The Loving Spirit Part 18

Without a word they left the house together and walked away, anywhere, it did not matter, wherever their feet should lead them. They went to a hotel, for they had eaten nothing since breakfast early that morning. It was now half past three in the afternoon. Christopher heaped the food on to his father's plate, as though he were a child. Joseph tried to smile, but the muscles of his face seemed stiff and frozen. An atmosphere of shadows clung about him. Christopher turned away, and struggled with his own meat, forcing the food down his throat, thinking helplessly of the life that awaited Joseph at Plyn.

When they had finished Christopher paid the bill, and they made their way outside again into the false suns.h.i.+ne. d.i.c.k was waiting to see them off at the station. He was staying five days in Plymouth. Then Joseph spoke for the first time.

'How did 'ee manage at the exam, d.i.c.k?' he said.

'Middlin' well, thank you, Uncle. I trust that I'll satisfy them all right.'

'That's good.' Joseph looked out of the carriage window beyond him. 'You see, I want you to be the new skipper of the Janet Coombe,' he said.

The two men knew then that the end was come. The sea and the s.h.i.+p would know Joseph no more.

'I'll do my level best, Uncle Joe.'

The train sped away, carrying father and son.

Christopher took his father's arm.

'Can't they save your eyes at all, father?' he whispered.

'I don't know,' said Joseph. 'Don't worry, boy.'

The tears were slowly trickling down Christopher's face.

'Father, can't I do anything?'

'All right, Chris, dear lad. It's like comin' to the end of a dream, that's all. It's only the s.h.i.+p I mind.'

Grey clouds gathered, and rain pattered against the carriage window.

12.

The first weeks after the Janet Coombe had sailed without him, Joseph seemed to sink into a coma of depression from which it was impossible to rouse him.

Annie was no help to him. She was frightened at his change of mood, and did not understand. Age, which Joseph had always despised and thrust from his mind, was now coming upon him.

Ivy House remained to him and the quiet strolling along the cliffs above the harbour. Joseph found some measure of content up at the rambling farm, with his sister who understood him better than his own family, and her boy Fred who possessed the strength that had been Janet's.

Queer, unaccountable thing this business of heredity.

Meanwhile, unknown to his father, Christopher was planning to go to sea.

He saw himself standing in his father's place, admired, respected, a little feared, carrying on the tradition of Coombe strength and gallantry.

Christopher had studied his father during the last months, he had learnt something of the love that had existed between Joseph and Janet, and he began to understand why this father of his had expected so much from the son.

Christopher told Joseph one evening when they sat together by the Castle ruins.

'Father, the Janet Coombe will be home in less than five weeks time, and I want to s.h.i.+p in her when she sails again.'

Joseph stretched out his hand to Christopher as though he were a little lad again.

'I knew you would go,' he said. 'It's stronger than you, Chris, it's somethin' in your blood there's no strugglin' agenst. I've waited so long for you to tell me this.'

'I'll do anything to make you proud of me, father, and I swear you will be before long.'

'I know. Oh! Chris boy, you've done a lot for me today, I'll never forget.'

'Thank you, father. I'm glad - I'm glad.'

The pair went down the hill together, the father with his arm round the son's shoulder.

Once more Joseph took heart, and the next weeks fled rapidly until the Janet Coombe was anch.o.r.ed again in Plyn harbour.

Christopher himself could scarcely wait for the time to pa.s.s. He was getting away from Plyn at last, and entering upon a strange unknown life. Never mind the risks, never mind the discomforts, this was freedom of a sort, and better than the drudgery at the yard.

The day before he sailed, the young man had occasion to go into the s.h.i.+pping office, and there he met his Uncle Philip, who showed himself surprisingly good-tempered.

'Going to sea, Christopher?' asked Philip. 'I can't somehow see a smart chap like you settling down to life on a rough schooner.'

The young man flushed awkwardly. 'I trust I shall make a success of it,' he said.

Philip Coombe looked him up and down, and leaning back in his chair, he picked his teeth with his penholder. An idea had come into his head.

'Your father is glad about this, I suppose?'

'Yes, Uncle; well, I admit it was to console him somewhat that I came to the decision.'

'I imagined that. I suppose you know where you are bound?'

