CHAPTER IV

ALPHONSE’S CONJECTURES

I turned my face to the wall and closed my eyes, and two hours, and perhaps more than two hours, passed, during which I did not sleep. I then opened my eyes and looked about me. I had intelligence enough to observe that my skirt and bodice had been removed and that I was wrapped in coarse, thick blankets. Then, feeling a kind of pricking pain about the forehead, I raised my hand to my brow and stroked with my finger-nails the strips of parchment-like stuff with which it was plaistered. What can this be? I thought; and then a most awful and terrible feeling of bewilderment possessed me. ‘Who am I?’ I cried in a voice that was still no louder than a whisper, ‘and where am I? And--and--and----’

The young man whom the stout person had called Alphonse entered, bearing a bowl of soup and a glass of weak brandy and water upon a tray.

‘Have you slept?’ said he. I feebly shook my head. ‘Well,’ he exclaimed with the characteristic drawl of the Frenchman when he speaks English, ‘it is not to be expected that you should sleep or that you should require sleep. You have been asleep for three days, and now you shall drink this soup and afterwards this cognac,’ and, seating himself, he fed me and gave me to drink as before. He placed the tray upon the deck of the little cabin, and sat contemplating me for a while with an air of respect that seemed a habit in him, mingled with an expression of commiseration.

‘You will get on,’ he said, ‘you will recover. You will be strong by the time we get to Toulon.’

‘Toulon?’ I said, speaking faintly.

‘Yes, madame, Toulon. We are going to Toulon. This brick is now proceeding to that port.’

‘Toulon?’ I exclaimed.

‘Madame knows without doubt where Toulon is?’

I gazed at him in silence.

‘Does it fatigue you to speak?’ said the young man whom I will hereafter call Alphonse, for by no other name did I ever know him.

‘No,’ said I in a whisper.

‘Then tell me, madame, how it happened that you were in the miserable condition from which we rescued you?’

I tried to think, but I could not think. I forced my gaze inwards, but beheld nothing but blackness. I strained the vision of my mind, but it was like straining the balls of the sight at a dark wall in a midnight of blackness.

‘You do not remember,’ said the young Frenchman, shaking his head, ‘the circumstances that brought you into the miserable condition from which we released you?’

‘I can remember nothing,’ I whispered. ‘What was my condition?’

‘Stop till you hear me tell you the story,’ cried Alphonse, holding up two fingers, ‘and then you will remember it all. This ship is what is called a brick [brig], and her name is _Notre Dame de Boulogne_. She belongs to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Her owner and captain is Pierre Regnier. He is my uncle. He is the gentleman that was here with me. I, madame, by occupation am a waiter. I am a waiter at the Hôtel des Bains, Boulogne-sur-Mer. Our customers are nearly all English, and we _garçons_ are expected to speak English. My native town is Toulon. My uncle Regnier, hearing that I had a holiday, says, “Come with me, Alphonse, in my brick to Toulon. That is my first port of destination.” I consented, and that, madame, explains how it is that I am here. Well, it was three mornings ago--only think! It was a dark morning, and the hour was between five and six. It was foggy, and there was a little rain. One of the sailors saw a boat; it was close to us; before he could give the alarm we had struck it--slightly only, very luckily, or, madame, where would you now be? Our ropes tore down the boat’s mast, and our sailors looking cried out that there was somebody in the boat. In some way the boat was entangled, and she was drawn along at our side, but the brick was sailing very slowly and the sea was not rough. My uncle Regnier commands the sailors to get into the boat, and they find you lying there. They bring you on board, and by this time there is a little daylight, and we see that there is blood upon your face, and that you are hurt here and here,’ and Alphonse, as he spoke, pointed to his brow and to his nose, above the bridge of it. ‘No sooner have we taken you on board than the boat liberates herself; she breaks away, and my uncle says, “Let her go.” Well, we carry you into the cabin, and I put a mirror to your mouth and find that you breathe. I am not a doctor, but I know a thing or two. I ask my uncle for sticking-plaister, and first I wash the wounds and then I strap them up, and they cease to bleed. No doubt, madame, you were wounded by the boat’s mast falling upon you. You reclined insensible in the boat when the mast fell. Was it so? Or was it the blow of the mast that made you insensible? No, naturally you would not remember. But it was certainly the mast that produced these wounds, for you lay with the mast upon you, and the sailors said they saw blood upon the mast. Luckily for you, madame, the side of the boat prevented all the weight of the mast from hitting you, or----’ he shrugged his shoulders with a grimace and extended his hands. ‘That now is all I can tell you.’

