And can Clorinda’s independence at the tea shop continue or will she come to regret her sale of the ruby necklace. Can Jane make her own way in the world or must she be conventional and marry a man. While Jane can explore her own feelings for another woman only in extreme secrecy and risk of rejection by society, in Borneo a rich ‘rajah’ and his dependent servant live openly. In her descriptions of heterosexual and homosexual relationships, she explores the social limitations of the time on the free expression of love for men and women.
Each place is drawn vividly, Tremain is excellent at settings. The narrative moves back and forth from Bath to London, Dublin and Ireland’s west coast to Borneo. In this scene, all three storylines are kickstarted. The man concerned is Doctor Valentine Ross, medical partner of Jane’s father Sir William Adeane and brother of naturalist Edmund Ross, currently pursing butterflies in the Malay Archipelago. Jane leaves abruptly and Clorinda is curious why. It is in this tea room that she first sees Jane Adeane who is taking tea with a man. By selling a ruby necklace, a family heirloom, Clorinda sets up what becomes a highly popular tea room. ‘She was not beautiful, but she had a smile of great sweetness and a soft voice that could soothe and calm the soul’. The story starts with Clorinda Morrissey who arrives in Bath from Ireland. Islands of Mercy is in fact three stories in one, lightly linked together by the merest connection and fleeting physical meeting. Being the Angel of the Baths is not enough for her and this impacts on the lives of everyone around her.
Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain is about Jane’s destiny to make something of herself, a journey which involves choosing between a tempestuous love affair with another woman and marriage to a respectable doctor. In Bath, England in 1865, such are Jane Adeane’s nursing skills that she is known as the Angel of the Baths.
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