The Secret Photographs by Jacquie Bloese.
Published in paperback 3rd October 2024 by Hodder,
From the cover of the book:
England, 1895: In the bustling seaside town of Brighton, photography is all the rage. Ellen Harper assists her twin brother running one of the city's seafront studios, where fashionable ladies and gentlemen pose in their finery to have their likeness captured forever in a silver frame.
But behind the façade of a respectable business, the siblings have something to hide. After the studio closes for the day, secret photographs are taken in the back room. There is money to be made from this underground trade, but if exposed to the light of day, these photographs would destroy them...
When newly married Clementine comes to sit for a portrait, Ellen learns she is looking for a lady's companion. Longing for a life of her own choosing and freedom from the deals her brother has made, Ellen accepts the post. The new position transports her to a sweeping white-fronted townhouse on one of Brighton's most prestigious crescents, full of every luxury imaginable.
But Clementine's gilded world hides as much darkness as Ellen hoped to escape... What will happen when the secrets Ellen has left behind finally catch up to her?
Don't miss this richly atmospheric and gripping historical fiction shining a light on the role of women in a world dominated by men.
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In order to mark the publication of the wonderful new novel by Jacquie Bloese, The Secret Photographs, it is my pleasure to bring you an extract from the story as part of the influencer tour...
Extract from The Secret Photographs:
‘If she’s not here soon, the best of the light will be gone.’ Reynold Harper emerges from underneath the camera and
claps his hands at the tabby cat, flexing its claws with enthu-
siasm on the worn velvet nap of the chaise longue. ‘Stop
that, Floss, you little pest.’ Scooping the purring cat into his
arms, he joins his sister at the window. ‘Remind me where
you found this one again?’
‘The pier.’ Ellen tries to keep her voice level, as she scours
the terraced street for signs of Lily March. At this hour,
soft syrupy sunlight turns the crooked houses of Booth
Lane the colour of melted butterscotch, and one might
almost turn a blind eye to the peeling paint and rusting
windows, the gutters choked with filth. She turns and
removes a coil of dark-brown hair from the chaise, and then
another, fairer and straight: they’d had the tableaux girls
from the Empire in earlier and they were worse than Floss
for moulting.
The faintest of taps at the front door draws her back to the
window, and yes, there is Lily, in her straw hat with the dent
in it, looking anxiously up and down the street, pulling her
coat to her as if the day is a cold one – and the burst of
happiness Ellen feels startles her and she has to turn away
from her brother so he cannot see it in her eyes.
‘She’s jumpy as a box of frogs,’ Reynold grumbles. ‘You
did tell her she’ll have to show her face?’
Of course, Ellen calls out, halfway down the narrow stair-
case to the front door now, smoothing down her hair as she
draws back the bolt.
‘Miss March. A pleasure to see you again.’
Ellen believes herself to be smiling, so why is Lily looking
back at her as if she is about to have a tooth pulled? She
ushers her inside and they stand in the cramped space at the
foot of the stairs, Lily’s hands twisting inside her stained
blue gloves.
‘How about a drop of something warming, before we
start?’ Ellen tries to be brisk as she leads Lily upstairs to the
dressing room, feeling somewhat in need of a tot of some-
thing herself, as if she too is about to be exposed. She pours
a measure of rum, then takes the chipped walnut music box
from the sideboard, counting out a handful of coins to a few
wheezing bars of ‘Greensleeves’.
‘Three shillings, as agreed.’
She and Reynold are usually strict on this point: no
payment until the work is done, but there is nothing like the
weight of a few coins in a purse to lift a young lady’s spirits,
and sure enough, Lily’s colour seems to return as she takes
the money, and screwing up her face, she gamely drinks
down the rum.
‘No one will ever know about this, will they?’ she says,
taking off her hat and gloves with caution. ‘Not those ladies
with the boards?’
‘The vigilants? The prudes on the prowl?!’
But Lily doesn’t smile.
‘Of course not.’ Ellen passes her the scarlet robe from the
back of the door. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you, about
today?’
‘No.’
‘Then there’s no need at all to worry. And the photographs
themselves will be sent far away to the continent.’
