Acquitted is set
in Cornwall, in a small coastal community. The cast of characters ranges from
Dan Devrill a wrecker and a career criminal to the local Earl of Altamount and
his heir Lord Derwent – note the similarity in the names at the opposite ends
of the social spectrum. In between, we have a poor but honest fisherman’s
family; a vicar of the muscular Christianity variety and a soft-headed and –hearted
local squire. There is also a flamboyant villain. Overall, there is a promising
set of characters for all kinds of dramatic interactions, both romantic and
financial.
The story opens with a dramatic thunderstorm with Natt Lynn,
a fisherman and “Polly, his pretty, tidy little wife.” (Acquitted, Chapter 1). During the stormy night their baby daughter
dies. The next morning Natt sets off to arrange for a coffin but comes across a
shipwreck and finds a “female infant” (Acquitted,
Chapter 2). Natt carries the baby to his bereaved wife and saves Polly’s life
or at least her sanity by giving her another baby to replace her dead one. Meanwhile,
at the other end of the local shoreline strides the Rev. Henry Trelawny: “He
promoted wrestling, leaping, running, swimming &c, in all of which
exercises he was himself pre-eminent. Henry Trelawny was a thoroughly good, but
not perhaps a very amiable man. (Acquitted,
Chapter 3) Trelawny is waiting for the arrival of his “only daughter on her way
from India.” (Ibid.) Minna Trelawny’s
sad story is summed up with admirable efficacy:
At sixteen, Minna met The
Hon. Jasper Ardennes, the younger son of the Earl of Altamount. He was “singularly
handsome , elegant in his dress and manners, quick, clever, and eloquent, but
he was cruel, crafty, and resolute. He pretended to be religious, but at heart
he was a scoffer, a doubter, a freethinker.” (Ibid.) He is good villain material, no doubt. At twenty-one Minna
eloped with Jasper to India. And two years later, Henry Trelawny received a letter
from Calcutta, informing him that Minna was sailing home and was pleading her
father to “come to your miserable, heart-broken, penitent, Minna, and help her
to hide from a cruel and remorseless persecutor.” (Ibid.)
The shipwreck Natt Lynn found is the The
Golden Bengal that was carrying Minna and her young daughter. Henry
Trelawny rescues Minna from the clutches of Dan Devrill, “a wife-beating, Sabbath-breaking,
drunken wretch, more than suspected of being both a burglar and a wrecker.” (Ibid.) Devrill was planning on stealing
Minna’s jewellery. Henry Trelawny’s attack, even before he realized the
identity of Devrill’s victim, is violent in the extreme:
“With a wild bound, and
a wilder shout, he seized the wrecker by the collar, and, with the herculean
strength of his powerful arm, increased tenfold by the excitement of the
moment, he dragged the wretch from the spot, and dashed him against the rocks,
at the base of which he fell stunned and bleeding. His savage face had struck
against a projecting angle of the rock, levelling his nose with his cheeks, and
the hideous gash that crossed that bad countenance must leave a frightful scar
there through all his after life.” (Acquitted,
Chapter 3).
As years pass, Mary, the
foundling baby grows up at the fisherman’s cottage as their eldest daughter.
But she stands out: “No one can look at it and not see it were meant to be a
great lady. Them hands ain’t shaped for hard work” (Acquitted, Chapter 7). After an initial bout of brain-fever brought
on by the loss of her child, Minna lives quietly in the vicarage under an
assumed identity “She spent her time in reading, praying, working for the poor,
and wandering.” (Acquitted, Chapter
7). She is drawn to the fisherman’s children and is particularly fond of Mary.
Mrs Gordon Smythies is
writing for an experienced audience. A foundling baby and a woman with a lost
child rescued after the same shipwreck does not leave much room for doubt.
However, Mrs Smythies finds an ingenious and exotic way of confirming the
reader’s suspicions without letting the characters in the novel figure out the
truth. When first washing and dressing the baby, Polly Lynn discovers a tattoo:
“just below the left breast the letters M.A., surmounted by an earl’s coronet,
and beneath was a date April 2, 18—” (Acquitted,
chapter 12). A little later, we learn that Minna’s baby has a tattoo exactly
like that because “Lolah, its silly ayah … consulted an Indian seer about its
destiny” and followed the advice to ensure that the baby could be identified “in
afterlife” (Acquitted, Chapter 14).
As long as Mary keeps her stays laced up and her left breast covered, the
secret of her birth will remain hidden, even from her own mother.
Dan Devrill begins to
suspect that the woman he attacked and Henry Trelawny rescued is Minna. This
gives him a business opportunity: “It would be worth a good round sum to find
out what’s become of she, if so be she wor the vicar’s daughter. Cos vy? I’ve
met him, but in forrin parts, and he’s married again! … When I met him spliced
again, I told him I warn’t sure his first wife had gone to the bottom. Lor, he
turned as white as a curd, but wouldn’t believe it, and flew in a rage, for he’ve
got three brats by his present partner, …” (Acquitted,
Chapter 16). Devrill outlines his dastardly business plan to his wife Barbara: “five
thousand pound … to keep the secret and get her quietly out of the way.” (Ibid). Thanks to Henry Trelawny’s bad
conscience about beating up Devrill and his general sense of philanthropy,
Barbara now has a job at the vicarage as Minna’s maid and confidante. She has
to negotiate the tricky tightrope of marital duty to her husband and her
loyalty to her benefactors and employers.
Paul Penryn, the son of
a local landowner, hovers on the pages as Mary’s love-interest-in-waiting. His father,
the somewhat impractical and soft-hearted Mr Penryn is targeted by the
professional villain of the piece, called Sligo Downy “a bill-discounter … a
great and daring public speculator.” (Acquitted,
Chapter 8). This plot strand promises future financial drama perhaps linked to
matrimony.
The opening chapters (1-17)
set up a good sensational main plot for the story: with Minna hiding from her
bigamous husband in the vicarage and their daughter, presumed dead, being
brought up by a local fisherman’s family. Dan Devrill is stalking the vicarage
to prove Minna’s identity in order to blackmail her husband and to secure a
contract on Minna’s life.
