INSIDE THE CHANNEL
That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's character. It
was not for himself alone that he was so particular, or, as many would
call it, fidgety, to have every thing done properly; for if any thing
came to his knowledge which he thought unfair to any one, it concerned
him almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self.
Through this he had fallen into many troubles, for his impressions were
not always accurate; but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife
said, “the Major could not help it.” The leading journals of the various
places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
suffered in purse by doing so. But the Major always said, “Ventilate it,
ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public opinion to bear on it.”
And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was her husband to whom belonged
the whole credit of this new and spirited use of the fine word
“ventilation.”
As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to say
that the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated that, as
well as his general briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry
in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent
intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was
pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this
he did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the
ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so
he was, though he had his faults; but his faults were such as we approve
of.
But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And whatever
she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to keep up with him.
She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year, and a great deal prettier
because she never tried to look younger. Silver hair, and gentle eyes,
and a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely
imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind expression of interest in whatever was
spoken of, with a quiet voice and smile, and a power of not saying too
much at a time, combined to make this lady pleasant.
Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her care;
and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society of Suan Isco
and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to amend, which
she did by example and without reproof. She shielded me also in the
cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon, which at first was
very trying. For the Bridal Veil being a well-known ship both for swift
passages and for equipment, almost every berth was taken, and when
the weather was calm, quite a large assembly sat down to dinner. Among
these, of course, were some ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve
and self-consciousness, and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for
many a long and searching gaze. My own wish had been not to dine thus in
public; but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the former
having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to her
management. His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--which was
not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did not interfere;
and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed all perception
of glances. And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met them with an obtuse
obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was settled that nothing
could be done about “Miss Wood.”
It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled shed
of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and called
“Miss Wood,” like almost anybody else. I refused to entertain such a
very poor idea, and clung to the name which had always been mine--for
my father would never depart from it--and I even burst into tears, which
would, I suppose, be called “sentimental;” but still the stern fact
stared me in the face--I must go as “Miss Wood,” or not go at all. Upon
this Major Hockin had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move
him from his resolution.
Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon it, and
even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty, his
own stern sense of right came in and sided with my prayers to him.
And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my youth and sex, but a
knowledge that I was in good hands, and an inborn, perhaps “Puritanical”
faith, that the Lord of all right would see to me.
The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from Uncle
Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree differs from a
great spreading king of the woods. He was not without a strict sense of
religion, especially when he had to march men to church; and he never
even used a bad word, except when wicked facts compelled him. When
properly let alone, and allowed to nurse his own opinions, he had a
respectable idea that all things were certain to be ordered for the
best; but nothing enraged him so much as to tell him that when things
went against him, or even against his predictions.
It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most adverse
view of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest haste, and
with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was the most
generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of his genus. And
in my little case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts
were against me. “Fact” was his favorite word, and one which he always
used with great effect, for nobody knows very well what it means, as it
does not belong to our language. And so when he said that the facts were
against me, who was there to answer that facts are not truth?
This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself,
but through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to speak of the
things that lay close at my heart to him, though I knew that he must be
aware of them. And he, like a gentleman, left me to begin. I could often
see that he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his
opinion, which would only have turned me against him, and irritated him,
perhaps, with me. And having no home in England, or, indeed, I might
say, any where, I was to live with the Major and his wife, supposing
that they could arrange it so, until I should discover relatives.
We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly; and I
thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious
northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have no idea in what
latitude, though the passengers now talked quite like seamen, at least
till the sea got up again. However, at last we made the English Channel,
in the dreary days of November, and after more peril there than any
where else, we were safely docked at Southampton. Here the Major was met
by two dutiful daughters, bringing their husbands and children, and I
saw more of family life (at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to
observe before; and although there were many little jars and brawls and
cuts at one another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some
brothers and sisters to quarrel with.
But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched time
in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in the very
worst of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of the water, and
the dreary flatness of the land around (after the glorious heaven-clad
heights, which made me ashamed of littleness), also the rough, stupid
stare of the men, when I went about as an American lady may freely do in
America, and the sharpness of every body's voice (instead of the genial
tones which those who can not produce them call “nasal,” but which from
a higher view are cordial)--taken one after other, or all together,
these things made me think, in the first flush of thought, that England
was not a nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a
great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman
put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a nurse, or
housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a
mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy.
What was I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in
a thoroughly civilized country, that I could not even stay in private
lodgings, where I had a great deal to think of, without this dull
creature being forced upon me? But the Major so ordered it, and I gave
in.
There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed without
slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to “form my
mind,” as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once or twice to see
me, and though I did not like him, yet it was almost enough to make me
do so to see a little liveliness. But I could not and would not put
up with a frightful German baron of music, with a polished card like a
toast-rack, whom the Major tried to impress on me. As if I could stop to
take music lessons!
“Miss Wood,” said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last time
he came to see me, “I stand to you in loco parentis. That means, with
the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what not, of the
unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent deceased. I wish
to be more careful of you than of a daughter of my own--a great deal
more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say a thousand times more
careful, because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of
mine would have enjoyed. And you are so impulsive when you take an
idea! You judge every body by your likings. That leads to error, error,
error.”
“My name is not Miss Wood,” I answered; “my name is 'Erema Castlewood.'
Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am,
surely I may have my own name now.”
When any body says “surely,” at once up springs a question; nothing
being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The Major
knew all those little things which manage women so manfully. So he took
me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair, nor
even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or figure
was I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome to lead me
to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his
eyes. My only vexation was with myself, because I could not keep the
weakness--which a stranger should not see--out of my eyes, upon sudden
remembrance who it was that used to have the right to do such things to
me. This it was, and nothing else, that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
“There, there, my dear!” said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
usual. “Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the world,
and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the world's
opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no 'bo' to a gander.
No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye, you have never asked my
advice.”
I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most;
but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of
his eyes,
“Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never could
ask for it.”
For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone crosswise;
and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions;
which was now growing inevitable, with his wife and daughters, and many
grandchildren--all certain that he was a Solomon.
“Erema,” he said, “you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with
you, Erema, when we both have leisure.”
“I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin,” I replied, “and only too happy to
listen to you.”
“Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you
please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock
waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes
late already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward.”
“Thank you,” I said; “we had better leave it. It seems of no importance,
compared--compared with--”
“My dinner!” said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little,
though neither of us meant to vex the other.