I answered that my father was a true man and would always wish me to be a true woman. My father was not a man to oblige me to betray and desert Tom because a dreadful trouble had come upon the poor fellow; and here I cried a little.
‘Still, my dear, Captain Butler is a convict,’ said my aunt. ‘I wish to say nothing about his guilt or innocence, but he wears felon’s clothes, he is loaded with irons; he lives with the scum of the nation——’
‘And, guilty or innocent, he is irrecoverably disgraced,’ broke in my uncle.
‘Why did you undertake his defence, then?’ I cried.
‘A man is innocent till he is proved guilty,’ answered my uncle. ‘By the logic of the law I undertook the defence of a guiltless person.’
This enraged me. It was like burning or cruelly wounding or torturing me in any savage way to speak ill of Tom or to cast a doubt upon his innocence.
The quarrel was put an end to by my uncle walking out of the room. I stayed a little, wishing to cool down that I might say good-bye with grace and heart, with something indeed of the real love and gratitude I felt; for I knew when I said farewell it would be for the last time. But my aunt was cold and vexed; she resented several things I had said in the heat of the quarrel; she took my kiss lifelessly, and I went out of the room. On the landing I paused; I longed to return and kiss her warmly and seek my uncle, that this parting might have the tenderness my heart longed for, now that my passion was ended; but I said to myself: ‘No, they may suspect a final leave-taking in my behaviour,’ and so I stepped into the street and drove home.
I had told my maid I was going abroad, and next day I paid her and gave her a substantial gift in money over and above her wages, and she left me, crying. I grieved to part with her. She was a good and faithful girl, and would have been glad to go with me anywhere, even to the other side of the world.
Five days before the ship was to haul alongside the hulk I went to Woolwich, and took a lodging as close to the river as the respectable accommodation of that dirty town permitted. I hired two rooms for the week. The landlady asked no questions. She was satisfied with my paying for the lodgings in advance. After I had engaged those rooms, I crossed the river afresh and returned to Stepney to fetch a little trunk. I was to be a stowaway, and of all ocean travellers the stowaway is the one who sails with the fewest effects. A hackney coach stood at the door to convey me to Blackwall. I carried my little box downstairs and put it with my own hand into the coach. I then returned and stood awhile in my room thinking. The walls and tables were stripped of all that I cherished. The room looked somewhat bare. I slowly cast my eyes around and thought of the past. I conjured up my father and mother. I recalled my early life, my lonely holiday trips, much of what I had felt and suffered. I then knelt down and prayed, rose and, going to the wall, kissed it, and, with dry eyes but with a sobbing heart, departed.
Whether Mr. Stanford saw me or not I am unable to say. He did not appear, nor did I catch a sight of him at his window.