Authors: Mazo de la Roche
Tags: #FIC045000 – FICTION / Sagas
“Philip! There’s a leak sprung!”
“What?” shouted Philip, staying the unbuttoning of his waistcoat.
“She has sprung a plank! She’s leaking!”
Then there came the heavy tramping of feet overhead and the shouts of officers.
Adeline turned pale. She had the quietly whimpering baby in her arms.
“Will the ship sink?” she asked.
“Certainly not. Don’t be alarmed,” said Philip. He threw open the door.
Conway stood there supporting himself by the brass railing which ran along the passage. He wore a bright-coloured dressing gown and, even in the excitement of the moment, Philip noticed how it heightened his resemblance to the Knave of Diamonds. With the door open, the noise of tramping feet and vehement shoutings, the roar of the steadily rising squall, the thunder and rattle of canvas and tackle, were increased. The sails were being lowered.
“They’re lowering the sails!” shouted Conway, but his voice came as no more than a whisper. “It’s blowing a terrible gale.”
His brother stood close behind him, clinging to the railing. He looked green with seasickness. Adeline said to him: —
“Come in and lie down in my berth, Sholto. You must keep the baby while we go to see the Captain.”
The boy obediently stumbled into the cabin and threw himself on to the berth.
“Oh, I’m so ill!” he moaned.
Adeline placed the baby beside him.
“You are not to come, Adeline,” Philip shouted.
Her eyes flashed rebellion. She gripped his arm in her hands. “I will come!” she shouted back.
The vessel gave a heave that sent them all staggering into one corner of the cabin. Mrs. Cameron now appeared in the doorway. She had a shawl wrapped about her head and she was holding Mary closely to her, as though determined not to be parted from her at the moment of sinking. But she spoke calmly.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing but a leak, ma’am. We are going to see the Captain.” Philip’s tone, his very presence, were reassuring.
“We will go too.” They saw the words on her lips though they could not hear them.
Clinging to the rail and to each other Philip and Adeline gained the companionway. They found the Captain and the first officer supervising the lowering of the sails. The great canvas thundered deckward as in terrifying capitulation. The stark masts looked suddenly fragile and the ship vulnerable. The wind blew with terrific force and green walls of water reared themselves, then came crashing against the side of the rolling ship. The heaving wash of the waters was palely illuminated by a cloud-bound moon, that only now and again really showed herself. Adeline had seen storms at sea before this and they were tropic storms, but the ship had been larger, the company more numerous. There was a loneliness about this storm. The little
group of people seemed helpless, the wind was piercingly cold. However, the Captain spoke with equanimity.
“It’s nothing but a squall,” he said in his hearty, Yorkshire accent. “I’ve been round the Cape many times myself and this is naught but a puff of wind. So you’d best go back to your berths, ladies, and not worry.”
Above the noise of the storm came confused shoutings and tramping from the companionway. The steerage passengers were pouring up from below. They looked wild-eyed, rough and terrified.
Captain Bradley strode over to them.
“What does this mean?” he demanded.
The second mate shouted back — “I couldn’t keep them down there, sir! The water’s pouring in below.”
The Captain looked grim. He pressed his way through the crowd, ordering them to descend with him, which they did in great confusion.
Adeline heard him shout — “All hands to the pumps!”
Philip was patting her on the back. He was smiling at her. She smiled bravely back. He raised his voice and said — “The squall is passing. Everything will be all right.”
“Take Mrs. Cameron’s arm,” she said. “She looks ready to drop.”
Mary Cameron had left her mother’s side. Conway Court had his arm about her. Neither of them looked frightened but they both wore expressions of pale hilarity. Philip helped Mrs. Cameron back to her cabin. The wind was falling. Yet the sea was still heavy with great thundering waves and the wind still fierce enough to fill the storm sails, to which the ship had been stripped, to bursting point. In the welter of the waves the
Alanna
lay almost on her beam ends. Now a rainstorm advanced like a wall, seeming to join with the waves in the effort to drown those aboard.
