Every Christmas the young Marlows leap over twelve lighted candles: "If you clear them all, you will be lucky all the year; if you put out any one, you will be unlucky in that month of the year to which it corresponds; if you put out the first, you will be unlucky in January, the second in February, and so on." When her turn comes to leap Gillian extinguishes three candles and it soon becomes clear that a year of grief and misfortune is about to unfold inexorably before her...

"What " cries her uncle, dropping knife and fork with a clatter on his plate; "what do you mean to say," in...