Forgotten Tales of Long Ago

by E. V. Lucas

Chapter I

Of the first years of my life I have but a slight recollection, as I suddenly lost my mother by death, and was placed under the care of strangers soon after I had completed my fifth year. What passed before that time is like the faint remembrance of a long past dream, but it seemed to myself that I had lived among ladies and gentlemen—had been used to ride in a carriage, to be waited on by servants, who called me Lady Anne, and to be fondled by a lady and gentleman, who called me Annie, and their little darling, and whom I called father and mother. These pleasing visions seemed suddenly to pass away. I no longer saw my father, nor the ladies and gentlemen; we were no longer living in a large house; our servants were gone, and mother was almost always in tears. Then, all of a sudden, we were riding alone in a post-chaise; night came on, and we stopped at a house. There mother was very ill, and laid in bed, and did not speak to me for several days, and a great many people came and talked to her, but she did not answer any of them. At last I thought she was asleep, for her eyes were shut, and her hands were quite cold; then I wanted to get upon the bed that I might sit beside her, but the strange people that were there carried me out of the room, and teazed me with questions that I did not understand, or, if I had understood them, could not have answered for crying. After this two men came and put my mother into a large black box, and took her away.

These are painful remembrances, so sad and so painful that, at this distance of time, I cannot think of them without weeping.

What passed immediately after this I cannot remember, for I have been told that I had a violent fever, and was ill for a long time. Of all these things I have but a confused remembrance, yet I do remember them; but the time from which I can clearly recollect is from when I was about six years old, and from that period I remember every material circumstance of my life as clearly as if I had written them all down as they happened. I will now continue my narrative at the time from which I can correctly remember. I then found myself living in a large cottage with nearly twenty other children. We were under the care of an elderly woman, whom we called nurse. This house, I was told, when I was old enough to understand the meaning of the expression, was the place where the infant paupers, or poor children of the parish, were kept. Of our treatment there I have no cause to complain. We were well washed every morning, and our clothes were kept clean and tidy; our food was coarse and rather scanty, so that we always had a good appetite, yet we had sufficient to keep us in a good state of health, and the farmers' wives and cottage people who lived near would often give us pieces of bread and a little milk, so that, as I said before, we had no cause for complaint. Our nurse taught us reading and sewing, and, as she was rather a good-natured woman, she would frequently converse with us, if the prattle of children can be called conversation, and answer our little questions.

I must here make a digression to inform my young readers that, though I was a poor child, a mere pauper among a number of others who were not any poorer than myself, yet I was always treated with a great deal of respect both by the nurse and the other children. I was always called Lady Anne, and in all our little plays my companions would choose me to be a lady or their queen. Then I would, in a language which seemed natural to me, order the carriage for an airing, or propose a saunter in the park, or perhaps say we would go to the opera in the evening. The girls whom I admitted to the honour of visiting me I would address as ladies, and tell some of the others to come and say that 'Her ladyship's carriage was waiting,' or that 'Lady Sally's carriage stopped the way.' It was on one of these occasions that my nurse said to me:

'Ah, Lady Anne, it is a thousand pities that you are not among the lords and ladies you are so often talking about. It was an unlucky chance that brought you here, for, poor child, with us you are like a fish out of water.'

'What was it that brought me here?' said I. 'How did I come?'

'It is a long story to tell you,' replied she, 'but, as it is about yourself, you will not be tired of hearing it; so come, children, get your knitting and sit down, and you shall hear how Lady Anne came to live among us.'

In a few minutes we all had our knitting, and seated ourselves so as to form a semi- or half-circle round the good woman. Curiosity and expectation were painted in every countenance, myself the most curious and anxious of the whole group, for I often, in my own mind, wondered how it was that I no longer saw the gentlemen and ladies who it seemed to myself I had been in the habit of seeing, and where my father could be gone to, and why everything about me was so different to what it had once been. Our nurse having examined our work, and directed us how to go on with it, began her little narrative in the following manner: