My newly buffed feet

Last week I was visited by a chiropodist. In all my life, I never suspected that such a thing would happen – and it took months of persuading. One of the results of immunotherapy is muscle inflammation and a consequent inability to reach my toes. My wife is an angel in every respect but one: toes. She doesn’t do toes. Everyone has their breaking point, and my toes are her Rubicon. 

As a result, weeks passed and my toenails continued to grow until they resembled the fingernails of Cixi, the late Empress of China. She carried on the ancient tradition of long nails denoting status and wealth. Her fingernails were six inches long. My toenails were getting there and denoted nothing but holes in my socks.   

But a chiropodist?  I’m reluctant to get my hair cut or pay for a dentist. Toenails for God’s sake.

Anyway, the great day came. A shiny white car pulled up outside the house. A trim, clever-looking blonde stepped out and immediately reassured. The white uniform helped. Within minutes I was putty in her hands. 

She admired my feet and then set to work with her various implements. Nails cut. Job done? No, not at all.  This was but the beginning. They were next filed and buffed, the crevices between my toes explored, rough skin sanded, and each foot gently oiled. A grown man purring with pleasure. This was indeed the life. What had I been missing all these years?

Buffed feet for one. I now have buffed feet. 

Essence of Kali

 

Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and M R James were the premier horror writers of their day, though Blackwood perhaps the more prolific. He shared a deep interest in the occult with Aleister Crowley, and H P Lovecraft regarded him as a formative influence. One of his more interesting creations was the Occult Detective – Dr John Silence. Think Sherlock Holmes fighting demons and ghosts. With his mischievous black cat named Smoke and a world-weary golden collie called Flame, he battled ‘malevolent ghosts, astral werewolves, fire elementals, the cult of Asmodeus, and other fiends.’ 

I remember enjoying the stories on first reading them and being disappointed that he wrote only six! It’s why I was intrigued by a new and unexpected challenge, and one that paid: an anthology of new John Silence stories. Could I master the mannered Edwardian prose of Blackwood himself – never mind write a convincing story of the occult?

Glad to say, I could, and my story—Essence of Kali is one of seven in an impressive new anthology:

SILENCE

UNTOLD TALES

OF

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD’S PSYCHIC DOCTOR

The World at his Feet

 

Sir William Blathwayt (1649--1717) had the world at his feet and made a small fortune as a result. It was a case of energy, ability and chance, or perhaps luck. Born in the year a king was executed, an event which signified the dawning of a new age, he prospered under James II as Secretary of State for War and chose the winning side when William of Orange came on the scene and drove the old king into exile. He was lucky in his choice of wife, Mary Ann Wynter, the heiress of Dyrham Park, whom he married in December 1686. Between then and her death in 1691 she bore him four sons and a daughter. The two events may not be unrelated.

His greatest piece of luck was being born when he was and achieving office when he did. The late C17th and early C18th witnessed a global transformation and the underpinnings of the British Empire to come, and William Blathwayt knew exactly how to tack his sails. When William of Orange came to the throne, all things Dutch became the rage; aristocrats competed as to who could most slavishly imitate the new king—few more effectively than Sir William Blathwayt who demolished Dyrham’s dilapidated Tudor mansion and replaced it with the present Dyrham House and gardens, which copied almost exactly the new king’s palace and gardens. 

Mary, however died from her various exertions and never lived to see the house completed. She was buried in the adjacent medieval church, where her husband and children in due course also took up residence. It was a salutary experience walking from the house and  family portraits to their graves, where my feet are artfully shown.  

From the second portrait in order: William Blathwayt, Mary Wynter, William Blathwayt II (1688- 72) John Blathwayt (1690-1754) soldier and musician who fought at Culloden, Anne Blathwayt (1691-1717)

St Peter's Church

Before then, however, they had a life, and what a life. 

The Dutch fashion of panelling up to the ceiling

The Dutch fashion for embossed leather wall coverings

The Diogenes room named after the central figure in the tapestry

The State bedroom. No monarch actually slept there, but every great house had one just in case and as a status symbol. Out of picture to the right are two ornately carved armchairs for important visitors to any in-bed monarch. To the left are two armless chairs for the less important. And two stools at the foot of the bed for nonentities. 

The Tapestry Bedroom richly furnished with Flemish tapestries

Best Staircase, so called because it led to the best rooms. Made from red cedar wood, it was shipped from Carolina at enormous expense - perk of the job. Sir William was Surveyor and Auditor General of Plantation Revenues at the time, amongst other positions. The cedar wood oils left a strong and pleasant odour. Sir William had only one complaint: it took longer for the wood to travel from Bristol docks to Dyrham Park than the time it took to sail the Atlantic. You wonder at the number of horse and carts it took to carry it all - and at the state of the pre toll gate roads of the time. 

Old Staircase and the rooms above. As a high ranking government official, Blathwayt used British diplomatic, military and colonial networks to source his materials from across the world: Carrara marble from Italy, pine timber from Sweden,  rare and valuable timbers for his staircases; in particular, black walnut and red cedar from Virginia. Dutch east Asian networks sourced him fine porcelain, damask and silk.

The National Trust, to show their sensitivity or to make a point, ask you to avert your eyes or even take an alternative route as you reach the first floor. The reason are the two side tables in the picture below showing two enslaved men each holding a large scallop shell. You may stop reading here if you wish or take it as being part and parcel of the age.

I had to avert my eyes from some obscure exhibition of modern fabric art scattered randomly across the house and covering some very fine paintings, and wonder why no part of the exhibition was shown below stairs, ie the kitchens and servant quarters. 

There were however these very fine bells. Before the C18th it was the custom to have servants within hearing distance. Later on a complex system of bells were created whereby upstairs communicated with downstairs. In some houses servants could tell by the sound of the bell which room required service. In Dyrham the marker pendulum continued swinging after the sound stopped, again allowing the servant to know which room required service.