The Covenant
Pages: 312
|Published: 1 Jan 1992
Description
The death of Jessica Mortimer's husband of five years has plunged her into such intense grief that she is unable to pick up the threads of her life. This has been conveyed by her mother in one of her regular letters to Lady Eleanor and Sir Matthew Rensby in England, by whom Jessica's parents were employed until the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Jessica's sister Jane when Jessica was nine years old.
Suggesting that a change of surrounding might help Jessica, Lady Rensby offers her a job; that of helping Sir Matthew organize the family archives. Jessica accepts, not realizing until she arrives at the Rensby estate how much power some of her long-forgotten memories would still have over her.
There is much else she finds unsettling: Sir Matthew and Lady Eleanor are alternately over-solicitous or strangely cold and remote, and their nineteen-year-old daughter is openly hostile. While the family awaits the imminent arrival of the Rensby heir, Peter, to celebrate his 21st birthday, Jessica hears voices and sees phantoms that make her doubt her sanity.
The Covenant is contemporary gothic horror at its unusual and original best.
Suggesting that a change of surrounding might help Jessica, Lady Rensby offers her a job; that of helping Sir Matthew organize the family archives. Jessica accepts, not realizing until she arrives at the Rensby estate how much power some of her long-forgotten memories would still have over her.
There is much else she finds unsettling: Sir Matthew and Lady Eleanor are alternately over-solicitous or strangely cold and remote, and their nineteen-year-old daughter is openly hostile. While the family awaits the imminent arrival of the Rensby heir, Peter, to celebrate his 21st birthday, Jessica hears voices and sees phantoms that make her doubt her sanity.
The Covenant is contemporary gothic horror at its unusual and original best.
