From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 60)

I sometimes wonder if I did right by Hope. As a very young girl she attended the local village school that the Stapleford’s had thoroughly refurbished. To be fair to them, they would have updated the school anyway. Their idea, I believe, was for Hope to get to know the people who would one day be her tenants. Both of her parents could be accused of harbouring vaguely socialist principles, given that they see others, regardless of their status or class, as fellow human beings. It’s most unfashionable, and one of the few things on which I agree with Bertram. But then, as ever, I am far beyond the dictates of fashion or, as it should be known, the general consensus of the ill-informed and easily led.

I fear I digress from my point. I don’t want to confront my suspicions that I have treated my goddaughter badly. It was certainly never my intent. Still, at the village school, she was gay and lively, a bright spark of a girl, whose presence was in equal parts enchanting and exhausting.

Euphemia decided to home school her after she finished at the village school rather than send her away. She must have been around eleven at the time, and both her mother and I were up to our necks in the espionage business. It occurred to both of us that Hope could be used as leverage by a foreign power, so we decided to keep her close.

I declined to send Euphemia abroad while her daughter was young, but around this time there was more than enough business that needed to be conducted in Britain. I needed Euphemia, and I used her. Hope spent days on end at home, alone with her father, who schooled her in literature, philosophy and politics. She appeared quite content. She was always closer to her father than her mother. If she ever had thoughts or opinions about her mother constantly going off with another man, she never commented on them. In fact, while her understanding was still rather innocent, I rather think she believed the three of us were all somehow her parents. We were her world, and that was the beginning of the trouble.

Her peers from the village were now apprenticed or working for their families. Certainly, none of them looked to be friends with her. Merry’s son, Michael, sometimes joined her for a lesson, but the Stapleford’s paid for him to go to a good boy’s prep school and then onto a boarding school. It was very much Merry’s wish that he be raised above his current status, and Euphemia was only too delighted to help her dear friend.

Hope never asked to go to boarding school or appeared discontent at home. I remember the day when I realised we might have been wrong in how we raised her. I came into the house, hatted, booted and somewhat muddied after an annoying task that had needed done. As ever, Giles let Jack and I in with a sneer and we went straight up to the room reserved for us. I ordered a bath and I sent Jack off to the kitchen to have his. Once suitably refreshed, I made my way down to the library to help myself to the rather fine brandy I had bought Bertram and to wait for the family to return from wherever they were. Since Hope’s birth I have made, and been encouraged, by Euphemia at least, to make myself very much at home at White Orchards. I found a book to read and sat and sipped my brandy. Bertram came in from being driven around the lower fields. At this point, Hope popped up from behind me, rushing to hug her father. It turned out she had been there all along but thought my reading may have been connected to my work and did not wish to disturb me.

Her father called her a good and thoughtful girl, but I thought back to that lively sprite of a child she had been. Now, at the tender age of twelve, she had become a quiet, reserved, highly observant girl, who opted for lurking in the shadows over playing in the light.

I admit, schooling a child in spycraft was a fascinating experience, but perhaps I should have paid more attention to what the young Hope wanted. All three of us were, in our own ways, large personalities, often busy about our work, be that spying, overseeing the land, or writing political treaties. If Hope needed us, or even asked for us, we always made time for her, but she did so less and less.

At twelve she was still trailing around her stuffed bear, and I fear now it was because we had deprived her of the company of her peers. I think she was lonely and the three of us, so caught up in our own worlds, never noticed. We loved her, we cherished her, but we did not allow young Hope to flourish. In her place we created a young woman who is unnecessarily unsure of herself and reserved. Perhaps we were such bright, shining stars in her childhood that her own radiance diminished in our presence. I fear also that her mother, resuming her work with me, was taken as Euphemia preferring my company over hers. She never blamed me for this. I was the one who revealed all kinds of secrets to her and answered any questions she asked. Euphemia, as she perhaps saw it, was always the one who left her - and even took me away in the process. Of course, for her mother, Hope was the reason her fieldwork was curtailed. Work that she lived to do.

In retrospect, it’s all a bit of a mess, and now I must assign Hope a place in this new war. I find I would spare her everything I might, but I question whether this is the right thing for me to do. Even so, how could I bear to let my Hope come to harm? Surely, it is my duty to keep her safe.