A Curious Beginning

“I took a handkerchief from my pocket, not one of those ridiculous flimsy scraps carried by fashionable females, but a proper square of good cambric.”

Veronica here shows a derision for fashion over pragmatism, something she will continually blend throughout the novel. This disdain emerges as not a disdain for women themselves, but for the fashions—and society—that urge delicacy over practicality and capability.

“‘You are not what I expected,’ [the baron] ventured at last, but his tone was not unkind and his eyes shone warmly.

I nodded. ‘I seldom am. I have tried, I assure you. I have been brought up to do good works and to conduct myself with propriety and decorum, and yet I am forever doing the unexpected.’”

Veronica’s assurance that she has attempted propriety suggests a sheepishness about her adventurous spirit that diminishes the further she gets from her life with her adoptive aunts. This highlights an early iteration of the novel’s exploration of how setting and community can affect one’s understanding of oneself.

“‘You have brought me to hell,’ I whispered in horrified delight, for the place was like something out of Dante’s fevered imagination.”

Veronica here alludes to Dante’s epic poem Purgatorio to characterize her impression of Stoker’s warehouse. Her “horrified delight” echoes much of her early interactions with Stoker, as she enjoys his argumentative nature even as it annoys her. Likewise, this first impression foreshadows multiple classical and artistic comparisons she makes to understand Stoker, which compare him to Greek deity Hephaestus and to paintings of Lucifer.

“Oh, Christ preserve us, all of you butterfly chasers are the same—appalling optimists, always looking for the best, determined to find it.”

Though Stoker here derides both Veronica’s optimism and her scientific interests, he will later come to understand that her propensity for optimism balances his tendency toward pessimism, making them more effective partners. His dismissive comment about her personality paralleling her scientific interest is supported by the text—albeit in a positive manner—in both of them, as they bring the skills they have learned through their studies to their lives more broadly, including solving murders.

“You are a resourceful man. Are you not familiar with the intrepid lady travelers? Women like Isabella Bird and Marianne North? They managed to go right round the world with little more than what they could fit into a saddlebag.”

Veronica here invokes the names of two real-life women explorers from the Victorian era to suggest Stoker’s lack of imagination. By invoking specifically “lady travelers” as capable of doing such things, she suggests that a lack of traditional means of support can lead to greater ingenuity despite adversity. As Stoker repeatedly fails to obtain support from the Royal Museum of National History, this is meant to inspire him.

“We are, as a gender, undereducated and infantilized to the point of idiocy. But those of us who have been given the benefit of learning and useful occupation, well, we are the proof that the traditional notions of feminine delicacy and helplessness are the purest poppycock.”

Veronica’s comments invert contemporary narratives about women’s capabilities, framing any diminished accomplishments on behalf of women not on their natural abilities, or lack thereof, but on their lack of opportunities. By citing her education as something she has been “given,” she does not subscribe to sexist narratives that would put an educated woman as “above” an uneducated one; instead, she frames herself as more fortunate.

“I am so glad you’ve come. I have a bowl of soup that will go to waste if you don’t eat it up, and if I give more to the dog he will be terribly sick. Do you mind?”

Veronica’s trickery to Badger, the young boy who runs errands for Stoker, comes from a place of charity rather than unkindness; Badger will only accept the food if he thinks he is not an object of pity for his poverty. This highlights both Victorian ideologies about receiving charity and the dangers of masculine pride, which is a recurrent theme in the text.

“‘A moment, sir, if you please. I find I am need of the ladies’ accommodation again,’ I told Mr. de Clare, lowering my lashes modestly. […]

‘Of course, of course,’ he said, his tone now soothing.”

Veronica’s act of demureness shows that though she does not subscribe to mainstream Victorian ideals about how women should behave, she nevertheless understands these ideals and can use them to her advantage. Underestimating women is shown here, as it is elsewhere in the novel, as a significant weakness held by men who have internalized patriarchal narratives about women’s capabilities.

“I might have escaped him a dozen times, but it seemed unkind to raise the point when he thought he was doing such a masterful job of keeping me in tow.”

