Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XXXI

  ADRIFT

  Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to simplicity,and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with charity or furnishedlodgings (what though kept by one's own nurse), I cast about now forgood reason to be off from all the busy works at Bruntsea. So soon aftersuch a tremendous blow, it was impossible for me to push my own littletroubles and concerns upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longedto know what was to become of my father's will, if any thing. But mydesire to be doing something, or, at least, to get away for a timefrom Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strangebehavior toward me.

  That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my age,scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten years olderthan poor Firm--began more and more every day to come after me, justwhen I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing more soothing to mythoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose)than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop ofthe shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just belowhigh-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight afterthe flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feelinghow I longed to understand these things--which seem to be denied to allwho are of the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick,where no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my ownlooks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of sucha subject.

  Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering bywhat energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced, and noteven a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by side and purelytally with each other. Right and left, for miles and miles, millionsmultiplied into millions; yet I might hold any one in my palm and besure that it never had been there before. And of the quiet waveletseven, taking their own time and manner, in default of will of wind,all to come and call attention to their doom by arching over, andendeavoring to make froth, were any two in sound and size, much morein shape and shade, alike? Every one had its own little business, offloating pop-weed or foam bubbles or of blistered light, to do; andevery one, having done it, died and subsided into its successor.

  "A trifle sentimental, are we?" cried a lively voice behind me, andthe waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood SirMontague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.

  I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him; buthe was one of those people who think that women are all whims and ways.

  "I grieve to intrude upon large ideas," he said, as I rose and looked athim, "but I act under positive orders now. A lady knows what is bestfor a lady. Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the window, and she thinksthat you ought not to be sitting in the sun like this. There has beena case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a young lady meditating under thecliff--and she begs you to accept this palm leaf."

  I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce Californiansun; but I would not speak to him of that. "Thank you," I said; "it wasvery kind of her to think of it, and of you to do it. But will it besafe for you to go back without it?"

  "Oh, why should I do so?" he answered, with a tone of mock pathos whichprovoked me always, though I never could believe it to be meant inridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing; and, besides,I never spoke so. "Could you bear to see me slain by the shafts of thesun? Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply large for both of us."

  I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his veinat all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want every body tobe like myself.

  "Thank you; I mean to stay here," I said; "you may either leave theparasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome. At any rate, Ishall not use it."

  A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon hisway; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff. He seemed to lookupon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh from littleschools, would be. Nothing more annoyed me, after all my thoughts anddream of some power in myself, than this.

  "Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two," he said, while I kept gazingat some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him to go--"alittle thing or two of which you have no idea, even in your most lonelymusings, which might have a very deep interest for you. Do you thinkthat I came to this hole to see the sea? Or that fussy old muff of aMajor's doings?"

  "Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his intellect andgreat plans," I answered. "And after all his kindness to you!"

  "You never will do that," he said; "because you are a lady, and will notrepeat what is said in confidence. I could help you materially in yourgreat object, if you would only make a friend of me."

  "And what would your own object be? The pure anxiety to do right?"

  "Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your goodopinion, which seems so inaccessible. But you will think me selfish if Ieven hint at any condition of any kind. Every body I have ever met withlikes me, except Miss Castlewood."

  As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining in thesun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason which Mrs.Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it hard that a manwith such a beard should be valued lightly.

  "I do not see why we should talk," I said, "about either likes ordislikes. Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very muchobliged to you."

  This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed inEngland. A general idea there prevails that the free and enlightenednatives of the West are in front of those here in intelligence, andto some extent, therefore, in dishonesty. But there must be many caseswhere the two are not the same.

  "No," I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had everyBritish animal upon them; "I mean nothing more than the simple thingI say. If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it. I am accustomed tostraightforward people. But they disappoint one by their never knowingany thing."

  "But I know something," he answered, with a nod of grave, mysteriousimport; "and perhaps I will tell you some day, when admitted, if ever Ihave such an honor, to some little degree of friendship."

  "Oh, please not to think of yourself," I exclaimed, in a manner whichmust have amused him. "In such a case, the last thing that you should dois that. Think only of what is right and honorable, and your duty towarda lady. Also your duty to the laws of your country. I am not at all surethat you ought not to be arrested. But perhaps it is nothing at all,after all; only something invented to provoke me."

  "In that case, I can only drop the subject," he answered, with thatstern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested. "Iwas also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the usual time,that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting. The sea will be assmooth as glass. Perhaps you will come with us."

  With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a mostuncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even tried tothink. For I could not get the smallest idea what he meant; and, much asI tried to believe that he must be only pretending, for reasons of hisown, to have something important to tell me, scarcely was it possible tobe contented so. A thousand absurd imaginations began to torment me asto what he meant. He lived in London so much, for instance, that he hadmuch quicker chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he wasa man of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetratewhat I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with Shovelin,Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and I knew not thata banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit; moreover--which, tomy mind, was almost stronger proof than any thing--Sir Montague Hockinwas of smuggling pedigree, and likely to be skillful in illicit runs ofknowledge.

