Islands of Mercy
Bath, 1865 – Clorinda Morrissey, aged 38 and a spinster, has left her home of Dublin to try her fortune in England. After unfulfilling and tedious work in a milliner’s shop, she takes the plunge and sells her only item of value – a ruby necklace family heirloom – and opens a tea room in the bustling spa town. Here she finds her metier and looks to becoming a part of Bath society, exercising her Celtic charms.
One day in her tea room, there is a proposal of marriage made by a well-known Bath physician, Valentine Ross, who works for the esteemed doctor Sir William Adeane; Ross asks Adeane’s daughter, Jane who works as a nurse for her father. The proposal is swiftly rejected, which leads to Jane’s abrupt departure from Bath to live with her bohemian Aunt Emmeline in London, while Ross is dejected and depressed. The disruption to and neglect of Dr Adeane’s household leads to Clorinda agreeing, a little reluctantly, to provide some meals for the distracted Dr Adeane. Meanwhile in Borneo, Ross’s brother Edmund, a naturalist, is laid low with a severe attack of malaria while collecting specimens. In London, Jane has a surprising sensuous experience that changes her whole perspective on life, while Clorinda’s arrival in Sir William’s house has further personal implications for both of them.
The pace of the novel is managed excellently, as one would expect in a novelist of the calibre of Rose Tremain. The author often has a rather jaundiced view of human motivations and behaviour, allied to a forensic eye for their weaknesses and their shabby motivations; some of the characters in the story (the men mostly) are irredeemably unpleasant. The historical content, particularly the Victorian city of Bath and its spa, is excellently delineated, and makes for an intelligent, thoughtful story, though elements of the conclusion of the novel, particularly with regard to Jane Adeane, felt a little rushed or contrived.
