Tessa D'Arblay

Tessa is the 22 year old daughter of an eccentric widower clergyman living in London's east end in 1888. Bewildered by the sudden death of a friend from an undetected brain tumor, Tessa visits the home of Dr. Segal, a Victorian brain specialist, to question him about the sublime and secret workings of the mind. Through Segal she meets the strange and compelling Dante Rosen, a noted painter and member of the Oscar Wilde set. She also befriends the richly comic and endearing Connie Saunders, actress and mangler-of-English on a grand scale. These innocent seeming associations however, gradually lead Tessa into a bizarre and finally terrifying events. Saunders considers Rosen a devil incarnate and repeatedly warns Tessa against any involvement with him, but Tessa believes the evil influence is Segal, not Dante...with whom she finds herself falling in love. Too late she learns the horrible truth, more horrible than even Connie Saunders' wildest imagainings.