The novel, set in an indeterminate ‘past’, concerns love across the social divide. The hero is a wealthy (en)titled gentleman in love with a serving girl from a local tavern. The girl’s mother opposes the match. Chapter three, where the plot thickens, was the point at which the novel had been set aside, mainly for lack of a discernible plot.
Unfortunately, the planets were not fully in alignment for Melinda Thistlethwaite’ s most recent flirtation with the arts. She was confident, however, that she would eventually achieve success, once her talents had coupled with artistic destiny.
Thirty-two neatly stacked pages rested in the drawer of hopefulness, alongside abandoned macramé and origami projects, and expensive watercolour and drawing materials which had sidled to the very back of the drawer. The novel’s characters were thus trapped and considerably disadvantaged by being sketchily drawn and without clues they might use to get to the end of the novel and make an escape.
‘Right,’ said Gwendolyn (the mother), ‘we need to get out of here fast.’
Hugo, the putative hero, was dissolving in a lake of tears: ‘We’re all going to die if nobody rescues us. Matty, we’ll never be together.’
Matty, the beloved daughter saw this as less of a misfortune and was keen on following her mother’s thoughts. ‘So how do we escape – if we don’t know how the story goes?’
‘It’s up to us to see the story to its end and then jump off. Once we can see The End, we’re home and dry. It doesn’t matter to us what’s in the book, we just need to get through it.’ Gwendolyn was a veteran of badly written novels set in ‘the past’ and had a fair idea of how things could go. ‘We would do better if we ditched him. Look he’s all fuzzy round the edges. That woman can’t draw a character.’ Gwendolyn wasn’t inherently cruel but Hugo was not going to be an asset.
So the three set about the task of filling space with fictional fancies; they ricocheted between exciting adventures. At one point they were sheltering up a tree to avoid a stampeding herd of wildebeest. A few pages on they were embracing cat burglary in stately homes using Hugo as a fence (he was quite useful for this, although not entirely on top of his character).
On page 214 they decided to call it a day. The End was visible and all that remained was to resolve the romantic aspects of Matty and Hugo’s story. They spoke frankly, and Matty succeeded in convincing Hugo of their fundamental incompatibility. He wept. She heaved a sigh of relief. All three left the novel in haste.
Melinda opened her draw of hopefulness and was pleasantly shocked to find 214 neatly stacked pages rather than the expected 32. Between them she found the odd leaf, a hoof print, several tickets and receipts from pawnbrokers, and on the final page: The End. She was inspired anew by these clues.
