CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH IS SET FORTH THE INCONSTANCY OF MAN.
Hon. Co.’s Ship Orford, FONCHIAL[01] HARBOUR, Dec. ye 31st.
Since despatching my first letter to my Amelia by the hands of the pilot, I have passed through such an experience as I should not care to repeat. Ah, my dear, we thought it at school a simple thing to hear that Britain is an island, but ’tis a fact one learns to appreciate when it is being fixed in one’s mind by a sea-voyage. For over three weeks, my dearest friend, was your Sylvia pent up in the narrow floating prison which is called the ladies’ cabin, enduring, for the greater part of the time, such protracted torments as she could not have dreamed the human frame would be able to support. You may smile to hear that I had willingly relinquished all the future glories of Bengall, and even the hope of a meeting with my papa, for the sake of a grave on dry land, where, at least, there would be no more shaking and tumbling, but had the exchange been offered me, I don’t dare say that I would not have accepted it gladly. Imagine, my Amelia, your unfortunate friend confined with four other females in a narrow chamber lighted only by a ship’s lantern (for the weather was so bad that the ports, by which is signified the small windows of the vessel, were forced to be closed), each extended on a wooden shelf about the size, so I should think, of a coffin. To the sufferings caused by illness, add the terrors of a storm, when the hatches were battened down, as they say (this means that heavy coverings were fastened over the only openings by which light and air can visit the lower decks, lest they should admit water as well), and the howling of the wind and roaring of the waves as they dashed over the ship was attempted to be drowned by the hoarse shouting of the seamen. I’ll assure you that I never expected to see dry land again, and as I have said, I was glad to think so. But how, you’ll say, did my companions support the trials which were so painful to your Sylvia? Truly, my dear, they supported them with as bad a grace as I did. Miss Hamlin, indeed, never lost her sprightly humour, and diverted herself, even in the extremity of our sufferings, by rallying the other ladies on the dangers they apprehended, but her aunt had no spirit to do more than lie upon her shelf and groan, which she did in the most moving style. As for the other two ladies, whose husbands were on board, they seemed to consider that the bad weather was to be laid to the fault of their spouses. These unfortunate gentlemen had betaken themselves to their shelves in the great cabin (as, indeed, had all the male passengers, with the exception I shall presently mention), and lay there as miserable as ourselves, but their ladies were persuaded that they were employing themselves in drinking and playing high with the officers of the ship, and many were the messages of rebuke sent to them through the steward. This was a stout fellow, of the most unfeeling temper, who brought in our broth or tea when the black women that Mrs Hamlin and the other ladies are taking back to India with them were too ill to move, and never failed to assure us that we should find ourselves quite recovered if we would but pluck up courage to put on our clothes and go on deck.
We did not, as my Amelia will imagine, follow the advice of this odious person, but when the storm had ceased, and we were able to rest on our shelves without holding perpetually by the edges, he brought a message from Mr Fraser, asking if he might have the honour of waiting upon any of the ladies on deck. Now the Lieutenant, who was the exception I have mentioned to the general rule of illness among the gentlemen, had shown great consideration for us poor women during the storm, coming frequently to the door of the cabin to assure us that all was well, and had gone so far as to promise that he would bring us instant warning if any grave danger threatened the vessel, so that I thought it only civil to make some effort to respond to his politeness.
“Pray, miss,” I said to Miss Hamlin, “have you any fancy to rise? Shall we ask the gentleman to attend us both?”
“Why, no, miss,” says she. “’Tis your fellow sends the invitation, not mine. Pray beg the Lieutenant to inform Mr Ranger that I am dependent upon his civilities, and that I look to him to attend me on deck to-morrow.”
“But you would not have me go on deck alone?” I said.
“No, miss, I would have you go with Mr Fraser. Sure the poor man must be pining for a sight of your face after so long a deprivation of it.”
