CHAPTER XV
SHE TAKES A LODGING AT WOOLWICH
This gave me exactly a fortnight in which to prepare for my departure, for now it was settled that the Childe Harold was to drop alongside H.M.S. Warrior on November 12, receive her cargo of convicts next day, then to proceed to Gravesend, where the crew would come on board, and then head direct for the Antipodes. What arrangements had I to make, do you ask? First, as to the disposal of my home. I had sometimes thought of selling it, conceiving that if Tom lived to regain his liberty he would abhor a country from which he had been inhumanly and unjustly expelled, and settle abroad. But on reflection I made up my mind to keep the house, knowing that it was always very saleable property should I wish to convert it into money.
So, a day or two after Will and I had come to a thorough understanding and everything was arranged so far as human foresight could provide, I sent my maid downstairs to request Mr. Stanford to see me. He came, and I opened my business with him at once without any needless civilities.
‘I am going abroad, Mr. Stanford,’ said I. ‘I am going to leave England, and I make you an offer of this whole house, furnished,’ and I named a price by the year.
He wished to question me as to where I was going and how long I would be absent; but my behaviour soon forced him to swallow his curiosity and to confine himself to the question of the hire of the house. It ended in his agreeing to take the house off my hands on my own terms, and that same day I got Mr. Woolfe to draw up an agreement which Mr. Stanford and I signed. I then wrote to my trustees to inform them that I was about to leave the country and gave them instructions as to the receipt of the rent from Mr. Stanford and the payment of my income. The plate and many cherished objects which had come to me from my father and mother were packed and sent to my bank.
I recount all this in a plain, sober-headed way, but let me tell you, it was a time of wild and frightful excitement to me. I had a hundred things to think of, a hundred stratagems to practise. I gave money to Will to procure a stock of food for hiding warily by degrees in the black lodging I was to occupy under the forecastle. He found he could not manage single-handed. Though he was an apprentice in the ship and had a right to go on board whenever he thought proper, his services were not required until the vessel was equipped and ready to drop down to Woolwich. He feared he would be noticed and then watched, if he was seen frequently to enter the forecastle, and it ended in his bribing a rigger, who was a brother of one of the crew of the Childe Harold during her last voyage, to help him to store water bottled for me to drink whilst I was in hiding. The man asked no questions, my cousin told me; he merely grinned when he said that the stowaway was an old schoolfellow of his, whose father had failed in business, and he grinned again when Will tipped him two sovereigns.
For my part I was wholly fearless when I looked forward. My heart beat high. I had but two anxieties: One lest my uncle Johnstone should discover what I was about and stop me by warning the captain of the Childe Harold; the other lest Tom at the last should be detained on board the hulk for a later ship. For this latter difficulty I had provided with Will. But as to my uncle and aunt, I told them plainly that I was going out to Tasmania, and that I only waited to learn that Tom was on board the Childe Harold to follow him by the first ship. You will suppose that neither of them had the slightest suspicion that my ship was to be Tom’s convict ship herself. How could such an idea enter their heads unless Will blabbed, which he had taken his oath not to do? Mr. Johnstone could never dream that I meant to dress myself up as a boy and hide under the Childe Harold’s forecastle.
One night, and that was the last I spent at his house near the Tower, he talked of my resolution to follow Tom till we rose to high words. Will was out, or I dare say my temper might have brought him to side with his father and mother, which would have raised a feeling between us, and ruined my hopes so far as he went. Mr. Johnstone said he thanked God I was no girl of his. He thanked God his only child was a boy. What would my father, if he were alive, think of my following the fortunes of a convict?