A Perplexing Case by H. D. Everett
“A Perplexing Case” is a strange tale of body-swapping. It was first published in 1920, in Everett’s anthology The Death-Mask and Other Ghosts.
About H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)
Henrietta Dorothy Everett (née Huskisson) was a popular author during the late 1800s to early 1900s. However, her work has since fallen into obscurity, and most people are unlikely to be familiar with her name. The daughter of John Huskisson, a Royal Marines Lieutenant, little is known about her life, including her date of birth. However, church records show she was baptized 4 March 1851.
In 1869, she married Isaac Edward Everett, a solicitor; and began writing in 1896, when she was aged 44. Between then and 1920, she published 22 books, with 17 different publishers, using her pen-name Theo Douglas. Although Everett wrote three historical novels, more than half of her books had fantasy or supernatural themes. For instance, her novel Iras: A Mystery (1896) is about an Egyptologist who revives an ancient mummy and falls in love with the beautiful Iras he has unwrapped.
In 1920, when she published The Death-Mask and Other Stories, for reasons unknown, she discarded her pen-name and published the collection as H. D. Everett. However, her identity had already been revealed in 1910, so using a pseudonym probably no longer offered any advantages.
The Death-Mask and Other Stories earned the praise of both M. R. James and H.P. Lovecraft. In his essay “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories” (1929) [paragraph 16], James described Everett’s anthology as having “a rather quieter tone on the whole” and “some excellently conceived stories”. Meanwhile, in his essay essay Supernatural Horror in Literature [Chapter 9, paragraph 9], Lovecraft stated: “Mrs. H. D. Everett, though adhering to very old and conventional models, occasionally reaches singular heights of spiritual terror in her collection of short stories.”
The Death-Mask and Other Stories was Everett’s only story collection. However, in 2006, Wordsworth Editions republished an expanded versions of the collection under the title The Crimson Blind & Other Stories. The expanded version contained all 14 stories from the original collection, along with two additional tales: “The Pipers of Mallory” and “The Whispering Wall”. It’s interesting to note the author published both of these stories in magazines, prior to putting together her anthology, and either she or her publisher must have decided not to include them in original anthology.
A Perplexing Case
By H. D. Everett
(Online Text)
He opened his eyes; consciously opened them for the first time since the blow and roar of the explosion which had seemed to blot him out of life; and looked about him, wondering. He was lying on his back in a narrow hospital bed, next but one to the wall, and in the next bed somebody was groaning: that was the first sound received by his understanding ears.
His right side appeared to be stiff with bandages, but felt benumbed rather than painful;—he seemed to have no use in that arm. But his left arm lay out upon the covering, and he could move it without difficulty, and the fingers of the hand. And it was his hand which he was presently regarding with surprise.
If you had looked at the board hung over the head of the bed, you would have seen his name entered as Henri de Hochepied Latour, sous-lieutenant in a French regiment which co-operated with the British in a recent attack. His name as I have written it; his injury, wounds from shell-burst, and shock to brain—this a free translation of the surgical terms: and the date, five days before, on which he had been transferred from the dressing-station to this hospital behind the lines. Could the patient have lifted and turned himself to read, he might have challenged more than one item in this account; what these were will be apparent later. But for such an effort he had not the strength; he could only stare at his left hand, holding it before his face.
In this mischance that had befallen him, which he recognised as fortune of war, what had happened to alter that unwounded member? What he expected to see was a big brawny fist, with knotted joints and hard muscles; the hand of a working man, who, somewhat reluctantly and at the call of duty, had taken to shouldering a rifle. It might be whitened and attenuated by illness, but surely it still would be the same in form. What he did see was a hand delicately slender, olive in hue of skin, strong no doubt in a determined grip, but not with navvy‘s strength; the nails almond-shaped, daintily manicured and tended; in all these details unlike his own. How could such a change have come about? He opened and shut the hand before his face, staring stupidly at it in his surprise. Presently a nurse, who had been attending to the moaning patient in the next bed, bent over him and noticed that consciousness had returned.
“I will bring you presently some tea, monsieur,” she said, to test whether he understood, speaking in slow careful French, the French of an Englishwoman.
The dark head moved on the pillow.
“Have you no English, Sister?”
This man had been in hospital before.
“Yes, of course I have. I am English. But I thought you would better understand my French, though I know it is not good.”
