CHAPTER XIV

AM I A CALTHORPE?

I dined in the saloon that day. Alice Lee remained in her cabin. Her mother told me that the girl had slept for two hours, but that despite her slumber she was languid and without appetite.

‘She is looking forward to your sitting with her this evening,’ said Mrs. Lee.

‘I dread to weary her, and fear that she desires my company merely out of the pity she takes on my loneliness.’

‘No’ exclaimed the little lady with sweetness, but with emphasis, ‘she is sorry for you indeed, but did not I say that she has fallen in love with you? You will not weary her--you will do her good.’

The dinner was a lengthy business, and to me somewhat tedious. Many dishes were brought in by the steward through the doors which conducted to the deck which the emigrants thronged in the daytime, and there was a great deal of unnecessary lingering I thought in the distribution and consumption of these dishes. But life at sea speedily grows very tedious. If the port is a distant one, for a long while it stands at too great a distance in the fancy to be much thought of; and the mind, for immediate relief and recreation, makes all that it possibly can of meal-time.

I wore Mrs. Richards’ short veil, pinned round one of her caps. Sir Frederick Thompson stared much, and twice endeavoured to draw me into conversation, but whenever I spoke I found that the people seated near suspended their talk to catch what fell from my mouth, and their curiosity so greatly embarrassed me that I answered the little City knight in monosyllables only, and presently silenced him, so far as I was concerned. I was thankful to notice, however, that my presence was fast growing familiar to the majority of the passengers. The two Miss Glanvilles, and one or two others, constantly gazed at me; it was, in fact, very easy to see that I was much in the minds of those two handsome girls. Nothing could so perfectly fit their romantic humours as a veiled woman, an ocean mystery, a lonely soul-blinded creature, from the pages of whose volume of life the printed story of the past had been washed out by salt water, leaving a number of blank leaves upon which their imagination might inscribe what tale they would. But the rest of the passengers ate and drank and talked, and scarcely heeded me. Some of the people sitting near the captain spoke of the voyage and the present situation of the ship. I heard Captain Ladmore say that he hoped to be abreast of Madeira next day sometime in the afternoon!

‘Where is Madeira?’ I asked Mrs. Lee.

‘It is in the Atlantic,’ she said smiling; ‘it is an island. Did not I tell you that I went there with Alice? Over and over again, before your memory left you, have you heard of Madeira. Is it possible that the image of an island does not occur to you when you pronounce the name of it?’ I hung my head. ‘I shall be glad,’ she continued, ‘when we have passed Madeira; for Alice will then be able to go on deck. The sun will be hot, and every day it will grow hotter; yet I dread the heat of the tropics. The fiery heat of that part of the sea often proves more injurious to very delicate invalids like Alice than excessive cold; and if we should be becalmed! _That_ fear makes me wish I had chosen a steamer. And yet a steamer would have been too swift for our purpose.’

‘What do you mean by being becalmed?’ said I.

‘A ship is becalmed when the wind drops and leaves her motionless,’ she answered. ‘I have heard of a ship becalmed on the equator for six weeks at a time. Indeed, I wish I knew less about the sea than I do. The captains who called upon my husband were full of the ocean, and unsparing in their experiences. Imagine if we were to be for six weeks in a roasting calm under the almost vertical sun! It might kill Alice.’

I left the dinner table some considerable time before the passengers rose, and entered Alice Lee’s cabin. The girl reclined in an easy-chair with a shawl over her shoulders, and a skin upon her knees. The time was shortly after seven. In the east was a shadow of evening, but the brassy tinge of the glory of the sunset sank deep into that shadow, and flung a faint delicate complexion of rose upon the light that streamed through the eastward-facing porthole into the interior. In this weak light the sweet face of Alice Lee showed like a spirit as one thinks or dreams of such things.

She fondled my hand as she greeted me. ‘Bring that chair close beside me,’ she said; ‘and tell me how you have been passing the time.’

I seated myself beside her, and whilst she held my hand I brought a smile to her face by telling her of my conversation with Mr. Harris, the chief officer. And then I told her of what had passed in the captain’s cabin, and I also repeated Mrs. Webber’s ideas concerning my past.

We were uninterrupted. The evening in the east deepened into a bluish darkness, and through the cabin window I saw a large trembling star coming and going as the ship rolled. The berth was unlighted, but there was an opening over the doorway, and through this opening when the saloon lamps were burning there floated sheen enough to enable Alice and me to dimly discern each other’s faces.

