At the beginning of the story, Nell is a 95-year-old antique dealer from Brisbane, Australia. She’s described as looking like a witch: tall, with grey hair worn in a bun, and “the way she had of fixing her eyes straight on you, as if she might be about to cast a spell” (28-29). Over the course of the novel, the reader also sees her as a 4-year-old girl and a 65-year-old woman. Because Nell was left on a boat dock at the age of four, her feelings of abandonment have colored her entire life. Her determination to find her true parents leads her on a quest to Cornwall where she purchases a cottage that holds her family’s secrets. Nell only loves one person in the world, Cassandra, because her granddaughter also understands how abandonment feels. 

Cassandra is Nell’s granddaughter. When she is 10 years old, her mother abandons her on Nell’s doorstep. Nell thinks Cassandra is a pretty child: “There was an underlying seriousness, somber blue eyes whose edges turned down and a pretty mouth that Nell suspected might be glorious if she ever smiled with unwary joy” (65). Nell raises Cassandra, who later becomes a partner in Nell’s antique business.