Veronica’s mental observation of Stoker’s ineptitude as a kidnapper shows the condescension that she feels for him (and indeed for men as whole) early in the novel. It also highlights the irony of various antagonists like de Clare and Mornaday considering Stoker as a threat to Veronica’s safety. As Veronica comes to know Stoker better, she will grow to respect him more as well.

“‘What are you reading?’

‘The Unlikely Adventures of Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective. Casebook One,’ I told him.

He snorted ‘Cheap literature? You surprise me. All that blather about your scientific views, and that is what you choose for entertainment?’

‘Arcadia Brown is a thoroughly modern woman. She is intelligent and intrepid and shrinks from nothing […] Her world is not confined by the limitations of either her sex or her society. She creates her own adventures and sees them through to the end.’”

Veronica’s reading provides a moment of metatextuality. The qualities that Veronica defends in Arcadia Brown are the same qualities she possesses or seeks to possess in herself. Throughout the book, Veronica thinks of Arcadia as she pursues Max’s killer. Arcadia is thus to Veronica as Veronica is to the reader, a lady detective worthy of admiration. Her defense against Stoker’s accusation that this is “cheap literature” also offers a defense of detective fiction as a whole—including A Curious Beginning itself.

“Murder is an act of chaos. It lies with us to bring order and method to the solution of the deed. We are scientists.”

Veronica’s words to Stoker here equate the role of the scientist (who discovers the truth about the world) with that of the detective (who discovers the truth about a crime or mystery). Though Stoker objects to Veronica’s calling herself a scientist, he ultimately reinforces this parallel, as it is her talent at solving mysteries that leads him to accept her scientific prowess.

“I had not the temperament for nurturing, and the tedium of Little Byfield had leached me of my natural vitality. I was a butterfly, newly emerged from the chrysalis, damp winged and trembling with expectation.”

In calling the “vitality” she experiences on adventures “natural,” Veronica rejects the strict gender roles of mainstream Victorian society, which asserted that “nurturing” was the natural role of women. Comparing this naturalness to the image of the butterfly invokes the pastoral, an image that was, in Victorian literature, equated with simple goodness and righteousness.

“If I had known it was to be my last truly peaceful moment for some time to come, I should have made a point of enjoying it more.”

This line demonstrates the occasional interjections from a third-person narration by Veronica that is separate from the Veronica in the present of the text. This alludes to a tradition in detective and mystery fiction that has a narrator writing from beyond the timeline of the text even as they appear in the text itself, such as in Dr. Watson’s “transcription” of the Sherlock Holmes stories. This builds suspense in the text, as it signals that the action will become more dramatic in the coming pages.

“I should never understand men, I reflected, even if I devoted myself to the study of them as I had lepidoptery.”

Veronica’s wry observation highlights both her default metric for understanding the world around her—scientific inquiry—and how that metric may provide limited. Her failure to understand why Stoker is annoyed with her even while she is annoyed with him suggests that despite her education and travels, she is not practiced in understanding humans, both others and herself.

“I do not like people who are easy to get along with. I would far rather keep company with the hedgehog than the squirrel.”

Veronica’s comment leads her to praise Stoker despite his “prickles,” which signals a growing closeness between the two despite having previously viewed one another with hostility. Her broader comment about disliking “people who are easy to get along with” parallels her persistent disdain for politeness over substance, something about Victorian society that grates against her.

“There are times when it is entirely safe to show one’s vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

Stoker here offers a paradigm for why he is sometimes able to bear pain stoically and other times complains mightily at even minor pains. Simultaneously, he treats Veronica as one of these “safe” people, as this explanation reveals to her some of his emotional turmoil over his mysterious past.

“‘That is the trouble with the Beauclerk men. They are acquisitive as magpies. They see something they like and crate it up and bring it home, no matter the impracticality.’ She sighed. ‘And the result is that they have stuffed both houses—this one and the country seat in Cornwall—to the rafters. I have many times suggested that his lordship open it to the public, charge admission, and let people enjoy these treasures.’”

