The Loving Spirit (11 page)

‘You wouldn’t be sorry to be back?’ she asked, knowing his answer.

‘What d’you think?’

He was silent a while, then spoke again, chewing his straw. ‘I’ve in my mind’s eye the model of my ship. I can picture the shear of her, an’ the long graceful lines. Her sails spread to the wind. She’d run like a devil if I let her, laughin’ with the joy of escape, but a touch of my hand an’ she’d understand, obeyin’ my will, recognizin’ I was her master an’ lovin’ me for it.’

He leant over and watched Janet with narrow eyes, sweeping the whole of her.

‘What is it, Joseph?’ she asked, conscious of his gaze.

He laughed, and spitting out his straw upon the ground, he reached for her hand.

‘Women are like ships,’ he said.

11

 

 

A
s the children grew older, so did the little town of Plyn thrive and flourish.

Already it was changed from the Plyn that Janet had known as a girl, and as she had seen it as a whole from the top of the hill on her wedding morning. The old quiet air of peace and calm seemed to have departed, it was no longer a small village nestling at the foot of the hill, with the water from the harbour coming nearly as far as the cottage doors at high tide. In the old days the harbour had often been empty save for the old fishing luggers belonging to the folk of Plyn, and when the men came back from their fishing or down from their work in the fields, they would lean over the wall by the slip of Coombe’s yard, and gossip over their pipes, the nets spread out to dry on the cobbled stones, and naught to watch save the gulls diving for fish in the water, and the smoke curling from their cottage chimneys, with the women-folk at their doors.

Then the rooks would rise like a cloud from the trees above Squire Trelawney’s house, and circle in the air, calling to one another.

When Janet was first wed she and Thomas would stroll in the fields above Plyn on summer evenings, and watch the orange patterns that the sun made in the water. No sound came from the harbour then; maybe from time to time the soft splash of an oar, as someone pulled his boat away from the seaweed, and made his way along the narrow pill that led to Polmear.

They would watch the dark form of his boat slowly dissolve into the shadows and the gathering twilight. The sun would lighten the farthest hill with a touch of flame for one instant, leaving a glow upon Plyn that caught the glass of the cottage windows, and shone bravely upon the slate roofs - then the sun would sink beyond the tall beacon, that stood on the high sheer cliffs above Pennybinny Sands. The colour lingered yet on the water, and beside them in the fields the last rays touched with gold the sheaves of riotous corn. Silence fell upon Plyn, with now out of the dusk a voice from the cobbled square calling a name, or the bark of a dog from the farm in Polmear Valley. If it was Sunday the bells from Lanoc Church called the folk of Plyn to evensong, and the people would walk along the footpath that led over the fields to the Church above Polmear. Before supper the younger ones, lovers, or newly wed like Janet and Thomas, would climb the steep hill to the Castle ruins, and wait for the moon to rise, white and ghostly, making a magic channel of the water, that crept away to the horizon like a narrow pointing finger.

Such was the peace and the silence of Plyn, lost by itself, far from the clamour and cries of a city. Then little by little the changes came. The importance of the china clay was discovered and the mines were started. Rough jetties were built where the river and harbour meet, and the clay was brought there.

Ships came to Plyn in numbers to load with the clay, and often now the harbour was a forest of masts, awaiting their turn at the jetty.

The people of Plyn were delighted with the growth of the town - trade would make them prosperous and rich. Only the old folk grumbled, disliking the change.

‘What be us wantin’ with ships an’ clay?’ they muttered.

‘There’s nothin’ now but hammer and crash i’ the harbour, from mornin’ till night. Why can’t they leave Plyn alone?’

New houses were built up the hill, straighter and more severe than the old cottages at the water’s edge, and they had plain gaunt windows hung with lace curtains. The quaint latticed windows of the cottages were considered old-fashioned and rough, and instead of the roofs being tiled with the soft grey slate, they were black and shiny. Queen Victoria was now on the throne, and in the parlours of the Plyn houses her likeness would hang, with that of the Prince Consort at her side.

