‘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.