Jill Tattersall

I've waited a long time to read Time at Tarragon, the only book in Tattersall's works that I hadn't yet read. I finally tracked it down through AbeBooks (at least, a copy that wasn't $130), and had it shipped from England. Was it worth it? Hmmm.

The format Tattersall uses in Time at Tarragon is reflective. We begin with Mary, the heroine, as a very old woman, receiving a tidbit of news that throws her into memories of the past.

At nineteen, she was orphaned, with nowhere to go except to an unwelcoming godmother as a lady's maid. Her place is begrudged, and she's kept on the “other side” of the door separating the Family from the servants. Her position is dangerous, and almost immediately the abuse begins. Charles, heir to Tarragon, does not protect her (although she does seem to be interrupted before being raped, or having her hair shorn, or the other things that threaten her as a helpless servant). The first half of the book is uncomfortable indeed. After she manages to become more useful to her godmother, as a kind of assistant governess to the two young granddaughters, she escapes the thumb of the ruthless butler and the unreadable housekeeper.

What is the mystery that appears to keep the Family under the control of the servants? Why does Charles seem resigned to marrying the governess, when he's plainly attracted to Mary? Who cut the girth of the saddle, throwing Mary headlong into the rocks, and nearly killing her?

Someone is out to ruin Mary's reputation, and drive her from the house. She is forced to drink, so as to appear as an alcoholic. She is thrown at the head of the agent of a nearby estate, in the hopes she can be married off. She is threatened by the insolent and lecherous gaze of the footman, Thomas Boddie. At one point, Mary is even kidnapped by highwaymen, and barely escapes with her virtue and her life.

But Mary has the dangerous curiosity of any Gothic heroine, and continues to ask questions, and probe into the past of this secretive family. By adding together bits learned here and there, she tries to push things to a conclusion, and winds up drugged and thrown in the lake. This enterprising woman, however, knows how to swim and gets out, to hear the resolution of all the mysteries, as she crouches outside the french doors of the library, while the Family has it out with the servants.

The novel wraps up, again with Mary as an old woman. Altogether, there's a lot here that's inexplicable, and somewhat hard to swallow. Without giving anything away, I have to say that I found the end unsatisfying and a little from left field. Mary herself, while being both brave and feisty, didn't endear herself to me as most of Tattersall's women do, seeming a bit shallow and stupid. Charles didn't impress me at all... he seemed awfully tame and easily subdued. I guess the plot wouldn't have worked if he were a stronger man, but he really didn't seem worth the pursuit to me. I'll keep Time at Tarragon in my collection, because I'm a completionist, but I'm not sure when I'll bother to read it again.… (més)

This is the blurb on the back cover:

"The wild mountain country of North Wales was a foreign and barbaric land to most English people in 1798, even though poets wrote of the romantic beauty of 'bottomless pools and horrid gorges'. Perdita Draycott, who had never traveled outside London in all her seventeen years, found the mail coach journey across England, their stormy arrival at Dinas Pennant, and her first meeting with her two headstrong young charges, awe-inspiring enough.

Before long she became aware of an undercurrent of mystery which involved everyone at the castle. Her impoverished but arrogant employer Sir Gareth Glynn-Owen was haunted by the circumstances of his father's death, the people on the estate looked askance at the fair-haired English girl who could not understand their language, and there was the ancient legend of the accursed gold, hidden deep in the mountains..."… (més)