Chapter 5

She woke up cold and shivering from having nothing on under the sheets and blankets. She went to lift her head off the pillow and steady herself with her left arm but when she did, she knocked the glass off the end table and it crashed to the floor. He woke up with a start as the glass hit the floor.

"How are you feeling? Oh, you're cold! What was I thinking?" He said. "Let me fetch you something to wear."

He went into his wardrobe and chose one of his old poet shirts, it would make a good nightie for her as it was soft. "Here, we'll put this on," he said and he gently helped her with it over her arms careful not to look at her breasts as she slipped it on.

"Thank you." She said.

But then she became quite agitated and started crying.

"Where am I?"

She felt panicky now and just wanted to jump off of the bed and run but her legs wouldn't move. She felt so confused. "Who are you?" She implored.

"Lie down. You're going to hurt yourself," he said. "How is the pain?"

"My head and my neck hurt so much," she moaned, "and my legs... something's wrong with my legs! I have no feeling in them!" She cried out staring at this stranger.

He pulled the covers down and looked at her slender shapely legs. He helped her pull down the nightshirt a little. She was exposing herself and didn't realize it. Her dark little mound peeking out from under the shirt. She looked up at him and blushed as he did this.

He touched her legs. "Can you feel this?" He asked. He went to get a hat-pin off the bureau top and stuck her lightly on one of her toes. "Can you feel this?"

"No. Nothing." She answered.

He had the touch and bedside manner of a learned man, a doctor perhaps.

"Let me get you some more medicine. I'll be right back." And he left the room and poured her another small glass of laudanum. "Here, drink this, you'll feel better."

She took the drink and sipped it slowly as he picked up the broken pieces of glass on the floor. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and talked with her and he poured them each a small glass of whiskey

"You've had an accident riding your bicycle. You fell off and banged your head. The loss of feeling in your legs I'm sure is temporary. Do not be frightened. I am a doctor and so is Soames, my closest confident and teacher. He lives here with me. You don't remember him as you were quite out of it, but he has been helping me care for you. I've brought you here to my room to recuperate." He smiled at her.

Then he changed the subject, "so you mean to tell me you don't recall anything at all? You don't remember who you are? Where you are from?"

"I... I don't... know who I am!" She screamed and started shaking her head and thrashing her arms about wildly. "I can't remember anything!"

She tried hard to, but her mind was blank, she felt so frustrated.

"A bike?" she said, "something about the bike."

The thought of the bicycle gave her an uneasy feeling. She thought she remembered something pertaining to it but she became agitated and didn't know why. She felt so confused. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't remember!

"Lie down. Let the medicine do its work."

She looked at this tall stranger with the kind but serious face and trusted him somehow. She didn't know why. She laid her head back and started feeling a little calmer and much more relaxed. A smile played upon her lips now.

"There, there, that's better, isn't it?" he whispered to her. His hand touched the side of her face and brushed against her hair. She looked so beautiful he thought with just the moonlight coming into the window. The fire had died out now.

"Would you like to talk for awhile? Do you mind if I light a candle?" he asked.

"No, please do. Yes, I would like that. Please stay with me. I don't want to be alone." She said and took hold of his arm. She could feel the medicine starting to work now and the pain subsiding.

They stayed up talking half the night. He told her how he had found her lying in the road unconscious and brought her into his home. She asked him questions about his life. He revealed a little, not much but enough to satisfy her curiosity and to calm her down.