‘You found me in a boat?’ I said.

‘Oh yes, madame; certainly, yes.’

‘In a boat? Why was I in a boat? I cannot remember. Oh, what has happened to me? I have no memory! It has all gone! Where am I? What is this that has come to me?’

I raised myself upon my elbow, and instantly fell back, weak, sick, with an overwhelming feeling of horror upon me.

‘Be calm, madame, be calm. I am not a doctor, but I know a thing or two. What is the memory? Tut! It will return. Chut! Before you arrive at Toulon you will have your memory. Let me hear your name, madame?’

‘My name?’ I exclaimed, and I thought and thought, and my mind seemed to wrestle and struggle within me, like something living that has been buried alive.

A light effort to recollect speedily grows into a sort of pain. This is true of trifles--as, for instance, a name, the recollection of which is not important, but you desire to pronounce it; the mind explores the gallery of the memory in vain for it, and the failure to find it grows into a worry and presently into a torment. Think, then, how it was with me when this young Frenchman asked me for my name, and I could not recall it! Recall it! Oh, that is to speak too mildly. Why, when I turned my mental gaze inwards it was like looking into a black abysm of a profundity impenetrable, upon the unreachable bottom of which was strown the wreckage of my past, were scattered the memorials of my life, for ever to be hidden from me, as I then believed.

‘Let me hear your name, madame?’ said the young Frenchman.

I thought and thought and answered, ‘I cannot remember my name.’

‘Not remember your name! But that is droll. Does it begin with A? Does it begin with B?’ and he ran through the alphabet.

I listened, and all these letters sounded as idly upon my ear as the noise of the wind or the sound of passing waters.

‘But you are English?’ said he.

Again I thought and thought, and replied in a whisper, ‘I cannot tell.’

He ejaculated in French. ‘Will you not ask me some questions?’ said he. ‘Perhaps whilst you ask questions you will be able to recollect.’

‘What shall I ask?’ I answered, ‘I remember nothing to ask.’

‘Ask about the boat we found you in.’

‘Yes, tell me about that boat,’ said I.

‘Aha!’ cried he, ‘you remember then. You know there was a boat?’

‘I remember that you have told me that you took me from a boat.’

‘Bravo! What does that signify? I am not a doctor, but I know a thing or two. Madame, if you can recollect what I say, memory you must have. Is it not so? The faculty you have. It is like a snake: all its body is asleep to the tip of its tail, but it is awake with its eyes. What do you think of that illustration, madame?’

I listened to him and viewed him in silence. I felt terribly weak and ill, but far worse to support than this feeling of weakness and illness was the horror that was upon me--a horror I could not understand, an inward presence that was made the more dreadful by my not being able to find a reason for it.

‘Do you ask me about the boat?’ said Alphonse. ‘She had two masts, but one was broken by us. Beyond that----’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘She slipped away when it was still dark. That was a pity. There would no doubt have been a name upon her.’

He ceased, and I observed that he fastened his eyes upon my hands. Then, after looking for some little time with attention at my face, he struck his forehead and cried, ‘What a fool am I not earlier to have thought of it! An instant, madame. I will go and bring you your memory.’

He departed, and in a few minutes returned, holding a large oval handglass. ‘Now,’ he exclaimed, smiling, ‘look at yourself, madame, and, though I am not a doctor, I pronounce that all will return to you.’

He elevated the glass and I looked at myself. But what did I see? Oh, reader, turn back to the description, in the opening pages of this story, of the lady seated at the head of the tea-table in the parlour of the house past the avenue of chestnuts; turn to it, and compare that face with what I saw reflected in the mirror held before me by the young Frenchman. The hair was snow-white; one eyebrow was snow-white; but the other eyebrow was concealed by a wide strip of white sticking-plaister. There were several such strips, which intersected each other upon the right brow, and one of them extended to the bridge of the nose, entirely sheathing the bone or cartilage, and leaving but little more than the extremity of the nose and the nostrils visible. The dark eyes were sunk and dim. The cheeks were hollow, and the complexion a dingy sallow, and as much of the brow as was left exposed and parts of the flesh of the face were covered with thin lines, as though traced by the point of a needle.

