Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

Genres: Historical Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

London, 1785. When the body of a former West Indies planter is found staked out by St Paul's Cathedral, suspicion falls at once on a runaway slave. But the answer is not that simple. The planter's death brings tragedy for Francis Glass, a freed slave working as a bookseller, and a painful reminder of the past for William Geddings, senior footman in the household of unconventional widow Harriet Westerman.

Harriet is reluctant to confront the powerful world of the slave trade but she and her friend, anatomist Gabriel Crowther, must face its shameful truths – and the fact that much of Britain's wealth is built on wilful destruction of human life. The secrets of London's slave owners reveal a network of alliances across the capital. And while some people will risk everything to preserve their reputation, some acts can never be forgiven.

(P)2014 Headline Digital

Release date: May 22, 2014

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

THE BODY WAS STAKED out in the north-east corner of the churchyard. The first light of a warm spring morning glanced off the pale stone of St Paul’s Cathedral, and shone in full blank surprise on the corpse. A driver taking barrels of coriander seed north first noticed the body face down in the dew. It was, or had been, a man, and the shift covering him, though yellow with age, still showed up strongly against the fresh-mown grass. The driver shouted down from his perch high on the wagon to a pair of men walking towards the docks, pointed over the railings with his whip, then urged his horses on. The men shrugged at each other and went to investigate, peering through the metal bars into the shadow of the Cathedral, then seeing what the driver had seen, they climbed over. The corpse had lengths of rope tied to his wrists and ankles, and the rope on his right ankle was attached to a stake half-driven into the ground. They approached cautiously. One knelt down by the corpse’s head and lifted it slightly from the shoulder. What they saw frightened them. They began to call out. The younger man swung himself back over the railings and, yelling as he went, ran to the door of the Chapter House and started beating on it with his fist.

William Geddings should have seen nothing of this. In the general way of things he would have woken in Berkeley Square, put on his footman’s livery in his attic bedroom then joined the rest of the upper servants for breakfast before beginning his duties in the house. The previous evening, however, he had gone to hear the music at the Elephant in Fenchurch Street, and by chance met an old shipmate. They had drunk too much in celebration of their deliverance, and he had slept in his friend’s room in Honey Lane Market.

By the time he left, the air was already warm. Only a month ago, back home in Sussex, there had been snow on the ground, but now the air was dry and heavy. William’s head throbbed and the morning light seemed tinged with orange and red. Whenever the family he served came to London he would ask permission to go, once or twice, to the places where other Africans gathered, and there listen to the music and songs of his childhood and those he had heard first as a slave in Jamaica. Rich, dancing, talking tunes they were, and some had already worked their way through the hands of curious English and German composers into the drawing rooms of the city. He would hear them from time to time as he passed trays of champagne glasses among the guests at Berkeley Square – strange, half-strangled translations of his own heritage. He did not completely understand his compulsion to seek out the originals; for the music brought back memories painful as well as sweet. His own language returned to his tongue, and remade him into the boy he had been. In the pulse of the music and talk around him he caught glimpses of his lost family, his father’s laugh and the feel of the black soil of the fields outside his village between his fingers. When his shipmate saw him and they embraced, under the joy of seeing him alive and safe in London, William’s body flickered with remembered pain: the weight of iron on his ankles, the sores on his side, the stench. No wonder they drank deeply. Now, his blood thickened by the memories, he prepared to return to the world of the English family he served, to the dramas and pleasures of the servants’ hall, to his responsibilities.

He had set out at a good pace, happy he would be back in Berkeley Square before the house was fully awake. Then he saw the crowd gathering close to St Paul’s Cathedral’s northern flank, inside the railings. He hesitated, but curiosity drove off the pain in his head; he crossed the roadway and clambered up on the stone wall, clinging onto the railings to look down at whatever the crowd was circling.

A constable was trying to shoo the people back, but what they saw excited them too much and they continued to move past and about him like water round a rock. It was an early-morning crowd all dressed in labouring clothes; the ragged who had been turfed out of their tuppenny beds at first light; the porters on their way to the riverside and markets; servants and housewives ready to lose sleep for the best bargains. London’s broad base in all its colours and conditions. Then, as the constable harried and begged them to move away, William caught his first sight of the body. A man, dressed only in his undershirt, face down in the dirt. A drunk? A lunatic? But the people seemed disturbed – shocked, not amused. William lifted himself a little higher and craned his neck. He saw the loops of rope. The skin on the body’s thin and naked calves looked a greyish-blue. William began to sweat under his linen shirt. A clergyman was kneeling by the man’s head, hiding it from William’s view. As he lifted his eyes and looked around the crowd, William saw desperate tears running down his pink, round face.

