‘Take two cards,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘one for your pocket, and one which I will stitch inside your jacket. It is not probable that your memory will play you false, but it would be a terrible thing to find yourself at a distance from me without being able to give your name and address.’
CHAPTER XXIV
AT BATH
The train I caught did not reach Bath till half-past eight in the evening. It was a tedious, melancholy journey, so sad to me that I never recall it without emotion. The moment I had kissed and said good-bye to Mrs. Lee, and entered the train and started, I felt utterly lonely and miserable, as though, indeed, I were friendless, without memory, childless and widowed, and a blind wanderer. My luggage consisted of a travelling bag. I was dressed in black and wore a thick veil, but even without that veil I should not have feared recognition. I had looked into the glass before I started, and now, being able to remember my face as it was when my husband and sister last beheld me at Piertown, I was very sure that both of them might stare me in the eyes for an hour at a time, and find nothing in my white hair and in my changed lineaments, and in the expression which grief and time had stamped upon my countenance, and in my white eyebrows and the appearance of the flesh of my face that wore no longer the bloom of my happy days to give life to any sort of imagination which might visit them from the tone of my voice or from some subtle quality in my looks.
As I have said, I arrived at Bath at half-past eight, wearied to the heart by the long journey, and drove to an old-fashioned hotel not very far from Milsom Street. I was too exhausted to walk, or even at that hour, after I had refreshed myself with a cup of tea, I would have crept forth and traversed the width of the city to view the home in which my little ones were resting. I went to the window and gazed into the street; there were brightly lighted shops opposite; the roadway shone with the light of gas lamps; many people were afoot and private carriages and vehicles of all sorts passed in plenty.
I stood gazing, and my eyes may well have worn the expression of one who dreams. To think that for three years the old familiar city in which I now was, my pretty home past the avenue of chestnuts, the dear ones who dwelt within it, should have been as utterly extinguished from my brain as though I had died! I thought of the day when I had started from Piertown on an excursion, as I had imagined, of an hour or two; I thought of the French vessel, of my awaking in her from a swoon, and finding my face strapped, mutilated, unrecognisable, and I recalled the dumb, importunate cry of my heart, Who am I? I thought of all that had happened afterwards, of the gipsy’s predictions which had been so fearfully verified, that I wondered if her darker predictions were still awaiting realisation; and then I pictured my home: the interior of the house: I beheld my children sleeping in their beds, and my husband and my sister sitting in the parlour, one reading to the other or conversing.... I sighed deeply and turned away from the window.
I was in no hurry to rise next morning. It was the second day of November and a cold morning, though the sun shone bright with a frost-like whiteness in his brilliance, and I knew that my children would not be taken for a walk until the morning had somewhat advanced. I did not suppose that Johnny went to school. I knew that my husband had always been of opinion that no child should be sent to school under the age of ten; Johnny was but five.
I descended to the coffee room, keeping my face carefully covered by a thick black veil: but when I found that I was the only occupant of the room I lifted the veil to the height of my eyes, the better to see through the wire blinds in the windows and to observe the people passing. The waiter who attended at my solitary meal looked very hard at me, but his gaze was one of curiosity merely. Well might it puzzle the man to reconcile my youthful figure and youthful complexion, pale as I was, with my hair and eyebrows, whose snowy whiteness was rendered remarkable by my dark eyes.
I asked him how long he had lived in Bath, and he answered all his life; and that he had never been further than Swindon. I asked him a number of idle questions, and named one or two persons who lived in Bath, and I then spoke of Mr. John Campbell, solicitor, and inquired if he had left the city.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘Mr. Campbell is my governor’s legal adviser. He was here yesterday; very like he’ll be here to-day. The governor’s got a lawsuit on. Are you acquainted with the gentleman, mum?’