This was the face that looked out upon me from that hand-mirror. I stared at it, but I did not know it. Yet it did not terrify me, because I was unable to remember my former face, and therefore no shock of discovery attended my inspection. No, the sight of that dreadful face, with its milk-white hair and plaistered brow, with here and there a stain of dry blood upon the plaister, did not terrify me. I gazed as though beholding something that was not myself, and still I knew that the face that confronted me was my own face, and _this_ it was, and not the face that deepened the indeterminable feeling of horror by quickening within me the awful silent question, ‘_Who am I?_’

‘Now, madame,’ exclaimed Alphonse, ‘look steadily, and you will be able to pronounce your name and to remember.’

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again he had removed the glass. I tried to speak, but though he inclined his head he seemed unable to hear me. On this he put his finger to his lips, and, after viewing me a while with an expression of pity and astonishment, he went softly out.

During the greater portion of the day my condition was one of stupor. Yet there were intervals when my mind was somewhat active. In these intervals I questioned myself, and I became acutely sensible of the indescribable feeling of horror that was upon me, and at such times I beheld, painted upon the gloom of the shelf on which I lay, the strange face that had gazed at me out of the hand-glass, and again and again I saw that head of a woman whose snow-white hair lay in long thick tresses about her shoulders and upon the rude bolster, though a portion of it was looped up and fastened in coils on the top of the head by hairpins, whose dark eyes were weak and without light, whose cheeks were hollow, and the skin of them and of her brow finely lined with innumerable wrinkles, whilst the whole countenance was rendered wild and repulsive by the lengths of white sticking-plaister that striped her temple.

Thrice during that day I was visited by the young Frenchman, who, on each occasion, brought me soup and some red wine. He was accompanied on his third visit by the great fat man, his uncle, and by a short man with an immense moustache and several days’ growth of beard--a fierce-looking man, with dark knitted eyebrows, and gleaming black eyes with the savage stare of a gipsy in their intent regard. He was swathed in a coarse coat of pilot cloth, the skirts of which descended to his heels, and on his head was a fur cap which he did not remove as he stood viewing me.

They watched Alphonse feed me; I was scarcely conscious of their presence, and even if I heeded them, which I doubt, their inspection caused me no uneasiness, so languid were my faculties, so sick even unto death did I feel, so profoundly bewildered was I by the questions I asked myself, and by the blackness which lay upon the face of my mind when I turned my gaze inwards and searched it.

The fat man, Regnier, addressed Alphonse, who nodded and said to me: ‘Well, madame, have you yet thought of your name?’

I answered, ‘No.’

‘And you cannot positively tell me that you are English?’

‘I am speaking English; I speak no other tongue; I am English, then.’

‘No,’ he exclaimed, smiling, ‘you might be American. And you say you do not speak any other language than English? How can you tell? You may have forgotten other languages in which you could converse. For example: you might be a German who speaks English excellently; and now by some caprice of the intellect you forget your German, and express yourself in English. I am not a doctor,’ he added, wagging his head, ‘but I know a thing or two.’

And, turning to the others, he addressed them swiftly and with great energy.

At some hour of the night I fell asleep. When I awoke, the sunshine was streaming brilliantly upon the little circular porthole. I lifted up my head and then raised myself upon my elbows and found myself stronger. I also felt better; the feeling that had been like approaching death was gone and the sickness was passed. I heard the sounds of a fiddle and of a man’s voice singing in the next cabin. I listened to the voice and knew it to be that of the young Frenchman, Alphonse. The motion of the vessel was comparatively quiet. She was sailing somewhat on her side, but she rolled very lightly and the upwards and downwards movement was trifling. I felt that I had strength enough to sit up, but the upper shelf was too close to my head to suffer me to do so. I lay still and tried to think, and my thoughts ran thus:

Who am I? The face that I saw in the mirror yesterday is mine, but it begets no recollection. I do not recognise it. It is mine, yet it is a face that I have never before seen. How, then, can it be mine? But since that unknown face must be mine, who am I? I was found lying insensible and wounded--and here I laid my fingers upon the sticking-plaister upon my brow--in an open boat. She had two masts and that is all they can tell me. How was it that I was in that boat? When did I enter her? I have been in this ship four days. How long was I in the boat, and from what part do I come? And then there was such a struggle of my mind that drops of perspiration started from my brow. I cannot express the agony that inward conflict caused me. I said to myself, Am I mad that I do not know who I am? What has happened to kill in me the power to recollect? What has happened to extinguish the vision in the eyes of my mind? All is black! I remember nothing down to the hour of my waking in this cabin; but since then everything that has happened, everything that has been said I remember. I can repeat the conversation of Alphonse, I can describe the appearance of his uncle and of the man who accompanied him; yes, and I can also describe accurately the face that I yesterday viewed in the glass which the young Frenchman held up before me. Therefore memory is not dead, neither can I be mad to be able to reason thus. Why then will not memory pronounce my name and give me back my past that I may know who I am, that I may know to what place to return? And I covered my face with my hands and wept.

Presently my tears ceased to flow. The strains of the fiddle and the voice of the singer were silent in the adjacent cabin. What is there to assist me to recover my memory? I thought; and I turned my eyes upon my figure as I lay stretched upon that sleeping-shelf, and looked at my ringless hands; and then my gaze ran with wildness over as much as I could see of the little cabin, but no suggestion came. My mind seemed torpid, unable of itself to receive or to produce ideas.

Somewhat later I heard a knock on the door. I exclaimed ‘Come in!’ and found that I had my voice again; yet there was nothing in the tone of it to help my memory. Alphonse entered and bade me good-morning.

‘You look better, madame,’ said he; ‘do you feel better?’

‘Yes; I feel stronger and better this morning.’

‘Now, what did I tell you? Perhaps to-morrow you will be able to get up. Are you hungry?’

‘I believe I can eat,’ I said.

He snapped his fingers and instantly went out. When he returned he brought with him a cup of chocolate, some biscuits, marmalade and butter, and a boiled egg.

‘What think you of this breakfast, madame, for a little brick? We have six hens on board, and this is the only egg this morning. Can you eat without help or shall I feed you?’

‘I think I can eat without help if I sit up.’

On this he put his hand into the shelf over my head and took several boards out of it. I could now sit up; he placed the tray on my knees and I ate and drank.

‘You are very good, you are very kind to me,’ said I. ‘What return shall I be able to make--what acknowledgment----’ and I ceased eating to press my hand to my brow.

‘Continue your breakfast,’ said he. ‘We will not talk of acknowledgment here. At Toulon you will obtain excellent medical advice. And now shall I tell you something?’ added he, with a smile.

I looked at him.

‘You are a lady. Your accent is that of the English lady of birth. I cannot mistake. I have waited upon many English ladies, and can always tell a lady of title. Do I assist your memory when I say that you are a lady of title?’ Seeing that I shook my head, he continued: ‘I call you madame. Perhaps I should say milady, or perhaps I should say miss. I beg your pardon, but you have no rings. A lady like you will have rings. Are they in the pocket of your dress? I ask, because if you saw your rings you might remember.’

‘Where is my dress?’

‘It is here,’ and he stepped to a part of the cabin near the door and held up the dress.

I fastened my eyes upon it, but it suggested nothing.

‘Has it a pocket?’ I said.

He felt, and answered, ‘Yes, and there is something in it,’ and slipping in his hand he brought out a pocket handkerchief and a purse. ‘Aha!’ he cried. He examined the handkerchief and said: ‘Here are two letters--“A. C.” Pronounce them.’ I did so. ‘Now what do they signify?’

I turned them over and over and over again in my mind. ‘They suggest nothing,’ I said.

‘Patience!’ he exclaimed, and opening the purse he looked into it. ‘Nothing but money,’ he said, after examining the two or three divisions. ‘Here is one pound; and here,’ he continued, turning the money into his hand, ‘are two half-crowns, sixpence, and some pennies. Is there nothing more?’ He looked again, and exclaimed with a stamp of his foot: ‘Nothing but money!’