From Miss Aurora Church at Sea to Miss Whiteside in Paris

September 1880.

. . . My dear child, the bromide of sodium (if that’s what you call it) proved perfectly useless. I don’t mean that it did me no good, but that I never had occasion to take the bottle out of my bag. It might have done wonders for me if I had needed it; but I didn’t, simply because I’ve been a wonder myself. Will you believe that I’ve spent the whole voyage on deck, in the most animated conversation and exercise? Twelve times round the deck make a mile, I believe; and by this measurement I’ve been walking twenty miles a day. And down to every meal, if you please, where I’ve displayed the appetite of a fishwife. Of course the weather has been lovely; so there’s no great merit. The wicked old Atlantic has been as blue as the sapphire in my only ring — rather a good one — and as smooth as the slippery floor of Madame Galopin’s dining-room. We’ve been for the last three hours in sight of land, and are soon to enter the Bay of New York which is said to be exquisitely beautiful. But of course you recall it, though they say everything changes so fast over here. I find I don’t remember anything, for my recollections of our voyage to Europe so many years ago are exceedingly dim; I’ve only a painful impression that mamma shut me up for an hour every day in the stateroom and made me learn by heart some religious poem. I was only five years old and I believe that as a child I was extremely timid; on the other hand mamma, as you know, had what she called a method with me. She has it to this day; only I’ve become indifferent; I’ve been so pinched and pushed — morally speaking, bien entendu. It’s true, however, that there are children of five on the vessel today who have been extremely conspicuous — ranging all over the ship and always under one’s feet. Of course they’re little compatriots, which means that they’re little barbarians. I don’t mean to pronounce all our compatriots barbarous; they seem to improve somehow after their first communion. I don’t know whether it’s that ceremony that improves them, especially as so few of them go in for it; but the women are certainly nicer than the little girls; I mean of course in proportion, you know. You warned me not to generalise, and you see I’ve already begun, before we’ve arrived. But I suppose there’s no harm in it so long as it’s favourable.

Isn’t it favourable when I say I’ve had the most lovely time? I’ve never had so much liberty in my life, and I’ve been out alone, as you may say, every day of the voyage. If it’s a foretaste of what’s to come I shall take very kindly to that. When I say I’ve been out alone I mean we’ve always been two. But we two were alone, so to speak, and it wasn’t like always having mamma or Madame Galopin, or some lady in the pension or the temporary cook. Mamma has been very poorly; she’s so very well on land that it’s a wonder to see her at all taken down. She says, however, that it isn’t the being at sea; it’s on the contrary approaching the land. She’s not in a hurry to arrive; she keeps well before her that great disillusions await us. I didn’t know she had any illusions — she has too many opinions, I should think, for that: she discriminates, as she’s always saying, from morning till night. Where would the poor illusions find room? She’s meanwhile very serious; she sits for hours in perfect silence, her eyes fixed on the horizon. I heard her say yesterday to an English gentleman — a very odd Mr. Antrobus, the only person with whom she converses — that she was afraid she shouldn’t like her native land, and that she shouldn’t like not liking it. But this is a mistake; she’ll like that immensely — I mean the not liking it. If it should prove at all agreeable she’ll be furious, for that will go against her system. You know all about mamma’s system; I’ve explained it so often. It goes against her system that we should come back at all; that was my system — I’ve had at last to invent one! She consented to come only because she saw that, having no dot, I should never marry in Europe; and I pretended to be immensely preoccupied with this idea in order to make her start. In reality cela m’est parfaitement égal. I’m only afraid I shall like it too much — I don’t mean marriage, of course, but the sense of a native land. Say what you will, it’s a charming thing to go out alone, and I’ve given notice that I mean to be always en course. When I tell mamma this she looks at me in the same silence; her eyes dilate and then she slowly closes them. It’s as if the sea were affecting her a little, though it’s so beautifully calm. I ask her if she’ll try my bromide, which is there in my bag; but she motions me off and I begin to walk again, tapping my little boot-soles on the smooth clean deck. This allusion to my boot-soles, by the way, isn’t prompted by vanity; but it’s a fact that at sea one’s feet and one’s shoes assume the most extraordinary importance, so that one should take the precaution to have nice ones. They’re all you seem to see as the people walk about the deck; you get to know them intimately and to dislike some of them so much. I’m afraid you’ll think that I’ve already broken loose; and for aught I know I’m writing as a demoiselle bien-élévee shouldn’t write. I don’t know whether it’s the American air; if it is, all I can say is that the American air’s very charming. It makes me impatient and restless, and I sit scribbling here because I’m so eager to arrive and the time passes better if I occupy myself.

I’m in the saloon, where we have our meals, and opposite me is a big round porthole, wide open to let in the smell of the land. Every now and then I rise a little and look through it to see if we’re arriving. I mean in the Bay, you know, for we shall not come up to the city till dark. I don’t want to lose the Bay; it appears it’s so wonderful. I don’t exactly understand what it contains except some beautiful islands; but I suppose you’ll know all about that. It’s easy to see that these are the last hours, for all the people about me are writing letters to put into the post as soon as we come up to the dock. I believe they’re dreadful at the custom-house, and you’ll remember how many new things you persuaded mamma that — with my preoccupation of marriage — I should take to this country, where even the prettiest girls are expected not to go unadorned. We ruined ourselves in Paris — that’s partly accountable for mamma’s solemnity —mais au moins je serai belle! Moreover I believe that mamma’s prepared to say or to do anything that may be necessary for escaping from their odious duties; as she very justly remarks she can’t afford to be ruined twice. I don’t know how one approaches these terrible douaniers, but I mean to invent something very charming. I mean to say “Voyons, Messieurs, a young girl like me, brought up in the strictest foreign traditions, kept always in the background by a very superior mother —la voilà; you can see for yourself! — what is it possible that she should attempt to smuggle in? Nothing but a few simple relics of her convent!” I won’t tell them my convent was called the Magasin du Bon Marché. Mamma began to scold me three days ago for insisting on so many trunks, and the truth is that between us we’ve not fewer than seven. For relics, that’s a good many! We’re all writing very long letters — or at least we’re writing a great number. There’s no news of the Bay as yet. Mr. Antrobus, mamma’s friend, opposite to me, is beginning on his ninth. He’s a Right Honourable and a Member of Parliament; he has written during the voyage about a hundred letters and seems greatly alarmed at the number of stamps he’ll have to buy when he arrives. He’s full of information, but he hasn’t enough, for he asks as many questions as mamma when she goes to hire apartments. He’s going to “look into” various things; he speaks as if they had a little hole for the purpose. He walks almost as much as I, and has enormous shoes. He asks questions even of me, and I tell him again and again that I know nothing about America. But it makes no difference; he always begins again, and indeed it’s not strange he should find my ignorance incredible. “Now how would it be in one of your South-western States?”— that’s his favourite way of opening conversation. Fancy me giving an account of one of “my” South-western States! I tell him he had better ask mamma — a little to tease that lady, who knows no more about such places than I. Mr. Antrobus is very big and black; he speaks with a sort of brogue; he has a wife and ten children; he doesn’t say — apart from his talking — anything at all to me. But he has lots of letters to people là-bas— I forget that we’re just arriving — and mamma, who takes an interest in him in spite of his views (which are dreadfully advanced, and not at all like mamma’s own) has promised to give him the entrée to the best society. I don’t know what she knows about the best society over here today, for we’ve not kept up our connexions at all, and no one will know — or, I am afraid, care — anything about us. She has an idea we shall be immensely recognised; but really, except the poor little Rucks, who are bankrupt and, I’m told, in no society at all, I don’t know on whom we can count. C’est égal, mamma has an idea that, whether or no we appreciate America ourselves, we shall at least be universally appreciated. It’s true we have begun to be, a little; you would see that from the way Mr. Cockerel and Mr. Louis Leverett are always inviting me to walk. Both of these gentlemen, who are Americans, have asked leave to call on me in New York, and I’ve said Mon Dieu oui, if it’s the custom of the country. Of course I’ve not dared to tell this to mamma, who flatters............