Let's look at the mysteries as they appear to the principal female of the BLACK DWARF, beautiful teen-age Miss Isabella Vere of Ellieslaw Castle. What does she know of herself and her family? Her long dead mother is buried in the castle's chapel in a tomb of Italianate beauty (Ch. 17). Her wealthy, stern father is a political schemer, aiming to become more powerful to restore the male line of the Stuarts.
To that end he is pressuring Isabella to wed the odious Jacobite, Sir Frederick Langley. Yet Isabella herself is fonder of a young nobleman named Earnscliff. She is being visited by two cousins, Nancy and Lucy Ilderton. Lucy in particular knows that Isabella hates the one and loves the other. There is also some dark but hushed up ancient stain on Isabella's father's honor; he was almost killed in a brawl when his best friend, Sir Edward Mauley, saved his life by slaying his opponent. After a year's imprisonment for manslaughter, Sir Edward disappeared. Meanwhile Isabella's father had married Isabella's mother, a kinswoman of Sir Edward.
