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Post by dem bones on Apr 1, 2020 17:55:28 GMT
Robin Squire – A Portrait Of Barbara (Sphere, 1980) Terry Oakes Blurb: Barbara was dead and buried. All that remained was a haunting picture and the memory of an abduction minutes after her marriage - but every family has its dark secrets.
NOW A HIDEOUS AND TERRIFYING PROPHECY IS FULFILLED
Charlotte, living image of her long dead sister, is plucked fresh from the altar and spirited away by a shadowy figure from the family past. And as ghoulish history repeats itself an ancient portrait glows with the demonic radiance of the blood of life ....
"Full of surprises ... twists and turns .... spooky" - publishers WeeklyHavercombe, Somerset, June, 1891. Charlotte Westerfield, recently returned to the village from finishing school, marries Grenville Cobb, American prizefighter and aspiring news hound/ novelist. Lavish reception in the village hall but Emmaline, widowed mother of the bride, is not as full of the joys as she might be. Now more than ever she realises Charlotte should have been told. Twin sister Grace demands Emmaline pull herself together. "Didn't we promise to keep it from her - 'till after the wedding day?" Meanwhile, a figure watches all from the trees in the churchyard. Charlotte returns to her room to change out of her wedding dress for the train journey to the capital and a new life in Holland Park. As she tilts the mirror, she catches a glimpse of the intruder ... who applies a cloth soaked in ether over her face. Then it is out to a waiting decrepit carriage and off into the woods with her! The alarm is raised. Grenville, maddened with despair, rides off in search of his missing bride, but it's hopeless. On returning to Westerfield Hall, the servants sheepishly confess that this has happened before. Back in 1875, Barbara Westerfield was abducted on her wedding day by her former lover, Blakemoor ("one o' those there London folk" suggested someone [else] as though all people from that place were tainted.") Charlotte, four years old, was sent away to forget she ever had a sister. Can it be that this same Blakemoor fellow has returned for the last of the line? These early chapters suggest Gothic Romance (fine by me) as opposed to 'Horror.' Will be interesting to see how it develops.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 2, 2020 18:12:04 GMT
John Blakemoor bundles Charlotte back into the carriage and drives her across the moors to a mouldering mansion, all barred windows, thick cobwebs, and broken furniture. Charlotte breaks free of him, staggers upstairs and enters one of the rooms. A woman in a blue silk dress is draped across the bed. She is awful still. Charlotte turns her over, all but loses what's left of her sanity on the spot, and we have welcome confirmation that Portrait ... is indeed a Gothic Horror story.
The maniac locks her in with the skeleton. She watches from the window as he digs a grave in the grounds below.
In a brief moment of clarity, an anguished Blakemoor realises the girl-child before him is not his beloved Barbara, informs her that she is free to go. But the doors are secured by stiff prison locks. By the time it takes Charlotte to beg him to force the key, the madman has been re-consumed by his fantasy world. She stays.
Now Scotland Yard detectives Inspector Pearson and Sergeant 'Groper' Grimswade - both men mentally scarred by 'Bloody Sunday' and the traumatic Ripper investigation - arrive in Yeovil to investigate the case of the vanishing bride. Grenville heads off in the opposite direction to consult his editor on the Daily Argus. Frank Harvey, mindful of a ready-made opportunity to boost circulation, agrees to launch a find the bride campaign.
Pearson learns that Barbara was (very briefly) wed to Gabriel Jeffries, the son of a wealthy landowner. Public opinion has it that Barbara callously jilted young Jeffries at the altar and ran off with her lover to get back at her father. The squire had forbade her to have anything to do with Blakemoor on account of the fellow's Socialist beliefs. As for the luckless Gabby. "Pooh - fell in one of 'is own hagricultural mechanical things, the young fool, and came out ready-baled."
Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Charlotte, her wedding gown shredded by the deranged Blakemoor, slips into her late sister's gorgeous red gown and racy underwear. She finds her captor deep in conversation with a framed portrait of Barbara. Either she is now hopelessly gaga or the woman in the painting is answering him back ...
P. 95 of 221. Been enjoying this.
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Post by helrunar on Apr 2, 2020 18:29:27 GMT
Thanks, Kev, for these very entertaining comments. The book seems to hit a lot of Gothic horror high notes.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 2, 2020 23:26:37 GMT
I like the sound of this one. More info from Squire's website - www.robinsquire.com/books/portrait-of-barbara/A Portrait of Barbara was republished with some revisions (including, it seems, differently named policemen) in 2016 as The Mystery of the Stolen Brides, and he is/was working on a prequel - www.robinsquire.com/books/mystery-stolen-brides/ She watches from the window as he digs a grave in the grounds below. Didn't someone recently ask about identifying a book or story with a scene like this?
