ALICE LEE
A young lady was seated in a comfortable armchair. A handsome skin
marked like a leopard’s covered her knees and feet, and in her lap
was an open volume. She had a great quantity of rich brown hair, a
portion of which was plaited in loops upon the back, whilst the rest
crowned her head in coils. I had no memory of fair faces with which to
compare hers; to my darkened mind it was the first beautiful face I had
seen, and as she looked up at me, smiling, with her lips in the act of
parting to address me, I gazed at her with wonder and admiration and
pity.
Oh, what a sweet, melancholy, exquisitely beautiful face was Alice
Lee’s! There was death upon it, and it seemed the more beautiful for
that. Her eyes were large, of a soft grey, with a sad expression of
appeal in them that was never absent whether she was grave or whether
she smiled. The hollows were deep and dark-tinctured, as though they
reflected the shadow of a green leaf. Her lineaments were of perfect
delicacy: the mouth small and slightly contracted, the teeth brilliant
pearls, the cheeks sunken, slightly touched with hectic, and the
complexion of the sort of transparency that makes one imagine if a
light were held within the cheek the glow of it would shine through
the flesh. The brow was faultlessly shaped, and the blue veins showed
upon it as in marble. Her hands were cruelly thin and the white fingers
were without rings. She was dressed in what now might be called a
teagown, and it was easy to see that her attire was wholly dictated by
considerations of comfort.
Her smile was full of a sweetness that was made sad by her eyes, as she
said, ‘I am so glad to see you. Forgive me for not rising. You see how
my mother has swathed my feet. She will be here presently. Where will
you sit? There is a chair; bring it close to me. I have been longing to
see you! I have heard so much of you from Mrs. Richards.’
I sat down close beside her, and she took my hand and held it whilst
she gazed at me.
‘You are kind to wish to see me,’ said I. ‘It is happiness to me to
meet you. I am very lonely. I cannot recover my memory. It is terrible
to feel, that if I had my memory I would know--I would know--oh, but
not to be able to know! Have I a home? Are there persons dear to me
waiting for me, and wondering what has become of me? Not to be able to
know!’ said I, with my voice sinking into a whisper.
‘Yes, it is terrible,’ she exclaimed gently. ‘But remember these
failures of memory do not last. Again and again they occur after severe
illnesses. But when is it that the memory does not return?’
‘But when it returns, should it return,’ said I, ‘what may it not tell
me that I have lost for ever?’
‘But it will soon return,’ she exclaimed, ‘and things are not lost
for ever in a short time. How long is it since you have been without
memory? Not yet a fortnight, Mr. McEwan told us. No! our minds would
need to be long blank for us to awaken and discover that things dear to
us are lost for ever. It is only by death,’ she added, softening her
voice and smiling, ‘that things are lost, and not then for ever.’
I looked at her! at her sunken eyes, at her drawn mouth, at the
malignant bloom her cheeks were touched with, at her thin, her
miserably thin hands, and I thought to myself, how selfish am I to
immediately intrude my sorrow upon this poor girl, who knows that she
is fading from her mother’s side, and in whose heart therefore must
be the secret, consuming grief of an approaching eternal farewell.
Her wretchedness must be greater than mine, because _her_ trouble is
positively defined to her mind, whereas mine is a deep shadow, out of
which I can evoke nothing to comfort me or to distress me, to gladden
my heart or to break it.
She gazed at me earnestly, and with a touching look of sad affection,
as though she had long known me. I was about to speak.
‘There is something,’ said she, ‘in your face that reminds me of a
sister I lost four years ago. It is the expression, but only the
expression. Mother will see it, I am sure.’
‘Was your sister like you?’ I asked.
‘No, you would not have known us for sisters. Yet we were twins, and it
is seldom that twins do not closely resemble each other.’
I bent my gaze downwards. I was sensible of a sudden inward, haunting
sense of trouble, a sightless stirring of the mind, that affected me as
a pain might.
‘When I look at you,’ she continued, ‘I fully agree with Mr. McEwan
that you are not nearly so old as your white hair makes you appear.
