1917. Ruck, the wife of the well-known ghost story writer, Oliver Onions, was a prolific writer, publishing more than 100 books over the course of her long life, including a large number of novels. The novel begins: My story begins with an incident that is bound to happen some time in any household that boasts-or perhaps deplores-a high-spirited girl of twenty-three in it. It begins with a row about a young man. My story begins, too, where the first woman's story began-in a garden. It was the back garden of our red-roofed villa in that suburban street, Laburnum Grove, Putney, S.W.