Hagar
5/5
()
About this ebook
A novelette of 13,000 words in the Benjamin January Free Man of Color historical mystery series. Benjamin is out of town again, and his wife Rose attends a party with her obnoxious mother-in-law, at a plantation owned by a free colored relative. When the white mistress of the neighboring plantation is murdered, and the house burned, it seems obvious that one of the household slaves committed the crime - but Rose seeks to prove differently.
Barbara Hambly
Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.
Read more from Barbara Hambly
Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hazard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nanya of the Butterflies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night With the Girls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Paradise Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fairest in the Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Like Real People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Firemaggot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Pretty Maids All In A Row Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sinister Chinaman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPlus-One Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Lost Boy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gwenael Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dreamers of Black Rock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrincess Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Elsewhere Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty Polly Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Castle of Horror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gravemould and Ectoplasm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Damselblossom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Whisper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Corridor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Karate Masters vs the Invaders From Outer Space Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hag in the Water Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Death on the Moon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shadowbaby Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLibre Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Hagar
Related ebooks
Kipps: “What on earth would a man do with himself, if something did not stand in his way?” Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Friendship Village: 'I tell you of all history the most beautiful product is the family tie'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChildren of the Whirlwind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew Treasure Seekers: Or The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCousins' Club Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJewish Regency Mystery Stories: A Jewish Regency Mystery Story, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRan Away Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wit and Witchery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Roads Lead to Calvary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKipps: The Story of a Simple Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBold Face Names Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Going into Society Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Swords Reluctant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Roads Lead to Calvary: Historical Novel of the WWI Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn The Makaloa Mat: “A man with a club bat is a law-maker, a man to be obeyed, but not necessarily conciliated.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scandal Detectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER’S WONDER TALES - 50 Children's Bedtime Stories: More folklore from Mother Russia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVagabond Wind: The Adventures of Anya and Corax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ordeal of Elizabeth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kipps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLATE AND SOON Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeiress Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Master of Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homespun Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUNTERTAUCHEN: A Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamily Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe ghosts of their ancestors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Roads Lead to Calvary (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Love and Freindship and Other Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Track: 'Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Historical Mystery For You
The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things in Jars: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchmaker's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Perfect Murders: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stranger in the Lifeboat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Under a Red Moon: A 1920s Bangalore Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Universal Harvester: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Courting Dragons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Word Is Murder: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Librarian of Crooked Lane Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady of Ashes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Apothecary's Poison Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Volume One: Whose Body?, Clouds of Witness, and Unnatural Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tread of Angels Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories: A Miss Marple Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spider's Web Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Guardian of Lies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Jew in Prague Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady in the Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Seance: Tales of the Supernatural Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Line to Kill: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Herb of Death: A Miss Marple Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cater Street Hangman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pearl Dagger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder for Christmas: A British Holiday Murder Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Hagar
3 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A good story although I wish she would write more Benjamin January novels.
Book preview
Hagar - Barbara Hambly
HAGAR
by
Barbara Hambly
Published by Barbara Hambly at Smashwords
Copyright 2015 Barbara Hambly
Cover art by Eric Baldwin
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please include this license and copyright page. If you did not download this ebook yourself, consider going to Smashwords.com and doing so; authors love knowing when people are seeking out their material. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author!
Table of Contents
Hagar
About The Author
The Further Adventures
Hagar
by
Barbara Hambly
Everyone in New Orleans agreed that it was not possible to get all the way through Lent without some break in one’s piety. God could not really have intended to chastise genuine Christians (said Anne Corbier, when she stopped by Rose Janvier’s house with the sewing) while all those uptown American Protestant animal heretics got off scot-free.
But they don’t,
pointed out Rose, setting before the older woman – her sister-in-law Olympe’s mother-in-law – a cup of black coffee (cream was absent for Lent) and a small dish of strawberries. Their ministers instruct them to be solemn and gloomy all year round, so I suppose it evens out.
A logical Deist after the school of Jefferson and Voltaire, Rose herself was perfectly willing to eat beef – could the slender finances of the Janvier household have supported such extravagance in this hard-pinched, bank-deficient year of 1838 – had she not known it would silently grieve her devout husband, and quite vocally grieve Anne, the grandmother of the niece and nephew currently living under the Janvier roof.
Benjamin had gone – as he was periodically obliged to do these days – to mend the family exchequer by taking a job in Washington City, but Gabriel and Zizi-Marie Corbier, in addition to being lively young people and excellent company, were of enormous help to Rose in the upkeep of the huge old Spanish house on the Rue Esplanade. It was ostensibly to return fifteen-year-old Gabriel’s neatly-mended shirt, and to present seventeen-year-old Zizi-Marie with a new shift, that Anne Corbier had come that chilly spring afternoon. In actuality it was with the double purpose of inviting Rose and her young companions to a ball (Very quiet, very decent, hardly a festivity at all…
) at the small sugar-plantation of Belle Jour in celebration of the birthday of the wife of its owner, Arnaud Levesque (Candide is such a good, pious woman God Himself must celebrate her birthday, and cannot possibly have any objections to us doing the same…
), and at the same time soliciting Rose and Gabriel to be a part, as it were, of her costume.
Maître Corbier and I have been married so long,
twinkled Anne, and the old ruffian is still so sweet to me, I thought we’d go as Abraham and Sarah, from the Bible. But since everybody in town knows he has a roving eye – at his age he should be ashamed of himself! – I thought we’d better have old Father Abraham’s fetching Egyptian concubine Hagar along, and her son Ishmael all dressed up in sheepskins…
She nodded at Gabriel with a smile as he came in from the gallery, quite properly through Benjamin’s room on the river-ward side of the house. …and baby Isaac for good measure.
Gabriel exclaimed, "Formidable, Granmere! and in his wicker basket, five-month-old John January – whom no one ever dreamed of calling Johnny – made a single muted gurgle, as if to inquire whether he, too, would have to dress up in sheepskins.
You’ll do it, won’t you, Aunt Rose?"
Rose rolled her eyes, asked why Zizi-Marie couldn’t personate the Egyptian temptress (T’cha! At her age? It wouldn’t be decent!
and, No, Aunt Rose, she’s already going as Maid Marian with Antoine Mercelot…
) (Does everybody already know about this ball except me?
), and agreed. As far as Rose was concerned, Granmere Anne was quite right in that nobody should be obliged to remain at home and contemplate Christ’s sufferings for forty days, particularly if one had doubts about what Christ had actually said (the accounts in the Gospels, which Rose had read in Greek, did not match up) and if he had existed at all. Picture-books in the library