History

Born Philippa Elizabeth St John on the 23rd of January 1856, the first and only child of Gilbert St John, the eldest son of landed gentry, and Millicent St John, the daughter of a Viscount. From a carefree early childhood spent principally in the country rose, at about age eight, the condition that would plague Philippa for the entirety of her life: Her height.

Women are not meant to be tall, they are not meant to explode into their adolescence in a mass of gangling limbs, they are not meant to tower, particularly over anyone of the male persuasion. Stilts, Bean Pole, Miss High Pockets — Pippa has heard every name in the book. Were it not for her mother's firm hand, she never would have stood up straight again. "Some men may not care for a girl who is tall," Millicent insisted, "but no man cares for a girl who slouches." Her father afforded her a gentler approach, soothing over the worst moments with quiet words and warm hugs, but the seeds of insecurity rooted themselves deep within her psyche nevertheless. It took several years the beginning of her first deportment lessons for Pippa to comprehend that, abominably tall or not, she was not without weapons.

From age ten to eighteen, she honed these weapons to the finest possible point. A girl of her physical stature could not get away with being lazy in her comportment — She needed to be, and would be, perfect. Beautiful, accomplished, impeccably poised, and so generous of spirit that you could not feel jealous of her without also feeling guilt. Despite that she could look over nearly all of the heads in a ball room by the time she debuted, Pippa became one of the prizes of the ton during her two seasons.

She had never expected love. But then, as she has learned, love cares very little for what you do or do not expect from it.

Eugene Carrington, the newly-minted Baron Carrington, was everything she could have hoped for in a partner: Funny, intelligent, honest almost to a fault; Warm brown eyes and thick dark hair that he had to wrestle flat. Pippa stood three inches higher than him on bare feet, but he didn't care. He was enraptured by her; she was enraptured by his being enraptured. They were the grand, impossible love story of their season.

For over ten years they remained that way. They had only daughters, but Eugene loved them with an ease and depth that made Pippa's chest ache. He wanted more, he said, wrapped around his laughing wife in bed — Daughters, sons, anything. More love. To get, to give, to hang onto like his life depended on it.

Only it hadn't, or he wouldn't have died gasping alone on a dusty summer road. A snake had spooked his horse, they said. Tucked in his saddlebags: Two porcelain dolls and a box of chocolates for his three favorite girls.

Having two young children, Pippa discovered, was the surest way to move past profound grief. She felt as small and bowed as ever in her childhood, and might have at last let herself hunch into a permanent dark corner were it not for Evelyn and Esther. They became her guiding light and wrenched her bodily from the deepest depths of her grief. They three took the full two years of mourning at the Carrington country estate until Pippa began worrying about taking advantage of the new Baron's generosity. Eugene's cousin was a kind man, and loathed the city, he said; as long as they abided his presence from time to time, he would be glad for them to stay at the house in Notting Hill as long as they liked.

A house that Philippa redecorated to make their own, only to now feel a stranger within its familiar walls. Eugene did not leave his family destitute, but still Pippa worries when their lives now rest on the generosity of a man they scarcely know.