MY DYING FRIEND
Captain Ladmore descended into the saloon, and several of the
passengers followed him to finish the brandy and water or wine which
they had been sipping when called upon to view the ship on fire. A
figure came across the deck to where I stood in the shadow of the mast.
I had supposed myself hidden, so dark was the shadow cast by the mast,
and I stood in the shadow. The figure was Mr. Harris, the chief officer.
‘Good evening,’ he exclaimed.
‘Good evening,’ I answered.
‘Been looking at the burning ship?’ said he.
‘Yes, I have been looking at the burning ship.’
‘Ever seen a ship on fire before?’
‘I suppose I never have.’
‘What d’ye think of a ship on fire as a show?’
‘It is a wonderful but a terrible sight,’ said I. ‘I hope no poor
creature has perished by the burning of that ship.’
‘No chance of it,’ he exclaimed; ‘the vessel that was hove to close by
long ago took every living creature aboard. Fine night, isn’t it?’
‘It is a beautiful night,’ said I.
‘It’s a bit early still,’ said he, making a step to cast his eye upon a
clock that stood in one of the skylights. ‘There’s no hurry this time;
not like one o’clock in the morning.’
‘If Mrs. Lee were on deck,’ said I, ‘I should be glad to remain here
and walk a little. The air is sweet and refreshing, and the headache I
have had this evening has gone. It is very warm in the steerage.’
‘It’ll be warmer by-and-by,’ said he. ‘I should be happy to take a turn
with you, but I have charge of the deck and strolling wouldn’t be in
order. But there’s no law to hinder a man from talking on a fine clear
night like this, and with your permission I shall be glad of a short
yarn with you, miss.’
‘What do you wish to say?’ said I, feeling uneasy. ‘I hope you do not
mean to talk to me about shocks. I do not like the idea of such things,
and beg that you will not say a word about them.’
‘It’s not shocks to-night,’ said he, ‘though--but as I see you don’t
like the subject I’ll drop it. What I want to talk to you about is that
gipsy woman. I’ve been turning over what she said as to your being
married and having a husband waiting for you at home, and the like of
that. What are your sentiments on what that tar-brush of a woman told
you this afternoon?’
‘Do not ask me, Mr. Harris. I remember nothing, and it would be all the
same if the gipsy had told me I was the queen of England.’
He stood in the moonlight and I in the trunk-like shadow cast by
the mast, and I observed that he regarded me steadfastly, with an
expression of earnestness that might have gathered a deeper character
than it really owned from the nature of the light; he eyed me as though
he would read my face, but the shadow was as good as my veil, which I
had not thought of putting on at that hour.
‘I’ll tell you what my notion is,’ said he; ‘that gipsy woman is full
of lies. How should she know that you’re married? Wouldn’t you wear
a wedding-ring if you were married? What does she want to make out:
that your wedding-ring was stolen off your finger when you were in
the boat? But those French chaps found you alone, didn’t they? You
couldn’t have been very long unconscious, and who’s to tell me that
you weren’t alone when you fell insensible? If there was a sailor
with you, you must have been sensible when he was in the boat; and
no man’s going to persuade me--whether you can remember that sailor
plundering you or not--no man’s going to persuade me that any sailor
or sailors--distressed as such people as were along with you must have
been--supposing any parties to have been along with you----’ he paused,
having lost the thread of his argument, and then, smiting the palm of
his left hand with his fist, he exclaimed with subdued energy, ‘What I
mean is, I don’t believe you were robbed.’
He glanced round to observe if anyone was near enough to have overheard
him.
‘I can tell you nothing, Mr. Harris,’ said I.
‘The gipsy and her lies may be put on one side,’ said he. ‘In fact, if
I catch her aft again with her confounded yarns I’ll make her wish that
this ship had never been built with a poop. Sir Frederick Thompson’s
opinion is another matter. I don’t reckon you’re a Calthorpe, as he
calls it; for there’s no inward echo to the name, and an inward echo
there’d be if a Calthorpe you were, so I think, and I believe I’m no
fool. But if you’re not a Calthorpe, you may be somebody as good and
perhaps better.’ After a pause he exclaimed, ‘Suppose your memory don’t
return to you?’
