Lamont, Marianne NINE MOONS WASTED 1976 Pan Books0-330-257102
Lamont’s name is a pseudonym of Jean Sanders
who also writes as Anne Rundle. This is a romantic historic novel set in the
English Civil War in Scotland in 1644 and 1645. Unusually, the author sets her
action amidst the Irish Camp followers who accompanied Alastair MacColla’s
forces to Scotland to assist Montrose in his doomed campaigns there on behalf
of King Charles 1st. It is the story of the fictitious Grey
Drummond, a kinsman to Montrose, and the two women who love him, Barbary, his
wife, and Bridget, an Irish girl. Barbary follows her cold, distant husband to
war, disguising herself as a man, in the tradition of the real Mrs. Pierson
(who makes a cameo appearance in the book). Barbary’s ruse is quickly
discovered, and she is cast among the gypsy like Irish women, Most recognize
her as a woman, but Bridget is one of the few who assumes she is male. Only
when Barbary is left for dead in Aberdeen, where she is heavily pregnant and
taken in by a family she has saved from a massacre by the Irishry does Barbary
leave the story for a while. Now the same events are covered from Bridget’s
point of view, as her own affair with Drummond intensifies. As she learns that
Barbary is alive, and watches Drummond depart to meet his errant wife, Bridget
discovers that she too is pregnant. Feeling abandoned, she becomes suicidal.
Drummond meets his son, but then returns to battle, and saves Bridget from
taking her own life. However, at Tippermuir, Bridget is slaughtered, and her
unborn child dragged from her womb. Drummond, captured, pledges to stop
fighting the Royalist cause, and he is allowed to return home to his wife and
son. The Civil war makes an interesting backdrop and the historic accuracy
behind the story is well presented, (though the Gordon Clan are introduced too
soon). However, the story coming from the eyes of the women puts the main
battle sequences in the distance for much of the story. At one point, Drummond
is left in a coma for several months, conveniently allowing the author to
bi-pass important events at Auldearn and Alford. There are good descriptions of
the Irish women on nomadic movements across the Scottish Highlands, and taking
boots and clothes from the corpses on the field of battle. The story is far
from Mills and Boon Mush, but its repetition of many events from alternating
points of view slows things down a great deal. Characters spend too much time
apart, rather than in direct conflict. The major historic events are often
summarised by those who witnessed them, though the march on Inverlochy and the
battle of Philipaugh are given full attention. An unusual and worthy
Bronte-esque study of the Scottish battles, but hardly a literary classic.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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