Isabella came to Caroline Terrace, that select row of genteel houses perched high on the cliffs of South End, in the palmy days of the Victorian era. But Isabella did not enjoy the pleasures of the seaside, or the comfort of her home, for she was merely a governess to Mrs. Pankridge’s two insufferable children, engaged at twenty pounds a year. And Isabella was also the daughter of a man hanged for murder, a fact which incurred her instant dismissal when the truth became known to Mrs. Pankridge.
But, by that time, she had made a friend in the eccentric Miss Cripps who lived at No. 20. Miss Cripps had gone so far as to take her to a ball, where Isabella made a great impression on the men and especially on the handsome George Travers and the plain and clumsy parson, John Jordan. These two men shaped her destiny; the one brought her close to death, the other rescued her from self-destruction and, in the midst of the terror that struck South End, brought her a new meaning to life.