'St John's, I hear, and then the Mediterranean. I've always had a wish to see some of these places, and it's queer to think I shall soon be there.'

'Hum! no doubt the sh.o.r.e will seem a splendid thing after the Atlantic. You'll discharge your Mediterranean freight at London. Ever been to London?'

'I've only been as far as Bristol,' replied Christopher, somewhat ashamed.

'Ah! London's the spot for a young man like you. You'd fall on your feet there right enough. Something of a dreamer, aren't you? London is the stepping-stone for the ambitious. Many a penniless boy has won fame and fortune in the capital, boys who, but for seizing their opportunities, would have spent their lives before the mast in some old vessel, such as you intend to do.'

A shadow seemed to lay itself across Christopher's heart.

'I hope to work my way to the top of my trade, Uncle,' he said in defiance. Philip Coombe whistled and shook his head.

'Don't you want to strike out on a line for yourself, be somebody? Is your ambition to be eventually the Master of a little schooner? She will be out of date when you get your ticket, some time in the nineteen hundreds.You're not as bright as I thought. Go off on your sailing s.h.i.+p and stay there as long as you like, but don't forget that London is waiting round the corner.'

Christopher left the office, his mind perplexed with a hundred new doubts and fears, as his uncle had intended it should be.

The next three months Joseph pa.s.sed peaceably and contentedly; it seemed to him that perhaps the future could be made splendid and worth while, and he looked forward to his son's return.

It was quite possible the Janet Coombe would anchor in Plyn harbour early in the new year. His father would prepare a great welcome for him, especially as it would, in all probability, fit in with the boy's twenty-third birthday.

As the time drew near Joseph trembled with impatience to see his son again, and to hear from him a detailed account of the voyage and the behaviour of the s.h.i.+p.

He thought of little but this now, and when the brothers and Annie complained that the 'sailor-boy' seldom wrote beyond a line now and again to say he was well in health, he defended him stoutly, saying that Christopher had better things to do than spend his watch below in scribbling to his family. He was training to be a man, and learning a man's job. Let him be. Time enough to hear his news when he returned.

So Christmas came and went, and still no sign of the Janet Coombe. The weather had been severe, with several gales in the Channel, and there were some uneasy nights in Ivy House. Then the s.h.i.+p was reported safe in London, and Joseph breathed again. It would not be long now. The s.h.i.+p had only to discharge her fruit cargo, when she would return in ballast to Plyn. The boy would be late for his birthday, but never mind that, he would receive a warm welcome from all his family, as both the brothers were at home.

On the morning of the third of January, Joseph was standing in the garden inspecting the weather some half hour before the midday dinner, when a boy entered the gate with a note in his hand.

'A message for you, Captain Coombe, from the office,' he said. Joseph tore open the letter with a frown.

Could you please come down and see me at once? I have something of importance to tell you. - Philip Coombe.

What on earth did the fellow want? He had not spoken to him for over three years, not since his marriage in fact. He made a point of cutting him deliberately in the street. Well, it must be urgent he supposed, it was not like Philip to be the first to break the silence. He seized his cap, and made his way down the hill to the office, calling to his wife not to wait dinner, as he might be late.

He had not been inside the office since that day when he had looked over his brother's shoulder and seen the photograph of Annie. He chuckled to himself at the remembrance. He, Joseph, had won her, and Philip had lost. It had been easy enough. Well, he wasn't going to have his brother notice his decline in strength, so he straightened his shoulders and entered the once familiar room with something of his old swagger.

'Well,' he said, 'I must say I did not expect to hear from you. However, here I am, an' out with your news, because it's cold weather, an' I'm anxious to get back to my dinner.'

Philip watched him, and rubbed his hands softly.

'Still the same att.i.tude of defiance I see, for all your changed appearance,' he said smoothly. 'Well, I'm very sorry, Joe, but there's a bad knock in store for you. This wire has just come through to the office. I felt it my duty to entrust it to you personally. Read it, brother, by the light, for I know you see with difficulty.'

Joseph took the wire and read the following message: Handed in at London. Friday evening. Christopher Coombe deserted s.h.i.+p this evening. Obliged sail without him, one hand short. Due Plyn probably early in week. - Richard Coombe, Master.

