Gemma's mother dies "shortly after [her] first birthday" when her mother "slipped on some seaweed and, protecting [Gemma], hit her head on a rock" (Livesey 17). Gemma hardly has any recollection of her mother because she died when she was so young. It's worth noting that all of the deaths Gemma endures (her father's, mother's, and uncle's) are all reliant on accidents instead of illness.

In the hypotext, Jane Eyre, both of Jane’s parents die of typhus. Because The Flight of Gemma Hardy takes place so much later than Jane Eyre, Livesey had to get creative in the ways in which she killed people off. With modern medicine, typhus and consumption weren't killing people nearly as often as they did in the past, which is exemplary of the ways in which remediations and appropriations of Victorian texts must adapt to suit the realities of more modern characters and contemporary readers.

Livesey, Margot. The Flight of Gemma Hardy: a Novel. HarperPerennial, 2013.