Читать книгу Blenden Hall - John Gilbert Lockhart - Страница 6
ОглавлениеTHE START
The next day was Sunday, May 6th.
‘We had nearly finished breakfast when a gun from the ship announced that the hour of departure had arrived, and in a few minutes we were all on board. She seemed in excellent condition, and the crew as fine a set of men as I had ever seen.’
The first business was settling in. Alexander had sent on his servant in advance with his heavy luggage, and his cabin, a roomy one on the larboard side of the quarterdeck, was in excellent order. Nowadays, when we go aboard a liner, we expect to find our quarters fully furnished, but in an East Indiaman the first-class passenger was required to bring, in addition to bedding, a sofa (or two chairs), a table and a washstand. Alexander tells us that he was delighted with the appearance of his cabin, and particularly with the display of books, fowling-pieces and telescopes which were the parting gift of his grandfather in Scotland. Never, he reflected, had a young man set out on his adventures better equipped. His father had dealt generously with him in the matter of outfit, his mother had added scores of trifling luxuries, and—most precious of all in his eyes—he had letters of introduction to all sorts of distinguished people in India who were going to make his fortune for him almost as soon as he got there.
The party from Gravesend had not been long on board before the ship got under way and dropped down the river. On Tuesday the 8th she arrived in the Downs, where, coming eventually to an anchor off Deal, she embarked the remainder of the passengers.
Deal was the Marseilles of 1821. A passenger who postponed joining his ship until she was in the Downs could always snatch an extra two or three days, and sometimes an extra two or three weeks, on shore; for an outward bound ship would frequently be held up in the Downs for a considerable time while waiting for a favourable wind. It is true that the postponement had its drawbacks for the passenger. The Deal boatman of to-day is an honest enough fellow, but in 1821 he was often a thoroughgoing rascal. If it was a calm day and trade was slack, he would row you out to your ship for five shillings. But if boats were scarce, and there was an onshore wind and a rising sea, and you were obviously in a hurry, the boatman might extort as much as five guineas for the trip. And what could you do but pay? There you were on the beach; and there, in the offing, was your ship, signalling shorewards her imminent departure; and there was the representative of an exceedingly close corporation demanding the money, if not with menaces, at least with pointed remarks on the danger of delay. So, as a rule and under protest, you paid, and the boatman, who was probably a smuggler in his spare time, took some easy money. Indeed, as we shall see, he sometimes took more than that. Which brings us at once to the episode of Lieutenant Painter, whom we recognise without much difficulty as Lieutenant Pepper, of the Company’s Marine Service, the author of the article on the Blenden Hall in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. (The article, for reasons which will be obvious, contains no record of the episode; we must look for that to Alexander’s more scandalous pen.)
Painter, as we shall call him, had joined the Blenden Hall at Gravesend ‘as a single man.’ He was a blunt, friendly, humorous little fellow, rather under five feet in height, who stepped at once into the good graces of his fellow-passengers. When the ship arrived in the Downs, several of them, including Painter, expressing a wish to go ashore, Captain Greig ordered the cutter to be manned for them. An hour was fixed at which they were to meet the boat and return to the ship, and when the time came everyone was present except the little Lieutenant. After giving him reasonable grace, the others pushed off back to the ship without him. Two days passed without a sign of the missing passenger. The Blenden Hall, meanwhile, had worked a little farther down the coast and was off Deal. Still there was no news of Painter, and the Captain began to be anxious for his safety. On the morning of the third day, however, a boat came alongside with a letter. It was from Painter to the Captain. He apologised for his long absence and explained his silence on the ground that he ‘really had not found a moment’s spare time to write, having been most actively engaged, not only in commencing, but in actually terminating, a courtship.’ He added that he hoped to join the ship before dinner that very day, and would then do himself the honour of introducing his bride to the Captain and passengers. He concluded with a request to be provided with a larger cabin, in which he might, to use his own words, ‘stow away his better half.’
We may picture the sensation which such a message created among the already news-hungry passengers of the Blenden Hall. Here they were, only a few days out and still within sight of England, and a promising scandal was already beginning to shape. As the dinner-hour approached the excitement became intense; and when a boat drew near to the ship and signalled that she wished to board, all the passengers were assembled on deck. ‘A chair was lowered into the boat, the boatswain piped, and after the lovely burthen had remained a moment suspended in the air, she was safely deposited on the quarterdeck.’ Her happy husband, meanwhile, had skipped nimbly up a ladder and was ready to hand her out of her chair.