This sly hint made me so angry that I was about to say I would not go, but being unwilling to allow Miss Hamlin so much power over me as this would imply, I made shift to dress myself with infinite trouble (although I did not attempt to appear in anything but an undress, as you may imagine), and with my hair huddled into a mob[02] under my capuchin, tottered out into the passage, where I found Mr Fraser awaiting me. He expressed great concern at my altered looks (for you may guess that one’s face is not at its best after three weeks of such misery as we have been enduring), and gave me his hand on deck. There, while I stood holding to a rail, scarce able to keep my feet, he devised a seat for me in a corner sheltered from the wind, and having placed me there covered with a great watch-coat of his own, stood looking at me very kindly, and asked me how I did? I was so much overcome by the sudden return to air and daylight that I could hardly answer him, and perceiving this, he began to point out to me the different parts of the vessel, and tell me their names. The bales and cases which had encumbered the deck when I had last seen it were now removed, and the ship, though her upper works had suffered in places from the violence of the waves, had a much more spacious and agreeable air.
“But pray, sir,” said I, when I had recovered my intellects, “tell me whether you was ever in so terrible a storm in all your life hitherto?”
“So terrible a storm, madam?” says he, as if surprised. “What storm?”
“Why, the storm that is but just subsided, sir?”
“There was no storm, madam. We met with some dirty weather in the Bay, but every seaman looks for that.”
“Dirty weather!” said I. “In what way could a storm be worse, sir?”
Before Mr Fraser could answer, a person who had been walking up and down the deck paused in front of us. He wore a watch-coat and an oil-skin cover to his hat, and carried a marine glass under his arm.
“So, young gentleman!” he said; “dancing attendance on the ladies, hey? More likely work for a King’s officer than soiling his hands with horrid tarry ropes, en’t it? Your servant, madam. Trust a navy gentleman to know a pretty face when he sees one, but when you get tired of your present convoy, you hoist signals, and I’ll find you a fresh consort in no time.”
“Sir,” says Mr Fraser (I was so confounded by this address that I knew not how to reply), “I would think better of you if you kept your insults for company in which I could resent ’em on the spot.”
“I vow, sir, you’re right!” cried the stranger, with an oath. “It en’t pretty behaviour to seek to lower a man in the eyes of a lady he desires to stand well with, and you show a proper spirit in rebuking it. Don’t be afraid that I’ll try to cut out the little craft from under your guns. King’s officer or Company’s, a gentleman should have his fair chance where the ladies are concerned.”
“Pray, sir,” said I, as this person departed with a very ceremonious bow, “who is the gentleman, and what’s the meaning of his talk?”
“Why, madam,” says Mr Fraser, “I regret to say that your being in company with me has exposed you to a share of the ill humour with which I am regarded on board here.”
“But how have you aroused this gentleman’s resentment, sir?”
“I have the honour to wear the King’s uniform, madam.”
“But is that a cause for subjecting you to insult, sir?”
“Unfortunately, madam, it is—at least among the low-bred persons that are placed in authority on board such vessels as this. You may not know that among merchant seamen there’s always a certain jealousy of us who belong to his Majesty’s service, and they take a pleasure in gratifying their dislike at the expense of any navy officer that comes in their way.”
“And this disagreeable humour is entirely unprovoked?” said I. “You, sir, would entertain no objection to meet the captain of a merchant-vessel on board of a ship of war?”
“Madam,” says Mr Fraser with great haughtiness, “if such a person were by any chance to find himself aboard one of his Majesty’s ships, he would be entirely beneath my notice.”
I was forced to hold my fan before my face to hide a smile, for it seemed to me that the merchant-captain was not altogether without cause of complaint, but lest the Lieutenant should think I was laughing at him, I made haste to say, “I fear, sir, your life has been but a disagreeable one since we left Deal?”
“Say rather, madam, since we passed Beachy Head, and you went below,” he replied. (Was it not neatly put, Amelia?) “The worst point in my situation was that I could do nothing to please. When during the rough weather I offered my services to help in cutting away the wreck, or otherwise endeavoured to make myself of use, I was bid by the mate there not to thrust my nose in where I was not wanted, while if I stood back, I was cursed for a lazy lubber and a long-legged Scotch loon, with many other insulting terms.”
“I marvel, sir, that you was able to leave such rudeness unresented,” I could not help saying, remembering Mr Fraser’s readiness to take offence at a word while we were at the inn. His face reddened somewhat.
“I owe my meekness to you, madam. Every captain has supreme authority on his own ship, but I fear that even that reflection would not have restrained me had I not remembered that if I gave Mr Wallis occasion to put me in irons as a mutineer, which he had gladly done, I would have little hope of being of any service to you afterwards.”
“Indeed, sir,” I said, “I’m happy to have been of use to you.”
