Chapter Seventeen.
I was soon in the high road, and clear of the town of Chatham. As my object was that it should not be supposed that I had been there, I made all the haste I could to increase my distance; I therefore walked on in the direction of Gravesend, where I arrived about ten o’clock. A return chaise offered to take me to Greenwich for a few shillings, and before morning dawned I had gained the metropolis.
I lost no time in inquiring when the coaches started for Portsmouth, and found that I was in plenty of time, as one set off at nine o’clock.
Much as I wished to see London, my curiosity gave way to what I considered the necessity of my immediate return to the frigate. At seven o’clock in the evening I arrived at Portsmouth; I hastened down, jumped into a wherry, and was on board of the frigate again by eight.
It may be imagined that my sudden and unexpected appearance caused no little surprise. Indeed, the first lieutenant considered it right to send the gig on shore at that late hour to apprise the captain of my return, and Bob Cross had just time to give me a wring of the hand before he jumped into the boat, and went away to make the report.
I gave a history of my adventures to the officers, leaving them, however, to suppose that I had never been to Chatham, but had gone up to London in the merchant vessel.
Pearson, the boatswain’s mate, came to make inquiries about his wife; and, soon after, Bob Cross came on board with the captain’s orders, that I should go on shore to him in the gig on the following morning.
I wished very much to consult Bob Cross previous to my seeing the captain. I told him so, and he agreed to meet me on the gangway about ten o’clock, as by that time the officers would be almost all in bed, and there would be less chance of interruption.
It was a fine, clear night, and as soon as we found ourselves alone I narrated to him, in a low voice, all that had taken place, and gave him the contents of the letter which I had taken possession of. I then asked him what he thought I ought to do, now that I was certain of being the son of the captain.
“Why, Master Keene, you have done it very cleverly, that’s the truth; and that letter, which is as good as a certificate from Captain Delmar, must be taken great care of. I hardly know where it ought to be put, but I think the best thing will be for me to sew it in a seal-skin pouch that I have, and then you can wear it round your neck, and next your skin; for, as you say, you and that must never part company. But, Master Keene, you must be silent as death about it. You have told me, and I hope I may be trusted, but trust nobody else. As to saying or hinting anything to the captain, you mustn’t think of it; you must go on as before, as if you knew nothing, for if he thought you had the letter in your possession he would forget you were his son, and perhaps hate you. He never would have been induced to acknowledge you under his own hand as his son had he not thought that you were dead and gone, as everybody else did; so behave just as respectful and distant as before. It’s only in some great emergency that that letter will do you any good, and you must reserve it in case of need. If your mother is suspicious, why, you must blind her. Your granny will swear that it was your ghost; your mother may think otherwise, but cannot prove it; she dare not tell the captain that she suspects you have the letter, and it will all blow over after a cruise or two.”
I agreed to follow the advice of Bob Cross, as I saw it was good, and we parted for the night.
The next morning I went on shore to the captain, who received me, very stiffly, with, “Mr Keene, you have had a narrow escape. How did you get back?”
I replied, that the vessel which picked me up was bound to London and that I had taken the coach down.
“Well, I never had an idea that we should have seen you again and I have written to your mother, acquainting her with your loss.”
“Have you, sir?” replied I; “it will make her very unhappy.”
“Of course it will; but I shall write by this post, stating that you have been so fortunately preserved.”
“Thanky, sir,” replied I; “have you any further orders, sir?”
“No, Mr Keene; you may go on board and return to your duty.”
I made my bow, and quitted the room; went down below, and found Bob Cross waiting for me.
“Well?” said he, as we walked away.
“Stiff as ever,” replied I: “told me to go on board and ’tend to my duty.”
“Well, I knew it would be so,” replied Bob; “it’s hard to say what stuff them great nobs are made of. Never mind that; you’ve your own game to play, and your own secret to keep.”
“His secret,” replied I, biting my lips, “to keep or to tell, as may happen.”
“Don’t let your vexation get the better of you, Master Keene; you’ve the best of it, if you only keep your temper; let him play his cards, and you play yours. As you know his cards and he don’t know yours, you must win the game in the end—that is, if you are commonly prudent.”
“You are right, Cross,” replied I; “but you forget that I am but a boy.”
“You are but a boy, Master Keene, but you’ve no fool’s head on your shoulders.”
“I hope not,” replied I; “but here we are at the boat.”
“Yes; and, as I live, here’s Peggy Pearson. Well, Peggy, how did you like your cruise with Master Keene?”
“If I ever go on another, I hope he will be my companion. Master Keene, will you allow me to go on board with you to see my husband?”
“Oh, yes, Peggy,” replied Cross; “the first lieutenant would not refuse you after what has happened, nor Captain Delmar either, stiff as he is: for, although he never shows it, he don’t want feeling. Jim will be glad to see you, Peggy; you haven’t an idea how he took on, when he heard of your loss. He borrowed a pocket-handkerchief from the corporal of marines.”
“I suspect he’d rather borrow a bottle of rum from the purser,” replied Peggy.
“Recollect, Peggy,” said I, holding up my finger.
“Mr Keene, I do recollect; I pledge you my word that I have not tasted a drop of spirits since we parted—and that with a sovereign in my pocket.”
“Well, only keep to it—that’s all.”