“Good or bad, it would be all the same to me. I can say bon jour, and ask for bread and cheese, and that’s about all. What did you say to me?”
“Only that I would bring you tea as soon as it is ready.”
Sister Bennett glanced again at the board hung over the bed before she turned away. There must have been some mistake, for certainly sous-lieutenant Henri Latour ought to be able to speak his own language, and understand it when spoken, even by an Englishwoman. And he was a thorough Frenchman to look at, this wounded soldier, though he had an English tongue in his head, and not the most refined intonation of speech. But she made no comment in reporting to the doctor that Number Forty-nine had come to himself. If there had been a mistake, they would find it out soon enough without intervention of hers. And doctors and nurses were all closely engaged that night, as a fresh batch of wounded had come in.
But the next day there was further trouble. Number Forty-nine indignantly denied his identity with the French officer Henri Latour, declaring that he was one Richard Adams, lance-corporal, attached to the London Scottish. He persisted in this assertion with so much ruffled temper, that the doctor gave direction that he should be humoured. Confusion was a common enough consequence of shell-shock, so said the man of experience; but, for all that, this was not quite a common case. It was an odd coincidence that Richard Adams of the London regiment was lying unconscious in that very hospital.
He had been injured, so it was believed, at the same time as young Latour, and by the bursting of the self-same shell; and, though his wounds were not considered serious, he had not yet come to himself. Sous-lieutenant Latour would be all right in a day or two, so Senhouse, the captain-doctor, forecasted. No doubt this young man had been in touch with Corporal Adams immediately before the catastrophe, and somehow—though how was unexplained—the impression of Adams’ personality persisted in this condition of temporary aberration. That there could have been any actual mistake between the two was out of the question; the identification discs in each case furnished proof. And, beyond this, a friend of Latour’s, visiting the hospital, had recognised him when he was carried unconscious from the ambulance.
Here was testimony enough, but further witness was forthcoming. The French lieutenant was presently inquired for by two ladies: Mademoiselle Ottilie Latour, his elder sister, and with her a charming girl whom she addressed as Julie, who was the young officer’s betrothed. Might they be admitted to his bedside, such was Mademoiselle Latour’s petition, just to look at him as he lay asleep, if they might do no more. Senhouse the doctor was not hard-hearted enough to refuse. If the ladies could promise self-command, they could see the patient awake or asleep. His wounds were not serious, and recovery might certainly be hoped for. The shock of the explosion, however, had to a certain extent affected his mind. For this they must be prepared.
Mademoiselle Latour promised that neither she nor her companion would betray alarm or distress, and she held Julie’s quivering hand fast in hers as they passed through the temporary ward, the eyes of broken men turning on them from their pillows of pain.
The young lieutenant was awake: he lay staring at the ceiling, still with a puzzled frown upon his brow, though he had thrust the slender olive hand, which was not the hand of Richard Adams, away under the bed-coverings: he could not bear the sight of it, it perplexed him too much.
Senhouse paused by the bed as the two women came beside it, standing opposite, and he glanced up at them from the face on the pillow. Yes, there could be no doubt that this was Henri Latour, the likeness between brother and sister was so strong; the clear-cut distinguished features seemed to have been struck from the same die. This Henri might have been thought somewhat effeminate-looking when clean-shaven: now his chin was disfigured by an eight days’ growth of beard: but there could be no doubt that Ottilie, the sister who resembled him, was beautiful, of the very type of womanhood that Captain Senhouse most fervently admired, noble-looking now in her calmness and her grief.
“He is awake,” she breathed in the lowest of whispers. “May I speak to him?”
Assent was signified.
“Mon frere [1],” she began, bending nearer, with the younger girl also pressing close and leaning on her arm. The face which was Latour’s turned to regard them, but his air of sullen indifference did not alter or lighten into recognition. He looked coldly at the anxious sister, and the tremulous young beauty who was his betrothed, made a slight movement of negation, and closed his eyes.
“These ladies have come to see you. They are speaking: don’t you hear them?” Thus the doctor, in English.
The man addressed replied in the same tongue.
“I am obliged to them, but I don’t know them. And I speak no French.”
