Lydia went back to the cabin, and presently the boy who had taken charge
of her lighter luggage came dragging her trunk and bag down the gangway
stairs. Neither was very large, and even a boy of fourteen who was small
for his age might easily manage them.
“You can stow away what's in 'em in the drawers,” said the boy. “I
suppose you didn't notice the drawers,” he added, at her look of
inquiry. He went into her room, and pushing aside the valance of
the lower berth showed four deep drawers below the bed; the charming
snugness of the arrangement brought a light of housewifely joy to the
girl's face.
“Why, it's as good as a bureau. They will hold everything.”
“Yes,” exulted the boy; “they're for two persons' things. The captain's
daughters, they both had this room. Pretty good sized too; a good deal
the captain's build. You won't find a better stateroom than this on a
steamer. I've been on 'em.” The boy climbed up on the edge of the upper
drawer, and pulled open the window at the top of the wall. “Give you
a little air, I guess. If you want I should, the captain said I was to
bear a hand helping you to stow away what was in your trunks.”
“No,” said Lydia, quickly. “I'd just as soon do it alone.”
“All right,” said the boy. “If I was you, I'd do it now. I don't know
just when the captain means to sail; but after we get outside, it might
be rough, and it's better to have everything pretty snug by that time.
I'll haul away the trunks when you've got 'em empty. If I shouldn't
happen to be here, you can just call me at the top of the gangway, and
I'll come. My name's Thomas,” he said. He regarded Lydia inquiringly a
moment before he added: “If you'd just as lives, I rather you'd call
me Thomas, and not _steward_. They said you'd call me steward,” he
explained, in a blushing, deprecating confidence; “and as long as I've
not got my growth, it kind of makes them laugh, you know,--especially
the second officer.”
“I will call you Thomas,” said Lydia.
“Thank you.” The boy glanced up at the round clock screwed to the cabin
wall. “I guess you won't have to call me anything unless you hurry. I
shall be down here, laying the table for supper, before you're done. The
captain said I was to lay it for you and him, and if he didn't get back
in time you was to go to eating, any way. Guess you won't think Captain
Jenness is going to starve anybody.”
“Have you been many voyages with Captain Jenness before this?” asked
Lydia, as she set open her trunk, and began to lay her dresses out on
the locker. Homesickness, like all grief, attacks in paroxysms. One gust
of passionate regret had swept over the girl; before another came, she
could occupy herself almost cheerfully with the details of unpacking.
“Only one before,” said the boy. “The last one, when his daughters went
out. I guess it was their coaxing got mother to let me go. _My_ father
was killed in the war.”
“Was he?” asked Lydia, sympathetically.
“Yes. I didn't know much about it at the time; so little. Both your
parents living?”
“No,” said Lydia. “They're both dead. They died a long while ago. I've
always lived with my aunt and grandfather.”
“I thought there must be something the matter,--your coming with your
grandfather,” said the boy. “I don't see why you don't let me carry in
some of those dresses for you. I'm used to helping about.”
“Well, you may,” answered Lydia, “if you want.” A native tranquil
kindness showed itself in her voice and manner, but something of the
habitual authority of a school-mistress mingled with it. “You must be
careful not to rumple them if I let you.”
“I guess not. I've got older sisters at home. They hated to have me
leave. But I looked at it this way: If I was ever going to sea--and I
_was_--I couldn't get such another captain as Captain Jenness, nor such
another crew; all the men from down our way; and I don't mind the second
mate's jokes much. He doesn't mean anything by them; likes to plague,
that's all. He's a first-rate sailor.”
Lydia was kneeling before one of the trunks, and the boy was stooping
over it, with a hand on either knee. She had drawn out her only black
silk dress, and was finding it rather crumpled. “I shouldn't have
thought it would have got so much jammed, coming fifty miles,” she
soliloquized. “But they seemed to take a pleasure in seeing how much
they could bang the trunks.” She rose to her feet and shook out the
dress, and drew the skirt several times over her left arm.
The boy's eyes glistened. “Goodness!” he said. “Just new, ain't it?
Going to wear it any on board?”
“Sundays, perhaps,” answered Lydia thoughtfully, still smoothing and
shaping the dress, which she regarded at arm's-length, from time to
time, with her head aslant.
“I suppose it's the latest style?” pursued the boy.
“Yes, it is,” said Lydia. “We sent to Boston for the pattern. I hate to
pack it into one of those drawers,” she mused.
“You needn't,” replied Thomas. “There's a whole row of hooks.”
“I want to know!” cried Lydia. She followed Thomas into her state-room.
“Well, well! They do seem to have thought of everything!”
