Jamaica Inn
Daphne Du Maurier
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 006240489X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From Daphne du Maurier—the beloved author of the timeless classic Rebecca—comes this haunting novel of secrets and suspense
The coachman tried to warn young Mary Yellan away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But Mary chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and foreboding Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power.
Mary never imagined that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that she would fall in love with a handsome, enigmatic stranger. But what secrets is he hiding from her—and can she really trust him?
Jamaica Inn is a riveting, classic novel of romantic suspense only the brilliant mind of Daphne du Maurier could conceive.
and, once over, he would turn to his desk again and leave her to her thoughts. She wished she had not opened the drawer. The memory of the caricature lingered with her unpleasantly. She felt much as a child does who acquires knowledge forbidden by his parents, and then hangs his head, guilty and ashamed, fearful that his tongue will betray him. She would have been more comfortable could she have taken her meal alone here in the kitchen and been treated by him as a handmaid rather than a guest. As
badly, and I’m as poor as a field-mouse after a wet harvest.” He closed the door, leaving Mary in the passage outside. She went back to her bucket of water in the front hall, wiping the dirty mark from her face with her apron. So that was Jem Merlyn, her uncle’s younger brother. Of course, she had seen the resemblance all the time, and, like a fool, had not been able to place it. He had reminded her of her uncle throughout the conversation, and she had not realized it. He had Joss Merlyn’s eyes,
it there was no escaping from that one unredeemable fact—he was Joss Merlyn’s brother. He had said there was no bond between them, but even that might be a lie to enlist her sympathy, while the whole of their conversation perhaps had been prompted by the landlord in the bar. No, whatever happened, she must stand alone in this business and trust no one. The very walls of Jamaica Inn smelt of guilt and deceit, and to speak aloud in earshot of the building courted disaster. It was dark in the
house, and quiet once more. The landlord had returned to the peat-stack at the bottom of the garden, and Aunt Patience was in her kitchen. The surprise of the visit had been a little excitement and a breaking-up of the long, monotonous day. Jem Merlyn had brought something of the outer world with him, a world that was not entirely bounded by the moors and frowned upon by tors of granite; and now that he had departed the early brightness of the day went with him. The sky became overcast, and the
come traveling down the air on the westerly wind: one-two-one-two, backwards and forwards the clapper goes against the bell, as though it tolled for dead men. I’ve heard it in my dreams. I heard it tonight. A mournful, weary sound, Mary, is a bell-buoy out in the bay. It rubs on your nerves and you want to scream. When you work on the coast you have to pull out to them in a boat and muffle them; wrap the tongue in flannel. That deadens them. There’s silence then. Maybe it’s a misty night, with