Dana C Johnson wrote:

I noticed a lot of foreshadowing too, not just hints regarding the
outcome of this particular book, but also for GAUD.  In the chapter "Mr.
Gotobed is called wrong with a double", Hilary Thorpe is introduced.  The
first time I read NINE, I never noticed that the description of her was
very much like Harriet Vane.  "She was tall and thin and rather gawky,
thogh with promise of becoming some day a striking-looking woman".  And
Hilary wanted to become a writer as well. 

Now this is an interesting point, and I suggest that the reason for the resemblance is in fact the resemblance of both characters to DLS herself.

If Harriet is to some extent the image of the adult DLS (the writer of detective fiction who is an Oxford graduate), then Hilary is to some extent the teenage DLS, at home in the church and destined for Oxford.

A couple of years ago three of us (the Dear Vicar, Alan 'at Upwell church near Wisbech' and I 'in the little town of St Ives') met at Bluntisham church (just a couple of miles down the road from my home in St Ives). Bluntisham was DLS's childhood home, and her father had been Rector there. The present Rector of Bluntisham met us there, and related  a story about the bells of the church. These had been partially restored by Henry Sayers, and the records of the bellfoundry apparently tell of a young girl who sat and watched the men at work, asking them questions. The identity of the young girl is not recorded, but it is very tempting to thing that it might have been the young DLS herself, and that the very episode of Hilary in the bellchamber, looking at the bells and asking about them is at least partially based on DLS's own memory of this event.

simon
tower captain in the little town of St Ives in Huntingdonshire