By Grace Gibson, author of The Zephyr
The word zephyr originates from Greek mythology, specifically Zephuros, the god of the west wind, bringer of light and refreshing spring breezes.
I live in the desert Southwest, and in March, the wind blows fairly relentlessly, bringing with it the inevitable heat of summer. The sound of wind is irritating to some, but I love the deep ringing of our iron wind chime which is so heavy, it is rarely heard. Wind— spring—and change—come hand-in-hand to me, and it was during this season, when the gusts were howling and being outside wasn’t an option, that I wrote The Zephyr.
This story opens with Elizabeth Bennet reveling in springtime after a dismal and troubled winter. No matter who imagines her, she always a breath of fresh air, and in the rich world of variations we so thoroughly enjoy, we often see her ‘breezing into a room’. When I picture her this way, I half-expect to see the curtains acknowledge her arrival by flaring out in greeting before settling a little restlessly back into stately immobility.
With the notion of a zephyr dancing in my head, I began to think of Elizabeth in perpetual motion and with the wind in her hair. At the same time, I began to have a persistent wish to see Elizabeth meet Mr Darcy—the man she finds impossible to ignore—from a position of less vulnerability and fewer limitations. That said, I also wanted her newly imagined leverage to come with the kinds of challenges that would require her to step up and embody what I see as her fundamentally heroic nature.
After a writerly period of percolating, i.e., procrastinating, naps, Netflix, and wiffle-waffling, inspiration finally struck. Rather than wealth, connections, a magic wand, or even a title—which is always fun—I chose for Elizabeth to have an adventure requiring her to have a different kind of power. I chose to give her horsepower.
For centuries, horses enabled civilizations to thrive, and in propelling humanity from one achievement to the next, they earned their place in our cultural mythology as symbols of independence, nobility, endurance, confidence, triumph, heroism and competition—the list goes on.
This is all very high-minded, but in essence, horses can also be powerfully seductive. Is it my imagination that a man dressed in top boots and snowy white cravat astride a great, snorting stallion is a tad more interesting than a man in silk stockings yawning his way through an opera? I hope I am not the only person to have watched every episode of Poldark primarily for those stirring scenes of him racing Seamus, his gorgeous black Irish draught horse, along the coast of Cornwall, and oh yeah, the story…
But, I digress. One of the other reasons why this image is so captivating to me is that, in a historical context, a horse can symbolise an aspirational degree of freedom. By this, I do not mean the ability to trot over to the tavern at the edge of the village whenever a person pleases. To me, a hero with a horse is free to act, and when his intentions are chivalrous, noble, brave, and yes—dangerous—I sit up from my drowsy horizontal position on the sofa and pay attention.
That said, it seems a great shame that the gentlemen get to churn up the turf in a thundering gallop to rescue some helpless woman, while said lady must clutch her handkerchief and stare out the window as she awaits the pleasure of his arrival. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good damsel-in-distress story. But as I was mulling over the basic unfairness of historical leading ladies so often cast as ‘the one who needs help’, I entertained an entirely different destiny for Elizabeth.
Picture in your mind’s eye the movie star of some glittering yesteryear, with her designer sunglasses shading her ‘fine eyes’, her silk scarf flying behind her as she drives her two-seater convertible—at a reckless speed—around the twists and turns of the Amalfi coast. She does not need a man to drive her where she wants to go, and moreover, it isn’t his or anyone’s business where she is going!
Freedom on this scale for Elizabeth—tailored to fit the period, of course—was intriguing to imagine. And if I was thrilled to envision her so daringly liberated, I had to wonder how a rich and handsome man’s head could not be turned by such panache—such glamour!
So that is how this story came to be written where Elizabeth has a taste of lightly evocative independence, and though her ‘sports car’ is a modest little curricle with two petite ponies, she is fast and daring and—I hope—irresistible to a certain gentleman, who, with his heart lodged in his throat, is forced to witness her, whip snapping high in the air, flying headlong down the road.
And who knows? We might even find her—not him—riding hell-for-leather on a mission of rescue…
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Image Sources (all Public Domain)
Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus (detail)
John Nost Sartorius A Man on Horseback
To Catch A Thief
BBC
ITV
