A Valparaiso romance

More than 150 years after her last publication, the narrator of this novel, the travel writer Maria Callcott, has taken up her pen to tell all about her friendship with Admiral Cochrane. Freed from the shackles of 19th- century propriety, she can finally reveal what really went on during that Chilean interlude.

The affair develops against a backdrop of the naval ex-pat scene in Valparaiso, exciting developments in steam power, the 1822 earthquake and a lot of charming natives. It’s as much a record of 19th-century Chile as a drama, and Rachel Billington gives a real sense of the beauty and atmosphere of Valparaiso and its surroundings. The romance proceeds at a leisurely pace; with afternoon teas, walks in the hills and a lot of political conversations, one thing leads to another.

Maria is an erudite narrator and there’s nothing she likes more than quoting poetry at naval officers. She has a line or two for every occasion: ‘Wishing to dispel His Lordship’s frowns, I quoted, to show my understanding, from a Spanish poet.’ Byron, Wordsworth, Milton and Shakespeare make astonishingly regular appearances, too.

Capturing a style from 200 years ago is a tricky thing and 19th-centuryisms can sound like bad Latin translations if you’re not careful. Maria is often charting the way of the finny race or suiting actions to words, or proceeding with the opposite of speed. She doesn’t quite ply with speed her partnership of legs, like Housman’s parody of a Greek tragedy, but she’s not far off:

As he spoke eloquently, expanding his understanding of the aquatic world, he took hold of my arm as he would a fellow naval officer’s, and then my hand, which I assumed a tribute to my female sex.