III.
The doctor looked at me curiously. “He is pretty badly hurt, but I think he will pull through. I don’t suppose it makes any particular difference to him or anybody else, whether he does or not!” he said, brushing his hat with his coat-sleeve.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Why, because he will only pull through this to get killed in some other scrape, and before he can get into anything else he will have to answer for this one. You know how he was hurt?”
“No, I don’t know anything about it.”
“He robbed a fellow in the night, and the man chased him and shot him, and finding that he still ran, knocked him down with the butt end of his pistol, threw it at him; that is the worst hurt he had. And he is an old customer, for this blow opened an old place; it isn’t the first time he has been caught. I’ve just trepanned it—quite a serious operation under the circumstances.”
“And the pistol wounds?”
“Nothing but scratches; they won’t hurt.”
“Well, he is a human creature, with an immortal soul, and I shall take care of him, anyhow. There is nobody else to do it, so I intend to,” I said as calmly as I could, after all this terrible information, which had shaken me none the less for the doctor’s indifferent tone and manner.
“Very well, ma’am, I wish you success. There’s nothing to do now but keep him quiet until I come back after breakfast.”
I walked in alone and looked at the still, white face under the bandages. He was evidently under the influence of a heavy opiate, for there was no sign of life, except the faint breathing.
I could not help feeling a great pity for the young man, so friendless and so indifferently regarded, and with such a future to look forward to in his recovery. No clue could be found to his past or his family, if he had any.
I took it as more than mere accident that he had fallen thus helpless and suffering into my hands, and resolved to use to the utmost my skill and influence for the best.
He lay for a good many days—I cannot tell just how many—in a comatose condition, and I did not for a moment relax my watch, except to take a little rest now and then. At length there began to be signs of returning consciousness. The dull eyes would open and gaze vacantly around the room.
He could utter a few incoherent words, and the hands groped in a troubled way among the bed-clothes. And day by day, as the bronze tint of the skin disappeared, and the features grew clearer and thinner, that marvellous likeness grew stronger, until, looking at him, I rubbed my eyes sometimes, 190 and believed myself the victim of an hallucination.
One morning, at length, he opened his eyes, and looked at me with a new intelligence, an attentiveness that I had never seen in him before.
As he lay there with bright open eyes the likeness was simply intolerable, as I thought of the career that he represented. I busied myself in bringing the basin of water and sponge to bathe his face and hands. He was evidently trying to recall the circumstances of his injury and account for his presence there, for he looked in turn at me and the room, and then at the bed in which he lay.
“Mrs. Spencer, I cannot think how you come to be here. Was I much hurt?”
“Yes, you were pretty badly hurt, but you will soon be all right now if you keep quiet. Don’t move your head. I will wash your hands now.”
He closed his eyes as if weary with even the effort he had made, and soon fell asleep, as naturally as a child.
Later in the day he awoke and seemed strange. He looked at me with the same puzzled expression. I was heating some drink for him over a spirit lamp when he spoke in a strangely familiar voice, although very weak.
“Mrs. Spencer, has anything happened at home that you have come to me, and not mother? I had a letter from mother yesterday, and all were well. Was the accident very fatal?”
I dropped the cup I was holding; my heart seemed to stop beating. For the white, serious face on the pillow was not that of Charlie Reynolds, but Chester Mansfield! I ran out of the room, down the hall, and into my own room. I had no motive in doing so, because I was too much startled and I think terrified for thought.
My first collected idea was, that I had dwelt upon the subject so much during lonely days and nights of vigil that I was now a victim of subjective vision—I was for the moment insane upon that subject. I sent for the doctor immediately, and after bathing my face and trying to steady my quivering nerves, returned to my patient whom I was afraid I might have shocked by my sudden exit. He looked surprised, and watched me curiously.
“I think you had better not talk any more. The doctor says you must be kept quiet.” And I busied my hands in smoothing down the bed-clothes.
“I will be quiet; but you must tell me one or two things. Are they all well at home—Lucia, and mother and 191 the girls? and how many were hurt in the accident?”
“They are all well at home. I am visiting here,” I managed to answer, and he turned away his head, apparently satisfied. I paced up and down the hall until the doctor came, and drew him into a vacant room to tell him the situation. He looked at me incredulously when I had finished my excited narrative, reached for my wrist, and shook his head. “You have been working too hard over that fellow,” he said. “You will be the next patient.”
“But he asked for his wife and called her by name. Come and see which is the lunatic,” and I led the way to the sick-room.
“Ah!” he said in a cheery tone, going to the bedside. “I see we are getting along bravely, and look as smart as folks that have a whole skull.”
