Guest Blog - Nina Wachsman on 'Frenchman's Creek'

Something a little different today, a guest blog from Nina Wachsman (pictured). Nina is a former art director and illustrator in New York City, and also the author of two novels of historical suspense, set in 17^th century Venice, The Gallery of Beauties and The Courtesan’s Secret. Both novels feature a pirate and his lost romance with an elite courtesan of Venice. Over to you, Nina!

"'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. ' is the unforgettable first line from the Daphne du Maurier novel, Rebecca. It was not the first or the only book of du Maurier’s I read as an adolescent, or the one I cherished most. Frenchman’s Creek, a historical novel about a secret romance between an English lady and a French pirate, had always been my favorite, and influenced my own writing.
I recently rediscovered Frenchman’s Creek when I found it lying on top of the pile of books in my building’s laundry room, the adhoc lending library for all of us tenants. Wondering how well the novel would read to a world-weary adult, I read it with trepidation, hoping the magic was still there. Thankfully, it still has the power to entrance me as it did when I first read it.
Like Rebecca, Frenchman’s Creek has the same moody, brooding blustery Cornwall setting. In each novel’s opening paragraphs, unnamed narrators reminisce over the ruins of a great manor house, conjuring the ghosts of those who once lived there. In Rebecca, the narrator is the heroine, who recalls a crisis long past and now resolved, while the narrator’s description of the ruins of Navron house in Frenchman’s Creek suggests how the story will end –an adventure destined to become a distant memory.
The Frenchman of the title is a pirate notorious for raiding the towns and estates along the English coast, and whose ship has taken refuge in a hidden cove. The cove is at the end of a creek, which lies in a section of the estate of an English noblewoman. Lady Dona St. Columb, who rarely visits, has recently moved her household to the estate to get away from her boredom with her husband and Regency London. The French pirate she discovers hiding out on her property is no rascally Jack Sparrow, but a gentleman who sketches birds and reads poetry, and only indulges in piracy for the sake of adventure. Frenchman’s Creek was first published in 1941, and made into a movie in 1944, starring Joan Fontaine as Lady Dona.
The Frenchman’s bravery, intelligence and love of adventure are a in contrast to Dona’s husband, a good-natured but simple fop who is oblivious to the lust his unsavory companion has for his wife. In the Frenchman, Dona finds a man and a life which could fulfill her, but she is torn by her desire for freedom and escape, and a mother’s ties to her children.
The lush descriptions of the creek, cove, and Navron House add to the feeling of love lost –not only for a woman’s romance, but for the beauty of the countryside as it once was. Because of du Maurier’s ode to the Cornish countryside in Frenchman’s Creek, I promised myself I would one day visit Bodmin. I have yet to fulfill that promise in reality, but re-reading Frenchman’s Creek, transported me there once again."