Most people look older as the months roll on, but as time passes you
will look younger. Even your hair may regain its natural colour, which
the doctor says is black. How strange it will be for you to look into
the glass and behold another face in it! But the change will be too
gradual for surprise.’
‘You are returning to England in this ship, I believe?’ said I.
‘Yes, we engaged this cabin for the round voyage, as it is called. A
long course of sea-air has been prescribed for me. A steamer would have
carried us too swiftly for our purpose. You can tell what my malady is?’
She was interrupted by a little fit of coughing.
‘What is your malady, Miss Lee?’
‘It is consumption,’ she answered.
‘I could not have told. I try to think and to realise; but without
recollection how can one even guess? But now that you tell me it is
consumption, I understand the word, and I see the disease in you. I
hope it is not bad; I hope the voyage will cure it.’
‘It is very bad,’ she answered, looking down, and speaking softly,
and closing the volume upon her lap, ‘and I fear the voyage will not
cure it. But I fear only for my mother’s sake. I have no desire to
live as I am, ill as I am. Yet I pray that I may not die at sea. I
shrink from the idea of being buried at sea. But how melancholy is our
conversation! You come to me full of a dreadful trouble of your own,
and here am I increasing your sadness by my talk! Oh! I wish you could
tell me something about yourself. But we know your initials. That is
surely a very great thing. I am going to take the letters “A. C.”; and
put all the surnames and Christian names against them that I can think
of. One of them might be _your_ name.’
‘I fear I should not know it if I saw it,’ said I.
‘We can but try,’ said she, smiling; ‘we must try everything. How proud
it would make me to be the first to help you to remember.’
‘What did your twin sister die of?’
‘Of consumption. Mother believes that such a voyage as I am taking
would have saved her life. I fear not--I fear not. My father died of
that malady. He was a shipowner at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and we live at
Newcastle, or close to it, at a place called Jesmond, and I was hoping
before I met you that I should hear an accent in your speech to tell
me that you belong to our part of England, for I believe I should know
a Northumbrian, at least a Tyneside Northumbrian, anywhere, no matter
how cultivated his or her speech might be. But you do not belong to our
part.’
‘Have you sisters living?’
‘None. I am now the only child. Mother has been a widow six years. But
our talk is again melancholy.’
‘No, it is not melancholy--indeed not. It interests me. I have longed
to meet someone like you. I do not feel lonely with you,’ and as I took
her hand the tears stood in my eyes.
She feigned not to observe that I was crying. ‘Is not this a fine
cabin?’ she exclaimed cheerfully, gazing about her; ‘it is the biggest
in the whole row. It is better off for furniture, too, than the others.
What a fine large window that is, and how glad I shall be when I am
able to keep it open and feel the sweet tropic wind pouring in! I
am longing to get on deck, but the doctor is afraid of my catching
a chill, and he tells me I must wait until we arrive at a certain
latitude. I hope you will often come and sit with me. I will read to
you--it does not fatigue me to read aloud, a little at a time.’
‘Indeed, I will often sit with you,’ said I.
‘Where is your cabin?’ I told her. ‘I hope it is comfortable. But I am
sure Captain Ladmore would wish you to be comfortable. He seems a most
kind-hearted man, and he has his grief too. What could be sadder than
for a sailor, after an absence of many months, to return to his home
full of love and expectation, and find his dear ones, his wife and his
only child, dead? I felt truly grateful to him when I heard that he did
not mean to send you home until you had your memory.’
‘And I, too, am grateful,’ I exclaimed. ‘I am without money, and in a
strange place I should be like one that is blind; and when I arrived,
to whom should I turn? What should I be able to do? If I knew, oh, if I
but _knew_ that my home was in England!’
The door was quietly opened, and a middle-aged lady entered. She was
fresh from the deck, and wore a bonnet and cloak. She was a little
woman with soft grey hair, and with some look of her daughter in her.
Her gown was of silk, and her jewellery old-fashioned. She did not wait
for her daughter to introduce me, but at once approached with her hand
advanced, saying she knew who I was; and with slow deliberate speech
and soft voice she asked me a number of questions too commonplace to
repeat, though they were full of feeling and of good-nature.
