The Loving Spirit (8 page)

‘Well, lads, it’s been a hard forbiddin’ watch for us. What do ye say to a cup o’ somethin’ hot up to the house? The wife will have it ready and waitin’.’

The men thanked him gratefully, and marched by his side up the hill to Ivy House, half bent with the weight of the wind at their backs.

‘Hullo, no lights,’ said Thomas. ‘She’s surely never gone to bed.’

He made his way into the house, the men at his heels.

The room was just as Janet had left it, with supper on the table, but the fire was low in the grate, and the candles blown out.

‘That’s queer,’ muttered Thomas, ‘’tesn’t like Janie to leave a room in such a state.’

One of the men looked over his shoulders.

‘Seems as if Mrs Coombe left everythin’ hasty-like,’ he said. ‘Suppose she’s been took bad, she’s very near her time, isn’t she, Mr Thomas, beggin’ your pardon?’

Fear clutched at the heart of Thomas.

‘Wait,’ he said, ‘I’ll see what she’s about.’

He went to the bedroom over the porch and opened the door.

‘Janie,’ he called, ‘Janie, where are you to?’

Samuel and his sister were sleeping sound, there was no movement in the house. Thomas ran downstairs, breathing hard.

‘She’s not there,’ he stammered, ‘she’s not anywhere; she’s not in the house.’

The men looked grave, they read the fear in his eyes. Suddenly he clutched at the table for support, his legs weakening. ‘She’s gone to the cliffs,’ he cried, ‘she’s gone out into the gale, crazy with the pain.’

He seized the lantern in his hands and ran from the house, shouting and calling to the men to follow him.

Folk came to their doors. ‘What’s all the pother an’ noise?’

‘Janet Coombe’s trouble is upon her, an’ she’s gone to the cliffs to lose herself,’ came the cry.

Men donned their coats and found lanterns to join in the search, and one or two women besides, sorrowful and anxious at the thought that one of their kind should suffer. The group staggered up the hill after Thomas, already a long way ahead.

Borne through the air came the chime of midnight from Lanoc Church, the final notes loud and triumphant with a gust of wind.

‘All Hallowe’en,’ whispered the folk amongst themselves, ‘and the dead risin’ from their graves to walk the earth, an’ the evil spirits of all time fillin’ the air.’

And they huddled close together and called for God’s mercy and protection, with horror in their hearts for the plight of Janet.

They gathered beside Thomas at the summit of the cliff, where the gale nigh shook them from their feet, and the black sea crashed against the rocks.

Hither and thither tossed the pale lanterns, searching the ground. ‘Janie,’ cried Thomas, ‘Janie - Janie, answer me.’

No sign of her on the bare grass, no sign of her in the tangled ferns.

Now the rain came once again, blinding the eyes of the searchers, the boiling waves dashed themselves to pieces, sending cloud after cloud of stinging spray on to the cliffs above.

The wind tore at the ground and the trees, wailing and sobbing, and cried like a thousand wild devils let loose in the air.

Then a faint shout came from Thomas, who held his lantern high above his head, and the light fell slantways upon the figure of Janet beside the Castle ruin.

She was crouched half kneeling in the grass, her hands flung out and clenched, her head thrown back. Her clothes were drenched with the spray and the rain, and her long dark hair fell wild about her face.

On her cheeks were the marks of her own tears, and those of the rain from Heaven.

Her teeth were biting into her torn lips, and blood ran at the corner of her mouth. The light in her eyes was savage, primitive, the light of the first animal who walked the earth, and the first woman who knew pain.

Thomas knelt by the side of Janet, and took her in his arms, and carried her away down the bleak hillside into the town of Plyn, and so to her home and laid her on the bed.

All the night the storm raged, but when at length the wind ceased, and the sea quietened its mournful clamour, peace came to her.

And when Janet held her wailing baby to her breast, with his wild dark eyes and his black hair, she knew that nothing in the whole world mattered but this, that he for whom she had been waiting had come at last.

8

 

 

‘
J
oseph, leave your brother alone, will ’ee, tormentin’ him like the little devil you are.’

‘No, I won’t. He’s got my boat, an’ he’s goin’ to give it back to me,’ said the boy firmly.