‘To France?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I suppose I will go there after all,’ Lily murmurs, chew-
ing at a ravaged fingernail, and Ellen says that’s one way of
thinking about it, and then Lily looks at her and for a brief
moment they are back on the pier, under the shelters with
the chocolate ice melting and the sun in their eyes. Lily
offers up a smile.
‘It’s a strange enough world, ain’t it, Miss Harper?’ She
takes the robe and disappears behind the Chinese screen in
the corner, a forced bravado in her tone. ‘Everything off ,
like I was taking a bath?’
‘That’s right.’
And Ellen waits as hooks are unfastened, and buttons
fumbled over, until the entire mille-feuille of petticoats and
stockings and stays are unpeeled, and Lily re-appears in
the robe, which trails on the floor behind her as Ellen asks
her to sit at the mirror. Such an elegant neck she has, Ellen
thinks, as milky and pale as the poor girl’s hands are rough
and red, hands which are trembling slightly in the dip of
her lap.
‘Remember,’ Ellen says, teasing strands of hair from the
pins, ‘once you’re in front of the camera, you become some-
one else entirely.’
Lily stares at her. ‘Who?’
‘Whoever you please! Lily March from the laundry stays
here – with your skirts and petticoats.’ Ellen waves towards
Lily’s pile of clothes, that lie neatly folded on a packing
crate. ‘Ready?’
And together, they go into the studio next door.
As Reynold greets her, Lily keeps her eyes planted to the
floor, and he looks askance at Ellen, and she knows what
he’s thinking – what a waste of plates, and developing fluid,
and time spent over the press – the girl’s as wooden as
Punch! But then Flossy jumps from the windowsill, wrap-
ping herself around Lily’s legs, as if summoned to do so,
and Lily bends to pet her.
‘She’s a sweet little thing.’
‘And she’ll ruin the exposure, given half a chance. Out
you go, Floss.’ Reynold shoos the cat from the room. ‘On
the chaise, if you will, Miss March. On your side. Turned
towards the camera.’
Her brother is too brusque, too businesslike, that is the
problem, Ellen thinks, as Lily perches on the chaise and
fumbles with the knotted sash of her robe. This is not one of
the tableaux girls who stand on a plinth in nothing but a
body stocking, night after night, or an artist’s model, so
accustomed to shrugging her clothes off that she doesn’t
bother with stays.
‘Let me help you.’ Ellen crouches next to Lily, and
deftly works the knot loose. ‘Let’s keep the robe on to
begin with. Turn on your side and stretch out, that’s right.
Lean your head on your hand – and bend your knees a
touch.’
Lily relaxes a little and Ellen slips the robe from her shoul-
ders. She smells of lye soap and milk; her breasts are fuller,
altogether larger, than Ellen had imagined. And with this
observation runs a current of shame, and she wishes then
that the girls from the theatre were back, joking and fidget-
ing and asking for more drink.
A plum-coloured bruise at the top of Lily’s left thigh
provides an unwelcome distraction, bringing with it unvoiced
questions of who and how often; Ellen frowns and reaches
for the powder pot.
‘That looks sore.’
Lily flushes the colour of a sunset. ‘I tripped, carrying the
coal upstairs.’
‘Won’t be too long before you’re married and in your own
home, I expect,’ Ellen says, torturing herself. ‘Somewhere
the stairs aren’t so slippery.’
‘Ma says no one will have me,’ the girl says with a humour-
less laugh.
‘I’m sure she’s wrong about that. May I?’ Ellen reaches for
the robe, which is now more off than on, but Lily stiffens;
and Ellen hesitates. Ignoring her brother’s laboured sigh,
she goes next door to fetch a drape: Reynold will gripe about
the photographs fetching less, but it’s that or lose Lily
altogether.
‘We’ll use this,’ she tells her, and trying to treat her naked-
ness with the same dispassionate regard with which she might
appraise a statue in the gallery of a fine museum, Ellen
arranges the drape so that it falls from the hips, covering Lily’s
most intimate parts. ‘Now it won’t feel so strange.’ She scoops
up the robe. ‘And when you’re dressed again, we’ll take
another photograph just for you, if you like – with Floss.’
‘Thank you, Miss Harper.’ Lily looks down at herself,
letting out a sigh which speaks of inevitability, and Reynold
instructs her rather tersely to hold still and look at the
camera, and to think of her sweetheart if she has one, or a
lad she’s soft on if not.
