NEW NOVELS.
THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND. By GRANT ALLEN. 3 vols.
CORINTHIA MARAZION. By CECIL GRIFFITH. 3 vols.
A SONG OF SIXPENCE. By HENRY MURRAY. 1 vol.
SANTA BARBARA, &c. By OUIDA. 1 vol.
IN THE MIDST OF LIFE. By AMBROSE BIERCE. 1 vol.
TRACKED TO DOOM. By DICK DONOVAN. 1 vol.
COLONEL STARBOTTLE’S CLIENT, AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE. By BRET
HARTE. 1 vol.
ADVENTURES OF A FAIR REBEL. By MATT. CRIM. 1 vol.
IN A STEAMER CHAIR. By ROBERT BARR. 1 vol.
THE FOSSICKER: a Romance of Mashonaland. By ERNEST GLANVILLE.
1 vol.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W.
ALONE
ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
VOL. III.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW STREET SQUARE
LONDON
ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
‘MY SHIPMATE LOUISE’ ‘THE ROMANCE OF JENNY HARLOWE’ ETC.
[Illustration]
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1892
CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME
CHAPTER PAGE
XVIII. A STRANGE OFFER 1
XIX. I CONVERSE WITH THE GIPSY 37
XX. THE DEATH OF ALICE LEE 66
XXI. I RETURN TO ENGLAND 106
XXII. MEMORY 141
XXIII. GENERAL RAMSAY’S LETTER 172
XXIV. AT BATH 208
XXV. MARY 241
XXVI. THE END 273
ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
CHAPTER XVIII
A STRANGE OFFER
Small is the world of ship board, yet at sea there often happen
contrasts in life not less violent and remarkable than those which
one meets with in the crowded world ashore. This same day, after my
conversation with Alice Lee, I quitted her cabin shortly before the
luncheon hour, as she seemed drowsy, and sleep was all important to her
whose slumbers were cruelly broken and short throughout the night. Mrs.
Lee stole in upon her child, and finding her asleep came to her place
by my side at the luncheon table.
The passengers understood that Alice was resting, and the conversation
was subdued along the whole line of the table. I said nothing to Mrs.
Lee as to what had passed between her daughter and myself. Though the
mother knew that her daughter’s condition was hopeless, she could
not bear any reference to the girl’s dying state. That is to say,
she would speak of it herself, but with eyes that wistfully sought a
contradiction of her fears.
Now, whilst I sat at table I observed that Mr. Harris regarded me with
more than usual attention. There was an expression of speculation in
his face, as though I were some singular problem which he was wearying
his brains to solve. His air was also one of abstraction, and direct
questions put to him by passengers sitting near were unheeded.
Shortly before lunch was over Mrs. Lee withdrew to her berth. I
remained at table, having for the moment nothing else or better to do.
Mrs. Webber, remarking that I was alone, left her seat and took Mrs.
Lee’s chair at my side.
‘It is really too bad,’ said she, ‘that those wretched men’--referring
to Mr. Clack and Mr. Wedmold--‘should be arguing on their eternal
subject of literature when they know that poor Alice Lee is sleeping,
and that their voices might awaken her.’
‘I have not been listening,’ said I. ‘They have not been talking very
loudly, I think.’
I looked towards the two gentlemen, and my attention being directed to
them, I discovered that they were arguing, and, as usual, on literary
matters. But their voices were somewhat sunk, as though they recognised
the obligation of speaking low.
‘My simple contention is,’ said Mr. Wedmold, ‘that criticism as we now
have it is absolutely worthless. If I were a publisher I would not
send a book of mine to the press. I would content myself with making
it known to the public by advertisements. A man writes a review and
it is published in a newspaper. Just before he sat down to write the
review he was disturbed by a double knock, and his servant handed him
a manuscript which he sent six weeks before to a firm of publishers.
