Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss violence toward women (including implications of rape and incest), child loss, miscarriage, violent death from murder and execution, the mistreatment of someone with a disability, animal abuse, substance use, mental illness, and racism against a Romani person.

Elsie is the protagonist. As the novel opens, she is grappling with the sudden passing of her spouse, Rupert Bainbridge. This bereavement renders her emotionally vulnerable, although she tries to project composure in the face of internal turmoil and is in general resilient and resourceful. Her pregnancy compounds her sense of emotional and physical strain: “It was only a shell. She was a shell, and another body, a foreign body, was growing inside” (132). This depiction of pregnancy as a strange and even traumatic experience reflects the novel’s use of Gothic horror as a lens for examining The Isolation and Oppression of Women: Compelled by her brother, Jolyon, to relocate to her late husband’s dilapidated estate, The Bridge, Elsie transitions from a grieving widow to a woman trapped by her responsibilities, which the novel’s supernatural elements symbolically evoke.

Elsie endeavors to cultivate a life at The Bridge by revitalizing the gardens and fostering amicable relations with the villagers.