Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Jamaica Inn

By Daphne du Maurier

It is Cornwall in the 1820s. Mary Yellan’s mother dies after a particularly hard year on their farm in Helford but, before she does, she makes Mary promise to go to her Aunt Patience, whose husband owns the Jamaica Inn. It has been some time since they have seen her, but Mary remembers her Aunt Patience as a bright and cheerful person. She isn’t anymore. Under the brutal hand of her husband, Joss Merlyn, Patience constantly trembles and wrings her hands.

“The lovely giggling Aunt Patience is now a gaunt, shaky wreck, her spirit destroyed by abuse, and her husband, Joss Merlyn, is a monster: physically overwhelming, lumbering, violent and drunk.”

The first night she is there, Mary thinks she must leave but stays on because of her aunt, thinking she can help her or get her away from Joss Merlyn. It isn’t long before Mary suspects she overhears a murder but cannot be sure. There is no evidence of it except a rope left hanging from a beam.

Mary meets the local vicar when she gets lost following Joss one day and he is kind to her so she thinks she can confide in him. “There was always Francis Davey and his promise; there would be peace and shelter for her at the house in Altarnun.”

I can’t help thinking that this is the wrong direction. Where does the minister get his money for the horses and his fine clothes?

It isn’t until a while later that Mary finds out what her stepfather really is, as he confesses when he is drunk.

“… I have dreams, nightmares; I see things that never scare me when I’m sober. Damn it, Mary, I’ve killed men with my own hands, trampled them under water, beaten them with rocks and stones; and I’ve never thought no more about it; I’ve slept in my bed like a child. But when I’m drunk I see them in my dreams…”

Mary is properly horrified and thinks Joss’s brother Jem, who she has become somewhat enamored of, must be in on it too. She had known he was somewhat of a rogue and a horse thief but didn’t know this.

“No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all. Jem Merlyn was a man, and she was a woman, and whether it was his hands or his skin or his smile she did not know, but something inside her responded to him, and the very thought of him was an irritant and a stimulant at the same time. It nagged at her and would not let her be. She knew she would have to see him again.”

I watched the Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of the book into a movie recently and found some very large departures as well as some troubling inconsistencies.

In the movie, there is a point where the squire is kidnapping Mary, which never happens in the book. As directed by Hitchcock, Mary, played by Maureen O’Hara struggles very weakly, all but tickling the guy’s fingers while he ties her up.

Contrast that with this passage in the book –

“He nodded at her, reassuring her, smiling still, smirking and sly, and she felt his furtive hand fasten itself upon her. She moved swiftly, lashing out at him, and her fist caught him underneath the chin, shutting his mouth like a trap, with his tongue caught between his teeth . . . she jabbed at him swiftly with the full force of her knee, at the same time thrusting her fingers in his eyes. He doubled up at once, rolling onto his side in agony, and in a second she had struggled from under him and pulled herself to her feet, kicking at him once more as he rocked defenseless, his hands clasped to his belly. 

She grabbed in the ditch for a stone to fling at him, finding nothing but loose earth and sand, and she dug handfuls of this, scattering it in his face and in his eyes, so that he was blinded momentarily and could make no return.”

No, Mary is no delicate lady, but a strong farm woman who will take action to deal with the events and situations she finds herself embroiled in.

The book itself is very atmospheric. There are long passages of description interspersed with action. It can be a bit difficult to set down and pick up if time is limited, but an interesting read and worth the time.

Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989) published Jamaica Inn in 1936, when she was just 29. I’ll probably read another of her books in the future but they are definitely time intensive and I wouldn’t call them fast reads.