Haggard Henry Rider – Béatrice: This tenth novel by Henry Rider Haggard begins on the strikes of Bryngelly, a small village in Wales. The storm threatens. London hiker Geoffroy Byngham, a rising lawyer whose marriage to Lady Honoria turns sour, is in trouble. Beatrice Granger, the village teacher and the pastor’s daughter, collects him in his boat and together they face the heavy weather. Drowning becomes certain. Beatrice, at the risk of her life, saves Geoffroy.

Between the two survivors are created very close links. They discover that beyond their surroundings, life can be much softer and more tender than their daily lives.

Beatrice struggles between an anxious and avaricious father, a jealous sister and an undesirable suitor, Owen Davies, the squire of the castle. Geoffroy languishes in a marriage without love. His wife Lady Honoria is more likely to rub shoulders with London’s frivolous high society than to support her husband’s promising career. Geoffroy tries to preserve Effie, their little girl from the motherless nature of her mother.

Our two heroes would never have met in other circumstances, and yet, instantly, instinctively, they are in communion. A bond platonic love is tied … To the point that we can imagine that something can get in the way of this idyll, certainly illegal but so common at the time and so timeless. The reciprocal jealousies of Elizabeth and Lady Honoria will they be right of this connection? How far will they go and how far will Beatrice be able to go to preserve Geoffroy’s promising career? One can not help but think that fate has tipped the scales very little …