Dona St Culomb, a Restauration period beauty, is almost 30 years old and bored. Bored, with the shallow, frippery life she’s
leading, bored with her unsatisfactory marriage, bored with her circle of acquaintances and admirers, bored with alcohol-soaked dinners, gambling and mindless pranks. When one such prank leaves her too deeply ashamed to face society, she packs her bags, and her children and escapes to her husband’s estate in Cornwall.
There, at Navron House by the Helford river, she hopes to find the peace and freedom that has so far eluded her. But fate has other plans and peace and freedom are not for Dona. Instead, she finds danger, and adventure and a love so elusive, that she could almost believe she had dreamt it.
One of the most atmospheric novels ever written, I tend to return to this book when I feel that the world is against me and I need reassurance. Gentle, evocative language lets us follow Dona as she explores the environs of Navron, as she meets and falls under the spell of Jean-Benoit de Aubery, a ruthless French pirate who, according to her staid and stilted
neighbours, terrorises the
countryside. We meet the same neighbours visiting Dona in her retreat, begging her to send for her husband to help crush the pirates. And we see them made the laughing-stock of the countryside when Dona joins her pirate for one of his daring raids.
One of the high points of the book, the description of the raid is wonderfully detailed, taking the reader with Dona over the rocks and through the streaming rain, to arrive breathlessly at the small creek where a boat awaits her, to race wind and weather to reach the escaping ship. Finding then, that she has lost her wager after all and conceding that piracy is not a woman’s job, she returns home to find her husband present and the local gentry hot on the trail of the pirate.
To preserve the life of the man she loves and her own reputation, Dona must skilfully tread a narrow path and finally, make a life-changing decision. I can never decide if this story has a happy ending or not. It depends on my mood and can change from one reading of the book to the next. And, maybe, that’s the best compliment I can pay the story.