“You have only to name it.”
He bowed his head to hers, smiling. His deep voice was a husky invitation. “Let’s go home, Evie.”
An answering smile shone in her eyes. “Home,” she murmured. “I like the sound of that.”
Author’s Note
The Siren of Sussex was inspired by several real-life people and events from the Victorian era, including the Pretty Horsebreakers, famed courtesan Catherine Walters, fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth, court dressmaker Madame Elise, the astrologer Zadkiel, and the child medium Robert James Lees. In the aftermath of Prince Albert’s death in December 1861, many of these elements converged. I set Ahmad and Evelyn’s love story during this period, attempting to adhere as much to the actual historical timeline as possible.
It wasn’t always possible. In some instances (such as the precise month Catherine Walters left England or the exact date that Robert James Lees claimed to have contacted Prince Albert), I had to massage the dates a bit to make them match the timeline of my story. For more info on these historical figures, see my notes below.
The Pretty Horsebreakers
The Pretty Horsebreakers were courtesans of the 1860s, famous as much for their formfitting riding habits as for the equestrian skill they exhibited in Hyde Park’s Rotten Row. The most celebrated among them was Catherine Walters. Newspapers of the day referred to her as “Anonyma” or “Incognita,” but to many in society, she was known simply as “Skittles”—a reference to the bowling alley where she worked in her youth. Through her successful career, she was, at various times, under the protection of dukes, marquesses, and even (it was rumored) members of the royal family.
In 1862, Catherine Walters briefly departed London for America. The newspapers reported that she left “many creditors to lament her departure.” Her reputation for stiffing creditors followed her through the years. In 1872, Messrs. Creed and Evans—tailors and habit-makers in Conduit Street—sued her for an order of riding habits valued at £334 3s. This case served as the inspiration for both the location of Ahmad Malik’s shop and Miss Walters’s unpaid bill for £100.
Victorian Spiritualism
Richard James Morrison—popularly known as Zadkiel—was a Victorian era astrologer and crystal gazer. For a time, he was in possession of a small crystal globe reported to have once belonged to an Egyptian magician. Zadkiel exhibited this globe among the nobility, many of whom claimed to see visions in its fractured surface.
After retiring from the Royal Navy, Zadkiel made a name for himself writing astrological almanacs. It was in his 1861 almanac that he predicted the death of Prince Albert. The Victorians already had a morbid interest in séances, fortune-telling, and crystal gazing, but after the Prince’s death, spiritualism became even more popular. It was rumored that Queen Victoria herself engaged in efforts to reach her deceased husband. One of the most persistent of these rumors involves the boy medium Robert James Lees.
In the years following Prince Albert’s death (sometime in 1862 or 1863, depending on reports), the teenage Lees claimed to have made contact with the prince. On hearing of this, the Queen is rumored to have sent two court officials in disguise to Lees’s next séance. With the aid of his familiar spirit, Lees successfully identified both of them. As further proof of his authenticity, the court officials asked Lees for the secret name that Prince Albert used in correspondence with his wife. Lees is said to have provided it.
According to some sources, Lees later went on to correspond with Queen Victoria and even to perform séances for her at court.
Are any of these stories about Lees true? The answers is yes—up to a point. Robert James Lees was a known spiritualist and medium, but though he did claim to have contacted Prince Albert, there is no actual evidence that his claims ever resulted in any interaction with the Queen or the royal court.
Victorian Fashion
During the 1850s and 1860s, the prevailing style of fashionable women’s dress owed much to the influence of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoléon III. She was the undisputed arbiter of fashion in mid-nineteenth-century France. It was her preference for enormous skirts that set off the crinoline craze, and her patronage of Paris designer Charles Frederick Worth that helped to make his dresses as coveted as they were costly.
By 1860, women’s skirts had reached their largest size of the century, with hemlines sometimes as much as fifteen feet in circumference. Trimmings were no less daunting. Following Worth’s lead, the most fashionable gowns were made in luxurious fabrics adorned with acres of lace, ruffles, flounces, fringe, and ribbon bows.
London modistes, like Madame Elise of Regent Street, employed fleets of seamstresses to sew gowns of this size and style. She was known to work her employees literally to death, forcing them to sew for endless hours and housing them in cramped, unventilated rooms. In 1863, one of Madame Elise’s seamstresses, Mary Walkley, was found dead in her bed. The resulting scandal prompted a swell of public outrage.
Fortunately for some, the silhouette of women’s dresses was gradually beginning to change.
Skirts began to be gored at the sides, which had the effect of flattening the front and pushing some of the fullness to the back. As the years progressed and women became more active, additional gores were added, making the fullness at the back even more pronounced. This would eventually lead to the bustle silhouette of the 1870s and 1880s.
I imagined Ahmad to be at the forefront of this evolution. The dresses he designs are slightly gored so that the skirts drift to the back in an approximation of a train. It’s a subtle difference from the prevailing silhouette of the time, but a significant one, as it foreshadows the larger changes to come, both in terms of the bustle and in terms of women’s burgeoning independence.
Ahmad’s gowns are also notable for their lack of excessive embellishment. He brings a tailor’s aesthetic to his designs. This is something he would have learned from his years making men’s suits and women’s riding habits. The very best riding habits of the day were made by tailors. These habits had no flounces or frills. Instead, they were distinguished by the quality of their fabric and the elegance of their cut. This tendency toward simplicity worked in Ahmad’s favor as he began to make mourning gowns.
Indians in Victorian England
I’ve often written about Victorian era India in my romance novels, but the legacy of British colonialism isn’t a romantic one. This is especially evident in nineteenth-century British books about India, like the ones Evelyn buys at Hatchards Bookshop. The writers of these histories had a tendency to either dehumanize, demonize, exoticize, or infantilize native Indians. The descriptions of half Indians were sometimes even worse.
In my story, I’ve interspersed references to real history books with those to fictional ones. The fictional books are either based on a single historic text or are an amalgam. For example, the quote Lady Anne reads aloud in Chapter Twenty-Seven—attributed to the fictional England and Her Colonies—is a paraphrased version of a passage in John Holloway’s Essays on the Indian Mutiny (1865). Similarly, the fictional Urdu novel Captain Blunt recommends to Evelyn at Hatchards—The Two Sisters by Shahid Khan—is inspired by Nazir Ahmad’s novel Mirat-ul-Uroos (1869).