The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche by Mazo de la Roche

bangings, and thumpings as the sailors carried the luggage aboard, the orders of their officers which no one seemed to obey, the wailing and circling of sea gulls, the screams of excited urchins, the flutterings and flappings of the great sails of the ship, were woven into a fantastic tapestry of farewell which would hang forever on the walls of memory.
    The moment came. Adeline had dreaded it but now that it had arrived she was almost past feeling. She wished her mother’sface was not wet with tears. It was a pity to remember her that way. “Oh, Mother dear, I’ll be back! So shall we all! I’ll take good care of the boys. Good-bye! Good-bye, Father! Be sure to write. Good-bye … Good-bye …” She was enfolded in their embraces. Her body pressed against the body that had carried her before birth, against the body that had made that birth possible. She felt as though she were being physically torn; then Philip put his arm about her and led her weeping to the ship.

III
    T HE F IRST V OYAGE
    T HE B ARK
A LANNA
had formerly been an East Indiaman. She was bound for Quebec and would return laden with white pine. The Captain was a thick-set Yorkshireman, named Bradley; the first officer a tall lean Scot, with an enormous mouth, named Grigg. There were few cabin passengers and the Whiteoaks held themselves a little aloof, for the voyage would be long and there was the possibility of being thrown to intimately into uncongenial company. Indeed Philip and Adeline had been so surrounded by relatives since their arrival from India that they longed to be alone together. They made themselves as comfortable as possible in the cramped space of their cabin. Philip arranged their possessions in the most shipshape order. Adeline, wrapped in rugs, settled herself in a sheltered corner to read
The History of Pendennis
. Augusta and her ayah were established near by, the tiny girl clasping her first doll, an elegantly dressed wax creature, extremely corseted and wearing a dress and bonnet of plaid taffeta. Conway and Sholto were exploring the ship and Patsy and the goat making themselves as comfortable as they could in their far-from-comfortable quarters. Ireland lay, a hazy blue hump, on the pale horizon. There was a head wind and the ship made but slow progress, though her greatsails strained at the masts and a living soul seemed demonstrating its will to move westward. The gulls followed the ship a long way out from Ireland. They lingered with her, as though waiting for messages to carry home.
    Besides the Whiteoaks’ party there were fewer than a dozen passengers in the Cabin Class. Of these they became friendly with only five. There were two Irish gentlemen, educated well but with a rich brogue, named D’Arcy and Brent. They were travelling for pleasure and were to make an extensive tour of the United States. There was a Mrs. Cameron from Montreal who had with her a delicate daughter of fifteen. The two had journeyed all the way to China to join the child’s father who had previously been sent there to take an important post concerned with the trade between the two countries. But, when they had arrived, they had found that a plague of cholera had carried him off. Now they were retracing the long weary way to Montreal. Mrs. Cameron and little Mary would sit huddled together wrapped in one shawl, gazing into the distant horizon, as though in their hearts they held no hope that their journeyings would ever end but felt that they would go on from ship to ship, from sea to sea, till the Day of Judgment. The young girl had indeed acquired a strange seaborn look, as Adeline described it. Her cloak and hat were faded to the greyness of winter waves; her hair hung like lank yellowish seaweed about her shoulders; her wide-open light eyes had an unseeing look; her face and hands were deeply tanned. Only her mouth had colour and between her lips, which were always parted, her small pearl-like teeth showed. Her mother had degenerated, by sorrow