His manner suggested obstinacy as well as indifference. He did not know these people; he was annoyed by the emotion with which they seemed to regard him, and in his maimed state he was sensitive about pity: he wished they would go away. Ottilie Latour made another effort naming the familiar home, the early interests they had shared; surely at such a hearing, the shattered memory would light up into renewed being, as might a smouldering fire! The younger lady fell on her knees, and her voice was broken by sobs.
“Ah, Henri—ah, Henri,” she cried. “Don’t you remember how we parted and what you said? Have you quite forgotten?”
The man opened his eyes again, but turned to Senhouse without notice of the appeal. He was fingering his chin, which showed a dark stubble of beard.
“Doctor,” he said, “is there anybody here who can shave me? Nurse says I’m bound to ask you for the order. I hate to be like this.”
English again, and rough-toned English to boot.
“It is of no use at present,” Senhouse said to Mademoiselle Latour. “You are only distressing yourselves needlessly. Better to come away.”
There were friends waiting who took the weeping Julie in charge, but the sister lingered behind.
“It is very strange,” she said to Senhouse. “Do you often have such cases? Without doubt that is my brother, but it is not his voice. He would never speak like that; he is a cultivated gentleman. How is it that he forgets his native tongue? I could understand shock stripping off later acquirements for the time, but not what is the bed-rock of nature.” Here she paused, her earnest gaze striving to read the doctor’s countenance, on which was written deep concern. “Do you think—really think—there is any hope?”
“We do not give up hope, we doctors, and you must not. The case is a peculiar one, that I grant; but others which have come under my notice have displayed equal confusion. Much may yet be done; we must have patience. Have you any knowledge of the man he seems to personate: one Richard Adams, a private soldier in the British army? Can you suggest any possible link between him and your brother in the past?”
Mademoiselle Latour shook her head, but she appeared to be considering.
“No, I recollect nothing. Of course Henri may have known him. He was in England two years ago, and made many acquaintances; but not army ones, so far as I am aware.”
“Oddly enough, a man of that name was wounded by the same shell-burst as Lieutenant Latour, and now lies in this hospital, also suffering from shock. Would it distress you too much—could you spare the time—to look at him? He is here, in this lower ward; the door on the right. You may recognise his face: if not likely, it is possible. I shall be greatly obliged.”
Senhouse had a special reason for this urgency, one he did not avow. There seemed little or no ground for supposing the inspection could be of use. Mademoiselle Latour, however, assented willingly. She was quite at leisure; she would do whatever was wished. So together they entered the second ward.
Richard Adams was conscious and very restless, the Sister in charge said when interrogated; he had been talking strangely all the afternoon, as if delirious. There seemed no sense in it, but what he jabbered was in French. She was glad the doctor had come. That was Adams, in the middle bed.
Adams was a herculean young fellow of the Saxon type, fair and blue-eyed, and in the eyes was a cloud of trouble. He was tossing restlessly on his narrow couch, as if no position could be easy; but when he caught sight of the lady-visitor, his countenance became radiant with joy.
“Ottllie—Ottilie!” he exclaimed, stretching out two eager hands burning with fever. “This is good, to see someone from home. How did you come? Have you been anxious about me at Les Rochers? Tell me, how is mother? And my Julie; how is she? You don’t know what it is to lie here, and long to have word of them, if only a word. Now you are here, my dear sister, how long can you stay? Give me every moment you are able.”
For a brief instant the sister seemed on the verge of fainting, but she yielded her hands to the grasp of those others which were strange to her. The voice was familiar, and the questions: who could have questioned her so, but Henri only?
“Mademoiselle Latour cannot stay long,” said the doctor, bending down to him. “No doubt she will come again. And now you must not excite yourself.”
“I want to hear of them all,” the man went on; this rough English private soldier. “All of them—old Francois, and Madelon and Ninette: all, down to Ponto the dog. I dream of them at night, and I see them when I dream. Has mother been anxious about me? I feel sure she has.”
The sister at last recovered power of speech.
“Yes, yes—indeed—she has been anxious: she is. She talks of nothing but Henri. I am here to bring her news.”
“Tell her my last thought was of her. There was a blow which struck me—a great rushing, and a noise that stunned. The rush, sent me spinning with it, as if I had been a bullet from a gun: spinning— spinning through space. I thought I was going to her—to Rochers la Valliere, and I cried out her name. But I did not get to La Valliere: I did not go so far. Everything went dark, and I remember no more. I woke in this place, and I cannot make them understand what I want. Take me with you, Ottilie; take me home. Are they well there? The invasion has not touched them? Is mother well?”