She told me that she had added a few names to the list she had made out, and that, if I was willing, we would go through the whole of them next morning. And then having discoursed on various matters, our conversation, imperceptibly to myself--with such exquisite delicacy was the subject introduced by her--wandered into solemn subjects.

Shall I tell you what she said? My memory carries every word of it. I can open the book of my life, and betwixt the pages find the pressed flowers of that dear girl’s thoughts and teaching, and the perfume of those flowers is still so fresh, that never can they want life and colour and beauty whilst their sweet smell clings to them.

But shall I tell you what she said? No; her words were not intended for the rude light of this printed page. She spoke of God, and from behind the sable curtains that lay upon the face of my mind her angel voice evoked the Divine idea; with tears and adoration I knew my Maker again, and by her side I knelt in prayer to Him.

There had been a hum of voices without, but a sudden silence fell upon the ship when Alice Lee, whispering to me to kneel by her side, sank upon her knees and prayed to that merciful Being whom she had revealed to me to have mercy upon her lonely sister, to lighten my darkness, to return me in safety to such dear ones as might be awaiting me. None could have heard her but I who knelt close beside her in that shadowy cabin, yet the hush lasted until her voice ceased.

We arose from our knees, and as we did so the piano in the saloon was touched, and a clear, rich and beautiful voice began to sing. We listened. I seemed to know the air. It was as though there was a magic in it to run a thrill through my lifeless memory. I harkened with parted lips, breathing fast and deep. The voice of the singer ceased.

* * * * *

‘What song is that?’ I asked.

‘It is “Home, Sweet Home,”’ answered Alice Lee.

And now for some days nothing of any moment happened. A strong wind blew over the ship’s quarter, and drove her fast through the seas. Wide overhanging spaces of canvas called studding-sails were set. They projected far beyond the ship’s bulwarks, they swelled like the sides of balloons to the sweep of the wind, and thus impelled, with one sail mounting to another until, at the extremity of the ship, the vast spread of milk-white canvas seemed to blot out half the sky, the _Deal Castle_ sprang through the billows, whitening a whole acre of water in advance of her as the crushing curtsey of her bows drove the sapphire roaring into snow.

In this time I loved to stand alone beside the rail gazing down upon the waters, and watching the wild configurations of the headlong passage of foam. Was there no inspiration to visit memory from those splendid and dazzling shapes of spume which rushed in endless processions along the ship’s side? My imagination beheld many things in those white forms. They were far more numerous than the pictures painted by the clouds upon the sky. I beheld the gleaming shapes of swimming women--vast trees spreading into a thousand branches--the forms of castles and churches and of helmeted men; the heads of horses, and many other such phantasies of foam. They came and went swift as the wink of the eye, yet I saw them, and I would cry in my heart, ‘Is there nothing in this sweeping throng of dissolving and re-forming shapes to flash an idea upon my mind, to recall _something_--Oh it matters not what!--that might serve as a point of fire amid the darkness upon which to fix my eyes?’

The passengers without exception were exceedingly kind to me. If ever I happened to be alone on deck one or another would procure me a chair, lend me a book, stand awhile and chat with me. I was never vexed with intrusion, by idle sympathy, by aimless questioning. Now and again Mrs. Webber would talk till she teased me, but a world of good nature underlay her vanity, and though often she made me wish myself alone, yet I knew that, after the Lees, she was the kindest friend I had in the ship.

There was one person, however, of whom I lived in fear. He was the first officer of the _Deal Castle_, and his name, as you know, was Harris. One would suppose that I had fascinated the man. No matter whether he was on deck or whether he was seated at the cabin table, if ever I chanced to glance his way I found his eyes directed at me. He never lost an opportunity to accost me, but his speech was so odd and rough that I was always glad of any excuse to abruptly quit him. I had thought Mr. McEwan brusque, but, compared with Mr. Harris, the ship’s surgeon was a polished gentleman. And still, though I wished to avoid him, I could not feel offended by him either. He was at all events true to himself. It was not to be supposed that a man occupying his position would willingly make himself offensive, and therefore I did not resent his behaviour; yet he succeeded in rendering me very uneasy.

First, I hated to be stared at. But that was not all. His persistent way of watching me filled me with alarming thoughts. I believed that he was rehearsing some extraordinary scheme to restore my memory. He seldom addressed me but that he would affirm the only remedy for my affliction was a shock, and whenever I observed him staring at me I would think that man may be scheming to give me a shock. Dare he attempt such a thing alone? The grave and serious Captain Ladmore was not likely to listen to such a remedy, nor was it probable that Mr. Harris would take the doctor into his confidence. Therefore single-handed he might attempt some desperate trick upon my nerves, not doubting--for of course he could not doubt--that the result would justify his expectations and earn him the reputation of a very clever man throughout the ship.

