The Loving Spirit (7 page)

Janet was enchanted at the idea of a rough voyage, but Thomas was thinking of the children at home, and cursed himself for his weakness in giving way to her.

It was too late now to turn back, they were out of the Sound and heading for the open sea, with Rame Head away on their quarter.

‘If it comes on thicker we shall have a job beatin’ against it, eh, captain?’ said Thomas.

‘Oh! no, there may be a squall or two,’ laughed the sailor, ‘nothin’ to hurt. There’s no anger in it, as far as I can see. Should it come on bad we’ll try for St Brides instead.’

But Thomas had no desire to spend the night at St Brides, and he scarcely trusted the captain’s ability to find the entrance to the little harbour after dark, with the great projecting island outside it, barely a quarter of a mile to the westward.

It was dark soon and raining. Janet had been persuaded to go below, and to keep herself warm by the side of the small stove.

Thomas stayed with her, every now and then going on deck to find out what progress had been made.

The boat was rolling badly but neither of them was ill. They sat in silence, listening to the creaking and straining of the mast, and the sound of the wind and the rain.

Janet saw by Thomas’s face that he was uneasy in his mind, and she blamed herself, but all the same there was a wild feeling in her heart to think she was on a ship in the middle of the sea, and that the wind held danger.

She would have liked to be on deck with the men, hauling at ropes and blistering her hands, or clinging with all her strength to the straining wheel.

‘Why wasn’t I born a man?’ she thought. ‘To be up there now i’ the midst of it,’ and she felt the fact of her sex to be like a chain to her feet, as bad as the hampering petticoats around her ankles.

She longed for the other one to be with her tonight, he who was part of her, with his dark hair and his dark eyes so like her own. He who had not come yet, but who stared at her out of the future, and walked with her in her dreams.They would not be sitting like two prisoners in the cabin, they would be standing together on the deck, with their hair wild and soaked by the wind and the sea, and laughter on their lips. She could picture him with his hand on the wheel, and his eyes every now and again cast aloft to watch the trim of his sails, and then descending upon her with one warm swift glance.

Long legs and square shoulders like Thomas’s, but heavier built and stronger. Then a beckon of his free hand to her, and his arm about her waist, and throwing back his head and laughing the way he did.

She knew the sound of his voice, low and careless-like, and the very smell and feel of his flesh.

Janet closed her eyes and prayed.

‘Oh! my love, come soon - for it’s weary and sore I am of waitin’,’ and when she opened her eyes she saw Thomas her husband standing before her, like the shadow and the reflection of the one she loved.

He came and knelt beside her.

‘There’s more beauty in your face tonight, Janie, than I’ve ever seen,’ he whispered. ‘Do you love the sea and a ship so well?’

She placed her hands on his shoulders, and drew him to her.

‘It’s something that’s stronger than myself at times,’ she said to him. ‘Like in olden days when a woman felt the call upon her from God, to forsake all, her home, her life, an’ maybe her lover too, for the sake o’ givin’ herself into His keeping, secure from the world within a convent’s walls; the like of it comes to me, to wander forth from Plyn an’ you an’ our children, an’ to sail away in the heart of a ship, with only the wind an’ the sea and my dreams for company.’

He held her close, caressing her timidly with shy, nervous hands.

‘You’m not unhappy, Janie, you’m not regrettin’ we’re wed, an’ these few blessed years we’ve had together.’

‘No, dear lad, nor never will.’

‘Maybe I haven’ been by your side as often as I should, these last times, since the business has been all my care. It’s been over-much in my thoughts, I reckon. But Janie, my own dear wife, you’re the light o’ my eyes an’ the sweet of my heart - I love you for your dear strange thoughts an’ ways though I can’t understand them; you wouldn’ leave me altogether for your dreams, promise me you wouldn’, and take yourself where I’d not be touching you no more.’

‘Would you be lonely for me, lad?’

