"I was ten years old when the first serious misfortune that I can
remember fell upon me. My mother died, worn out in the prime of her
life. And not long afterward the strolling company, brought to the end
of its resources by a succession of bad seasons, was broken up.
"I was left on the world, a nameless, penniless outcast, with one fatal
inheritance--God knows, I can speak of it without vanity, after what I
have gone through!--the inheritance of my mother's beauty.
"My only friends were the poor starved-out players. Two of them (husband
and wife) obtained engagements in another company, and I was included in
the bargain The new manager by whom I was employed was a drunkard and
a brute. One night I made a trifling mistake in the course of the
performances--and I was savagely beaten for it. Perhaps I had inherited
some of my father's spirit--without, I hope, also inheriting my father's
pitiless nature. However that may be, I resolved (no matter what became
of me) never again to serve the man who had beaten me. I unlocked the
door of our miserable lodging at daybreak the next morning; and, at ten
years old, with my little bundle in my hand, I faced the world alone.
"My mother had confided to me, in her last moments, my father's name
and the address of his house in London. 'He may feel some compassion
for you' (she said), 'though he feels none for me: try him.' I had a few
shillings, the last pitiful remains of my wages, in my pocket; and I was
not far from London. But I never went near my father: child as I was, I
would have starved and died rather than go to him. I had loved my mother
dearly; and I hated the man who had turned his back on her when she lay
on her deathbed. It made no difference to Me that he happened to be my
father.
"Does this confession revolt you? You look at me, Mr. Holmcroft, as if
it did.
"Think a little, sir. Does what I have just said condemn me as a
heartless creature, even in my earliest years? What is a father to a
child--when the child has never sat on his knee, and never had a kiss
or a present from him? If we had met in the street, we should not have
known each other. Perhaps in after-days, when I was starving in London,
I may have begged of my father without knowing it; and he may have
thrown his daughter a penny to get rid of her, without knowing it
either! What is there sacred in the relations between father and child,
when they are such relations as these? Even the flowers of the field
cannot grow without light and air to help them! How is a child's love to
grow, with nothing to help it?