These were my fears, begotten of a low nervous condition. But I held my peace lest I should be laughed at. Not to Mrs. Lee, nor even to her daughter, did I utter a word on the subject; and yet it came to this, that I never went to my lonely berth of a night without slipping the bolt of the door, and peeping under the bunk that was high enough from the deck to conceal the body of a man.

Captain Ladmore I occasionally conversed with. Once he gave me his arm and together we paced the deck for nearly an hour; but he was a reserved man, somewhat austere, grave and slow in speech, and the expression of his face made one know that the memory of his bereavement was always with him. For the most part he held aloof from us all, walking a space of the deck from the wheel to the aftermost of the skylights with his hands behind him, his tall figure very upright, his eyes sometimes glancing seawards, sometimes up at the vessel. It was hard to associate him with his calling. He had the air of a clergyman rather than of a bluff sea-captain.

During this time, that is to say until we had reached some parallel of latitude to the south of Madeira, Alice Lee kept her cabin. She had slowly read the list of names she had made out, wistfully pausing after each delicate utterance, and gazing earnestly at me with her sweet affectionate eyes; but to no purpose. Name after name was pronounced, but it was like whispering into deaf ears. How could it have been otherwise? Alice was now always calling me by the name of Agnes; her mother also called me by that name; it was my own--yet I knew it not. How then could it have been otherwise than as it was with Alice Lee’s list of names? Having given me the name of Agnes, she omitted it from the list which we went through together; but even if she had lighted upon my name in full--by happy conjecture contriving it _Agnes Campbell_--it would have been all the same; I should not have known it.

‘No matter, dear,’ said she when she put the paper away, ‘there are many more things to try.’

But she was mistaken. There were very few things indeed to try. My memory was indeed so impenetrable that it rendered experiment almost hopeless. So, by degrees, Alice Lee desisted, and I own that I was grateful when she did so, for the dark struggles, the blind efforts her questions and suggestions excited in me grew too fierce for my strength. She of course never could have imagined the anguish she caused me. But once I observed her viewing me steadfastly after she had asked me some question, and from that time she gradually relaxed her efforts to help me.

Mrs. Lee was glad to have me as a companion for her daughter. It made me happy to wait upon the dear girl, and my ministrations lightened the mother’s duties. I read aloud to Alice, and heard her read aloud to me. She had a hundred things to tell me about her home, about Newcastle, and the sister who had been taken from her. She possessed a little draught-board, and she taught me to play that simple game--taught me to play it though it had been one of the most familiar of our games at home! She owned a volume of solemn, heart-inspiring thoughts, which she loved to read to me and I to listen to. Often have I desired to meet with that book since; but persistently as I have inquired never could I hear of a copy. It was a collection of extracts from great and holy thinkers. Many human griefs and sufferings were dealt with, and the language of every man was simple and sublime, so that there was scarcely a passage that Alice Lee read aloud which I was unable to understand.

Never can I forget her look as we sat together in her cabin one afternoon, she reading from this book and I listening. The subject was Death. As she read her face lighted up. I gazed with wonder, with something of awe and adoration at the tender triumphant enthusiasm of her expression. A delicate flush tinged her cheeks, her bosom rose and fell as though to a sobbing of joy. From time to time she paused with lifted eyes, and her lips murmured inarticulately.

‘It is beautiful and it is true!’ she exclaimed as she closed the book. ‘Why is not death always thus represented? All must suffer. Why should death be called the King of Terrors? The imaginations of men picture sleep as an angel bending over the weary, lulling pain, wreathing sorrowful lips with smiles. But death--the deeper sleep, the angel that is God’s messenger to man--death must be made terrifying and shocking! It is a dreadful spectre poising a lance! Oh, death is divine; it is no terrifying skeleton, but an angel of love, whose gift of slumber is sweet and sure, from whose dreamless sleep you arise to find yourself in the presence of God.’

In this strain would she talk to me, but in words and thoughts more exalted than I have memory for. When I look back and recall these sentences I have just written down, I often think to myself that it was faith and not death that was the holy, soothing, and healing angel she spoke of, and God’s messenger to man; for it was faith that lighted up her eye and painted an expression of rapture upon her face when she looked up to heaven and thought of the grave as but the little gate that was to admit her into the shining glorious highway. And, again, when I think of her, I often say to myself, Who to obtain faith would not exchange all the treasures of this world?--to feel a deeper joy in surrendering all things than many know in the acquisition of a few, to have your hope fixed high like some bright star in the heavens, to desire death rather than to shrink from it, to feel that the deep night of death is on _this_ side the grave, and that the true dawn breaks not until the spirit stands on the other side of that little silent chamber of earth in which the body rests--to know this, to feel this is the sweet sure gift of faith, the angel in whose atmosphere of heavenly light death the shadow perishes.

