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.