I remember something, but not so much of it as I should like to recall,
of my long tramp to Bladesover House. The distance from Chatham is
almost exactly seventeen miles, and it took me until nearly one. It was
very interesting and I do not think I was very fatigued, though I got
rather pinched by one boot.
The morning must have been very clear, because I remember that near
Itchinstow Hall I looked back and saw the estuary of the Thames, that
river that has since played so large a part in my life. But at the time
I did not know it was the Thames, I thought this great expanse of mud
flats and water was the sea, which I had never yet seen nearly. And out
upon it stood ships, sailing ships and a steamer or so, going up to
London or down out into the great seas of the world. I stood for a long
time watching these and thinking whether after all I should not have
done better to have run away to sea.
The nearer I drew to Bladesover, the more doubtful I grew of the
duality of my reception, and the more I regretted that alternative. I
suppose it was the dirty clumsiness of the shipping I had seen nearly,
that put me out of mind of that. I took a short cut through the Warren
across the corner of the main park to intercept the people from the
church. I wanted to avoid meeting any one before I met my mother, and
so I went to a place where the path passed between banks, and without
exactly hiding, stood up among the bushes. This place among other
advantages eliminated any chance of seeing Lady Drew, who would drive
round by the carriage road.
Standing up to waylay in this fashion I had a queer feeling of
brigandage, as though I was some intrusive sort of bandit among these
orderly things. It is the first time I remember having that outlaw
feeling distinctly, a feeling that has played a large part in my
subsequent life. I felt there existed no place for me that I had to
drive myself in.
Presently, down the hill, the servants appeared, straggling by twos and
threes, first some of the garden people and the butler’s wife with
them, then the two laundry maids, odd inseparable old creatures, then
the first footman talking to the butler’s little girl, and at last,
walking grave and breathless beside old Ann and Miss Fison, the black
figure of my mother.
My boyish mind suggested the adoption of a playful form of appearance.
“Coo-ee, mother” said I, coming out against the sky, “Coo-ee!”
My mother looked up, went very white, and put her hand to her bosom.
I suppose there was a fearful fuss about me. And of course I was quite
unable to explain my reappearance. But I held out stoutly, “I won’t go
back to Chatham; I’ll drown myself first.” The next day my mother
carried me off to Wimblehurst, took me fiercely and aggressively to an
uncle I had never heard of before, near though the place was to us. She
gave me no word as to what was to happen, and I was too subdued by her
manifest wrath and humiliation at my last misdemeanour to demand
information. I don’t for one moment think Lady Drew was “nice” about
me. The finality of my banishment was endorsed and underlined and
stamped home. I wished very much now that I had run away to sea, in
spite of the coal dust and squalour Rochester had revealed to me.
Perhaps over seas one came to different lands.