Fraying Skeins
An engrossing Victorian Scotland Saga (Silver Sampler Series Book 3)
Escape In Paradise Evasion
1870 Scotland
Fleeing from Peterhead, Margaret Law makes Aberdeen her refuge. Menial jobs keep her and her toddler son fed– till an unusual tutoring task boosts her finances, and self-worth. Letters to best friend Jessie contain the absolute truth, especially when Johnny Fraser re-enters her life. Is he the man for Margaret to grow old with? When better employment emerges in St. Andrews, Margaret is torn. Will the move mean losing Johnny?
When Johnny follows Margaret to St. Andrews, their life together is idyllic. But when menacing secrets unfold, will Johnny’s past indiscretions be their undoing? Will he lose the cherished family he is establishing with Margaret?
Praise for Fraying Skeins:
"Jardine has once again brought nineteenth-century Scotland vividly to life while keeping Margaret and the people around her firmly at the heart of the story. Watching the determined little girl I first met in Novice Threads grow into this resourceful and courageous woman has been immensely rewarding, and there are more than enough intriguing threads left to make me eager to continue Margaret’s journey in the next instalment."
~ The Coffee Pot Book Club 5* Editorial Review
How much does a character change over time?
by Nancy Jardine
Some changes are more subtle than others.
My main female character in the Silver Sampler Series is named Margaret Law. We meet her in Book 1, Novice Threads, just before she first starts school at five years of age. In 1844, it wasn’t a standard thing for girls to be enrolled in the local parochial school in Scotland but Margaret, as an only child, is lucky that her father agrees she can attend school. Naturally, she doesn’t understand that his sole reason is for her to be able to eventually take over the family Sunday bible readings.
What matters to Margaret is that she’s fascinated by words. She has a burning desire to constantly absorb new vocabulary and that continues during her journey into maturity.
Margaret’s five-year-old distress at the unfairness of the general class system, which has a tendency to be biased towards males, and against the poor, is cemented in early. Her best friend Jessie isn’t enrolled at school alongside her because Jessie’s mother cannot afford the quarterly fee to help pay for the teacher. Margaret refuses to allow Jessie to be uneducated and sets herself the task of teaching Jessie what she’s just learned in class, after her own school day is over. That determination to not leave Jessie behind is a trait that remains a life-long aspect of Margaret’s character. When she can make a difference, she continues to do that in a quiet and understated manner.
Margaret’s early disappointment at not being allowed to undergo teacher-training could have made her bitter. However, the need to be stoically pragmatic, accepting alternatives, also becomes an embedded characteristic. She loves wonderfully descriptive idioms and phrases like cutting one’s coat according to the cloth and learns early that there’s no use in crying over spilled milk when things happen she has no control over. As she matures, getting on and making the best of things is another attribute that continues to be well-learned.
On a deeply personal level, when very young, Margaret’s aware of tension between her parents who see to her material needs but not her emotional ones. By the time she’s a teenager, and living away from home, she’s aware of how dysfunctional her parents really are with each other, emotionally and sexually. Their eventual separation, and resulting disasters, make Margaret determined never to be in a situation where she’s in a relationship that’s so unhealthy. She’s wary of making romantic commitments, though she’s gifted at making friends. The making-friends-easily characteristic continues throughout her life.
In Tailored Truths, Book Two of the series, having eventually allowed herself the luxury of falling in love with Sandy Watson, Margaret finds herself pregnant. Though she knows she would, somehow, manage to bring up her child on her own, Margaret waltzes into marriage with Sandy. Her husband is a likeable character but it takes Margaret far too long to acknowledge Sandy’s flaws are calamitous. Her pride and self-confidence take quite a knock by the end of Book Two. Margaret’s adaptable, independent and pragmatic character has almost fled the building by the time the catastrophe of Sandy’s horrendous death occurs at the end of Book Two.
So how does Margaret appear in Fraying Skeins, Book Three?
The reader experiences a more exposed Margaret at the beginning of Book Three when she realizes that she must flee from Peterhead. The very trying circumstances of living in the proximity of her disgraceful father-in-law means there’s a fraying vulnerability that Margaret has to overcome. She must regain the strength to survive away from the verbal cruelty, and potential sexual bullying, of Sandy’s father – the despicable William Watson. By the time her supportive sisters-in-law help Margaret to pack, so that she can take the next train out of Peterhead, her own decision making is unravelling at the edges. Yet Margaret has to very quickly give herself a shake to take responsibility for her son when she boards a train to Aberdeen.
Deciding to settle in Aberdeen, she abandons the idea of relying on the help of Jessie, who now lives in Glasgow. Her Uncle James in Perth was another possibility to seek shelter from but she decides to avoid him, too. Her dented, ragged pride and self-confidence need to be carefully wound up again. She forces herself to believe that she can accomplish that in Aberdeen, even when she accepts the only job she can get as a housemaid. However, a job is a job and with poverty knocking at her door she does what she needs to, in order to feed, clothe and shelter her son. Margaret’s pragmatic nature resurfaces once again.
As the months pass, Margaret is determined to avoid forming another romantic relationship. However, the re-appearance of Johnny Fraser easily knocks down that imaginary wall. As the only other man to ever stir her romantic and sexual senses, Margaret strides into a relationship with Johnny – with her eyes wide open. She’s prepared to accept any consequences knowing she will cope by herself, so long as she’s fully aware of how the relationship is progressing.
Has she learned anything from her disastrous relationship with Sandy, you might ask? She has, because by the time Johnny becomes a feature of her daily life she knows full-well that she can support herself and her child without needing a man’s wage. Independence comes at a price, but it’s a more resolute and determined Margaret who marries Johnny Fraser. Unpalatable circumstances might transpire, and they most certainly do, but she’s much more confident that the decisions she makes will match with her own priorities.
What happens at the end of Book Three is a shock to the system, but Margaret has a mercenary streak that drives her actions. If something suits her in – almost – every way, then she’ll not let go without one heck-of-a-fight! She’s convinced that her emotional, and sexual fulfilment, still lies with Johnny.
And what of Johnny Fraser?
Though introduced in almost a cameo-way in Book Two, Johnny slides into Book Three as a character in his own right with his own Point-of-View.
Johnny is much younger than Margaret, though he knows that she doesn’t realise that at first. He’s well into the relationship with her when the nine-year age gap becomes apparent. Mostly it doesn’t signify, since Johnny’s circumstances growing up in the town of Kirriemuir have made him mature early. Gaining his tailoring credentials at eighteen-going-on-nineteen, and taking on contract jobs across the north-east of Scotland, means he has outwardly acquired a maturity that many young men lack.
However, his cocky self-confident attitude is sometimes just a front. When he gets himself embroiled in an incredibly bamboozling situation, his emotions become very exposed and his self-confidence definitely gets frayed around the edges! His reluctance to share his considerable worries with Margaret indicate an emotional immaturity. He’s vowed never to be like Margaret’s first husband Sandy, who hid poor character traits from her. Yet, he can’t see any way out of his relationship-destroying circumstances.
Even after he shares all of the awful situation with Margaret, and she gives him her wholehearted support, he finds it difficult to believe she is willing to do such a thing. How can she be so magnanimous and leave all of the comforts and friends they have nurtured in St. Andrews? There’s a confused little boy in him who is clinging to her hand.
Will Johnny’s character change as he, too, grows into Book Four of the series? That will be for a dedicated reader of the series to find out because life throws Johnny – also known as John Smith Fraser – many more ‘curve balls’ than most young men of his acquaintance.
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Thank you for inviting me today to write about Margaret Law. Does she learn as she grows older? I'll happily leave the reader to make that judgement. :-)
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