Alexander’s first impression of the lady was very favourable. She was a fine Juno-esque creature, nearly six feet in height, so that beside her diminutive husband she must have resembled a full-rigged ship in the escort of a cutter. Alexander hastened to shake Painter’s hand, to wish him joy, and to congratulate him on his excellent taste. For a reward he was at once introduced to the lady, who ‘gave me so cordial a salute that she seemed anxious to repay me tenfold for the reception I had given her husband.’ Then, after telling Alexander archly that he was ‘a great quiz,’ she caught her beaming bridegroom by the arm and said, “Come, little Painter, let me see this fine cabin of yours.” There were suppressed titters from the company. ‘Little Painter’ the poor man became from that moment; and we may guess that the wit of the male passengers ran to ribaldry from Alexander’s rather priggish remark that ‘many jokes followed at the expense of the Lieutenant, in which I must confess I felt little inclination to indulge.’
With those few words from bride to bridegroom, half of the truth was out. That air, that accent, that language, those clothes! There was no possibility, no hope—or fear—of error: Mrs. Painter was not a lady! Heaven alone knew where the little wretch had picked her up, what her parentage might be, or her past. The fact remained that they were condemned to months and months of her company. It was a trick in the worst possible taste to play upon a crowd of helpless and unsuspecting passengers at the very outset of the voyage. We may guess that the ladies—such as they were—who until now had been eyeing each other rather doubtfully, were at once drawn into a momentary alliance by the prospect; very much as the occupants of a crowded railway compartment quell their mutual resentments and close their ranks when another and plainly undesirable intruder forces his or her way in among them.
But if the passengers had qualms, the happy bridegroom as yet had none. Mrs. Painter had a firm grip of his arm and was hurrying him off to his cabin. Not a whit embarrassed by her talk or her manner, he vanished roaring with laughter.
It was not long before the curiosity of the passengers over the identity of Lieutenant Painter’s bride was fully gratified. Two boatmen from Deal had rowed the couple out from the ship, and one of these men had followed Painter up the side and on to the quarterdeck, where he stood his ground after his passengers had disappeared. Alexander wondered what business the man could have on so privileged a spot, but supposed he must be waiting to be paid off; a conclusion which was evidently shared by the officer of the watch, who allowed the man to remain there for some minutes unquestioned.
‘As it did not seem probable that the Lieutenant would return very soon, the officer asked the boatman why he stood there. The old man replied, “Why, I only want to say good-bye to Bet; but I suppose the gold swab[1] has already turned her brain.” From this I inferred that he was related to the lady, and immediately stopped short and enquired if Mrs. Painter had been long in Deal. “Long?” repeated the old man; “why, woman and child, she has never been farther out of it than she is now, and I’d just as leave she never was, for she seems already to have forgotten her old father. But,” continued he, much affected, “she’s no occasion to be ashamed of her father: I’ve been a boatman here these fifty years and brought up a large family respectably, as Captain Greig well knows.” Here he was interrupted by the voice of the Lieutenant calling him by name, yet hesitating to approach, as he saw him surrounded by so many, several having joined us out of mere curiosity.
‘Not knowing whether to advance or retire, the Lieutenant evinced the greatest possible mortification; indeed, his confusion increased even to a pitiable extent when the old man advanced, holding out one hand to bid him farewell, while with the other he presented a purse of money, saying at the same time, “Give the money to the Captain yourself, Mr. Painter,[2] and God bless you, Sir. I trust you will behave kind to Bet and hope she will sometimes write to her old mother.” Here the poor old man’s voice became almost inarticulate, and as the Lieutenant’s cabin was in front of the deck, on the larboard side, his wife could not only hear, but see through the Venetian blinds, the grief of her aged parent. Stung with remorse at her unnatural conduct, and her better feelings overcoming her ridiculous vanity, she rushed upon the quarterdeck and, throwing her arms round her father’s neck, sobbed aloud. Most of the passengers now retired; for though they were amused at the commencement of the scene, they could no longer remain to witness its painful termination.’
| [1] | A gold epaulet. As we might say, ‘a brass hat.’ |
| [2] | Apparently his daughter’s passage money, which we might suppose Painter himself would have paid. |