At this point the steward came to announce that dinner was served, and Mr Fraser asked if he might attend me to the cuddy.[03] But this I refused, both because I had no desire to be the only lady at table, and because I felt little inclination for food, and remaining where I was, I dined sumptuously on some broth and toasted bread which the Lieutenant was so obliging as to bring me. I stayed on deck during the greater part of the afternoon, and the next day Miss Hamlin joined me, on receiving assurances that Mr Ranger would count it an honour to hold himself at her service. Since then there has been but one day when we were forced by rough weather to remain below, and even Mrs Hamlin and the other ladies are now sufficiently recovered to come on deck. As for the rest of the gentlemen, they nearly all made their appearance the day after Mr Ranger, and have done their best to prove themselves an agreeable set of fellows. The weather is grown continually hotter. Miss Hamlin and I were not long in exchanging our capuchins for beaver bonnets and short cloaks, but to-day we have taken to wearing gipsy hats and India scarves, though it is mid-winter! But when we reach Bengall, so Mrs Hamlin says, we shall find that none of the ladies wear either hats or hoods when they ride abroad, but only lace caps trimmed with ribbons and flowers, as we do in the evening, and that one don’t need so much as to throw a handkerchief over one’s shoulders out of doors. Sure either the heat must be far greater than we can imagine, or the constitution of these ladies must be extremely hardy.
While I pen these lines to my Amelia, our ship is lying in the Bay of Fonchial, in the Madeiras, where we remain for a week to take in water and fresh provisions, and also to give us poor passengers an opportunity of remembering that there is such a blessed thing as firm ground. Each morning we visit the land in a boat from the shore, which is constructed, so Mr Fraser informs me, in a special manner on account of the force of the waves, and ride up the beach in the oddest fashion. What do you say to a frame of boards, like the sledges of which we read in Sweden and Poland, and drawn by oxen? Two or three of the gentlemen (you’ll guess that the Lieutenant is one) refuse to ride in this machine, as a slight to their dignity, and prefer to crawl up the beach in the stifling heat. Arrived in the town, which has many very genteel houses, we spend some time on the Parade, which is here called the Praza. To me it recalls memories of the time I spent with my Amelia at Tunbridge Wells, but the trees here are orange-trees, and the company, though very polite, is nothing near so elegant as that we used to watch. Later in the day the gentlemen devise some party of pleasure, to which they invite the ladies, generally in some garden near the town, where the time passes agreeably enough, and we return to the Orford by moonlight.
Yesterday we visited a certain convent, which is considered (why, I don’t know) to be one of the sights of the place. The appearance of the nuns, who are nearly all ladies of a discreet age, was vastly disappointing to the gentlemen, and Mr Ranger declared roundly that they had certainly immured themselves from necessity rather than choice. These religious persons occupy their leisure in making small articles, such as cockades and sword-knots, of silk and gold thread, which they are permitted to sell to visitors, passing them through the double grating by means of a cleft stick. Among these toys was a handsome fan-girdle, which I coveted for my Amelia, very neatly made with tassels, but my purse refused to allow me the pleasure of purchasing it. I had contented myself with a plainer sort, which I handed to Mr Fraser to carry for me, but when we sat down under the trees on the Parade to look over our purchases, what was my surprise when he presented me with the girdle I had first admired! Assuring the Lieutenant that there was some mistake, he told me that ’twas not so, but he had made bold to secure for me the article I desired. ’Twas a civil thought, was it not? and I could have found it in my heart to wish it were possible to accept the poor man’s courtesy, but I desired him very seriously to restore me my own property. He was very highly offended, but I persisted in my demand, with which at last he complied, though with an excessively bad grace. The plain girdle I am sending to my dearest friend with this letter. I could wish it had been t’other, but I know my Amelia Turnor will prefer a smaller gift to a greater purchased at the sacrifice of her Sylvia’s punctilio.
At Mynheer Brouncker’s House, CAPE TOWN, April ye 8th, 1755.