The manuscript is declined with thanks. What sort of a review will that
man write? Or he may dislike the author of the book he is to review
because he thinks him too successful; or he may personally know him
and have reason to hate him; or he may not know him and yet have a
literary prejudice against him; or, before he writes the review the
tax-collector may call; or he may have had a quarrel with his wife over
the weekly bills. But by the publication of his review he commits the
aggregate intellect of the paper in which it appears to his opinion.
For reviews are not quoted as the opinions of Jones or Smith, but as
the verdict of the journal in which they write. On the other hand,
there may be reasons why the reviewer should extravagantly praise a
book which, were it written by you, Clack, or by me, he would probably
dismiss in a couple of lines of contempt. Nevertheless, the aggregate
intellect of the journal is as much committed to this gross lie of
approval as it was to the equally gross lie of depreciation. The name
of a newspaper should never be quoted in a publisher’s advertisement,
unless it be understood that everybody connected with the newspaper
sat in judgment upon the book. A book should be served as a defendant
is served. The paper that reviews a book should convert itself into
a jury. If one juror alone is to decide the question, then his name
should be given. My argument is, why should publishers go on subjecting
their wares to twopenny individual caprice?’
‘You will never get rid of criticism,’ said Mr. Clack, ‘until authors
lose their desire of hearing people’s opinions on their books. Every
man who produces his poor little novel, every woman who produces her
poor little volume of poems, pesters his or her friends for their
candid opinion. Now if that candid opinion is published in a newspaper
and it happens to be _rather_ opposed to the author’s own judgment of
his book, the natural thirst of the author is for the extinction of all
criticism.’
‘Did you ever hear two men talk such utter bosh in all your life?’ said
Mrs. Webber.
‘I will go on deck for a turn,’ said I, observing that the saloon was
fast emptying.
‘Those two men,’ continued she, looking at Mr. Clack somewhat
spitefully, ‘remind me of a very old story. A Frenchman and an American
made a bet that one would out-talk the other. In the morning they were
found in bed, the American dead and the Frenchman feebly whispering in
his ear.’
‘If you please, ma’m,’ said the captain’s servant, coming up to me,
‘Captain Ladmore’s compliments, and he will be glad to see you in his
cabin if you can spare him five minutes.’
I arose and nervously followed the man to the captain’s cabin,
wondering what could be the object of this message. Captain Ladmore
made me a grave bow, placed a chair for me, and seated himself at the
table at which I had found him reading.
‘I hope,’ said he, ‘you will not think me troublesome in desiring these
visits. I have, not had an opportunity of conversing with you lately.
You are very much taken up with poor Miss Lee. How does she do?’
‘She is very poorly,’ said I. ‘The malady seems to have rapidly gained
upon her within the last few days.’
‘It is too often so,’ he exclaimed. ‘These poor consumptive people
embark when it is too late. Mr. McEwan gives me no hope. I fear we
shall lose the poor young lady--and lose her soon, too.’ He directed
his eyes at the deck and his face grew unusually thoughtful and grave.
‘And how are you feeling?’ said he, after a pause. ‘Does this heat try
you?’
‘No, Captain Ladmore; I feel very well, a different being, indeed,
since I came into your kind hands.’
‘Your memory is still dormant?’
‘I am unable to remember anything previous to my awaking to
consciousness on board the French vessel.’
‘It is truly wonderful,’ said he. ‘Had I not witnessed such a thing I
should not have believed it. That is to say, I could understand _total_
failure of memory, for I have heard of instances of that sort of
affliction; but I should not have credited that recollection can lie
dead down to a certain point and be bright and active afterwards, as it
is in you. I have been talking to Mr. McEwan about you, and though we
need lay no emphasis upon his opinion, it is right I should tell you
that he fears your condition may continue for a considerable time.’
‘For a considerable time!’ I cried; ‘what can he mean by a considerable
time, Captain Ladmore?’
