A Brief History of Montmaray

‘Once in a while, a special book will cross our paths and make us grateful for life and the ability to read. Such a book should be celebrated ... I’m talking about
A Brief History of Montmaray
by Michelle Cooper. I’m calling her Australia’s next stroke of literary brilliance.’ Soo Lee Tan,
Viewpoint

‘A smart and stirring choice to usher fans of the Brontës into the twentieth century.’
Booklist

‘One of the most enchanting novels I have read all year. Blending taut writing and sharp characterisations with historical fact and fiction, this slim novel is impossible to resist.’
San Francisco Book Review

‘I am ... totally and completely in love with this book ... It’s the kind of book that seems so effortless, it could have only come from an immense writing talent. Sophie’s voice is rendered in such exquisite simplicity ... I wanted to follow the book right off the page and into the world of the characters.’
http://theheartisalonelyreader.blogspot.com

‘It has everything: a love story, a war story, a spy story, an adventure story and is well researched with convincing historical detail of the 1930s, complete with the satirical outlook of the narrator. I was completely taken away.’ Ernie Tucker,
English in Australia

‘There is romance, adventure, a touch of the supernatural and a winning heroine who will touch the heart.’
Kirkus Reviews

‘This is a romance in the fuller sense of the word. The situation of aristocratic poverty, eccentric family situations and a scribbling heroine will remind readers of Dodie Smith’s
I Capture the Castle.
Dare I say that
A Brief History of Montmaray
is even better than that much adored book. It is rich with wit, history, characters in extremis, poignancy and tension.’
The Source

‘Reviews are saying it’s the best part of Brontë and Austen, except fast-paced and “unputdownable.” I just call that “irresistible.”’ Rosemary Clement-Moore,
http://freshfiction.com

‘A Brief History
is reminiscent of Jane Austen novels and possesses the same whimsical romanticism, innocence and gentle wit in its heroine. At the same time, it has a faster pace and greater level of intrigue to suit readers today ... Recommended.’ Aleesah Darlison,
Buzz Words

‘Part-history, part-tragedy, and part-romanticisation ... a delightful coming-of-age story that blends the past with imagination. This story will appeal to anyone with a taste for history or a calling for adventure.’ Mary-Anne Mangano,
www.media-culture.org.au

‘It’s an absolute joy to find a smart, engaging story like Michelle Cooper’s
A Brief History of Montmaray. Montmaray
brings together a strong heroine, a bit of history, a lot of wit, a touch of the Gothic, and an exciting climax, for a book that’s hard to put down.’
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Copyright Act 1968
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Dear Sophie,

Happy birthday to my favourite little sister! I’ve been trying to recollect the day you were born so I can gush about it in an appropriately sentimental fashion, but I’m afraid it’s all a blank. I must have been too busy pulling Veronica’s hair or smearing stewed apple over my smock to notice you popping into existence. Besides, if you were anything like Henry, you were a most unattractive baby – wrinkled, red-faced, loud and rather smelly. Lucky for all of us that you’ve improved somewhat with age.

Now, did the presents arrive safely? I had to go all the way to Knightsbridge for the journal and then I got detention for sneaking off from Games, so I hope you appreciate it. You can use it to write down your thoughts. You must have plenty of them at the moment, given Aunt Charlotte’s letter – I assume you’ve read it by now. Are you thrilled? Terrified? Well, it’s all your fault for turning sixteen – you gave Aunt Charlotte quite a shock when she realised how old you’d suddenly become. She had to sit down and have an
extra large
sherry to recover.

As for me, this new school is almost as ghastly as the old one. I suppose I’d been hoping Rupert would come too when I was thrown out of Eton, but his parents keep saying no, worse luck. The House Masters have finally sorted out dormitories, and now I share with three boys. Two are in the Rugby First XV, ugh. The other has whiffy feet and learns the bagpipes, so is nearly as bad. I have already had two detentions, one for missing Games on Saturday and one for not doing Latin prep. The Latin prep wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know there was any prep because the Latin Master told us about it in Latin and I didn’t understand a word he said.

Remember, I am in MarchHare House, so please make sure you put that on the address when you write, otherwise the letters might get lost. It’s a good House to be in because it inevitably comes last in the House Cup, so no one cares much when I lose House points. The House Master also has a lovely fluffy ginger cat that drools on my shoulder when I pick it up. It must be super-concentrated drool, because now I have a bleached spot on my new coat where its chin was. The other good thing about MarchHare House is that we can climb out the top-storey windows onto the roof and look into the hospital next door, which is very educational. Also, sometimes the nurses come out onto a balcony to smoke and they throw us a cigarette if we beg nicely.