‘Do not suppose it,’ I cried with bitterness.
‘I wish to say nothing to wound you, miss,’ said he, ‘but there can be
no harm in us two talking matters over. It’s early as yet, the ship
doesn’t want watching, a more beautiful night you may sail round the
world twenty times over without falling in with. You’ve got to consider
this; suppose your memory don’t return--what then?’ I did not answer.
‘Of course,’ continued he, ‘your memory is going to return some time or
other. The faculty’s alive. It’s only turned in for the present. Some
of these days something’ll happen to act like the thump of a bo’sun’s
handspike, and the faculty’ll tumble up wide awake as though it was to
a roar of “All hands!” But whatever it be that’s going to rout that
sleeping faculty out may keep you waiting. And meanwhile?’
I had no answer to make him and held my peace.
‘The captain, no doubt,’ he went on, ‘will keep you on board this ship
until her arrival in London, if so be your memory won’t enable him to
send you home sooner. But when this ship arrives in dock, what then?
You can’t go on living on board her. The captain’s got no home now
that his wife and child are dead. He’s a good man and might find you
a lodging for a bit, but he don’t stay ashore above a couple or three
months. And what, I’ve been asking of myself ever since that gipsy was
aft here with her lying yarns, what’s to become of you?’
I drew myself erect and my foot tapped the deck with vexation and
distress.
‘For God’s sake, miss,’ said he, ‘don’t feel offended by anything I may
say. You have friends aboard, and I want to be one of them, and prove
myself one of them by behaving as a friend, and perhaps as more than a
friend. My object in keeping you yarning here is to ask you to think
over what’s to become of you if your memory hasn’t returned by the time
the ship reaches England.’
I bit my lip and answered with a struggle, ‘What would be the good of
my thinking? My memory may return. In any case I must trust in God to
help me.’
‘Well, you’ll be safe in trusting in God,’ said he, ‘but someone to
trust in on this earth wouldn’t be out of the way either. You see,
miss, it may come to this: the ship arrives in dock and you’ve got to
go ashore; where will ye go to? You don’t know. There may be scores of
friends of yours within hail, but owing to your memory being at fault
ne’er a one of them can be of more use to you than if they were in
their graves. It seems cruel to talk of the Union; but my notion is,
that whenever one’s in a mess the first thing to do is to take a good
look round. I believe there are homes for destitute females, but for my
part I’d rather go to the workhouse if I was a lonely girl. So you see,
miss, it comes to this: you must have a friend....’
I could bear this talk no longer, and walked in the direction of one
of the ladders in order to return to the steerage.
‘One minute,’ he cried, accompanying me, and so contriving to walk as
to oblige me to halt. ‘I’ve brought tears to your eyes, and I ask your
forgiveness. There’s been no rudeness intended in what I’ve said, God
knows. You’ll find that out before long, I hope. You’ll be discovering
that I wish you well. Though my parents were gentle folks, my college
was a ship’s forecastle and I’m without polish, and, what’s more, I
don’t want any. I’m a plain seaman, but I hope I can feel for another
as well as the best, and I want to be your friend, and perhaps more
than your friend.’
‘I am sure you mean nothing but kindness,’ said I, ‘but your words have
distressed me. You make my future appear hopeless and dreadful.’
‘That’s how I want you to view it,’ said he, ‘by correctly realising
it you’ll be able to deal with it.’
‘Good-night,’ I exclaimed; and without another word I left him and
returned to my berth.
* * * * *
As I have before said, I considered Mr. Harris eccentric, unpleasantly
well meaning, and not a man to be angry with because he spoke bluntly
and said things which were disagreeable and even offensive to hear. But
the language he had held destroyed my night’s rest. I could not sleep
for thinking of his miserable talk about the workhouse and asylums
for destitute females. What he meant by saying that he wished to be
something more than a friend to me did not trouble my head. All that I
could think of was the picture he had drawn of the arrival of the _Deal
Castle_ in dock, of my being without memory, and stepping ashore unable
to recollect the name of a friend likely to help me.
