Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote “The Old Nurse’s Story” in the mid-1850s Victorian era, combines just the right amount of creepy elements to make the story a legitimate Victorian gothic ghost story. In the beginning of the story, Hester, the narrator of the story, is lead to believe that Furnivall Manor will be a “very grand place” and a “very healthy place” for the child, Miss Rosamond, to live in. However, when Hester and Rosamond arrive, they come upon “the gates of a large, wild park…with rocks, and the noise…and gnarled thorn-trees, and old oak, all white and peeled with age.” Furnivall Manor turns out not to be majestic and beautiful, but unattended and forlorn. Branches drag against the walls of the manor and the garden has not been cared for in years. The furniture and fixtures inside look like a house that that has been lived in for 50 years without any renovation. The physical description of the home is uncanny because two young women, about to begin their lives, are sent to live in such a decrepit old home. It can also be considered uncanny that a lowly maid and an illegitimate child would be sent to what essentially Lord Furnivall, Rosamond’s grandfather, considers a grand manor—a place for the wealthy and as such, much beyond their social class.

Gaskell builds an atmosphere of fear and ghastliness that mimics the Victorian gothic ghost story. The setting includes unknown spaces that Hestor cannot tell “what lay beyond” because she feared to go into them. There are heavy, old-fashioned sofas, and an organ beyond repair, old pictures, heavy books, and the like preparing us for a dark story. Mysterious halls and passageways crisscross the manor. The way Gaskill describes the two old women living in the home makes them sound ghost-like. They take no notice of little Rosamond’s outstretched hand when she greets them, as if they are not really there behind their spectacles. The entire east wing was off limits, always locked and never opened. How frightening it must be for the two young women to be sent to this place, especially because they were sent there at the direction of the old Lord Furnivall, Rosamond’s grandfather.

Gaskell’s use of gloomy adjectives and the experiences shared by Hester and Rosamond (the ghost-girl beating at the window, for example) are classic gothic fare. The history of what happened in the manor, a mother and child turned out in the snow by Lord Furnivall, implies that the ghost-girl is the child who died in the snow, still haunting the house many years later. The past is haunting the present.

At the end of the story, the moral is revealed. As the winter progresses, the hauntings get more intense. Rosamond is prevented from trying to follow the ghost-girl. A drama unfolds in front of Rosamond in the drawing room. The likeness of the former Miss Furnivall appears as a lovely drawing force, beckoning little Rosamond to join her. But then, the ghost becomes stricken with numbness. She mutters repeatedly from her bed, “Alas! Alas! What is done in youth can never be undone in age! What is done in you can never be undone in age!”

What is true horror? Is it a ghost? Being scared out of your wits? Or is it what we know, that the some of the people that surround us are good, and some bad? The old Furnivall sends his granddaughter to experience the cruelty of what preceded her. He has not changed, despite what he has once lived through. It is possible that bad people who do bad things do not learn from their experiences. The same can be said today.