Straightlaced Saturday — Character Recap — Cornelis Drebbel

Posted on by Teagan Riordain Geneviene

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Steampunk eye unsplasy CAWT

Welcome, my chuckaboos!  With promoting the release of Atonement in Bloom, I haven’t done a Straightlaced Saturday in awhile.  Let’s take a little jaunt today. 

As most of you know, I’ve been rerunning the serial, Copper, the Alchemist, and the Woman in Trousers.  We haven’t reached the halfway point of the story yet.  Damfino why it takes me so long to tell these stories.  Anyhow, I want to keep your enthuzimuzzy going, so I thought we could do a character recap post!

Character Recap

Jamie Murray as Felicity 3
Felicity Deringer

First we met the narrator of this serial, Felicity Deringer aka The Woman in Trousers.  Some readers said they imagine her as a young Katharine Hepburn, but when I started writing this serial I heard the voice and saw the face of Jamie Murray, as she was in her part as H.G. Wells on the Warehouse 13 television show.  Yet no matter what face your imagination gives her, she’s still Felicity.Basil Gill 2

The Woman in Trousers met dashing innkeeper, Ignatius Belle when she arrived in the out-of-the-way little town and took a suite at his hotel, the Belle Inn.

Felicity also met shopkeeper, Mrs. Billie Best, who along with her customer were downright mean to an interesting young girl.

Copper curious w-green

That girl was Copper Hixon.  At Best’s General store Felicity first saw Copper, and intuitively realized the girl was the reason she’d been drawn to the far-flung town.

Cornelis Drebbel
Terrence Mann as Cornelis Drebbel

Then we were introduced to the third titular character, Cornelis Drebbel, the alchemist.  I took him right out of the history books… but altered him with an accident of alchemy.  When I thought of the Cornelis character I could hear the voice of American actor, Terrence Mann, and the wonderfully droll tone he could use to such great effect.

1900 Maid with trayWorking at the Belle Inn was Bitsy the maid.  Felicity was pleased to meet anyone who paid no attention to her unusual attire, like Bitsy. You’d have almost thought the maid already knew about Felicity’s odd way of dressing, that’s how little attention she paid to it.   Cookie_Belle Inn

At the inn there was also Cookie, who of course was the cook.  The Woman in Trousers and Cornelis both were delighted with Cookie’s culinary creations.

Big Mustache Unsplash

When Felicity found Copper at home alone, with an unknown dead man and her father missing, some of the townsfolk were uncannily quick to know that Calvin Hixon was in parts unknown. Those people included Ignatius Belle and Sheriff Alvin Bullard.  I saw the sheriff with a bushy mustache.

With the sheriff were a trio of officials from the place Copper feared most — Merciful Haven Orphanage.  There was the county truant officer, Claude Dinkley, and orphanage owner and all round obnoxious Ethel Farthing, and her long necked sycophant  Gertrude Hobbs.  They all gave of us an unsavory impression, but particularly Ether Farthing.

Victorian Man Collar Gertrude HobbsEthel Farthing

 

Though she tried, Felicity couldn’t prevent the people from the orphanage (and the sheriff) from finding the unknown dead man in (Copper’s father) Calvin Hixon’s study. 

The sheriff arranged for the undertaker to pickup the corpse later — and the wagon driver turned out to be Ignatius Belle who inherited the wagon and that small portion of the undertaker’s duties.  However, when Sheriff Bullard and Ignatius arrived that evening, they found Felicity injured, and the corpse vanished.  Although Copper, the Alchemist, and the Woman in Trousers saw who took it away.

Ignatius Bell wasn’t the only resident of the town to have a dual occupation.  Sheriff Bullard was also part owner in the local mill.

Ignatius Belle is overtly interested in Felicity, but Copper can’t stand him.  Ignatius gave full credit to Cookie and Bitsy for insisting on packing a basket full of wonderful food for him to take to Felicity and Copper.

Naughty Chimps The culprits who took the body were of course the Naughty Chimps.  Chris Graham, the Story Reading Ape is responsible for their spontaneous addition to this serial.