Debates about the roles of public museums abounded in the Victorian era, particularly as increased industrialization led the long-agrarian estates of the aristocracy to decreased profits. This shifted preexisting social classes and led to a rise of the middle class. Cordelia here posits herself on the side of public availability for works of art as opposed to keeping collections private and accessible only to the privileged. This foreshadows Veronica’s proposal to open this museum, which comes at the end of the novel, even as it shows Rosemorran’s dismissal of his sister. Though Cordelia asks “many times,” Veronica needs only ask once before Rosemorran seizes upon the idea.

“‘Haunts? Don’t be daft.’

‘It isn’t daft. Some of the greatest scientific minds of our time believe in ghosts.’”

Veronica’s insistence on the possibility of ghosts alludes to the Victorian-era debates over whether ghosts were a scientific possibility. In the novel, this orients how Veronica and Stoker’s investigation is informed by their knowledge of contemporary scientific thought. The novel itself, furthermore, here alludes to the prevalence of hauntings in Victorian-era literature as an element of intertextuality.

“‘Why do you hesitate?’ he asked.

‘I suppose I have a keen appreciation for anticipation,’ I said lightly. […]

‘Before you open that packet, all things are possible.’”

This conversation between Veronica and Stoker contradicts the logic of the mystery novel, which by design seeks answers. The resolution of a mystery as something that limits possibility presents an ironic foreshadowing to the anticlimactic revelation of Max’s murderer; by the time Veronica and Stoker learn who murdered Max, they have also learned that far more complex forces are at play. These forces are not fully understood by the end of the novel, allowing for multiple possibilities in future installments in the series.

“‘Sometimes it is better not to know,’ [Stoker] said suddenly. […] ‘Sometimes it is better for secrets to be left alone.’”

Stoker’s desire to keep secrets stands at odds with both his position as a scientist and the novel’s status as a mystery, both of which seek answers to the unknown. That Stoker keeps these secrets through the end of the novel suggests that his past is even more deeply mired in emotional turmoil than the story behind Veronica’s birth.

“‘Have you been to Ireland? The climate is appalling. Nothing but mist.’

‘What is your objection to mist?’

[…] ‘It is gloomy. Butterflies like the sun. Ireland is for the moth people.’

‘You are a lepidopterist,’ he said repressively. ‘You are not supposed to discriminate against moths.’

‘I am entitled to my prejudices.’”

Stoker and Veronica’s humorous exchange refers, on the surface, to Veronica’s preference for sunny climes and butterflies over gloom and moths. This narrow interest is something that Stoker, a more generalized naturalist, struggles to comprehend. Her comment about prejudices in response to Ireland, however, also parallels Veronica’s perspective of patriotism; in the novel’s climax, she chooses to defend England over Ireland, despite having no strong political or emotional reason to choose the country where she was raised or its monarch.

“Something within us spoke the same language, for all our clashes of words. He did not trust me entirely; that much was certain. And I frequently frustrated him to the point of madness. But I knew that whatever bedeviled him, he had need of me—and it seemed a betrayal to turn by back upon one of my own kind. I had seldom met another such as me, and I had learned that to be a child of the wilderness is a lonely thing.”

Veronica’s assessment of the kinship between herself and Stoker illustrates her understanding that getting along (or not) on the surface may not indicate what it means to be the same “kind.” Though she and Stoker would not have chosen to be friends or partners without circumstance compelling it, she can tell they are well suited to work together. This hints at Veronica’s plot with Rosemorran to ensure they can continue to do so.

“We live in a modern age, Stoker. And in a world with steamships and telegraphs and suspension bridges, I find it difficult to believe anyone would be put to death for the misfortune of having the wrong blood.”

Veronica’s claim expresses the fraught concept of “modernity” as experienced by the novel’s characters. As a historical mystery, A Curious Beginning presents its own archaism as a function of genre; Veronica’s era is established as part of a distant, inaccessible past. Her understanding of her own time as modern could thus create doubt about this specific claim about spilled blood and, potentially, her broader perspective on the world.