‘Do not be agitated. I mention this merely for a reason you will
presently understand. McEwan’s judgment may signify nothing. Doctors
are a very fallible lot, and they talk blindfolded when they speak of
the mind. But that my meaning in inviting you to visit me may be clear,
I wish you to suppose that McEwan is right. In that case, what is your
future to be?’
I gazed at his grave, earnest face, but made him no answer.
‘Let me repeat,’ said he, ‘that you are very welcome to the hospitality
of this ship whilst she keeps the sea; but on our arrival in the Thames
it will be necessary for you to find another asylum. What can be done
for you, madam, shall be done for you, always supposing that your
memory continues to prevent you from directing us. But it is a cold
world----’ He paused abruptly.
‘Oh, Captain Ladmore! I hope my memory will have returned to me before
we arrive in England--before we arrive in Australia.’
‘I hope so too, indeed,’ said he, ‘but if it should not---- You appear
to have found a very warm friend in Mrs. Lee. Yet, from my experiences
as a shipmaster, I would counsel you not to lodge too much hope in
friends and acquaintances made upon the ocean. People are warm-hearted
at sea; they are always full of good intentions; but a change comes
when they step ashore.’
‘Captain Ladmore,’ I exclaimed, ‘if I am not to find a friend when I
leave your ship, then indeed I shall not know _what_ to do.’
‘That brings me,’ said he, ‘to my motive for inviting you to my cabin;
and I will say at once that you appear to have found a very warm friend
on board this ship.’ I imagined that he would name Mrs. Webber, but the
notion vanished at his next utterance. ‘He appears to entertain a very
great admiration for you. It is not,’ continued he, with a slow smile,
‘usual for men occupying our relative positions to confer on such a
matter as he has in his mind, but I consider that he exhibited a proper
delicacy of feeling in approaching me first. You are temporarily my
ward, so to speak, and there are other considerations which induced him
to confer with me on the subject.’
‘Of whom are you speaking?’ I asked.
‘I am speaking of Mr. Harris, my chief officer,’ he replied.
‘And what does Mr. Harris want?’ said I, feeling the blood forsake my
cheeks.
‘Well, madam,’ said he gravely, ‘he desired me to sound you as regards
your feelings towards him. It is his urgent request alone that makes
me interfere, nor should I venture to move in the matter but for your
present lonely, and I may say helpless, condition. You necessarily
need a friend and an adviser, and it certainly is my duty as a master
of this ship to befriend and counsel you. Mr. Harris is a man who, in
the course of a year or two, ought certainly to obtain command. In
the profession of the sea a man must be a prawn before he can become
a lobster. His pay at present is comparatively small, yet it should
suffice, with great care, to maintain a home. Long before I rose to be
a captain I contrived to support a home out of my wages. Mr. Harris is
a very respectable, honest man, and a good officer, and I believe his
connections are rather superior to the average relatives of merchant
mates.’
I listened whilst I stared at him; indeed, the confusion of my mind
was so great that I scarcely grasped his meaning. He observed my
bewilderment, and said, ‘The matter may be thus simply put: Mr.
Harris is willing to offer you his hand in marriage. He is capable of
supporting you, and will, I am convinced, prove an excellent husband.
By making you his wife he secures you against that future which looks
at present dark and hopeless. He is willing to waive all considerations
of your antecedents. In that, Miss C., he tells me he hopes for the
best.’ He added, after a pause, after viewing me steadfastly, ‘I have
fulfilled my promise, and desire to do no more. In Mr. Harris you have
met with a man who is willing and anxious in the most honourable way
to provide for your future.’
‘I will not marry Mr. Harris,’ said I.
‘It is a question for your own decision alone,’ he answered.
‘I would sooner die in one of the miserable asylums he talked about
than marry Mr. Harris,’ I cried.
Captain Ladmore arched his eyebrows and made me a grave bow, as though
he would say, ‘There is an end of the matter.’
‘I am sure the man means kindly,’ said I, my eyes beginning to smart
with tears which I could not suppress, ‘but it renders my situation
truly awful to understand that you and Mr. Harris consider I stand in
need of the sort of assistance your first mate offers.’