But Captain Bradley was not downcast. He went about, ruddy-faced and cheerfully shouting his orders. The swinging lanterns illumined but little the wild scene. Sailors were thrumming sails together and drawing them under the ship’s bow in what seemed a hopeless effort to stop the leak. Adeline felt that, if she went
below, she would be desperate with fear. Here in the midst of the activity she felt herself equal to Philip in courage. She drew Mary Cameron and Conway to her side and the three of them linked themselves, waiting Philip’s return.
“I gave her some brandy,” he said as he came up. “She needed it, poor lady, for she is half-dead with cold.” He turned to the girl. “Shall I take you down to your mother, Mary?”
“Did she ask for me?” Mary’s voice was slightly sulky.
“No. I think she’ll sleep. Perhaps you are better with us.”
Conway Court gave a shout of laughter. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary — ” he sang. “Sailed away to the Port of Canary.”
Philip frowned at him but Adeline laughed too and Mary gave him an adoring look. He was a wild figure in his bright-hued dressing gown with his tawny hair blowing in the wind.
Mr. Wilmott came up to them.
“The officers are not alarmed,” he said, “but the leak appears to be a bad one. The four pumps are working like the devil. Mr. D’Arcy and Mr. Brent are helping to man them and I’m ready to give a hand when I’m needed.”
When morning came there were five feet of water in the hold. The pumps were working hard and the Captain said he had the situation under control. A stewardess brought breakfast to Adeline in her cabin. She had changed into dry things but had not slept. The tiny room was in a state of disorder, her wet clothing, the belongings of Philip and the baby, scatter promiscuously and depressingly. She felt herself being sucked down into a vortex of confusion, rather than of fear. But the hot tea, the bread and bacon, put life into her. She sat on the edge of the berth and combed out her hair. A pale sunlight filtered in at the porthole. She noticed the lively beauty of her hair. “It would look like this, even if I were drowning,” she thought, half resentfully.
In the silver mirror of her dressing case, she saw how pale her face was. She bit her lips to bring some colour into them.
“When do you think we shall get to Newfoundland?” she asked the Scotch stewardess.
“Oh, we’ll get there right enough.”
“How far are we from Ireland?”
“Perhaps six hundred miles.”
“How is Mrs. Cameron this morning?”
“Ah, she’s fell waur o’ the wear.”
“And her daughter?”
“Fast asleep. Like your own bairn, poor we lamb!” She cast an accusing look at Adeline.
“My brother looked after my baby very well last night,” said Adeline haughtily, for little Augusta had not been in her thoughts all night. “You say she is fast asleep? Is she with her ayay?”
“Aye. She’s with what’s left of the ayah — for the woman is more dead than alive.” The stewardess stood balancing the tray against the reeling of the ship.
“Merciful heaven,” cried Adeline, “what a miserable company we are!”
She crossed the passage to the ayah’s cabin and looked in. In the pale sunlight nurse and infant looked equally fragile and remote. But they were sleeping peacefully. Adeline summoned the stewardess.
“Take that basin away,” she said in a low but furious tone. “Make the place decent with as little noise as you can.”
Adeline went to Mrs. Cameron’s cabin. All was neat there but the poor woman lay on her berth exhausted after her last bout of seasickness. The air was heavy with the scent of Eau de Cologne. It was as though someone had emptied a bottle in there. Mary was seated in front of the tiny dressing table gazing at herself in the glass with a fascinated look. She was unaware of the opening of the door but continued to give her large-eyed reflection stare for stare, while the ship heaved and a cupboard door flew open, then banged shut, with each roll. Adeline laughed.
“Well, what do you think of yourself?” she asked.
“Oh, Mrs. Whiteoak,” answered Mary. “I’m pretty — pretty! I have travelled right round the world and never found it out till now.”
“Well,” said Adeline, “it is a queer time to have discovered it. But if it’s a comfort to you, I’m glad you think so.”
Still gazing at her reflection the girl answered: —
“Don’t you?”
Adeline laughed again. “I’m in no state to judge but I shall take a good look at you later on. Can I do anything for your mother?”
“She feels a little better, she says. She just wants to be quiet.”
“Have you had any sleep?”
“A little. I’m not tired.”