It was on the third or the fourth morning following the day on which we had passed the island of Madeira--that is to say, on which we had crossed the parallel of latitude on which the island of Madeira lies--that, being in my cabin where I had passed ten minutes in gossip with the stewardess, the door was thumped by a fist which I easily recognised as Mr. McEwan’s, and the ship’s doctor entered.

‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning, Mr. McEwan.’

‘I am the bearer of a message,’ said he. ‘I have told Miss Lee that she may go on deck this morning, and Mrs. Lee has asked me to request you to accompany her daughter.’

‘I will do so with pleasure,’ I exclaimed. ‘I am very glad you have given her permission to go on deck at last. How do you think Miss Lee is?’

‘How do I think Miss Lee is? How do I think Miss Lee is? Ask after yoursel’. How are you?’

‘I feel very much better. I am still very nervous, but less so than I was. Do you think, Mr. McEwan, that the hair upon my eyebrow will ever grow again?’

‘That will be, as you shall see,’ said he. ‘I trust it may; for there is undoubtedly an advantage in two eyebrows.’

‘You do not answer my question?’

‘I believe it may grow,’ he exclaimed. ‘If not, eyebrows are cheap to buy. There are plenty of mice, and mouse-skins are a drug. How’s your hair? Does it continue to thin?’

‘It no longer comes out,’ I answered. ‘Were the eyebrow to grow I should look less unsightly. I should be able to make my appearance without a veil.’

‘Do not trouble yoursel’ about your appearance,’ he growled.

‘But tell me, Mr. McEwan, what you think of Miss Lee’s case?’

‘Are ye asking the question for Mrs. Lee?’

‘I am asking the question for myself. Alice Lee has taught me to love her. She is a sister to me. Whilst she lives I am not alone.’

He looked at me gravely and said, ‘What d’ye think yoursel’?’

‘Oh, I do not know. Often I hope....’

He eyed me for a few minutes without speech; then, with a wooden face and a stolid shake of his head, turned upon his heel and walked out.

I dressed myself for the deck and entered the saloon. The interior was shadowed by awnings spread above, and it was as empty as though the ship were in port. Through the open skylights came the sound of people laughing and talking on deck. The motion of the ship was very quiet, and the atmosphere warm, as though the breath of the tropics was already in the gushing of the wind. I entered the Lees’ cabin, and found the mother and daughter waiting for me. Alice was warmly wrapped, and a green veil was pinned round her straw hat. Mrs. Lee apologised for sending for me. ‘It was Alice’s wish,’ she said. I saw a smile upon the girl’s face through her veil as she put her hand into my arm, and the three of us went on deck.

A richer morning could not be imagined. There was not a cloud to be seen, and the sky was a dark, deeply pure blue, like an English autumn sky. A soft warm wind was blowing over the right-hand side of the ship, and when I first breathed it I seemed to taste a flavour of oranges and bananas, as though it came from some adjacent land, sweet-smelling with sunny fruit. At the distance of about a mile was a large black steamer. She was passing us on the homeward track, and there was a string of gaudy colours flying from her masthead, and on lifting up my eyes to our own ship I saw such another string of colours flying from the peak as it is called. The steamer looked very stately under the sun, and was as lustrous as though she were built of burnished metal. Points of white fire burnt all over her, and her yellow masts were like thin pillars of gold streaked with dazzling yellow light.

An awning covered the greater part of the poop of our ship, for the sun this morning was very hot. A comfortable easy-chair had been placed ready for Alice, and when she was seated I looked about me for chairs for Mrs. Lee and myself. Whilst I thus paused with my eyes roaming over the deck, Mr Harris, the first officer, who was walking upon the poop at the forward extremity of it, snatched up a chair, without regard to whom it might belong, and, approaching us with it, struck it down upon the deck close against Alice Lee, as though he intended to drive the four legs of it through the planks.

‘That’s what you’re in want of,’ said he to me, ‘I saw you looking. Sit down. If the party who owns this chair wants another I’ll hail the saloon,’ and so saying he wheeled round and marched forwards again.

‘What a very extraordinary manner Mr. Harris has,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘I sometimes think he is not quite right.’

I asked her to take the chair he had brought.

