Lady in the Shadows

　　“To Charing Cross Station.”

　　“Eight pence, sir.”

　　Grace fished a few coins from her pocket and handed them to the conductor standing on the footboard of the public omnibus.

　　As for why she was addressed as “sir”？

　　Naturally, it was because Grace was now dressed in a somewhat outdated yet well-made gentleman’s suit.

　　She gently adjusted her newly purchased black silk top hat and stepped aboard the public omnibus.

　　Her gaze swept around, and she finally chose a vacant seat in the middle.

　　Seated beside her was a well-dressed lady, appearing to be in her early thirties, with no traces of life’s hardships etched on her face.

　　Across from her, a man in a black tailored suit cast a languid glance at Grace as she sat down, then shook out his magazine and continued reading with his head bowed.

　　Grace stowed her tin-and-canvas suitcase under the seat, pulled a letter of introduction from her pocket, and let out a long, heavy sigh.

　　The tale of this letter of introduction began a week earlier…

　　It was a morning no different from any other—the East End of London still shrouded in thick, choking smog, with the sky bearing down in an irritable gray.

　　In a narrow back alley off Mile End Road, Grace stirred awake at dawn on her humble bed, her mind clouded with drowsiness.

　　She had been like this for some time, which greatly worried her mother, Anne Blake, the youngest daughter of a Scottish country clergyman.

　　Ever since her husband, Constance Christie, suffered an accident while woodworking and broke his left leg, Grace had become this way.

　　In truth, it was a coincidence.

　　Although Grace did truly love her family, she had been cheerful and outgoing since childhood—not the type to be crushed by setbacks.

　　The reason for her dazed state was simply that her brain was utterly fatigued.

　　Waking up from bed already feeling exhausted—that certainly sounds peculiar.

　　Yet for Grace, it was indeed the case.

　　Ever since her father Constance's accident, Grace had begun having strange dreams.

　　In these dreams, she was a European girl living in the 21st century, under the high expectations of her parents, receiving a "well-rounded education" beyond her regular studies.

　　This bizarre dream continued for twenty-five days, until early this morning, when the girl in the dream died in the summer of her twenty-fifth year, bringing everything to an abrupt halt.

　　No wonder Grace felt weary—put anyone in her shoes, spending a day in the British Empire and a night spanning a year in the 21st century, and it would certainly sound like an exhausting ordeal.

　　Most importantly, those memories and skills would eventually flood into her brain upon waking, leaving her dizzy and disoriented.

　　She had a premonition that those strange dreams would never return.

　　This naturally made Grace breathe a sigh of relief.

　　She drew back the curtain and glanced outside; across the way, some female workers in the shared rental house had already begun carrying buckets of sewage to the ditch, dumping the waste from yesterday and this morning.

　　The time was probably around six in the early morning.

　　Grace heard the sound of a baby crying from her parents’ bedroom next door.

　　It was the twins born half a month ago to her mother, Anne — a boy and a girl.

　　The boy was named Edward, and the girl was named Emily.

　　Grace casually tied up her long blonde hair, draped an old woolen shawl over her nightgown, and tiptoed into her parents' bedroom.

　　Her tall father was currently flustered as he struggled to change the diaper of their youngest daughter, while her petite mother, just waking, reached out in an attempt to take over his task.

　　Grace glanced at the splint on her father's leg, sighed, and said, “Dad, let me handle this!”

　　With deft skill, she changed the baby's diaper, then placed the soiled diaper and the used linen cloths into a washing basin, carrying it all out.

　　Constance's voice sounded in the bedroom, "Grace looks much better."

　　Anne's voice was low and clearly troubled, "She's a big girl now, even taller than me…

　　Grace brushed her teeth with cold water, washed her face, and then began preparing breakfast.

　　She understood perfectly well what her mother was worried about.

　　Although her father Constance was an excellent carpenter and a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, with a robust physique and earning more than men of the same age,

　　recovering from such an injury that affects bones and muscles would take a long time.

　　During this period, Constance could only make small items like little boxes or shoe racks, which weren't in demand every day and fetched pitifully meager pay.

　　In London's East End, renting a modest two-bedroom, one-living-room house and supporting a family of five—how could that ever be easy？

　　For now, the Christie family still had some savings, but it wouldn't be long before they were scraping by, barely making ends meet.

　　Constance wasn't extravagant, but he doted on his children deeply.

　　In working-class families elsewhere, the breadwinners got the best food while the children and women fared much worse.

　　However, that simply could never happen in the Christie household.

　　If not for meat on the table daily and bread in abundance, Grace would never have reached a height of five feet nine inches by the age of seventeen.

　　This height made her taller than most of the men in the factory by a fair margin.

　　Naturally, besides good nutrition, she also owed this to the height inherited from her father.

　　Likewise, because of this, the Christie family's food expenses were exceedingly high, compounded by the high food prices caused by the Corn Laws, leaving them with very little money saved up.

　　Hearing the pot of water gurgle on the stove, Grace quickly scooped a small spoonful of tea leaves into it, careful not to waste the coal burning in the hearth.

　　Frowning, she turned over a bold idea in her mind.

　　The East End was the poor district of London, where most residents lived hand to mouth, with very little money on hand for emergencies.

