The Loving Spirit (15 page)

She was to be carvel-built with a square stern, and the length of her was ninety-seven feet. Her main breadth was twenty-two feet, and her depth, a little over twelve feet.Thomas and his sons reckoned that when she was finished she would be about a hundred and sixty tons gross. She was to be rigged as a two-masted top-sail schooner. A great moment it was when the framework of her was finished, and she stood with her mighty ribs waiting to be planked. Then every man in the yard was summoned to the work, and Plyn resounded with the ceaseless hammer and crash as the nails were driven into the sturdy planks.

Janet stood over them, a smile on her lips, a hand on her hips, a tall, lithe figure for all her fifty years. Should any man down his tools, it was: ‘Were ye weak when your mother cradled ye, my lad, to give way so soon?’ and the fellow would glance up ashamed and meet her keen unwavering eye. There was no standing against her, and no one cared to, for that matter, for she had a way with her that it was impossible to resist.

Unknown to Plyn and herself, however, the strength of her heart declined day by day. As the ship, her namesake, took shape and became a thing of strength, so did Janet’s body weaken and her pulse slacken.

She could scarce drag herself to the top of the hill now without a faintness coming upon her, without strange black shadows dancing before her eyes. She took no notice of this; she imagined it just the natural change in her life because she was past fifty.

It would not be long now before the ship was launched from the slip, and Joseph was her master.

When he returned in the late spring of 1863 he was startled at the change in her that none but himself could perceive. There were no silvered hairs, no lines, but a general appearance of frailty as though the strength in her had departed; her skin was stretched white over her cheek bones, and the blue veins showed clearly on her temples. He was frightened and uncertain what to do with her.The thought of possibly losing her he banished from his mind like an evil nightmare, and to make up for it he unwittingly tired her with his love, never leaving her a moment, and thus so much happiness was exhausting to her, pulling her down still further. Instead of calming her and soothing her, his presence acted like a drug that fortifies for the instant, creating an impression of renewed vigour and strength, but leaves its patient weaker than before.

She gave herself up to the enjoyment of Joseph with every ounce of power left to her. He enveloped her with his love and devotion until she became dazed and overwrought: it was too strong for her, but she had arrived at the state when she could no longer exist without it. He was at Plyn for some time now, until he had passed his examination at Plymouth, after which he hoped to take command of the new ship to be launched in the summer. The strain of these weeks was almost more than Janet could bear, and when he set off for Plymouth to sit for his examination she waited in a fever for his return.They passed the days in silent agony until the result should be known to them.

At last one morning there arrived an important-looking document, and Joseph made straight to Janet’s side so that they should see it together. They unfolded the stiff parchment, stamped with the red seal of the Board of Trade.

‘WHEREAS it has been reported to us that you have been found duly qualified to fulfil the duties of Master in the Merchant Service, we do hereby in pursuance of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854 grant you this Certificate of Competency. Given under the Seal of the Board of Trade this ninth day of August, 1863.’

Janet held out her arms to him with a cry - he had passed. Joseph, her son, not yet twenty-nine, was a Master in the Merchant Service, the equal of middle-aged men like Captain Collins. There were great rejoicings that day at Ivy House. Janet seated at the head of the table with Joseph on her right hand, and gathered about her the grown-up sons and daughters, and her grandchildren, Samuel’s two daughters and his young son, and Herbert’s little boy. The next event would be the launching of the ship. Thomas and his sons, including Joseph, held a private consultation when Janet was not present, to decide the all-important matter of the ship’s figure-head.

They agreed that it must be taken after Janet herself, but it seemed there was no one in Plyn who was skilled enough to undertake such a task. So a well-known carver in Bristol was commissioned to build the figurehead, and a likeness of Janet as a young woman was sent to him.

The father and his sons rejoiced in their secret, for Janet would know nothing of it until the day of the launching, as the figurehead would be bolted on to the ship’s head the evening before.

The last weeks in August had come, the last nails were driven into the planks. The decks were laid and the hull painted. Her masts would be stepped when she was in the water, and there she would be rigged and fitted out for sea.

The
Janet Coombe
was ready to be launched. Her two years of waiting were over, and as the great black ship lay on the slip biding for the high spring tides, it seemed as if her very timbers called for the first embrace of the sea which she would never leave again.

The evening of 1 September was arranged for the launching, just before sunset, when the tide was at its highest. All Plyn was in a fever of excitement, because with the launching of a new ship everybody automatically took a half-holiday, and this ship was to bear the name of Coombe itself.

The evening before, a Sunday, all the family were assembled in the parlour. The weather was warm, and Janet, who was overtired with the preparations, and scarce able to realize that the great day would dawn tomorrow, sat in her chair before the open window, while the cool air played on her face. She would have climbed the hill to the Castle ruins if she had had the strength, but she was too weary. She lay back in her chair, looking down upon the harbour, and let her thoughts wander as they willed.

It seemed to her that in all her life this was the moment for which she had waited. Two other moments only would perhaps equal it. The night on the boat from Plymouth, and the morning she first held Joseph in her arms. But tomorrow her ship, built because of her, would be claimed by the sea, and she would step upon its decks and give her blessing. Life would hold no more for her than the beauty of that moment. Dusk was creeping over Plyn, over the quiet town and the sleeping harbour. Behind, cloaked in shadows, were the hills and the valleys that she loved so well. A supreme feeling of peace and contentment came upon her, she was filled with a love of all things, of people and of places, of Thomas her husband, of her children, and Joseph beyond them all.

From the parlour came the strains of the harmonium. The family were grouped round Mary as they had done for so many years, to sing the Sunday hymn. As the night descended and the stars shone upon Janet’s uplifted face, her children opened their voices to their God. ‘Abide with me! fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord with me abide! When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me!’