‘No, my dear, there are some matters I wish to attend to downstairs. I will join you presently,’ and then she bent over her daughter and asked her if she felt comfortable, and if the air refreshed her, and so forth, and having lingered a little whilst she talked to Alice, striving to see her child’s face through the veil which covered it, she left us.

Some of the people were playing at deck quoits. Amongst the players were the Miss Glanvilles, and their fine shapes showed to great advantage as they poised themselves upon the planks, and with floating gestures and merry laughter threw the little rings of rope along. Every one bowed with sympathetic cordiality to Alice, and several people left their seats to congratulate her upon her first appearance on deck. One of these was Sir Frederick Thompson.

‘This is the sort of weather,’ said he, ‘to pull a person together. Lor’ now, if one could always have such a climate as this in England! Ten to one if there ain’t a dense fog in London this morning.’

‘Pray,’ asked Alice, ‘what are those flags, Sir Frederick, which that lad in brass buttons there is pulling down?’

‘The ship’s number, miss. We’ve told that steamer out yonder who we are, and when she arrives in the river she’ll report us, and our friends’ll learn that all’s well with us so fur. I’ve got half a sort of feeling, d’ye know, as if I’d like to be on board of that steamer going home. I tell you what I miss--I miss my morning noosepaper. I miss reading how things are. And how do _you_ feel this morning, Miss C----? Pretty well, I hope?’

‘I am feeling very well, this morning, Sir Frederick.’

‘_That’s_ a good job. What’s life without ‘ealth? You must know I haven’t changed my opinion about you. You’re a Calthorpe, and unless your memory comes back to give me the lie, I’ll go to my grave swearing it. What’s the latest argument against me? They say that if you’re like Lady Loocy Calthorpe _now_, you couldn’t have been like her before you was rescued, because you’re a changed woman from what you was. But who’s to prove that? And what do they mean by change? Fright can turn the hair white, but it don’t alter the colour of the heye, and it don’t alter the shape of the nose, and it don’t alter the appearance of the mouth. _That’s_ where I find my likeness,’ said he, leering at me.

And then, with his whimsical cockney English, he told us of a son of a nobleman who, having quarrelled with his father, had shipped as a common sailor on board a vessel, and made his way to Australia. He arrived at a city in Australia, and tried in many ways to get a living: he drove a cab, he wrote for a newspaper, he was a waiter, he worked as a labourer on the quays, he was a billiard-marker at a hotel, and one night, whilst he was scoring for some people who were playing at billiards, a gentleman, who had been staring hard at him said, ‘Are not you the Honourable Mr. ----?’ and he gave him his name. The young fellow changed colour, but denied that he was the Honourable Mr. So-and-so.

‘But the other wasn’t to be put off,’ said Sir Frederick Thompson. ‘“Don’t tell me,”’ says the gent. “I know your brother, and you’re the image of him.” Such a likeness is out of nature unless it’s in the family line, and at last the young fellow owned that he was the Honourable Mr. So-and-so. ‘And now you’ll find,’ said Sir Frederick, ‘that I’ve discovered who you are, just as the Honourable Mr. So-and-so was discovered by a likeness altogether too strong to be in nature unless it’s in the family line.’

The little gentleman then pulled off his hat and left us.

‘Would he persist if he did not feel convinced?’ said I.

‘He is mistaken, dear. Let him account for your being discovered in an open boat before he attempts to tell you who you are. And what does he mean by a Calthorpe? That you are a sister of his friend, Lady Lucy Calthorpe, or a relative? A sister is a relative, it is true; but _relative_ is a word that will cover a very large number of connections. What member of the family of Calthorpe does Sir Frederick believe you to be? Agnes, do not give the little gentleman’s fancy another thought.’

We were seated on a part of the deck that was not very far distant from the wheel. The corner of the awning shaded us, but all about the wheel was in the sun, and the glare of the white decks, and of the white gratings, and of the white costume in which the sailor who held the wheel was clad, and the white brilliance of the wheel itself, whose circle was banded with brass and whose centrepiece was brass, paled the blue of the sky over the stern, as though a silver haze of heat rose into the atmosphere; and the dark blue sea itself was dimmed into a faintness of azure by contrast with the glaring white light that lay upon the after portion of the ship, which was unshadowed by the awning.

But within the awning the deck was as cool as a tunnel. The violet gloom was for ever freshened by the mild blowing of the breeze through the rigging and over the rail; and the soft wind was made the cooler to the senses by the fountainlike murmur of waters broken by the quiet progress of the ship, and by that most refreshing of sounds on a hot day, the seething of foam.