Chapter Sixty Three.
Ralph finds everywhere great changes—Gives way to his feelings, and makes a fool of himself—This chapter will be found either the worst or the best of Ralph’s confessions, according to the feelings of the reader.
Having stayed one week at Sheerness, and laid down my plan of future action, I started in the passage boat for Chatham. There was not much room for recumbency. I found it, however, and placed the only luggage that I had, a small parcel, covered with brown paper, under my head as a pillow. The parcel contained my logs, and my certificates, and a single change of linen. Very providentially, I had placed my pay-ticket, with my bank notes, in my pocket-book.
Once, as I opened my eyes at the explosion of an oath more loud than usual, methought I saw the sudden and white-complexioned face of Joshua Daunton hanging closely over mine. I started up, and rubbed my eyes, but the vision had fled. I was determined to be watchful; and, with this determination in full activity, I again fell asleep; nor was I once more properly awakened until we had arrived at Chatham. When I had roused myself up, to my consternation, I discovered that my pillow was nowhere to be found. Many of the passengers had already gone their ways, and those who remained knew nothing about me or my packet. Indeed, I only drew suspicions on myself, as my paucity of baggage and the pretensions of my dress were decidedly at variance. The gentleman in top-boots and with the brown paper parcel seemed ridiculous enough. Seeing how ineffectual noise was, I held my peace, now that I had nothing else to hold; got on the outside of the first coach for London; and, by ten at night, I found myself in the coffee-room of the White Horse, in Fetter Lane.
The next morning, when I arose, it was my birthday, the 14th of February; and I stood at mine inn, a being perfectly isolated. But I was not idle; on descending into the coffee-room, I procured the Court Guide; but my most anxious scrutiny could discover no such person among the baronets as Sir Reginald Rattlin. Paying my bill, I next went to Somerset House, and drew my pay; I then repaired to the aristocratic mansion of Lord Whiffledale, in Grosvenor Square. “Not at home,” and “in the country for some time,” were the surly answers of the indolent porter.
It was a day of disappointments. The lawyer who cashed my bills was civil and constrained. To all my entreaties first, and to my leading questions afterwards, he gave me cold and evasive answers. He told me he had received no further instructions concerning me; reiterated his injunctions that I should not endanger the present protection that I enjoyed, by endeavouring to explore what it was the intention of those on whom I depended to keep concealed; and he finally wished me a good morning, and was almost on the point of handing me out of his office.
But I would not be so repelled. I became impassioned and loud; nor would I depart until he assured me, on his honour, that he knew almost as little of the secret as myself, and that he was only the agent of an agent, never having yet had any communication with the principal, whose name, even, he assured me, he did not know.
I had now nearly exhausted the day. The intermingling mists of the season and the heavy smoke of the town were now shrouding the streets in a dense obscurity. There were no gas lights then. Profoundly ignorant of the intricacy of the streets of the metropolis, I was completely at the mercy of the hackney-coachmen, and they made me buy it extremely dear. Merely from habit, I again repaired to the White Horse, and concluded my nineteenth natal day in incertitude, solitude, and misery.