It’s almost lights out, so I’d better finish. Tell Veronica to come and live in my trunk, so she can secretly do my Latin prep for me. She could write my History essay as well, it is on the Restoration. And ask her to bring Carlos with her, so he can eat the bagpipes.

AS USUAL, TOBY’S LETTER was coded in Kernetin, which Toby and my cousin Veronica invented years ago so we could write notes to each other without the grown-ups being able to read them. Kernetin is based on Cornish and Latin, with some Greek letters and random meaningless squiggles thrown in to be extra-confusing. Also, it is boustrophedonic (I adore that word and try to say it as often as possible, but unfortunately it hasn’t many everyday uses). Boustrophedonic means you read one line left to right, then the next right to left. Veronica can translate Kernetin straight off the page into English, but I find it easier to write it out, so there it is.

I got some superb birthday presents this year. Toby gave me this morocco-bound journal – a hundred lovely blank pages, thick as parchment – and Veronica gave me a pen with my initials on it. From my little sister, Henry, came a new
Pride and Prejudice,
because I dropped my old one in the bath and it hasn’t been the same since. (Henry, who wishes she’d been born a boy, looked quite disappointed when I opened this last package – she’d probably asked Toby to get me one of those pocket-knives with attached magnifying glass, screw-driver and fish-scaler, hoping that I’d then lend it to her.) The villagers presented me with a honey-spice cake, a lavender pillow and a beautiful comb carved out of driftwood. Uncle John doesn’t even know what year it is, let alone the date, so I never expect so much as a ‘happy birthday’ from him, but Rebecca, our housekeeper, gave me the day off from washing up the breakfast dishes. Even Carlos, our Portuguese water dog, managed a birthday card, signed with an inky paw-print (now I understand why Henry was being so secretive yesterday and how the bathtub ended up with all those black streaks).

And then there was Aunt Charlotte! I opened her letter long after breakfast was over because I couldn’t imagine her approving of anything as indulgent as birthdays, but
that
turned out to be the most exciting part of the whole morning. I won’t copy it all out, most of it being her usual scoldings about our idle, extravagant lives here on Montmaray, and do we think she’s
made
of money, and so on. But here is the important part:

...and now that Sophia is sixteen, I am reminded yet again of the sad burden I have been forced to bear since my youngest brother and his wife were so cruelly torn from this world, God rest their souls. My only comfort is knowing how grateful Robert and Jane would be if they could see all that I have done for you children.

However, my responsibilities are not yet complete and your mother in particular, Sophia, would have wanted you to be given the same social opportunities she had. As for you, Veronica, it is not your fault that your feckless mother is whoknows-where and quite unable to make appropriate arrangements regarding a matrimonial match for you. I feel it is my duty, then, to sponsor your debut into Society. We cannot postpone this event much longer, in light of your advancing age.

I expect early in the new year would be the best time for both of you to travel to England. I leave it to you, Veronica, to write to Mr Grenville regarding steamer passage and railway tickets. In the meantime, I shall begin perusing the
Almanach de Gotha
for eligible prospects...

I took a moment to savour that glorious phrase, ‘your debut into Society’, then raced off to the library tower in search of Veronica. She had locked the little black cat out and it was crying with rage on the doorstep. The door was barred from the inside, too, not just closed. I had to hammer at it for ages before she peered out.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, opening the door wider. ‘I thought it was Henry being annoying again. No, you
can’t
come in,’ she told the cat, but it had already shot past my legs and launched itself at Veronica. ‘Oh for Heaven’s sake,’ she huffed, but the cat only curled its claws into her skirt and wailed harder. (All the castle cats are a bit mad, I’m not sure why. The ones down in the village seem quite normal.)

I thrust the letter at Veronica, threw myself upon the shredded-looking chaise longue and glanced around while I waited for her to read it. I don’t spend much time in that part of the library – it’s Veronica’s domain. It’s a large, square room on the ground floor that could be handsome if it tried. However, Veronica would rather it be serviceable and so the desk is an old wooden door set on trestles; the papers on it are weighed down with stones; the walls that aren’t hidden behind bookshelves are papered with navigation charts and genealogy lists; and everything reeks of tansy, which smoulders in a little clay pot to ward off insects.

‘Well?’ I burst out as she refolded the letter with her usual precision and prepared to hand it back to me. ‘We can make our debut next Season, can’t we? Do say yes!’

‘Why are you asking me?’ Veronica plucked the cat off her skirt and deposited the wild-eyed creature next to me; it had stopped yowling by then. It immediately began sharpening its claws on the armrest. ‘Aunt Charlotte’s the one who’d do the presenting at Court. I can’t remember all the rules, but she was married to a British subject, so I’m sure that’s all right.’

