A POCKET OF SILENCE

by Barbara C. Freeman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 27, 1979

Why does Caroline dream of the deserted cottage? And feel compelled, on her sixteenth birthday, to go back to Mariston, where she lived happily until her mother died six years back? That Caroline's unfinished business has something to do with the unsolved 18th-century mystery in the Short History of the Parish that she buys at Mr. Heatherley's bookstall is only plausible, novels being what they are; but the connection is so complicated, its basis so obscure, that only the reader with a passion for historical puzzles will persevere until All is explained. And unfortunately most of the explanation is just that--a recital by the ghost of the cruel Squire's vanished niece Zilia of the circumstances of her disappearance and the appearance, just then, of the new inn sign picturing five little girls making lace. One of the five, it emerges at length, was Zilia, another Caroline's ancestor--known to her as Margaret, to Zilia as Bess--whom Zilia has been haunting the environs to meet. But in one of the book's few real happenings, the two girls discover that Margaret/Bess came and went off satisfied, so Zilia--with a further assist from Caroline--can now take her rest. In Caroline's recognition that she is like Zilia in being alone and unloved there is a moment of emotional truth; and she is able, thanks to the Heatherleys (and especially to incipient love-interest Matthew), to leave her squabbling, messy, self-absorbed cousins. Her situation hardly does more than frame Zilia's story, however, and since Zilia is not a very sympathetic spirit (even to Caroline), it all adds up to more disclosure than interaction, felt or seen.

Pub Date: Nov. 27, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION