CHAPTER XI

I AM SUPPLIED WITH CLOTHES

‘I did not think,’ said Mrs. Lee, when we were alone, ‘that Mrs. Webber had so good an opinion of herself. But she is well meaning, and she will be useful to you.’

‘Do you think her imagination will help me?’ said I.

‘Until your memory returns,’ she answered; ‘what could she tell you that you would be able to say yes or no to? But let her question you. On a dark morning, without a compass, one can never tell in what quarter the day will break.’

At this moment Captain Ladmore arrived on deck, and he immediately joined us.

‘I hope, madam,’ said he, addressing me, ‘to have the pleasure of seeing you at the saloon table to-day.’

‘You are extremely good,’ I answered, ‘but I do not yet feel equal to sitting at the saloon table. The privacy of my cabin and the society of Mrs. and Miss Lee, whenever they will endure me, are all that I wish. Besides, I cannot forget----’ I faltered and was silent.

‘What cannot you forget?’ said he gravely.

‘I am not a passenger,’ said I, looking down.

‘What is in your mind when you pronounce the word passenger?’ he asked.

‘A passenger is one who pays,’ I answered.

‘How do you know that?’ said he.

‘I know it,’ said I, after thinking a little; ‘because Miss Lee told me that her mother had hired the cabin for the round voyage.’

‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, exchanging a look with Mrs. Lee. ‘Well?’ he continued, slightly smiling, ‘you will consider yourself a passenger who does not pay. You are the guest of the ship. Some ships are hospitable and liberal hostesses, and the owners of the _Deal Castle_ would wish her to be one of them. Do, pray, be perfectly easy on that score.’

I bowed my head, murmuring a ‘Thank you.’

‘There is one consoling part to be borne in mind,’ said he, addressing Mrs. Lee; ‘one fact that should tend to console and soothe this lady: it is this--she is single. She might have been a married woman driven by disaster from her husband, and, worse still, from her children. But put it that she has parents--it may not be so, who can tell that her parents are living? But to be sundered from a mother and a father to whom, in the course of time, one is certain to return, is not like being torn from one’s children. This is a consideration to console you, Miss C----.’

‘Do not cry,’ said Mrs. Lee, taking my arm. ‘I fully agree with the captain. Only think how it would be if, instead of being single, you were a mother cruelly and strangely taken away from your children.’

At this point, Sir Frederick Thompson, who had been intently surveying us from the other side of the deck, approached. He bowed, and lifted a little white wideawake.

‘I beg pardon for intruding,’ said he, ‘but I should like to ask this lady a question.’

‘If it refers to anything that is past, Sir Frederick,’ exclaimed Captain Ladmore, ‘I fear she will not be able to satisfy your curiosity.’

‘There’s no curiosity,’ said Sir Frederick; ‘it’s merely this: when I was sheriff, Lady Thompson and me, for my poor wife was then living, were invited to the ’ouse of Lord ----,’ and he named a certain nobleman; ‘and I remember that at supper I sat next to his lordship’s sister-in-law, Lady Loocy Calthorpe, whose father was the third Earl ----,’ and here he pronounced the name of another nobleman. ‘What I wanted to say is that this lady is the very himage of Lady Loocy, excepting that Lady Loocy ’adn’t white ’air. Now, mam,’ said he, addressing me; ‘of course you’re not Lady Loocy; but you might be a relative, for Lady Loocy had several sisters and a great number of cousins.’

‘I do not know who I am,’ I answered.

‘How long ago is it since you sat beside Lady Lucy Calthorpe at supper, Sir Frederick?’ asked the captain.

‘Why, getting on for two years and an ’arf.’

‘And you remember her distinctly enough to enable you to find a likeness to her in this lady?’

‘God bless you, captain, yes. If it wasn’t for the white ’air, I should say that this lady was Lady Loocy herself.’

‘Is Calthorpe the family name of the Earl of ----?’ said Mrs. Lee.

‘Certainly, it is,’ answered Sir Frederick; ‘you’ll find it in the Peerage.’

‘The lady’s initials are A. C.,’ said the captain.

Sir Frederick struck the palm of his hand with his clenched fist, and his little eyes shone triumphantly as he said: ‘I’d like to make a bet, captain, that you’ve had the honour of preserving the life of a Calthorpe. Such a likeness as I see is only to be found in families.’

‘The accident of the lady being on board the French brig is accounted for,’ said the captain, eyeing me thoughtfully and earnestly; ‘she was rescued out of an open boat. But where did that boat come from?’

‘Would not Miss C----’s handkerchief, the handkerchief you spoke of, Captain Ladmore, that has her initials, would it not be marked with something more than plain initials if she had rank?’ said Mrs. Lee.

‘I cannot tell,’ answered Captain Ladmore. ‘What should a simple sea captain know of such things?’

‘The haristocracy,’ said Sir Frederick, ‘mark their linen all ways. I’m hable to speak with authority. At a Mansion ’Ouse ball a friend picked up an ’andkerchief, a beautiful lace ’andkerchief, and brought it to my poor wife. The word “Fanny” was worked in the corner and that was my wife’s name, and he thought the ’andkerchief was ’ers. But it didn’t belong to ’er at all. It was the property of Lady ---- whose ’usband ’ad been raised to the peerage in the preceding year. There was no coronet on that ’andkerchief.’

Observing that I was expected to speak, I exclaimed: ‘The names Sir Frederick mentions suggest nothing to me.’

‘Well, all that I can say is,’ exclaimed Sir Frederick, ‘that the likeness is absolutely startling.’

He again lifted his little white wideawake, and, crossing the deck, joined a group of passengers with whom he entered into conversation.

‘There is nothing for it but to wait,’ said Captain Ladmore.

‘If your name were Calthorpe,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘surely the utterance of it would excite some sensations, however weak, in your mind.’

‘One should say so,’ remarked the captain.

‘I fear,’ said I, with much agitation, ‘that if I were to see my name fully written I should not know it. And yet it is strange!’

‘What is strange?’ asked Mrs. Lee.

‘You will not think me vain for repeating it. There can be no vanity in a poor miserable outcast such as I. But I remember that one of the people of the French brig, the young man Alphonse, who had been a waiter, and who had attended upon a great many English people--I remember him once saying he was persuaded that I was a woman of title, or, if not a lady of title, that I belonged to the English aristocracy. I cannot imagine why he should have thought so.’

‘Well,’ said the captain, smiling at Mrs. Lee, ‘it may be that we have preserved the life of the daughter of an Earl, or better still of a Duke. Anything higher we must not hope for. But enough for the present, at all events, that Miss C---- should be a fellow-creature in distress;’ and with a bow that seemed to have gained something in respectfulness, but nothing in kindness, he walked away.

The luncheon-bell rang, and we descended into the saloon. Mrs. Lee begged me to join the company at table. ‘I will ask the steward,’ she said, ‘to find you a place next to my daughter.’ But I entreated her to excuse me.

‘I do not like to show myself in company with this bandage on,’ I said, ‘and I feel weak and shy, and my talk I fear is often childish. I hope to join you in a few days,’ and thus speaking I put her daughter’s hat and the shawl she had lent me into her hands, and made my way to my berth.

When I entered my berth I sat down to rest myself and reflect. I felt weary. The fresh air had rendered me somewhat languid, and I had overtaxed my strength with the several conversations I had held with one and another on the poop. I said to myself, can it be that the little man with the fur on his coat is right? Is my name Calthorpe, and am I a lady of title, and is my home actually in England? And then I hunted in my mind for an idea to help me, but I found none. I groped, as it were, with my inner vision over the thick black curtain that had descended upon my past; but nothing, no, not the most phantasmal outline of recollection glimmered upon the sable folds of my mind. The cries of my heart were unanswered. No echo was returned from the dreadful silent midnight that hung upon my spirit. I looked upon my naked hands; I drew forth my purse, and for the twentieth time gazed at it, and at the money in it; I examined the pocket handkerchief and mused upon the initials in the corner, and whilst I was thus occupied, Mrs. Richards entered with my lunch.

‘I was sure,’ said she, ‘you would wish to remain private for some little time yet. I hope I have brought you what you like. This red wine is Burgundy. Mr. McEwan bade me give it you; he says it is a very feeding wine. And what do you think I have just heard?’

‘I cannot imagine,’ said I.

‘Why, Mrs. Webber stopped me as I was passing through the saloon, and said, “What do you think, Mrs. Richards? Sir Frederick Thompson believes he has found out who Miss C---- is. And who do you think he says she is?” “I do not know, madam,” said I. “A Calthorpe,” said she. “What is a Calthorpe?” said I. “A Calthorpe,” she answered, “is a member of one of the oldest families in England. The Earl of ---- is a Calthorpe, and Sir Frederick finds an extraordinary likeness between Miss C---- and Lady Lucy Calthorpe. He is quite satisfied that she is not Lady Lucy herself, because her ladyship’s hair is brown, not white, but he is willing to bet she is a Calthorpe.” “As for the hair being white,” said I, “if Miss C---- is Lady Lucy Calthorpe, she has undergone quite enough to change the colour of her hair. But how could Sir Frederick,” said I, “be sure of her with a bandage on?” “Well, he is sure,” said Mrs. Webber, “sure I mean that she is a Calthorpe,” and this was all that passed; the passengers were arriving to take their places, and I came away. What do you think?’

‘Do not ask me, Mrs. Richards. I am unable to think.’

‘Poor dear! Let me pour you out a glass of wine. It will be strange if you should prove a lady of title. And why should you not be a lady of title? You have the appearance of one. The moment I saw you I said to myself--and I said it to myself before I heard your story--“Though she has come out of a nasty little brig, I can see that she is a born lady.” Do you know that you have left your cap behind you?’

‘It is in Mrs. Lee’s cabin,’ said I.

‘Try and eat your lunch,’ exclaimed the stewardess, ‘and after lunch, if I were you, I would lie down, and endeavour to get some sleep.’

I passed the afternoon alone. I lay in my bunk, unable to read, dozing a little, and when I was not dozing strutting with recollection, and often with fits of horror and despair dreadful as madness. Some time near five the stewardess looked in to say that Mrs. Webber wished to visit me. She was anxious to have a long quiet chat. Would I receive her? I answered no. I should require, I said, to feel very much better to be able to endure a long quiet chat with Mrs. Webber.

‘She asked me to give you this book,’ said Mrs. Richards. ‘She said she had marked the pages which she would like you to read.’

I took the book, and when Mrs. Richards was gone, languidly opened it, and found that it was a collection of verses written by Eleanor Webber, and dedicated ‘To my Husband.’ Two pages were dog’s-eared, and one of them contained a poem called the ‘Lonely Heart,’ and the other a poem called ‘The Lonely Soul.’ I tried to read these verses, but could not understand them. They jingled unmeaningly, though not unmusically, in a melancholy key. Why do they tease one with such stuff? I said to myself, putting the book down.

The wind had increased during the afternoon, and the ship was leaning over with steep decks, which reminded me of the French brig. But how different was her motion as she rose stately to the seas, every massive heave of her satisfying and inspiring one with its suggestion of victorious power! I felt that the ship was rushing through the water. There was a peculiar tingling throughout her frame, as though she was thrilled from end to end by the sting and hiss of the milk-white brine which poured from either bow and raced in hills along her side, again and again clouding my cabin-window with a leap of seething dazzle, the blow and dissolving roar of which fell like a thunder-shock upon the ear.

But for my unwillingness to meet the passengers I should have gone on deck. I felt a sort of madness upon me that afternoon. It came and went, but when the feeling was upon me I craved for the open air, for the sweep and trumpeting of the wind, for a sight of the great ship hurling onwards, for a sight too of the warring waters; and at these moments I said to myself, I will not go on deck now and meet the passengers; I will wait until the darkness comes; I will wait until the people are sleeping, and the silence of the slumber of many is upon the ship, as it was last night, and then I will steal on deck and ease the torments of my sightless mind by blending my thoughts with the dark picture of ship and white-peaked seas and rushing black-winged sky; and this I will do in some obscure corner of the ship, where I shall not be seen.

But when the inscrutable horror, the insupportable agitation which drove me into this resolution of going on deck at midnight had passed, I shivered and stealthily wept, for _then_ I seemed to see an awful shadow, a menacing shape of darkness, crouching and skulking behind my impulse--a spectre of self-murder, whose first step it would be to impel me on deck in the darkness of the night, and whose next step after I should have stood lonely for some time on deck would be to tempt me to leap overboard into the ocean grave, where my memory lay! Yes, there could be no doubt that I was a little mad, sometimes more than a little mad at intervals during that afternoon, and one cause of those fits of horror and despair, and of the desire to mingle my spirit with the wild commotion outside, and to pass out of myself into the starry freedom of the blowing ocean-night, lay in a sort of dumb, blind anguish that racked me when the clouding of my cabin-window by the passing foam carried my thoughts to the speeding of the ship through the sea. Though I knew not from what or where, yet I seemed to feel with God knows what muteness, and blindness and faintness of instinct, that I was being borne away--that, wherever my home might be, from it I was being swept. Feeling indeed was no more than seeming; I could be sure of nothing; thought was absolutely indeterminate; nevertheless there was a secret movement in my dark mind that goaded me, as though the tooth of something venomous, unreachable, and unconjecturable was subtly at work within me.

But having fallen into a short doze, I awoke calm, and then I resolved that I would not go on deck that night, for I feared, if I should be visited whilst on deck, and in darkness, by such moods as had tormented me throughout the afternoon, I should destroy myself.

Some dinner was brought to me by a very civil under-steward, who stated that Mrs. Richards was too busy to attend upon me, but that she would be having occasion to call upon me later on. Being without the power of contrasting, I was unable to understand how fortunate I was in having fallen into the hands of such a man as Captain Frederick Ladmore. I did not imagine that other captains would not use me equally well; indeed, I never gave that view of the matter a thought. I ate and drank, and accepted all the kindnesses which were done me as a child might, and yet I was grateful, and the tears would stand in my eyes when I sat alone and thought of what had been done for me; but my gratitude and my appreciation were not those of a person whose faculties are whole.

The under-steward had lighted the lamp, and when he fetched the tray I got into my bunk and sat in it and asked myself all the questions which occurred to me. I then arose and took the glass from the cabin wall, and returning to my bunk fixed my eyes upon my reflection. It may be, I thought to myself, that I do not know who I am, because ever since I returned to consciousness my face has been obscured and deformed by sticking-plaister and a bandage. If I remove the bandage I may know myself. So I took the bandage off and looked. The lint dressing came away with the bandage and exposed the injury, and I saw that my right eyebrow was of a pale red, with a long dark scar going from the temple to above the bridge of the nose. The hair on the brow was entirely gone, and my face, having but one eyebrow, had a wild odd foreign look. I also perceived that my nose, where it was indented betwixt the brow and the bridge, was injured. It was necessary to view myself in profile to gather the extent of this injury; and this I could not do, having but one glass.

Then I said to myself, it may be that I am disfigured beyond recognition of my own eyes. In the case of my face it is not my memory that is at fault. Calamity and horror of mind have ravaged my face, and I do not know myself. If my face was now as it had been prior to the disaster that has blinded my mind and rendered me the loneliest woman in the world, the sight of it would give me back my memory. I continued to gaze at my reflection in the mirror. I then readjusted the bandage, hung up the glass, and resumed my seat in my bunk.

I was sitting motionless, with my eyes rooted to the deck, when the door was vigorously thumped and thrown open, and Mr. McEwan entered. He stood awhile looking at me, swaying on wide-spread feet to the movements of the ship, and then exclaimed:

‘I thought as much. But it won’t do. Ye’ll have to come out of this.’ I looked at him. ‘And you’ve been meddling with your bandage. Did not I tell you to leave it alone? Oh, vanity, vanity! is not thy name woman? Did ye want to see how much beauty you’ve lost? Come to the light that I may see what you’ve been doing to yourself.’ He undid the bandage, and said: ‘Well, it’s mending apace, it’s mending apace. Another day of that wrap and you shall have my permission to appear as you are.’

He then with an air of roughness, but with a most tender hand, bound my brow afresh.

‘Now Miss C----,’ said he; ‘but am I to call ye Calthorpe? Half the ninnies are swearing _that’s_ your name, on no better authority than the dim recollection of a little old man who would swear to a ducal likeness in a cook’s mate, if by so doing he could find an excuse to air his acquaintance with the nobility--what I want to say is this: I’m your medical adviser, and I desire to see ye with some memory in your head that the captain may be able to send you home. But if you intend to mope in this cabin, sitting in yon bed and glaring at vacancy, as though the physical faculty of memory was a ghost capable of shaping itself out of thin air and of rushing into your body with a triumphant yell, then it’s my duty to tell you that, instead of your memory revisiting its old haunt, the ghost or two of sense that still stalks in your brain will make a bolt o’ t, leaving ye clean daft. Ye understand me?’

‘I do not,’ said I.

‘Do you understand me when I say you must get out of this cabin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you understand me when I say that you must mix with the passengers, take your place at the saloon table, and humanise yourself into the likeness of others by conversing, listening to the piano playing, walking the deck and surveying the beauties of the ocean? Do you understand that?’

‘Yes,’ said I.

‘You look frightened. There is nothing to be afraid of. But you must do what you’re told, or how are you to get home?’

‘I will do anything,’ I cried passionately, ‘that will give me back my memory.’

‘Very well,’ said he, ‘to-morrow you shall begin. To-morrow you must become a passenger and cease to be a stowaway. Why, only think of what your mind may be meessing. The saloon dinner tables are stripped, there are people amusing themselves at cards and chess, and there is a young lady at the piano singing, like a nightingale. She is singing, a beautiful Scotch song, and the singer herself is a beautiful woman, and how am I to know that there may not be a magic leagues out of sight of my poor skill to touch, to arouse, to give life, colour and perfume to that delicate flower of memory which you believe lies dead in you?’

I started up. ‘I will go and listen to the singing.’

‘No, rest quiet here for this evening. Take your night’s rest. You shall begin to-morrow. I’ll send Mrs. Richards to sit with ye. You shan’t be alone. And now, d’ye know, Miss C----, for all your scared looks you’re better than you were when I opened the door just now. Good-night.’

He spoke abruptly, but he grasped my hand kindly and looked at me with kindness and sympathy in the face.

The moment I was alone I opened the door and put my head out, hoping to hear the voice of the beautiful young woman, whoever she might be, who was singing in the saloon, but either the song was ended or the music was inaudible down in this part of the ship where my cabin was. Instead of the tones of a beautiful young woman, rising and falling in a sweet Scotch melody, I heard the grumbling accents of four men playing at whist at a table at the forward end of the steerage. The movements of the ship were indicated by the somewhat violent oscillations of the lamp under which they sat, four bearded men holding cards.

I was about to withdraw my head when I observed Mrs. Richards coming along the steerage. She bore a large bundle in her arms under whose weight she moved with difficulty, owing to the rolling of the ship; and she came directly to my cabin.

‘Here it is,’ she exclaimed, letting the bundle fall upon the deck. ‘How heavy good under-linen is! It’s the rubbish that’s light, though it looks more, and that’s why it pays. Here, my dear, is quite an outfit for you. You may take them as gifts or you may take them as loans, that’s as your pride shall decide. There’s some,’ said she, kneeling and opening the bundle, ‘from Mrs. Webber, and some from Mrs. Lee, and likewise a dress from Miss Lee, which she hopes will fit, and some from----;’ and she named three other ladies among the passengers.

The collection was indeed an outfit in its way. There was no essential article of female attire in which it was lacking.

‘The ladies,’ said Mrs. Richards, ‘put their heads together, and one said she’d give or lend this, and another said she’d give or lend that; so here’ll be enough to last you to Sydney, ay, and even home again.’

The good little creature’s face was bright with pleasure and satisfaction as she held up the articles one after another for me to look at.

‘How am I to thank the ladies for their kindness?’ said I.

‘By wearing the things, my dear, and in no other way do they look for thanks,’ she answered; and then she proposed that I should put on Miss Lee’s dress to see if it fitted me.

It was of the right length, but tight in the chest, though it fitted me in the back.

‘You shall shift the buttons,’ said Mrs. Richards, ‘and then it will fit you. I’ll fetch my work-basket and you shall make the alteration this very evening, for the doctor only a little while ago told me that you are not to be allowed to mope in this cabin or you will go mad.’

She withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with her work-basket. She placed a chair for me under the lamp, put the dress and the work-basket on my knee, and preserving her cheerful smile bade me go to work. I believe she suspected I should be at a loss, and at a loss I certainly should have been had not the articles I required been set before me. I could not have asked for scissors, needle, thread, thimble, and the like; because I should not have been able to recollect the terms nor the objects which the terms expressed. But when I saw the things my recognition of them cost me no effort of mind. I took them up in the order in which I required to use them, picking up the scissors and cutting off a button, then threading a needle, then putting on a thimble, and all this I did as readily as though my memory were as perfect as it now is. Mrs. Richards watched me in silence. Presently she said:

‘There is no reason, my dear, why you should not belong to a noble family, but I do not believe you are a lord’s daughter. You use your needle too well to be the daughter of a lord.’

‘I do not dream that I am the daughter of a lord,’ said I.

‘You might be the daughter of a gentleman whose brother is a lord, and there may be reasons, which there is no accounting for until your memory returns, why you should have been taught to use your needle. No nobleman’s daughter would think of learning to sew. Why should she? She might learn fancy work for her entertainment, but your handling of the needle isn’t that of a fancy worker. I shouldn’t be surprised if your father is a clergyman. There are many clergymen who belong to noble families; and do you know, Miss C----, if you wore a wedding ring I should be disposed to think that you had plenty of times mended and made for little ones of your own. Why do I say this? Is it your manner of sitting? your way of holding the dress? What puts it into my head? I’m sure I can’t tell, but there it is.’

She came and went whilst I was busy with the buttons of the dress, and when I had made an end I put the dress on and it fitted me. We then between us packed away the linen and other articles in some drawers in a corner of the cabin, and when this was done she left me and returned with wine and biscuits and a glass of hot gin and water for herself, and for an hour we sat talking.