Even the ayah’s death did not cause Mrs. Cameron to relent. She remained remote in her cabin, her new friend at her side.
Adeline herself prepared Huneefa for burial, arranging her best robe about her, crossing her hands on her breast. For the last time the silver bangles tinkled on the thin wrists. Then Adeline carried Augusta to her side, for a last look. Augusta was pleased and leant down from Adeline’s arms with a little laugh.
"Kiss her then", said Adeline. "Kiss her good-bye".
Gussie planted a moist kiss on the bronze cheek and held the shell she carried to Huneefa’s ear.
"Oh, dear-oh, dear-why did she go!" groaned Adeline. She would have given anything she owned to have brought back life to Huneefa. She drew the veil over the still face and turned away.
Gussie did not give another glance at the one who had been her slave. She held the shell to her mother’s ear and, clutching her neck, leant down to peer into her face. She was surprised to find that Adeline was not laughing but that tears were on her cheeks.
It was a cold grey day when they gathered on deck to commit the ayah’s body to the sea. The sea was not so rough as it had been but the waves still surged in sullen aimlessness about the ship. The deck had been cleaned. The sailors were drawn up in order, looking neat and clean, their bare feet planted on the moist deck. The steerage passengers were also collected, their children grouped about them. The women wore shawls over their heads. Those among them who were Irish, and they were by far the greater part, had the keening ready on their lips but held it back.
Patsy O’Flynn was there, wearing his great-coat and a strange woolly cap that came down to his shaggy eyebrows. He had brought with him a bundle containing his most cherished possessions, from which he would not be parted for an instant, and this lay on the deck beside him. He had asked to be allowed to hold Augusta in his arms during the ceremony. She had on her white coat and little lace bonnet. Patsy was so proud of her and of the importance of his position in carrying her that he could not keep his mind on the ceremony but cast self-conscious looks at his fellow passengers to make sure that they were noticing him.
It was strange to see D’Arcy, who not many days before had been the object of these men’s fury, standing face to face with them with apparent forgetfulness, on both sides, of what had passed.
Adeline stood between Philip and Wilmott. The nervous tension seemed to have given her strength for the occasion but the flush on her cheeks looked fevered to Philip and he frequently turned anxious eyes on her. Wilmott stood austere and motionless as a statue.
At the Captain’s feet lay the body of Huneefa, sewn securely in canvas. He read the Burial Service in a clear, resonant voice. It was odd to see him on deck not wearing his gold-braided cap. He was getting a little bald and the lock of fair brown hair on the top of his head continually rose and fell in the gusty wind. Adeline noticed the uncovered heads of all the men and that Patsy alone wore his cap. She motioned him to take it off but it was some time before he could understand what she meant. He made a number of comical attempts at obeying the message he did not grasp, shifting the baby from one arm to another, hiding his bundle behind his feet, assuming a more funereal expression. Then suddenly he discovered what she wanted him to do and, with a happy smile, pulled off his cap and stood with his unkempt thatch uncovered.
Deliberately Captain Bradley read the service for the dead, ending with the appropriate words: "’We therefore commit her body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at His coming shall change our vile body that it may be like His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself’".
There was a movement among the sailors. The ropes that controlled the body tautened. It was raised above the deck over the railing, then slowly, gently, with a kind of meek majesty, lowered into the sea. It seemed to Adeline, looking over the side, that the waves parted to receive it, then without a sound slid across it, enfolded it, and so it was lost to view. A fresh gust of wind caught the sails. A lively thunder passed through them and the ship moved forward as though eager to be at her journey’s end and have done with these delays.
Gussie, from the security of Patsy’s arms, watched the body of Huneefa sink out of sight. She turned to look into Patsy’s eyes.
"Gone", she said.
"God bless the child!" he exclaimed to those about him, "she understands everything. Och, the cliver brain she has and a way of talkin’ to beat all!"
A hymn now rose from the throats of those assembled. "’Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave,’" they sang, and the sound of their own voices, the act of singing which expanded their breasts, the confidence in the words they uttered, made them happier. The meek figure that had been lowered into the waves became less dominating, was at last left far behind. The steerage passengers returned to the accustomed evil smells of their quarters; Gussie was once more in her mother’s arms.
Adeline, feeling suddenly exhausted, carried her to a sheltered corner on the deck and gave her the bag containing her sea-shells, and a biscuit to eat. Wilmott sat down with his pipe and a copy of the Quarterly Review, beside Augusta. They were strange companions but there was a kind of understanding between them. Adeline then went to lie down in her berth.
The days that followed were afterward looked back on by Philip as a kind of nightmare. Adeline developed a fever which, before many hours, threw her into delirium. She talked wildly and incoherently, now fancying herself back in India, now a young girl in County Meath, now in terror of Red Indians in Canada. Sometimes it took all Philip’s strength to keep her from springing out of the berth. The young doctor, still suffering cruelly from his injured hip, scarcely left her side. Boney perched at the head of the berth and it was a curious thing that, when her delirium was at its height, his cries had a soothing effect on her. He would listen to her babblings, his head on one side, then as her voice rose louder and louder he would raise his own in shrill shouts, as though to show how he could outdo her.
The dreadful lack of privacy was abhorrent to Philip. The partitions were so thin that all their miseries were audible. It was said that Mrs. Cameron was ill too. Certainly she made neither sign nor offer of help. She and the Newfoundlanders kept quite to themselves. The stewardess kept Augusta with her as much as she could but there was much sickness on board to claim her. Wilmott would carry Gussie up and down the deck by the hour, singing to her. But often she was on Philip’s hands and he was at his wits’ end to know how to cope with the intricacies of her diet and her toilet. She was left for a good deal of time alone in the cabin where the ayah had died. The stewardess provided her with a tin plate and a large spoon with which she enlivened what might have been many dreary hours. She was pinned to the bedding of the berth with large safety-pins so that the rolling of the ship might not hurl her to the floor. Her attitude toward Philip was one of curiosity mixed with suspicion. When he did things for her she looked on patronisingly as though she was thinking how much better Huneefa would have done them.
On the third day Adeline’s delirium left her. She had been babbling and Boney had startled, then silenced her by his cries. She lay quite still, looking about her with large mournful eyes, then she spoke in a natural voice.