THE story which I have to tell is more than strange. It is so terrible,
so incredible, so entirely contrary to all that any ordinary reader of
the _London Journal_ or the "penny dreadfuls" has ever heard of, that
even now I have some doubt in telling it. I happen, however, to know it
is true, and so does my husband. My husband will come in presently with
his narrative. There! that ought to make you curious. A very good
commencement.
My early life was uneventful. I was a foundling. I was left with two old
ladies (I fancy I may work them up some day into "character" sketches)
by a perfect gentleman, who, after giving them L200, went away the next
morning to Vienna for ever. He left with these two old ladies a little
wardrobe full of clothes, but there was not a mark, nor so much as an
initial, upon a single thing. They had all been cut out with a sharp
pair of scissors.
This again ought to excite your curiosity. Bear it in mind. Mysterious
parentage--no mother, no marks, and father gone to Vienna for ever.
The two old ladies kept a school, in which I first was a scholar, then a
teacher. There I remained until I was seventeen, when I was tall and
strong for my age, and looked more like three or four and twenty. One
day one of the old ladies said to me--
"Now, my dear, I will tell you what we are going to do. We are going to
sell the school, and buy a little cottage at Bognor. It doesn't face the
sea, and just holds two. So, as we have considered you more or less our
own daughter, we are going to kick you out. Now don't let's talk any
more about it to-day, but tell us to-morrow at breakfast, like a dear
good girl, that we are going to do what you wish."
"I shall tell you to-morrow," I answered, firmly. "I'll pretend to think
the matter over with all my might and main, until to-morrow morning, and
then give you an answer as solemnly weighed, and as carefully set out,
as a Saturday afternoon essay."
So I was kicked out.
I became a governess in the household of Mrs. COWSTREAM. That household
consisted of the master, whose manner was what old ladies in
Lincolnshire call "rampageous," the children, who were, beyond doubt,
hopelessly dull, and the mistress, who was colourless.
Nothing particularly happened save my dismissal (after receiving a
salary of about a thousand to twelve-hundred a year) within six months.
With about four-hundred pounds in hand I went to the Charing Cross
Hotel.
I feel I am a little plot-less. So far: foundling, old ladies at Bognor,
aimless engagement by Mrs. COWSTREAM and advertisement for the Charing
Cross Hotel. All good in their way, but not quite enough. I want an
incident. I have it.
Having untold gold, I thought I would buy some gloves in the Tottenham
Court Road. I entered an omnibus, was much struck by an old woman who
sat next me, bought the gloves, was arrested as a thief for passing
false money and saved from penal servitude for life by old woman. Come,
there's action for you! Still, I don't know why it is, but we don't seem
to get much "forrader."
The old woman hurried me about from place to place feeding me simply on
grapes and bonbons. For some reason I was not allowed to know where I
was. I didn't want to, and not caring a brass-farthing for the selfish
old ladies at Bognor, it mattered nothing to me whether they heard from
me or not. After a time the old woman asked me to sign this with my
blood.
"In consideration of seven pounds a week, I agree to sell my dreams
between sunset and sunrise, the payment ceasing on my death, and my
dreams, if any, immediately becoming only, and unconditionally my own."