　　Grace could stake her life on it: if they fell three days behind on rent, that stingy landlord would flip instantly and throw the whole family out.

　　Her grandfather's family lived far away in Scotland and could do nothing to help with a fire so far from home.

　　What’s more, village life out there was none too prosperous either.

　　Grace glanced out the window, sized herself up—taller than many of the workers—and felt a surge of willingness to try.

　　In the past, she would never have dared to be so audacious.

　　But ever since she had had that dream, haunting her for nearly a month now, Grace's horizons had broadened.

　　。

　　Since women’s wages were so low, why not disguise herself as a man and go out to find a job？

　　After slicing the bread for breakfast, Grace decided to discuss her plan with her parents during the meal.

　　……

　　"What？ No! I won't agree! You, a girl, this is far too dangerous! Moreover, once others find out you're disguising yourself as a man to work, how will you ever settle down and marry？" Anne exclaimed with agitation.

　　As a pastor's daughter, Anne was a conservative woman.

　　According to prevailing traditional views, it was extremely unseemly for a woman to go out to work, let alone to disguise herself as a man to do so.

　　Constance also disagreed, "Grace, I know you're worried about me, and you're worried about this family. But the hardship before us won't last forever. Once my leg is healed, our life will return to what it was before."

　　"What about Edward and Emily？" Grace had been doted on by her father since childhood. Although the family was not well-off, her character was not timid, and she dared to refute the words of the head of the household—a rarity in other families.

　　She set down the teacup of mediocre quality in her hand, her brows tightly furrowed.

　　“Dad, there are two more children in the family now, and I've turned seventeen. If I don't start working, our situation will only get worse. Do we really have to move to an even worse house a few streets behind ours？”

　　Grace listed many drawbacks, "Even the back streets don't have proper drainage; sewage mixes with drinking water, and sometimes cholera outbreaks occur there. If we move there, something regrettable could happen in just a few months."

　　Constance wavered a little at her words, while secretly cursing his own carelessness for falling and injuring his leg.

　　Now at forty-six years old, his body no longer recovered as quickly as when he was young, and Anne forbade him from overexerting himself at work, fearing he might suffer lasting aftereffects.

　　He was not the kind of macho man who would stubbornly cling to pride; truly, this situation left him stuck between a rock and a hard place.

　　"Father, how adorable they are! As their sister, I am willing to work to bring cream and white bread to these two little angels," Grace said, walking up to the crib and smiling gently as she looked at the two little ones inside, sucking their fingers.

　　After finishing the meal, Grace fetched scissors and handed them to her father, "Dad, please cut my hair short!"

　　Grace’s appearance blended the best traits of her parents—not only was she beautiful, but she also bore a touch of nobility and elegance that was mismatched for her social class.

　　Her eyelashes were long, the outer corners of her eyes slightly drooping, giving her a faintly melancholic look when not smiling.

　　Now, with her waist-length hair loose, she stared firmly at Constance, striking a pose that clearly said, "If you don’t cut it, I’m not leaving.

　　Constance had often cut hair for his comrades in the army, so a simple trim was no challenge for him.

　　The real difficulty was mustering the heart to chop off the long hair his seventeen-year-old daughter had so carefully grown out.

　　Anne was still resting forty days postpartum, propped up in bed, silently weeping as she watched lock after lock of her daughter’s hair fall away.

　　She was a woman raised in a traditional family, never having done anything unconventional in her life.

　　To her, Grace’s decision felt like the sky was falling.

　　Yet Grace herself saw no reason to grieve. Delicately, she gathered the strands of hair, intending to sell them to a wig merchant.

　　Even in England, blonde hair was not a common sight, and selling it could ease their immediate financial strain.

　　Before long, her hair had been transformed into a fresh, short crop.

　　Anne reluctantly retrieved Constance’s wedding suit and handed it to Grace with a heavy heart.

　　It wasn’t the clothes she was loath to part with—it was her daughter herself.

　　Grace leaned in to kiss her mother’s cheek, whispering, "Mom, everything will be alright."

　　……

　　A few days later, after Grace had altered her father’s suit, she slipped into it and stepped out the door without a second thought.

　　The East End was bustling with people, and no one paid her any attention at all.

　　As for Grace herself, she had no intention of working in a factory.

　　With twenty-five years of modern higher education from her dreams, and her mother being a clergyman's daughter, Grace even knew French and Latin.

　　With such a wealth of knowledge, who would be willing to stoop to manual labor？

　　She planned to check out the stock exchange.

　　At this time, London was the center of world trade, and as early as 1773, the London Stock Exchange had been established.

　　Grace's field of study in her dreams was finance; it may not have meant she knew more than the people of this era, but undeniably, the knowledge of later times is often more systematic.

　　Even if a few people were more professional than Grace, they were certainly not the majority.

　　The only tricky part was that she had no credentials to prove her education.

　　Not to mention Grace herself; in this day and age, even a count's daughter wouldn't necessarily attend school for formal studies.

　　Moreover, even if she had credentials, as a woman, she couldn't present them.

　　In 1842, no company would hire female employees—except perhaps as cleaning ladies.

　　Despite this, Grace decided to try her luck anyway.

　　“Sir, would you like a newspaper？ *The Times*!”

　　Outside the Stock Exchange, newsboys were shrewdly ha