<div align="center"><em><strong>Helena writes to Cooper</strong></em><br/><em>The Winterstone Estate, Sussex, May 1888</em></div><hr/><br/><em>Dear Mr. Cooper, Harry,</em><br/><br/>Helena wrote in a neat, narrow handwriting. A lady's hand. It was late, the children were asleep, the room dark save for the oil-lamp on her desk. She paused with her fountain pen poised over the paper, ordering her thoughts, then dipped it in the ink-jar and continued.<em>I hope you don’t think it forward of me to write to you. The thing is I don’t have all that many people to write to, and certainly not anyone who was there, that night master Winterstone was killed and the mistress lost her mind – for good, the doctors are saying.<br/><br/>A lot has changed since then, master Robert and his wife have taken in the children and me with them. I am in Sussex now. Winterstone Hall is a fine place, set between the chalk hills not far from the sea. Yet I find I miss Londen. More than anything I miss the sound of the city. It is so quiet here and I don’t find it soothing at all. It feels rather like the quiet before the storm.</em><br/><br/><em>Do you remember the night the master was killed? I can’t recall if I told you or no, but in the days leading up to it there were a number of strange sightings made. Curious people, a great shaggy dog in the yard. It is like that now. There is a strange lady in the park. And yesterday I saw a man in the garden who I swear looked like the devil with a red-haired woman by his side. I hope you don’t think I’m going mad – I do wonder myself – but I can't help but fear these appearances harald some new disaster. More than anything, I fear for the children. I fear that after their father and mother they will be next and the only ones to truly benefit are the new master and his wife, under whose roof we now live.</em><br/><br/>That was quite enough of that, she decided. They were thoughts that perhaps she should not be sharing, but the need to do so, to air her heart, had grown so great she simply had to tell someone. Her parents would not do. She did not want to worry them. As for her friends, since her family's change of fortune and her having to find work as a governess she found a lot of her friends had simply dissapeared. No, there was only Cooper.<br/><br/>Still, that was enough of that, and she decided to end her letter on a cheerful note.<br/><br/><em>Apart from all that, I am well. The weather continues to be good and the children and me spend a lot of time in the garden.</em><br/><br/><em>I pray you are well and hope to hear from you. <br/><br/>Yours faithfully,<br/><br/>Helena</em><br/><br/>She sprinkled a little perfume onto the page – like a love letter except it wasn’t, not really – then folded the paper and sealed it with a dark, burgundy blob of wax.<br/><br/>Tomorrow, she’d send it.