The Poor Clare

The Poor Clare

Elizabeth Gaskell

A Gothic Ghost Story

The Poor Clare is a short story by English Victorian writer Elizabeth Gaskell. First serialised in three installments in 1856 Charles Dickens' popular magazine Household Words, The Poor Clare is a gothic ghost story about a young woman unwittingly cursed by her own grandmother.

The Poor Clare is narrated by an unnamed young lawyer from London, reflecting on the "extraordinary incidents" which he experienced in his youth.

The story proper begins several decades before. Squire Starkey, a recusant Jacobite, returns to Starkey Manor with his Irish wife and their son Patrick. Accompanying them is their Irish Catholic servant, Madam Starkey's former nurse, Bridget FitzGerald and her daughter Mary, who take up a small cottage in the grounds of the manor. Bridget comes to exercise great control over the household. Some years later, due in part to an increasingly fractious relationship with her mother, Mary FitzGerald leaves Starkey Manor to take up a position on the Continent. Racked with grief at her daughter's departure, Bridget keeps to her cottage until Madam Starkey brings her a young spaniel, Mignon, who becomes her constant companion. She receives occasional letters from Mary, the last informing her that she was going to marry a gentleman.

Upon the deaths of Squire and Madam Starkey, Bridget is left alone at the cottage. After a long period without word from Mary, Bridget leaves the cottage for the Continent in search of her daughter, accompanied by Mignon. Years of unsuccessful searching later, she returns suddenly. Not long after her return, a hunting party goes shooting on the manor. One of the party, Mr Gisborne, is in a foul mood, and shoots Mignon for fun when it crosses his path. Distraught that the only remaining creature she loved is now dead, Bridget calls on the saints to curse Mignon's killer, vowing that the creature he loves best will become a terror loathed by all.