Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-31736782-20170414045252

Alright so I'm writing a story, and although I have a plot all nicely mapped out I'm having a little trouble getting from A to B. I'd also like some critique on the story so far (with the plot in mind, which I will put at the end of the story so you can assess it without spoilers as to what's going to happen next, particularly in the area of historical language as the story is set in the Victorian era and although I'm not going for perfect accuracy I don't want the characters speaking in ways that sound jarringly modern, though I'm writing it without a particular year in mind and allowing for a certain amount of leeway in that respect because the story itself is about a place that exists rather outside of normal time. I'd also like some critique on the story with the plot summary in mind, as I'm worried I might be overdoing it on the foreshadowing.

Also are opening quotations are allowed here because Baudelaire and the Gnostic Gospel of Mary really do help set the tone?)

Here is what I have so far:

C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère! Charles Baudelaire

Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure. ~ The Gospel of Mary

Mother says I should make this story into a book because it’s such a nice story, and has a very pretty ending. So that’s what I shall do, I’m going to use letters, and diary entries, and write out the missing bits. This is a story about me, and mother and doctor and little Eve, and it’s a very nice story, and I think it would probably be best if I started now: Mother says I should write this story down because it’s my favorite and it has such a nice ending and because I write very prettily, and so that’s what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do it properly and use an omniscient narrator which means writing she instead of I and that I already know what’s going to happen which is true because it happened already though I’m also going to use diary entries and letters and things because that’s quite allowed. This is a story about me, and mother, and doctor and it’s a very nice story, and I think it would be best to get started now: “It is my hope that we can come to an arrangement, I require a man in your field for my daughter,,” said Lady Revel in a voice like wind rustling through autumn leaves. The doctor looked up at The Lady. He was young, just finished with training, all wide dark eyes and dark hair brushing his jawline. Lady Revel was a very tall, very slim very pale figure in a widow’s black, face obscured by a veil, though through it he could make out high cheekbones, a firm yet well shaped jaw, a mouth whose fullness and sensuality offset the ice queen beauty of the rest of her countenance, and a pair of glittering upturned violet eyes. The Lady’s was a dramatic face, a beautiful face, perhaps a somewhat cold face framed by fair hair, elaborately dressed.

Lady Attamina Revel’s letter had explained that much and little else. He knew why, of course, he was an alienist, and so potential for gossip had to be minimized.

“What is her condition?” he inquired.

“She is prone to fancies, Doctor,” said the lady in that soft whispery voice, “more than that I cannot say, we live quite away from civilization and very seldom come to town, which is why the arrangement I offer is somewhat out of the ordinary.”

The doctor nodded and the lady smiled.

“How old is she?” asked the doctor, wondering what the lady meant by fancies.

“She is just twenty, and what I offer is this, a salary of five hundred per annum and the opportunity to write a comprehensive case study, provided you keep the identity of the patient absolutely secret. You would have to come and stay at Valentinus house and do so quietly, I will not have Evette becoming the subject of vicious gossip. You would stay in our home as our guest, room and board of course provided, and my daughter would be your sole patient.”

Doctor wondered how mad I-- I mean she was for her mother, the lady, to be willing to pay such a sum.

“She is not dangerous,” said the lady, anticipating his next question, “simply prone to fancies, and I pay in the hopes of securing your discretion, not to pay to overcome some risk to yourself.”

The doctor nodded again.

“I-- I shall have to think it over,” he said, although really for five hundred a year, there was little chance of his declining.

Excerpt from Doctor Ramsey Thomson’s diary, Saturday, 14th of October 18(date obscured):

I have a job offer, yes, just a few days out of training and I’ve been offered a job. The salary is an incredible sum, more than I could ever dream of making working in hospitals or private practice, and so I shall take it, I would be a fool not to. The conditions are strange, however, I am to live for a year on an isolated country estate with a young lady and her widowed mother of good family, and am to study the young lady’s condition and attempt to improve it. To be honest, diary, I haven’t the slightest idea what I should expect to find, although I have been assured she is not dangerous, and generally, aristocratic young ladies, especially those described as delicate are not in the habit of being dangerous so I doubt she shall give me much trouble. After all, I have spent years tending to male lunatics of large physical size and violent temperament so I doubt she will be any trouble.

I shall accept the offer tomorrow. End of entry.