“They are all well, and safe, and hoping for news of—of you—of Henri.”
As she spoke, she looked across at Senhouse in appeal: she knew not how much longer she could trust her self-command to keep up this farce: farce, was it, or fact and truth?
Not many more words were exchanged before the doctor asserted authority and led her away; and now she needed the support of his arm. Outside the ward she was thankful to sink into a chair, and drink the water he presently held to her lips.
“You did not know this Adams?”
“Not his face. But it was my brother speaking with his lips. My brother’s body is in the other ward— his spirit here. M. le docteur, it is terrible. Body and soul apart! What can be done?”
“You must forgive me for exposing you to such an ordeal. I suspected what was the matter, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to see if this Adams, as he is called, would recognise you. Plainly he did so: he spoke to you at once by name. It will be easier to treat, now that we understand. There may be need of long patience. But, to my thinking, there is no reason for despair.”
Mademoiselle Latour was gathering back her shaken self-control; she set down the glass of water.
“What can be done?” she repeated.
It was the question Senhouse had asked himself, and still he was groping in the dark after an answer. But he desired above all to reassure this noble-looking woman, who had been so sorely tried by his experiment. In replying, he assumed a confidence he was far from feeling, but hope was strong that it might be justified by the event.
“You will give me a free hand to do what I think best for M. Latour? There is a man, a Parisian doctor, who is great in these mysterious cases of—of brain-suspension, and confusion and all that. We will have him here in consultation, and he shall advise and treat the case. He has made some wonderful successes. You may be certain no pains will be spared by us to efface what now is wrong, and to restore the link of mind and body completely as before.”
Senhouse did not forget the apparent Latour’s complaint about his sprouting beard, and he gave the required order that the lieutenant should be shaved—a simple matter, which had a somewhat unlooked-for result. The hospital orderly was sufficiently skilled to operate in this way upon the chins of the patients, and in due course of time he arrived with razor and lathering-bowl to shave the young French officer. He found the young French officer in sufficiently good spirits to be communicative. There was nothing, he averred, that did him so much good as a clean shave: it put him at once on right terms with himself and his world. And as (he hoped) his was a “Blighty” case of wounding, it would never do for him to go back to England with so much bristle showing. Liz, his wife, as good an old girl as ever stepped, would in that case have nothing to say to him.
“You think of crossing over to England, sir?” questioned the orderly, mindful of necessary respect when he was shaving an officer. But this officer had an odd way of talking, Frenchman as he was.
“Why, of course I shall be sent to England, and I hope it will be to a London hospital. That will be convenient for Liz. She lives out Poplar way, and takes in fine sewing; and she has kept herself comfortable with that and the allowance—good old girl. And I know that, were it ever so, she’d never look at anyone but me; not like some of the fellows’ wives one hears of. We’ve got a kid, too; eight months old he is, and so far I’ve never set eyes on him. Liz’ll bring him to the hospital when she comes to see me, you bet she does, for she’s as proud of him as—as—”
The illustration failed, as the razor was now operating round the lower lip, and silence was only prudent. But in another couple of minutes he would be released.
“There, sir, there’s a clean shave for you. And, though I say it as shouldn’t, one it would be hard to beat.”
The patient fingered his chin somewhat doubtfully, with the one hand he could move; the hand which had caused him so much disquietude when he came to himself.
“I’ve got a glass here,” said the soldier-barber. “‘Tis but a little one, but if you look in it you can see for yourself. It has freshened you up above a bit, and you can’t fail to be pleased.”
The small vanity-glass was produced, and held at the right angle. The patient looked, and, looking, gave a cry—a yell of horror which rang through the ward, so that all the heads on all the other pillows turned to gaze, and the sister in charge came hurrying to learn what was the matter. This Latour, usually quiet and biddable, was suddenly wrought up into a state of fierce excitement.
“What have they done to me,” he demanded wildly, “to make me look like that? I never had that sort of (blank-blank) face. I’ll have the law on the (blank-blank) doctors, (blank) me if I don’t. If I go to England with that face, Liz’ll never believe I’m her husband.” And so forth, in the teeth of regulations, and despite all persuasion, the protest garnished with sundry very forcible oaths which we omit, until excitement stilled away into exhaustion, and the sick man lost himself in sleep.
