as she realised that what it contained was not an acceptance letter identical to the one she herself had received the year before, but a rejection. ‘Oh, Kate. I’m sorry. That sucks …’
And again, just four years ago, as Molly had clutched the newborn Emma to her chest, trying to work out how to nurse her. Exhausted and clammy, with strands of hair stuck to her forehead, Molly had reached up to Kate and touched her cheek. Kate had lain down beside her sister on the narrow hospital bed with an arm cradled across Emma as she helped the baby attach to Molly’s raw nipple. Kate had remained on the bed, cradling her older sister and her sticky newborn niece, heart flooded with love, promising to keep them safe.
A life without Molly, her partner Jessica and little Emma didn’t bear thinking about.
She looked closely at the clipping photograph of the young Gertrude wearing a mortarboard and academic gown. The law graduate had gleaming eyes and creases at her temples that hinted at the anticipation and sadness she recognised in the lines on Essie’s wrinkled face.
Gertrude Murphy had been the only female graduate in her class. Kate wondered what it would have been like to be the lone woman among all those young men in stiff shirts and ties. She thought of her own art history classes—the ones she made it to—where it was commonplace for the class to be filled mostly with women, slouched low at their desks in the unisex Californian uniform of denim cut-offs, slides and a loose T-shirt.
It had been refreshing to go to college on the West Coast. Kate took student loans and paid her own way like any other student. It was liberating to be unhooked from the Kirby family back in Boston and the expectations that came with it; to be free to surf and to study whatever subject piqued her interest, from French to Elizabethan Jewellery to Life Drawing.
But lately the tide had turned. Perhaps it was living in the old Louisburg Square house, or a mellowing that came with age, but Kate wanted to lean in towards Essie and her family. Unscrambling the London secrets would be a start.
As she reached for an olive, Kate saw out of the corner of her eye a tall, striking woman in elegant wide-legged pants, heels and a green blazer striding towards her, briefcase in hand.
‘Sorry!’ said Bella as she bent to kiss Kate on both cheeks before sitting down. ‘It’s been quite the afternoon.’
‘Tough case?’
‘Is there any other kind in family law?’ Bella grimaced and waved at the waiter, then pointed to Kate’s drink indicate she’d like one of the same.
‘I guess not.’
Bella leaned back in her chair and breathed in the warm air. ‘Had to extricate myself from the bailiff, then console a distraught father.’
‘God, how awful … I’m sorry,’ said Kate, thinking of her own father and grandfather. Her grandfather had spent hours every summer teaching Kate and her sister to sail, while the girls’ father had taught them to surf.
Bella noticed the notebooks. ‘Looks serious! You mentioned in your email that you’re interested in my great-grandmother, Gertrude. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to ask me about her! Before she and Dad retired to Majorca, Mum left me with a box full of papers from her family history years; she’s more into scrapbooking and Pilates these days.’
Bella reached down into her bag and pulled out a manila folder on which was written in neat capitals: MURPHY FAMILY TREE. She handed it to Kate, who opened it out on her knees and unfolded the family tree that had been laminated into three sections.
Bella smiled. ‘So, we share great-great-grandparents, Clementine and Conrad Murphy. Clementine was widowed when Conrad died in the Boer War. She had seven children, and the only ones that seem to have survived into adulthood were our great-grandmothers, Gertrude and Esther. See here.’ She tapped the first branch of the tree. ‘Freddie, the eldest, was killed on a worksite near St Paul’s Cathedral when he was nineteen. Crushed when an unsecured wall of bricks toppled down on him, poor bugger.’
‘Then there’s Esther Rose, my great-grandmother,’ Kate observed, ‘followed by Gertrude, who was yours.’
‘They were the lucky pair. Their younger sisters Flora and Maggie—twins—didn’t even make it into their teens, and two little girls either side of Gertrude died of measles and whooping cough as babies.’
The spider’s web of lines below Clementine and Conrad Murphy gnawed at Kate. She imagined tiny