Forlanini hydrofoil
Alexander Graham Bell on a hydrofoil, public domain

Our trio also found a letter from Alexander Graham Bell who was interested in Calvin Hixon’s design for a hydrofoil.  Then they found priceless documents written by Leonardo da Vinci secreted inside an owl-shaped lamp.

When three separate groups of villains converged on the Hixon estate (including one with an army of lethal, trained chimpanzees (and a group that seemed to be coming from the direction of the sheriff’s mill), Cornelis was able to fix one of  Hixon’s inventions and they escaped on that road locomotive.  

Burrell Road Locomotive

The road locomotive was such a hit it was practically a character in its own right.  As the trio made their escape one of the chimps kept repeating the same sequence of gestures.  Copper thought the chimp was using sign language to say “Daddy.”

Our heroes hid out at an abandoned church complex with a big building converted to storage and at sometime abandoned.  Within that building they found many interesting and long forgotten items, including a stack of letters that reminded Cornelis of a friend who might be in the general area.

Sessue_Hayakawa

As they eluded the bad guys, they met up with that friend of the alchemist.  He was the grandson of a man who once possessed the skull of Cornelis Drebbel.  That was none other than Alastair Wong — An older version of Alastair the elder had a part in Three Ingredients-2, a Ghost in the Kitchen.  I could see both the elder Alastair and his grandson who had the same name as Japanese actor, Sessue Hayakawa.

Skull Green SIlks
The skull of the alchemist is usually kept in Felicity’s hatbox

While Felicity and Cornelis recovered from head colds at the abandoned place, Ignatius Belle showed up in his paddle steamer, and his interest seemed to have switched from Felicity to Copper.  The Woman in Trousers wondered if he had been using her to get closer to the girl, but she dismissed the thought.  However, as the day progressed Ignatius was just too interested in Copper for comfort. Why was Ignatius so interested in Copper, and how was it that he found them?

Sm Steamboat

Then one group of villains caught up with them. Ignatius insisted on using his paddle steamer to lead the bag guys (and their fierce trained chimpanzee) away.  Meanwhile, Cornelis used one of this “tricks” to hide the trio, but Felicity heard a familiar voice from the leader of that group, and it was a woman. Felicity mentally reviewed all the women she met from Copper’s home town, but wasn’t sure to whom the voice belonged.

Now a little bit of a preview.  The trio made their way to the home of Alastair Wong.  Last time we stopped just before you could meet the tiny woman, Victoria, one of Alastair’s relatives.  The pictured Chinese American movie star, Anna May Wong could be Victoria Wong.  If you’ve kept track of the short stories in the “Pip-verse” you saw a much older version of Victoria Wong meet Pip.  That happened in the short story, Pip Sees a Camel.  

anna-may-wong
Anna May Wong

Thanks to everyone for being on the steampunk train!  Copper, the Alchemist, and the Woman in Trousers will continue on Hidebound Hump Day.  I’ll be looking for you at the station.  Hugs!

 

***

Now some shameless self-promotion.

Universal link to my Amazon Author Page

USA:  Atonement in Bloom

Amazon UK

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USA:  The Glowing Pigs, Snort Stories of Atonement, Tennessee

Amazon UK

Atonement Video Cover copy

USA:  Atonement, Tennessee

(E-book still on sale at 99¢ )

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USA:  Murder at the Bijou — Three Ingredients I

Amazon UK

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USA:  The Three Things Serial Story: A Little 1920s Story Kindle 

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This is a work of fiction.  Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 and 2018 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

All images are either the property of the author or provided by free sources, unless stated otherwise.

 

62 thoughts on “Straightlaced Saturday — Character Recap — Cornelis Drebbel”

  1. What a gorgeous talent you have to leave this often-puny world and join in your imagination such people. This is a really nice post. Thank you, Teagan once again for entertaining us out here. Best wishes, David

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Good morning, David. It’s so nice to see you. I’m happy you enjoyed this, because I have such fun “casting” my stories. However, the main reason I do it, is that showing the pictures often helps the reader imagine the story and/or triggers their memory (since my serials tend to run for such a long time). When readers have cast parts differently I also enjoy hearing their choices too. Between this rerun and the original run, several people cast Felicity as Katherine Hepburn — which I found delightful.
      Have a wonder-filled weekend. TGIF hugs!