‘I cannot get it off!’ he cried out. ‘There’s a padlock! Is there a key?’

William saw the iron and leather bands around the body’s skull, and his heart began to thud, leap and pitch but he could not look away. A man in a soft-brimmed hat pushed to the front of the crowd and knelt by the priest. He swung his satchel off his shoulder and pulled out a chisel and hammer. William’s mouth was dry. The hammer came down and the echo of it was lost in the sudden clang of the bell of St Paul’s striking the half-hour. The priest pulled away the broken padlock and threw it aside, then, as the man with the tools stood back, he turned the body over gently, onto his knee.

The heavy metal mask which still hid the corpse’s face was a rough bit of work. It was a rude clamp, with a plate welded under the chin to hold the jaw closed. Almond-shaped eyeholes, a riveted pyramid open at the base for the nose, and a blank where a mouth should be so that whoever wore it could breathe and go about their work, but could neither eat, drink nor speak. William had never seen such a thing on the head of a white man. The priest lifted it carefully away and William saw the face underneath, the high cheekbones, long nose and sharp chin, a heavy white stubble. The skin was slightly purplish, bruised. So many years older, but it was him. Unmistakably him. It seemed to William as if he had come crashing and floundering down to the dust, though he still could not move. Suddenly he smelled the heat of the docks, tar and rope; the sweet scent of white orange blossom …

The priest looked around the crowd. ‘Does anyone know this man? His name?’

William managed to release his grip on the railings and, slowly and painfully, slid down to the roadway, then began to walk away while the priest was still calling for a name. He reached the relative privacy of Swan Yard before his stomach gave a final heave and he threw up, resting his forearm against the crumbling Tudor bricks among the chemical stink coming from the workshops and the sharp rot of old piss. He rested there a minute till the colours of London, the rattle of carriages and the fading clap of the bells returned him the five thousand miles and fifteen years from the harbour of Kingston, Jamaica. Then he began, a little more unsteadily now, his walk home to the London residence of the Earl of Sussex and his family in Berkeley Square where his employer, Mrs Harriet Westerman, was staying for some weeks; and where, even now, she would be stirring in her bed and ringing her bell for her maid and her coffee.

Cutter, the clerk of Hinckley’s Bookseller, Stationer & Printer in Ivy Lane, brought word of the body in on his first breath. He was delighted to have the chance to tell the news. Ivy Lane was close by St Paul’s, off Paternoster Row, so in the heart of the book-printing and bookselling district of the capital. He thought the others would all have heard about it by now, but it seemed they had stumbled from their lodgings to their place of employment at first light, before the body was found. The presses were already at work upstairs; the more hours of light in the day there were, the more pages could be printed. Cutter, however, who served, bowed and totted up the accounts in the shop, did not come in until the later hour of eight. The respectable clientele who bought their stock of novels, histories, prints, music and more novels never thought to attend before nine. He rattled through a description of the body and its discovery with great excitement.

The shop’s senior salesman and de facto manager, Mr Francis Glass, looked up sharply at the mention of the mask but made no comment.

‘Perhaps they’ll never know who he is,’ Cutter said cheerfully, looking about the shop for something to neaten or straighten or dust with the edge of his coat-sleeve. ‘I dare say they’ll have to keep his head in a jar of spirits. All the abandoned ladies of London can go and see if it’s their husband come back.’

Mr Francis Glass began writing in the account book again and spoke without looking up. ‘Was he white, this man in the churchyard?’

Cutter had found a mark visible only to himself on the edge of a bookshelf, seldom disturbed, holding a run of Histories of the Anglican Church. He scrubbed at it furiously. ‘What? Oh yes. He was white. Why do you ask?’

Mr Glass returned his pen to its stand and carefully blotted the page. ‘Because in that case it will not be long before he is identified, I am sure. All the West Indian slavers and traders know each other.’ Puzzled, Cutter frowned and opened his mouth. Francis closed the book. ‘What you describe is a punishment mask for slaves, Cutter. The dead man must have connections with the West Indian community in London, don’t you think?’ His voice was as calm as ever.