Excerpt from Doctor Ramsey Thomson’s diary, Tuesday 17th of October from 18(date obscured): I write this in the back of a hired carriage on my way to Valentinus house. Outside the carriage, the world is wet and grey, all bare rocky moorland. I have attempted to read my book, but I find for the moment it does not interest me, so I shall write here instead. I did a bit of research and found that the Revel fortune is one of the largest in the country, and comes along with significant estates. Lady Revel is considered reclusive and eccentric, as she and her daughter are almost never seen in public, and it is rumored she keeps no male staff. In fact she will not generally have men in the house, and that she makes her footman and grounds staff live in cottages set quite apart from the main house. Beyond that there was little I could learn, except that there was a brother who died in some tragic accident on his honeymoon, a sad story.

It seems a long journey, it is morning now and the house has just come into view. High walls surrounding a vast old manor, a hodgepodge of architectural elements going back to the 14th century, crenelations, angels, gargoyles, columns and wet dark stone. Quite an impressive old place really, bit like something out of a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe. I shall soon be confronting my anxieties over whether I am fit to perform these duties. I had not expected to be hired so soon after finishing my residency, an orphan with few close friends and a reputation for being unorthodox, so I am grateful for the work, especially with what Lady Revel is willing to pay.

End of entry.

Excerpt from Ramsey Thomson’s Diary Tuesday 17th of October 18(obscured) 2nd entry: I have now been at Valentinus house for an afternoon. I arrived at the house and several maids came out to assist me with my baggage, there are no male servants. The housekeeper informed me that Lady Revel, who is apparently of a studious bent, was reading and not to be disturbed. The house was as I expected, grand and old, slightly weathered, and not without charm. I was escorted to my rooms, which are large and well appointed, and I got settled in. After that, I went downstairs to examine some interesting antiquities, relics of Roman times, and when I came to go up again I met my patient. She was peering at me through the railing on the stairs and holding a porcelain doll. My initial impression was of long silvery fair ringlets, a pink and white complexion, huge blue eyes rimmed with long dark lashes, and a pastel colored frilly frock that would have been appropriate for a very young girl. My second impression was that her figure distinctly did not belong to a child, and was displayed most prominently by a plunging décolletage neckline, utterly inappropriate for daytime, and questionable even for a ball, and that she wore her corsets fashionably tight, and the rest of her slim and well formed like her mother. The effect of this unusual juxtaposition was decidedly peculiar, pretty and yet… somehow decidedly uncomfortable. She fixed me with those big blue eyes, looking rather like a doll herself.

“Eva look,” she whispered to her doll in a soft, childish voice, pointing at me “This must be the doctor mama called for us. He’s very young, isn’t he? Pretty too,” she added before bursting into a fit of giggles, hiding her face in the doll’s skirts, before peeping out.

“Are you the doctor?” she asked in that same sing-song tone, playing with one of the flounces on her dress. Given the oddness of her behavior and the clearly expensive attire indicating her status, I could only deduce that this was my patient.

“Yes, I’m Doctor Thomson,” I replied, giving her a polite little bow, in response to which she giggled again, “and you must be Lady Evette?”

She nodded. “I’m Evette, mama’s in the library reading, should I fetch nurse?” she asked, and I assented, thinking it best to question this remarkable creature's keeper about her. She hurried away in a flurry of petticoats and returned holding the hand of a tall slender woman with dark auburn hair in a nanny’s apron and frilled cap, with delicate if rather angular features.

“Good afternoon Doctor Thompson, I’m Miss Jane Dove,” said Miss Dove in a low genteel voice, “Madame has informed me of the situation and we have made arrangements. If you wish to observe Lady Evette, Madame suggests that you spend the day with us. Lady Evette was just about to begin her French lesson.”

“She is not… feeble minded then?” I inquired, if that were all it was, it would have greatly simplified my diagnosis and made decisions as to treatment remarkably simple, although of course, it would have been devastating news for her mother. I was, I admit, being selfish with that thought.

Unfortunately for simplicity, and fortunately for the hope of my getting an interesting case study. Miss Dove shook her head and smiled, patting her charge’s hair.

“Oh, no, Doctor,” she said, smiling down at the girl, “our Lady Evette is a very bright girl. It is merely that…”

Lady Evette interrupted “Mama says I have fancies,” she said, “doesn’t she, nurse?”

