Ravenshead

About the Book

Millicent Prescott leaves a position as night charge nurse at Crawford Memorial Manor in New York City, where she is upset about the mixup in medicines that has resulted in the death of a nursing home resident. She takes a position as a private nurse for 93-year-old Florence Clarendon, a dying woman in a remote rundown mansion called Ravenshead in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Millicent is drawn into the tortured lives of relatives, friends, and servants who surround the dying woman.

There is Calvin Clarendon, the woman's grandson, whose twin brother, Craig, died a year previously in an auto accident with Calvin's girlfriend. Millicent is attracted to him but also afraid of his dark moody responses to her.

There is Dr. John Reynard who wants to keep the anxious embittered patient sedated as much as possible.

There is Polly Robbins, a granddaughter of Florence, who is recovering from a bitter divorce and is finding her solace in vodka.

There is a great nephew, Theo Dewberry, who is a neigborhood veterinarian and cares for Florence's horses and her 32 cats. He offers Millicent security and a certain degree of normalcy in what seems to be a dysfunctional household.

There is Cora Schenkel, who is general caretaker of the household including caring for the old woman. She is not enthusiastic about the arrival of a nurse who will be taking over some of her duties.

There is Jane, an oriental maid who has recently been hired to help Cora and who seems to have problems of her own.  

There is Willie, son of Cora, who is the overworked gardener for the extensive rundown estate with distorted relationships with family members which go back to their shared childhoods..

Florence fears that her relatives are trying to get rid of her for her money and is anxious to keep alive in order to prevent their success. Millicent is drawn into their mixed and troubled lives and soon becomes afraid for her own life as well as that of her patient's.

About the Author

Doris Bingham was raised in Nebraska. She was section editor at the Globe-Times, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for fourteen years and was co-owner of the Dunlap Reporter in Iowa. She works today at the News-Times in York, Nebraska. She is author of a paperback original published in 1981 called "Lovers and Liars."