Cutter suddenly became aware that the conversation was moving into a dangerous area, but was not quite sure why. He was about to ask something further, but at that moment Francis looked up at him. Mr Glass had large eyes, very dark, and the smooth ebony glow of his skin made Cutter very conscious of the red veins becoming visible in his own cheeks as he reached middle age. ‘Oh, was it? Do they? No head in a jar then. Understood.’ He returned to his invisible mark with renewed concentration.

MRS MARTIN WAS HOUSEKEEPER to the family of the Earl of Sussex, a role which gave her both standing and satisfaction. She had grown used to the great ancestral hall in Hartswood, but since she was by birth, habit and choice a Londoner, she had an especial love of the family’s Town residence at 24, Berkeley Square and took pride in its smooth running. The senior servants of the other great families of England thought Mrs Martin very young for her responsibilities but, they admitted grudgingly, she acquitted herself well – particularly given the circumstances.

Jonathan Thornleigh, Earl of Sussex, nominal head of the family and inheritor of its vast wealth, was eleven; his elder sister, Lady Susan, was fourteen. The pair were orphans. They were not the first children of blood to find themselves parentless, but their situation was complicated by the fact that they had been raised in ignorance of their heritage, growing up above a music shop in Soho; furthermore, their murdered father had at his death entrusted the children to the care of a young writer and lover of music named Owen Graves.

The great families of England had been disturbed. Most of the dukes in the country could claim some sort of kinship with the Thornleigh family, and it was suggested to young Graves – a good fellow, but of no family at all – that it might be more fitting to bring up the children in one of their established, aristocratic households. Graves, uncertain of his capacity, also thought it might be for the best, but Jonathan and Susan would not leave him. So Mr Graves took on his shoulders the management of the young Earl’s great wealth, and to help him brought into the household an elderly, impoverished widow named Mrs Service, who had known the children since their birth. Graves also took on the care of the Honorable Eustache Thornleigh, half-uncle to the newly orphaned Jonathan and Susan, though a little younger than them both. Various dukes had offered the child a home also, but were secretly relieved when he refused them. Eustache reminded them too much of his horrendous parents and their disgrace.

Graves saw Thornleigh Hall rebuilt after a terrible fire, and bought the lease of a handsome building in Berkeley Square. He seemed to be discharging his responsibilities well enough and had since married himself and purchased with his wife’s dowry the little music shop where the Earl had been born. In the face of such ‘circumstances’, the housekeeper Mrs Martin managed very well indeed.

Mrs Martin had arrived in London three months ago, in the middle of February, and opened up the house in Berkeley Square. She set about airing the nursery rooms for Lord Sussex, Lady Susan and Master Eustache, hired two girls as undermaids, a kitchen boy and, after a lengthy correspondence with Mrs Service, an excellent cook.

The idea was that now Lady Susan was fourteen years old, it was time she acquired a little town polish. Graves wrote to the Duke of Devonshire for advice and he suggested that Susan attend as a day pupil one of the fashionable schools for young ladies in the capital; he recommended one based in Golden Square. His Grace also gave a hint that perhaps the young Earl should attend one of the better schools close to London. It was time the children got to know their peers and the world in which they operated.

Mr Graves took His Grace’s advice very seriously, and after talking it over with Mrs Service and Verity, his wife, the plan was made. They would spend at least two months in London. Jonathan and Eustache would take lessons in the morning to prepare them for the curriculum at Harrow or Eton. Susan would go to school and learn how to behave in a manner fitting to her rank. Graves would deal in person with the bankers, investors, creditors and lawyers who swarmed round Jonathan’s money, and Verity would accompany him, to make sure he didn’t mind it all too much.

