Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Part 15

"You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all your friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls have been placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can never be too thankful. But the very first thing you have to learn, above all things, is to control yourself."

"I know it--I know it, of course," I said; "and I keep on trying my very best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you will try to forgive me."

"A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what I want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--what good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you any friend there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what you are to do?"

"Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind," I answered, very bravely: "I have the address of a very good woman, found among my father's papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature, and always kept her faith in him. There must be a great many more who do the same, and she will be sure to know them and introduce me to them; and I shall be guided by their advice."

"But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found, or has changed her opinion?"

"Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be found, I shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and besides that, I have a hundred things to do. I have the address of the agent through whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam let me know as little as he could. And I know who his bankers were (when he had a bank), and he may have left important papers there."

"Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may always be relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate, Erema. But why not let the Major go with you? His advice is so invaluable."

"I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him now, for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my dear father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never changes his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him."

"Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show it.

Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise? And are you to hate all who do not think as you wish?"

"No, because I do not hate you," I said; "I love you, though you do not think as I wish. But that is only because you think your husband must be right of course. But I can not like those who have made up their minds according to their own coldness."

"Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-hearted man--I might almost say hot-hearted."

"Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes up every body's case--but mine."

"Sad as it is, you almost make me smile," my hostess answered, gravely; "and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just and kind my husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit for at least desiring to take your part. And doing so, at least you might let him go with you, if only as a good protection."

"I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that he would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know. But in my cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I always can rely upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well."

"My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you never can say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like you!"

"The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity," I answered, less humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in my tone, perhaps. "If people choose to pity me, they are very good, and I am not at all offended, because--because they can not help it, perhaps, from not knowing any thing about me. I have nothing whatever to be pitied for, except that I have lost my father, and have n.o.body left to care for me, except Uncle Sam in America."

"Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man, Erema," said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any craft in her; "I never saw him--a great loss on my part. But the Major went up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock of his best tie broken, and two b.u.t.tons gone from his waistcoat. Does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much? or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband is a very--most abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss Wood, or we never should have been as we are, I am sure. But, for the first time in all my life, I doubted his discretion on the following day, when he had--what shall I say?--when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam."

"Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way," I replied to this new attack; "he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you think that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were too strong and large for the Major?"

"Erema!" cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to think or express my thoughts on life so early; "if you can talk politics at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have heard a great deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of them, as you know.

But I thought that you called yourself an English girl, and insisted particularly upon it."

"Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old English family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being brought up in a number of ways, as I have been without thinking of it, and being quite different from the fas.h.i.+onable girls Major Hockin likes to walk with--"

"My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!"

"Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no fas.h.i.+onable girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the esplanade--"

"There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do such things upon them."

"I am sure that he never would," I replied; "it was only their dresses that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind, extraordinary style, as well as unbecoming. You know what I mean, Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping up."

"Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so dreadful. You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it, stuck up here, and going down there. Erema, what observation you have! Nothing ever seems to escape you. Did you ever see any thing so indecorous?"

"It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them," I answered, with perfect truth, for so it did; "I have never been accustomed to such things. But seeing how the Major approved of them, and liked to be walking up and down between them, I knew that they must be not only decorous, but attractive. There is no appeal from his judgment, is there?"

"I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have always longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help thinking that he went too far."

CHAPTER XXII

BETSY BOWEN

So far, then, there was n.o.body found to go into my case, and to think with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the exception of Firm Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with me because of his faithful and manly love, more than from balance of evidence. The Sawyer, of course, held my father guiltless, through his own fidelity and simple ways; but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me, because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great deal too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things, and restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.

However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate, and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I should not do any thing out of keeping with English ideas and habits. In a word, I accepted the Major's kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me straightway back again. And I took only just things enough for a day or two, meaning to come back by the end of the week. And I kissed Mrs. Hockin just enough for that.

It would not be a new thing for me to say that "we never know what is going to happen;" but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted) show themselves. At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for nothing, at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey.

The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and appeared to think nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep him out of my money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.

I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve me right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at the place which we tried first, or that to which we were sent thence.

Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase.

And being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs.

Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a sovereign, at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she told me that "though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it, because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would promise faithfully not to tell." This promise I gave with fidelity, and returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17 European Square, St.

Katharine's.

From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last into European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong opening pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump. There were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it, only murmurous with distant London din, as the spires of a sh.e.l.l hold the heavings of the sea. After driving three or four times round the pump, for the houses were numbered anyhow, we found No. 17, and I jumped out.

"Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood," cried the Major, who was now a little crusty; "English ladies allow themselves to be handed out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor."

"But I wanted to save you the honor," I said. "I will come back immediately, if you will kindly wait." And with this I ran up the old steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came and gazed through dingy windows.

"Can I see Mrs. Strouss?" I asked, when a queer old man in faded brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the sun was s.h.i.+ning.

"I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good Meeses Strouss also."

"Thank you, but that will not do," I replied; "my business is with Mrs.

Strouss alone."

He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the Major looked out of the cab and laughed.

"You had better come back while you can," he said, "though they seem in no hurry to swallow you."

This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to him. The house looked very respectable, and there were railings to the area.

"The house is very respectable," continued Major Hockin, who always seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner ran up the steps; "just look, the sc.r.a.per is clean. You never see that, or at least not often, except with respectable people, Erema."

"Pray what would my sc.r.a.per be? and who is Erema?" cried a strong, clear voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout, tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us. "I never knew more than one Erema--Good mercy!"

My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back into a lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father, falling on the memories started by my name; and strong as she was, the surprise overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the small Herr Strouss.