Chapter III: Launched

Before I went to bed that night I wrote to Mr. Warrington, telling him I had decided to accept Mr. Lovett’s offer; and before another fortnight was over my head, I was on my way to St. Pucelle. There was no reason for delay, and the few things I had to do, I hurried over as quickly as possible. We had always lived in furnished rooms; one week’s notice was sufficient to set me free from them. The books and articles that had belonged especially to my mother found house-room with my kind friend Mrs. Sandilands. The only possessions I carried away with me were her Bible and her portrait and my own limited wardrobe. I wanted to begin life anew, cumbered with as few reminders of the past as possible.

I did not think, though, that I should find parting with the grave in Norwood Cemetery so hard. I had believed myself to be too philosophical to care about leaving that, any more than the old books that Mrs. Sandilands had taken charge of. But when the time came to say good-bye to it, and that which lay in it, I found I was as stupid, commonplace and non-reasoning an animal as ever wept above an inanimate object that could neither see, hear, nor respond.

Mr. Warrington’s cruel arguments came back to my mind, and I found myself wondering if the end of it all had really come, and I was tearing myself away from the only link that could ever bind me to her again. It was late in the evening, at the close of the last day I was to spend in Norwood, that I stole into the cemetery and found my way, less by sight than by instinct, to the heap of earth, as yet unsoftened by any grass, that covered her. It must be allowed to sink—so the sexton had informed me—before it could be decorated like the other graves.

To sink right down upon _her_—pressing, pressing, with its awful unyielding weight, upon the lid of the coffin which covered that dear dead face—dear, even in spite of its ghastly want of resemblance to that which she had borne in life. I had said good-bye to the Sandilands and all my friends in Norwood; this was to be the last farewell my lips should utter there.

I sank down upon the mound of clay, and wrestled with my agony alone. Where was she, this beloved mother of mine? Who could tell me, _without any doubt_, of her habitation, her occupation, or her final destiny? Was she really gone for ever, as Mr. Warrington would have assured me, resolved, body and spirit, into the dust out of which she had been made, and as effectually lost as the burnt-out candle, the particles of which have mingled with the air? Was there no place of meeting beyond this world where I should see and clasp her again? The parson would, of course, have answered ‘yes;’ but the attainment of his conventional paradise was saddled with so many conditions that I was hopeless of ever reaching it. _She_ might have got there, with her angelic love and tenderness for all things, whether in heaven or on earth, but I knew myself to be unequal to following her footsteps. I sat on her grave stunned and hopeless. We had often talked of a future world together, and it had seemed easy to believe anything when her lips uttered it; but now that she had left me, I wanted _proof_, certain and unanswerable proof, of the truth of what I had been taught; and the foundation on which I had built my apparent trust had all crumbled under my touchstone like sand. I felt there was no proof, no certainty, only a vague hope for ourselves, which became a broken reed when we tried to find comfort in it under the loss of those we had loved. Every one had conjured me to look forward to meeting her again. No one had given me one convincing argument that I should do so. I was surrounded by the dark, impenetrable mystery of death, and I got up from the grave and walked back to my lodgings in a condition of dull, sodden despair.

I was to meet Mr. Warrington the next morning, at twelve o’clock, at one of the large London wharves. He had been very anxious to accompany me to St. Pucelle, and deliver me safely into Mr. Lovett’s charge, but I had refused his kind offices. In the first place, I was quite able to travel alone; in the second, I longed to find myself so. I had merely to cross to Antwerp, and take the train on from there to St. Pucelle—or rather to Artois, which was the nearest railway-station to it. I was sufficiently acquainted with the French language not to have the slightest doubt of being able to make my wants understood, and something struck me as very ludicrous in the idea of a little dandy like Mr. Warrington conducting a great, tall woman like myself across the water, and delivering me over to Mr. Lovett’s care, as if I had been a child. So, after he had met me at the wharf, looking as fresh and trim, with an exquisite button-hole of white rosebuds and forget-me-nots, as if he were just about to take a stroll in the Park, and secured a berth for me, and paid my fare, and seen that my luggage was safely on board, I dismissed him with ungrateful alacrity, and felt a sensation of relief as the steamboat quietly glided down the river, and I saw him take off his hat to me for at least the sixth time, before he quitted the landing-stage.

‘At last,’ I said to myself, with a long-drawn sigh, ‘I am free to forget. Everything about me—even to the dress I wear—is a novelty. I have positively nothing, except a piece of pasteboard and a book, that belongs to the past. Thank God for it!’

I forgot the heart I carried in my bosom. For a while I diverted myself by watching my fellow-passengers and trying to guess their histories. There were only about a dozen of them, and they were all collected upon deck. There was the conventional newly-married couple; I found them out at once, principally because everything the bride had on was new, even to the soles of her boots, which were almost as fresh as when they had left the workman’s hands, and had evidently never trod the vulgar earth before that morning.

There were a mother and father with a couple of odious children, whom they permitted to run against the other passengers just as they chose, smearing their dresses with their sticky fingers and staring rudely in their faces for five minutes together. They kept leaping up on the seats also, and leaning over the sides of the vessel, till I began to hope that one or both might disappear for ever under the water. No such good luck, however, was in store for us. To the end of the voyage the children were ubiquitous. They scrambled for food at the dinner-table, and long after they had been put to bed, reappeared in their night-dresses to demand more fruit and biscuits.

If parents only would realise what an abominable nuisance their offspring are to everybody but themselves, they would not, perhaps, entail so many unnecessary invectives on their heads as they do. If there is one character in history with whom I have more sympathy than another, it certainly is Herod. My attention was diverted for a time from these horrid imps by a young girl dressed, as I was, in deep mourning, who sat by herself in a very subdued attitude at one end of the vessel. I found she was going, for the first time, to a foreign school at Ghent. She had lost her father, and was anxious to perfect herself in French and German, before attempting to earn her own livelihood as a governess. It was a melancholy prospect, I thought. I imagined myself the governess of two such children as were annoying the company now, whilst their mother complacently read a cheap novel, and felt sure that in such a case I should have ended my career upon the gallows. Had it been necessary for me to work for my bread, I would have been a housemaid, a cook, shop-girl—anything rather than a governess or a nurse!

Two or three foreigners, seedy and dirty in appearance, were standing near me, and looking rather impertinently in my face, which gave me a desire to change my seat. I rose, with the intention of crossing the deck, when my hand-bag, which had been lying on my lap, fell to the ground.

Some one quickly picked it up and restored it to me. Not one of my seedy foreigners, but a bright-haired English lad of not more, I thought, than sixteen or seventeen years old.

‘Do you wish to go downstairs?’ he inquired politely; ‘and may I help you?’

It was such a nice, frank, boyish voice and face, that I quite took to him.

‘No, thank you,’ I said; ‘I only wish to sit on the other side of the boat.’

‘I will find you a seat. It is much cooler there,’ he answered, with alacrity.

My boy-gallant then accompanied me across the deck, and having arranged my plaid for me to sit down upon, ensconced himself by my side.

‘We shall have a charming passage across this time,’ he remarked, confidentially.

‘Shall we? I know nothing of the tides. I have never crossed before.’

‘Do you go by Calais, then?’

‘No! This is the first time I have ever left England!’

He opened his round eyes to their utmost.

‘Oh! I say! Why, I cross six times every year, and sometimes oftener.’

‘Do you live abroad, then?’

‘No! I live in London—at least, my dad does—but I’m coaching for the Civil Service, with old Felton, at Rille, and run home at Christmas and Easter and Midsummer. I’m just going back after the summer vacation. Isn’t it a bore?’

‘Dreadful!’ I acquiesced. ‘But is not Rille near Artois?’

‘About twenty miles distant. Why?’

‘Only that I am going to Artois, or near it.’

‘That’s jolly! I’ll look after you and see you get there all right, as you’ve not been used to travelling—that is, if you’d like me to.’

‘Thank you, very much.’

I could not help inwardly smiling to think that I, who had so scornfully rejected the escort of the polite and experienced Mr. Warrington, should be thanking a raw schoolboy for the offer of his valuable protection to Rille. But the cordial unconventionality of the lad pleased me, and I thought I should like to have him for a travelling companion.

‘It is not much of a journey from Antwerp to Rille,’ I said.

‘Only a couple of hours. We shall get in about eight o’clock to-morrow morning, and there’s a train at half-past which will land me at my shop by half-past ten, and you at Artois at eleven. I pity you staying at Artois; it’s a horrid dull place.’

‘Oh! I am not going to remain at Artois. My friends live a little farther on.’

As he saw I did not volunteer the information, his intuitive delicacy forbid his asking me the name of my friends, or of myself. But he frankly disclosed his own.

‘My dad’s name is Sir John Stephenson. Dare say you’ve heard of him. He’s a bigwig in the doctor way. He wanted me to be one. He said, “Fred, my boy, there’s nothing like the medical profession.” But I didn’t see it—I don’t fancy cutting off arms and legs—should you?’

‘No, indeed! And so your name is Frederick Stephenson?’

‘Yes! And I’ve got two brothers, Bob and Ernest; but they’re quite little chaps.’

‘I suppose I must tell you my name in return, especially as we shall travel to Rille together. I am called Hilda Marsh.’

‘That’s an awfully jolly name—Hilda, I mean. I’ve got three sisters, and they have rather nice names, I think: Jessie and Amy and Blanche, but “Hilda” beats them all to smash.’

‘I am glad you think so! Do you like living at Rille?’

‘Pretty well, but I shall be very glad when I’ve done with it. We have larks now and then, but old Felton’s the clergyman there, and awfully stiff with us. He hardly ever lets us go into the town.’

At this juncture the dinner-bell rang, and my young friend was all alert to obey it.

‘Won’t you come down?’ he urged. ‘They give very good spreads on board this boat, and if you’re likely to be ill when we get out to sea, you’ll be all the worse for not having eaten anything.’

But I could not join them at the dinnertable. I had not sat down to a regular meal for weeks, and the idea of roast and boiled joints sickened me. I persuaded Master Fred Stephenson to leave me where I was, whilst he satisfied the cravings of nature, to look at the charming sights which presented themselves on either side the river, which we were now fast leaving for the open sea.

