With that she left me, and I sat up to write this. But here I must cease, for my candle is burning low in its socket, and Miss Hamlin has just tapped again at my door to ask me whether I desire to make my last night in Britain memorable by setting the inn afire.
Hon. Co.’s Ship Orford, off Hastings, Nov. ye 28th.
I am adding these few last lines in lead pencil to my great pacquet in haste, since Mr Fraser assures me that once past Beachy Head we shall find ourselves in rough water. I can’t at present call myself indisposed, though I am not quite at my ease, as I ought to be, since Mr Fraser says the wind is so light as to be almost a calm. The space on board is very much confined, particularly since the decks are still lumbered up with all kinds of packages, but I learn that these will before long be stowed away below. Pray, my dear friend, pardon these seaman’s phrases. My head is too confused to remember the correct terms. You would smile to see how we are all lodged here, the gentlemen in the great cabin, on shelves like those in a draper’s shop, and only large enough to hold a small mattress, and we in another apartment, similarly furnished. There are two ladies on board besides ourselves, but neither of them young, and both married, and about a dozen gentlemen. I had intended to write something of the day and a half since we left Deal, but find that the end of my paper is all but reached. You shall receive a long letter by the first opportunity that offers of sending one. Adieu, my dearest, dearest Emily.[12] Rest assured that you was ever in my thoughts from the moment of our parting.
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.