As the first plate is exposed, Ellen returns to the window.
In the distance, the sea winks at her, a quivering mass of
starlings flitting in and out of view to the beat of her broth-
er’s instructions.
‘Stand up for me, would you? . . . Drop the drape, there’s
a dear . . .’ She won’t, Ellen thinks, but oh, she must have, for
now he is telling Lily to turn to the side, to clasp her hands
behind her back. ‘Just so. All right, lower your head, if you
must. And hold for three.’
The plateholder slides from the camera; the cat scratches
on the studio door, and bidding Lily a cool good day,
Reynold disappears upstairs to the attic.
Lily looks after him with a thoughtful expression as she
wraps the drape about her. ‘What happens now?’
‘You get dressed and I’ll set up the camera.’ Ellen opens
the door and lets in Flossy. ‘By the window will be best.’
Lily returns, neat in her cotton skirt and shirtwaist. She
stares at the array of photographs tiling the wall above the
fireplace as if noticing them for the first time, then lets out a
little squeal.
‘That’s Harry Smart! Ain’t it?’
‘That’s right.’ If Ellen had her way, there would be no
picture of the Empire’s most talked-about performer, twirl-
ing her cane in her pinstripe trousers and tailcoat – she
doesn’t care for the woman, who, in her opinion, gets quite
enough attention already. Reynold, however, insists it’s good
for business.
‘Is she a friend of yours, Miss Harper?’ Lily sits in the easy
chair by the window, and coaxes Floss onto her lap.
‘An acquaintance, certainly.’
As Ellen stoops under the camera and looks at Lily, now
without so much as the nub of a wrist on display, she tries to
forget the nakedness that lies underneath. But the dips and
curves and puckerings all conspire against her, hammering
the image further into her consciousness – the diamond-
shaped mole just below Lily’s right nipple; even that awful
bruise.
She stifles a sigh and re-emerges. Lily’s face is washed
clean with a smile, and even if this must in part be attributed
to Harriet Smart, Ellen is glad of it and hopes that the
awkwardness from earlier is behind them.
‘I’m sure Miss Smart would sign a photograph for you, if
I asked,’ she says, taking the cloth from the lens and Lily
beams and the tableau is perfect: a ray of sun splintering the
clump of cloud through the window, the dozing cat, the
young woman whose beauty is a secret which the world has
kept from her. As Ellen removes the plate, it strikes her that
she has a better eye than her brother gives her credit for.
‘I’ll develop the photograph this evening.’ Ellen glances at
Lily and works very hard to sound casual. ‘Perhaps I could
bring it to the pier on Sunday? With the picture of Miss
Smart. We could take tea at the Refreshments Room?’
She has gone too far. Lily looks anywhere but at Ellen,
scrabbling to put on her coat and gloves, as if she were
suddenly in the most tearing hurry.
‘Yes, all right,’ she says, and Ellen tells herself it’s just
shyness and tries not to mind.
Once Lily has gone, Ellen returns to the studio. She kneels
and buries her face in the musty velvet of the chaise longue,
breathing in what Lily has left behind, as, up and down the
terraced street, wheeling seagulls caw and mock her.
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The Secret Photographs (previously published as The Golden Hour) is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Graeme Williams Marketing for inviting me to join this influencer tour.
About the author:
Jacquie is a writer of historical book group fiction, originally from the Channel Island of Guernsey. She draws her inspiration from atmospheric locations with intriguing histories, and people - both real and imaginary - whose stories are calling out to be told.
Her first novel THE FRENCH HOUSE, set during the German Occupation of Guernsey in the second World War, was a Richard and Judy Winter 2022 book club pick, and a finalist in the Mslexia Novel Award. Her second novel THE GOLDEN HOUR is inspired by the seaside town of Brighton, where Jacquie currently lives, and tells the story of three women from different classes who become caught up in the underground world of erotic photography in 1890s Victorian England.
Jacquie began her professional life teaching English, in Turkey and Spain, before returning to the UK to work in ELT publishing for a number of publishers, including Scholastic, Oxford University Press and Penguin Random House. She now works freelance as an educational consultant, writer and editor.
In her spare time, Jacquie loves reading, walking, socialising with old friends and new, exploring new places & re-visiting old favourites, theatre, cinema, spending time in London, travel and daydreaming!
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