The Harringtons

Henry spent his early years growing up in Harrington House, on Dartmoor in Devon, before being sent off to preparatory school, and then to Westminster in London, before finishing off his education at University College London, where he now tutors mathematics. Henry's demeanor and behavior reflects his education. Tall and weedy, he has pale green eyes behind small spectacles, dark hair that is beginning to thin at the top, and burn holes in his well-tailored but somewhat worn suit, from the pipe he smokes. If one word were used to describe him, it would be "sensible". Henry believes in what he can see, hear, touch, and calculate.

Henry was quite different from his siblings. Lawrence was serious, scholarly, and athletic; he was his father's favorite, accompanying him on business and clearly destined to follow in his footsteps, and Henry admired him greatly, though he seemed destined to be no more than his pale reflection. Clive, too, showed a scholar's inclinations, but in far less practical directions; he was always into the pursuit of things old, reading dusty books and collecting esoterica. Anne, growing up among all these brothers, was a bit of a tomboy, always causing some mischief or another.

The Great War began in 1914. Lawrence had already finished his course of study in mathematics at Cambridge, and sought and received a commission, going with the Grenadier Guards to France. A year later, Clive volunteered as well, leaving his study of archaeology at Cambridge to join a unit of the Devonshire Regiment in the Mesopotamian theatre -- just in time, it turned out, as Cambridge was to virtually shut down in the years of the war to follow; in early 1916, when the initial flood of volunteers for the war slowed to a trickle, Britain enacted a conscription law.

Henry did not volunteer; when the conscription obliged him to present himself for enlistment, he was rejected for service, owing to his extreme near-sightedness. Though he would eventually be employed calculating artillery tables, he was and would remain defensive about his lack of service during the war, particularly during the later years of the war, when his university colleagues were primarily the returning walking wounded.

Their father Clarence, too, was called up, when the last Military Service Act was passed in mid-1918, extending the age of conscription to 55. He was in training when he received news that Lawrence had been killed on the Marne, in the fall of that year. It was just a few months before the Armistice. Clarence never saw battle, but he returned home the next year, a shattered man. Shortly thereafter, Clive, too, returned home; rather than completing his university education, he assumed his duties as the master of Harrington House, which had been left unoccupied for over a year.

In 1921, Henry married Eliza Whitfield, a young woman his own age who seemed well-equipped to share Henry's sensibly and neatly-arranged life. They settled down to apparent domestic felicity in a well-appointed London townhouse, supported by both a stipend from the Harrington estate, as well as Henry's salary as a tutor at the university.

The Whitfields

Lester Whitfield was a London barrister, with ambitions; he wanted his children to grow up to better circumstance, and with that in mind, he set about the accumulation of wealth and connections, sending his children to the best schools and ensuring they were invited to the right kinds of parties.

Eliza did not disappoint. She grew up amidst the social whirl of London, learning to be gracious and well-mannered and class-conscious. She was what was referred to as an "accomplished young woman", equally at home with a piano or paintbrush or poetry. If she had the unfortunate tendency to be a little too intelligent for her own good, or a little too quick with a witty rejoinder, she hid it well. Men were never threatened by her presence.

The other Whitfield children, however, bore all of this with far less good grace. Jane, in particular, seemed to have a knack for associating with the wrong company -- wealthy company, but nonetheless wrong. William, too, seemed to have a knack for attracting the wrong kind of attention, particularly when he took up with Jane's friends. It was not so much that William was a troublemaker, as he was a boy of great charm and goodwill that he was easily swept up by what those around him were doing.

Lester nonetheless managed to get William into the Rugby School, where, away from Jane's crowd and influence, he excelled at sports and causing ruckuses, but did well enough that his father was only occasionally driven to despair. Unfortunately, Lester could not do anything such thing for Jane herself.

The family's life was disrupted by the Great War, though William did not come of enlistment age until the last year of the war. Like other young men, he was conscripted during the desperate need for men in what was to be the last year of the war, arriving on the Western Front a scant two months before the Armistice. He was shot and killed in the last battle of Ypres.

Eliza grew up to be a petite, slender young woman, yet not fragile in appearance, with strawberry blond hair that had a tendency to curl, and dark, vivid eyes; she was striking for some inner quality of vivacity that nonetheless stayed beneath a mask of polite social formality. Whatever private family tragedies lay in her past, she hid well.

In 1921, Eliza encountered Henry Harrington at a London social ball. Frances Whitfield was very much taken with him, strongly approving of this sensible young man and his family connections. Eliza and Henry married scant months later, and Eliza settled into her new role as a wife with seeming ease.

Henry and Eliza's Family

Eliza has also aged gracefully. She is no longer a fresh-faced beauty, but she has acquired a certain calm and dignity, though much of the spark seems to have died from her eyes, flaring up only in anger or offense. She is not quite as slender as she was as a young woman, but if anything, it has lent her greater elegance of bearing. Her hair is still a great pride of hers. She is always fashionably coiffed; her tastes are classic and never ostentatious or overdone.

They have five children. The eldest is Henry Junior, seventeen years old. The next two are also sons, fourteen and ten years old respectively. Finally, there are twin girls, Eleanore and Jane, age nine.