I had slumbered deeply during the night, and awoke with a sense of refreshment and of strength which lightened my spirits even to cheerfulness. My spirits were easier because I felt better, and I could not feel better without hoping that, as I gained strength, my memory would return to me. I was greatly refreshed by putting on the under-linen that had been lent to me. I also wore Miss Lee’s dress, for it was my intention to mingle with the passengers this day. The material was a fine dark-green cloth. The shifted buttons made the bosom a little awry, but this was a trifling and scarce noticeable defect, and wholly atoned for by the excellent fit of the dress. Oh, it must be as they tell me, I thought to myself as I looked into the square of mirror. My figure is that of a young woman. I cannot be so old as my face seems to represent me. Who am I? Who am I?
But I was rescued from one of my depressing, heart-subduing reveries by the timely entrance of the stewardess with my breakfast. She brought a message from Miss Lee. Would I visit her at eleven? I answered ‘Yes, I would visit her with the greatest pleasure.’
‘And will you lunch in the saloon?’ said Mrs. Richards.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
‘That is right,’ said she, ‘and this breakfast shall be your last meal in this gloomy little cabin.’
I did not care to immediately leave my berth after breakfast, so I opened one of Mrs. Richards’ books and found I could read. The book was ‘Jane Eyre,’ a novel that I had formerly delighted in, but now it was all new to me and I read it as for the first time. I opened it by chance and my eye rested upon a passage, and beginning to read I read on. The part I had lighted on described Jane Eyre wandering lonely, starving, soaked through, in the dark of a bitter moorland night after she flees from the house of Mr. Rochester. I continued to read till the tears blurred the page to my sight, and whilst I thus sat Mr. McEwan entered.
‘Well, any memory this morning?’
I shook my head and put away the book. He instantly saw that I had been weeping, but took no notice.
‘I believe it’s that bandage,’ said he, ‘which keeps you mumping and dumping down in this darksome steerage. You think it is not becoming. Well, now let us see if you can manage without it.’
He removed it, and backed away as though looking at a picture. ‘Your nose is broken,’ said he.