‘Remember, madam,’ said Captain Ladmore gently, ‘that on your arrival
in England you will need a friend if you are still unable by that time
to tell us who your friends are, and to what part of the world you
belong.’
‘I would far rather die than accept Mr. Harris’s offer,’ said I, with a
shudder.
‘Let us then allow the matter to rest,’ said the captain; ‘no harm has
been done.’
‘How dare he make such a proposal through you?’ cried I. ‘He may mean
well, but how does he know who I am?’
‘He is willing to take all risks,’ said the captain; ‘but you do not
entertain his proposal, and the matter therefore ends.’
We both rose at once from our chairs.
‘You have shown me the greatest kindness since I have been on board,’
said I, ‘and some further great kindness yet I will ask of you. It is
that as the master of this ship you will command Mr. Harris not to
speak to me about marriage.’
‘I will do so,’ said he.
‘I will beg you to command him to hold aloof from me, for I wish to
have nothing to say to him.’
The captain bowed his head affirmatively.
‘And will you also command him, Captain Ladmore,’ I exclaimed, ‘not to
whisper a syllable of what has passed?’
‘You may trust him to hold his tongue,’ said he smiling.
‘Were the news of his having made me this offer through you to reach
the passengers I could never hold up my head again; I could never bear
to quit my berth.’
‘The secret shall be entirely ours,’ said the captain.
I hurriedly made my way through the saloon, entered my berth in the
steerage, closed and bolted the door, and flung myself into my bunk.
I had wept in the captain’s cabin, but I was now too angry, too
confounded to shed tears, though I longed for the relief of them. There
was a sort of horror too upon me, such a feeling as might possess a
woman who had met with a shocking insult; and yet I knew that no insult
had been offered to me, so that the horror which was upon me was as
inscrutable as ever the emotion had been at other times.
There is no occasion for me to refine upon my condition. The
psychologist might well laugh at my speculations; yet I will venture to
say this, that when I look back and recollect my feelings at this time,
then, knowing that I was without memory to excite in me the detestation
with which I had listened to Captain Ladmore’s communication of Mr.
Harris’s offer, I cannot doubt that the wild antagonism of my heart to
it must have been owing to the _memory of instinct_--a memory that may
have no more to do with the brain than a deep-rooted habit has to do
with consciousness.
But not to dwell upon this. I sat motionless on my bed for I know
not how long a time, thinking and thinking; I then bathed my face and
cooled my hands in water, and stood at the open window to let the
draught caused by the rolling of the ship breathe upon me, and thus I
passed the afternoon.
Shortly before the first dinner-bell rang Mrs. Richards knocked on my
door. I bade her enter. She tried the handle, and found the bolt shot.
This was unusual, and on entering she gazed at me with attention. She
asked me what the matter was, and I answered that the heat had caused
my head to ache, and that I had been lying down. No doubt she perceived
an expression on my face which told her that something more than a
headache ailed me, but she did not press her questions. She had come to
say that Mrs. Lee sent her love, and wished to know what had become of
me during the afternoon.
‘I hope to sit with Miss Lee this evening,’ said I; ‘but I shall not
dine at the dinner table.’
‘Then I will bring you some dinner here,’ said she, and after we had
conversed a little while about the heat of the weather, and about Alice
Lee, the kind, motherly little woman left me.
I could not rally my spirits. The mere thought of what Captain Ladmore
had said to me induced a feeling of crushing humiliation; and then
there was that deep, mysterious, impenetrable emotion of loathing
which I have before mentioned. Oh! it was shocking to think that my
condition should be so cruelly forlorn as to challenge an offer of
marriage from such a man as Mr. Harris. Nothing could have made me more
bitterly understand how helpless I was, how hopeless, how lonely. I
sought comfort in the recollection of Alice’s words; but not only did
it miserably dispirit me to think that the dear girl must die before
the wish she had expressed could take effect; I was haunted by the
captain’s language--that the world was cold--that the kindly intentions
of shipboard acquaintances were not often very lasting--that when
people stepped ashore after a voyage the memories they carried with
them speedily perished out of their minds.
