I have to confess that I thoroughly enjoyed creating Rosemary - Miss Rose - in The Housemaid's Daughter. She is the indulged daughter of Ada's Irish employers, the Harringtons. Rose is jealous of Ada's kind nature and brilliance at the piano, and detests her mother's fondness for her housemaid. Rose doesn't get much time on the page, so every interaction has to be short and sharp. It's not often one can write withering putdowns, as when the young, unschooled Ada asks about numbers and what they mean.
"I don't have time to explain," said Miss Rose, as she brushed her yellow hair in front of the mirror. "You haven't any money so you probably don't need to learn to count."
The antipathy lasts a lifetime. When Rose's mother, Ada's beloved Mrs Cath, passes away, she grants Ada the right to be caretaker of Cradock House.
"I can stay?" I found myself murmuring. "Is that true, sir?"
"Yes, it's true," snapped Miss Rose. "You've been angling for that from the very beginning."
What of Piet, the rogue in The Girl from Simon's Bay? He is a thief, ends up in a reformatory, fails to change his ways, defrauds the navy during the war, has the chance to make good but succumbs to drink and dies in an accidental conflagration. Poor Piet - I could sympathise with him. He wasn't a bad man, he simply lacked the will to save himself. And he did, I believe, set some teenage readers' hearts beating...
And then there is Wynand, the man who fire-bombs Frances's house in The Fire Portrait but is never brought to justice. In fact, he goes on to become an elected politician. He tries to flatter Frances by inviting her to visit him in his Parliamentary office, but she will not be fobbed off so easily.
"Are you worried, sir, that I still have the ability to expose you as an arsonist?"
I could see the calculation going on in his head.
Dismiss her with contempt? Or use her?
"I am a different man, Mrs McDonald. Now, shall we have a photograph together?"
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