The Spell of
Sarnia, which was published
one hundred years ago this month, is set on Guernsey (Sarnia is one of
its older names). This is one of the Channel Islands, which are not part of the
United Kingdom but belong to the English Crown in the monarch’s historical role
as Duke of Normandy. Mrs Baillie Reynolds had clearly researched the island’s
customs, folklore, laws and surviving Norman French language (Guernésiais) in
some detail and is occasionally a little too keen to share her studies. Still,
the island would be little-known to most of her readers and she conveys its
unusual qualities evocatively.
Mrs Baillie Reynolds
was the married name and writing name of Gertrude Robins (1861-1939), the
author of about fifty popular novels. Typically, they have a strong romantic
interest involving an enigmatic young man and a high-spirited young woman, who
become entwined in some mystery. For such a prolific, well-established author
she has received surprisingly little attention.
The romantic
interest in The Spell of Sarnia focuses on Aymon Vauxlaurens, the last
scion of a line of Seigneurs of a manorial estate in a far corner of the
island. His family became impoverished, the great house has been sold, and it
is now a sports club. He works as an insurance clerk in London. However, he has
been summoned back to the island by his last known surviving relation, a Great
Aunt. She urges him to buy, with his modest patrimony, a run-down former
pharmacy once owned by the family. She thinks this holds the secret to a highly
prized perfume, the Sarnian Bouquet, once perfected by the family but whose
formula is now lost. The quest for the fragrance provides the chief mystery in
the plot, along with the possibility of other legacies, and they are gradually
uncovered in highly traditional treasure-hunting hiding places. Thus far the
plot follows conventional routes.
However, Baillie
Reynolds also depicts a strong folkloric element based on rural witchcraft. A
neighbour of the Great Aunt is a white witch and she has seven times received a
verse prophecy, somewhat in the manner of Nostradamus, concerning the young Seigneur.
Some parts of it can perhaps be deciphered, but other parts are obscure, and
the aged dame herself does not know what it means: she is only the messenger. The
Seigneur is respectful but somewhat sceptical and wonders if she has been put
up to it. A malevolent witch, adept in curses, is her opponent. The Seigner has
his own opponent in an ambitious tycoon, the owner of the sports club, who is
buying up other property on the island.
How far Baillie
Reynolds drew on genuine traditions of Guernsey witchcraft and folk customs
must remain a bit moot. She was writing in the aftermath of Margaret Murray’s
highly influential The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), when ideas
of surviving witch traditions were very much in vogue and were deployed by
other writers in the interwar period.
As well as the
ancient beldame there is a psychic young woman of notably otherworldly
appearance and demeanour, Oriane Vidal, who also seems to have secret knowledge
of the perfume. She possesses a crystal ball and induces Vauxlaurens to look into it
after dinner one evening, revealing an apparent vision of the past. He puts
this down to her mesmeric influence and the strength of her father’s vintage
wine. She suggests his lineage may give him a sort of intense insight
equivalent to second sight:
‘In this island . .
. everything and everyone is condensed to a degree which would startle
people who are not natives. You inherit the tradition of a family which has
been bone and flesh of Guernsey for hundreds of years. You have been away—you
have suddenly returned. The whole of your heredity rises as it were to meet you
on the threshold . . . Your destiny lies here . . . lies here condensed.
You feel it so strongly that it makes you uneasy . . .
In the fencing and
misunderstandings that ensue between Aymon and Oriane I was reminded somewhat
of the amatory complications in David Lindsay's Sphinx and The Violet
Apple, and indeed this book helps to show the sort of context in which his
novels appeared, including the way in which fantastical elements could be woven
into an otherwise fairly typical romance story.
The novel culminates
in two more overtly supernatural episodes, one involving mind control by
hypnotic power, the other a demonic goat, though in both cases the possibility
of delusion is left open. The author quotes a West Country phrase used as a protection against evil, ‘numny dumny’, a colloquial version of ‘in nomine
domine’. Author Bob Mann has noted this is also used in ghost stories by Ulric
Daubeny and A.L. Rowse.
Baillie Renolds’
tale is told with ease and charm, but the supernatural aspects offer another
dimension and, despite gestures towards rationalisation, they are not disowned.
This aspect does not really enter the realms of the truly unearthly, but it is
much more than window-dressing: The Spell of Sarnia is a genuine work of
supernatural fiction. The author revealed in an interview with The Bookman
that she began by telling made-up ghost stories to her brother, so evidently
this was a lifelong interest. Baillie Reynolds also conveys well Guernsey's distinctive historic
resonances.
(Mark Valentine)