‘Why, Janie, don’t you reckon how I’d hunger for the feel o’ you at nights, your blessed tender body which belongs to me, an’ the touch of your hand on my heart, you in the house, your care for me an’ the childrun - you, the livin’ breathin’ thing which means home to me.’

‘No - I’ll never roam from you i’ the flesh, Thomas - I know as Janet Coombe belongs to her man, an’ her childrun, an’ Plyn itself. I’m rooted there like the trees in the shelter of Truan woods, an’ nothin’ can tear me from you.’

He leant his head against her, content with her answer, and Janet saw him resting against her in death as he did now, like a child asleep, while her restless spirit haunted the deep, flying with the gulls, and the song of the sea on her lips.

The captain appeared down the companion-way, and glanced into the cabin.

‘You’re welcome to turn in here an’ make yourselves at home, you know. We shan’t be in Plyn afore one or two i’ the mornin’, with this wind, but there’s no danger an’ you can sleep in peace till I calls you.’

Janet rose to her feet.

‘Let’s take one look at the sea, Thomas; I’m hungry for the feel of the air on my face.’

Together they climbed on deck and watched the scene around them. The wind had shifted more to the west, and the rain had ceased. The night was black save for the light of the stars. The ship plunged her way through the seas, happy and alive. No sign of land - nothing but the sea and the sky, and the sound of the wind in the sails. Janet stood in the bows of the ship, her cap streaming out behind her, her dark hair wild and tossed.

She looked like the figurehead of a ship.

Thomas caught his breath as he looked at her. She moved with the sway of the vessel, as though she were part of it. Thomas stood by her, and was aware of himself, troubled by her beauty. ‘Janie,’ he whispered, ‘Janie.’

Beyond him, beyond the ship, beyond the sea she heard someone call, loud and triumphant, out of the darkness - like the voice of the wind.

‘It’s now that I’ll come to you, NOW - NOW.’

She held out her hand, and felt Thomas beside her. ‘Janie,’ he was saying, ‘Janie.’

She turned away from the sea, and drew his hand to her lips.

‘Love me tonight.’

They went from the deck, and the ship plunged on through the darkness, one with the wind and the sea.

7

 

 

I
n the latter part of the spring there were several bad gales off the Cornish coast, and many fine vessels foundered. Thomas Coombe, being shipwright as well as boat-builder, was busier than he had ever been in his life. He engaged more men to work under him, and there was never a moment when some vessel was not lying on the beach beside the yard slip.

Little Samuel, who was now five, spent most of his time watching his father and the men at their work. He was given an old blunt tool to play with, and was nimble enough with his fingers, for all his lack of years.

Sister Mary had already passed her second birthday, and toddled about after her mother, with fat unsteady legs.

Janet blessed them for the lack of trouble they gave her, she feeling giddy and ill at times now, with another baby on the way. Both her sisters had married that year, and three weeks after the wedding of the youngest, old Mrs Coombe had died.

Janet said little to Thomas about her health. He was proud at the thought of another addition to his family, but his work at the yard prevented him from looking after his wife, and he was never in the house, except for his evening meal, and then straight to bed to sleep like a log.

Never before, either with Samuel or with Mary, had Janet felt so weak and tired in the early months. She was more concerned for the child than herself, and was afraid it would be born prematurely and die. The feeling of peace and security she had known before the birth of the two other children was not with her this time.

Her old wild, restless longings rose within her, and she wanted only to leave the house and her family, and take herself away into some silent far-distant place.

She no longer sat in the rocking chair, her work in her hands, content with the peace and warmth of her home, she would wander restlessly about the house, miserable at her weak state.

When the summer came, and the days were warm and long, Janet would leave the house and taking the children with her, climb laboriously to the top of the high cliffs above Plyn, and sit there for hours, watching the sea.

She longed for freedom as she had never longed for it; a throb of intense pain shook her being when she saw a ship leave the harbour of Plyn, her sails spread to the wind, and move away like a silent phantom across the face of the sea. Something tore at her heart to be gone too.