Behold me now, my dear, with the half part of my journey passed, spending with delight a few days on shore in Holland—yet at the furthest extremity of the African continent. This is a sweet pretty place, the houses flat-roofed, and painted white or some bright colour, and the streets prodigiously regular and crossing one another at right angles with the most surprising neatness, and in the middle of the town a fine handsome square. Along each street are planted rows of trees, vastly symmetrical, and beside them are water-courses or small canals fed from springs, which are very agreeable for their coolness. This house (belonging to a private person who, like most of the better sort here, is glad to lodge and board us English for a rix-dollar a-day apiece, so that the sight of a British vessel entering the harbour is hailed with the most extravagant demonstrations of joy), though not what we in England should count luxurious, is almost incredible in its cleanliness, all the chamber-maids and servants being blacks. These people are called Hottentots, and the Dutch boors, which seems not to be understood here as a term of contempt. Our windows command a charming prospect of the great mountain overlooking the town, which from its flatness is called the Table. At times one sees the clouds descend and spread themselves upon its summit, and this, Mr Fraser tells me, is called by seamen, “the devil laying his table-cloth.” Seamen are droll creatures, en’t they, Amelia? And this reminds me to say that Messieurs Fraser and Ranger, with several other gentlemen from the Orford, are lodged in the same house as ourselves.
But you’ll demand some account of our voyage since I last put pen to paper in the Madeiras. Alas, my Amelia, your Sylvia is a sad lazy girl! And yet, how could it engage your interest to hear that for so many days we lay becalmed off the coasts of Guinea, and at other times met baffling winds that threw us out of our course, and on a very few occasions found ourselves making good progress with the aid of a favouring breeze? or that we touched at Ascension Island, and waited there while the seamen catched twenty great turtles for us to take on board—horrid sprawling creatures, and their fat green when it is cooked? But all these delays, you’ll say, afforded me only the more time for writing to you. True, my dear, but what should be the subject? My beloved girl knows that I love her, and to waste paper in repeating assurances of that would be to outdo even a lover’s folly. When the history of one day is told, you have ’em all. Know then that the mornings have been spent seated under the awning on deck, we ladies with our embroidery at hand, to give us a decent semblance of industry, but really occupied in watching for distant sails, or the sight of land, or flying-fishes, or a change of wind, or any of the important nothings that appear of so much moment to the traveller on board ship. The gentlemen, meanwhile, busy themselves in fishing for creatures with such odd names as albacores, bonitoes, and doradoes, catching the smaller ones with hooks and lines, and the larger with fish-gigs or harpoons, in the casting of which Mr Fraser is particularly skilful. There are also many birds which venture near enough to the vessel to be caught, as albatrosses (but these the seamen protect, through some sentiment of superstition), tropic-birds, which are about the size of a hawk, with one extravagantly long feather in the tail, and booties and noddies, whose names (so Mr Fraser says, but I’m sure I can’t see how) express their natural foolishness. The afternoon is passed like the morning, unless one of the gentlemen be so obliging as to deprive himself of the excitement of fishing in order to read aloud to us females as we work. Then comes the evening, when there’s really nothing in the world to do (owing to the dimness of the lights provided for us below), but remain on deck and watch the sea, which indeed shows the strangest and most extraordinary fiery ripples and waves, unless the captain think fit to call up one of the seamen that plays the fiddle, and bid us set to for a dance. But this is rarely more than once a-week, and we call such occasions our assembly nights, when we dress ourselves with more attention than at other times, and the gentlemen wear their wigs, or have their hair curled and powdered.
But in general, as I have said, there’s nothing to do but talk, and I can’t pretend that the style of the conversation is altogether as ceremonious as the venerable Mrs Eustacia would desire. For instead of the ladies all sitting in a circle, with the gentlemen standing behind their chairs, and each endeavouring to contribute some piece of wit or information for the advantage of all, the passengers seem naturally to divide themselves into small groups, often, I must confess, containing as few as two persons. At least, this is my experience. Nay, I’ll go so far as to say (for I see my Amelia’s eyes asking the question), that I am not much in the habit of changing my companion on these occasions. ’Tis very seldom that my cavalier is not Mr Fraser, and this not only because I find his discourse always modest and agreeable, but because I am in continual alarm lest he should involve himself in some quarrel when he is not with me. You may have observed that this gentleman is of a somewhat fiery temper, and since the officers of the ship continue to treat him in the same offensive manner as I have already described to you, I am kept in a perpetual fear. Not that he is altogether without self-command, as I remarked one day when I looked to him to take the part of one of the crew who was knocked down and kicked by the second mate. These unfortunate seamen, who are kidnapped or inveigled by the Hon. Co. on board of their ships, and there forced to serve without hope of release, are handled with the most shocking barbarity by those in authority, and sometimes injured in a horrible manner. Knowing that Mr Fraser, as he had told me, had learned from his former commander, Mr Watson, to behave with justice and humanity to those serving under him,[04] I was not surprised to see him step forward with his hand raised, as though about to lay the wretch on the deck by the side of his victim. But dropping his hand and returning to my side, he said, in answer to my mute expostulation, “Pray, madam, pardon my disobliging you, but I have learnt by this time that my interference on behalf of these poor wretches only serves to ensure them a worse treatment, if not the being placed in irons forthwith.”
