Rooftoppers

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and gender discrimination.

After the sinking of the Queen Mary in the English Channel, a survivor, Charles Maxim, finds a baby floating in a cello case, her shivering body wrapped for warmth in a Beethoven symphony. The baby has a shy smile and hair the “color of lightning” (2). Judging from a rosette pinned to her clothing bearing the number one, the baby is one year old. There is no trace of her parents or of any other survivors. Charles, who is 36 years old and single, decides to raise her as his own. Naming the child Sophie, he takes her home to his London manse, which is “beautiful” but, like himself, eccentric; it is full of “sharp corners,” spiderwebs, and books. Having always enjoyed books more than human beings, Charles vows to be more personable for Sophie’s sake. Meeting resistance from Miss Eliot, a gray-haired official from the National Childcare Agency, who questions a bachelor’s ability to raise a baby, Charles insists that saving the parentless Sophie from the sea has given him the sole responsibility of caring for her.