Many to whom my story is known have since that miserable time expressed
wonder that Captain Ladmore did not put me on board a homeward-bound
ship--that is to say, a ship proceeding to England--with a request to
her captain to inform the owners of the _Deal Castle_ in what manner
their vessel had fallen in with me, and to beg them to make my case
public in the newspapers, so that if I had friends in England they
could come forward and claim me.
But then, as I have already explained in a preceding chapter, Captain
Ladmore did not know whether I had a home or friends in England or not.
For all he could tell I might be the sole survivor of a shipwreck, or
the surviving occupant of one of the boats which had put off before the
ship went down, and if that were so--and there was nothing improbable
in the supposition--then I might have been a passenger coming from
America, or Australia, or India. It would not follow, according to
his humane reasoning, that, because I was undeniably an Englishwoman,
I lived in England and had friends in that country. And if I had no
friends and no home in England, then his sending me there at the first
opportunity whilst my memory remained a blank would be nothing short
of cruelty; for when I landed I should be destitute, without money and
without friends, and, being without memory, more helpless and worse
off than the veriest beggar that might crawl past me in rags. But by
keeping me on board his ship he hoped to give my memory time to recover
its powers, so that, as he himself had said, whatever steps he took to
restore me to my friends would be sure, for he would know where to send
me. Then, again, it must be remembered that I had begged and prayed to
remain on board whilst my memory continued dark, and that I had spoken
with horror and with tears of the prospect of being landed without a
shelter to go to.
This, then, is my answer to the wonder that has been expressed by my
friends since this frightful passage of my life came to an end, and
I enter it here as much to explain Captain Ladmore’s motives as to
accentuate his humanity.
Propelled by pleasant winds, which sometimes blew over the stern and
sometimes off the beam, the fine ship _Deal Castle_ stemmed her way
into the tropics, and every twenty-four hours brought the equator
nearer to us by many leagues. All day long the deck was kept shadowed
by the awning, in whose violet-tinted coolness lounged the passengers.
It was growing too hot for active exercise. The deck quoit was cast
aside, the walk to and fro the white planks was abandoned for the
American folding-chair, the piano was but languidly touched, seldom
were the voices of the singers amongst us heard, and there were hours
when it was too sultry to read.
But the weather continued gloriously beautiful, the sky cloudless, the
ocean a rich dark blue with the slopes of the swell wrinkled by the
wind, and here and there a glance of foam as the ship stole through
the waters, rippling the blue into lines as fine as harp-strings,
which the sun turned into gold as they spread from the bows. And the
flying-fish flashed from the side, and steadily in the blue calm of the
water astern hung the slate-coloured shape of a shark, the inevitable
attendant of the mariner in those fiery waters.
I was now going about without my veil. Mrs. Richards had advised me
to bear being looked at for a little while, promising me that the
curiosity of the passengers would rapidly pass, and she proved right.
The people took little or no notice of me, and I was able to enjoy
the freedom of my own face, which was no trifling comfort, for often
I longed for all the air I could get, and the veil was like a warm
atmosphere upon my forehead.
Nor was I so unsightly as I had been when I first came on board the
_Deal Castle_. The wound had healed. The scar was indeed visible and
gave an air of distortion to the brow it overran; but this was remedied
to the eye by some toilet powder which Mrs. Webber gave me. I applied
it plentifully with a puff, and the powder not only concealed the scar
but paired with my remaining eyebrow, which, as I have told you, had
turned white with my hair.
By this time I had much improved in health and in some respects in
appearance. My eyes had regained their brightness, and there seemed
no lack of the light of intelligence in them, though, as I should have
supposed, in a person without memory, one would expect to find the gaze
dull and slow and the glow of the sight dim. My figure had improved. I
held myself erect, and a certain grace had come to my movements from my
capacity as a dancer--for I was always thought a very good dancer--to
take the moving platform of the deck. My cheeks had grown plump; the
hollows had filled up, and the haggard look was gone. Nevertheless my
face still showed as that of a woman of forty I remember once saying to
Mr. McEwan, ‘What could have caused those fine lines to be drawn over
my face?’
‘Nerves,’ he answered, in his short abrupt way.
‘They are not wrinkles,’ said I.
‘If they were wrinkles it would be Time,’ said he. ‘Be satisfied with
that explanation.’
‘Would the shock that turned my hair white thread the skin of my face
with these fine lines?’ said I.