“I should say so,” exulted the boy. “Look here!” He showed her a little
niche near the head of the berth strongly framed with glass, in which a
lamp was made fast. “Light up, you know, when you want to read, or feel
kind of lonesome.” Lydia clasped her hands in pleasure and amaze. “Oh,
I tell you Captain Jenness meant to have things about right. The other
state-rooms don't begin to come up to this.” He dashed out in his zeal,
and opened their doors, that she might triumph in the superiority of her
accommodations without delay. These rooms were cramped together on one
side; Lydia's was in a comparatively ample corner by itself.
She went on unpacking her trunk, and the boy again took his place near
her, in the same attitude as before. “I tell you,” he said, “I shall
like to see you with that silk on. Have you got any other nice ones?”
“No; only this I'm wearing,” answered Lydia, half amused and half honest
in her sympathy with his ardor about her finery. “They said not to bring
many clothes; they would be cheaper over there.” She had now reached the
bottom of her trunk. She knew by the clock that her grandfather could
hardly have left the city on his journey home, but the interval of time
since she had parted with him seemed vast. It was as if she had started
to Boston in a former life; the history of the choosing and cutting and
making of these clothes was like a dream of preëxistence. She had never
had so many things new at once, and it had been a great outlay, but her
aunt Maria had made the money go as far as possible, and had spent it
with that native taste, that genius for dress, which sometimes strikes
the summer boarder in the sempstresses of the New England hills. Miss
Latham's gift was quaintly unrelated to herself. In dress, as in person
and manner, she was uncompromisingly plain and stiff. All the more
lavishly, therefore, had it been devoted to the grace and beauty of
her sister's child, who, ever since she came to find a home in her
grandfather's house, had been more stylishly dressed than any other girl
in the village. The summer boarders, whom the keen eye of Miss Latham
studied with unerring sense of the best new effects in costume, wondered
at Lydia's elegance, as she sat beside her aunt in the family pew,
a triumph of that grim artist's skill. Lydia knew that she was well
dressed, but she knew that after all she was only the expression of her
aunt's inspirations. Her own gift was of another sort. Her father was
a music-teacher, whose failing health had obliged him to give up his
profession, and who had taken the traveling agency of a parlor organ
manufactory for the sake of the out-door life. His business had brought
him to South Bradfield, where he sold an organ to Deacon Latham's
church, and fell in love with his younger daughter. He died a few years
after his marriage, of an ancestral consumption, his sole heritage from
the good New England stock of which he came. His skill as a pianist,
which was considerable, had not descended to his daughter, but her
mother had bequeathed her a peculiarly rich and flexible voice, with a
joy in singing which was as yet a passion little affected by culture. It
was this voice which, when Lydia rose to join in the terrible hymning of
the congregation at South Bradfield, took the thoughts of people off her
style and beauty; and it was this which enchanted her father's sister
when, the summer before the date of which we write, that lady had come
to America on a brief visit, and heard Lydia sing at her parlor organ in
the old homestead.
Mrs. Erwin had lived many years abroad, chiefly in Italy, for the sake
of the climate. She was of delicate health, and constantly threatened by
the hereditary disease that had left her the last of her generation,
and she had the fastidiousness of an invalid. She was full of generous
impulses which she mistook for virtues; but the presence of some object
at once charming and worthy was necessary to rouse these impulses. She
had been prosperously married when very young, and as a pretty
American widow she had wedded in second marriage at Naples one of those
Englishmen who have money enough to live at ease in Latin countries; he
was very fond of her, and petted her. Having no children she might
long before have thought definitely of poor Henry's little girl, as she
called Lydia, but she had lived very comfortably indefinite in regard to
her ever since the father's death. Now and then she had sent the child a
handsome present or a sum of money. She had it on her conscience not to
let her be wholly a burden to her grandfather; but often her conscience
drowsed. When she came to South Bradfield, she won the hearts of the
simple family, which had been rather hardened against her, and she
professed an enthusiasm for Lydia. She called her pretty names in
Italian, which she did not pronounce well; she babbled a great deal
about what ought to be done for her, and went away without doing
anything; so that when a letter finally came, directing Lydia to be sent
out to her in Venice, they were all surprised, in the disappointment to
which they had resigned themselves.
