The Final Recollections of Charles Dickens Read Online Free PDF Page A

remembered now hearing similar cries from other servant girls in the house at night and the haunted look in their eyes the following morning.
    When it was done, she had lost what no one could give back to her. He had taken what could never be returned. She slept not at all that night. In the morning, the master’s valet handed her a small silk purse with three gold sovereigns in it.
    Florence now had a father. She was a daughter of shame. She stayed sick in her room all that day. Her hopes of growing up to be a lady lay crushed in her breast. When night fell, she packed up her few belongings and fled from her childhood home.
    She told no one what had happened. She did not wantJames or Christopher to know of her degradation. It was better to disappear than to have them know.
    She walked for hours, then stopped to rest in a church. Not many people care to sleep in a church. I do not mean at sermon time, when it is often done. I speak of at night and alone. The angry wind has a dismal way of wandering round and round and moaning as it goes, of trying the windows and doors and seeking out crevices by which to enter. Once it has got in, it wails and howls and stalks through the aisles, glides round the pillars, soars up to the roof, flings itself despairingly upon the stones below, and passes, muttering, into the vaults. It has an awful voice, the wind in a church at midnight.
    After three days’ travel, Florence arrived in London. With her ever-diminishing three sovereigns, she bought the food necessary to survive. Half a loaf was better than crumbs. Crumbs were better than nothing. She joined the working poor, whose hands are hardened by toil. A decent woman spoke to her about needlework and lodging. She found a position as a seamstress for a dressmaker.
    Florence’s new home was a large whitewashed room behind a dress shop shared with eight other women. The stifled air and dim light were what one expects in such a situation. Each woman had a shelf on which to place her personal belongings. Large hooks fixed in the wall beneath the shelves served as the hanging place for mats and blankets. There was a fireplace and a long table at which the women sat on wooden benches for dinner.
    Florence worked early and late. She strained her eyes until it was too dark to see the threads, then lit a candleand worked longer. It was cheerless, never-ending toil; not to live well, but to scrape together enough to live.
    She hid her beauty as best she could. But in due course, the proprietor of the shop took notice of her shape and general appearance and decided that Florence would look appealing in a low dress with long sleeves made full in the skirts with four tucks in the bottom. And in just about anything else, for that matter.
    It became part of her duties to exhibit the dresses for customers.
    Men looked at her often when she ventured onto the streets, but she wanted no part of them. She had been ruined. Let the lips of no honest man touch hers ever again.
    She thought often of James Frost and wished that he would have a good life. She truly loved him.
    Time passed.
    A woman named Hortense Webster came to the shop. She was forty years old and quite portly with an expanding stomach and ample bust. Her jewels bespoke her wealth.
    Hortense talked with Florence in a friendly way. She asked about her circumstances and invited her to tea. Florence was flattered that so fine a lady took an interest in her.
    All the while at tea, Hortense was studying Florence. The young woman’s voice was sweet and musical. She spoke nicely. Her manner was timid, but she had self-possession and control over her emotions. Although made up in a plain way, she was beautiful with an aura of innocence about her.
    The longer that Hortense studied Florence, the more she saw a fortune in her beauty.
    â€œWhen there are two parties to a bargain,” Hortense told Florence, “it is right that the interests of both sides be met.”
    Then Hortense