The Lost Girl
In the 1870s, Esme and Gabriel are forced to leave the safety of the vardo (gypsy caravan) where they once lived happily with their now-missing Romani father and recently deceased mother. Together they make the journey across English farm country towards the house of their maternal grandfather, a vicar whom they’ve never met.
He turns out to be a cruel and disturbed man who swiftly begins abusing the children physically, emotionally, and – in Esme’s case – sexually. As horrible as these scenes are, they are played extremely realistically. Clearly, the author understands the psychology of abusers and people trapped in relationships with them.
Meanwhile, Esme begins to see the ghosts of a number of miserable young women in her bedroom at night, as well as another woman who, like Jane Eyre’s Bertha, seems to have been confined to the attic. Esme, you see, has “the gift” – that is, the ability to see the dead – which she inherited from her paternal grandmother, the stereotypically-named Griselda. Esme knows well that she’s not safe in the creepy old house. Luckily, she befriends the daughter of a wealthy couple, who invites her to join in on her lessons. This friendship saves Esme.
While the prose style is simple and not particularly beautiful, that’s probably a good thing if you’re looking for a fast, dramatic read that will pull at your heartstrings. Here the drama of the family’s story is the real draw. However, I found the timeline vaguely implausible. Initially Esme seems to behave like a child of twelve or even younger, but by the end she’s clearly in her late teens at least, yet other details seem to indicate that at most two or three years have passed.
