I read the letter again. I paced the room as though I had gone mad. My maid put the breakfast on the table, but I could not look at food. Why, how could I be sure of my ever meeting Tom again, of my ever seeing him or hearing of him, indeed, if I did not go out in the same ship with him, if I was not certain that he was not one of the convicts on board?
How was this to be done? I bitterly well knew that no passengers were received in Government felon transports? Could I obtain a berth in the Childe Harold as stewardess? Was there any sort of post aboard her that I, as a woman, was qualified to fill?
Whilst I thus thought, half distracted by the hurry and confusion my mind was in, I stopped at the window and, looking out, saw a young sailor walking on the pavement opposite. He was dressed in pilot cloth and a cloth cap, and was a very pretty lad; perhaps sixteen years old; something girlish in his looks, however, his hair being of a pale gold, his figure thin and his face without colour. He came to a stand, with his face my way, and laughed at something that was happening under my window; perhaps a dog fight, but I was too full of thought to take notice of the noise of the curs. My eye dwelt upon the pretty lad with a sort of pleasure. He looked up and saw me, and kissed his hand, but so girlishly and childishly that, though I instantly drew back, I did not somehow feel offended. When I peered again he was gone.
All on a sudden an extraordinary idea entered my head. It had been put into it by the sight of that girlish-looking sailor lad. I set off pacing the room afresh, frowning, talking aloud to myself, halting to smite my hands together.
‘It is to be done!’ I kept on thinking. ‘It will be the surest and the only way! Why did not I think of it at once?’
And then I placed myself opposite a long glass that reached to the floor and surveyed my figure, turning myself on this side and then on that. My eyes shone. My cheeks were as full of colour as though I had been burnt by the sun. I lifted my dress to clear my ankles, and stepped backward and forward before the mirror, imitating as best I could the peculiar rolling gait I had always admired in Tom.
I had arranged with my cousin to take a plain dinner with me at one o’clock, and we were then to take a turn in the West End. But for this having been settled, I must have sought him at his house at once, and traced him to wherever he might have gone, so crazy was I with the eagerness and hope my extraordinary, startling idea had raised in me. I could not bear to sit alone; never did time pass so slowly; I’d look at the clock and find that only a few minutes had passed, when I could swear that half an hour was gone.
I put on my hat and walked toward Whitechapel, and paused at the window of every marine outfitter’s shop I came to. From one of these shops a black-looking fellow with a great hooked nose and a white hat stepped forth and accosted me in a thick lisp. He asked me what I would like to buy. I pointed to a monkey jacket in his window, and inquired the price. He said I should have it, a bargain, and named four pounds. I was moving on, when he begged me not to be in a hurry. Would I give three pounds ten shillings? I told him that I did not wish to buy; he followed me a considerable distance, lisping first in one ear and then in the other:
‘Vhat vould you give? Vould you give three pounds? Vould you give fifty bob and an old dress? Have you any old shilver to exchange or shell?’
He quitted me at last; but though I looked into other outfitters’ shops, I asked no more questions.