[Major Buller was a naturalist, and took home some rare and beautiful specimens of Indian insects.]
It was an outbreak of sickness amongst the little Curlings which led to the reconciliation with the Quartermaster’s wife. Neither her kindness of heart nor her love of managing other folks’ matters would permit Mrs. Minchin to be passive then. She made the first advances, and poor Mrs. Curling gratefully responded.
“I’m sure, Mrs. Minchin,” said she, “I don’t wonder at any one thinking the children would be in the way, poor dears. But of course, as Curling said——”
“God bless you, my good woman,” Mrs. Minchin broke in. “Don’t let us go back to that. We all know pretty well what Mrs. Seymour’s made of, now. Let’s go to the children. I’m as good a sick-nurse as most people, and if you keep up your heart we’ll pull them all through before we get to the Cape.”
But with all her zeal (and it did not stop short of a quarrel with the surgeon) and all her devotion, which never slackened, Mrs. Minchin did not “pull them all through.”
We were just off the Cape when Arthur Curling died. He was my own age, and in the beginning of the voyage we had been playfellows. Of all the children who swarmed on deck to the distraction of (at least) the unmarried officers of the regiment, he had been the noisiest and the merriest. He made fancy ships in corners, to which he admitted the other children as fancy passengers, or fancy ship’s officers of various grades. Once he employed a dozen of us to haul at a rope as if we were “heaving the log.” Owing to an unexpected coil, it slackened suddenly, and we all fell over one another at the feet of two young officers who were marching up and down, arm-in-arm, absorbed in conversation. Their anger was loud as well as deep, but it did not deter Arthur Curling from further exploits, or stop his ceaseless chatter about what he would do when he was a man and the captain of a vessel.
He did not live to be either the one or the other. Some very rough weather off the Cape was fatal to him at a critical point in his illness. How Mrs. Minchin contrived to keep her own feet and to nurse the poor boy as she did was a marvel. He died on her knees.
The weather had been rough up to the time of his death, but it was a calm lovely morning on which his body was committed to the deep. The ship’s bell tolled at daybreak, and all the ladies but the bride were with poor Mrs. Curling at the funeral. Mrs. Seymour lay in her berth, and whined complaints of “that horrid bell.” She displayed something between an interesting terror and a shrewish anger because there was “a body on board.” When she said that the Curlings ought to be thankful to have one child less to provide for, the other ladies hurried indignantly from the cabin.
The early morning air was fresh and mild. The sea and sky were grey, but peaceful. The decks were freshly washed. The sailors in various parts of the ship uncovered their heads. The Colonel and several officers were present. I had earnestly begged to be there also, and finding Mr. George, I stood with my hand in his.
Mrs. Curling’s grief had passed the point of tears. She had not shed one since the boy died, though Mrs. Minchin had tried hard to move her to the natural relief of weeping. She only stood in silent agony, though the Quartermaster’s cheeks were wet, and most of the ladies sobbed aloud.