‘Is your head badly hurt?’ she asked, gazing with an expression of
maternal anxiety at the bandage.
‘I do not think so,’ said I. ‘I have not yet seen the injury. I hope I
am not greatly disfigured.’
‘I do not think that you are disfigured,’ said Miss Lee. ‘The doctor
says it is your eyebrow that was hurt.’
‘I believe the upper part of my nose is injured,’ I said.
‘How was it that you were hurt?’ asked Mrs. Lee, seating herself, and
viewing me with a face of tender commiseration.
I answered that I supposed the boat’s mast fell upon me when I was
unconscious.
‘Might not such a blow account for your losing your memory?’ said she,
speaking in a soft, slow voice delightful to listen to.
‘I fear it matters not what took my memory away,’ said I, with a
melancholy smile; ‘it is gone.’
‘It will return,’ said Miss Lee.
‘Do you remember nothing that happened before you were found in the
open boat?’ asked Mrs. Lee.
‘Nothing,’ I returned.
She looked at her daughter, and tossed her hands.
‘I hope we shall be much together,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Mother, we must
endeavour to recover Miss C----‘s memory for her. You must be patient,’
said she, smiling at me. ‘You will have to bear with me, I shall scheme
and scheme for you, and every scheme I can think of we must try.’
‘It will be an occupation for you, Alice, and a beautiful one,’ said
her mother, and she suddenly caught her breath, as though to prevent a
sigh from escaping her.
‘But,’ continued Miss Lee, ‘I shall not be satisfied with Miss C---- as
a name. It will do very well for you to be known by in the ship, but
it is stiff, and I shall not be able to call you by it. There are so
many names of girls beginning with A. Let me see. There is my own name,
Alice; then there is Agatha, and then there is Agnes----’
I met Mrs. Lee’s eyes fixed upon me. ‘Do you seem to recollect any of
these names?’ she asked. ‘I hoped, by the expression on your face----’
She hesitated, and I answered:--
‘The names are familiar sounds, but I cannot say that any one of them
is mine.’
‘We must invent something better than Miss C----,’ said her daughter.
‘There is plenty of time, my love,’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee. ‘The captain
is going to keep you on board,’ she continued, addressing me in her
soft, slow-spoken accents, ‘until your memory returns. It may return
when we have arrived at a part of the ocean where it will be the same
whether Captain Ladmore keeps you with him or sends you home by another
ship. For instance, if your memory were to return when we were within
a week’s sail of Sydney, it would be better for you to remain in this
ship, where you will have friends, than to return in a strange vessel,
though you might save a few weeks by doing so. In that case we shall
be together, for Alice and I are going round the world in the _Deal
Castle_. Were you ever in Australia?’
‘Oh, mother! that is an idle question,’ exclaimed Miss Lee.
‘Yes, I forgot,’ cried Mrs. Lee, with a look of pain. ‘Oh, memory,
memory, how little do we value it when we possess it! How all
conversation is dependent upon it! I have somewhere read that it is
sweeter than hope, because hope is uncertain and in the future, but our
memories are our own, many of them are dear, and they cannot be taken
from us. But it is not so,’ said she, looking at me.
‘Hope is better than memory,’ said Miss Lee. ‘It is yours, and you must
suffer nothing to weaken it in you or to take it from you.’
The mother and daughter then conversed together about me, and asked
me many questions, and listened with breathless interest and with
touching sympathy to the account I gave them of my having been locked
up all night in the cabin of the French brig. And I also told them how
generously and kindly the young Frenchman, Alphonse, had behaved, how
tender had been his care of me, and how he had been hurried away from
the attempt to preserve my life by his uncle’s threats to leave him
behind in the sinking vessel.
‘I am astonished,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘that you should be able to remember
all these circumstances, whilst you cannot recollect anything that
happened before.’
‘But does not that mean that there will be something for me to work
upon?’ said Miss Lee.
Her mother arose and, coming to my side, gently laid her hand upon my
arm, and, looking into my face, said, ‘Alice and I know that there must
be many things which you stand in need of. It could not be otherwise.
Were you a princess it would be the same. You and my daughter are about
of the same figure; you, perhaps, are a little stouter.’ She again
caught her breath to arrest a sigh. ‘For so long a voyage as this we
naturally brought a great deal of luggage with us, and I wish you to
allow us to lend you anything that you may require.’ I thanked her.
‘Most of our luggage is in the hold,’ she continued. ‘I will ask Mrs.
Richards to get some of our boxes brought on deck, and Alice shall
select what she thinks you want. There is nothing of mine, I fear, that
would be of any use,’ and she looked down her figure with a smile.
‘But we must let others have the pleasure of helping, too, mother,’
said Miss Lee. ‘Mrs. Richards says there are several ladies who desire
to be of use.’
‘They shall lend what they like,’ said Mrs. Lee.
‘I am tiring you, Miss Lee,’ said I, rising. ‘I have made a long visit.’
‘Have you been on deck?’ said Mrs. Lee.
I answered that I had not yet been on deck.
‘Will you come with me for a little turn,’ she exclaimed. ‘I will
introduce you to some of the passengers. I know most of them now.’
‘I will accompany you with pleasure,’ said I, then faltered, and felt
some colour in my cheeks as I glanced at a looking-glass opposite.
‘You are welcome to my hat and jacket,’ said Miss Lee; ‘will you wear
them?’ she added, with a sweet look of eagerness.
I took off the cap, and put on the hat, and then the jacket; but the
jacket did not fit me--it was too tight, and it would not button.
‘Here is a warm shawl,’ said Mrs. Lee.
‘Does not Miss C---- remind you of Edith?’ exclaimed the daughter.
Mrs. Lee looked hard at me, and, opening the door, passed out.
‘You will come and see me again soon?’ said Miss Lee.
‘I will come,’ I answered, ‘as often as you care to send for me.’
When we had walked a few paces down the saloon towards the aftermost
stairs Mrs. Lee stopped, and, putting her hand on my arm, exclaimed,
‘Oh, my poor child!’ I imagined for the moment that the exclamation
referred to me. She continued: ‘She is the only one that is left to me
now. My heart breaks when I look at her. I try to be composed, and talk
lightly on indifferent matters, but the effort is often more than I
can bear. Do you think she looks very ill?’
‘She looks ill,’ I answered, ‘but not very ill.’
‘I ought to have taken her a voyage some time ago--they tell me so, at
least. I have wintered at Madeira with her, and we spent last winter
in the south of France. But they say that a voyage is worth all those
resorts and refuges put together. Is she not sweet? She suffers so
patiently, too.’
I longed to say something soothing, to utter some hope, but my mind
gave me no ideas. Mrs. Lee looked at me whilst I stood at her side
with my head hung, fruitlessly striving with my mind that I might say
something to console her. ‘I am keeping you standing,’ cried she, and
without further words we went on deck.
It was a little before the hour of noon. The sea was a wide field
of throbbing blue, laced with foam, every little billow curling
along the course the ship was pursuing, and on high was a wide and
sparkling heaven of azure, along which many small clouds, like puffs
from musketry, were sailing. Warmth but no heat was in the sunshine.
The great ship was travelling along almost upright. She regularly and
lightly curtseyed, but did not roll. Her sails shone like satin, and
on one side they hung far over the water, hollowing low down to a long
pole or boom, and the reflection of them in the water under this boom
was as though there was a silver cloud in the sea sweeping along with
us.
There were no awnings; the sun was not yet hot enough for them. The
white planks of the decks sparkled freshly like dry sand, and the
shadows of the rigging ruled them with streaks of violet as though
drawn by the hand. At the wheel stood a sailor in white trousers and a
straw hat; he munched upon a piece of tobacco, and his little reddish
eyes were sometimes directed at the compass and sometimes up at the
sails, and never at anything else, as though there was nothing more
to be seen. Not far from him, at the rail that protected the side,
stood the fine tall figure of Captain Ladmore; he held a bright brass
sextant, which he occasionally lifted to his eye. Some paces away from
him was the short, square, solid form of Mr. Harris, the first officer,
and he too held a sextant, though it was not so bright and polished
as the captain’s. The raised deck on which I found myself--termed by
sailors the poop, and to be henceforth so called by me--seemed to be
covered with moving figures, though, after gazing awhile, I observed
that they were not so numerous as they at first appeared. They were
ladies and gentlemen and a few children; there was much noise of
talking, a frequent gay laugh, a constant fluttering of female raiment.
