Sir Jaffray's Wife
(Rand, MacNally, & Co. 1898)
Sir Jaffray Walcote, an English nobleman, breaks his engagement with his cousin, Beryl Leycester, after falling madly in love with Lola Crawshay. It seems, however, that Lola's reputation is far from spotless. Her father was a notorious blackguard. Moreover, Lola's previous husband, Pierre Turrian, was an abominable wretch who met his death at Lola's hands-- or did he?
After Sir Jaffray's marriage with Lola, and subsequent honeymoon, Pierre Turrian miraculously shows up, and Beryl Leycester learns the dark secret that Lola's husband is still alive. He insinuates himself at Walcote manor as an itinerant musician, and wheedles his way into the affections of Sir Jaffray himself, whilst Lola is forced to carry on the sordid deception. But when Turrian starts levying blackmail on her, Jaffray, still ignorant of the true relations between his wife and the newly arrived guest, tells the latter to leave at once-- after ignominiously horsewhipping him. Pierre swears vengeance, but Jaffray calmly dismisses such threats.
Soon thereafter, however, Lola receives a letter from her former husband demanding that she come to a midnight rendezvous at a remote wayside inn. Feeling that all is now up, she quickly leaves a parting letter to Jaffray and flees from Walcote, vowing never to return. Immediately thereafter, Pierre Turrian is found murdered near the inn, a knife in his heart. As Lola has disappeared the brunt of suspicion falls naturally upon her. But did she commit the crime? And if not, why doesn't she turn up to clear herself? In hopes of finding some answers, Jaffray hires a "private inquiry agent" (that is, detective) to investigate the clues surrounding the murder. The results are not very favorable to Sir Jaffray's wife, and he soon begins to suspect that she is afflicted with insanity.
This tight-knit, well-written mystery tale has a few things going for it, though it falls mainly in the bracket of mid-grade entertainment. There is nothing really exceptional, apart from the author's ability to spin an amusing yarn. And it is worth mentioning that the pacing, though somewhat slow, never fails to hold the reader's attention. The story is written in a very dry narrative style, with little or no literary ornament. And one cannot help feeling that dash or two of poetic description would have helped immensely, perhaps even have given the work some redemptive value. Marchmont, however, is no littérateur. He is rather a good technical hand at fiction writing, his forte being that genre most aptly termed "Imperialistic Intrigue." Other of his novels will be reviewed in the weeks and months to come.
Sir Jaffray's Wife is a bit difficult to find, although used copies of the U.S. edition run typically under $20. We recently spotted a copy on Ebay selling for $75, but such pricing is clearly ridiculous. It should here be noted that the book is also available online at http://books.google.com as also are many other of Marchmont's novels. As a last note, we observe that the story bears a copyright date of 1895, which means that it likely appeared in an earlier edition, perhaps in one of the periodicals of the day, although our efforts to find more trustworthy bibliographical information have been in vain.
--B.A.S.
**************
