G.P.R. James' 'Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood' 1837

Richard Bentley first edition - 1837

After my Summer indulgence in the Crime-Book Society paperbacks (I have just bought nine more for future holiday reading), I returned with pleasure to my old friend G.P.R. James. This time it was to the huge - potential hernia inducing - 717 page Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Nearly all James' novels were published in the [in]famous three-deckers   - I have recently counted a total of 52. There were only three two-volumed  publications and just seven in one volume. Charles Tyrrell would easily have fitted into the three-volume format; why this 'blockbuster' issue was chosen is unknown (to me, anyway). The story has all of the author's usual faults and qualities.

His trademark is there at the very beginning: Amongst all the many fine and beautiful figures and modes of reasoning, that the universe in which we dwell has afforded, for the illustration of the bright hope that is within us of a life renewed beyond the tomb, there is none more beautiful or more exquisite, that I know of, than that which is derived from the change of the seasons...he then spends the next three pages extolling the beauties of each season and of nature. The reader then has to follow James as he describes an old Hampshire mansion house, its surrounding walks and its kitchen garden. He tries to pre-empt criticism by saying that these descriptions are pertinent to later parts of his story (much later, on page 147, he does say: this is, in fact, the place where our story should have begun!); only on page 14 do we meet one of the main progenitors of the tale: Sir Francis Tyrrell, the irascible father of Charles. And it is here that we recall one of the author's strengths: that of character drawing. Sir Francis is an ogre and the novel's subtitle recognises this. Never quite a caricature, the man is nearly irredeemable. He comes from a line of scurvy knaves: one had been killed by a blow of the axe, received from a woodman; another had been almost torn to pieces by a mob at the end of the reign of James II, and died of the injuries received; three or four of them had been killed in duels, and one had been shot by a soldier under his command...in the whole race, there was a fierce and furious disposition, an impetuous and ungovernable temper, which, combined with a general fearlessness of character, and heedlessness of consequences led them into dangers and even crimes.

No wonder his wife, once gay in spirit, had shrunk into a timid state of mind and cheerless despair. Their only son, Charles, grew up in this intimidating environment. He had his father's shortness of temper and a vigorous approach to life. The one real friend he made at school, Everard Morrison, who became a local solicitor, was to prove in the course of the story a godsend to Charles. By the time the tale begins, Charles is at Oxford University, glad to get away from his father's taunts but determined to support his mother. On a return home, he finds himself in the same coach as another man on his way to Sir Francis. He is  Mr Henry Driesen, descended from a family originally German, but which had been settled for many centuries in England. Possessed of but a small property, he had become perhaps Sir Francis' only friend. The fact that he relied on the latter for financial support, and was thus somewhat in his power, suggests the main reason for Sir Francis tolerating him. James spends two or three pages describing Driesen, both in looks - the expression of an old and malicious monkey; and character - artful as a sophist; and, aided by his own vanity, deceiving himself while he deceived others...his love of himself was an impregnable citadel, which nothing could storm. He is, like Morrison, to play a major role in the story's development and eventual outcome.

An old acquaintance of Sir Francis having died, he has invited his widow, Mistress Effingham, and her daughter Lucy Effingham, to take up residence in the ancient Manor House on his estate. True to form, in the author's novels, Charles and Lucy fall for each other. Even though that was what he wanted, the perverse Sir Francis flies into a rage because he had not been consulted! As the story develops Charles, now in love, gradually improves his character - he even saves a fisherman's little boy from the sea - but his father, if anything, gets worse. violence, the irritability, the exasperating nature of his temper and disposition, it must be owned, went far beyond anything [Mrs. Effingham] had expected or even believed possible.  

In fact, by the middle of the novel everyone, including Driesen, the author and the reader has had enough of Sir Francis. As an old fisherman, who has accosted him in the Park says: I'll tell you what, Sir Francis, you're a passionate man, and a bad man, and if all be true that's said, you treat your own lady and your son as bad as any one else. You'll repent all this some day when you can't mend it. You'll repent it. I say - I'm thinking God has tried you long enough, and it's time you should be taken away. And 'taken away' he is; on page 413 we read that he has been shot dead by a hunting rifle in the back of his head. Who is the culprit? I'm afraid I guessed almost immediately, but it is his son Charles who stands accused. After all, it was his gun. The rest of the novel sees him in front of a coroner's court, imprisoned, escape, attempt to flee abroad with Lucy (which includes a thrilling sea chase) and finally return to meet his just deserts at the local Assizes. All this takes another 300 pages. But they are crammed full with incident and character drawing. I enjoyed the ramble! 

There is a sub plot, which all good tales must have, involving Everard Morrison and a naval captain's daughter Hannah Longly - remarkably pretty, full of grace and warm colouring, with dark eyes and deep brown hair, slightly approaching to auburn. She had in most things a natural good taste, and notwithstanding having been at a school, was not in reality vulgar... The blackguard of the story, Lieutenant Arthur Hargrave, not only one-time fancied Lucy Effingham but tried to abduct Hannah; thus neatly tying the main characters and the sub-plot together. Of course, Hargrave meets his just deserts at the same time as getting Charles Tyrrell out of a very sticky position.

One more example of James' predilection for philosophising - on page 584: True love is an unselfish passion; or, at all events - if the painful doctrine of some philosophers be correct, and there be no affection of the human mind without its share of selfishness - true love partakes thereof , as little or less than any other passion, and that share of selfishness which it does admit, is of the noblest and most refined kind. (Are you following?) Yet we are inclined to believe that it is without selfishness; for we cannot understand such a thing as being selfish by proxy. It is, in fact, a contradiction in terms; and when we love another so well as to be willing, ready, desirous of sacrificing our convenience, our comfort, our safety, our happiness, ourselves for them, we may admit the doctrine, that it gives us greater satisfaction to do so than not, without admitting that we are selfish in so feeling. Q.E.D.

I liked the throwaway reference to J.G. Lockhart's Reginald Dalton, the most beautiful and interesting of modern novels (published in 1823. See my Blog for 25th July 2021).