‘I only wanted to see it for the shape,’ cried Samuel, wiping the tears from his face. ‘I haven’t done’un no harm. Get away, Joe, you’re hurting.’

The two boys were struggling on the floor, Samuel, the eldest, held down by his younger brother. Joe’s black hair fell over his face, he threw back his head and smiled, a dangerous gleam in his brown eyes.

‘Give it me, or I’ll smash your face in,’ he said softly.

‘No, you don’t, my lad,’ shouted his father, and Thomas sprang to his feet from his armchair by the fire, and pulled the two boys apart; Samuel pale and shaken, Joseph reckless and laughing.

‘Is this the way you behave on the Sabbath? Has’n’ church taught you no better’n that? For shame on ye. Samuel, you go to your room an’ to bed without your supper, but you, Joseph, you’ll take a beatin’.’

Samuel went quietly up to bed, crying to himself, ashamed of his bad behaviour; and Thomas was left alone with his second son.

Although he was only seven, Joe was tall and big for his age, nearly as tall as Samuel who was eleven. As he stood there, with his dark eyes fixed on his father’s, his head thrown back and his chin in the air, he looked so much like his mother that Thomas turned away for a moment, then he hardened himself.

‘Do you know you’re a bad evil boy?’

The child made no answer.

‘Baint you goin’ to reply to your father when he asks you a question? Say you’m sorry at once, will ye?’

‘I’ll say I’m sorry when you gives me my boat, an’ not afore,’ said the boy coolly, and he stuck his small hands in his breeches and tried to whistle.

His defiance staggered Thomas. Never had Samuel behaved like this, or either little Herbert or Philip, the two youngest boys. Only Joseph persisted in getting his own way above them all, as if there was something in him that made him different to the others. He looked different too, with his dark wild appearance; his clothes were always in holes and his boots through at the toe.

Two or three times a week he played truant from school, or was complained of in some way or other, generally for fighting. It seemed as if Thomas had no authority over him at all. Only Janet knew how to handle him. Since his birth seven years ago on that dark October night, this small bit of a lad had dominated the household. He had needed more careful rearing than either Samuel or Mary, and during the first few months of his existence the house had rung with his screams and his yells. There had never been such a baby for making a noise. Only when his mother held him close to her and whispered to him, was he quietened. Once he grew out of his babyhood he threw off his first temporary frailty, and developed into a strong sturdy boy. Ivy House was seldom still or peaceful now, it resounded with either his laughter or his rages. He was not spoilt, there was no attempt made to pamper or give in to him in any way, it was just the boy’s personality that threw a sort of glamour about him, and there was no gainsaying him.

With the development of his character he seemed to open also that of his mother’s. From the moment of his birth Janet had altered.The soft pliability of temperament that had obeyed Thomas’s wishes during the first years of marriage had flown to the winds, and with it the solitary melancholy part of her that had seized her later. She had emerged stronger, braver, utterly fearless in mind, soul, and body, with no humble wishes to please her husband only and to care for his home, and no half-conscious longing and vague desires in her mind. Now she was no more a girl half sure of herself, puzzled at the world; she was a woman of past thirty who had already brought five children into the world.

Thomas, who had hitherto ruled home and business with no doubt about it, found himself placed gently but firmly in the background. It was Janet who had the first say and the last say at Ivy House, and now it had come to be the same down at the yard. It was Janet who suggested a change here, or an improvement there, it was Janet who ordered this and refused that. Of course,Thomas was the head of his own firm, and he gave the orders, but all the men under him and the folk of Plyn knew that his wife was behind him. Any man who had been slacking at his work invariably straightened his back and clutched his tool with an uncomfortable fear in his heart when Janet came down to the yard, with young Joseph following close behind her.

‘Well, Silas Tippet,’ she would say, ‘you’ve been an uncommon length o’ time over that piece o’ plankin’. What’s the reason for it?’

‘Well, I can’t say, Mrs Coombe,’ mumbled the man, red as fire,‘we’m tremendous busy down here, if you ask Mr Coombe he’ll tell ’ee . . .’

