Title: Dance the Moon Down
Author: R.L. Bartram
Genre: Historical Drama
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Authors OnLine
BLURB:
In 1910, no one believed there would ever be
a war with Germany. Safe in her affluent middle-class life, the rumours held no
significance for Victoria either. It was her father’s decision to enrol her at university
that began to change all that. There she befriends the rebellious and outspoken
Beryl Whittaker, an emergent suffragette, but it was her love for Gerald Avery,
a talented young poet from a neighbouring university that sets the seal on her
future.
After a clandestine romance, they marry in
January 1914, but with the outbreak of the First World War, Gerald volunteers
and within months has gone missing in France. Convinced that he is still alive,
Victoria’s initial attempts to discover what has become of him, implicate her
in a murderous assault on Lord Kitchener resulting in her being interrogated as
a spy, and later tempted to adultery.
Now virtually destitute, Victoria is reduced
to finding work as a common labourer on a rundown farm, where she discovers a
world of unimaginable ignorance and poverty. It is only her conviction that
Gerald will some day return that sustains her through the dark days of hardship
and privation as her life becomes a battle of faith against adversity.
BOOK LINKS:
EXCERPT:
Victoria heard someone pass close by,
approach the desk and stop. After a moment, not having felt a hand on her
shoulder, she opened her eyes to see a young officer standing in front of her.
He bore such a striking resemblance to Gerald that for a moment she thought
that it was actually he.
‘This is Lieutenant Fairchild,’ Colonel Bass
informed her bluntly, ‘temporarily assigned to this department. I’ve put him in
charge of investigating your husband’s case. In future, you’ll direct all your
questions to him.’ Closing the file, he handed it to the lieutenant.
‘Carry on, Fairchild.’
The lieutenant took the file, turned to her,
smiled and gestured that she should follow him.
Victoria was only too glad to do so, but as
she rose to leave, Colonel Bass had one last word of warning.
‘In future, young woman, I suggest that you
confine your activities to the appropriate channels. If you persist in pursuing
your original course, you may discover that this department is no longer
disposed to offer you the leniency it’s shown today.‘ With that, he looked down
and began writing again.
With an outstretched hand, Lieutenant
Fairchild reaffirmed his invitation for her to follow him. Victoria couldn’t
wait to get out of the room. She was shaking from head to toe and in such a
state that, by the time she reached the corridor, she was desperate to confide
her feelings to just about anyone.
‘That man,’ she told the lieutenant, her
voice wavering with emotion, ‘that awful man is overbearing, rude and
insensitive!’
‘He’s a colonel in the British army,’
Lieutenant Fairchild pointed out. ‘He’s supposed to be.’
His candour did nothing to alleviate her
distress. ‘Do you know, he accused me of being a spy?’
The gravity of her statement merely seemed to
amuse him. ‘My dear Mrs Avery, if he’d ever once thought that you were actually
a spy, then you’d never have been allowed into this building. At this moment,
you’d be languishing in His Majesty’s Prison Holloway, awaiting execution.’
Victoria drew a huge gasp, her eyes widening with incredulity; she could hardly
believe her ears. ‘You mean to say that he put me through all that, knowing all
the time that I wasn’t a spy?’
‘Believe it or not, he did you a favour,’
Lieutenant Fairchild told her. ‘It could have been far more serious had he
wished to make it so.’ Victoria was incensed. She felt completely humiliated.
Disregarding his remarks, her agitation began
to boil over. ‘That’s despicable!’ she fumed.
‘I don’t think the corridor is the best place for this conversation,’ he
advised. ‘I’m certain we’ll be much more comfortable in my office.’
The lieutenant’s office was tiny in
comparison to the baronial hall occupied by Colonel Bass, but it was far more
inviting. It was hardly bigger than a cupboard, lined with filing cabinets and
cluttered with stacks of paper that further reduced its size.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ he apologised, ‘but
lowly lieutenants don’t rate a lot of space.’ He paused, studying her for a
moment. ‘May I offer you some tea?’ he asked. ‘You look as though you need it.’
When the tea arrived, Victoria was grateful
to receive a cup. Her ordeal had left her parched, and it was all she could do
to stop herself from gulping it. Nevertheless, to her acute embarrassment, each
time she tried to replace the cup back onto the saucer, her trembling hand made
it rattle conspicuously, and in spite of trying not to, she slurped when she
drank.
Lieutenant Fairchild waited patiently for her
to recover enough to continue. Eventually, Victoria put the cup down and eyed
him warily. Despite his good looks and easy charm, she was still paranoid about
military conspiracies. ‘It won’t work, you know,’ she told him.
The lieutenant folded his hands on the desk
top and smiled indulgently. ‘What won’t work?’ he asked.
She was certain that he knew exactly what she
was talking about, but if he insisted on continuing this silly charade, then
she would tell him anyway. ‘I’ve made a nuisance of myself, and after
frightening the life out of me, that colonel of yours thinks to distract me by
putting a pretty face in my way.’
It
took him some moments to comprehend what she was alluding to. Then suddenly,
his eyes widened in surprise. ‘Oh, I see. You mean me. I can honestly say that
I’ve never thought of myself in quite those terms before,’ he admitted, still
somewhat bemused by her remark. ‘Do you suppose Colonel Bass sees me that way?’
Victoria was only too well aware that his
amusement was entirely at her expense, and was determined not to be the butt of
the joke.
‘You know precisely what I mean, Lieutenant,’
she remarked coldly.
‘Please, call me Alan,’ he invited, taking
her by surprise, ‘and may I call you Victoria?’
He had a beguiling way about him that easily
disarmed her caution, and after an appropriate pause required by formality, she
nodded her consent.
‘Excellent,’ he beamed. ‘I’m sure we’re going
to be great friends.’
Under any other circumstances, his remark
might have been considered presumptuous. Perhaps the harrowing events of the
last few hours had tired her, wearing down her resistance, making her
susceptible to his overtures. In any event, Victoria found the suggestion not
altogether unattractive. Maybe Colonel Bass was a better judge of character
than she’d given him credit for.
BIO:
Born in Edmonton, London in 1951, Robert
spent several of his formative years living in Cornwall where he began to
develop a life long love of nature and the rural way of life. He began writing
in his early teens and much of his short romantic fiction was subsequently
published in various national periodicals including “Secrets”, “Red Letter” and
“The People’s Friend”.
Never one to let the necessity of making a
living get in the way of his writing, Robert has continued to write for the
best part of his life whilst holding down a succession of jobs which have
included Health food shop manager, Typewriter mechanic and Taxidermist. Yes-
you read that correctly.
His passion for the history of the early
twentieth centaury is second only to his love of writing. It was whilst researching in this area that
he came across the letters and diaries of some women who had lived through the
trauma of the First World War. What he read in them inspired him to write his
debut novel “Dance The Moon Down” and the rest, as they say, is history.
Robert is single and lives and writes in
Hertfordshire.
QUESTIONS: Do you like historical dramas? What did you
think of the excerpt for Dance the Moon Down?