As the months slowly passed this feeling became stronger and more vital, not a day passed when Janet did not find some moment or other for making her way to the cliffs, and turning her head to the wind and listening to the sound of the sea. More than ever in her life she felt the urge and the desire to use her strength and to move swiftly, then she looked at her ugly misshapen body and bowed her head in her hands for shame that she had been born a woman.

Her nerves, usually calm and unruffled, were jagged and on edge.

The house seemed empty to her, she found no peace within its walls - it gave her nothing. She was short with Thomas and hasty with the children, they were all part of the chain that bound her to Plyn. Back to the cliffs she would roam, restless and miserable, searching for what was not; frightened at solitude yet craving it withal - her soul as sick as her body, and alone.

So the summer months drew into autumn, the early mornings were chill and drowned in a white mist, while at nights came the sharp frosts, heralding the approach of winter. Truan woods and the trees round Plyn were a riot of colour, and then the first leaves fell, shivering, rustling, a pale covering for the earth.The seaweed broke away from the rocks, and floated dull and heavy on the surface of the water. The rich brown and yellow autumn flowers became sodden with the soft autumn rain, and drooped their heads upon lean stalks.

Harvest was gathered in, the apples stripped from the orchards and stored in the dark lofts.

The birds seemed to have vanished with the summer sun, only the everlasting gulls remained, wheeling and diving for fish in the harbour, the long-necked solitary shag, and the stout busy little puffins.The river was silent, save for the whisper of the trees when the leaves dropped to the ground, and the weird mournful cry of the curlew as he stood at low tide on the mud banks, searching for food.

Dusk came early, soon after six o’clock, and the people of Plyn closed their doors and their windows against the cold damp mist, leaving the night to wrap its shrouded blanket about their sheltered homes, heedless of the weeping sky and the lonely baleful owls.

So the last week of October drew to a close.

The damp still weather changed of a sudden one afternoon, great purple clouds gathered from the south-west, and a low ugly line ran along the sea’s horizon. With the turn of the tide the strong wind changed to a gale, and descended with all its force upon Plyn.

High mountainous seas broke against the rocks at the harbour mouth, and swept their way inside the entrance. The spray came up over the Castle ruins, and the water rose above the level of the town quay, flooding the ground floor of the cottages grouped there on the cobbled square.

The men shut their women folk inside their houses, and made their way to the harbour slip, to see to the safety of their boats. It was the last day of October, ‘All Hallowe’en’, and usually a beacon was lit on this night, and the custom followed of feeding it at midnight with driftwood, and then proceeding through the town, but tonight this was abandoned - for no one would venture forth into such a gale unless on duty bound.

Thomas Coombe was down at the yard, watching the rising tide with apprehension and longing for the turn, when no more damage could be done. At Ivy House the children were put to bed and already asleep in spite of the howling wind. Janet had laid the supper and was awaiting Thomas’s return.

The rain had now ceased, only the wind and the sea shouted in unison. Every leaf was scattered, and the broken branches swung in the trees, creaking and shaking like the rattle of a ship’s shroud. Something was dashed against the window and fell, sending Janet’s hand to her side with the shock of the sound. She opened the window to see, and saw the dead body of a gull with its two wings broken.

The wild air tore at her curtains and blew to darkness the flickering candles.The fire hissed and shrank in the grate.Then Janet felt the movement of the live thing stir within her, she felt the striving of one who would break his bonds and be free.

And to her, too, came the call for liberty, the last desperate longing of a soul to seek its freedom, and the anguish of a body cast from its restraint.

She threw up her hands and cried aloud, and the wild mocking wind echoed her cry - ‘Come with me,’ called the voice out of the darkness, ‘come and seek your destiny on the everlasting hills.’

So Janet wrapped her shawl about her head, and conscious only of the pain that gripped her and the struggle of spirit and body, she stumbled away into the wild wet wind, with the call of the thundering sea in her ears.

Down in the yard Thomas and his men watched the slackening of the tide, and when they saw it retreat slowly inch by inch, angry at the forces which compelled it, they knew that the premises were safe for the night until the following morning.