I am investigating the purchase of a small house in Chineborough along with a workshop, which I will give to Turlough. He is already a promising stonemason and shows every sign of being a good businessman too. I hope you will learn to love him for my sake. Against all the odds, he found a place in my heart and has made it possible for me to live after losing you and, moreover, to continue to work and hope for your return, which I have steadfastly done.
The rest of my fortune I leave to you and Turlough equally. There will be enough for you both to live in a small way as gentlemen, if you so wish. If you have a profession or trade like Turlough it will ease your journey through life.
May God bless you, Abel, should He be in His heaven. It is my greatest wish to see you before I die. I cannot reconcile myself to your death. I simply cannot. But I have learnt to forgive myself for losing you. If I can offer you any advice, it is to look at your life squarely, at your achievements and failings. Be honest about them, resolve to put right what you can and do better in future. Above all, forgive yourself for anything that troubles your conscience. Don’t allow guilt to damage your life, as I did for far too long.
If we do not meet again in this life I earnestly hope and pray we will be together in the next.
Your always loving father,
Sir Christopher Morgan
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On the theme of things not always being as they seem.
When I came across the word ‘rumfustian’ in the Wordsworth Dictionary of Pirates, which was first published in New York as Pirates! Facts on File it seemed perfect as a name for the inn in this story. It is described as a hot drink much enjoyed by pirates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, containing not just alcohol, but also eggs and spices. However, on further investigation, there seems to be no earlier written use of the word than the early nineteenth century, which is much too late for my needs.
Maybe my choice was not in use during the seventeenth century, at least certainly not written down, but separately, both parts of the word certainly were. ‘Rum’, perhaps from the sixteenth century ‘rumbullion’ was in use for the drink distilled from sugar. ‘Fustian’ is much older, in use in the twelfth century for a type of cheap cloth. Dyed dark it could look good, but soon betrayed its lack of quality. It was often used for padding, hence the second meaning: pompous, overblown, cheap, pretentious.
Whoever invented this beverage, and there are various recipes online, the name whenever coined, must surely be a joke. For, in spite of it containing copious amounts of strong alcohol, in no recipe can I find any mention of rum.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to my agent Jane Conway-Gordon for getting behind this book so enthusiastically, and to Jane Bailey, who read it and told me Jane would love it.
Thanks also to all the friends and family who read early versions and gave me feedback, or listened patiently while I rambled on about it. Helpful conversation came from writers Linda Newbery, Julia Jarman, Celia Rees and Adele Geras, as well as Jamila Gavin and Wendy Cooling. Thanks too to Rachel Hunt, until fairly recently House and Collections manager at Cotehele, National Trust, where I wrote some of this book, and took great delight in the metal hand and forearm which hangs in the great hall. A copy has now been made of that contraption and, if you are fortunate, you can handle it!
Some years ago, Mark Van Oss decided to hold his birthday dinner in Istanbul with friends and family. As well as having a hilarious time at dinner with Caroline, Mark and others, I so loved wandering about the old city that I was sure I would write about it. It took a while, but Outrageous Fortune would be much the poorer if I hadn’t gone on that trip, so thank you Mark for inviting me.
Some of the books I read were of particular help. The Cotswolds volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides by David Verey and Alan Brooks, which spends much time in my car, introduced me to Stroud sculptor Samuel Baldwin, who inspired the ending of the book when I came across his exquisite work in Miserdon church. Many thanks to John Smith for giving me the book.
Other useful publications were Postman’s Horn, an anthology of seventeenth-century letters collected by Arthur Bryant, Barry Coward’s Social Change and Continuity in Early Modern Britain, Antonia Fraser’s Charles II, Claire Tomlin’s Samuel Pepys, The Unequalled Self, as well as several volumes of the Arthur Bryant biography of the same man. John Harvey’s Early Nurserymen, from my late father’s shelves, was also very helpful. On my Kindle is the fascinating and instructive The Surgeon’s Mate by John Woodall, published in 1617.
Finally, many thanks must go to Susie, Kelly and all at Allison & Busby for making the journey from manuscript to printed book such a great delight.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CYNTHIA JEFFERIES is a long-established writer for children whose work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She was born in Gloucestershire and her love of history was encouraged by regular family outings to anything of interest, from great cathedrals to small museums. Having moved to Scotland and back to Stroud, she has always made time to write and her abiding interest in Restoration England has never left her. The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan is her first historical novel for adults.
cynthiajefferies.co.uk
BY CYNTHIA JEFFERIES
The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan
COPYRIGHT
Allison & Busby Limited
11 Wardour Mews
London W1F 8AN
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
Copyright © 2018 by CYNTHIA JEFFERIES
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2324–9
The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan Page 34