The plan had gone terribly wrong. First of all, Graves’s wife had discovered she was in a delicate condition and began to feel the exhaustion that often troubles young mothers-to-be. Her physician advised her to remain in the country, but she insisted that Graves go up to London without her. Mrs Service would be mistress of the London house in her place and she would have peace in the country. Graves reluctantly agreed and the family came to town. Then, after only a fortnight had passed, their Sussex neighbour, Mrs Harriet Westerman, descended on them for a visit of unknown duration with her own two children, several servants and only half a day’s notice. Her sudden arrival shook up the whole household. She also seemed to be in a high temper. Her personal servants were discreet, but there were hints that Mrs Westerman had been arguing with her younger sister, Rachel. To crown it all, two days ago, Lady Susan had come home with a letter from the Headmistress of the Respectable Establishment. It covered a great many pages with complaints relating to Susan’s character and behaviour, and an assertion that unless she undertook to behave better in future she would no longer be welcome at the school. Mr Graves had spoken to the girl at length about the letter and Susan had refused absolutely to apologise for anything or return to Golden Square. Mrs Martin herself had heard the end of the interview, when the young lady had sworn that if Graves expected her to go back there, they would have to tie her up and deliver her like a parcel. The elegant furniture of Berkeley Square shuddered as she ran from her guardian’s office and slammed every intervening door between there and her own chamber at the top of the house.

Now, despite all of Mrs Martin’s best efforts on this Saturday morning, the general bad temper and confusion had made its way down into the servants’ hall. William, Mrs Westerman’s senior footman who had travelled with her, should have been helping to serve breakfast, but instead he was having a rather tense interview with Mrs Westerman’s maid, Dido, in one corner of the kitchen. He hadn’t been home last night, and he and the maid were sweethearts. Not so sweet this morning though. Mrs Martin would never have allowed similar relations between the servants under her authority, but these two served Mrs Westerman, so she could do nothing but hope they would not quarrel too loudly. The cook’s boy, in trying to eavesdrop, had left the sausages to burn, which led to a great deal of smoke and raised voices. Cook was trying to pack a hamper while asking everyone in earshot if they wanted kippers this morning upstairs and whether the children liked raisin-bread, and Mrs Westerman’s coachman was arguing with the groom about their mistress’s abilities as a judge of horseflesh. Into the middle of this turmoil Philip, senior footman at Berkeley Square and Mrs Martin’s right hand, came charging into the room, his face red and coffee spilled over the front of his waistcoat.

‘Philip, what on earth have you done?’ Mrs Martin felt her voice had come uncomfortably close to a wail.

‘Those damned children! Young Master Westerman always gets My Lord playing the goat,’ Philip said, pulling off his jacket and throwing it over the back of a wooden chair. Mrs Westerman’s coachman and groom turned slowly towards him and glowered. Any suggestion of an insult to young Stephen was an insult to them. Philip didn’t notice.

‘Simon, go and fetch a clean waistcoat from my room.’ He began to undo his buttons as the kitchen boy scampered out and up the backstairs, thudding all the way, and Mrs Martin took over the watch on the next batch of sausages. ‘Master Stephen teased My Lord into chasing him round the table while I was serving Mr Graves his coffee, then I swear Master Eustache just put out his foot to trip him as he came by. He goes falling into me and the pot goes flying.’ The groom and coachman turned back to their discussion. They felt no obligation to defend Master Eustache.

‘Onto Mr Graves too?’ Mrs Martin asked.

‘Oh yes. He shouted at them to sit still and went up to change.’

Mr Graves’s valet sprang to his feet. ‘You should have told me at once!’

‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Philip said. ‘Where is that damn boy with my waistcoat?’

Mrs Martin took a deep breath. ‘And the table linens?’

‘Covered in coffee.’ The boy came back, waistcoat over his arm and red in the face. Philip grabbed it from him.

‘I shall take up fresh linen,’ Mrs Martin said. ‘William, perhaps you could go and serve. Philip, stay here until you have recovered your temper. Dido, is your mistress come down yet?’

‘She is dressed and will be down as soon as she has finished reading her sister’s letter.’ There was a collective groan.

‘Enough!’ Mrs Martin said. ‘Do the work you are paid for. Behave as if you work in the chophouse and you may go and earn your living there. Cook, if those sausages burn too, I shall take their purchase price from your wages.’ She found the key to the linen cupboard on the ring at her waist and strode out of the room.

By the time Mrs Martin reached it, the Breakfast Room was surprisingly quiet. Master Eustache was reading a book, but as Mrs Martin deftly removed and replaced the soiled cloth at the head of the table she thought she saw him look across at Lord Sussex from under his long dark eyelashes and grin. Jonathan, who would one day control a fortune to make him the envy of kings, was slightly flushed and staring hard at the table in front of him. He was a sensitive boy, eager to please, and hated it when Graves shouted at him. Stephen Westerman was chewing toast and sitting sideways in his seat to stare out into the Square behind him. Mrs Martin thought, not for the first time, that it was very sensible of Mrs Service to take her own modest breakfast in her room.

