Not for nothing do the proud inhabitants of Yorkshire call their county “God’s Own Country”. Where I grew up in central Illinois, landscape variation meant swapping cornfields for soybean, so I never grow tired of the beautiful countryside of my adopted homeland. I find it particularly inspiring as a writer.
For my first novel A Circle of Lost Sisters, I gave my pack of werewolf girls a vast moorland to run around in, based mostly on the North York Moors. The Many Beautiful Deaths of Miss Floretta Deliverance Hughes is also based in Yorkshire, but I have placed my fictional community of Burly-the-Wath in more of a Dales type setting. In particular the village of Burnsall on the River Wharfe.
In the first chapter of the book, Flora attempts to re-create an Ophelia-esque suicide, only to be defeated by poor aesthetics.
For several moments, Floretta Deliverance Hughes froze in the midst of Burrs Water eyes tightly closed, face lifted beatifically to heaven. Nothing happened. Her brows knitted. Still nothing. Her eyes blinked open on the pale green undersides of willow leaves, bobbing pink cherry blossoms and hazy purple dawn. It would be another clear and glorious spring day; another day of no rain. No rain for some time now.
Flora looked down. Burrs Water rippled jovially over her ankles, bubbled up to tickle the gooseflesh on her legs, but rose no further. The river was not deep enough. Not deep enough to carry her gracefully along its current—certainly not deep enough to drown her. Perhaps, if she submerged face-down she might— No! Drowning in such a manner was artistically unacceptable. Sigh.
*
‘Oh, honestly! Why do I bother at all?’ She slammed the uncooperative book closed on her inadequate prose. A nearby sheep bleated its protest to this sudden noise so early in the morning. ‘Even you think I’m a nuisance,’ sighed Flora at the sheep.
Flora lay back on the woollen cloak and let despair engulf her as the river would not. In this she was once again thwarted by charming weather. The morning sun shone brightly through the branches of the flowering cherry tree making dappled patterns on the grassy banks, the bubbling river and the lacy layers of her voluminous dress. Again she sighed.
‘All the forces of God and man and nature are against me.’
*
Flora gave attention to every aesthetic aspect of death. Her deceased mother’s wedding dress seemed perfect from a symbolic point of view. Practical as well—the sleeves alone would have soaked up the entire river and dragged her swiftly into Burrs Water’s deathly depths. If only Burrs Water had any depths.
Practical for drowning perhaps but not practical for walking through the surrounding grove of trees, over several fields and across bordering hedgerows. Even trickier would be making her way home without being spotted by someone tending flocks or fields. Fortunately, the vicar’s youngest daughter knew many secret paths. By the time she reached the vicarage, Flora’s legs and feet had collected grasses and flowers and all manner of countryside detritus. The wedding dress survived mostly unscathed, though Flora had at one point nearly pulled it all the way over her head to protect the fine fabric. She would hate to ruin her most precious death accessory.
Katharine Eisley 