by Katherine Mezzacappa
The Ballad of Mary Kearny is an immersive read into the 1780s world of England, Ireland, and France. Conflicts stem from the title character’s class and religion- Mary is in servitude, a Catholic in Protestant England. She is cursed or blessed, depending on your point of view, with an attractive face and figure, which attracts the notice of the son of the Lord of the manor.
This gives rise to the central love story of the novel – star-crossed lovers. Their relationship appears impossible because of their different social classes and religions. At this point in history, marriage between Catholics and Protestants was not only not recognized, but illegal. Officiating at such a marriage could result in the arrest of the priest or pastor who performed the wedding. A girl who succumbed to her lord’s advances could end up with no future marriage prospects, and if discarded, no character reference or way to make a living. In the vernacular of the time, she was ruined. However, if she refused, he might rape her anyway with impunity, or turn her whole family off their land. Women in poverty had few choices or agency. Striving to maintain her virtue could put her entire family at risk, yet giving in could result in her ending up in a poor house called a Magdalene, which was little better than a jail, doing laundry for a pittance, with no way out.
Fortunately for Mary, Viscount James Gower is of a different sort, and he wholeheartedly loves her and attempts to elevate her to the status of a lady. In a Pygmalionesque way, she is educated and remade. The tragedy in such stories is that she of course, ends up not fitting into either her former servant class, nor yet the class of a Countess. Both reject her as a pretentious courtesan. Mary and James navigate both the social and religious gauntlets with some success, until politics takes over. Following the French Revolution of 1789, which swept away their son as a royalist, James was falsely accused of treason in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
The antagonist of the story is difficult to identify – you could say it was James’s manager, Blanch, who at one point kidnaps Mary and consigns her to an insane asylum under torture, or you could as easily say that the antagonist is the class and religious servitude that oppressed women and left them in bondage, putting Mary into an untenable situation.https://www.amazon.com/Ballad-Mary-Kearney-Katherine-Mezzacappa-ebook/dp/B0CZQJFJD6
I found the story accurate historically and an enjoyable read. The pacing is slow at first, but gets moving along about forty pages in. Stick with it and you’ll be rewarded.