Plyn was no longer a lazy, sleepy harbour, but a busy port, with the noise of ships and the loading of clay. The ship-building yard of Thomas Coombe was important in Plyn. Large vessels were launched from the slip now, ships of over a hundred tons, schooners, barquentines, and the like.

Thomas was now forty-eight, little changed in character, but his work had told on him; his shoulders were bent, and there were tired lines beneath his eyes. He thought only of the business, and the name he had made for himself in Plyn. He was devoted to his wife and his family, but the business came first. They still lived in Ivy House. Nothing had been altered here, the large warm kitchen was the same, where they all sat around the table and had their meals.

Mary had helped her mother make new curtains for the parlour, and in the corner of the room was a harmonium which she had learnt to play.

Samuel had joined his father down at the yard, and proved as honest and clever a workman as Thomas had been at his age. He was indeed his father’s right-hand man, and Herbert too, ever eager to copy his brother, was learning the trade beside him. Soon perhaps the board above the yard would bear their names as well - ‘Thomas Coombe and Sons’. That was the dream always present in the minds of Samuel and Herbert.

Mary remained at home in Ivy House, cheerful and willing, desiring nothing better than to remain there all her life and look after the needs of her father and brothers.

Philip seemed to have no wish to join his brothers later at the yard; he was a queer secretive boy with his own friends and his own ideas, and he spoke little, spending most of his time reading in a corner.

Lizzie was now a dear unselfish little girl of ten, who seemed fond of everybody, and was made a general pet by the household.

What of Joseph? At eighteen he was taller than his father and his brothers, with square powerful shoulders and a massive chest. Except for Lizzie, he was the only dark one of the Coombe family. His hair was thick and curly, already whiskers were growing on his cheeks, and he looked older than his brother Samuel, who was twenty-two. He had not yet learnt caution. There was not a man in Plyn he would not have fought for the pleasure of it, nor any wild escapade of which he did not make himself the leader. Old people shook their heads when Joe Coombe’s name was mentioned.

The girls of Plyn blushed when he looked at them in church, which he had made a point of doing, and they would gather in groups, giggling, and whispering excitedly when he passed them in the street. ‘He’s treated Emmie Tippit shameful, ’ whispered one. ‘Aye, an’ now they say he’s turned down Polly Rogers,’ whispered another. Who would be the next victim, they wondered. One of them, perhaps. The secret longing rose in their hearts and would not be stilled.

It was high time Joseph went to sea. He was going, too; very shortly now he was to join the
Francis Hope
as apprentice under Captain Collins, Sarah Collins’s husband.

Joseph felt that the first ambition of his life was to be realized. To go to sea, to leave Plyn behind him, and all the stuffy ill-natured folk who would not let him do as he wished. He was not afraid of roughing it in a cramped barquentine, of being treated possibly worse than a dog, of being soaked to the skin for hours on end, little enough to eat and a few wretched hours of sleep; this was a man’s life, and in spite of having to obey orders from morning till night, it was a free life. He laughed at Herbert and Samuel, who seemed content and proud of themselves after a day’s work down at the yard.What did they know of real work? Icy gales and shaking sea-drenched canvas, slippery decks in the darkness, hard ropes that tore your fingers, the waves and the wind fighting in unison against your life, the cries and oaths of roughmen. None of his family envied him, save one, Janet, his mother. At forty-two she was unchanged; the years had not left their mark upon her.There were no lines beneath Janet’s eyes, no grey threads in her hair.

Her figure was still that of a young woman, for all the six children she had borne. Her eyes were bold and fearless like her son’s, and her chin was perhaps more determined than ever. She alone envied Joseph. There was nothing she desired more than to be at his side on his first ship, and to share his discomforts and his dangers.

Before he came to her, before he was born, she had always known that the sea would claim him, as it would have claimed her had she been a man.

She was proud that Joseph was to be a sailor, but her heart was sick and cold at the anguish of parting. She despised herself for her weakness, she who had no fears of death nor danger. Her reason told her to be still and unmoved, she would follow Joseph in the spirit; but her body claimed his body, she could not bear that his eyes would no longer light upon hers, nor his voice whisper in her ear, nor his arms hold her close. She must fight against this weakness, fight with all the strength that was in her, and conquer herself.