The door opened and Lady Susan entered, her back ramrod straight. She was shaping up to be a very pretty young woman, fair like her brother and with large blue eyes and clear skin, but quick and lively as a monkey. She had a talent for play-acting and loved to make the servants laugh with her impressions of their friends and neighbours. They were horribly accurate, but Mrs Martin had begun to try and persuade the staff not to encourage her. Susan would soon be entering the world of drawing rooms and assemblies, and her talents for mimicry would earn her no friends there. As soon as she saw that her guardian was not present, the girl seemed to relax a little and even smiled at William when he put down a plate in front of her and poured her tea. He winked at her, which Mrs Martin pretended not to notice.

‘Is there a kipper, Mrs Martin?’ Stephen asked.

‘I shall ask Cook to make you one, Master Stephen,’ she said, smoothing down the cloth.

‘Oh, may I have one too, Mrs Martin?’ Jonathan said.

‘Certainly, My Lord.’ The child blushed a deeper pink. They had been asked to address the children more formally now, and no one much liked the change, least of all the little aristocrats. Graves came back into the room, no stains of coffee visible.

‘And for me please,’ he said.

Mrs Martin nodded to William and took his station by the buffet as he left the room with the order.

‘I’m sorry I fell over, Graves,’ Jonathan said quietly.

‘I seem to have survived, Jon,’ he answered with a smile, then looked at Stephen Westerman and raised his eyebrows. Jonathan nudged him.

‘What? Oh, I’m sorry for running, Graves,’ the boy said quickly.

Graves leaned back while Mrs Martin shook out a napkin and placed it over his lap. ‘Good, the servants have enough to do without you two creating more work. Thank you, Mrs Martin.’ He looked at Susan. ‘And may I expect any apology from you this morning, Susan?’

The girl said nothing. Mrs Martin wanted to shake her. Any fool could see the girl was upset. Her eyes were damp and Anne Westerman’s nurse said Susan had been weeping since the letter from her headmistress had arrived, but she was proud as the devil himself.

‘I see. Jonathan, Stephen, we shall go to the balloon-raising as promised.’ The boys let out whoops, then sat very straight and quiet when Graves’s eye rested on them again. ‘Susan, I have spoken to Mrs Service. She goes to see an acquaintance of hers this morning who knows a great deal about female education. You shall go with her, not to Barbican.’

The girl turned towards him, her eyes wide. ‘Graves, no! It is Monsieur Blanchard! It is the same machine with which he crossed the Channel! I so want to go!’

Mr Graves only shook his head. ‘I want an apology and an explanation from you, Susan. There will be no more treats and excursions until I receive both. How can I take you into the civilised world until you know how to behave in it?’

It broke Mrs Martin’s heart. The girl stared back at her plate, breathing hard against her stays. Go steady, my dear, Mrs Martin thought, or you shall faint. After a few moments Susan spoke very quietly. ‘I have had all I wish to eat, Graves. May I leave the table?’ A bite of bread and butter was no breakfast for a growing girl, Mrs Martin thought, but it was not her place to speak.

‘You may.’

Susan left with an attempt at dignity, nodding to Mrs Martin as she did, but they all heard the choking noise she made as she began to cry the moment she was through the door, and her steps as she raced back upstairs to her room.

She must have passed Mrs Westerman on her way, for the latter came into the room looking rather distracted, and it was only William’s quick reactions that saved the kippers from being knocked to the floor as he entered with them on a tray behind her.

‘No balloons for Susan, I assume,’ she said as she sat down and Mrs Martin served her coffee from the fresh pot.

‘Good morning, Mrs Westerman,’ Graves replied. ‘No, not today. But Anne is still welcome to join us if you think she would enjoy it.’

Harriet Westerman smiled. ‘She is singing her new balloon song already. Her nurse will go with you, of course.’

‘She was singing it all last evening too,’ Stephen said, and rolled his eyes before beginning on his kipper. ‘I’m not sure it really is a song, Mama, when all she does is chant baallooon! in a silly voice.’

‘It amused you yesterday,’ she replied.

