Manchester, England

August 9th, 1861

I'm Clair Smith, I'm ten years old and this is my journal, where I'll start to tell my story so that my descendants can know it.

On the current moment, I'm grieving the death of my dear parents. Three months ago, they suffered a unique accident. The police chief who investigated the event didn't find anything irregular and closed the case as a fatality. I'm not convinced that it's true. There is something suspicious, but I don't have many opportunities to investigate and find out the truth.

Manchester is my hometown and my family's.

My grandparents are Sir George Sinclair and Lady Caroline Louise Aston Sinclair, aristocrats of the area. They had only one child, my mother, Catherine Sophie Aston Sinclair, born on March 5th, 1829.

My mother was polite just like every noble. She was an artist. She could sew and paint, played the piano, flute and the violin and spoke French perfectly. She had visited London and Paris. She liked reading and talking.

My father, William Martin Smith, was a bourgeois. His parents were well successful merchants and managed to pay for his studies. He graduated as a doctor. He was very dedicated and studious, and many nobles were his patients because they trusted his diagnoses and treatments. 

That's how he met my mother. She was severely ill, and my grandfather called him to treat her.

My father treated my mother for weeks until she recovered. And while he was taking care of her, he fell in love. He was fourteen years older than her and didn't have any titles, which made him hopeless about revealing his feelings.

We are living a period of peace and prosperity for the British people who have expanded their empire overseas. Many middle-class people can study and prosper, just like it happened with my father.

This same society, prospered and dived in science, is also strict in costumes and moralism, with strict prejudices and severe prohibitions. The puritans consider the work dedication, the moral defense, the religious truth and, the Sunday rest as values of big importance.

The men take over the public and private spaces and expect women to be submissive and dedicate only to their homes and children.

The laziness and addiction are bounded with poverty. The women to be respected must remain themselves modest and pure, with their chastity protected as one of the virtues of the young single women.

My grandparents never left the countryside. They live on a village, in a big and comfortable house. I live with them now.

I've talked a lot with my mother who always told me the truth. She and my father attended a lot the social scene after they got married and she gave me details on how those events were. She told me everything about her first ball. 

In 1845, she was sixteen years old, when her parents were invited by friends to a private bll of debutants, where my mother would have the opportunity to be introduced to the high society.

 These occasions were and still are many specials for a young woman and there are several rules to be followed: how to behave correctly, how to dress properly and what to say in specific situations. There  are more men invited than women so that the dance floor is always full. The ballrooms are richly decorated and illuminated in honor to the guests. Men must dress elegantly and, women wear beautiful dresses.

The balls are the best places for women and men to meet, since they are an extremely popular form of entertainment. Despite their countless restrictions, these events offer the perfect opportunity for young couples to have more intimate contact, holding hands while dancing closer.

The protocols are strict. A man can invite any young woman of his choice to dance. Ladies must sit modestly waiting for that invitation. A gentleman, however, must wait to be recognized by a lady before trying to talk to her. The lady's escort, normally her mother, is never far away, to make sure the rules of decency are being followed. The dances of a lady can be reserved previously, if the name of the men is written on her dance card.

It's not acceptable for a man to dance more than once with the same partner. And if his invitation is refused, he should never insist. However, unless she has a serious reason to do so, a lady never refuses and invitation to dance. 

But my mother did this when a gentleman invited her for a second dance.

When the ball ended, my grandparents and my mother left and took the carriage to return to the inn where they would spend the night.

It was dark, the streets barely had any light. The rain was strong, and the coachman led carefully. The three of them were napping on the cabin when the carriage stopped abruptly, the door opened quickly, and my grandparents were hit on their heads. My mother was terrified, and a wet cloth was put on her nose. She fainted and couldn't tell what had happened. . My grandparents had been helped by walkers.

They were just leaving to go to the police station to ask for help to find their daughter when they found her in those humiliating conditions. My grandfather wrapped her in his coat and carried her to the bedroom.

My grandparents soon realized that their daughter had been raped and how much prejudice she would suffer for the rest of her life if that became public. No noble young man from a respectable family would accept her. So, they paid for the silence of the people aware of the situation, hired another carriage and went to the village where they lived on the same night.

My grandmother took care of my mother, but her daughter didn't react.

She was completely shaken, and her emotional state was worrying.

Time passed and my mother didn't get any better. She didn't eat right and felt nauseous many times.

Fearing the worst, they decided to call Dr. William Smith, who had already treated her before, to examine her. On the same day, she was visited by the doctor, who confirmed what they were afraid of: she was pregnant.

My grandparents trusted all the truth of what had happened to Dr. Smith, asking for secrecy.

The doctor asked to talk to my grandfather in private and, when they were alone, proposed a solution. He explained that for long time he had been nurturing a special affection for young Catherine, but he didn't feel like he earned her love. However, he was willing to marry her as soon as possible and take the child as his own. Then, the secret about what happened would be only between them.

My grandfather agreed and convinced my grandmother that it was the best solution. William took care of Catherine until she felt better, and the wedding was performed at my grandparents' house by the priest who knew the truth under confession.

The months of Catherine's pregnancy were respected by William who didn't touch his wife.

This time they had the opportunity to get to know each other better. The patience, kindness and noble spirit of that man won my mother's heart and she fell in love with him. When the child was born, it was a girl, and she was named Clair Sinclair Smith. Me!

* * *

Andrea closed the journal and laid in bed looking at the ceiling. All of that was surreal. Thinking that she was reading the story of her other life, over a hundred years ago, with the same protagonists.

Although the way Clair Smith was conceived and the reasons that brought my parents together in marriage were different.  My mother wasn't raped! 

Was she?  She's never told me the reason why I haven't been registered by my birth father.

Andrea looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. She needed to sleep.

She put the journal in the back of her school supplies drawer because no one would touch there. Put on her pajamas and crashed in bed.

Her dreams were filled by places and situations that she didn't know, by long dresses, men wearing friars and decorated ballrooms.