The Merchant’s Daughter

The Merchant’s Daughter

By: Melanie Dickerson

Pub. Zondervan

11/29/2011

eBook Courtesy of NetGalley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Merchant’s Daughter is Annabel Chapman, the daughter of a merchant and his wife, with two brothers who are useless and counting on Annabel to marry the Bailiff to bring their family money after their father died three years earlier, and in that time, the family has failed to do the work all families are expected to do in terms of helping with the crops. As a fine, one of the children will be an indentured servant to the new Lord le Wyse, who seems frightening because he is scarred and maimed. Set in the late middle ages in England, there are several themes that run through the novel. Annabel runs away to be the indentured servant, because her brother has promised her to the Bailiff, who is an odious man around Annabel, but whom everyone else seems to like, which I found a little odd. There is a heavy religious theme through the novel, and I am not a religious person, but I tried to let that go for reading this.

 

Greatly simplified, the men in the village control and sometimes prey on the young women, and the Priest sermonizes every week on how terrible women are: they can’t be trusted, they are temptresses, they are evil. Annabel wants to become a nun—she has never been in love or been attracted to any man, but she is quite pretty herself. But this sermonizing is what she has grown up with, and she is shocked at how shamelessly some of the other servants flirt with Lord le Wyse. It doesn’t help that three years prior to his moving to the village as Lord, Lord le Wyse was married to a very beautiful woman, who ended up not loving him at all and cheating on him, claiming it was because of his scars, which he acquired saving a young servant girl from a wolf—he also lost an eye in the attack and wears an eyepatch, which makes him even more sinister. So there’s a little bit of beauty and the beast mixed in with the religious aspect—Lord de Wyle doesn’t trust beautiful women, but he also doesn’t seem to entirely agree with the priest. He is frightening, yet his deeds prove otherwise. He protects Annabel from the Bailiff, and the way the Bailiff treats her infuriates him, despite the way he has been treated himself.

 

As a Merchant’s daughter, Annabel knows how to read and understand Latin, the only language a bible is written in at this time. She doesn’t have one, and she stays after one Sunday to ask the priest if she could borrow one. He is appalled at the idea, and then she finds out that he doesn’t even have one, which makes him somewhat of a hypocrite (and could explain why he sticks to the same subject each week). Lord le Wyse has no idea why she stayed behind, but that evening he asks if anyone can read, and she’s the only one who can, and he has her sit and brings in a huge ornate bible and sets it on her lap, effectively giving her what she wanted, to read it herself and try to understand the way works, why God does the things he does. It becomes a nightly habit, and when he burns his arm, she tends his arm then reads to him.

 

I personally thought that some of the best scenes are the ones where they have conversations about what the meaning behind what she’s just read. They are almost equals here, although she has more questions for him to answer, which he usually tries to. During this time, Lord le Wyse finds himself falling in love with her, after he vowed never to love another pretty woman. The religious aspects here didn’t bother me at all, and I found them interesting.

 

I don’t want to give away much more of the novel, but there is a turn for the worse that seriously effects one of Annabel’s friend’s for defending her from the Bailiff, and Annabel tries to protect her friend, and Lord de Wyse tries to protect her from the Coroner’s questions, who is also an old friend of his.

 

Everything is properly sorted out, but the novel shows how difficult it could be to show your genuine interest in someone without seeming “loose” or having your reputation irredeemably sullied.

 

The only part where the religious aspect frustrated me was near the end, when Annabel shows great courage, which she says came from God. Maybe if I were a religious person, I would understand this better. Annabel was very strong in what she does near the end, she risks her life—she has no idea what will happen, and she very well could have been killed—but she does it anyway. Lord le Wyse makes a comment to his friend the Coroner about love and mercy being more important than justice sometimes. I would like to think that in this case it was love that gave her the strength, and her realization that now that she had finally identified the emotion, she didn’t want to lose it. So, to me, it seems as though love saves them rather than God, unless one looks as love coming from God. I think for someone struggling the way she was between love and being with a man or going to a nunnery, the conversations she had with the House Mistress, who had known the Lord all his life, might have helped push her in that direction, showing her there was more than one option. After all, God did talk about procreation.

 

Overall, I would say of the major characters, Annabel, Lord de Wyse, and the House Mistress were portrayed the best. Everyone else was a little flat, and held the positions they were supposed to in the novel. It would make sense that the novel would focus on the three characters above, because they are the most important. Very realistic and believable environments are created throughout the novel, both in the villages, the Lord’s house, and Annabel’s house. There is enough description to give the reader a good idea of what the scene looks like—just the right amount, and I liked the way Annabel and Lord le Wyse’s relationship developed—I can just see them sitting in a little corner reading.

 

I have also read Melanie Dickerson’s novel, The Healer’s Apprentice, and liked that one as well, so if you enjoyed this one, you might like that one as well.