First serialised in three installments in 1856 Charles Dickens' popular magazine Household Words,[1] The Poor Clare is a gothic ghost story[2] about a young woman unwittingly cursed by her own grandmother.
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.
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.
During a holiday in Harrogate, the Narrator becomes interested in a striking young woman and her older companion Mrs Clarke, whom he sees on his walks across the moors.
Furthermore, he and Mrs Clarke realise that Bridget had unwittingly caused Lucy's condition when she cursed Mr Gisborne, not knowing that he was the father of her own granddaughter.
Revisiting Bridget's cottage in an attempt to get to the root of the curse, the Narrator informs her of the unintended consequences of her words, sending her into a paroxysm of guilt and grief.
After hearing of her curse, he instructed her to undertake acts of charity as penance, and as a result, Bridget joined the Antwerp convent of Poor Clares, taking the name Sister Magdalen.
By coincidence, Mr Gisborne, leader of the Austrian garrison, is set upon by the rebels, but is saved by Sister Magdalen, who recognises him and takes him to her cell to tend to his wounds.
Rushing onwards, the crowd comes to the convent's chapel, and sees Sister Magdalen lying on a bier having just received absolution.
"[3] Gaskell's short story was first published in serialized form in 1856 in Charles Dickens' popular weekly magazine Household Words.
The service-centred life of a convent, independent of male control, stands in stark contrast to the motherhood and household-oriented role expected of women in Gaskell's era.