I ate a little of the dinner that Mrs. Richards brought me, but I had
not the heart to leave my cabin. I felt as though I had been terribly
degraded and outraged, and my inability to understand why I should thus
feel when all the while I was saying to myself, nothing but kindness
was meant, no insult could possibly be intended--I say my inability to
understand the dark, subtle protest and loathing and sense of having
been wronged that was in my mind half crazed me.
Twice Mrs. Richards arrived with a message, first from Mrs. Lee and
then from Alice, inviting me to their cabin; but I answered that my
head ached, that I did not feel well; and when the door was closed I
stood with my face at the port-hole breathing the air that floated
warm off the dark stagnant waters, and watching the stars reel to the
sluggish motions of the vessel.
Presently I heard the sound of a bell. I counted the chimes--they were
eight; and so I knew the hour to be eight. Just then someone gently
knocked on the door; it was not the stewardess’s familiar rap. I said,
‘Come in,’ and the door was opened.
‘All in the dark, Agnes?’ exclaimed the voice of Mrs. Lee, ‘what is the
matter with you, my dear? Why have you not come to Alice, who has been
expecting to see you all the evening?’
‘I am so low-spirited, dear Mrs. Lee, that I am not fit company for
Alice,’ I answered.
‘Will you light the lamp,’ said she, ‘that we may see each other?’
I lighted the lamp and she closed the door and seated herself, viewing
me steadily, and taking no notice of the interior of the berth, though
this was her first visit to these steerage quarters.
‘You look pale,’ said she, ‘pale and worried. Are you really ill or is
it the mind? Tell me, my dear. The mind might be making a great effort
that affects you like physical sickness would, but it may be the very
effort to pray for.’
I had felt that nothing could induce me to confess what had passed;
but the tenderness of her voice and manner broke me down. Her sudden
presence made me acutely feel the need of sympathy. But my heart was
too full for speech. I took her hand and bowing my head upon it wept.
She did not speak whilst I sobbed, but soothingly caressed my hair
with a touch soft and comforting as her daughter’s.
After awhile I grew composed, and then, with my face averted, I told
her that the captain had sent for me after lunch, and I repeated to
her the offer Mr. Harris had requested him to make to me. She listened
attentively and on my ending exclaimed:
‘Well, my dear, it is a proposal of marriage as extraordinary in its
manner of reaching you as the whole character of the man who made it.
But what is there in it to cause you to fret and keep yourself locked
up in this dark place?’
‘It affects me as a dreadful insult.’
‘But why? It is not meant as an insult. Captain Ladmore is not a man to
suffer one of his officers to insult you through him.’
‘I cannot explain, Mrs. Lee. This offer of marriage has shocked me as
though it had been some horrid outrage, and I do not know why.’
She sat silently regarding me.
‘But that is not all,’ I continued. ‘The loathing, the horror the offer
has caused is too deep; I feel that it is too deep to be owing _merely_
to the offer. Some sense lying in blackness within me has been shocked
and outraged. But that is not all: the offer has made me feel how
lonely I am, how utterly hopeless my future must be if my memory does
not return to me.’
‘It is very strange,’ said she, ‘that you should feel that this
extraordinary recoil as of loathing comes not from Mr. Harris himself
as it were, but from his offer.’
‘You exactly express it,’ I exclaimed; ‘it is not the man but the offer
which fills me with loathing.’
‘And you do not understand why this should be?’ said she.
‘No, because the man means kindly. He approached me even with delicacy
through the captain. There is nothing in him which should make me
loathe him.’
‘And still his offer fills you with horror and disgust?’
‘Yes.’
