Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington first edition - 1880
My third R.D. Blackmore novel in less than six weeks! In the late Summer of 1877, Blackmore and his ailing wife visited the Whitby area for a holiday. The author was stimulated by the healthy breezes of the bare and jagged coast, and was particularly taken by the wild countryside behind it, commenting that there were lanes as pretty as may anywhere be found in any other county than that of Devon. Amongst these acres, Blackmore discovered a pleasant farm, not so large or rambling as to tire the mind or foot, yet wide enough and full of change - rich pasture, hazel copse, green valleys, fallows brown, and golden breastlands pillowing into nooks of fern, clumps of shade for horse or heifer, and for rabbits sandy warrens, furzy cleve for hare and partridge, not without a little mere for willows and wild ducks. This example of his writing style shows both its depth of description of nature, for which the author was famous, but also - perhaps - slightly overwrought for modern tastes.
Here he is again, describing a corner of the farm on a warm day in August: there was not a horse standing down by a pool, with his stiff legs shut up into biped form, nor a cow staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole... Blackmore revels in the changing moods of sky or earth and sea.
The novel is set in 1801, and the French menace is always in the background, heightened by the possibility of involvement in the smuggling activities or 'free trading' along the coast. The tale links the fortunes (or misfortunes) of the Yordas family of Scargate Hall with the Anerley family, some hundred miles away. Twenty years previously, a child had been found washed ashore in a little cove north of Flamborough Head. Raised by devoted foster parents, as Robin Lyth, he carves out a name. and fortune, for himself as a daring and popular leader of the local smugglers. Nearly caught, by a steadfast Excise man, Captain Carroway, he escapes thanks to Mary Anerley, the nearby farmer's daughter. Inevitably, for the tale is one of romance, they fall in love. Much has to happen before they are united, including a stint for Robin in the Royal Navy under Nelson. Blackmore movingly describes the death of the latter at the Battle of Trafalgar. Here, unbeknown to all historical researchers, it is Robin who saves the Victory's bacon. Nelson is clearly one of the author's heroes, and he returns to England's hero and the famous battle in his later novel Springhaven (1887).
Blackmore is not only strong on descriptive passages of the world around us, but can also produce some memorable characters.
Stephen Anerley, a thrifty and well-to-do Yorkshire farmer of the olden type...Happy alike in the place of his birth, his lot in life, and the wisdom of the powers appointed over him, he looked up, with a substantial faith, yet a solid reserve of judgement, to the Church, the Justices of the Peace, spiritual lords and temporal, and above all His Majesty George the Third. His wife, Mistress Anerley, was five-and-forty years of age, vigorous, clean, and of a very pleasant look, with that richness of colour which settles on fair women, when the fugitive beauty of blushing in past.
Mary Anerley, their daughter, no doubt it would have been hard to find a girl more true and loving, more modest and industrious; but hundreds and hundreds of better girls might be found perhaps even in Yorkshire. For this maiden had a strong will of her own, which makes against absolute perfection...
Rev. Turner Upround, such a man generally thrives in the thriving of his flock and does not harry them. He gives them spiritual food enough to support them without daintiness, and he keeps the proper distinction between the Sunday and the poorer days. He clangs no bell of reproach upon a Monday, when the squire is leading the lady into dinner, and the labourer sniffing at his supper-pot, and he lets the world play on a Saturday, while he works his own head to find good words for the morrow.
Mr Jellicorse, the Yordas family solicitor from Middleton in Teesdale, had won golden opinions everywhere. He was an uncommonly honest lawyer, highly incapable of almost any trick, and lofty in his view of things, when his side of them was a legal one - now, he had a problem over who had the legal rights to the Yordas inheritances, where honesty was, perhaps, not the best policy.
Other characters of note are the two daughters of the deceased Sir Philip Yordas, Philippa and Eliza (Carnaby)- the former determined to hang on to their shaky claim to the family estates, the latter desperate to secure everything for her spoiled and unruly son 'Pet'; Jordas, the ever-faithful dogman of the Yordas family; the embryonic detective from York, Mr Mordacks, who achieves his own connubial bliss in Derbyshire, as well as solving at least one mystery. There is but one unremitting evil one amongst the whole cast - John Cadman, who meets his thoroughly deserved end by a hangman's rope.
Mary Anerley was first serialised in Fraser's Magazine from July 1879 to September 1880, and then published as a three-decker in 1880.
The Saturday Review called the novel one of the author's happiest productions, stating that it is full of the fine touches of observation and description, whether of people or of places, that have belonged to most of his novels, and there is a strong dramatic interest to be found in it.
The Spectator (7th August 1880) - On the whole, we think Mary Anerley is the best book he has written since Lorna Doone; there are passages in it - the death of Sir Philip Yordas (in 1777) is one of them - the beautifully drawn contrast between his fatal ride and the ramble of Mary Anerley and her delightful pony "Sir Keppel", is another - which surpass anything in the first book which introduced the writer to the public. Love and the knowledge of Nature are among his chief and most charming characteristics; in none of his works are they displayed more bountifully than in this one.
I am sure this won't be the last R.D. Blackmore novel I shall read. I just hope any future purchase of another of his three-deckers will not be too expensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment