She had not been there at the time. She had not the courage to go back. She knew how
she could not, anyway. Why would she want to? Her father was nothing but a selfish, sadistic
drunkard, always abusing her, always devouring that whiskey. Yet she knew the impulse to rush
back and the sudden desire to do so.
Why did Anne suddenly feel like her life was changed?
Her young nose sniffed the thick air cautiously. Was that the stink of old London bathing
itself in one of its filthy baths of smoke and fog, or the defective redolence of brick being eaten by
a fast fire? Whichever it was, she had to turn back. If her learned instincts whispered to her truly
and that comfortless beast of a house was crumbling down onto its firm foundation, perhaps her
paltry father had crumbled down on his shaking foundation as well, within it. The horrible
building had always been, after all, a rather disconsolate, unwieldy object for Anne in her rather
unreliable life. Her father had been no different, yet she had still learned to live fluently and
somewhat successfully in the fearful world of London. She knew strongly in her heart, thus, that
6
she could continue to faithfully persevere, no matter what event fate would next throw her way.
7
8
1 An Unusual Orphan Girl
Two years later
May 1768
London, England
The scuffling, wasted street rats chewed and gnawed one another with a hunger filled
with chafing pessimism in the destitute streets where the sun had disappeared long ago. Weary,
peasant women cowered down in quakes of fear at the world and the fresh epidemic of pain that
had swiped it. Drunkards lay in their heavy doses of dementia and alcohol. Their life-hating eyes
tossed around in their inflamed sockets recklessly and their brains gradually lost their sanity and
9
vigor as they waste the days away thinking of nothing, dreaming of days that have gone and will
never come back again.
Fourteen-year old Anne Falkman had beheld this all through eyes that esteemed the dire
need to be firm and strong, haughty and traitorous. She had always espied the world with
beautiful eyes that betrayed their attractiveness but clung fast to life itself and the hope for joy
that such a thing as fate could someday bring her.
Anne knew this hope by it growing within her like a tree, and the longer that she forgot
about it, when she felt it prick her heart again it had grown taller. She had acquired the seed of
this hope through the only years of her life that she had ever known, the most unbearable,
heart-wrenching years that no one so young should ever have the curse to possess. They were
years that had tested her natural endurance and inner strength, but with poor end results. The
compassion and kindness born into her had come to terminate long ago as such characteristics
had lost their true shine as the conditions of her tragic life had gripped a sick hold onto them.
Never was the girl smiling kind thoughts and words to the passersby on the streets and
contemplating compassion for the weeping, but why should she? No one had ever really smiled
and sent kind, sympathetic thoughts and words her way through the crude journey that fate had
propelled her into. No one had ever really stopped to direct their attention to the neglect that was
hers every day of her life. Thus, Anne possessed the knowledge that there was no one in the
world who she could trust. She had contracted a vulnerable heart that was, in addition to all of
the other negative traits that her personality had taken, sensitive not to offensive words and
actions but rather to the uncommon airs of ego and vanity. Daily she paid ignorance and
rejection toward many and indifference toward all. She had learned to live in no other way than
10
this, and to only keep watch on herself and the sacred will to live for a life that was to bring her
happiness and reason.
What positive influence had Anne known in her short life, an influence that had softened
nature’s evil mold on her and given her a light to live in? Throughout her fourteen years of life,
she had known not one. Her father most certainly had not been an influence at all, as he had
ignored her for most of the time and other times assaulted and abused her. In her memory lay the
dark traces of a snow-laden city, a roaring fire, and a large shadow mumbling irrelevant, random
names of people and places as it staggered across the lavish drawing room that daily reeked of
dirt, liquor, and potential violence. She wondered how many times the mind of this shadow had
shattered, noticing her trembling behind a partition or piece of furniture and dragging her out
mercilessly, delivering the effects of the liquor’s poisoning onto her physically, sexually, and
emotionally. Even as a child she had marveled continuously and wondered how such a raging
man could possibly be her father and why he was so fond of methodically harassing and beating
her.
Anne had wondered this through the first eight years of her life, years filled with despair,
torture, tears, and a growing lust for the most minuscule crumbs of relief, for she was indeed, to
everyone around her, a filthy, starving cur. She had wandered through the city’s ghettos like a
lost mongrel, begged pathetically for nutrition and comfort outside the houses of the upper class,
washed herself in the Thames, and slept faithfully in a narrow lane adjacent to her home when
her father had been consumed in his worst drinking fits. She had received little attention from
any human in her lifetime, as many did not view her as a homeless orphan living anywhere in
London but rather an ungrateful wretch who spent time away from her father and rolled in the
11
pigsties because she was desperate to know a life that was not rich with her father’s security and
love. In actuality, Anne’s life was a piece of hell, yet in her intelligent brain was the comforting
knowledge that she had made it thus far into the world, which could only mean that there was
going to be a chance for fate to bless her yet. She knew not when, of course, but surely there
would be a time for change, and this was the only dream that she had ever hung onto and she
lived in constant fear of it dissolving away.
The woman’s name had been Madame Button, a rather strange name for a woman of high
status and wealth in that part of England, and such a name naturally helped Anne to remember
the lady. She recalled how this gossip had floated through the streets with her lavender, peach,
and azure skirts tossing, thoroughly hurling verbal insults to the citizens of lower class in the
city, including Anne herself, who had lost count on how often she had wanted the woman to
disappear. However, eventually she gained enough bitterness and rebellion within her so that she
did not pay a great amount of attention to Madame Button, but there had been a brief encounter
with her that Anne knew she would remember for always.
There had been a certain ceremony in London to welcome and fawn over Madame Button
when she had first entered there six years ago, in the obscene winter of 1762. Eight-year-old
Anne had been searching among some garbage in a dust-swept lane while the skinny, grey rats
had scampered away from her with larger pieces of food than she could even discover. The bitter
wind bit at her bare, scratched legs cruelly and shivers ran through her cold-blooded veins as she
listened with contempt to the joyful shouts, cheers, and songs of the people as they set their eyes
upon Madame Button and embraced her presence. As indifferent and contemptuous as Anne had
felt, she could not control the involuntary turning of her head to steal a curious glance at the
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happening. The arrogant woman sat in an erect position at the edge of her seat in her grand
carriage, displaying a raised chin and closed eyes to her company and a set line to her firm
mouth, plainly instructing young Anne to steer clear of her.
Madame Button contained a notorious reputation as being not only an arrogant, strict
mistress but also one who performed a thorough accomplishment of coating gossip and rumors
through the whole of England and France, for she had not been a lovable figure while residing in
Paris. In fact, she had been so hated by Paris’s citizens that she had been excommunicated from
all of the churches in the city and would have been forced out of it had she not taken leave
herself. London had, however, somehow longed for the woman’s presence and company, as it
was known that the city officials had knowledge that Madame Button had offered a helping hand
to the less fortunate, graciously giving them food to eat, water to drink, and a warm shelter to
sleep in, but such a “knowledge” turned out to be completely false. She had only spread such a
fact everywhere in pathetic attempts to acquire even more wealth and fondness than she had been
born into.
Thus, Anne strove to avoid such a person, dodging frantically between tunnels, ghettos,
and lanes whenever her senses informed her that Madame Button was approaching and running
away whenever the woman threw her ice-cold eyes upon the girl. Her efforts added up to nothing
in the end, for as she one day sat forlornly on the damaged stair of an ancient warehouse, her
white hands trying to wash away the effects of a bleeding scab on her leg, she became so
consumed in her task that she did not even notice the lady standing over her with a threatening
stance. When she did notice, though, oh, was there never such a desperate, terrified child that
tried to escape from such a braggart’s dirty hands! Madame Button had succeeded in grabbing
13
Anne by her lovely, golden hair just a moment later and had jerked the girl up to her face,
surprising her by spewing a mouthful of spit onto her before shrieking wildly at her.
“Now then, you impish little girl! Did you honestly think that I would always fail in
capturing you and teaching you a well-deserved lesson, hm? Well, you are going to get such a
punishment now, ha!”
The terrible gossip then launched a long procession of heavy blows and insults on Anne’s
small body, hard, excruciatingly painful blows that were much more severe than the physical
abuse that she daily received from her father, blows that a woman should not even be able to
carry out, causing Anne to yelp with every illegal touch. After what seemed like an eternity to
Anne, Madame Button loosened her occupied hand and the child fell roughly to the ground, tears
streaming down her face, to which the woman pretended to be sympathetic.
“Oh, my dear child! Are you hurt so badly? Come, come, cease your crying and I will tell
you a story.”
At the sound of her voice once again, Anne glared hatefully at her elder before struggling
to stand, but the fat hand had already come to her shoulder, its tough bones forcibly applying
pressure to make the child stay put. Anne, finally being consumed of energy, reluctantly allowed
herself to remain seated, wondering with some fear what else this feminine monster was going to
do to her.
Madame Button slowly kneeled down, stealthily creeping toward Anne now with eyes
that appeared so gracious and tender that Anne actually suspected that she had instantly changed
after beating her, but this was not the case at all. What the woman was doing was one of the
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things that she did best: giving false information to people of the lower classes for her own
enjoyment and leisure, only what she was about to tell Anne was a rare speech of historic truth,
but Anne did not know it. The yellow hands reached for and took hold of Anne’s frail ones,
administering a couple of reassuring pats on her equally frail arm before beginning her story.
“Anne, my dear child. Have you any knowledge about your family history and why your
social status has been continually degrading through these past years of your life?”
Anne stared vehemently into the madam’s eyes.
“Well, then,” Madame Button went on, as if the child had replied in the negative, “I shall
make it my duty to inform you, and when you have acquired such knowledge you will by all
means tell everyone you know of my gentle deeds and love for you and your cursed friends.” She
stuck out her hand before the girl. “Have we a bargain, my dear young lady?”
Anne’s sapphire eyes dilated at the exciting thought of gaining a knowledge of her family
and herself, and she eagerly replied that she would be glad to hear such a story and report it to
everyone, in spite of herself.
A rather sinister smile crept along Madame Button’s ugly mouth as she nodded happily.
“What a good little girl you are! Then let me tell you everything.”
Anne nodded back eagerly, leaning forward to learn the smallest detail possible, not
inquiring at all if what she was about to hear was the absolute truth.
Anne’s father had been named William Falkman. He had been a common man of low
station when he had fallen in love with an Elizabeth McFarkley, a beautiful, loving young
15
woman of first-class society. She had likewise fallen for William, but was constantly harped
upon by her egotist, persistent parents, who always insisted that a daughter like theirs was not
about to be united with such a “common boy”. William and Elizabeth, however, loved each other
too much to know any kind of negativity, and when the verbal harassing of Elizabeth about her
love affairs came to a sufficient point, the two lovers finally decided to escape from such
pressure, and elope. Elizabeth especially had treasured such an idea, as the love that she had had
for William was far greater than was the love that she had possessed for her parents and their
constant injustices.
Eloping was a bad decision. The sweet and naive Elizabeth never imagined that her own
family would break ties with her because of her personal wants and dreams, but that was exactly
what had happened. Elizabeth McFarkley, the gorgeous daughter of a wealthy politician, had
made the choice to marry a man of much inferiority, and the consequence was the cessation of
any further communication between her family and herself. When the surrounding areas became
informed of such a consequence, they were heartily surprised to learn of how indifferent
Elizabeth continued to act, in spite of such shame. This was because she finally had what she had
always ached and prayed for-the perfect man to be her husband, and there was absolutely nothing
in the world that could bring her down. Others did not know this, though, and they talked about
Elizabeth secretly amongst themselves, calling her a “thankless, shameful braggart”.
No matter the cold, vulgar thoughts and feelings of these members of society that
Elizabeth had grown up with, she and William, after marrying, decided to purchase a large,
luxurious house near London. The home was bought with the sale of a number of quaint items
that Elizabeth had run away with. As inconvenient as it had been for Elizabeth to run off with
16
such special belongings, she had loved them too much to leave them behind, and furthermore,
her intelligence had prompted her to bring them along directly after she had made the decision to
elope with William. She had had a certain instinct that had told her that the money produced
from the selling of those objects would prove to add up to a sufficient amount of money. As
companionable as this house had been for the star-crossed lovers back then, it was the same
house that Anne violently abhorred with a fierce retribution that coursed wildly throughout her
being, as it had been the nightmare of hell for her, hell produced by the purest paternal abuse of
every kind.
According to Madame Button, Anne’s parents had had a flawless first year of marriage,
but Anne had already guessed that. She was well aware of the ugly life that she lived and
wondered how a person like she, with a pain-filled life, could otherwise have come into the
world but with sufficient pain on the part of her parents.
Indeed, the story thus continued. William had not been able to find a doctor in the time
before Elizabeth had gone into labor with Anne, even as he had run through the whole of London
on the foaming back of a horse. His youthful heart had been filled with terror for his poor wife,
who had been screaming and crying in utter anguish for hours from her labor pains. He feared
that Elizabeth was too frail to give birth to a child, and those fears were only to be confirmed a
couple of hours after William had returned from his harried journey with no success whatsoever.
When midnight struck on that chilly night of April 4, 1754 Elizabeth did, with tears and
trembles harassing her delicate body, give birth to Anne. The child, if anything, had appeared to
be even healthier than her mother. William had performed the whole delivery of the infant on his
17
own, vacant of the availability of a doctor, or even a midwife. He had certainly performed his
best, considering how difficult it had been for him to ignore his wife’s continuum of
heart-breaking screams and sobs. They had shattered parts of his heart and perhaps his
composition as well, had he not forced himself to concentrate on every particular event that was
folding out before his eyes.