Her son grinned and swallowed whatever was in his mouth with a great sucking gulp, then waved his fork about as he answered. ‘Well, it is a bit funny, and then when we laughed she started doing it more and more. Even Susan laughed till she could hardly breathe in her frock.’

The mention of her name made everyone quiet. The fork was reapplied to the kipper. Graves cleared his throat. ‘Eustache, would you like to come and see the balloon?’

The boy looked around at them all from under his lashes without lowering his book, then sighed. ‘No, thank you, Graves.’

‘But Eustache, it’s a balloon!’ Stephen said in amazement, a forkful of kipper forgotten halfway to his mouth. ‘You can’t just want to stay here and read! We don’t even have lessons today.’ The bit of kipper fell back onto his plate and he huffed unhappily at it.

‘I can and I do, as it happens, Stephen.’ There was something about the way he spoke that made any phrase sound vaguely insulting. Clever enough to confuse his tutors at times, Eustache spoke like a boy three times his age. It could be unnerving, and such a way of watching people. Mrs Martin thought of what she had heard of his mother – beautiful, corrupted, mad – then found she could not look at Eustache any more. ‘I don’t have to go, do I, Graves?’

His guardian looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘No, Eustache, but you cannot stay in the house all day. If you do not wish to come with us, perhaps you might go with Mrs Service and Susan. At least you’ll get some air that way.’

Eustache looked back to his book and turned a page with a noisy sigh. ‘I will.’

Harriet finished her coffee and held the cup up to Mrs Martin. She went to refill it, glad to stop thinking about Eustache. Mrs Westerman had a lovely smile. It came from her eyes and made you realise she was a young woman still. Mrs Martin felt guilty about her less than charitable feelings for the young widow. The house was big enough for them all and she was a dear friend and neighbour in Sussex, so she should always be made welcome, even if she descended on them at a moment’s notice. Hadn’t Mrs Westerman saved the lives of Jonathan and Susan? Hadn’t she saved her brother-in-law from the executioner’s axe only last year? Yet here she was, polite and genteel as any woman. Let people call her wild or unfeeling. Let the booksellers and printmakers spread their sensational versions of her adventures. Let the Sussex gentry tut and fuss at her behaviour. It was jealousy. It was only natural that she could be a little eccentric, a little impulsive after all her travels and troubles. They all had cause to be grateful she was such good friends with Mr Gabriel Crowther – and Mrs Martin had never seen anything improper in their relationship. Anyone saying otherwise was a mean-spirited gossip! Mrs Westerman was a good woman who helped people. She had two handsome, kind-hearted children, an estate that produced some of the best potted fruits Mrs Martin had ever tasted, and she knew how to conduct herself with ease and charm in the best houses in the country … when she wanted to. Why, the King himself had bowed over her hand and called her a good woman.

Mrs Martin went back to her post by the sideboard. The morning was under her control again. The kippers were being eaten with apparent delight and William was handing round sausages, not burned, to those that wanted them. Philip would have calmed down by now, and with most of the family out for the day Mrs Martin would be free to make all those necessary adjustments in the household to keep it running as well as it should.

Mrs Westerman patted her napkin to her lips. ‘William, Dido said you needed to speak to me. Perhaps you can come to my room after breakfast. Something about a body?’

It is a testament to Mrs Martin’s character that the coffee pot was not dropped a second time.

BREAKFAST DONE, HARRIET WESTERMAN returned to her private sitting room on the first floor and picked up her sister’s letter again. It could be read as an apology for interfering, for telling Harriet her business, but as she restated all her arguments and insisted on the fact that her actions were justified, it did not read as a very sincere apology. Harriet loved her sister, but she irritated her deeply on occasion. Since Rachel had given birth to a daughter and bloomed into motherhood so completely, the irritations had increased, for she seemed to believe that the event had conferred on her some ultimate wisdom. Every time she wished to criticise Harriet or her behaviour, she began her little homilies with, ‘as the mother of a daughter …’ and this drove Harriet to screaming point. She had been the mother of a daughter for many years more than Rachel – not a particularly good one perhaps, but nevertheless … She put the letter down and stared miserably out into the Square below. There was the guilt again. Harriet loved her children, fiercely, absolutely, but her world consisted of more than her son, her daughter and their interests. She sometimes thought that made her an unnatural parent in Rachel’s eyes.