The Parisian doctor who had become the referee in shock cases which do not yield to ordinary treatment, we will call Despard for the purpose of this narrative; it is not his real name. It became known very shortly that he had been summoned to the perplexing case at the B—hospital about which some rumour had gone abroad. Despard was supposed to pin his faith on hypnotism and suchlike uncanny nostrums, and in consequence his name stank in the nostrils of one half of the surgical staff. He was going to hypnotise the shock case, that was the assumption; and some surprise was evidenced when it crept out through certain preparations, that Latour was to be treated by the more ordinary method of the transfusion of blood.
“I hope you’ve got a healthy subject to be donor,” said the C.M.O., meeting Senhouse on the stairs. “And don’t forget the saltwater admixture; for, whatever Despard says, I hold that to be essential.” And then the C.M.O. bethought him to ask: “Who is the donor?”
“Well, sir, it is the other shock man, Adams. M. Despard has chosen him. He is healthy enough, I think, and a young Hercules for strength.”
“Tut-tut,” said the great man, who very plainly disapproved, and to whom the hypnotist and his methods were anathema maranatha.
“What!—two shock cases, and transfuse their blood! Never heard of such a proceeding in my life. What possibly can be gained by it but an aggravation of both their symptoms?” And so forth; and the C.M.O. may be written down as “left objecting.”
The Experiment was tried next day in the operating-room of the hospital, Senhouse acting as one of Despard’s assistants, the other being a coadjutor who accompanied him. The door was of course barred against intrusion, and what took place within was never precisely known. The process was a long one, and once while it was in progress Senhouse managed to slip away, so as to convey a modicum of comfort to the room below, where Ottilie Latour had been allowed to wait. She looked up at his entrance, eagerly expectant. She was pale to the lips with anxiety, but as beautiful as ever— at least Senhouse thought so.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Not yet, and will not be for another hour. But I thought you would be relieved to know all is going well, and Despard is quite hopeful. He says it is a simple case compared to some which have passed through his hands, and he expects complete success. They went off into trance without difficulty, both of them, and neither saw the other, as a screen was put up between them. And they will be moved into fresh quarters directly after, so that there will be nothing to revive former impressions. I am sorry you have so long to wait.”
“I do not mind how long; it is everything to be on the spot, and I thank you from my heart for getting me permission to wait here. I know you will bring me the earliest news.”
“I will come to you the instant certainty is assured. But I don’t expect Despard will give leave for you to see your brother to-day. Don’t let that disappoint you.”
Upon this, the messenger went back to his post at the theatre. There a certain amount of vital fluid was in process of interchange, and two spirits wrongly housed in their tenements of flesh were brought into touch by a force only partially recognised, though of existence coeval with human life.
After a while one of the patients began to stir and moan, and then to utter some querulous complaint.
“The young gentleman is coming round,” said the assistant, calling Despard’s attention. “And he is speaking French.”
Despard gave a grunt of satisfaction.
“Ah,” he said, “if that is so, we have done well.”
Some half hour later Senhouse went back to Ottilie.
“It is over, successfully over, and M. Despard confidently hopes the confusion will never be renewed. Your brother is in bed in the new ward, quite composed, and he remembers that you visited him. ‘When is my sister coming again; my sister Ottilie?’ he asked me. I told him you had been here to-day, but the doctor thought it unwise to permit a visitor on the day of operation. He said: ‘Tell her to give my devotion to Julie and mother, and a message of remembrance to all at Rochers la Valliere.’ And then he turned his face away on the pillow and fell asleep. That was your brother in his true form, not as before. You understand?”
Yes, Ottilie Latour understood, and her eyes were full of grateful tears.
Four days after, the second shock case was entrained for Blighty. Another shave had smartened him sufficiently to appear as Liz would wish and expect; and now when the glass was presented he saw his own face in it—the face she would recognise and that he knew. And his hand was broad and muscular again, not the slim olive member the sight of which was his first perplexity. “What had been the matter with him he queried, and was told on the doctor’s authority he had suffered from shellshock. And that to the victims of shock, confusion and dementia manifest themselves in many forms, including distorted vision, all owing to the temporary loss of balance by the brain.
H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)
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1. Frere is the French word for brother.