CHAPTER XXIII
GENERAL RAMSAY’S LETTER.
Three days must now certainly pass before I could receive news of my husband, sister, and children. I call the time three days, but I might have to wait very much longer than that, for how could I tell that General Ramsay still lived at Bath? And, supposing him to be living there, could I be sure that he would promptly answer Mrs. Lee’s letter? So that, if we did not hear from him presently, Mrs. Lee must apply to some others of the friends I had named to her. This I was resolved not to consent to. Expectation, uncertainty, the passionate yearning of the mother and wife worked in my mind in a torment that delay would render insupportable, and I made up my mind that if General Ramsay did not answer Mrs. Lee’s letter within four days of the time of her writing to him I would deafen my ears to every possible objection that Mrs. Lee might make, and go myself to Bath.
I was too agitated, too expectant to leave the house. I wandered from room to room. I could not sit for five minutes at a time. The marvellous recovery of my memory, all in a moment as it might seem, did undoubtedly make me light headed during that first day, and Mrs. Lee would often eye me anxiously. I could think of nothing but my husband and children and my sister. Were they well? Suppose one of my precious ones had died during the long three years I had been missing! Suppose my husband were dead! Suppose they had broken up their home at Bath and had gone away, as Mrs. Lee had suggested, and there should be no one to tell me where they had gone, so that it might end in my knowing myself to be a wife and mother and not knowing where to find my husband and children!
These and the like of these were maddening fancies, and they kept me restlessly moving here and there, as though I had lost my reason and Mrs. Lee’s house were a cell.
A certain physician, a person who was highly esteemed by the people of Newcastle for his skill, called on the afternoon of this first day on his way back to Newcastle after visiting a patient, to inquire after Mrs. Lee’s health, her husband and this physician having been boys together. He knew all about my case, and had frequently visited me in a friendly way, but with a professional motive, owning himself at last powerless to do me any good. I did not know that he had called and that he was talking in the parlour to Mrs. Lee when I entered that room, and I was hastily withdrawing when, calling to me, he took me by the hand and in a few words, pronounced with the utmost cordiality, congratulated me on the return of my memory. Mrs. Lee begged me to sit and I did so, and then some discourse followed on the subject of my memory. But the physician’s language was much too technical and learned for me to recollect, even if I chose to repeat it. I remember, however, he told us that these abrupt recoveries were more frequent than slow returns. He cited instances of three persons whose memory, having utterly failed them, had returned on a sudden. The only difference between them and me was that I had been able to recollect from the period of my recovery on board the French vessel, whereas they had been unable to recall events which had happened an hour before. The physician talked much of brain cells and of the nervous system, and was so deeply interested in my case and in his own views and arguments that he kept his carriage at our door for above an hour. I was glad when he went, for his observations upon brain cells and the nervous system made me feel faint, and the condition of my mind rendered listening and sitting for any length of time insupportable.
I pass by the remainder of that day, I pass by the sleepless night that followed, and I pass by the next two days and their long wakeful nights. On the morning of the fourth day I arose early and stationed myself at the window, and for an hour and a half I stood with my eyes fixed upon the garden-gate, waiting for the arrival of the postman. At last I caught sight of him as he put his hand through the bars to lift the latch, and I flew to the hall door and received a letter addressed to Mrs. Lee, heavily sealed, and with the postmark of Bath upon it.
Mrs. Lee had not yet left her bedroom. The beating of my heart almost deprived me of the power of speech. I knocked, and on her asking who was that, I was unable to make my voice heard, whereupon she opened the door. She took the letter from me, told me to come in and shut the door, and going to the window broke the seal and withdrew the letter from its envelope. Her back was upon me—purposely upon me, I was sure. She read the letter, and I could have shrieked aloud with impatience and vexation. She read the letter—I believed she would never cease to read it; then the hand which grasped it fell slowly to her side, and she turned to look at me with a face full of the deepest pity and grief.
I saw the look and, clasping my hands, cried, ‘Oh, tell me!’ There was a hesitation which was a sort of horror in her manner. She did not seem to know what to do, nor would she speak. I could bear the suspense no longer, and, rushing to her side, I snatched the letter from her hand.
It ran thus:—
‘Raby Place, Bath, October —, 18—.