It’s always interesting to revisit the bad guy from an earlier book and see him reformed and finding his own happiness. It’s a hard act to pull off, and I think the author cheats a little here – we don’t actually see Thomas reform himself, he just appears at the start of the book, several years later, so far reformed that he’s a curate in an impoverished rural parish, now living a blameless life. He’s then given the living at his old home, where everyone remembers him from his wild former existence, and he has an uphill task to convince everyone that yes, he really has changed. And it doesn’t help that a mysterious woman appears and deposits a boy of eight on his doorstep, before disappearing again. Is the boy Thomas’s?
It’s not surprising that everyone is suspicious. Mary Bates, eldest daughter of the smith and Abbey steward, is willing to believe in him, but her father isn’t and forbids her to have anything to do with him, thus providing basically the only obstacle to what would otherwise be a perfectly smooth romance. There’s a lovely moment when Thomas first sees Mary again, with one of her younger brothers in tow. He remembers her very well as the prettiest of the village girls, but he assumes she must be married, especially as he sees her with a young child in tow (her brother, as it happens). “Mrs… er?” he says, and it comes across as though he doesn’t remember her at all.
From then onwards, things unfold pretty much as expected, with both Mary and Thomas trying very hard to abide by her father’s strictures (which is completely in line with Regency mores, so no problem there), and Thomas trying both to do his best for the boy left in his care, while also convince the locals that he really has become an upright citizen. My only quibble is a legal one: no, you can’t legitimise an illegitimate child by marrying, not in England, at any rate.
A nice read, a suitably romantic ending and a good four stars.
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