Recalled to Life

Chapter 11

THE VISION RECURS

I hated asking auntie questions, they seemed to worry and distress

her so; but that evening, in view of my projected visit to Torquay,

I was obliged to cross-examine her rather closely about many things.

I wanted to know about my Torquay relations, and as far as possible

about my mother's family. In the end I learned that the Willie

Moores were cousins of ours on my mother's side who had never

quarrelled with my father, like Aunt Emma, and through whom alone

accordingly, in the days of my First State, Aunt Emma was able to

learn anything about me. They had a house at Torquay, and

connections all around; for the Moores were Devonshire people. Aunt

Emma was very anxious, if I went down there at all, I should stop

with Mrs. Moore: for Minnie would be so grieved, she said, if I went

to an hotel or took private lodgings. But I wouldn't hear of that

myself. I knew nothing of the Moores--in my present condition--and I

didn't like to trust myself in the hands of those who to me were

perfect strangers. So I decided on going to the Imperial Hotel, and

calling on the Moores quietly to pursue my investigation.

Another question I asked in the course of the evening. I had

wondered about it often, and now, in these last straits, curiosity

overcame me.

"Aunt Emma," I said unexpectedly after a pause, without one word of

introduction, "how ever did you get those scars on your hand? You've

never told me."

In a moment, Aunt Emma blushed suddenly crimson like a girl of

eighteen.

"Una," she answered very gravely, in a low strange tone, "oh, don't

ask me about that, dear. Don't ask me about that. You could never

understand it.... I got them... in climbing over a high stone

wall... a high stone wall, with bits of glass stuck on top of it."

In spite of her prohibition, I couldn't help asking one virtual

question more. I gave a start of horror:

"Not the wall at The Grange!" I cried. "Oh, Aunt Emma, how

wonderful!"

She gazed at me, astonished.

"Yes, the wall at The Grange," she said simply. "But I don't know

how you guessed it.... Oh, Una, don't talk to me any more about

these things, I implore you. You can't think how they grieve me.

They distress me unspeakably."

Much as I longed to know, I couldn't ask her again after that. She

was trembling like an aspen-leaf. For some minutes we sat and

looked at the fireplace in silence.

Then curiosity overcame me again.

"Only one question more, auntie," I said. "When I came to you first,

you were at home here at Barton. You didn't come to Woodbury to

fetch me after the murder. You didn't attend the inquest. I've often

wondered at that. Why didn't you bring me yourself? Why didn't you

hurry to nurse me as soon as you heard they'd shot my father?"

Aunt Emma gazed at me again with a face like a sheet.

"Darling," she said, quivering, "I was ill. I was in bed. I was

obliged to stay away. I'd hurt myself badly a little before.... Oh,

Una, leave off! If you go on like this, you'll drive me mad. Say no

more, I implore of you."

I couldn't think what this meant; but as auntie wished it, I held my

peace, all inwardly trembling with suppressed excitement.

That night, when I went up to bed, I lay awake long, thinking to

myself of the Australian scene. In the silence of the night it came

back to me vividly. Rain pattered on the roof, and helped me to

remember it. I could see the blue-gum trees waving their long

ribbon-like leaves in the wind: I could see the cottage, the

verandah, my mother, our dog: nay, even, I remembered now, with a

burst of recollection, his name was Carlo. The effort was more truly

a recollection than before: it was part of myself: I felt aware it

was really I myself, not another, who had seen all this, and lived

and moved in it.

Slowly I fell asleep, and passed from thinking to dreaming. My dream

was but a prolongation of the thoughts I had been turning over in my

waking mind. I was still in Australia; still on the verandah of our

wooden house; and my mamma was there, and papa beside her. I knew it

was papa; for I held his hand and played with him. But he was so

much altered, so grave and severe; though he smiled at me

good-humouredly. Mamma was sitting behind, with baby on her lap. It

seemed to me quite natural she should be there with baby. The scene

was so distinct--very vivid and clear. It persisted for many

minutes, perhaps even hours. It burnt itself into my brain. At last,

it woke me up by its very intensity.

As I woke, a great many thoughts crowded in upon me all at once.

This time I knew instantly it was no mere dream, but a true

recollection. Yet what a strange recollection! how unexpeted! how

incomprehensible! How much in it to settle! how much to investigate

and hunt up and inquire about!

In the first place, though I was still in my dream a little girl,

much time must have elapsed since the earlier vision; for my papa

looked far older, and graver, and sterner. He had more hair about

his face, too, a long brown beard and heavy moustache; and when I

gazed hard at him mentally, I could recognise the likeness with the

white-bearded man who lay dead on the floor: while in my former

recollection, I could scarcely make out any resemblance of the

features. This showed that the second scene came long after the

first: my father must by that time have begun to resemble his later

self. A weird feeling stole over me. Was I going to relive my

previous life, piecemeal? Was the past going to unroll itself in

slow but regular panorama to my sleeping vision? Was my First State

to become known like this in successive scenes to my Second?

But that wasn't all. There were strange questions to decide, too,

about this new dream of dead days. What could be the meaning of that

mysterious baby? She seemed to be so vivid, so natural, so real; her

presence there was so much a pure matter of course to me, that I

couldn't for a moment separate her from the rest of the Picture. I

REMEMBERED the baby, now; as I remembered my mother, and my father,

and Australia. There was no room for doubt as to that. The baby was

an integral part of my real recollection. Floating across the dim

ocean of years, I was certain that night I had once lived in such a

scene, with my mamma, and baby.

Yet oh, what baby? I never had a brother or sister of my own, except

the half-sister that died--the clergyman's child, Mary Wharton. And

Mary, from what I had learned from Aunt Emma and others, must have

died when I was only just five months old, immediately before we

left Australia. How, then, could I remember her, even in this

exalted mental state of trance or dream? And, above all, how could I

remember a far earlier scene, when my papa was younger, when his

face was smooth, and when there was no other baby?

This mystery only heightened the other mysteries which surrounded my

life. I was surfeited with them now. In very despair and

listlessness, I turned round on my side, and dozed dreamily off

again, unable to grapple with it.

But still that scene haunted me. And still, even in sleep, I asked

myself over and over again, "How on earth can this be? What's the

meaning of the baby?"

Perhaps it was a little sister that died young, whom I never had

heard of. And perhaps not. In a life such as mine, new surprises are

always possible.