She surveyed me for awhile, lightly running her eye over me with an
expression of inquiry. She then said, ‘Do you remember what that gipsy
woman told you?’
I reflected and answered, ‘She told me much that I remember.’
‘She told you,’ said she, ‘that you were a married woman. What else she
said matters not. But she told you, Agnes, that you were married, and
that you have left a husband who wonders and grieves over your absence.’
I drew a deep tremulous breath not knowing what meaning she had in her
mind.
‘From what you have now told me,’ she continued, ‘I am disposed--mind,
my dear, I only say disposed--to believe that the gipsy woman may be
right.’
‘From what I have now told you!’ I echoed.
‘What can cause this deep recoil in you from Mr. Harris’s offer? What
can occasion your detestation of it and the bitter feeling of shame?
His offer reached you in the most inoffensive manner possible. There
is hardly a woman who would not find something in such an offer of
marriage made by such a man under such conditions to laugh at. No
honourable offer of marriage can fill a woman with loathing. A man can
pay a woman no higher compliment than to ask her to be his wife, and no
woman therefore is to be unutterably outraged, as you tell me you are,
by the highest compliment our sex can receive. Nor is it as though Mr.
Harris were a monster of a figure and face to justify the abhorrence
his offer has excited. What, then, is the reason of this abhorrence?’
She sank into a little reverie during which I watched her almost
breathlessly. ‘I shall not be at all surprised, Agnes,’ said she
presently, ‘if you prove to be a married woman in spite of your not
wearing a wedding ring. There must be a reason for your not wearing a
wedding-ring, and some of these days, please God, you will be able to
account for its missing from your finger. I believe--yes, I earnestly
believe’--she went on looking me eagerly in the eyes--‘that your
antipathy to this offer, the sense of insult that has attended this
offer, arises from a rebellion of the instincts which possess the
truth, though they are unable to communicate it to the intelligence.
The impression of marriage--the great momentous step of every woman’s
life--is too deep to perish. Your secret horror, your unaccountable
loathing, is the subtle and unintelligible revolt of your chastity as
a wife against an offer that is an insult to that chastity. I believe
this, my dear, I do indeed.’
‘Oh God!’ I cried, and my bursting heart could find no other vent than
that cry of ‘Oh God!’
‘You must not be distressed,’ continued the dear little woman, clasping
my hand, ‘because our speculations should be tending the right way.
Suppose we are able to satisfy ourselves that you are a wife; the
knowledge will be a distinct gain, something to employ with profit on
our return to England. But to be able to form no ideas whatever about
you, my dear----And now I wish to say a word about your future. Can
you believe that after our association on board this ship, after the
friendship between you and my darling child, I could bear to lose sight
of you on our return home?----But you have been so much upset by what
has happened to-day that I will not talk to you now about the future.
Come with me to Alice,’ said she rising; ‘it is not long after eight;
she has been wanting you all the afternoon and evening, and will be
glad if you will sit with her for an hour.’
* * * * *
And now happened another interval of shipboard life, during which
there occurred nothing of interest enough to trouble you with. That
Captain Ladmore had delivered my answer to Mr. Harris, and that he
had also requested, perhaps commanded, his first officer to trouble
me no further with his attentions, I could not doubt, for when, next
morning, I met Mr. Harris at the breakfast table, I never once caught
him looking my way. The twist of his mouth seemed a little dryer than
usual, and his countenance might generally express a slight increase of
acidity of feeling; nevertheless, he talked somewhat more freely than
was commonly his custom, was attentive to what was said, and appeared
to direct his eyes at everybody but at me.
His behaviour made me easy, the more so since I was sure he would
not talk of what had passed, so that the ridiculous, and to me the
humiliating incident, would be known to nobody on board excepting the
Lees and the captain of the ship.
