Mrs England Stacey Halls, by Allen & Unwin
Halls (The Foundling) is a beautiful writer, and here she adds chilling menace to a novel set in 1904. Norland nanny Ruby has requested a new position. Her devastated employers don’t understand why she won’t relocate to Chicago. But Ruby states emphatically she cannot go. We know her concerns are to do with her siblings. Sent to Yorkshire, Ruby finds her way to Hardcastle House, “a lamp rendered everything beyond its range darker.”
It’s an unwelcome house, overseen by Mr England, whose wife appears disinterested in their children. Ruby says she locks them in the nursery at night. “This time there would be no escapes.”