Tunes played by an enchantress

Frankie Burnaby is 12. She lives on a remote farm in British Columbia, where ‘the clear turbulent Thompson River joins the vaster opaque Fraser’. This novella, first published in 1947, charts the two conflicting emotional currents that, like the rivers of Frankie’s birthplace, struggle for dominance.

Any new arrival is exciting in this thinly populated neighbourhood, and when beautiful, mysterious Hetty Dorval moves in, she is the object of intense fascination. Mrs Dorval arrives for no discernible reason and with no immediately discernible husband, just a dour guardian called Mrs Broom, a dog called Sailor, and, it is whispered, an unsavoury past. She is a Jamesian character, tainted by the corruption of the Old World, aloof yet predatory. She lures Frankie with her charm and her sweet singing voice; there are dainty teas and verbal caresses, but to what end?

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Gavin Mortimer

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Mrs Dorval persuades the mesmerised girl to keep her visits secret from her parents — the first deception of Frankie’s young life. But the temptress unburdens no dark secrets, involves Frankie in no criminal acts. She practises deception for deception’s sake. Manipulating people is her lifeblood.

The Burnaby parents, sensible and loving, soon find out, end the visits, and put Frankie straight. But Hetty Dorval pops up again and again. She’s a symbolic character, almost a figment of Frankie’s subconscious. At every encounter she entangles Frankie in some kind of deceit, however slight. Her presence forces Frankie to examine her own motives, her own desires, as when she enraptures Rick, the first man for whom Frankie harbours tender feelings.

The plot relies on far-fetched encounters and extraordinary coincidences, because in essence the book describes a young woman’s psychological journey; neither Hetty Dorval nor the other cast members are truly ‘characters’ at all.