Summary

Chapter 1 opens with a young woman named Lily walking through London’s West End. She feels alternately anxious and angry as she pushes a baby carriage containing her son, Sam. She arrives at a grand house and asks for Proctor. Stewart Proctor, a tall man in his mid-fifties, invites her in. Lily delivers a letter from her sick mother and waits as Proctor leaves the room to read it alone. Proctor then asks Lily if she’s told anyone about the letter, and if she’s read the letter herself. Lily, affronted, says she does not know the letter’s contents. She emphasizes that she did not tell anyone about the letter, and, in particular, that she did not tell her father. Proctor tells Lily to pass on a message of assent to her mother. He encourages her to visit a nursery school...