“Come,” I said. “You mustn’t be silly. After all we are both human beings. Don’t look on an act of ordinary decency as if it were unparalleled heroism.”
Again came that ghost of a smile. I could see that she and I would laugh at the same things, which is in itself a bond of union. She talked no more until we were nearing Hensley Mansions. When the cab stopped she was quite wide awake and alert, but although she was sitting next the door she did not attempt to open it.
I noted that. The conscious mind could remember nothing, but the sub-conscious mind was remembering absolutely. She was a girl whose carriage door was opened for her.
It was really delightful to see the change which came over her when she got into my flat. “Now at last I feel safe,” she said, and drew a deep breath. “Don’t let me go out again. Don’t leave me alone if you can help it. I’m quite all right really, it’s only that I feel terribly pulled down, and for the moment some of myself is not in my keeping. I’m sure it will come back. I shall remember directly.” Suddenly she stopped and seized my hand and kissed it. I told her not to be an idiot, and we both laughed. She absolutely refused to go to bed. She said, “I have had too much of that,” without seeming to know the meaning of the words she used. At this time my flat was run by a good woman who was an excellent cook. She was also a widow, but that did not matter so much. I explained to Mrs. Mason so far as I could do so discreetly the state of affairs, and she at once became intensely interested. She also became slightly disapproving. She let me see clearly that she considered that I had not done enough. My suggestions as to luncheon were waived aside imperiously. “Leave it to me, miss,” said Mrs. Mason. “I know what illness is. I shouldn’t wish to seem to boast, but there are few families has had as much illness as mine has. Leave it to me.”
So my new friend—if one must condescend to details—received quintessential soup, roast chicken, and a milk pudding. As Mrs. Mason knows, if there is one thing I hate more than another it is milk pudding, but very little she cared.
As we sat down to luncheon my friend said suddenly, “I have forgotten my medicine.”
Here was a cue. I tried to show no absorbing interest and to ask quite casually, “What medicine do you mean?”
The look of pained anxiety which had quite left her face now came back again. “What medicine do I mean?” she repeated. “There was something—always—before luncheon. Please don’t ask me any questions. It’s no good. I can’t remember, and it makes me so wretched.” She seemed to be on the verge of tears. I asked her no more questions, and I felt like a perfect pig for having asked her that one, but I had the usual fool-consolation that I had acted for the best. I could not find out that there was anything wrong with her mind. Distinctly she had a humorous side. She could see all that was quaint in Mrs. Mason, and asked numberless questions about her. She was not in the least surprised when I told her that I was an engineer.
“Almost everybody’s something nowadays,” she remarked, and I was quite certain that it was not her own remark; it was an echo which her subconscious mind had caught up from the time before she lost her memory and had now reproduced at the call of a fitting occasion. But of whatever subject we spoke she always came back to the same thing. It was always, “I am safe now. I’m quite safe. I needn’t bother any more. It will come right. Oh, you are good to me!”
I made her drink one glass of port at luncheon, and I made her sleep afterwards. At first she hesitated, but I told her that I was not going out—that I should be in the next room all the time. Then she consented. This was a crucial test with me. I went into her room twice, and found her fast asleep. It would not have surprised me if, when she woke again, she had entirely failed to remember me or the circumstances which had led to her making my acquaintance. On the contrary, she remembered me perfectly. The only curious thing that struck me at tea-time was that she called me Rose at times. “Thanks awfully, Rose,” she would say when I passed her anything.