And here I may as well say--for it is time that I should dismiss the
few shadowy figures which flit between this part of my story and the
sequel--that ever after, whilst I remained on board the _Deal Castle_,
the behaviour of Mr. Harris remained the same; that is to say, he
never looked at me and never accosted me. If I approached that part of
the deck where he was standing, he instantly walked away. For a day or
two after I had received his ‘offer’ I would briefly salute him with a
‘Good-morning,’ or some such phrase, if we had not before met in the
day, but he never turned his eyes to my face, nor answered me, nor
took any notice of me; for which behaviour in him, as you may suppose,
I was truly thankful. And yet somehow he so contrived his manner that
his downright cutting of me, if I may so express it, was much less
noticeable than his conduct had been whilst, as I may suppose, he was
making up his mind to offer me marriage. Nobody remarked upon his
behaviour; I never, indeed, heard a whisper about it.
He was, indeed, an extraordinary person in his way. I suffer my memory
to dwell briefly upon him before he stalks ghost-like off the little
stage of my dark and memorable experience. I have, I may say, no doubt
whatever he was in earnest in his desire to marry me; and I have since
understood that it was in the power of Captain Ladmore to have united
us, for it seems that amongst the privileges enjoyed by the master of
a merchant vessel is the right to solemnise holy matrimony, and to
make two people one as effectually as though they were tied together
by a clergyman on shore. I often recall the poor man and speculate on
his motive. It would be ridiculous to feign that he had fallen in love
with me; my face and thin, white hair must have preserved him from that
passion. He might, indeed, have imagined in me certain intellectual
graces and qualities, and fallen in love with his own ideal. Was it
pure goodness of heart that caused him to take pity on my lonely and
helpless condition? or--the notion having been put into his head by
Sir Frederick Thompson--did he secretly believe that I belonged to a
fine old family, that his marriage to me would connect him with people
of title and wealth, and that, for all he knew, when my memory returned
I would be able to tell him that he had married a fortune, or enough
money, at all events, to release him from a calling which he appeared
to hate?
His strange offer of marriage, however, resulted in persuading me that
I was a married woman. It would never have entered my head to imagine
such a thing but for Mrs. Lee; and then when I came to think over her
words, and to reason upon the horror that had visited me whilst I
listened to Captain Ladmore, there grew up in my mind a strong secret
conviction that I was a wife. It was not a discovery. Indeed, as a
surmise, it was no more helpful to my memory than the little City
knight’s assurance that I was a member of the house of Calthorpe;
and yet it could not have affected me more had it been a discovery.
I would lie awake for hours during the night thinking of it. When I
was with Alice my mind would wander from the book I read aloud to her
from, or my attention would stray from her language, whilst my whole
intellectual being sank as it were into the black chasm of memory,
where the mind with sightless vision would go on fruitlessly groping
until the useless quest grew at times into so keen a torment that often
I was convinced I should go mad.
Again and again when alone in my berth I took down the little mirror,
as I had been used to do in the earlier passages of this experience,
and sitting with it in my hands in a posture that brought the light
flowing through the port-hole on to my face, so that the reflection
of my countenance lay brilliantly in the mirror, I would peruse my
lineaments, search mine own eyes, dwell upon the turn of my lips, and
all the while I would be asking myself with a soft whisper, but with a
heart racked with the anguish of hopeless inquiry--‘Who am I? Can it
be that I am a wife? Oh God! what is it which seems to assure me that
Mrs. Lee’s belief that I am a wife is true?’ And then I would say to
myself, whilst I sat gazing at my face in the mirror, ‘If I am a wife I
may have children. Can it be that there are children of my own in the
unknown home in the unknown country from which God has banished me in
blindness--that there are children there whose mother I am, who call
me mother, who have cried for me in the day and in the night as their
mother who has gone from them? Can it be so?’ I would ask myself. And
then I would bend the ear of my mind to the mute lips of my dead or
sleeping memory, and imagination would strain within me to catch some
echo of a child’s voice, of a child’s cry or laugh, that would remind
me and give me back the image of what, since I now believed myself a
wife, I imagined that I had lost.