Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham

be allowed to perish entirely still exists – though some of them are pursued at the cost of a certain political suspicion.’ She smiled deprecatingly, and then went on. ‘So when confirmation is required it is necessary to appeal to a specialist. Did they give you any report on their diagnosis?’
    I shook my head again.
    ‘I
thought not. So like the profession, isn’t it? Well, I’ll tell you what they told me on the telephone from the Mothers’ Home, and we shall have a better idea of what we are about. I was informed that you have been interviewed by several doctors whom you have interested, puzzled – and I suspect, distressed – very much, poor things. None of them has more than a minimum smattering of history, you see. Well, briefly, two of them are of the opinion that you are suffering from delusions of a schizophrenic nature: and three are inclined to think you are a genuine case of transferred personality. It is an extremely rare condition. There are not more than three reliably documented cases, and one that is more debatable, they tell me; but of those confirmed two are associated with the drug chuinjuatin, and the third with a drug of very similar properties.
    ‘Now, the majority of three found your answers coherent for the most part, and felt that they were authentically circumstantial. That is to say that nothing you told them conflicted directly with what they know, but, since they know so little outside their professional field, they found a great deal of the rest both hard to believe and impossible to check. Therefore I, with my better means of checking, have been asked for my opinion.’
    She paused, and looked me thoughtfully over.
    ‘I rather think,’ she added, ‘that this is going to be one of the most curiously interesting things that has happened to me in my quite long life. – Your glass is empty, my dear.’
    ‘Transferred personality,’ I repeated wonderingly, as I held out my glass. ‘Now, if
that
were possible –’
    ‘Oh, there’s no doubt about the
possibility
. Those three cases I mentioned are fully authenticated.’
    ‘It might be that – almost,’ I admitted. ‘At least, in some ways it might be – but not in others. There
is
this nightmare quality.
You
seem perfectly normal to me, but look at me, myself – and at your little maid! There’s certainly an element of delusion. I
seem
to be here, like this, and talking to you – but it can’t really be so, so where am I?’
    ‘I
can understand, better than most, I think, how unreal this must seem to you. In fact, I have spent so much of my time in books that it sometimes seems unreal to me – as if I did not quite belong anywhere. Now, tell me my dear, when were you born?’
    I told her. She thought for a moment.
    ‘H’m,’ she said. ‘George the Sixth – but you’d not remember the second big war?’
    ‘No,’ I agreed.
    ‘But you might remember the coronation of the next monarch? Whose was that?’
    ‘Elizabeth – Elizabeth the Second. My mother took me to see the procession,’ I told her.
    ‘Do you remember anything about it?’
    ‘Not a lot really – except that it rained, nearly all day,’ I admitted.
    We went on like that for a little while, then she smiled, reassuringly.
    ‘Well, I don’t think we need any more to establish our point. I’ve heard about that coronation before – at secondhand. It must have been a wonderful scene in the abbey.’ She mused a moment, and gave a little sigh. ‘You’ve been very patient with me, my dear. It is only fair that you should have your turn – but I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for some shocks.’
    ‘I think I must be inured after my last thirty-six hours – or what has appeared to be thirty-six hours,’ I told her.
    ‘I doubt it,’ she said, looking at me seriously.
    ‘Tell me,’ I asked her. ‘Please explain it all – if you can.’
    ‘Your glass, my dear. Then I’ll get the crux of it over.’ She poured for each of us, then