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Trained well by her solicitor father, Vaughan Springthorpe has all the skills and knowledge necessary to be an excellent solicitor herself. But in late-Victorian England, her sex is an impediment to her being able to work for herself. When her father dies, Vaughan’s mother expects her to live with her and her oldest sister. But Vaughan has no desire to do so. In her late 20s, with a congenitally bad leg, she doesn’t expect to marry, but she would like to set out on her own. When she receives a generous offer to prepare an estate for sale (without the owner having met her in person), Vaughan takes it and ventures out to the crumbling Yorkshire mansion of Morton Abbey.
When she arrives, she finds there is little welcoming about the house or its few inhabitants. People in the nearby village warn her off, and the housekeeper tells her that three previous men hired to do the legal work had quit within a week. In addition, the owner, who lives out of the country, has allowed his younger brother to stay in the house. And Sir Nicholas is either physically or mentally ill or both. Soon, Vaughan finds out that someone is trying to get her to leave. Someone tries to get into her (locked) room; she hears gunshots fired outside, and a strange crying noise repeatedly comes from the uninhabited second floor.
But she pushes through. She works hard to sort through the many books and papers in the library. It’s exhausting but satisfying. She makes friends with the handsome gardener and then even gets to know Sir Nicholas. As time goes on, Vaughan encounters more questions than answers and starts to wonder if she is going a little mad herself — she keeps hearing the sound of a child crying. But the little girl who once lived in the house died.
The Curse of Morton Abbey is a satisfying gothic novel set in a dilapidated old mansion, with a heroine determined to forge her own way despite the odds stacked against her. Hidden secrets eventually come out of hiding, and unexpected relationships are forged. I enjoyed it.
(A similar book to try is Parting the Veil.)
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes 15 uses of mild language and about 20 instances of the name of Deity in vain. (There are 7 instances of the bl- word that is not considered cursing in the United States but is considered vulgarity in the UK.)
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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