Scandalous Risks by Howatch Part I

This is the 4th Novel in the Starbridge series, and is the only one related by a woman and a lay person. Venetia Flaxton is an upper class girl, from a large family, who is growing up in the 1950s and 60s. The story is about her romance wiht Neville Aysgarth who is now an older man. THe book is set in 1963, seventeen years after Neville has committed himself to his difficult marriage to Dido, in 1946. His marriage has settled into a routine, and Neville has learned to put up with its frustrations. He and Dido are not that close however and Dido is if anything more neurotic than she used to be, though she sees psychiatrists. Neville makes the best of things. He loves his son and daughter by Dido, Pip and Elizabeth and he enjoys his work; he also flirts innocuously with younger women, but his wife mostly overlooks it. She and Neville produced 5 children, a daughter, and 4 sons, but three of the sons died at birth. Venetia's family are friendly with the couple, as Lord Flaxton, her father, is a liberal minded agnostic, who owns land in the Starbridge area. The family dont much like Dido, because she has a sharp tongue and very little common sense, and is always making brutal comments. Its generally held that her lack of tact has hampered Neville getting on in his church career. He has done well but not as well as he could have, with a more supportive wife. Venetia is friends with Primrose Aysgarth, Neville's elder daughter who is rather plain but very clever, and she envies her friend having a devoted father, as she feels like noone in her family takes much notice of her, since she is the youngest of 6. Venetia comes out in the 50s, but is not a success in the social world, and by 1963, she has not found a husband, or any occupation that she enjoys. She claims that she enjoys reading and studying and that this frightens off upper class males, but she has also refused to go to university, feeling that it would reduce her chances of marrying to zero.

Jamaica Inn, Part III

Mary continues her fight against Joss, she can see that he is beginning to crack under the strain of running the smuggling operation, and he is now drinking and having nightmares more often. She ends up witnessing an incident where people are killed and horrified, she decides she has to turn him in, even if it causes Patience to end up in trouble as well. However, it is difficult for her to get help. Jamaica Inn is so isolated and she can only get away by walking long distances. On hearing that Joss is planning to take his wife and escape from Cornwall, she walks to the vicarage of the Rev Francis, the white haired vicar, but finds that he is out. Desperately, she goes to the house of the local squire Bassat, but his wife tells her that the squire has gone after Joss, and plans to arrest him. Mary is worn out and frightened. She is only a farmer's daughter and has no horse to ride, and she knows that the squire's family are wary of her, as the girl who has been working as a lowly barmaid in Jamaica Inn. She goes back home, and finds her aunt and uncle have both been stabbed and are dead. Squire Bassat thinks that it is a pedlar who has had a grudge against Joss, but they find him locked up in a room in the Inn. So it cannot be him. Mary goes for shelter to the vicar's house and there she finds drawings in his drawing room, of his congregation with sheeps faces. She realises that he is not a kindly vicar but he's an evil man, and he comes in and catches her and tells her that she now knows his secret, that he was the leader of the smuggling ring and that he despises the local people. He was the one who stabbed the Merlyns. Horrified, and feeling helpless Mary tells him she will fight him, just as she fought Joss, but she feels very much the burden of her sex. He drags her off with him, telling her he will get out of England and she will be his companion. She can't stop him takng her onto the moors, but a fog comes down and they have to stop and wait for it to lift. She fears that if the Squire looks for him, the vicar will kill her to hasten his escape. They are sheltering on a tor in the moorlands, and she sees Jem Merlyn, following them. He shoots at the vicar who falls and is killed. Mary is saved and the squire, admring her courage, takes her in to his house. He suggests that she could be a nursemaid or a companion to his wife.... and says that he will get a new landlord for Jamaica inn. Mary hates hearing the whole story over and over, and thinks that when she's recovered she will go back to South Cornwall and try to start a new life on a farm there. Jem Merlyn asks her to come away with him. He turned his brother in, and killed the vicar, but he still likes to be free and live his own way. Mary tells him she wont go with him.. and then changes her mind and agrees to become a wanderer, like him.

