When Alice Fry meets Edward Cobb at a society party in London in 1913, there is a spark between them that reaches across a divide in class and outlook. Cobb is landed gentry, heir to the baronetcy at Nester Park, and an army officer. Alice thinks herself a modern woman, studying at university, in sympathy with the suffragist movement and sharing the socialist ideals of her publisher father.
Opposites attract; the relationship develops. Cobb takes advantage of Alice’s liberated views on sex before marriage. Alice allows herself to appreciate the high life at Nestor, where she meets and challenges the entrenched views of the political elite. On an outing to the Epsom Derby (the Cobb’s have a stud and a horse running) Alice meets a Russian aristocrat, Baron Rettenberg. He is a connoisseur, and not just of horseflesh.
When Alice’s world, including her prospective marriage to Cobb, collapses in scandal and misfortune, Rettenberg swoops in with an offer of a post as governess to his two youngest children – in Russia. For Alice it would be a welcome bolthole, so she accepts and goes with him into self-imposed exile at the Baron’s Soligorsk estate.
The years that follow are tumultuous for the whole continent with the outbreak of the First World War and the rolling revolutions in Russia. Edward Cobb is mired in the slaughter of the Western Front. The Rettenbergs must navigate the changing currents of the Russian Empire’s descent into chaos. Cobb comes to realise what he has lost in Alice; Rettenberg, increasingly relying on her for practical and emotional support, sees that, in Alice, he may gain more than a quick conquest. As for Alice, she concentrates on what is necessary to survive.
It is a well crafted
novel written with clarity that gives credibility to the love triangle and generates
empathy with the characters. The historical context provides an interesting and
vividly drawn backdrop to events. The resolution remains in doubt to the end,
and possibly beyond.
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