Pleased with this care of his for the unfortunate seamen, I ceased to expect Mr Fraser to interpose himself on such occasions, and you may imagine that I take none the less pleasure in conversing with him. He has told me that he is the third son of a Scots gentleman of quality, who was granted the confiscated estate of a cousin that was a rebel in consideration of his services to the Government in the affair of the ’15, services which he repeated in the rebellion nine years ago, but for which, as I understand, no recompense has as yet been awarded him. You’ll be surprised to hear that a son of the cousin who was thus dispossessed is serving in the Company’s army at Bengall, and that Mr Fraser declares it his purpose to seek him out if he can obtain leave to visit Calcutta. This seems to me conduct scarce to be expected from a delicate mind, but Mr Fraser laughed when I hinted as much.
“Any port in a storm,” says he; “and after all, madam, blood is thicker than water.”
Hon. Co.’s Ship Orford, MADRASS ROAD, Aug. ye 20th.
I must be content to permit my Amelia to scold me as she will, for not only have I allowed a long time to pass without adding to my bulky pacquet, but I confess freely that I had not sat down to write to-day had I been able to find anything else to do. In fine, my dear, I have the vapours very badly, and know not whether it be more disagreeable to look forward to arriving at Bengall or to look back upon our voyage. But how? why? what? you’ll cry; I can see you trembling with eagerness to unfold this puzzle. Must I acknowledge that I have felt tempted to allow my letter to end with that part I writ at the Cape, and to shroud in oblivion all that has happened since? But I picture my Amelia reading the long sheets through with a face full of suspicion. “What’s this?” she cries; “Mr Fraser here, Mr Fraser there, and again Mr Fraser, and all at once he disappears as though he had never been!” I could not resolve to sacrifice the pages wrote at so much trouble, and telling, moreover, of such quiet happiness as I can’t look to see again; but be sure, my dearest friend, that nothing but the memory of the dreadful compact by which I bound myself to my Amelia, promising never to conceal from her any point soever, even the most intricate or delicate, of any transaction in which I should chance to engage, would lead me to disclose even to you the history of the past two months. I see you, when you read this, shake your head wisely, and cry, “Ah, I knew it—the old story, a devoted lover, a dutiful daughter, a hated elderly suitor in the background. Sure there’s nothing new nor strange here!” By no means, Amelia, but wait until you hear what I have to say.
After leaving the Cape of Good Hope, everything continued in the same agreeable course as before until we were past the island of St Johanne.[05] We had taken in water early in the day, and weighed anchor in good time, in order to avoid the dangerous reefs guarding the harbour, and in the evening we were sailing on an agreeable breeze which was sufficient to fill the sails, without making the ship heel over. (Pardon these nautical terms, my dear. They will come to my pen, even now.) Mr Fraser and I were sitting near the binnacle (which is an odd sort of stand on which the mariner’s compass is placed), and the Lieutenant was reckoning out very seriously how much time must elapse before he might decently ask for leave to visit his cousin at Calcutta, supposing that he found his ship in harbour when we arrived at Madrass, and was permitted to rejoin her. Having satisfied (or perhaps I should rather say dissatisfied) himself on this head, he asked whether he might have the honour of paying his respects to me at my papa’s house. To this I could say nothing but that it wasn’t for me to dictate to Mr Freyne what persons he should repulse from his doors; but Mr Fraser, seeming not to be content with this, seized my hand suddenly, and was vastly urgent with me to say whether it would cause me any pleasure should he come. The more warmly he demanded an answer, the more rigidly I refused one (for you know one can’t always yield to these fellows, my dear; their conceit is already so enormous), and he was going on to denounce me as a cruel coquette that lived but to torment him, when Miss Hamlin, who had been sitting upon the steps of the poop, drew near with Mr Ranger. I won’t deny that I considered her coming unnecessary, but I had no heart to think of that when once she began to speak.