  However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I sayto him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it. But,though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person Iscarce
ly could have done, he would not condescend to give me evenanother look about it.

  Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct andcertainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good host andhostess. But here there was very little help or support to be obtainedat present. Major Hockin was laying the foundations of "The BruntseaAssembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual Improvement Association,Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;" while Mrs. Hockin had a hatchof "White Sultans," or, rather, a prolonged sitting of eggs, fondlyhoped to hatch at last, from having cost so much, like a chicken-heartedConference. Much as I sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sittingcost twelve guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty andignoble smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth dayshe placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, inwhich they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen. Thepoor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with vitality; but atlast she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had been half boiled by theadvertiser. "This is very sad," cried Mrs. Hockin; and the patient oldhen, who was come in a basket of hay to see the end of it, echoed with acluck that sentiment.

  These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own guidance,which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever since my fatherdied. For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my great joy andcomfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one day only. And,except for his good advice and kind paternal conduct to me, it seemedat present an unlucky thing that I had ever discovered him. Not onlythrough deep sense of loss and real sorrow for him, but also becauseMajor Hockin, however good and great and generous, took it unreasonablyinto his head that I threw him over, and threw myself (as with want offine taste he expressed it) into the arms of the banker. This hurtme very much, and I felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken sohastily unless his hair had been originally red; and so it might bedetected, even now, where it survived itself, though blanched where hebrushed it into that pretentious ridge. Sometimes I liked that man, whenhis thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a finebrave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go toofar with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from thesteerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea. I paid him formy board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam himself, atCalifornia prices; therefore I am under no obligation to conceal hisfoibles. But, take him altogether, he was good and brave and just,though unable, from absence of inner light, to be to me what Uncle Samhad been.

  When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in London,and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) "blew hot and cold" inhalf a minute--hot when I thought of any good things to be done, andcold as soon as he became the man to do them--also, when I rememberedwhat a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the shape of Sir Montague,who went to and fro, but could never be trusted to be far off, Iresolved to do what I had long been thinking of, and believed thatmy guardian, if he had lived another day, would have recommended. Iresolved to go and see Lord Castlewood, my father's first cousin andfriend in need.

  When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they bothdeclared that it was the very thing they were at the point of advising,which, however, they had forborne from doing because I never tookadvice. At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I could not helpsmiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage opinion that,before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and ask his leave todo so. For that would have made it quite a rude thing to call, as Imust still have done, if he should decline beforehand to receive me.Moreover, it would look as if I sought an invitation, while only wantingan interview. Therefore, being now full of money again, I hired theflyman who had made us taste the water, and taking train at Newport, andchanging at two or three places as ordered, crossed many little streams,and came to a fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a fewmiles above Reading.

  In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, andtribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small feelings, asfor the first time I drew near to the home of my forefathers. I shouldhave been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or lying in a hole, or evenmodern or insignificant; and when none of these charges could be broughtagainst it, I was filled with highly discreditable pain that Providencehad not seen fit to issue me into this world in the masculine form; inwhich case this fine property would, according to the rules of mankind,have been mine. However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and satdown on a bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.

  The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to shapeit, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a bosominghill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from the rigorand fury of the north and east; while in front the sloping foregroundwidened its soft lap of green. In bays and waves of rolling grass,promontoried, here and there, by jutting copse or massive tree, andjotted now and then with cattle as calm as boats at anchor, the rangeof sunny upland fell to the reedy fringe and clustered silence of deepriver meadows. Here the Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness andcourtesy, yet with will of its own ways, being now a plenteous river,spreads low music, and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields,casting afar a broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulousinfinitude of flash.

  Now these things touched me all the more because none of them belongedto me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got up with muchbetter heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever it might be.A girl brought up in the real English way would have spent her lastshilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the station--a most sadmachine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in a more becoming manner.

  One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went asquietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body hadbeen rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that sort, myspirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually happens then,good reason to go down afterward. But happily there was nothing of thekind. An elderly man, without any gaudy badges, opened the door veryquietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke, for asking me to speaksoftly. It was one of his lordship's very worst days, and when he wasso, every sound seemed to reach him. I took the hint, and did not speakat all, but followed him over deep matting into a little room to whichhe showed me. And then I gave him a little note, written before I leftBruntsea, and asked him whether he thought that his master was wellenough to attend to it.

  He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father well,having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked whether mymessage was important. I answered that it was, but that I would wait foranother time rather than do any harm. But he said that, however ill hismaster was, nothing provoked him more than to find that any thing wasneglected through it. And before I could speak again he was gone with myletter to Lord Castlewood.