‘Stuff an’ nonsense, man,’ said Janet sharply,‘that boat’s promised by June the first, an’ on that date ‘twill be ready. It’s nails that is wanted in that plank, an’ not the drops of beer from your pocket, so see.’ - And she swept away like a regular queen, with young Joseph’s hand in hers.

And by June the first the boat would be ready for sure. At Ivy House and in the yard there were only two people that mattered - Janet and Joseph. Always the same couple running the house and running the business - Janet and Joseph.

But in the year 1842 Joseph was still but a lad of seven, and known then to be ‘terrible wild’, while Janet was famous for two things in Plyn, her beauty and her temper.

Back in Ivy House Thomas stood in the parlour, his stick in his hand, and Joseph before him. ‘Come here an’ take a beatin’,’ he said gravely.

‘I won’t,’ said the boy, and folded his arms.

Thomas took a step towards him and seized his collar in his hand, then he bent the child over and gave him three hard cuts with the cane.

Joseph fought like a little devil, and catching hold of his father’s wrist he bit it, breaking the skin and bringing blood.

Thomas dropped his stick with a cry, not of pain but of horror, at the action of his son.

He was white with the shock, none of his children had ever done such a thing. ‘God will punish you in His own way,’ he said quietly.

Joseph seized his coveted boat from the table, and with a shout of triumph he climbed out of the window, preferring it to the door, and was gone.

Upstairs poor Samuel knelt by his bed, his face in his hands - ‘Please God, make me a better boy,’ then he undressed, folded his clothes, and climbed into bed, the sheet over his head.

Thomas sat uneasily by the fire.When would Janet be back and what would she say?

She had gone to tea with Sarah Collins, taking with her Mary and Herbert, and little Philip.

Thomas reached for the Bible on the shelf, always his consolation, and unfortunately the book opened at the Commandments, and his eyes fell on the line - ‘... for the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children, even unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me . . .’

He sighed and shook his head. He had always loved and trusted God, he could think of no action in his life that could deserve the pain that Joseph had brought upon him. He had always been so proud of his family, too. Good, hard-working Samuel, gentle patient Mary, kind stolid Herbert - even quiet baby Philip with his small refined features; none of them had ever gone against his word, except Joseph.

Janet and Joseph - Joseph and Janet - the pair of them together controlled everything.

Thomas listened, he heard footsteps and voices in the garden.

It was the family returning. Janet swept into the room, the children following. They were chatting and laughing, pleased with their afternoon.

Janet was smiling, her eyes were bright and there was colour in her face.

‘Were you thinkin’ us was never comin’?’ she asked gaily. ‘The children enjoyed themselves that much I had’n the heart to bring them away.’ Then she noticed the disorder of the room, the cane flung in the corner - Thomas’s grave face with his wrist bandaged. She took it all in at a glance.

She bit her lips, her eyes hardened, her chin stuck in the air like her son’s when he was angry.

‘Where’s Joseph?’ she said at once.

Thomas rose to his feet and pulled himself together.

‘We’ve had a very unhappy afternoon here,’ he said slowly. ‘Samuel and Joseph started fightin’ over Joseph’s boat, and I was obliged to separate them. I was sorely angry, on the Sabbath an’ all, that they should behave so bad. I sent Samuel to bed sayin’ he was to have no supper, an’ as Joseph wouldn’ say he was sorry I gave him a beatin’. Look what he’s done to my wrist - bit it.’

He uncovered the wrist, and showed it to his wife, as if it were her fault. Mary slipped away and ran upstairs to Samuel, Herbert’s lower lip drooped and tears came into his eyes, while little Philip alone seemed unperturbed. He crossed the room to a cupboard where he kept his toys, and played quietly in a corner.

‘Where’s Joseph now?’ inquired Janet.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Thomas sullenly. He was hurt that no notice should have been taken of his wrist. ‘He jumped out o’ the window, an’ made for the beach, I reckon.’

Janet left the room and went upstairs to the room the three boys shared together.

Samuel was sitting on the bed, with Mary at his side. ‘He’s terrible sorry, mother, to have behaved so bad,’ said his sister swiftly.

Samuel and Mary were devoted to one another.

‘Tell me what happened, Samuel,’ said Janet quietly. She knew he would speak the truth.