Shortlisted for
Book of the Month
Biographical Fiction
17th
Century
London
Never before
have I encountered two characters whose heads I really wanted to bang together!
Bess Bagwell is a social climber; husband Will is a skilled carpenter but lacks
gumption. Bess tries hard to push Will forward; Will is content to wait for
work at the dockyards. Rearing an ugly head is Jack Sutherland, Will's cousin,
a wastrel and con man with a dozen get-rich-quick schemes behind him, all
failures. Not only does Jack wheedle Will's savings out of him for yet another
new scheme, he also foists his three young sons on Bess to look after whenever
he is 'busy'. Jack is a widower and the boys are very fond of their aunt and
uncle.
In order to try to get Will some work, Bess, through a mutual friend, approaches Samuel Pepys for
help, which he readily agrees to. After all, Bess is an attractive young woman
and Mr Pepys is well known for his 'dalliances'. And in the background is
Agatha, Bess' mother, a woman whom Bess despises for her past.
An explosive
cocktail of dominant, manipulating personalities leads to tension and then
outright conflict between Bess and Will as they lie to each other, withhold
truths and struggle for every penny to pay the loan on their new house. They
get even deeper into debt, Jack takes more and more liberties and Pepys pursues
his lusts. Things might have got better when Pepys secures Will a position on
board ship, but Navy pay is always delayed and Bess is left to fend for herself
for months on end. It is at this point
that I wanted to shout, 'For goodness sake, sit down and talk to each other!'
Which rather
goes to show just how well Ms Swift has painted her characters, both major and
minor. They stumble from disaster to disaster, one step away from ruin whilst
Jack, amazingly, flourishes. The atmosphere of post-Restoration London is very
well captured and the constant turn of events will make the reader reluctant to
finish any session. Quite who is the villain of the piece is hard to determine:
in a way, they all are.
It isn't quite
perfect: my version had a few formatting and typographical errors (no blame to
the author on that) and I did have a
couple of continuity issues – did Mr Hertford's card table ever get made? This
appears to be the second of a short series but can be read totally
independently.
The author has
kindly added some notes at the back. The Bagwells were real people and a Mrs
Bagwell was certainly one of Pepys' mistresses as his diaries reveal.
Oh – did I
mention the Plague? Do watch out for the Plague, it can be quite brutal …
Warmly
recommended for lovers of this period and especially those interested in Mr
Pepys.
© Richard
Tearle
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