am myself her
Bukshee, [General,] and her Sirdars are at my
devotion. With these I could keep Bangalore for
two months, and the British army may be before
it in a week. What do you risk by advancing General
Smith's army nearer to the frontier?''

 The litter stopped as it approached the tank,
on the opposite side of which the Prince was seated
on his musnud. Middlemas assisted the Begum
to descend, and led her, deeply veiled with silver
muslin, towards the platform of marble. The rest
of the retinue of the Begum followed in their
richest and most gaudy attire, all males, however;
nor was there a symptom of woman being in her
train, expect that a close litter, guarded by twenty
black slaves, having their sabres drawn, remained
at some distance in a thicket of flowering shrubs.

  When Tippoo Saib, through the dim haze which
hung over the waterfall, discerned the splendid
train of the Begum advancing, he arose from his
musnud, so as to receive her near the foot of his
throne, and exchanged greetings with her upon
the pleasure of meeting, and enquiries after their
mutual health. He then conducted her to the
cushion placed near to his own, while his courtiers
anxiously showed their politeness in accommodating
those of the Begum with places upon the carpets
around, where they all sat down cross-legged.

 It would be
impossible to describe the feelings with which Hartley
recognised the

Amazonian Mrs Montreville.

The Nawaub, faithful to
his promise, remitted a sum of no less than
ten thousand gold Mohurs, extorted, as was surmised,
almost entirely from the hoards of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, or Montreville. Of the fate
of that adventuress nothing was known for certainty;
but her forts and government were taken
into Hyder's custody, and report said, that, her
power being abolished and her consequence lost,
she died by poison, either taken by herself, or administered
by some other person.