I stood stock-still at the side of Mrs. Lee, staring about me, and for
some moments no one seemed to observe us. At any time in my life such
a spectacle would have been in the highest degree novel and of the
deepest interest. Now it affected me as it would a child. It induced a
simple emotion of wonder and delight--the sort of wonder and delight
that makes young people clap their hands. Beyond the poop was a deck
which I could not see; but in the bows of the ship was a raised deck,
called the forecastle, and it was crowded with the emigrant folks
sunning themselves, the men lounging, squatting, and smoking, the
women, in queer bonnets or bright handkerchiefs tied round their heads,
eagerly talking. I looked up at the sails and around at the sea, and at
the scene on deck, brightly coloured by the clothes of the ladies.
‘How wonderful! How beautiful!’ I exclaimed.
‘Is she not a noble ship?’ said Mrs. Lee.
The captain turned his head and saw us. He crossed the deck, and asked
me in his grave, kindly way how I did. I am glad you have come on
deck,’ said he. ‘The mind will grow strong as the body grows strong;
but the sun is nearly at his meridian, and I must keep an eye upon
him,’ and he stepped back to take his place at the rail.
I caught Mr. Harris, the first officer, inspecting me furtively. When
our gaze met he pulled off his cap, and then, with a manner of abrupt
energy, reapplied himself to pointing his sextant at the sea.
‘You have made the acquaintance of Mr. Harris, the chief officer?’ said
Mrs. Lee.
‘I met him on deck here at one o’clock this morning,’ I answered. ‘We
held a short conversation, and he is of opinion that a violent shock,
such as my falling overboard, would restore my memory.’
‘Sailors are a singular people,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘They love to give
opinions on anything which does not concern their profession, yet
outside their profession they know little--often nothing. Many
sea-captains used to visit our house in my poor husband’s lifetime,
and out of their talk I might have collected quite a bookful of absurd
ideas and laughable superstitions.’
But now my presence on deck had been observed, and in a few moments a
number of the passengers gathered about me. I cannot recollect what was
said. I was confused by many eyes being bent upon me. One hoped that
I was quite recovered, another congratulated me upon my preservation,
a third marvelled that I had not died of fright in the cabin of the
French brig. Many such things were said, and I had to shake hands
with several of the friendly people. There were twenty-five or thirty
passengers, and, though a few held aloof, the crowd about me seemed a
large one.
A stout, handsomely-dressed, middle-aged woman in a large hat
exclaimed, ‘Mrs. Lee, I hope the poor lady understands that whatever I
can lend her she may command.’
A tall gentleman with long whiskers and a white wide-awake and an
eyeglass, said, ‘My wife is below in her cabin. It is her wish to be
of use to the lady. I contend that every living person on board this
ship is responsible for her present situation. That is to say, morally
responsible. My wife clearly recognises that, and is therefore anxious
to be of use.’
The captain uttered an exclamation, Mr. Harris raised his voice in a
cry, and immediately eight chimes, signifying the hour of noon, were
struck upon a silver-toned bell in some part of the ship forward.
The captain and first officer left the deck. In twos and threes the
passengers fell away, leaving me to Mrs. Lee. She asked me to give her
my arm, and we quietly paced a part of the deck that was unoccupied.
But though the passengers had drawn off, they continued to observe
me. My appearance doubtless struck them as remarkable. My figure was
that of a fine young woman of five-and-twenty, and my face, with its
bandaged brow, its thin white hair, its fine network of wrinkles--not,
indeed, so minutely defined as the delicate lines had shown when I
first observed them on the brig, but clear enough to make a sort of
mask of my countenance when closely looked into--my face, I say, might
have passed for a person’s of any age from forty to sixty. There were
two tall handsome girls who incessantly watched me as I walked with
Mrs. Lee.