By six o’clock we were well out in the ocean, which was calm as a lake at that time of year; and I shrank with dismay at the idea of quitting the cool sweet-smelling deck for the stuffy cabin, to which I had been introduced in the former part of the day.

‘Why should you?’ exclaimed Master Fred, to whom I had confided my grievance; ‘we’ll have a mattress and pillow sent up on deck for you, and you’ll sleep twice as well here as you would below. I’ll go and speak to the captain at once about it.’

He strode off with the air of a man, before I had time to dissuade him from asking for what appeared to me an impossible indulgence. However, his application was speedily followed by the appearance of a seaman bearing the mattress, pillows, and blankets; and when I saw several others of the passengers making themselves comfortable for the night in the same manner, I grew less shy of using my improvised couch, and was thankful to rest upon it.

As I lay there through the dark night, gazing up into the faces of the moon and the stars, I could hardly believe that every throb of the machinery was carrying me farther and farther away from the scenes with which I had been associated so long. It was a lonely, peaceful sensation, that of being borne along upon the lapping waves and through the cool night air without any exertion, and only the burr of the steamer’s wheels, and an occasional order from the captain to intimate that some one was watching over my safety whether I slept or not. I lay thus for some hours, thinking the one great thought that never left my brain then, by night or day, until at last fatigue overcame me, and I fell asleep. I woke with a sensation of being stifled. There was no light, no air, nothing. What had happened to me? I struggled violently for a moment, when some one, with a gay laugh, suddenly twitched a blanket off my face, and I was free to breathe again.

‘Holloa! Miss Marsh,’ exclaimed Fred Stephenson, ‘did you think you were buried alive?’

‘Something very like it,’ I replied; ‘what happened to me?’

‘Only this, that when the dew began to fall this morning, I drew the blanket over your face. It isn’t safe to sleep in it, you know, and every one is covered up in the same way.’

‘Well, it was very kind of you to think of it,’ I said, ‘but I certainly thought we were all going to the bottom. How still the sea is!’

‘We’ve been out of the sea for the last four hours. We are going up the Scheldt now, and shall be in Antwerp before you’ve had time to have your breakfast and make a comfortable toilet.’

I scrambled to my feet at this intelligence, and sought the shelter of my cabin, which felt closer and more stuffy even than it had done the day before. A cup of coffee woke me completely up again, and by the time the boat steamed alongside the quay at Antwerp, I was on deck, ready to admire or be surprised at every fresh thing I saw. Master Fred Stephenson proved an admirable cicerone, and never ceased to call my attention to everything that he thought would interest or amuse me.

‘Aren’t those rum houses and trees?’ he said in his schoolboy language, as he pointed out some quaint buildings on the quay; ‘they look for all the world like the contents of one of those German boxes of toys the children get at home, set up on end. And that’s a milk-cart drawn by that dog, with all those brass cans in it. Did you ever see such caps and bonnets as the women wear. I tried to squash one of their bonnets once by sitting on it, but it was no use. They’re as hard as wood. Holloa! here come the Custom-house people to look at the boxes. If you will let me have your keys, Miss Marsh, I’ll see your luggage passed. I suppose you’ve got nothing to declare.’

I assured him I had not.

‘Well, I’ve got lots, but I’m blessed if they shall find them. I smuggle more things, every time I cross, than the rest of the English pupils put together; but I’m an awfully lucky fellow, and have never been caught yet.’

I stood on the bridge to watch the Custom-house officers at their duty, and found it a very amusing sight. The distinction they made between searching the luggage of their own countrymen and that of mine, inspired me with a feeling of pride that, notwithstanding Master Fred’s peccadilloes, the word of an Englishman should be so readily taken.

I observed that when the bridegroom and the father of the obnoxious children had simply said they had nothing in their boxes liable to duty, the keys were returned to them after the merest feint had been made of raising the lids. But no such declarations availed the seedy foreigners, though they accompanied them with oaths. Their scanty apparel, very yellow and shabby in appearance, was religiously displayed on deck for the admiration of the rest of the passengers, and every crevice of their trunks carefully searched; and I felt sincere pity for one poor wretch who was compelled to turn out the whole contents of an enormous hamper, which was found, after all, to contain nothing but apples and pears.

When it came to the turn for Master Fred’s boxes, he threw his keys to the Custom-house officers in the most nonchalant manner, desiring him to search for himself.

The consequence of which was that, the trouble promising to prove too great, the keys were merely turned in the locks and delivered again to their owner.

‘That’s the way I do them, Miss Marsh,’ said Master Fred, with the greatest glee, as we drove together to the station. ‘There’s nothing goes down in this world like a perfect absence of fear. If you try to prevent those fellows from rumpling your collars, they turn everything over in order to find your contraband goods; but if you tell them to look for themselves and not bother you, they feel sure directly that innocence alone can make you so brave.’

‘You are a very naughty boy,’ I said, smiling in spite of myself at his self-assurance and British cheek.