The Silence in the Garden

There must have been a seanachie in William Trevor's background, so skillful is he in telling an enthralling story. Or, more likely, a weaver because Trevor does not just tell a story, he weaves one. In his skillful hands the disparate threads of the narrative are shuttled skillfully in and out until finally they come together to form a complex picture, in this case of a family living just off the coast of south Cork in a disintegrating Big House. The thread that runs all through the story and binds it together is the bridge that is to be built to connect island with mainland. This thread is picked up by Sarah Pollexfen, a poor relation to the Rollestons, who comes to Carriglas to act as governess to the three orphaned children whose grandmother is the doyen of the estate. In a sense, Sarah is the seanachie of this story because it is she whose intermittent diary entries knit together the tragic tale of the three Rolleston children with that of Tom, the fatherless child of their maid Brigid, against the background of the promised bridge.