Mrs. Erwin wrote an epistolary style exasperatingly vacuous and diffuse,
and, like many women of that sort, she used pencil instead of ink,
always apologizing for it as due now to her weak eyes, and now to her
weak wrist, and again to her not being able to find the ink. Her hand
was full of foolish curves and dashes, and there were no spaces between
the words at times. Under these conditions it was no light labor to get
at her meaning; but the sum of her letter was that she wished Lydia to
come out to her at once, and she suggested that, as they could have few
opportunities or none to send her with people going to Europe, they had
better let her come the whole way by sea. Mrs. Erwin remembered--in the
space of a page and a half--that nothing had ever done _her_ so much
good as a long sea voyage, and it would be excellent for Lydia, who,
though she looked so strong, probably needed all the bracing up she
could get. She had made inquiries,--or, what was the same thing, Mr.
Erwin had, for her,--and she found that vessels from American ports
seldom came to Venice; but they often came to Trieste, which was only a
few hours away; and if Mr. Latham would get Lydia a ship for Trieste at
Boston, she could come very safely and comfortably in a few weeks. She
gave the name of a Boston house engaged in the Mediterranean trade to
which Mr. Latham could apply for passage; if they were not sending any
ship themselves, they could probably recommend one to him.
This was what happened when Deacon Latham called at their office a
few days after Mrs. Erwin's letter came. They directed him to the firm
dispatching the Aroostook, and Captain Jenness was at their place when
the deacon appeared there. The captain took cordial possession of the
old man at once, and carried him down to the wharf to look at the ship
and her accommodations. The matter was quickly settled between them.
At that time Captain Jenness did not know but he might have other
passengers out; at any rate he would look after the little girl (as
Deacon Latham always said in speaking of Lydia) the same as if she were
his own child.
Lydia knelt before her trunk, thinking of the remote events, the extinct
associations of a few minutes and hours and days ago; she held some
cuffs and collars in her hand, and something that her aunt Maria had
said recurred to her. She looked up into the intensely interested face
of the boy, and then laughed, bowing her forehead on the back of the
hand that held these bits of linen.
The boy blushed. “What are you laughing at?” he asked, half piteously,
half indignantly, like a boy used to being badgered.
“Oh, nothing,” said Lydia. “My aunt told me if any of these things
should happen to want doing up, I had better get the stewardess to help
me.” She looked at the boy in a dreadfully teasing way, softly biting
her lip.
“Oh, if you're going to begin _that_ way!” he cried in affliction.
“I'm not,” she answered, promptly. “I like boys. I've taught school two
winters, and I like boys first-rate.”
Thomas was impersonally interested again. “Time! _You_ taught school?”
“Why not?”
“You look pretty young for a school-teacher!”
“Now you're making fun of me,” said Lydia, astutely.
The boy thought he must have been, and was consoled. “Well, you began
it,” he said.
“I oughtn't to have done so,” she replied with humility; “and I won't
any more. There!” she said, “I'm not going to open my bag now. You can
take away the trunk when you want, Thomas.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said the boy. The idea of a school-mistress was perhaps
beginning to awe him a little. “Put your bag in your state-room first.”
He did this, and when he came back from carrying away her trunk he began
to set the table. It was a pretty table, when set, and made the little
cabin much cosier. When the boy brought the dishes from the cook's
galley, it was a barbarously abundant table. There was cold boiled ham,
ham and eggs, fried fish, baked potatoes, buttered toast, tea, cake,
pickles, and watermelon; nothing was wanting. “I tell you,” said Thomas,
noticing Lydia's admiration, “the captain lives well lay-days.”
“Lay-days?” echoed Lydia.
“The days we're in port,” the boy explained.
“Well, I should think as much!” She ate with the hunger that
tranquillity bestows upon youth after the swift succession of strange
events, and the conflict of many emotions. The captain had not returned
in time, and she ate alone.
After a while she ventured to the top of the gangway stairs, and stood
there, looking at the novel sights of the harbor, in the red sunset
light, which rose slowly from the hulls and lower spars of the shipping,
and kindled the tips of the high-shooting masts with a quickly fading
splendor. A delicate flush responded in the east, and rose to meet
the denser crimson of the west; a few clouds, incomparably light and
diaphanous, bathed themselves in the glow. It was a summer sunset,
portending for the land a morrow of great heat. But cool airs crept
along the water, and the ferry-boats, thrust shuttlewise back and forth
between either shore, made a refreshing sound as they crushed a broad
course to foam with their paddles. People were pulling about in small
boats; from some the gay cries and laughter of young girls struck
sharply along the tide. The noise of the quiescent city came off in a
sort of dull moan. The lamps began to twinkle in the windows and the
streets on shore; the lanterns of the ships at anchor in the stream
showed redder and redder as the twilight fell. The homesickness began to
mount from Lydia's heart in a choking lump to her throat; for one must
be very happy to endure the sights and sounds of the summer evening
anywhere. She had to shield her eyes from the brilliancy of the kerosene
when she went below into the cabin.