Miss Dove smiled. “Yes, your mama does say that, and I believe she is right, come along now, Monsieur Baudelaire and Monsieur Grandier don’t like to be kept waiting,” she said with a laugh.

I followed behind as I was lead to a lavishly appointed I observed the lesson with my notebook in hand, watching my patient translate French, a language I, unfortunately, have little grasp of. I caught snippets, poetry and some antique religious text, rather boring really and not terribly enlightening in terms of Lady Evette’s condition, except to confirm Miss Dove’s assessment of Lady Evette’s intelligence. Lady Evette was quick with her translations. She seems a bright and happy girl overall, although her behavior is unusual given her age. I expect her mother fears for her marriage prospects.

An excellent tea was brought to the nursery by a maid, and we ate and drank quite companionably. I wonder perhaps if the girl’s absent father is the cause of her strange behavior. It is to be presumed he is deceased given her mother’s attire, although I could find out nothing about him. Perhaps Lady Evette’s clock stopped, as it were when her father passed away. I shall have to enquire about the matter when Lady Evette cannot hear me, as I fear the subject would cause her distress. She is very affectionate with her governess, often kissing her on the cheek, and laying her head on her shoulder. Miss Dove seems fond of her pupil and overall a competent and kind guardian. I think it unlikely that she is the source of the trouble, although I think perhaps the girl may be too attached to her. She seems prone to clinging.

After tea I sat and observed my charge at play with her dolls, serving imaginary tea and conversing with them. She made a very good little hostess, though it was singularly peculiar to hear the conversation she had with her dollies, all theology and some quite modern philosophy and even discussion of economics and politics, all rather advanced. “Miss Eva, don’t you think Miss Mary’s point is quite a good one, I mean economically his principals are quite sound, but his view of history of course…” she prattled, “but of course we shall just have to wait and see if it all comes true, but I wanted to discuss Ruskin, oh I know I’m changing the subject but I’ve just read something quite fascinating.”

Astonished I turned to her governess.

“Miss Dove, where has she learned such things?”

Miss Dove gave an amused smile.

“Lady Evette is a great reader, just like her mother,” she said, “as I did tell you, doctor, the girl is very bright.”

A moment later Lady Evette turned to us, pouting. “Nurse I want you to play with me, and him too,” she said, pointing to me. I acquiesced and drank imaginary tea and talked to Miss Mary and Miss Eva. She is a tyrannical little thing in some ways. From her prattle I gather she has read a great deal, perhaps more than a young lady’s mind can properly handle. That may be an explanation, excessive growth in one area stunting growth in the rest, a phenomenon I have seen before but only very rarely and never to such an extent. She is, at any rate, a fascinating case.

There was a music lesson and then I was informed that Lady Revel would see us.

The Marchioness received us in the parlor.

Diary Of Lady Evette (Me) Tuesday 17th October:

I met the doctor mother hired today. I think he’s just right for the part. He was terribly surprised when he found out I wasn’t simple, I had to try not to laugh when he asked nurse if I was feeble-minded. He watched my lessons and watched me play with my dolls. He’s very pretty, a bit like one of my dolls really. After lessons we went to see mother in the parlor. Mother’s been terribly busy preparing and with research and things.

Mother looked particularly beautiful in the black gown with the French jet beads, but mother is always beautiful. Mother always wears black, ever since… well ever since you know what, don’t you? But it’s alright because black suits mother so well.

I believe he’s come to some erroneous conclusions about me. It will be most amusing to watch him attempt to puzzle it all out.

Mother and doctor had a brandy and I was sent away with nurse. I hate being sent away from mother, it makes me feel like a child, but I suppose that is the price that must be paid.

Diary of Lady Attamina: Tuesday 17th October:

The doctor arrived today. Ma minette seems amused by him, which I suppose is a good thing as it is imperative that he comes to know her well as time goes by. He asked about her father. I told him that he had died before she was born, which is of course quite true.

Diary of Doctor Thompson 17th October 3rd Entry: The girl shares her mother’s bed. I questioned Miss Dove about this peculiarity, and she explained that the young lady is prone to nightmares and sleepwalking and that her mother’s company allows her restful slumber and alleviates the danger of her wandering into peril during her unconscious hours. Still, it is most irregular. Strange dream last night, Lady Revel dressed like the holy virgin holding a great serpent. Lady Evette, belly swollen with child, offering an apple to her mother. Bloody mouthed she-wolves with swollen teets laying down in fields of roses.

