Her Mother’s Daughter
Agnes Berry-Clay has always known she was adopted. In 1853, her father’s brewery is prospering, and her home at Windmarsh Court has every comfort. Agnes loves lessons with her governess, especially geography, and the revolving globe showing lands she will never see. Even a visit to Canterbury is a rare treat, such as choosing a red velvet dress for her 19th birthday celebration. On that dreadful day her father dies, struck by an apoplexy after a violent dispute with detestable Uncle Rufus. Agnes’s life falls apart. Mama is insisting on her marriage to Uncle’s son Philip and the banns have been called. There is only one escape: Agnes runs away. Unworldly but talented, she forges references and finds employment as a governess. She is a born teacher, and her young charges love her, but her seduction by their brother brings about her dismissal. Now pregnant on her own in Canterbury, she finds work with employers who are almost as desperate as she to make a living. She finds the strength to survive, always with the terrible threat of the workhouse. Canterbury has insalubrious districts, but that is where Agnes finds friendship, even in the disgusting reek of the tannery.
The first part of the story recounts Agnes’s secure but tedious life, and unfortunately that tedium affects the pace of the storytelling. The ancient city of Canterbury plays a large part in the eventual enjoyment of this novel. The author’s admirable research must surely have been done on foot and pays off. Will Agnes’s children one day know the delight of rolling top to bottom of the green mound called The Dane John?