‘I hope,’ said I, ‘the people will not continue to stare. It makes me
feel nervous to be looked at, and it must come to my waiting until it
is dark to take the air on deck.’
‘No rudeness is meant,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘You are the heroine of the
hour, and are paying the penalty of being famous. Fame is short-lived,
and you will not long be looked at.’
‘Who is that little man near the boat there, with fur upon his coat? He
is unable to remove his eyes from me.’
‘He is Sir Frederick Thompson,’ replied Mrs. Lee in her soft,
deliberate voice. ‘Do not look at him. I have heard who he is, and will
tell you. He is a City knight. I believe he deals in provisions. I
heard him tell Captain Ladmore that after being the most prosperous man
in the City of London for years everything suddenly went wrong. People
who owed him money became bankrupt, a confidential clerk absconded,
the price of the commodities he dealt in fell, and his goods being
chiefly perishable, he had to sell them at a heavy loss. He thereupon
made up his mind to go a voyage, hoping to find that things had righted
themselves by the time that he returned. A rather rash resolution, I
think.’
‘And who are those two gentlemen who seem to be arguing near the
rigging at the end of the deck on the other side?’
‘The gentleman with the yellow beard and the ill-fitting clothes is
Mr. Wedmold; and the shorter man, whose stiff stickup collars will not
enable him to turn his head, is Mr. Clack. I do not know what their
callings are, I am sure. They are constantly arguing, and always on the
same subject. Whenever they get together they argue on literature. I
hope they will keep to literature, and not break out into religion.
They argue across the table at meal-times. It matters not to them who
listens.’
I glanced at the brace of gentlemen with languid interest, and then
directing my eyes at the sea, said, ‘Whilst my memory sleeps, Mrs. Lee,
my life must be like that circle. Wherever I look I see the same thing.’
‘I do not in the least despair of you,’ she answered. ‘I was talking to
Mr. McEwan yesterday on the subject of memory, and we agreed that total
loss was almost always associated with insanity. Now, Miss C----, you
are not one bit mad. You can reason perfectly well, you converse with
excellent good sense. Less than half what you have undergone--though we
can only imagine the character of it--less than half, I say--nay, the
mere being locked up all night in the cabin of a ship that one believed
to be sinking would suffice to drive ninety-nine persons out of every
hundred hopelessly mad for life. You have escaped with the loss of
your memory. That is to say, with a partial loss. But the memory is a
single faculty, and if one portion of it be active and healthy, as it
is in your case, I cannot believe that the remainder of it is dead;
therefore I do not at all despair of you.’
I listened with impassioned attention to her gently-spoken, slowly
and deliberately pronounced, words. At that moment a lady came out
of the saloon through the hinder opening in the deck called the
‘companion-way.’ She was a lady of about forty years of age, and she
wore a handsome hat, around which were curled some ostrich feathers.
Her hair was of the colour of flax, her eyes a pale blue, and her face
fat and pale. She gave a theatrical start on seeing me, and then with a
wide smile approached us.
‘Oh! Mrs. Lee,’ she exclaimed, ‘your companion, I am sure, is the
shipwrecked lady. I have been dying to see her. May I address her?’
‘Let me introduce Mrs. Webber,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘Mrs. Webber is good
enough to take a great interest in you, Miss C----. She wishes to share
in the pleasure of being useful to you.’
‘Yes, if you please,’ cried Mrs. Webber. ‘Do not let me keep you
standing. There are trunksful of things belonging to me somewhere in
the ship, and if you will make out a list of your wants my maid shall
see that they are supplied. And you are to be called Miss C----?
How truly romantic! Mrs. Lee, I would give anything to be known by
an initial only. What could be more delightfully mysterious than to
go through life as an initial? Oh, I shall want to ask you so many
questions, Miss C----.’
‘Mrs. Webber is a poetess,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘My daughter is very much
pleased with your poem, “The Lonely Heart,” Mrs. Webber. It is truly
affecting.’
