Earlier this year I was supposed to go on a family holiday to Ireland and the UK. Whenever I plan vacations I compile a list of books to read to accompany and enhance my travels. When my travels were cancelled I couldn't bear to read the long list of Irish and Cornish titles as they only served to remind me of my disappointment.
Mary Yellen grows up in southern Cornwall in a farming community of Helford. When her mother dies, her home is sold and she heads to Bodmin Moor to stay with her mother's sister, Aunt Patience, and her uncle Joss Merlyn, keeper at the Jamaica Inn. At 23, Mary is naive and has no idea what to expect of this remote outpost and her distant family. The coachman who drops her off at the Inn provides a stark warning that this is no place for a girl like her.
Aunt Patience is not who Mary remembered. Once young and vibrant, the ten years she has been a Merlyn has aged her and Patience trembles in fear of her mercurial husband. Uncle Joss is a big man with a fierce temper and a predilection for drink. Almost immediately Mary realises she must get away from this man and take her poor Aunt with her.
The Inn may once have been a place of merriment and sustenance for weary travellers, but now it has fallen into disrepair and disrepute. Many rooms are bare or locked. The only patrons are the rough men who arrive in the wee hours of the night, loading and unloading their wagons. Mary overhears some of their discussions and eventually comes to realise that her Uncle is involved in smuggling and pillaging from coastal shipwrecks.
Mary confides in two men she crosses paths with - a local vicar and her Uncle's younger brother Jem. Whether she can trust either provides much of the intrigue in this novel, and I found myself chastising her for giving away too much information. The pace quickens as the danger builds. Can she and Patience flee? Will she be betrayed by the men she trusts? Will her menacing Uncle get the better of her? Will she catch her death of cold, walking miles on the wet moors?
I loved Du Maurier's depiction of the landscape in this part of the world. The moors, granite tors, rivers, pools and bogs are all described in such a way that the reader is transported and can feel the cold of the howling winds and torrential rains. Du Maurier creates a haunting, gothic atmosphere in the mists and meadows, befitting the terror of this tale.
As a heroine, Mary was plucky, determined and courageous. She comes close to being raped, beaten and killed, but manages to come through - bruised and scarred, but unafraid. I longed for Mary to find a happy independent life away from the substandard men that surround her. While I know what direction she was heading at the end of the novel, I hold out hope that she keeps this courage and determination and finds the happiness she seeks.
Jamaica Inn has been adapted into a 1939 film by Alfred Hitchcock, a television series in the 1980s with Jane Seymour as Mary, and again in 2014 with Jessica Brown Findlay in the lead role.
My reviews of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel (1951) and Rebecca (1938) are also on this blog.