‘You might be the daughter of a gentleman whose brother is a lord, and there may be reasons, which there is no accounting for until your memory returns, why you should have been taught to use your needle. No nobleman’s daughter would think of learning to sew. Why should she? She might learn fancy work for her entertainment, but your handling of the needle isn’t that of a fancy worker. I shouldn’t be surprised if your father is a clergyman. There are many clergymen who belong to noble families; and do you know, Miss C----, if you wore a wedding ring I should be disposed to think that you had plenty of times mended and made for little ones of your own. Why do I say this? Is it your manner of sitting? your way of holding the dress? What puts it into my head? I’m sure I can’t tell, but there it is.’
She came and went whilst I was busy with the buttons of the dress, and when I had made an end I put the dress on and it fitted me. We then between us packed away the linen and other articles in some drawers in a corner of the cabin, and when this was done she left me and returned with wine and biscuits and a glass of hot gin and water for herself, and for an hour we sat talking.
It blew very hard in the night. It was a black, wet gale, as they call it, but favourable, and throughout the thick and howling midnight hours the ship continued to thunder along her course, with the sailors chorusing at the ropes and running up the reeling heights to shorten the canvas. Yet I knew nothing of all this until I was told next morning how the weather had been. The sun was then shining, and a large, swollen, freckled sea brimming to the ship’s side.
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?