The Convict Ship, Volume 1 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

I have spoken of my uncle, William Johnstone, a lawyer, who lived in the neighbourhood of the Tower, and whose office was in his own dwelling-house. He, like my father, had but one child, Will Johnstone, that little fellow who was playing with me when my father died. Mr. Johnstone’s was a very comfortable house; it afterward passed into the hands of a chart-seller. His clients were nearly wholly composed of sea-going people. He was said to be very learned in maritime law; he was much consulted by masters and mates with grievances, and at his house, as at my father’s formerly, you’d meet few people who did not follow the ocean or did not do business with seafarers.

Mrs. Johnstone was three or four years older than her husband. She was a plain, homely, thoroughly good-hearted woman, incapable of an ill-natured thought; one of those few people who are content to be as God made them. During my mother’s brief married life with her second husband I was constantly with my aunt, and I believe I should have lived with her wholly but for my determination that my stepfather, the doctor, should not flatter himself he had sickened me out of my own home. Will was at this time at the Bluecoat School, laying in a stock of Latin and Greek for the fishes; for the lad was resolved to go to sea. His father, indeed, wished him to adopt that calling, and would say: ‘What is the good of a cargo of learning the whole of which will be thrown up overboard the first dirty night down Channel?’

When mother died, my aunt entreated me to live with her and leave the doctor alone in his glory. My answer was: No, I should not think of leaving my own home if my stepfather were out of it, and I was not to be driven out because he chose to stay. I had the power to turn him out, and should have done so but for the baby. The little one was my mother’s; I could not have turned a child of my mother’s out of a home that had been my mother’s. So I continued to live in the home that had come to me from my father. I occupied a set of rooms over the parlour-floor and took my meals in my own apartments, where I was attended by a maid who waited upon me and upon nobody else.

The child was called after my mother, and her name was mine—Marian. If in passing up or down stairs I met the little creature in its nurse’s arms, I would take it and kiss it, perhaps, and toss it a moment or two and then go my way. God forgive me, I could never bring myself to love that child. I never could think of it as my mother’s, but as Mr. Stanford’s. The sight, the sound of it would bring all my father into my heart, and I’d fall into a sort of passion merely in thinking that the memory of such a man should have been betrayed.

I dare say you will consider all this as an excess of loyalty in me. But loyal even to exaggeration my nature was to those I loved. It is no boast—merely a saying which this tale should justify.

After the death of my mother, the money paid to me through my trustees rose to an income of hard upon five hundred a year. I rejoice to say that Mr. Stanford got not one penny. My mother had been without the power to will away a farthing of what my father had left her. Otherwise I don’t doubt the doctor would have come off with something more substantial than a ten-month memory and my sullen toleration of his plate upon the door.

The equivalent in these times of five hundred a year would in those be about seven hundred; I was, therefore, a fortune and a fine, handsome young woman besides; and you will naturally ask: Had I any sweethearts, lovers, followers? To tell you the truth, I never gave men nor marriage a thought. I had friends in the neighbourhood, and I went among them, and I was also much at my aunt’s, and not very easily, therefore, to be caught at home by any gentleman with an eye to a fine girl and an independency. Add likewise to my visiting, a great love of solitary rambling. I’d take a boat at Wapping and pass nearly a whole day upon the river, stepping ashore, perhaps, at some convenient landing-stairs or stage for a meal, and then returning to the wherry. Ah, those were delicious jaunts! They stand next in my memory in sweetness and happiness to those father had carried me on. I made nothing of being alone, and nobody took any notice of me. I was affronted but once, and that was by a Wapping waterman who claimed that I had promised to use his boat, which was false. He was a poor creature, and nothing but the modesty of my sex hindered me from beating him with the short stout stick, silver-headed, with lead under the silver, that I always carried with me when I went alone. Another waterman whom I employed came up while the low fellow was slanging me, whipped off his coat like lightning and in five minutes blacked up both his opponent’s eyes. This was punishment enough, and I was satisfied; and, as a reward, paid the chivalrous man double fare and made a point to hire his boat afterwards.

Or I would take my passage in a Calais steamer, land at Gravesend, or perhaps higher up, and wander about, perfectly happy in being alone, and with eyes and thoughts for nothing but the beauties of the country and the bright scene of the river. Often I was away for two and three days together; but on these occasions I always chose an inn where I was known, where I could depend upon the comfort of the entertainment and the security of the house; where the landlady would welcome me as a friend, and provide me for the night with such little conveniences as I had left my home without. Everything was caprice with me in those days. I did what I liked, went where I liked, knew no master. My aunt once or twice, in her mild way, questioned the propriety of a young woman acting as I did, but my uncle stood up for me, pointed out that my blood was full of the old roaming instincts of my father; that I was quite old enough and strong enough to take care of myself; that what I did was my notion of enjoyment, and that I was in the right to be happy.

‘Keep on the wing while you can,’ said he. ‘Some of these days a big chap called a husband will come along, with a pair of shears in his hand, and the rest will be short farmyard hops.’

On the other hand, my stepfather professed to be scandalised by my conduct. He marched into my room one day, after I had spent the night alone at Gravesend, and asked leave to have a serious talk with me. But, on his beginning to tell me that I was not acting with that sort of decorum, with that regard to social observances, which is always expected and looked for in a young lady, I walked out of the room. He then addressed a long letter to me. His drift was still decorum and social observances, and what would his patients think. I thought of my father and how he would deal with this fellow, who was daring enough to teach me how to conduct myself, and in a passion I tore the letter in halves, slipped the pieces into an envelope, on which I wrote, ‘Your advice is as objectionable as your company,’ and bade my maid put the letter on the table of the room in which he received his patients.