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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Glass House by Eve Chase (view source)
Revision as of 15:47, 23 April 2022
, 15:47, 23 April 2022no edit summary
Rita lost both her parents in a car crash when she was just six years old: since then she's always craved a family. She'd lived with her grandmother in Torquay until she got a job as a nanny with the Harrington family in London. Soon her engagement to Fred, a Torquay butcher, fell through and the Harringtons became her family. In 1971, after a fire at the London house, Jeannie Harrington, her children, 13-year-old Hera and 6-year-old Teddy, along with Rita went to the family's house in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't ''quite'' dilapidated, but it certainly wasn't the same standard as the London house had been before the fire.
Walter Harrington threatened Rita: if she didn't report back to him about his wife's state of mind and actions, whilst they were at Foxcote Manor he'd sack her and employ someone who was more amenable. For herself, Rita would probably have gone rather than be bullied into doing what she knew was morally wrong, but she was close to Hera and Teddy and Knew knew that Jeannie didn't have it in her to look after them properly. Jeannie was recovering from the loss of her baby a few months earlier and her state of mind ''was'' suspect.
There's been another man in the picture for a long time. Don Armstrong ''had'' been Walter's best friend, but he seemed to have transferred his affections to Jeannie - and she to him. Don didn't care whom he hurt and at Foxcote Manor the affair was blatant. Then Hera found a baby abandoned in the woods and for the summer the family would treat it as their own, until the night of the shooting.
