“Hannah,” said Mr. St. John, at last,
“let her sit there at present, and ask her no
questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder
of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us
go into the parlour and talk the matter over.”
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned
— I could not tell which. A kind
of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by
the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some
directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant’s
aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping
clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received
me. I thanked God — experienced amidst
unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy —
and slept.
The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding
this is very dim in my mind. I can recall some
sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts
framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was
in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that
bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on it motionless
as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have
been almost to kill me. I took no note of the
lapse of time — of the change from morning
to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when
any one entered or left the apartment: I could
even tell who they were; I could understand what was
said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could
not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally
impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most
frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me.
I had a feeling that she wished me away: that
she did not understand me or my circumstances; that
she was prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary
appeared in the chamber once or twice a day.
They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside
—
“It is very well we took her in.”
“Yes; she would certainly have been found dead
at the door in the morning had she been left out all
night. I wonder what she has gone through?”
“Strange hardships, I imagine — poor,
emaciated, pallid wanderer?”
“She is not an uneducated person, I should think,
by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure;
and the clothes she took off, though splashed and
wet, were little worn and fine.”
“She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard
as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health
and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be
agreeable.”
Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable
of regret at the hospitality they had extended to
me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself.
I was comforted.
Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me,
and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction
from excessive and protracted fatigue. He pronounced
it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he
was sure, would manage best, left to herself.
He said every nerve had been overstrained in some
way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.
There was no disease. He imagined my recovery
would be rapid enough when once commenced. These
opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet,
low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of
a man little accustomed to expansive comment, “Rather
an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of
vulgarity or degradation.”
