The Lady of the Chine

By Margaret S. Haycraft

Stephen Wadham, the young minister of the thriving Union Church in London, meets a vision of loveliness while on holiday, the Lady of the Chine. Unfortunately she disappears as quickly as she appeared. Stephen is hiding a shameful secret, and when a small child, cold and hungry, turns up at his church one evening begging for food, he knows his past could be about to unravel. With an elderly maiden aunt trying to control his future, and the reappearance of the Lady of the Chine, the situation become almost unbearable when he is seen on several occasions leaving the Jolly Masons public house, and is accused of drinking and gambling. Another sensitively edited book from White Tree Publishing’s favourite author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Tree Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912529193

Book preview

About the Book

Stephen Wadham, the young minister of the thriving Union Church in London, meets a vision of loveliness while on holiday, the Lady of the Chine. Unfortunately she disappears as quickly as she appeared. Stephen is hiding a shameful secret, and when a small child, cold and hungry, turns up at his church one evening begging for food, he knows his past could be about to unravel. With an elderly maiden aunt trying to control his future, and the reappearance of the Lady of the Chine, the situation become almost unbearable when he is seen on several occasions leaving the Jolly Masons public house, and is accused of drinking and gambling. Another sensitively edited book from White Tree Publishing’s favourite author.

The Lady of the Chine

Margaret S Haycraft

1855-1936

White Tree Publishing

Edition

Original book first published 1903

This edition ©White Tree Publishing 2018

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-912529-19-3

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

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The Lady of the Chine is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Author Biography

Margaret Scott Haycraft was born Margaret Scott MacRitchie at Newport Pagnell, England in 1855. She married William Parnell Haycraft in 1883 and wrote mostly under her married name. In 1891 she was living in Brighton, on the south coast of England, and died in Bournemouth, also on the south coast, in 1936. She also wrote under her maiden name of Margaret MacRitchie. Margaret Haycraft is by far our most popular author of fiction.

Margaret was a contemporary of the much better-known Christian writer Mrs. O. F. Walton. Both ladies wrote Christian stories for children that were very much for the time in which they lived, with little children often preparing for an early death. Mrs. Walton wrote three romances for adults (with no suffering children, and now published by White Tree in abridged versions). Although Margaret Haycraft concentrated mainly on books for children, she wrote many romances for older readers. Unusually for Victorian writers, the majority of Margaret Haycraft's stories are told in the present tense, but not this one.

Both Mrs. Walton's and Margaret Haycraft's books for all ages can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as the dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In our abridged editions overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storyline are always unchanged. But be warned, you may need a box of Kleenex handy for some stories!

A problem of Victorian writers is their tendency to insert intrusive comments concerning what is going to happen later in the story. Today we call them spoilers. They are usually along the lines of: Little did he/she know that.... I have removed these when appropriate.

£1 at the time of this story may not sound much, but in income value it is worth approximately £120 pounds today (about US$150). I mention this in case sums of money in this book sound insignificant!

This story was sold in a combined volume of two novelettes by Margaret Haycraft, the other being Iona. Our White Tree Publishing edition of Iona is also available as an eBook.

Chris Wright

Editor

Publisher’s Note

This is a short book, and there are only 14 chapters. In the second part are advertisements for our other books, so the story may end earlier than expected! The last chapter is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will help get our books more widely known. When the story ends, please take a look at what we publish: Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, and books for younger readers.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

Author Biography

Publisher’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

More Books from White Tree Publishing

About White Tree Publishing

Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Books for Younger Readers

A Chine is a narrow gully or gorge in soft rock running into the sea, with a stream cutting through it. Chines are mostly found on the South East and South coastline of England. The word Chine comes from the Saxon word Cinan which means a split or yawn. They are a major feature and attraction in some seaside towns.

Chapter 1

Early to Rise

Glenford-on-Sea can make its own terms in the season, so eager is the rush at holiday time for this fair place of rock and sand and wooded glade. When the masked singers are on the beach (vaguely supposed by the crowd to be earls and baronets), then do the pleasure seekers throng together in such numbers that the local paper can assert, with a clear editorial conscience, that the great and increasing popularity of our town is attested by the happy multitude noted daily by the observant eye on our beautiful promenade. But even the observant eye would have failed to see much in the way of humanity about 4 a.m. in Glenford Chine. The happy multitude slept, and the mysterious vocalists dreamt, presumably, of their ancestral halls.

Nature’s sweet restorer does not always come at our bidding, however, and Stephen Wadham, the popular young minister of an important suburban church in Londn, being overworked although only in his late twenties, and having private worries of which committees and guilds and church officers were unaware, had been medically counselled to seek the air of Glenford as being ideal for insomnia.

He had arrived two days ago, and as yet had wooed balmy sleep in vain, save for brief and restless periods. At two this morning he had arisen and studied a treatise, sent by the sympathetic wife of a deacon, on Simple Methods of Obtaining Sleep.

Returning to bed, he had put several of these recommendations into practice, such as counting sheep, one by one, passing through a gap in the hedge. He had also rolled his eyes in a particular way, and recited in a drowsy monotone passages of poetry. Onions were