‘There is nothing for it but to wait,’ said Captain Ladmore.
‘If your name were Calthorpe,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘surely the utterance of it would excite some sensations, however weak, in your mind.’
‘One should say so,’ remarked the captain.
‘I fear,’ said I, with much agitation, ‘that if I were to see my name fully written I should not know it. And yet it is strange!’
‘What is strange?’ asked Mrs. Lee.
‘You will not think me vain for repeating it. There can be no vanity in a poor miserable outcast such as I. But I remember that one of the people of the French brig, the young man Alphonse, who had been a waiter, and who had attended upon a great many English people—I remember him once saying he was persuaded that I was a woman of title, or, if not a lady of title, that I belonged to the English aristocracy. I cannot imagine why he should have thought so.’
‘Well,’ said the captain, smiling at Mrs. Lee, ‘it may be that we have preserved the life of the daughter of an Earl, or better still of a Duke. Anything higher we must not hope for. But enough for the present, at all events, that Miss C—— should be a fellow-creature in distress;’ and with a bow that seemed to have gained something in respectfulness, but nothing in kindness, he walked away.
The luncheon-bell rang, and we descended into the saloon. Mrs. Lee begged me to join the company at table. ‘I will ask the steward,’ she said, ‘to find you a place next to my daughter.’ But I entreated her to excuse me.
‘I do not like to show myself in company with this bandage on,’ I said, ‘and I feel weak and shy, and my talk I fear is often childish. I hope to join you in a few days,’ and thus speaking I put her daughter’s hat and the shawl she had lent me into her hands, and made my way to my berth.
When I entered my berth I sat down to rest myself and reflect. I felt weary. The fresh air had rendered me somewhat languid, and I had overtaxed my strength with the several conversations I had held with one and another on the poop. I said to myself, can it be that the little man with the fur on his coat is right? Is my name Calthorpe, and am I a lady of title, and is my home actually in England? And then I hunted in my mind for an idea to help me, but I found none. I groped, as it were, with my inner vision over the thick black curtain that had descended upon my past; but nothing, no, not the most phantasmal outline of recollection glimmered upon the sable folds of my mind. The cries of my heart were unanswered. No echo was returned from the dreadful silent midnight that hung upon my spirit. I looked upon my naked hands; I drew forth my purse, and for the twentieth time gazed at it, and at the money in it; I examined the pocket handkerchief and mused upon the initials in the corner, and whilst I was thus occupied, Mrs. Richards entered with my lunch.