Outrageous Fortune Read Online Free PDF

close his eyes.
    Min Williams said, “Oh, he’s fainted!”
    Nesta took her by the shoulders with a quick, “Run along and don’t talk nonsense!”
    After that the door was shut. Nesta stood waiting with her back against it, and in a moment he was looking at her. His eyes were of so dark a grey as to seem black. His brows frowned above them, making the shadow deeper. He went on speaking as if there had been no interruption.
    â€œWhen were we married?”
    â€œOn the twenty-fifth of July.”
    â€œOf what year?”
    â€œThis year.”
    â€œThis is—what month?”
    â€œAugust.”
    â€œWhat date?”
    â€œThe thirteenth.”
    â€œWe were married—here?”
    â€œNo—in London.” She crossed the room, opened a drawer, and came to him with a paper in her hand. “There’s the certificate.”
    A voice in his mind said quickly, “She had it ready.” It was like what stage directions call a voice off. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with him, but he remembered it afterwards. At the time, he was looking at the certificate, which set forth that James Riddell had married Nesta Williams at a registry office in Kensington on the 25th July 1931.
    Nesta put out her hand to take the paper back. The hand shook, and all at once it came to him that, whether he liked her or not, it was hard lines on her. He didn’t like her, but it was damned hard lines. Her hand shook. There was enough to make it shake.
    He said in a constrained voice,
    â€œI don’t know what to say—I can’t remember.”

V
    There was no more talk that day. It was Min who brought him his meals, and Min was much too scared to talk. She left the door wide open, put down the tray, and was gone. He guessed she thought of a man who had forgotten his name and his wife as well over the border line of insanity. Presently she would come back with a quick glance over her shoulder, pick up the tray, and hurry from the room. He could almost hear her breath of relief as the door swung to. Nesta never came near him.
    He lay in the darkened room and wrestled with the thing that had happened to him. Presently the sheer blank horror passed. He wasn’t mad. His head ached, but he could order and control his thoughts in a perfectly normal manner. He could repeat the multiplication table and the capitals of all the countries in Europe. He knew that there was a Labour government in power, and that Ramsay Macdonald was Prime Minister. He knew all the ordinary things which don’t need thinking about, but he didn’t know anything at all about himself. The minute he began to think about himself the fog came up and choked his mind, and, with the fog, the horrible panic sense of being lost in empty space.
    He forced thought back to the things he knew. He had had a knock on the head. His memory would come back all right if he would let it alone. That was it—he’d got to let it alone—keep himself quiet, eat, sleep, say the multiplication table, conjugate French verbs, count sheep jumping over a hedge.
    The sun went behind a cloud, the room darkened. Presently he did sleep, and, sleeping, heard again that voice which he took to be his own. Echoing it, he muttered and cried out.
    Min ran half way up the stairs and called to Nesta shut in her room.
    â€œNesta! He’s talking to himself!”
    There was no answer.
    â€œNesta! He does frighten me. He just keeps right on. Can’t you come down?”
    Nesta’s door opened. Nesta stood there, harshly contemptuous.
    â€œWhat a baby you are!”
    â€œHe keeps right on talking.”
    â€œWell, you needn’t take any notice, need you? Go into the kitchen and shut the door!”
    With a frightened gasp Min took in the fact that Nesta was dressed for the street.
    â€œYou’re not going out!”
    â€œWhy shouldn’t I go out?”
    â€œI can’t stay alone