"I’d be better off if I had done the same", declared D’Arcy.
Adeline flashed a look of scorn on them both. "And have ye no pity in your hearts", she cried, "for the suffering of those poor people?"
"Come, come, Adeline", interrupted Philip. "It’s late. You should go to your bed". He turned to D’Arcy. "She is overwrought and tired".
"I’ll lay my head on no pillow tonight. I’ve seen too much. I’ll stay here with Mr. D’Arcy and Mr. Brent and argue the matter out with them till sunrise".
"I’m sorry", said D’Arcy, "but I think I shall have to rest for a bit". He put his hand to his forehead and she saw a discoloured swelling near his temple.
She went close to look at it. "Ah, well, and did a blow really land on you!" she exclaimed. "Ah, I am sorry for that!"
Her anger was gone. She had a basin of hot water brought and herself bathed his head. Their friendship was restored.
But the next day she was not well. She could not leave her cabin. The weather became stormy. She suffered from nausea. Philip coming into the cabin, found her sitting on the side of her berth, very pale, her eyes wet with tears. But there was nothing tearful in her voice as she turned its vibrant tones on him.
"Well", she demanded, "and what do ye think has happened to me?"
"Are you worse?"
"Ay, I’m worse". She stared moodily for a space at the heaving floor of the cabin then raised her eyes accusingly to his. She said:
"Ay, I’m worse and shall be worse still before I’m finished with it. I’m going to have a baby!"
"My God!" The glass of sherry he had brought her dropped from his hand.
"Well", she cried, "you are a ninny! To think that you’d let fall a glass at the news, when it’s I who ought to be throwing things about".
"I didn’t throw it! I dropped it".
"’Tis one and the same-at a moment like this-and I needing the sherry!"
"Are you positive?" he asked.
"That I need the sherry?"
"That you are going to have a baby?"
"I wish I were as positive that this ship would arrive in port".
He could not help exclaiming, "I wish to God you’d waited till we were settled in Quebec!"
She retorted, the colour returning to her cheeks, "And I wish you had waited. But no-would such a thought ever enter your head? No, my lord, you must have your pleasure, let come what may! And now you say you wish I had waited! Oh, it’s well that the good Lord made women patient and mild-with all they have to go through from the unreasonableness and selfishness of men! Yes-I wish we’d both waited before ever we took the way to the altar".
"You took good care not to let me see you in one of your tempers before I married you".
She looked him in the eyes. "And did you ever give me such cause for temper before you married me?" she demanded.
He burst out laughing. "Now you are just ridiculous", he said.
He brought her another glass of sherry.
As he saw her sitting on the side of the berth wrapped in a great shawl with red stripes on it, and her fingers playing with the fringe of the shawl, a pang of pity went through him. For all her fine proportions she looked like a forlorn child. He sat down beside her and held the glass to her lips.
"My only reason", he said, "for wishing this had not happened till later is because of the discomfort of travelling when you’re enceinte".
She gripped his fingers and managed to smile a little.
"Oh, I shall be all right", she said.
He gave her another sip of the sherry. Then he exclaimed, "If it’s a boy we’ll call him Nicholas, after my uncle!"
"I’d have liked Philip".
"No. I don’t want any Philip but myself in your life".
"Very well. He shall be Nicholas. But never Nick or Nicky for short".
"Never".
A knock came on the door. It was the overworked stewardess to tell them that the ayah was once more very sea-sick and quite unable to look after the baby. The ship was now wallowing in a trough of the waves. She herself seemed to be suffering also, for her timbers gave forth the most melancholy creakings and groanings. Those on board could not help remembering her former betrayal of them and were prepared at any moment to hear that she had sprung another leak.
"Bring the child here", said Philip.
The stewardess brought Augusta who came smiling, a shell held to each ear.
"Would it be possible for you to look after her?" Philip asked the woman. "My wife is not well. I shall make it worth your while".
"I’ll do what I can for the poor bairn but I’m nearly run off my feet as it is. Half the passengers are sick again".
When she had gone Adeline exclaimed:
"I do dislike that woman! She never speaks of Gussie without calling her ’the poor bairn’-as though we neglected or ill-treated her!"
Philip set his daughter on his knee. "If only she had taken to my sister", he said, "as she should have done, she might be enjoying herself in England now, instead of adding to our problems here!"
Gussie threw her shells to the floor and reached out for his watch-chain. He took out his large gold watch and allowed her to listen to its tick which enraptured her so that she bounced on his knee.
The weather grew stormier. There was no forgetting it. Day and night the struggle between it and the ship went on. Wind, waves and teeming rain hammered, tossed and drenched the ship. Sailors scrambled to the most precarious and dizzy heights up the masts as she struggled on, hour by hour making the way a little shorter. Oh, that the land would appear! Adeline had never felt so ill in her life. She could scarcely stand, yet she had to drag herself into the ayah’s cabin and do what she could for her, which was little enough. She had to tend her child, who still cried a great deal, and when the child was quiet and Adeline might have slept a little, Boney would take it into his head to shout of his pleasure which seemed unbounded.
Suddenly the condition of the ayah became alarming. Her small form grew shrunken, her face almost green. Only her great burning eyes, with the dark shadows under them, looked alive. Her fevered mouth babbled of far-off days in India. Adeline was distraught to see her so. She gathered together all her own strength to care for her. She supported her in her arms and every few moments wiped the sweat from her sunken face with a handkerchief.
The silver bangles on the small brown wrists tinkled ceaselessly as the restless hands moved upon her breast. Then suddenly her eyes opened wide. It was on the third day of her terrible illness. She looked up mournfully into Adeline’s face as though in question.
"What do you want, Huneefa?" Adeline asked.
She seemed not to hear but began to arrange her heavy dark hair on her forehead. She took it lock by lock in her thin fingers and arranged it as though for a festival.
Adeline laid her back on the pillow. She tottered out into the passage and called hoarsely for Philip. He was not near but James Wilmott heard her and came, his face full of anxiety.
"Come quick", she said. "Huneefa is dying!"
He came into the dark, sour-smelling cabin.
"I must fetch the doctor", he said.
As though to add to their miseries the doctor had, two days before, slipped on the deck and injured his hip. He could scarcely move for the pain but he came, supported on Wilmott’s shoulder. He was a young man of little experience but one glance at the ayah told him that her hour had come. He told Wilmott to take Adeline back to her cabin but she refused to leave. In a short while Huneefa died.
Her death came as a shock to Adeline and, in a lesser degree, to Philip. All their married life she had been an intimate shadow, first as a maid to Adeline, later as ayah to Augusta. They had taken her devotion for granted. As she was never really well, her illnesses caused them no alarm. Even the jaundice which had complicated her sea-sickness had not brought real apprehension. Now it seemed that she had wilfully deserted them-Huneefa, who had been so unquestioningly faithful! They discovered what a strong prop her frail body had been in the edifice of their life.