Sublime

he sent her forty rubles a month for the maintenance of the child.

ribald

lank

But later, when Mary too had suffered terrible losses, she grieved over the pain she had helped Shelley inflict on Harriet, whose plight as an abandoned wife in a judgmental age was a desperate one.

Far braver and more resourceful than her stepdaughter Mary would ever acknowledge, she survived many misfortunes, including a three-month stint in debtors’ prison with two babies.

“Griselda Gowdie,” Grissel replied. “My mam is Janet Gowdie, the banshee of Auldearn, and my granny Isobel was pricked, hanged, and burned while she still lived, many years ago in Nairn.”