July 1960
The blurb on the jacket of this novel likens it to The Turn of the Screw, and in terms of atmosphere this is a fair comparison, although Miss Paul’s excellent style is all her own. It is a work which takes thoroughly into account what is often loosely termed a ‘sixth sense’, which is perhaps only several senses combining to apprehend what one alone cannot.
A child mysteriously and utterly vanishes - is lost - and all those who had any connection with her are left with the almost tangible weight of her pathetic and not very appealing personality. After the immediate hue and cry for her has died down and no evidence has been found to account for her disappearance, the effect of it upon all those at all connected with her begins to gather force until it seems to be entirely surrounding them. Years pass but - particularly for the young woman who was the last to see the child - nothing has been forgotten or resolved, and her need to be comforted out of her aching ignorance of the child’s fate has assumed the proportions of anguish. For a brief, tantalising time the child - now a girl - seems to have returned, but before anything can be proved or discovered she has gone again … The elements of mystery seem here to divide into light and shade - to shine and shiver and blot from one to the other - all the people concerned less and less able to design or control their climate, until a sudden resolution breaks upon them like a storm which shatters or clears their different airs.
It would be unnecessary in this extraordinary and original book to describe the people: they are entirely convincing; but they too, have mysterious contrasting qualities. One sees them on different scales - blown up to enormous shadows - making the miniature, mechanical movements of marionettes - or prosaically and exactly like anybody one might meet. The writing is consistently interesting, and although possibly on one or two (most minor) occasions Miss Paul has conjured a little, she has a marvellously worked out and intricate structure to a novel which has that particularly good feeling about it that more of its aspects have fitted in with one another than were dreamed of in her original philosophy.