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  4. Thank you for the recap, Teagan. I am caught up again now. Copper is still my favorite character from this series.

    I still wonder what those chimps have planned! They make me think about Jane Goodall’s adventures with a chimp named Frodo.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It’s lovely to see you, Lavinia. I hope everyone at Salmon Brook Farms is feeling happy and sassy. Back when I was writing this serial, I often wondered what Jane Goodall would think of… oops… I almost gave a spoiler. o_O Errm… I often wondered what she would think. I’ll leave it at that. LOL.
      Have a marvelous Monday. Great big hug.

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  5. You have created so many beautiful and interesting characters. I am wondering about the photos, Are these real people existed in the past or you have a graphic designer adding a sepia tone to photographs to make them look old?

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  6. Sorry to be so late to the party. It’s fun to see that there are connections in the Teaganverse of characters. You have developed so many interesting characters. I picture them all gathering at a big party (perhaps in a lodge) someday to celebrate.

    I look forward to the story continuing, but I wish you well in promoting Bloom. I hope you’re having a great weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Hi Dan. Remember there’s no such thing as late here. 😀 I owe you a visit to your Saturday post too.
      Yes, lots of personal work going on, so running this recap post helped me manage.
      Haha! Sometimes it feels like I have them all gathered together. Particularly with this story when I was trying to pull the threads together.
      I’ll click over to your place to “Have a Beer” shortly. Mega hugs.

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      1. Not (only) as self-promotion, but there are few also-ran photos in Thursday’s door post, from Atonement. You might like one or the other better than the ones I used, if you get round to needing them.

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        1. Thanks Dan. I admit it’s been an extremely hectic week with my “personal business” that I don’t really like to mention here. I’ll take another look. Your Atonement Doors post was absolutely the best promo ever! It really was fabulous and everyone loved it.

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    1. It’s great to see you, Christoph. I’m glad you enjoyed the recap — they actually help me too. Those updates are mostly on Facebook. I didn’t want to blog about it. But progress, little by little. Fingers still crossed. 🙂 It’s suitably quirky!

      Mega hugs right back! ❤

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  8. Thanks for the catch up! I missed a couple but will be ready Wednesday. I got all my notifications set so I get the all the blogs I read. Not sure what happened but I wasn’t getting yours. So, now I am. The pictures add to it nicely. Have a great weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Hi Denise. Thanks for letting me know about that. It explains why things have fallen off lately. WordPress does that repeatedly. I’ve had to manually unfollow and then refollow everyone, several times. Finally I just gave up. I try to visit every one as much as I can remember to, but I can’t keep doing that “exercise” to regularly get the notices.
      I’m trying to say that I appreciate you going to so much trouble, because I know how it is. ❤ Thanks for getting back on this zany train. Mega hugs.

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      1. I am happy to be on the zany train. I was able to fix it by going through my list and seeing which ones I was subscribed to and checking off if I wanted to be notified or not. Now I see the ones I want to…at least for now:) Mega hugs back.

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    1. Thanks Jan. 🙂 Even if readers “cast” the parts differently, I think using the actors still give a visual reminder about different parts of the story. I’m so glad you’re on this train. Mega hugs!

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  10. Great recap, Teagan. I like how you add the images and they do help to bring each character to life as well setting the place and time. Beats me where you find things like the road-locamotive. Thanks for the summary. Happy Writing and Happy December. Hugs. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks so much John! I think their voices often have a lot to do with it — particularly when I’m writing in first person. There’s a different person’s voice in my head with each story. I hear them as much as I see them. Have a peaceful weekend. Mega hugs.

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    1. Thanks taking time to visit, Olga. It’s always fun to “cast” a story. Of course I had to include the steampunk contraptions! They’re almost characters. 😀 (Looks like re-negotiations on the home front — but I’m not giving up.) Great big hug.

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