She made no attempt to hide her pain from Joseph; they had never hidden anything from each other.

They said little during these last days. They pretended to busy themselves with Joseph’s new clothes. Joseph was never still for a moment. He ran wild about the countryside to prevent himself from thinking, he fought the farmer’s son over to Polmear Farm, and was chased by the labourers, he made love to three girls in Plyn on the same day and forgot them a moment afterwards. He disturbed his brother and his father who were working on a new boat down at the yard. He spoilt Mary’s cakes that she had baked so carefully for supper, he hid Lizzie’s doll behind the harmonium where she could not reach it, he took Philip’s books and chucked them down the dried-up disused well at the bottom of the garden.

His spirits were wilder and higher than they had ever been in his life, he sang and shouted at the top of his voice, he broke a chair in the parlour, the house shook with his noise and his clatter.

‘There won’t be no peace till you’m gone,’ cried Mary indignantly.

‘Hurrah - hurrah - only one more day now,’ shouted Joe, his eyes shining, his hair falling over his face.

Only Janet understood that this was a blind, a last defiance, a pretence of strength, and every now and then his eyes would meet hers across the room, savage, miserable - ‘I love you - love you - love you.’

He saw her lower her head, and the colour drain from her face, leaving it white and pitiful. She clenched her hands, and turned away, looking into the fire. ‘Careful - now, Mary, with the hot plates,’ she said in a steady voice.

He could bear it no longer. He ran from the room and left the house, climbing the steep hill to the cliff like a madman, the angry futile tears brushing his cheek, blaspheming God aloud. The trees tossed in the wind, the hedges moved, the sheep cried sorrowfully from beyond the fields. He saw none of them, he saw only Janet’s face and her dark eyes looking up into his. He felt her cool hands on his forehead, her low voice speaking his name. He knew the sound of her footsteps, the rustle of her skirt.

He remembered the strength of her arms when she carried him as a little boy, and the sweet clean smell of her as he pushed his head against her bodice. He remembered looking up at her, holding her hand; running madly to her to climb in her lap and to mutter some nonsense in her ear. She kneeling beside his bed at nights and tucking him safely, while Samuel and Herbert slept like logs in the corner.

How they laughed and whispered like conspirators in the darkness and he would watch her steal from the room like a pale ghost shielding the light with her hand, her eyes shining, her finger on her lips.

Joseph reached the top of the cliffs, and he flung himself on the ground, tearing at the earth with his hands, groaning and kicking like one in a physical pain. ‘Hell and Damnation - Hell and Damnation—’

Back at Ivy House Janet sat at the head of the table, while the family gathered round for supper.

Thomas looked about him frowning.

‘Wherever’s Joseph to? The lad is that wild with his goin’ away tomorrow, there’s nothin’ to be done to him.’

‘Leave him alone,’ said Janet, softly. ‘I reckon he’s finishin’ his packin’ in his room.’

She knew well he had run from the house and was now cursing and blaspheming by the Castle ruins.

‘Oh, no, he’s not,’ put in Philip, sneering. ‘He went up the hill as fast as he could go. He’ll be meetin’ some of his girls to kiss ’em for the last time.’

‘High time he went to sea,’ murmured Thomas thoughtfully.

Janet looked across at her youngest son.What was this queer strain of his nature that made him mean and sly at times? He was the only one of her children she did not trust. He had more intelligence than the others, but there was something indefinable in his character that made her shudder. He was harmless at present, but when he grew to be a man, what then?

She wondered if the difference in him was owing to her weakness after he had been born. She had not been able to nurse him.

Thus she had never felt that he belonged to her.

She turned her eyes away from Philip, and glanced at the clock on the wall. Joseph would be hungry. She knew that sitting with his family would be irksome to him this last evening, and he would want only to be left alone with her. At that moment Joseph came into the room. His clothes were bespattered with mud, and there was an ugly red mark on his cheek.

Janet knew this meant he had been weeping.