“You was assisting Mr Fraser to reckon up the time that must pass before he visits Bengall, miss, was you not?” said she. “Now I would prophesy that the gentleman will arrive in Calcutta just in time for the wedding-day of the lovely and accomplished daughter of Henry Freyne, Esq.”
I would have given worlds not to blush, my Amelia; but the words were accompanied with so provoking and malicious a glance that I felt the traitorous red rise all over my face and neck. Miss Hamlin, marking it, smiled, and addressed herself to Mr Fraser.
“I fear, sir,” she said, “that Miss Freyne han’t exhibited to you the full merit of her conduct in undertaking this voyage to the Indies. You must know that she and I are not bent upon seeking pleasure for ourselves, but on laying out what my aunt Hamlin calls our fortunes to the best advantage. Our parents (or guardians) intend—and we are fully determined to second their efforts—to marry us to a couple of frightful old Nabobs, each with a face as yellow as his guineas, and a liver as large as his money-bags. Now pray, miss,” turning suddenly to me, “shriek out and fall into a fit at the indelicacy of my language; pray do!”
I was ready enough to faint, though not for that reason; but meeting her eye, I forced a smile, and she went on:—
“Sure you don’t know, sir, that Miss Freyne is of so provident a constitution that she has even brought her wedding clothes with her, like myself. Her wedding-suit is of silver tissue, and the dear creature has embroidered it with her own fair hands in wreaths of violets. Thus, you see, her native modesty exhibits itself in a transaction against which both her heart and her punctilio must revolt. Now my gown is of a light pink, worked so stiff (but not by my fingers, oh no!) with gold flowers that it would stand up of itself.”
“Pray, miss, how will these clothes interest Mr Fraser?” I asked, though I felt as if my lips and throat were parched with thirst.
“You should allow the gentleman to declare his want of interest for himself, miss. Shall we see you as bride-man at that wedding, sir? I would claim you as my partner if I were to be bride-maid; but Miss Freyne and I are resolved to deny ourselves that pleasure, since both could not enjoy it, and neither of us would be favoured at the expense of the other, and therefore we are to be married on the same day. You look pale, Mr Fraser. I fear I have wearied you. Perhaps, after all, you won’t be at the wedding? But you will—you must—be present when the happy pair first show themselves in church on the Sunday after. ’Twill be a sight not to be missed. Pray figure to yourself the fortunate spouse—shall we call him Mr Solmes, miss?—in his new laced clothes, making him look yellower than ever, handing in his lady, in the largest hoop and the richest lace and the finest diamonds in Calcutta! And Madam will pretend to hide her blushes with a fan painted all over with cupids, while the entire time she will be watching through the sticks to see what effect her clothes are producing on the other ladies of the congregation. Did you speak, miss?”
I think I had cried out to her to stop. I know I tried to rise, but she put her hand on my shoulder and kept me down. “Hold your tongue, miss,” she said in a whisper; “if you have to endure it, what harm can there be in speaking of it beforehand?”
I sat down again, but I had dropped my fan, and Mr Fraser restored it to me. His hand as it touched mine was cold, and he moved further away from me before he spoke, with difficulty, as it seemed to me.
“Sure, madam,” he said, “the friends of a lady of Miss Freyne’s high merits need have no fear as to her future course. If she’ll follow the dictates of her own heart, they will be found to be those of reason and virtue.”
“By no means, sir,” says Miss Hamlin, quickly. “The dictates of reason and virtue will be found to be those of Miss Freyne’s papa. Sure you are forgetting, as was pointed out to Miss Freyne and me before we embarked on this adventure, the huge sums of money which have been spent on our education, and which must be proved to have been put out at good interest. No, no, sir; we have the sad history of the divine Clarissa to warn us of the fate of an undutiful daughter, even though she behave so from the highest motives. The Lovelaces don’t have it all their own way nowadays. Miss Freyne will marry her Solmes, and with the air of a martyr will feel that she has done her duty.”
She laughed again, and beckoning to Mr Ranger with her fan, tripped away. I would have accompanied her