The House at Mermaid's Cove by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Sometimes a book is so annoying one cannot sit back and enjoy the setting, even when it turns out to have been inspired by a place one has visited. I don’t think my friend Cath recommended this historical novel set in 1943 Cornwall but I wish she had read it so we could critique it together. The heroine, Alice, is an Irish nun, sent back in disgrace from the Belgian Congo because she became too attached to orphaned twins whose lives she saved. I suppose that is plausible but surely her superior, Sister Clare, knew that the war made traveling dangerous? So, surprise, Alice’s ship to Ireland is torpedoed in the English Channel and she washes up on shore where she is found by a TDS*.

Rescued by Jack Trewella, who brings her to a nearby boathouse because there is no room at the inn (aka his estate), gives her brandy and first aid, Alice is revived. She does not want to return to her convent in Ireland but it doesn’t seem to bother her, Jack, or the author that she’s still a nun until she is released by her order. Even if the convent assumes she drowned. Instead, she starts living in this hut (which must be freezing – it’s not quite Easter but Jack says they are situated in a very mild valley). Soon, due to her fluent French, she has been enlisted by Jack in secret expeditions bringing operatives to France under the cover of night, despite how terrified she is of water after her ordeal.

I wondered what my days were going to be like now, without the rhythm and ritual of the religious life. I wasn’t turning my back on God. I couldn’t imagine giving up those daily prayers – but there would be nothing and nobody telling me to offer them up at a certain time, in a certain place. Obedience was the thing I’d struggled with more than anything. That vow was broken. But what about the others? Poverty? Chastity?

So Alice hasn’t given up her belief in God, she just wants to be free of the restrictions of being a nun; understandable if you took your vows on the rebound from a youthful love affair. Jack is not shocked by this, particularly because he has seen the scars on her back from where she scourged herself (ugh – were nuns really doing this in the 20th century?). He says he didn’t really get along with organized religion, which sounded a bit too modern an attitude to me, but maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother him to fall in love with and marry a nun! He had lied to the locals that Alice was his first cousin once-removed, which might have complicated things, but marrying your cousin isn’t unusual in British fiction. For a British aristocrat to marry a Catholic in this era, nun or not, would have been very unlikely. On the other hand, Jack is not your typical viscount. He already has an illegitimate son (conveniently, the child and Alice have already bonded) with a maid from the rectory and his parents are dead so there is no one to stop him from this mésalliance. In some books, this would be described as a taste for low company!

The house in this book was barely mentioned, except to show the status of Jack’s family, although it is in disrepair.  However, it’s not fair to blame the author for the misleading title because, from my own experience, I know that the editorial and/or sales department may be involved. Jack says with uncharacteristic exaggeration that he was like a bird in a gilded cage before he met Alice, but this is not really accurate. He already has one lost love and now he is involved in dangerous Resistance work (which consoles him for being asked to farm instead of fight).

If I had opened a door for Jack, then he had opened one for me - the day he’d gathered me up from whether the sea had swept me, seen past the flotsam of my life, and given me the chance to be the person I was meant to be.

By the end of the book, they’ve been married two years – there is definitely not time for Alice to have been released from her vows offstage. Presumably she and Jack get married in the Church of England without revealing she is already a Bride of Christ; maybe the C of E wouldn’t care but I suspect they would be just as horrified by Alice’s religion as by the fact that she is a nun. Also, I can’t help thinking that a Viscount is in need of a legitimate heir. If there is any ambiguity about the legality of Alice and Jack’s marriage, then any children they have together could not inherit the estate. Authors – and editors - should think about these things!

The Mermaid of Zennor

Apart from my annoyance about Alice’s disregard for her vows (at one point she says if she told the nuns she was alive there would be awkwardness about returning her dowry - which she would need to support herself if she did not marry), there were aspects of the book I enjoyed: the WWII setting, the glimpses of Cornwall, the sassy Land Girls, and the expeditions to France (albeit somewhat implausible).

This is my nineteenth book for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Interestingly, the author explains she was inspired after visiting Saint Senara’s Church in the village of Zennor, which contains a medieval bench end, carved with the image of a mermaid. Cath and her husband Peter brought me to this very church three years ago! She explains that the character of Alice was based on a real person who inspired a book that was made into a movie, The Nun’s Story, featuring Audrey Hepburn. Let me add that the real nun, Marie Louise Habets, got a proper dispensation to be released from her order.

Title: The House at Mermaid’s Cove
Author: Lindsay Jayne Ashford
Publication: Lake Union Publishing, trade paper, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: Library

Off the Blog: Happy 18th Birthday to my niece, Katherine!

*Tall Dark Stranger. Jack has dark hair and is described as “good looking”. All the Land Girls working on Jack’s farm lands have big crushes on him.