The Building of Jalna. Mazo de la Roche
new hope as the sun came out brightly and the foam-crowned waves harassed the ship less cruelly. When they saw Mary they looked the other way. She, on her part, seemed occupied by her own thoughts. Her mother kept her at her side. Mrs. Cameron’s intense spirit went out in a fierce strengthening of the ship so that, made inviolate by her spiritual aid, it might reach land and set Mary’s feet in safety there.
Adeline found Philip standing in the middle of their cabin waiting for her. His clothes were wet and crumpled, his fair hair plastered in a fringe on his forehead. He looked so ridiculous that she would have laughed but she saw the frown on his face. He asked curtly: —
“Why did you send for me?”
“I was anxious about you.”
“I’ve been standing here waiting for you.”
“Only a few moments! I have been with Sholto. He’s sick.”
“So is everyone. I brought up my own breakfast. What do you want of me?”
“I want you to change into dry things.”
He turned toward the door. “If that is all —”
She caught his arm. “Philip, you are not to go! You’ll get your death!”
“I should make a poor soldier if this would kill me.”
“But what can you do?”
“For one thing, I can put some courage and order into the steerage passengers. They are on the verge of panic. As for you, you might tidy up this cabin. It’s vile.”
“What do you expect!” she cried. “I have a sick baby! I have an ayah who is half-dead! I have Mrs. Cameron to visit! I have my young brother to look after! I worry myself ill about you. The stewardess is useless except to gossip. The ship is leaking! And you ask me to tidy up the cabin!”
In a fury she began to snatch up garments and to thrust them into boxes or on pegs.
“I didn’t ask you to get in a temper,” he said.
“Oh, no, I’m not to get in a temper! I’m to keep perfectly calm! And as neat as a pin!”
“Then why don’t you?”
Before she could answer, the parrot, which had been sitting muffled on the top of his swaying cage, uttered a scream of the purest excitement as he became conscious of Adeline’s agitation, and flew violently about the cabin. The disturbance caused by his wings was startling to nerves already tense. He came to rest on a brass bracket, turned himself over so that he hung head down and, in that posture, sent out a torrent of curses in Hindu: —
“Haramzada!” he screamed. “Haramazada! Chore! Iflatoon! Iflatoon!”
“I sometimes wish,” said Philip, “that we had never brought that bird.”
“I dare say you do,” retorted Adeline. “I dare say you wish you had never brought me. Then you might have had your old shipwreck in the most perfect order! You might — ”
Philip’s face relaxed, “Adeline,” he said, “you make any situation ridiculous. Come, my pet, don’t let us quarrel.” He put his arms about her and his lips to her hair. “Do find me a pair of gloves for I’ve blistered my palms at the pump.”
She was instantly solicitous for him. First she kissed the blistered palms, then she bathed them, applied a soothing ointment, a bandage, and found a pair of loose gloves for him. So administered to he became quite meek and changed into his dry clothes and brushed his hair. All this while Boney regarded them quizzically, hanging for the greater part of the time head down.
“Philip,” she asked as she coiled her hair, “is everything as simple as the Captain says? Are we in danger? Will the ship carry us safely to Newfoundland? He says he will stop there for repairs, doesn’t he?”
“We can cope with the leak,” he answered gravely. “And if only this damned head wind would fall and a favourable wind spring up we should do very well.”
They did keep the leak under control, the sun came out fitfully; a kind of order was created on the ship, the wind promised to fall. Regular shifts at the pumps were arranged and, when the time of changing came, the cry of “Spell ho!” rang out from Grigg’s enormous mouth. The Captain looked determinedly cheerful. The Alanna pushed on through the buffeting of the waves. She seemed running straight into the ruddy sunset. A sailor came bounding up to the Captain who was talking with Philip and Mr. Wilmott.
“The cargo has shifted!” he said, out of breath.
Philip went to where Adeline and her brothers had found shelter on the corner of the deck. The boys were tired and had stretched themselves in complete abandon on either side of her. Conway’s head lay against her shoulder, Sholto’s on her lap. Upon my word, thought Philip, they look no better than the emigrants. Adeline raised her eyes from the pages of Pendennis.
His stern expression startled her.
She sat upright. “What is it now?” she demanded.
Conway woke and sprang to his feet. He looked dazed. He stammered: —
“Why — Philip — why? Adeline — the deck! Look at the deck!”
“Yes,” said Philip. “The ballast has shifted. She’s listing badly. The Captain says there’s nothing for it but to go back to Galway for repairs.”
“Back to Galway for repairs!” repeated Adeline and Conway in one voice. Then he laughed. “What a joke on us!” He shook his brother by the shoulder. “Wake up, Sholto! You’re going to dear old Ireland again!”
“How long will it take?” asked Adeline.
“With this wind behind us we’ll do it in a few days.”
“We must not let my mother know we are there. It would upset her so. She’d bound to come all the way to Galway to see us, and the good-byes to say all over again!”
“I quite agree,” said Philip. He felt he could very well do without seeing his parents-in-law again.
Sholto wore a strange look of joy.
The next morning the wind had fallen enough to allow the first officer to be lowered over the side in the Captain’s cutter to examine the leak. The sea was a bright hard blue and the waves were crinkling under the wild west wind. His movements were watched with fascination by those on deck. He opened his mouth and shouted cryptic remarks to the Captain leaning over the side. He put out his hand and felt the injured part like a surgeon concentrating on an operation. Then he was hauled up again. Everyone crowded round him. He was loath to relieve their anxiety and only the presence of the cheerful Captain made him say: —
“Ah, I dare say she’ll do. That is if there are no squalls. The leak will be four feet out of the water if the sea gets no worse. She may do — but we’ll hae to keep at the pumps.”
The Alanna had turned back with the sound of thunder in her sails as she veered. Now, to the wind she had struggled against for so many days, she surrendered herself, let it drive her back toward Ireland and strained every inch of canvas to be there with the least loss of time. But the shifting of the ballast made her awkward. No one could forget the way she listed. It was as though all on board had suddenly become lame, leaning to one side when they walked.
And there were the pumps always to be kept going, forcing out the briny water that stretched in monstrous fathoms waiting to force its way in again. Aching backs, hands blistered, then callused, monotonous hours that wove the day and night into one chain of weariness and boredom. Every now and again the boredom changing to apprehension at the sight of a ragged cloud that looked the possible mother of a squall. Of all those on board, Adeline was the most buoyant. In her handsome clothes, that were so unsuitable to the situation, she carried assurance and gaiety wherever she went. She would, for all Philip’s remonstrances, take her turn at the pumps. She learned sea chanteys from the sailors, though she never could keep on the