“You’re a better traveller than I am. Have they brought you breakfast.”
“Oh, yes. The stewardess is very kind. So is your brother. He’s so brave too.”
“Well, I’m glad of that. I’m going now to see how the boys are getting on.”
“May I come with you?”
“No. Stay with your mother.”
Adeline found Sholto recovering from his seasickness. He was sipping coffee and eating a hard biscuit but he was very pale. Conway was changing into dry clothes. Adeline noticed the milky whiteness of his skin and how his chest and neck were fuller than one would judge from his face.
“Oh, Adeline,” exclaimed Sholto, “I wish I’d never come on this voyage! We shall quite likely go down. Oh, I do wish I were back in Ireland with Mamma and Papa and Timothy and all!”
“Nonsense,” said Adeline, sitting down on the side of the berth. “In a few days you’ll be laughing at this. Here, eat your biscuit.”
She took it from his hand and broke off a morsel of it and put it in his mouth. He relaxed and she fed him the rest of the biscuit in this way as though her were a baby.
She turned to Conway. “Go and find Philip and tell him I want him. Just say I must see him and that it is important.”
“What do you want him for?”
She flashed a look of command at him. “Do as I say, Con.”
“Very well. But he probably won’t come.” He tied his cravat with as much care as though he were about to make a call.
“Oh, what a little fop you are!” she cried. “To think of you
fiddling with your tie and soon we may all be at the bottom!”
Sholto hurled himself back on the pillow.
“You said everything was all right. You said we’d be laughing about this!” he sobbed.
“Now you’ve done it!” exclaimed Conway. He opened the door and went into the passage but it was a struggle to close the door after him against the rolling of the ship. Adeline had to go and put her weight against it.
She returned to Sholto. “You know I was only joking, “ she comforted him. “If I thought we were going to the bottom should I be looking so pleasant?”
“You’re not looking pleasant! You’re looking queer and wild.”
She laid her head beside his on the pillow.
“I am looking queer,” she said, “because I suspect Con of making up to that little Cameron girl. That’s why I sent him away — so I could ask you. Sholto, tell me, has he been telling her she’s pretty? Has he been making up to her?”
Sholto’s green eyes were bright. “Indeed he has! We are never alone but he is up to his tricks. ‘Oh, but you’re the pretty thing’ he says. ‘Oh, the lovely little neck on you!’ he says. ‘Oh, the long fair eyelashes! Come close and touch my cheek with them!’”
“And did she?”
“She did. And he laid his hand on her breast.”
“And did she mind?”
“Not she. She arched her neck like a filly you are stroking. And she made her eyes large at him like a filly. But she’s innocent and Conway is not. He could tell those boys at the English school a thing or two.”
Adeline bent her brows in a sombre line. “I shall tell Mary’s mother,” she said, “to keep her away from that rascal.”
“Well, if the ship is going down, Adeline, they might as well be enjoying themselves.”
“The ship is not going down!”
The door opened and Conway, clinging to it, looked in. He said: —
“Philip has gone to your cabin. He’s as wet as a rat.”
“Con — come in and shut tht door!” He did and stood pale and smiling before her.
“Now,” she said, “no more hanky-panky with Mary Cameron! If I hear of it I shall tell Philip and he’ll give you a shaking to make your teeth rattle. Oh, you ought to be ashamed of yourself — making love to a child!”
“What has that little twister been telling you?” he demanded, his cold eyes on his brother.
Sholto began to shiver as fear produced a fresh wave of seasickness.
“I did not need to hear it from him,” said Adeline. “She told me herself that she’d just discovered she was pretty and I’ve been watching you. Now, I say no more of it!”
He tried to open the door and bow her out with a grand supercilious air but a sudden roll of the ship flung them staggering together. They clung so a moment and then she said, holding him close: —
“You will be good, won’t you, Con, dear?”
“Yes — I promise you.”
He saw her out, then, bending over his brother, he gave him half a dozen thumps, each one harder than the one before. Miraculously those, instead of bringing his sickness back, seemed to do him good for in half an hour they were on deck together, watching the sailors raising what canvas they dared, and feeling 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: —