‘It all happened at once,’ he answered; ‘I would lend you a book on
nerves if I did not fear that the reading of it would turn ye daft.’
‘Will the skin of my face ever grow smooth?’ said I.
‘Never smoother than it is,’ he answered. ‘Isn’t it as smooth and soft
as kid? What more d’ye want?’
‘What I meant to ask was, will these fine lines which disfigure my face
ever disappear?’
‘Heaven defend us!’ he cried, feigning a warmth which his countenance
belied; ‘your sex are all alike. Your questions are all prompted by
vanity. It is not “Is there any chance, doctor, of my ever recovering
the faculties of my mind?” but “Shall I ever regain my beautiful
complexion?” “Never mind about my sight failing; will the glasses you
order me to wear become me?” “Never mind about my heart being affected;
shall I be able to go on lacing so as to keep my waist?”’ and he
departed leaving my question unanswered.
My complexion, however, had cleared with the improvement of my health;
the dingy sallow colour was gone out of my cheeks, and a faint bloom
had taken its place. It was as though my youth struggled to show
its rosy face through the mask which calamity had stamped upon my
countenance. This faint bloom, as I call it, might, in spite of the
interlacery of fine lines, have brought my appearance to within a few
years of my real age had it not been for my white hair, which was so
fleecy and thin that you would only think of looking for the like of
it on the head of an old lady of seventy or eighty years. Indeed, what
with my figure, which was that of a fine young woman of seven- or
eight-and twenty, what with my eyes and teeth, which corresponded with
my figure, and what with my white hair, white eyebrow, scarred temple
and finely-lined skin, as though the flesh had been inlaid with a
spider’s web, I doubtless presented to the eyes of my fellow-passengers
the most extraordinary compound of youth and age it could have entered
into the nimblest imagination among them to figure.
Nearly the whole of my time was spent in the company of Alice Lee. I
read to her, I helped her to dress, I accompanied her on deck, indeed
I was scarcely ever absent from her side. Mrs. Lee encouraged our
companionship. Whatever served to sustain her daughter’s spirits,
whatever contributed to lighten the tedium of the girl’s long hours
of confinement to her cabin, must needs be welcome to the devoted
mother. Often it happens that the sufferer from the disease of
consumption, though of an angelic sweetness of heart, and though of a
most beautiful, loving, gentle nature, will unconsciously be rendered
petulant by the ministrations of one, by the devoted association, and
by the heart-breaking anxiety of one, who may be the dearest of all
human beings to her in this world, even her own mother. She is fretted
by the importunities of love. The devotion is too anxious, too eager,
too restless.
Mrs. Lee tried hard to conceal what was in her heart, but it must have
vent in some shape or form. It rendered her vigilance impassioned.
Indeed, I once took the liberty of telling her that the expression of
pain and grief her face unconsciously wore when she sat with Alice, and
heard her cough, or beheld any increase of languor in the movement of
her eyes or in her speech, proved harmful to her child by poignantly
reminding her of her mother’s sorrow and of the reason of it. And so
it came about that Mrs. Lee welcomed my intimate association with her
daughter and promoted it by leaving us much alone together.
Sometimes Mrs. Webber joined Alice and me when we were on deck, and
occasionally she visited us when we were in the Lees’ cabin. I never
liked her better than at such times. She subdued her manner, there
was an air of cheerful gravity upon her, and her behaviour was as one
who has known sorrow. She sank all the coxcombries of her literary
talk when she was with us, had not a word to say about her own poetry,
and ventured no opinions on the merits of authors. I took to her very
warmly after she had visited Alice once or twice in her cabin.
Much sympathy was exhibited by the other passengers, but their good
taste and real kindness of heart made the expression of it reserved
and askant, as it were. Both the Miss Glanvilles sang very finely,
and knowing that Alice loved certain songs which they sang with great
sweetness, one or another would come and ask her if she should sing to
her, and then sit down and soothe and charm the dear girl for an hour
at a time. But neither they nor any of the other passengers ever dreamt
of opening the piano until they learnt that Alice was awake or in a
humour not to be teased by the noise of the music.
