Rose had tears in her eyes and she paused a moment, looking back, traveling to the past through her mind and the emotions were heavy.
"I am a little girl again," she said, "it is 1837. My father is brutally attacking my mother. Oh, it must have been for some silly, stupid reason marking him only as stupid. She probably offended him in some small way but not having done something right. My mother worked hard all her life to care for me, a single child and to maintain a good household. She might have angered him and hurt his ego. Perhaps she was drawing attention from other men and despite her faithfulness, he imagined she was laying with a lover. Whatever the reason was he was beating her to a bloody pulp. He is nearly killing her but he leaves her a shaken and tired thing on the floor of the parlor. He then looks at me, with the same intensity. It is more ungodly, good sirs, that this man beat my mother half to death and then me, for no reason other than to be cruel, than what I did to my husband in order to save myself and be free of him. I do not recall how I escaped from him. I ran away from home at an early age, perhaps seven. I went to a Church and told the minister everything. He acted quickly and wisely, though he did not tell the authorities of my father's evil doings. I was given over to the care of one Abbott family from Southampton. A poor family to be sure. They lived in a small home by the seaport and my foster father and mother were good to me. I went to school. But tragedy struck again. My foster mother died in childbirth and my foster father fell into a depressive state. He quit his occupation as fisherman and butcher and took me to London where he studied medicine, something which he had secretly been doing. I was now in my teens and assisting him. He quickly grew popular and visited homes where families had sick ones in need of healing and medication. I would follow him along these trips, though he objected."
She paused. The memories were flooding over her like a giant wave. She was as if in a trance. She could see the wharf, the small canneries, the houses, the beds, the ill, the medical instruments, the vials, the needles, the doctor's bag, her foster father. He had been a tall, lanky man with a dour face and yet he was a good and loving man. She recalled how she had always admired him and wanted to be a lot like him. She went on:
"It was not suitable for a woman to be a doctor. It was unheard of. I wanted to be a doctor, and saw no reason why I could not perform the same tasks having acquired knowledge and experience from observation and from helping him in his trips. But my father would not accept me as a fellow doctor. He then took me to a most dull and lackluster finishing school. The ladies there were generous and good, but shallow and materialistic. My peers, all females, were equally as superficial and lovers of wealth and status. The purpose of finishing school is to develop charms and social graces so as to catch a husband, like a fisherman with a net. I caught a husband, most reluctantly, for he pursued me. He was an amorous suitor and truth be told, I succumbed to the new feelings of passion. Furthermore, he promised me a life of stability and adventure. He made a fortune in trading with America and he lived in a fine mansion in London. He romanced me as well as all the princes in fairy stories. I consented to be his bride after a ball in which we danced the provocative waltz. The man was a prince but inside he was a beast. His name was Lionel Ashton. This is when my true story begins. I will speak now of my first years of marriage."
