The Building of Jalna. Mazo de la Roche

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