The hot weather tried her terribly. It was indeed as her mother had
feared, and I could only pray that Mrs. Lee’s dread of the ship being
becalmed upon the equator under the roasting sun for a long term of
days would prove unfounded. Sometimes the girl rallied and exhibited
a degree of vivacity that filled her mother with hope, and then a
change would happen on a sudden. She would be wrenched and shattered
by a dreadful cough, her head would sink, her eyes grow leaden, her
breathing pitiably laboured; she would turn from the food placed before
her, and lay her head upon her mother’s breast or upon my shoulder as
I sat beside her, and at such times I would think the end was close at
hand.
As I have before said, she did not in the least fear death. She seemed
to have but one dread--that she should be buried at sea. I sat beside
her one morning in her cabin fanning her. The window lay wide open,
but not a breath of air entered the aperture. The ship was becalmed:
she had been becalmed since midnight, and now I did not need to
inquire what was the meaning of the word. I had been on deck before I
visited Alice, and looked around me and beheld a wonderful breathless
scene of stagnant ocean. I know not what our latitude was; I dare
say we were five or six hundred miles north of the equator. The sea
undulated thickly, faintly and sluggishly, as though it were of oil,
and it reflected the rays of the sun as oil might, or indeed as a dull
mirror would, and gave back the burning light from its surface in an
atmosphere of heat that swung to the lip and cheek with the light roll
of the ship in folds like escapes of air from a fiery oven.
It was cooler below than on deck, and Alice and I sat in the cabin.
She was languid and very pale; there was a deeper dye than usual in
the hollow of her eyes, and her fair brow glittered with moisture.
We had been talking, and were now silent whilst I fanned her. As the
vessel rolled, a delicate noise of sobbing rose from the side. She had
not seemed to notice this sobbing noise before, but on a sudden it
caught her ear: she listened and looked at me a little wildly, then
rose and went to the porthole and stood gazing at the dim blue haze of
heat that overhung the horizon, and at the dull blue undulations of
oil-like water sulkily rolling to the slope of the sky. She returned to
her chair, and putting her cold moist hand upon mine, exclaimed:
‘Oh, Agnes, I hope that God will have mercy upon me and spare me until
we reach Australia, that I may be buried on shore.’
‘Have courage, my dear, have faith in God’s goodness,’ said I. ‘Do not
talk of dying. Keep up your dear heart, and remember that this is the
most trying part of the voyage. In a few days we shall be meeting with
cooler weather, and then you will be yourself again.’
She smiled, but without despair in the expression of her smile. It was
sad, but it took its colouring of sadness from her thin face, not from
her heart. She turned her eyes towards the open window, and said:
‘I am foolish, and perhaps wicked, to dread being cast into the sea.
There are many who would rather be buried at sea than on shore. It is
a spacious grave, and one thinks of it as lying open to the eye of
God. But the thought of the loneliness of an ocean grave weighs down
my heart. Oh, I should be happy--happier in my hope of death and in
the promises of my dear Saviour--if I knew I was to be buried where my
mother could visit me. It is a weakness--I know it is all the same--I
am in God’s hands, and I am happy;’ and she hid her face that I might
not see the tear which rose to her eyes when she spoke of her mother
visiting her grave.
But there was little need for her to hide her face, for the tears
rained down my own cheeks as I listened to her and looked at her.
When she saw I was crying she gently led the talk to other matters,
brightened her face, and after we had conversed awhile she said,
looking at me with a smile of tenderness that was like a light from
heaven upon her:
‘Agnes, I have been longing to say that in case your memory should
remain silent after this ship has arrived in England my mother will
take care that you shall not want. This she will do as much for my
sake as for your own, and out of her own love for you too. I have not
spoken of this before, dear, because I disliked even to hint at any
arrangements which implied that your memory might be wanting after so
long a time as the voyage of this ship will take to complete. And yet I
have also thought that it would comfort you to know that your future,
should your mind continue sightless, will not be friendless.’ She
took my hand, and whilst she caressed it continued, ‘It will come to
your taking my place. When I am gone my mother will be alone, and my
earnest wish is that you should be her companion.’
‘Oh, Alice,’ said I, ‘you will live to remain your mother’s companion.
Would that God permitted that one life laid down availed to save
another’s....’
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.