As Janet listened, sweet and clear above the voices of the others was that of Joseph - ‘Abide with me.’

 

 

It was close to sunset, and the tide had made its highest mark. The red light of the sky glittered upon the houses, and the parting smile of the sun lingered upon the water. All Plyn was gathered about the slip to watch the ship plunge into the sea. The yard was decorated with flags, and thronged with folk. A chair had been brought for Janet, and she was seated upon it, her hand on Joseph’s arm. Her eyes were upon the figure-head of the ship. It was Janet herself, Janet with her dark hair and eyes and her firm chin; dressed in white with her hand at her breast.

As she looked on it for the first time her heart throbbed in her bosom and her limbs trembled. This was herself, this was she fulfilling her dream, placed there in the bows of the vessel which bore her name. She forgot everything but that her moment had come, the moment when she would become part of a ship - part of the sea for ever. Mist came into her eyes. She saw nothing of Plyn, nothing of the people about her - only the ship hovering on the brink of the slip waiting for the plunge.

She heard none of the cheers; in her ears were the call of the wind and the cry of the waves. Beyond the hill the sun glimmered for an instant - a ball of fire. A great shout arose from the people:‘There she goes!’The harbour rang with their cries and the mighty crash as the vessel struck the water. At the sound a shudder passed through Janet’s body and she opened her arms. Her eyes were filled with a great beauty, like the light of a star, and her soul passed away into the breathing, living ship. Janet Coombe was dead.

Book Two

Joseph Coombe (1863-1900)

 

 

No later light has lighted up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

E. BRONTË

1

 

 

W
hen Janet Coombe died Thomas turned to his eldest daughter Mary for comfort and care. She helped him as best she could with gentle looks and tender words, and little by little his faith was restored to him and his affection for his daughter increased; Samuel and Herbert reigned supreme down at the yard, and with their own growing families and separate homes, there was no time for them to give way beneath the strain of losing a devoted parent.

Philip left home and moved to rooms in the middle of the town, near to his firm of Hogg and Williams. Here he could have absolute independence, unbothered by his many relatives. Lizzie felt keenly the blow of parting with her mother, and for a time she weakened considerably in health, but with her coming to convalescence came the presence of one Nicholas Stevens upon her little sphere, and this good man, some fifteen years older than herself and a farmer from up Truan way, was to aid her to recovery; and though she had lost her mother she was to find a devoted and faithful husband.

Joseph was different. His brothers and sisters had to live motherless, his father without a wife; but with the passing of Janet something of Joseph’s immortality had perished. He must walk through life henceforward with the certain knowledge that there was no reason for his existence, and that whereso-ever he trod and in what dubious company, he would inevitably march alone. The blessed love, his one and only salvation, was extinguished.

During those first weeks Joseph worked hard, never allowing himself a moment in which to relax.

There was much to be done.The ship had just been launched, and there were many necessary formalities to be gone through which Joseph, as her future master, took upon himself to arrange. Nor was she yet ready for sea, and it was some four months before she would be finished and fitted out. This was the business of Samuel and Herbert,Thomas Coombe being too dumbfounded with grief to help, and Joseph lent them a willing hand, suggesting improvements here and there, which his years of sea experience qualified him to give.

When Janet was buried that soft September afternoon, the sun shone upon the windows of the church, and the tall grass blew gently in the west wind. There was no sadness in the air. A blackbird sang joyfully on the topmost bough of the elm tree and from two fields away came the glad shouts of schoolboys as they played. The men were working as usual on the jetties; a ship passed out of the harbour laden with clay, bound for a distant land. People moved to and fro like little dots on the Town Quay; the smoke rose from the chimneys; and beyond the harbour entrance were scattered a few fishermen in their small open boats, spinning for mackerel.

Henceforward Janet Coombe would be a little name carved on a still grey tombstone, until the winds and rain of many years should bring it to obscurity, and then covered with moss and the tangled roots of ivy the letters would fade away, and she would be as unremembered as the fallen trodden leaves of past summer and the melted snow of a vanished winter.

The family stood by the open grave, Thomas supported by Samuel and Mary, with the others weeping at his side.

Joseph watched them, dry-eyed and still; he saw the white surplice of the parson blowing in the wind; he looked into the heavens where the loose clouds fled across the sky, he heard the eager voices of the boys as they played in the field near by.

Dust unto dust. There was no reason then for life - it was only a fraction of a moment between birth and death, a movement upon the surface of water, and then it was still. Janet had loved and suffered, she had known beauty and pain, and now she was finished - blotted by the heedless earth, to be no more than a few dull letters on a stone.

Joseph watched the gravel fall in upon her coffin, stones and earth together hiding it from his view, then the whole was strewn with wreaths of brilliant autumn flowers.

As the little crowd dispersed from the side of the grave, Joseph threw back his head and laughed aloud. A few turned back to gaze on his solitary figure, torn with mirth over his mother’s corpse.

It was not until the
Janet Coombe
started on her maiden voyage that a measure of consolation came to him.

The desolation of Plyn where Janet was no more lay behind him like a cast-off dream, and here stretched the calm and solitary sea, the love of which had run in his blood even before birth. The sea held danger, much beauty, and the elusive quality of unknown things in its keeping; here perhaps, when the winds shouted and the high sea swept him forward, there would come to him for one moment forgetfulness, and with it the zest of living once again. This ship was her namesake and her life’s dream; they had planned it together as their means of escape to perpetual freedom - and now Janet was dead. This ship was alive, sweeping her way over the surface of the water like a carefree gull, with Plyn a dark line far astern on the horizon; but Janet was dead. She would have been beside him now, treading the sloping deck, turning her head aloft to watch the mighty spread of canvas, listening to the kiss of spray as the vessel tossed the sea from her bows.