‘Yes, yes, she was presented after her wedding, but–’

‘We’ll find the money for dresses and shoes and things somehow, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ said Veronica. She hesitated, gnawing at her bottom lip. ‘We could always sell the King James Bible...’

‘Veronica, no!’ I said at once. Veronica may be an avowed atheist, but that Bible is her pride and joy. It’s a first edition, first printing, said to have been owned by King James himself, and it’s been in our family for more than three hundred years. ‘Absolutely not.’

She smiled at me crookedly. ‘Well, I don’t think we have anything else of value left to sell.’

I shook my head. ‘The whole thing needn’t be
too
expensive and Aunt Charlotte will pay for it, she’ll have to. I’ll get Toby to ask her – she dotes on him.’

‘She ought to regard it as an investment,’ said Veronica wryly. ‘Once you’ve made your debut, you’ll be invited to all those parties, where you’ll meet a very rich banker and marry him and restore the FitzOsborne family fortunes.’

‘As though any man would even glance at me with
you
in the room,’ I scoffed.

‘Me?’ said Veronica. ‘I’m not going.’

‘What?’ I said, jumping to my feet and almost stepping on the cat. It hissed at me and bolted under the desk.

‘Well, someone needs to stay here to look after Henry and make sure Father doesn’t go on the rampage,’ Veronica said. ‘Oh, come out of there, you ridiculous thing, you’ll hurt yourself.’

She scooped the cat away from the tansy burner, stood up and caught sight of my face.

‘Now, Sophie,’ she said. ‘You surely didn’t think
I’d
want to spend an evening curtseying to some foreign king, then having to make polite conversation at endless parties.’

‘But I can’t do it by myself!’ I cried. ‘I wouldn’t even consider going to England without you!’

‘Don’t be silly, you’d be fine,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Toby will be there.’

And so will Simon Chester,
said a little voice in my head, but I brushed it away. ‘Veronica, I couldn’t
possibly–’

‘Well, I’m not leaving Montmaray,’ she said, pushing the cat onto the sill and closing the window after it. It squashed its face against the diamond panes and mewed piteously. I knew just how it felt, but it’s almost impossible to shift Veronica when she’s made up her mind. That didn’t stop me trying, though.

‘You’ll have to leave at some stage,’ I pointed out. ‘How else will you get married?’

‘Why would I need to?’ she said. ‘Toby is the heir to the Montmaray throne, he can have lots of children to carry on the family name. And you’ll marry someone rich. Henry and I shall be spinsters. I’ll be the dry, bookish sort and Henry will be the mad, adventuring sort.’

‘I’m being serious!’ I protested. ‘What if you fall in love?’

‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have lots of affairs with good-looking young men.’ Then she laughed at my expression.

It’s all very well for Veronica to joke about falling in love. She doesn’t have the slightest idea how miserable it can make one feel, especially when the object of one’s affection barely knows one exists. And even if he did realise I existed, even if he returned some of my feelings, it would be utterly, utterly impossible...

‘Anyway, what did Toby have to say?’ asked Veronica. I fished around in my pocket for his letter, then sat back down and frowned at the flagstones, trying to gather my thoughts into some sort of coherent argument. I knew that moving Veronica closer to my point of view would require all my mental resources, and then some. But I got distracted, as I tend to do, and started thinking about the herringbone pattern in which the stones were set and whether herrings really did have their bones arranged in that particular manner.

Then Rebecca started shrieking for Veronica and I went to see what she wanted, because poor Veronica gets so little time to work on her
Brief History
as it is. But it turned out the upstairs loo had flooded again, and Veronica’s the only one who can fix that. By the time we’d mopped up and washed the towels and hung them on the line, it was lunch. And then the kitchen garden needed weeding, and one of the hens got its leg stuck in a loose bit of the cucumber frames, and one thing led to another, and before I knew it, the day was over.

And now here I am, sitting up in bed, scribbling away in my new journal by the light of the half moon, Henry having borrowed my candle to visit the downstairs loo (she claims the upstairs one is too pink). It would be an ideal time to set down my thoughts about Aunt Charlotte’s letter, but they are in such a muddle. On the one hand, it is, as Toby said, utterly thrilling. Oh, I can just picture the perfect debutante dress – chiffon of palest blue, with layer upon layer of floating skirt. Lovely new shoes with high heels, and silk stockings, and long white gloves. A necklace studded with sapphires, matching earrings and – most gorgeous of all – a glittering diamond tiara...

Although I expect most of the FitzOsborne jewels have been sold by now. And if there are any left, Veronica ought to get first pick; she’s the eldest. A tiara would look ridiculous on me anyway, with my colourless, frizzy hair (Toby and Henry got the blond curls, lucky things) and my bumpy nose (Toby accidentally threw a croquet mallet at me when I was three).