Chapter Text
1.
Grace was feeling a little unsure of herself, standing there in the white ruffled dress her aunt had prepared for this moment. She had rehearsed a lot and the lyrics kept floating around her head all day - her focus a bit too sharp for an eleven yearold girl, her teachers always said. She was up on a small stage they had made for their Christmas party, the friends of the family all pleasant smiles and her father beaming with pride.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and sang. Suddenly the world dropped dead and there was only Grace and the song. When it was over she opened her eyes to a room full of people looking at her with smiles, clapping.
Later her father chastised her for keeping her eyes closed the entire time.
2.
They had known each other since they were small children, their friendship always carefully watched by their parents. He had blond hair, green eyes, a friendly smile and as her father put it, he "brought a certain lightness" to her. Grace was a beautiful teenager, but with an air of seriousness that made her seem older. She was very bright and a fast learner; she could sing, dance and charm people to her will. But once she was at home, comfortable in her own little world, she would be easily found among books, a certain disdain for the conversations of the people she should be friends with made evident in the way she talked about them. The friendship of Henry was one of the few she held truth and he was very dear to her.
They were talking excitedly about a book they had just read, Grace defending her argument with passion when Henry blurted out that he loved her. She stopped talking, eyes wide and mind blank. The air sat very still for a few moments before he asked, looking almost on the verge of tears, if she loved him back. Grace nodded and then he sat closer to her, pulling her face to him and kissing her awkwardly. She said a small reprimand afterwards, but he just smiled at her, "it's okay Grace, you're going to be my wife one day." She wondered if he was right, but kept to herself.
3.
"Your brother is gone, Grace, he's gone".
That's how her father told her and she would never forget it. Grace had lost her mother, but she was too young to remember anything. For as long as she could remember family meant her brother, her father and Henry. Sometimes her aunt would visit, teach her about the "feminine world" and then disappear again, looking after her own family. So when her brother fell ill, Grace was the only woman there to look after him - at the age of seventeen, she looked like one at least. She fought bravely, almost never leaving his bedside. She was always exhausted, her hair wild, her eyes bloodshot. Grace thought bitterly about how the doctor had kept her away from her brother's final moments and then realized she had been expecting this outcome. That's what broke her and she started crying.
Grace's brother was gone, Henry was fighting the war and her father the IRA.
After that, she spent two days locked in her room, refusing to do anything. When she came out Grace not only looked like a woman but also felt like one.
4.
"Mr. Campbell, it's Grace Burgess" - his secretary announced her then took a step back, closing the door.
"Dear Grace, how are you? It's so terrible, what happened to you."
Grace had, in the short period of a year, lost her fiancée and her father. She was alone in the world. All the people around her pitied her and wanted to find her a good man. She wanted to do something for herself and for those she loved so she decided to become a copper, thinking sadly of how her brother never had the chance to do so. She often thought of things that would never happen: how a young, energetic Henry would never hold her in his arms again, kiss her and love her as he had before he left for the war, promising of a return that never happened in whispers and letters and looks repeated so much it almost felt like truth. How her stern father, always worried about her, would never ask her to sing again. So much had been taken from her. She even thought of the mother she never knew, a respectable woman with a talent for music she had inherited. She felt like taking something from life as well.
So she told this Mr. Campbell, a very well connected friend of the family, her plan. He sat it in motion.