‘I was certain she would like it,’ answered Mrs. Webber; ‘yet it is
not so good as the “Lonely Soul.” The first I wrote with a pen dipped
in simple tears, the other with a pen dipped in tears of blood. What a
delightful subject Miss C---- would make for a poem--not a short poem,
but a volume.’
‘There may be some sorrows which lie too deep for poetry,’ said Mrs.
Lee.
‘Too deep!’ cried Mrs. Webber.
‘Yes, in the sense that there are thoughts which lie too deep for
tears,’ said Mrs. Lee.
‘That line by Longfellow I never could understand,’ said Mrs. Webber.
‘It is by Wordsworth,’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee.
‘Too deep!’ cried Mrs. Webber again; ‘why, I should have imagined that
nothing could be too deep or too high for poetry. Take Browning;
doesn’t he go deep? Take Shelley; didn’t he go high? Over and over
again they disappear, and what’s a surer sign of a great poet than
to sink or soar out of sight? Any simple fellow can make himself
understood. The sublime in writing is quite another affair. Don’t you
agree with me, Miss C----?’
‘I am sorry I am not able to understand you,’ I answered.
I observed Mrs. Lee give Mrs. Webber a look. The latter cried, ‘Oh
yes, I now remember. And yet, do you know, as I was telling my husband
not an hour ago, I cannot see that it is very dreadful to be without
memory. I mean to say, that it cannot be very dreadful to forget one’s
past. To be able to recollect enough to go on with is really all one
wants. The condition of a mind that cannot look back, but that can
look forward, must surely be romantically delightful; because forward
everything is fresh; all the flowers are springing, there are no
graves; but behind--for my part, I hate looking back.’
Mrs. Lee muttered low for my ear only: ‘This lady is no poetess.’
‘You will by and by let me ask you many questions I hope, Miss C----,’
exclaimed Mrs. Webber; ‘I should love to exactly realise your state of
mind. Of course I am highly imaginative, but to me there is something
very beautiful in your situation. You remember nothing save what has
happened to you upon the sea, and therefore you may most truly be
considered a genuine daughter of old ocean, as much so as if you had
risen out of the foam like some ancient goddess whose name I forget. I
shall, perhaps, call my poem about you “The Bride of the Deep.” I might
imagine that old ocean having fallen in love with you had erased your
memory of the land, that you shall know him only and be wholly his.
What do you think of that idea, Mrs. Lee?’ and she turned her light
blue eyes with a sparkle in them upon my companion.
‘I think our friend’s sorrow is of too solemn a character to make a
book of,’ answered Mrs. Lee.
This answer seemed to slightly abash Mrs. Webber, who, after gazing
around her a little while in silence, suddenly exclaimed: ‘There are
those two wretched men, Mr. Wedmold and Mr. Clack, at it again. They
stood yesterday afternoon outside my cabin where I was endeavouring
to get some sleep, having passed a wretched night, and for a whole
hour they argued upon Dickens and Thackeray--which was the greater
author--which was the greater novelist. I coughed and coughed but they
took no notice. I shall certainly ask Mr. Webber to speak to them if
they argue outside my cabin door again. They not only lose their
temper, their arguments are childish. Besides, how sickening is this
subject of the relative merits of Dickens and Thackeray! Really, to
hear people talk now-a-days, one would suppose that the only writers
whose names occur in English literature are Dickens and Thackeray. But
the truth is, Mrs. Lee, though books are very plentiful in this age,
people read little. But they read Dickens and Thackeray, and having
mastered these two names they consider themselves qualified to talk
about literature. I am truly sick of the subject; and to have to listen
for a whole hour when I am trying to get some sleep! I shall certainly
ask Mr. Webber to speak to those two men.’
She then declared her intention of enjoying many a long chat with
me, repeating that she had an extraordinary imagination, with which,
should my memory continue lifeless, she would undertake to construct
a past that would answer every purpose of conversation, reference, and
so forth. ‘Indeed,’ she exclaimed, ‘I believe with a little thinking,
I should be able to create a past for you so close to the truth as,
figuratively speaking, to light you to the very door of your home.’