The patient (I didn’t know what name to call him) smiled, but without a trace of recognition.
“I suppose you are my physician, and I am probably indebted to you for my life,” he said feebly.
The doctor looked puzzled. “You don’t seem to recall my face.”
“No, I suppose I was knocked senseless. The last thing I can remember is going down the embankment. I tried to jump, but my foot caught, and I struck my head against something. There was a young woman in the opposite berth—was she killed, I wonder? She had two little children. I suppose I have been unconscious for sometime. It must have happened yesterday, didn’t it?”
“It was several days ago,” said the doctor, soothingly. “You had better rest a while, and then you can tell us more, and about yourself.”
“This lady can tell you all about me. She has known me all my life,” and he closed his eyes wearily.
The doctor looked at me significantly, and I followed him into the hall.
“What in the world does this mean? That young man is no more Charlie Reynolds than I am. I can only account for the case in one way, and that is a very unusual one. The operation I performed last week restored his skull to its normal shape. There was quite a deep indenture and a consequent pressure upon the brain, which undoubtedly affected, probably suspended, his memory. Now this young man—minister, did you say?——”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “But this is the awful part of it. He is dead—buried—five years ago. I saw him buried, have gone to his grave many times, and now he lies there and talks to me. And Charlie Reynolds, drunkard and robber. Oh, no! no!”
“You say your friend was killed in a railroad accident on his vacation trip? How was the body identified? Who saw it after it was sent home?”
“None of his family saw the remains, he was so badly burned. I see. It must have been the wrong body.”
“And the railroad, of course, had him cared for until he was well. And then he couldn’t tell who he was, and drifted about until he fell into bad company. He has been a cat’s paw for this gang, no doubt. Well, you’ve got a pretty little sensation upon your hands. I’d like to see you get back and tell your story.”
I wondered how he could talk and smile so carelessly, but in that country nobody is surprised at anything. I went back to my patient, after dispatching a messenger for Howard, who was working in the “San Jacinto,” twenty miles away.
Chester, as I could safely call him now, was extremely anxious about his fellow passengers, and thought they must be in the hotel at this time. I was familiar with the shocking details of the disaster at the time, but could not recall them with sufficient accuracy to satisfy him. The five years intervening were apparently entirely lost. He could scarcely believe us when we told him that he had lain unconscious for more than a week.
Howard came in the evening, and was amazed beyond his power of expression. He thought over the complex situation a long time before he made any effort to communicate with the family of the patient. Chester could not understand why we had not telegraphed before, and we could not explain. We called a council of three and debated. Chester Mansfield, the 192 gifted, irreproachable minister of our large church, was held to be tried for robbery and assault as soon as he was able to appear. We could not take him away. What word could we send to the young wife, about whom he continually asked, and the old mother? We finally left it to Howard, who telegraphed to the wife that her husband had been found alive, though recovering from serious illness; that he was in our care, but wished her to join him as soon as possible; and that the body sent home as his must have been that of another man.
When we told Chester that she had been sent for he exclaimed, “How can she leave her baby? She would have been with me but for that three months old baby.” The baby was now a tall boy of five in kilts. Although the complications arising from this strange case were countless, we managed to keep the real story from Chester until he was sufficiently recovered to bear it, and indeed we did not then tell him of the serious misdeeds of his other self.
But when the young wife came after her long journey, and we led her, for the first time without her mourning dress, up to his room, he knew that to her he was in truth one risen from the dead. I opened the door for her, and when I heard her cry of joy as she sprang forward, satisfied at last of his identity, and his low, “My love, my love!” I closed the door and went away to weep a few tears to myself, but not of sorrow.
My story is told. We secured bail for Charles Reynolds and took him home, to await the fall term of court, where he expects to have no difficulty in proving his innocence in his present person. To himself his case presents some metaphysical and moral studies quite at variance with his own belief. He cannot yet comprehend the silence of his conscience at this time of need. The sensation created by our return, and all subsequent events, are well known to those who will read this statement, so that I need tell no more.
My only object in writing so minute an account, and detailing such conversations as I could remember, is to protect him forever, as far as my word will avail, from any insinuation of intentional or conscious wrong doing in those five lost years, knowing as I do the conditions of life exacted of a clergyman and fearing some future recrimination.
Transcriber Notes
The Table of Contents and the List of Illustrations were added by the transcriber.
Quotation marks changed to standardize usage.
All other original punctuation and archaic spelling (i.e. chetahs, serval, wardbob, and Bagdad) preserved as written.