Jamaica Inn Part II

Mary is not happy at the inn, and wishes she could take her aunt away but knows that Patience is unable to break free of her husband. She meets Jem Merlyn, Joss's younger brother, who is closer to her in age, and he tells her he's a horse thief, but that he's not violent, like his brother. She is attracted by Jem, but keeps telling herself that she does not want to be tied down by a man... She finds that Joss is a smuggler and a wrecker.. He and his gang lure ships onto the shore and kill the crew and passangers and steal the cargoes. Mary becomes increasingly determined to stop him from his murderous career and bring him to justice. She is afraid of Patience getting into trouble, however, so she hesitates. She meets the Vicar of a nearby parish, a strange but seemingly gentle man who has white hair and light coloured eyes. She feels that she could turn to him for help. Mary talks a few times to Jem Merlyn but she is not willing to become his mistress. She finds that Joss while apparently the man in charge of the smuggling, is a drinker and when he's drunk he tells her how he remembers the women and children he's killed.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

Jamaica Inn is a thriller novel by Du Maurier, set in Cornwall in the early years of the 19th century. The heroine, Mary Yellan, comes to the inn to live when her mother who had a farm dies. Mary is a strong girl used to farm work and has never taken much interest in young men. She would like to have her own farm and run it, with her mother as housekeeper, but her mother dies some years after her father's death, and tells Mary to go to Jamaica Inn, in another wilder part of Cornwall, where her Aunt Patience lives. Patience is a pretty rather silly woman, who married some years earlier and moved away and has rarely seen her sister, Mrs Yellan for years. Mrs Yellan however wants her daughter to be safely with relatives who will look after her. So Mary sets out to go to the Inn and finds that it is on a road miles from any settlement. The people on the coach tell her that the inn is not frequented by respectable people nowadays. She becomes nervous and when she gets to the Inn, it seems shabby and uncomfortable. Her aunt Patience is not now the pretty lively little woman she used to be, but a frightened woman, older than her years. Patience tells Mary that she will have to get on with her husband, Joss Merlyn, who is the owner of the inn and that he has a hot temper and expects her to work for him. Mary is willing to work but she wonders why Patience is so scared of her husband and why there are no rooms for hire at the business. Joss Merlyn proves to be a big gigantic man, rough and savage in his manners, and she can see then why Patience is afraid of him. He mocks Mary, and laughs at his wife.. who tries to tell her niece that the inn does have people coming in to drink and that the local squire comes in at times. He tells Mary that she will have to obey him, and when he tells her to go to bed and lock herself in, she has to do this.

Ultimate Prizes, Part V

Neville returns home, but a short time later, he gets the message that Alex has died. He has to go to Stoneyford, Alex's village to attend the funeral. Lyle is there, and he finds himself still feeling an attraction to her, though he does not like her and she is snappy with him. Carrie, Alex's widow, is exhausted, and while she rests, Neville and Lyle find themselves kissing. They almost end up in bed, but manage to stop, but the following day Neville is appalled at his own behaviour as a clergyman. She and he agree to put the incident behind them. He feels desperately ashamed, but when he gets home, he finds Dido is back. She tells him that she does care for him and she wants to make the marriage work... so they reach an agreement that she will try to cope with sex. Neville knows that she is partly doing this because she does not want to admit to her father that her marriage is a failure. He tries to gently introduce her to sex, but she is not that happy and neither is he. Soon, she becomes pregnant, and has an excuse to sleep in a separate bedroom. Neville keeps on trying to make the marriage work, and hopes that things will improve when they have children. She is scared and does not find it easy to get on with the children, who take more and more of a dislike to her. In due course, Dido goes into labour, and has a hard time and her doctor tells Neville that the baby cannot be saved. She has a son, born dead, and he realises that the marriage will probably never work out. Dido is too neurotic, she has failed at having a child and that will upset her even further and she has not managed to fit into the world of clergy wives. His world as a clergyman is in ruins. God seems to have abandoned him and Dido. He then accidentally meets Jon Darrow, who is head of the local theological college and while he dislikes Darrow, he dimly feels that perhaps help has arrived. Darrow was a monk, and his order specialised in helping clergy who were in trouble.. Neville talks to him and to another member of the Fordite monks, Aidan Lucas, and works his way through his family's history. His father had died when he was young and Neville knows that there is some kind of mystery about the death. In the end, he discovers that his parents' marriage was far from happy, and he himself while claiming to love his mother, found it hard to get on with her. He goes to visit his elderly uncle, his mother's brother Willoughby, who took charge of him when he was a boy but was never a kindly father figure. Willoughby tells him that Arthur, his father did die in bizarre circumstances. Their old servant, Tabitha, who was illiterate, accidentally gave him a sleeping drug meant for Neville's mother, and it killed him. Willoughby had to cover up the near scandal. The trauma affected everyone in the family, including his mother who became a weeping widow and very possessive of Neville. This led to an angry row when she was an old lady, which ended in Neville hitting her which he has suppressed because it is so painful. He now understands that she felt guilty that she and her husband did not get on well, that she didnt like sex or having children and it caused a rift in her marriage..and as a result she was not a very affectionate mother. He ends by telling Jon that he now feels he can only atone for his cruelty to his mother by staying with Dido and making the marriage work, no matter how hard it is. He talks to Dido, knowing that she is basically an immature woman and will never be a very close companion to him, but hoping that they will achieve some kind of marital happiness. Jon tells him that he will have to try very hard, and that trying to stay married to a woman like Dido will be a long lonely road, but he can see that for Neville its the only way he can go forward. So he returns home and talks to Dido, and tries to understand her better. He learns that her father was unfaithful to her mother and kept his wife at home because she was not quite a lady. He only liked his daughters insofar as they married well and added to his prestige. Jon tells him that he will try and support him, and that he thinks that Neville should give up drinking as he does depend on it to keep him going. Neville however decides that he will keep on drinking, it will give him a boost when times are hard.