'Wherever's Joe?' worried Annie. 'Nearly three o'clock an' not back yet. I've a mind to clear away. Seen your father, boys?'

Charles and Albert shook their heads. 'Can't fathom out where he's gone,' said Albert, 'lest he's up on the cliffs, but then it ain't like him to be late for his meals.'

'He told me not to wait, but never said how long he'd be;' Annie went to the window. 'S'comin' over misty, too, I'm in a way about him.'

Katherine looked up from her sewing.

'P'r'aps he's gone up to Aunt Lizzie at the farm,' she suggested.

'Scarcely likely.'

Five minutes later they heard a slow dragging footstep coming up the garden path.

'Is that him now?' asked Charlie.

''Tisn't Joe's step. He treads firmer than that, for all his poor sight,' said Annie.

But the door opened and Joseph stood before them. Not the Joseph that any of them knew, but a man with tortured eyes. His hands were shaking. He leaned against the door, his hand to his side.

'Joe,' whispered Annie, 'what's come over you?'

The boys leapt to their feet.

'Father, good G.o.d! . . . What's happened?'

He waved them away with his hand.

Then he spoke slowly, weighing up his words with care.

'I forbid you to ever breathe the name of Christopher again, here in this house or in Plyn, or amongst yourselves. He may die in the greatest poverty and distress before I ever lay a finger to help him. I swear before you all I will never look upon his face again. And if you wish to know the reason - look there - that's why.'

He threw them the crumpled telegram, and without another word he went to his room above the porch, and locked the door.

13.

Up and down his room paced Joseph, with his mind wrecked and his soul wounded, and below, his family sat trembling for him, but unable to help, unable to heal.

So the day pa.s.sed, with the endless footsteps overhead, and the night, too, which Annie spent with Katherine in her room, and only at daybreak did the sound cease, and Joseph give way to bodily fatigue.

When he arose the next day his face was set in harsh lines, and his eyes were cold and empty.

The name of Christopher was never mentioned, whatever the son's reasons were for leaving the s.h.i.+p, the father never knew. Letters arrived, but were put away by him, the seal unbroken.

The atmosphere of Ivy House changed, it became heavy and unbearable. Joseph was the stern master whose word was law. There was no laughter, no gaiety.

Albert and Charles were only too glad to escape, Albert to his s.h.i.+p, Charles to his regiment. Annie and her stepdaughter were left to care for this dragon of horror that had once been Joseph. If their natures had been stronger, if they had been possessed with some grain of courage and light, they might have succeeded in bringing him back to himself. But they were timid, cowed; they ran hither at his bidding, and bowed their trembling heads before him. He forbade them to wander from the house unless it was to shop, and then they must be back at a certain fixed hour. If they were a minute late he would wait for them on the doorstep, his watch in his hand, his mouth ready to open and curse them.

They were permitted to visit relatives once a week, but no one was invited to the house, no neighbours could have the pleasure of their company. Katherine was forbidden to speak to young men; she saw that her chances to marry were remote and nigh hopeless. No one had the courage to seek her out for fear of Joseph. She saw herself doomed to a lonely, bitter spinsterhood, beside this terrible father.

Annie he treated as a slave, as a wretched servant; slowly her health and youthful spirits dwindled, her eyes became wan and l.u.s.treless, her cheeks pale and thin.

They had no boy now at Ivy House for the rough work, they were obliged to do it all themselves.

Too frightened to complain or to withstand his tyranny, they scrubbed the stone floors and carried the coals from the cellar, while he stood over them, watching, laughing at their feeble efforts. He would drag Annie to the looking-gla.s.s, and show her the thin, tired reflection of herself.

'Twenty-three? You look forty. No man would sigh for you now, I reckon.'

He never touched them or beat them, his cruelty was more refined than this, more subtle. They dreaded the meals alone with him, when they were obliged to hearken to his words, and listen to the tales of horror he told them.

And all the while he gazed before him with his cold, blank eyes that seemed to hold no knowledge of their presence, eyes that looked into what unknown depths of desolation, they dared not know.

Most of all Annie feared the nights by his side, when sometimes he would walk up and down till dawn talking aloud to her, preventing her from sleep, and at other times he would torture her with his questions as to her doings and thoughts on the previous day, leaving her no privacy.