Plot summary: An alienist (a 19th-century psychiatrist) is hired by a wealthy Marchioness named Lady Attamina Revel to care for her daughter, Evette, who is "prone to fancies". Attamina is known to be a widow, and wears full mourning, and to be quite attractive. It is also known that the widow is rather eccentric, allowing no male servants or male guests in the house, and only very rarely coming to London.

The doctor arrives at an isolated country estate, and finds the daughter, a very beautiful and shapely young woman of about twenty who plays with dolls, and dresses in pastel colored befrilled clothes more appropriate to a little girl (although elements of the clothing are unsettlingly and distinctly adult and seductive, such as deep decolletages and cinched in waists, her behavior is a similarly inappropriate mixture of childish and flirtatious).

The Doctor at first thinks that something outside is frightening mother and daughter, or that the daughter has been traumatized by some incident, leading to her odd behavior. The daughter seems to be afraid of something, insisting on sharing her mother’s bed at night, but after a time he comes to suspect the mother of mistreating the daughter in some way.

He investigates this but can find no evidence save their peculiar closeness. The doctor has odd dreams at night, some feature jumbled confused images of The Virgin Mary suckling a wolf or lactating blood, and other disturbing and perverse images.

Later animals are found dead and horribly mutilated on the moors. The doctor discovers bloody clothes hidden in the daughter’s room. The Doctor come to suspect the mother is trying to keep a murderous child in check, hiding her out here away from society. The daughter displays flashes of an unsettling cunning and intellect, underneath the act of childish innocence. He stays on hoping to be able to do something about the daughter. The daughter turns up pregnant, which unsettles the doctor still further because he is the only man Lady Attamina allows in the house. The doctor becomes convinced that the daughter will do something horrible to the child if she is left alone with it. Eventually, it is revealed that the mother and daughter are not, in fact, mother and daughter, but a husband and wife with the husband acting as mother to his wife (not sure where to put the reveal either, before or after the birth) who was at one point a known authority on occult matters. She disappeared with her husband, also a known occultist shortly after their marriage, possibly on a trip somewhere remote to retrieve magical texts.

They are gnostics of an obscure and peculiar sect that believe that Eve was the first coming of the Messiah, and that her birth from Adam’s rib was a miracle mirroring The Virgin Mary giving birth to Christ, because a man is an unnatural mother who gives birth to a savior figure (Eve who saves humanity from ignorance) and a virgin is an unnatural mother who gives birth to a saviour figure (Christ) and they’re trying to bring about the end of the world by symbolically recreating these circumstances (The mother playing the male mother of his wife, and his wife playing the “virgin” who gives birth to the new Messiah). The daughter/wife goes into labor and gives birth to a healthy child with the assistance of the doctor who intends to take the child away when the daughter/wife goes to sleep (as most do after birth). Instead of going to sleep, the daughter/wife and the infant rip apart and eat the doctor together (or the daughter wife slits his throat and feeds the blood to the baby, or possibly the doctor is ritually sacrificed) with the climactic moment being the doctor realizing that all the people he was trying to help were never in any danger and that he was the one being lead to his doom all along. The final scene is of the mother/husband, daughter/wife, and infant in a cozy domestic scene in the parlor, and the infant showing some budding (and disturbing) supernatural abilities.

I don't intend to spend a lot of time describing the gore as it's not terribly important to the story.

Some follow up questions for critique:

1. Is the fact that I'm avoiding using pronouns for Lady Attamina (because Attamina isn't a she) clunky or an interesting bit of foreshadowing?

2. Is Evette's prose style too unbearably sugary or is it readable?

3. I'm having a terrible time figuring out how to do the reveal? I was initially thinking the doctor might catch Attamina and Evette in bed together but that might be too explicit for this site (and wouldn't get into their backstory), old newspaper seem a bit cliche, perhaps a photo album? Should the doctor even find out about it, or should I leave it till the very end?

4. Instead of the doctor attending at the birth, would it be better if he was imprisoned after they found out he knew their secret and used as a ritual sacrifice? 