Ultimate Prizes Part IV

Neville hastens to the village where Jardine is living in retirement, and finds that Lyle Ashworth, formerly companion to Jardines' wife, is staying with them. He has never much liked Lyle or Charles, thinking him much too academic and cerebral. However, he finds that he is attracted to Lyle, in spite of his dislike. She tells him that she can't believe that her husband, who is a prisoner of war, is still alive. Neville is horrified at how ill Alex is, he can see that he is dying, and he's even more shocked when Alex asks him to look after Charley and Michael, Lyle's two young sons. Alex explains that Lyle is his illegitimate daughter, (not true as we discover in other books but a fiction that Alex puts out to explain things to Neville). He says he had a fling before he was ordained and kept in touch with Lyle, and that was why he and his wife were very upset when she decided to get married. He tells Neville that he is worried about the boys if Charles does not come home from the war. Alex says that when Neville agrees to look out for the children, he feels that his last wish has been granted and he's reassured that they will be all right. He further adds however, that he experienced terrible trauma in his own family as a boy. His father was a religious maniac, who tried to keep his family in isolation, but when Alex was a young man and starting out his clerical career, Ingrid, Alex's step mother went to keep house for her stepson.. and while she was away, the old man committed incest with his elder daughter and drove her insane.. Ingrid went back to him to stop him abusing the other sister. Neville can hardly believe this horror story, and wonders if Alex's cancer has affected him mentally... but he realises eventually that his friend is telling the truth. It frightens him to be reminded of what terrible evil there is in life. He has to go back home, but Lyle tells him that Alex can't live much longer and that he wants Neville to conduct his funeral. He agrees.... but is shaken by the revelations of how awful Jardine's life has been and how it does not chime with his own theology.

Ultimate Prizes Part III

Neville arranges the funeral, and has his brother and sister to stay, and tries very hard to stay in control of his emotions. His siblings, Emily and Willy, have not become brilliant successes as he has. Emily is clever but plain and has married a middle class man, a salesman, and lives in London. Willy teaches at a small public school, near London and is not ambitious. Neville tells them he does not want to talk about their parents, who are both dead. He feels desperate and believes that only Dido can understand his feelings so he writes to her. He is now determined to marry her, but she takes fright, because she enjoyed the game of flirting with a married clergyman but she does not want to marry a widowed man with a moderate income and several children. Neville tells her he loves her and is determined to get her to marry him. He devotes himself to his work but tries to persuade Dido to agree to a marriage. Her father, a bullying Scottish millionaire, tells him that Dido wont be a suitable wife, and that he wont give her a large dowry. Neville retorts that he is marrying for love. He continues to pursue her, but his brother and sister disapprove and he has a big row with Alex Jardine, who tells him bluntly that he should not marry her. Alex, who was his friend and patron, is hurt and angry - they become alienated. Neville remains determined to marry Dido, and she meets his younger children but they dont take to her. However at the end of the War she finally gives in and they become engaged. Her father who has been waiting for ages for his youngest daughter to get married, gives them a flashy wedding but Neville is uneasily aware that he will have money problems keeping an expensive wife and more children. As soon as the wedding is over, disillusionment sets in. They go to Scotland for a honeymoon and Dido reveals her neuroses which includes a fear of sex and she's unable to consummate the marriage. After a couple of days, she leaves him to go and stay with her sister Muriel, and tells him that she feels the marriage is hopeless and cannot be saved. Neville is horrified, as a clergyman a divorce would wreck his career and an annulment would not be much better. He goes back to Starbridge, and tries to get in contact with Dido.. but then gets a call from Alex Jardine to say that he, Alex, is dying.....