We learn that Isobel Standish found in Esswood a respite from the outer world, and in its refined atmosphere an inspiration for her work.

For Prof William Standish, fleeing the unfaithfulness of his wife and her previous abortion, and her second pregnancy, which he believes is the result of an affair she had with an academic rival, Esswood offers him the chance to study Isobel's private manuscripts at close hand, which thrills him beyond his wildest ambitions.

At the same time, he finds himself at sea in England with its different customs, and especially at Esswood, a grand Gothic pile, with its meals served by invisible servants, its rococo library, its hidden basements containing bones and giant dollhouses.

which he interprets as 'Birth of the Past'), he hears faint laughter in the halls, the pitter-pattering of small feet in the night; strange faces appear in the windows of the library.

Standish is increasingly unable to distinguish fact from reality as, caught in a vortex of hallucinatory images, he is subject to the unfolding of the dark secrets of Esswood.