When William had returned to Elizabeth after cleansing the baby, he happily announced
what gender it was. When she heard that she had given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth smiled
laboriously, and then, extending a shaking hand to rest it lightly upon her girl’s head, she turned
with tear-filled eyes to her husband, stretching another difficult smile upon her destroyed face.
She then began to speak, so quietly at first that William could scarcely hear her.
“W...William, name her...Anne. Anne...Elizabeth. A lovely name...do not mourn for me,
darling...Love...Anne. She will be all that you have now. I...I love...you...”
Her last words said, Elizabeth fell instantly against the pillows, throwing a wild look all
around her, as if she knew that William would break after she was gone. Plump tears once again
began to fall before she slowly sank down into the bed in death. With his great love gone,
William screamed a terrible yell of complete agony.
This was everything that Anne had been told about her parents’ history and her own
origin. How true it was she did not know, since the story was questionable when it was coming
from a person like Madame Button, who had spent most of her frivolous life spreading gossip
and mean rumors.
After this woman had completed her account to the child, she had stoutly stood back up
18
on her feet, surprisingly offering her hands to Anne to help her stand as well. She then patted the
little girl’s head with a superior air.
“Well, my Anne, now you know the story, so what will you do now?” Madame Button
asked her in a taunting voice. At this first real sign of rivalry with the woman since she had told
her the account, Anne quickly scowled at Madame Button before desperately running away,
fearful that the gossip would try to capture her again.
As vengeful as Anne had felt toward Madame Button, she did feel somewhat grateful that
she had discovered the truth about her origin, at least she hoped that it was a true record. Her
heart did, however, seem to send a message to her brain with a kind of confirmation that it was
true, and so Anne believed it.
She believed that her father had been a kind, compassionate man before the gift of herself
had taken away her mother all of those years ago and that he had abruptly changed into a
deformed, villainous individual who had hated everything, including his own daughter. She
knew and remembered, then, that cool spring day in which her mad parent had destroyed that
white, beastly house by throwing a whiskey-flavored fire onto it as well as on himself, as it had
happened. By doing so, he had immediately made Anne a homeless orphan, in his sadism and
cruel hatred for her.
If she had to say so, Anne would say that she did think the description of her birth, her
pitiful mother’s death, and the heart-rending death of her father was tragic, but fourteen years of
ignorance, mistreatment, and lack of empathy from her surrounding neighbors in London had
molded her so that she really could not care less about all of it now. Her father William had been
19
an abusive villain in her eyes and she was destined to hate him for always, no matter what kind
of a person he had been before Elizabeth’s death. Had the girl had a better start in life and had
fate handled her with better care throughout her lifetime’s span and had given her a steady
shoulder to cry on through all of those years, the sweet, kind characteristics borne in her from
Elizabeth might have had the chance to become unbridled. This had not been the case. Anne
Falkman had acquired a personality that was shaped to fit the negative circumstances of her life
and not to the person that she was naturally. In addition to such a series of emotional traits that
Anne possessed, she had also received an overwhelming fear in her heart of the opposite sex, but
such an acquisition was only beckoned to come with living alongside a barbaric father. Anne
especially feared that if she were to marry and give birth to a child, she might perish from the
birth like her own mother had. Then, she would leave the disconsolate human in the heartless
custody of a father who was exactly like William had been, overcome with anguish if Anne did
meet her demise by childbirth. Her terrified heart did, therefore, lead her away and keep her from
a number of boys and young men in the streets, and thus the fear in Anne’s breast was silenced.
She could not say that she had encountered such a fear before, but she certainly did feel it within
her. She had felt it rise up from some source within her and brush harshly across her heart
whenever she had laid eyes on a distal boy or gentleman. She knew how strictly it scolded her
when she simply observed the male gender from a distance.
Anne had often wondered about this fear that had grown stealthily within her for as long
as she could remember, but she never questioned it. Fate had never directly been kind to her, but
somewhere in the depths of her vigorous human nature she held the never-failing hope that it
would positively transform her life one day. She knew not when, of course, and she would never
20
go beyond the rough exterior of her formed personality to show or tell anyone such a faith, but
such an optimism had been, from the beginning, the only immaterial object that she had clung to.
She would hold fast to it and live the best that she could with the cursed life that she had, for she
did not know any other way out that was more positive. Although she had never really seen a
reas