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Post by dem bones on Apr 3, 2020 7:35:36 GMT
She watches from the window as he digs a grave in the grounds below. Didn't someone recently ask about identifying a book or story with a scene like this? It jogged my memory, too, but can't find the thread. From memory, the heroine (as it were) was imprisoned in an asylum, which is maybe close enough.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 3, 2020 7:49:12 GMT
Didn't someone recently ask about identifying a book or story with a scene like this? It jogged my memory, too, but can't find the thread. From memory, the heroine (as it were) was imprisoned in an asylum, which is maybe close enough. Yes, that was me, and, yes, it involved a mental hospital.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 3, 2020 9:57:29 GMT
Yes, that was me, and, yes, it involved a mental hospital. Does it sound like the same novel? Pearson has since tasked his randy underling with charting every derelict building and "idiot asylums" within a twenty mile radius as "there's a good chance our man's got some of 'is cogs adrift."
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 3, 2020 10:07:44 GMT
Does it sound like the same novel? No. But then again I never read it, just the blurb on the back cover.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 4, 2020 7:44:37 GMT
Charlotte escapes, forcing her body through a jagged hole in the brickwork, steals a horse from the stable, makes a dash for freedom! The nag bolts, depositing her smack in the middle of a treacherous bog. The mud sucks the girl down. The slime has reached her chin. Blakemoor, alerted by her feeble cries, arrives in the nick of time, wades in to save her. He is one strong man.
Grenville's investigation begins to bear fruit when he's involved in a scrap at a Socialist meeting and batters his bully boy assailant to pulp. He learns from one of the attendees, a wig-maker, that Blakemoor commissioned a woman's hair piece some years ago. He even provided the hair. The cockney reds won't have a bad word said against their long lost champion, whom they regard as a true man of the people.
The Scotland Yard men have also made significant, if minimal, progress. Initially they regarded the investigation as a jolly-up in the country, Grimswade earning a reprimand from Pearson for a roll in the hay with Milly the amorous maid. Now several locals have come forward to confirm a dilapidated horse drawn carriage regularly visits the village, almost certainly the one driven by the kidnapper on the day of the wedding. It stands to reason that he must have gone to ground somewhere in the immediate vicinity.
With Blakemoor attending the horses, Charlotte, now recovered from her ordeal in the marshes, ransacks his room, removing a bundle of letters tied in red ribbon. They tell a bold and tragic tale of undying love and despair. It slowly dawns on the incredulous bride that the author, Barbara, was her big sister! Why has their mother airbrushed all memory of her from the family history?
Eighty pages to go though above is maybe running commentary enough - have no intention of spoiling entire novel, and besides, I want to enjoy the rest of what has been a cracking reading experience without compulsive note-taking breaks. The author mentions on his website that many people have suggested A Portrait of Barbara "should have been filmed." I think they are right. Published a decade or so earlier it could have made for a tidy Hammer Horror costume drama.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 5, 2020 15:55:39 GMT
Finished A Portrait of Barbara in the early hours, and am really pleased to have read it. Without wishing too give too much away, we learn how John Blakemoor suffered brain damage when savagely beaten by police during a political rally after one of their number was killed. Consequently his every day an epic struggle to keep hold of any fleeting moment of clarity. Grenville, by now half way past lunacy himself, follows a lead to Blakemoor's hideout, making short work of an opportunist who demanded a small fortune for his information. As for Charlotte, either she has been demonically possessed by her dead sister or she's developed a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. This is not going to end well. Who, if anyone will come away alive from the suspenseful and (I thought) shocking final conflict?
Very recommended. Come through the other side of this terrible time and I plan to try hunt down a copy of The Mystery of the Stolen Brides.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 5, 2020 16:31:59 GMT
Come through the other side of this terrible time and I plan to try hunt down a copy of The Mystery of the Stolen Brides. Here is the thing, though. I just acquired THE MYSTERY OF THE STOLEN BRIDES for Kindle, as A PORTRAIT OF BARBARA did not seem to be available. But there is a note in it that says "Originally published as A PORTRAIT OF BARBARA." What gives?
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Post by johnnymains on Apr 5, 2020 16:54:06 GMT
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 5, 2020 17:03:13 GMT
I see. Thanks! Also, it seems this was already pointed out earlier in the thread, and I just missed it. I thought I was helping dem avoid a redundant purchase! I shall never attempt an act of kindness again.
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Post by johnnymains on Apr 5, 2020 18:34:31 GMT
Who reads whole threads!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 10, 2020 9:32:27 GMT
I have now read this novel---the extended version, even. I think dem forgot to mention that it is basically unreadable, except by specialists. It is written in a ponderous "poetic" style, full of weird metaphors. It also contains possibly the worst sex scene ever. Although it takes place in the late 19th century, I was reminded of overwrought crap from the 18th century, such as Charles Brockden Brown.
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