“I will, indeed, Mr Keene; and, what’s more, I shall love you as long as I live.”
We pulled on board in the gig, and Peggy was soon in the arms of her husband. As Pearson embraced her at the gangway—for he could not help it—the first lieutenant very kindly said, “Pearson, I shan’t want you on deck till after dinner: you may go below with your wife.”
“Now, may God bless you, for a cross-looking, kind-hearted gentleman,” said Peggy to the first lieutenant.
Peggy was as good as her word to me; she gave such an account of my courage and presence of mind, of her fears and at last of her getting tipsy—of my remaining at the helm and managing the boat all night by myself, that I obtained great reputation among the ship’s company, and it was all reported to the officers, and worked its way until it came from the first lieutenant to the captain, and from the captain to the port admiral. This is certain, that Peggy Pearson did do me a good service, for I was no longer looked upon as a mere youngster, who had just come to sea, and who had not been tried.
“Well, sir,” said Bob Cross, a day or two afterwards, “it seems, by Peggy Pearson’s report, that you’re not frightened at a trifle.”
“Peg Pearson’s report won’t do me much good.”
“You ought to know better, Master Keene, than to say that; a mouse may help a lion, as the fable says.”
“Where did you learn all your fables, Cross?”
“I’ll tell you; there’s a nice little girl that used to sit on my knee and read her fables to me, and I listened to her because I loved her.”
“And does she do so now?”
“Oh, no; she’s too big for that—she’d blush up to the temples; but never mind the girl or the fables. I told you that Peggy had reported your conduct, as we say in the service. Now do you know, that this very day I heard the first lieutenant speaking of it to the captain, and you’ve no idea how proud the captain looked, although he pretended to care nothing about it; I watched him, and he looked as much as to say, ‘that’s my boy.’”
“Well, if that pleases him, I’ll make him prouder yet of me, if I have the opportunity,” replied I.
“That you will, Master Keene, if I’m any judge of fizonomy; and that’s the way to go to a parent’s heart: make him feel proud of you.”
I did not forget this, as the reader will eventually discover.
I had written to my mother, giving her a long account of my adventures, but not saying a word of my having been at Chatham. I made her suppose, as I did the captain, that I had been carried up to London. My letter reached her the day after the one announcing my safety, written to her by Captain Delmar.
She answered me by return of post, thanking Heaven for my preservation, and stating how great had been her anguish and misery at my supposed loss. In the latter part of the letter was this paragraph:—
“Strange to say, on the night of the 16th, when I was on my bed in tears, having but just received the news of your loss, your grandmother went downstairs, and declares that she saw you or your ghost in the little back parlour. At all events, I found her insensible on the floor, so that she must have seen something. She might have been frightened at nothing; and yet I know not what to think, for there are circumstances which almost make me believe that somebody was in the house. I presume you can prove an alibi.”
That my mother had been suspicious, perhaps more than suspicious, from the disappearance of the letter, I was convinced. When I replied to her, I said:—
“My alibi is easily proved by applying to the master and seamen of the vessel on board of which I was. Old granny must have been frightened at her own shadow: the idea of my coming to your house, and having left it without seeing you is rather too absurd; granny must have invented the story, because she hates me, and thought to make you do the same.”
Whatever my mother may have thought, she did not again mention the subject. I had, however, a few days afterwards, a letter from my aunt Milly, in which she laughingly told the same story of granny swearing that she had seen me or my ghost. “At first we thought it was your ghost, but since a letter from Captain Delmar to your mother has been missing, it is now imagined that you have been here, and have taken possession of it. You will tell me, my dearest Percival, I’m sure, if you did play this trick to granny, or not; you know you may trust me with any of your tricks.”
But I was not in this instance to be wheedled by my aunt. I wrote in return, saying how much I was amazed at my grandmother telling such fibs, and proved to her most satisfactorily that I was in London at the time they supposed I might have been at Chatham.
That my aunt had been requested by my mother to try to find out the truth, I was well convinced: but I felt my secret of too much importance to trust either of them and from that time the subject was never mentioned; and I believe it was at last surmised that the letter might have been destroyed accidentally or purposely by the maid-servant, and that my grandmother had been frightened at nothing at all—an opinion more supported, as the maid, who had taken advantage of my mother’s retiring to her room, and had been out gossiping, declared that she had not left the premises three minutes, and not a soul could have come in. Moreover, it was so unlikely that I could have been in Chatham without being recognised by somebody.
My grandmother shook her head, and said nothing during all this canvassing of the question; but my aunt Milly declared that I never would have been at Chatham without coming to see her. And it was her opinion that the servant girl had read the letter when left on the table, and had taken it out to show to her associates; and somebody who wished to have a hold upon my mother by the possession of the letter had retained it.
I think my mother came to that opinion at last, and it was the source of much uneasiness to her. She dared not say a word to Captain Delmar, and every day expected to have an offer made of returning the letter, upon a certain sum being paid down. But the offer was never made, as the letter had been sewed up by Bob Cross in the piece of seal-skin, and was worn round my neck with a ribbon, with as much care as if it had been a supposed bit of the wood of the true cross, possessed by some old female Catholic devotee.
But long before all these discussions were over, H.M. ship Calliope had been ordered to sail, and was steering down the Channel before a smart breeze.