"You"re always telling me she never made any attempt to understand you. Did you ever make any attempt to understand her?"
"No - I - I suppose not."
"Well then-?"
"Oh! John - how terrible. Shall I go back to London now, this minute?"
"Don"t be an idiot. It"s too late now, besides she"s happy with this husband of hers."
"Do you really think p"raps she didn"t get on with Daddy?"
"Maybe not. I mean, they may have been awfully sort of devoted but never well - absolutely - I can"t explain."
"I know what you mean. Never really indispensable."
"H"m."
"It must be dreadful to be married to a person and not sort of feel that if they went away you"d be sick all day in a basin."
"I don"t think one would do that, would one? Personally - of course I don"t know anything about it - personally if I loved someone and they went away I wouldn"t be sick, I"d just feel everything in life would be utterly pointless, un-worth-while - there would no longer be any object in working, thinking. And yet one would go on - just the same."
"Would you do that? Oh! I wouldn"t. I"d be sick at first, and then I should get very angry, and dress up as a man and join the Foreign Legion."
"You"d soon be discovered."
"No - I wouldn"t, I"m strong, I"m quite thin - I don"t look like a girl."
"Who says so?"
"I say so."
"Then you"re a b.l.o.o.d.y fool."
"John!"
"Sorry - let"s change the subject. Read me your mother"s letter."
She did so, leaving out the postscript.
"I shouldn"t worry, Jennifer."
"I don"t. It"s only I can"t understand it. That awful man . . ."
"He"s obviously very attractive to her."
"If you could see him."
"Some women fall for the most amazing men. Fellows with spots, and bad teeth, who smell."
"John - don"t be filthy."
"It"s true - I think all men are terrible anyhow."
"You look pretty repulsive yourself at this moment, I must say. Where"s that dust come from?"
"Wood shavings."
She brushed it off with her hands.
"John - are we going to the wreck on Sunday?"
"Sure."
"It"s fun rather, isn"t it?"
"H"m."
"John - d"you suppose Janet Coombe was happy with Thomas?"
"I wonder. I think she was probably too wrapped up in Joseph to care for anyone else."
"And Joseph probably never cared for either of his wives really - he was thinking about her, or worrying over his son."
"And your father Christopher thought so much about you that he rather forgot his wife."
"Isn"t it awful, John? All these people loving one another and being prevented somehow, from absolutely understanding, from it being perfect. They went away - or they died - or they quarrelled - or they lost each other. Somewhere - something went wrong for them. They had a kind of loneliness the whole time. I feel the same - I shall always miss Daddy."
"Do you honestly think so?"
"Yes - I don"t know."
"You"re happy at Plyn, aren"t you?"
"Oh! terribly - I never want to leave Plyn again."
"What is it then?"
"I can"t explain. A doubt of the future, an uncertainty, a vague fear . . ."
"What sort of fear?"
"A fear of being afraid - that sounds crazy, doesn"t it? Sometimes I wake up in the night and feel there"s nothing before me - but nothing - nothing - emptiness and mist. And I walk about laughing all day pretending I don"t care and really just longing to be safe."
"Jennifer - promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise you"ll always tell me things like this. When you"re frightened, lonely - or when you"re happy - come and tell me."
"I believe I could tell you anything, John."
"There"s no reason for you to be afraid, Jennifer. It"s only because you were left alone when you were a child.You were too little to understand. And now you feel you"ll never grow out of it, but you will. Jennifer - don"t ever be frightened or lonely again."
She rubbed her face against his sleeve.
"It"s nice knowing you, John. You"re safe."
"Always think that, won"t you?"
"H"m."
"Coming to the wreck, Sunday?"
"H"m."
"All day - bringing pasties and cider."
"H"m."
"Not unhappy, are you?"
"No."
"Well, what are you hiding your face about?"
"I don"t know."
She slipped off the fence, and ran away from him without looking back.
Jennifer did not find winter at Plyn either gloomy or cheerless. She knew that this was where she belonged. Jennifer belonged to Plyn, she was Christopher Coombe"s daughter, she had been born here, her home was here, she moved and dwelt amongst friendly simple folk because her nature demanded their kindliness and their company.
These were her true surroundings. She had been deprived of them too long, lonely and frustrated.
Jennifer knew that had she stayed in London she would have drifted heedlessly wherever her casual fancy called her, little caring what should become of her. And now she was in Plyn, and so far removed from that other life that it seemed another world and she another being.
Plyn was necessary to her; she loved the sea, the shelter of the hills and the valleys, the comfort of the harbour, the wide grey sheet of water, the sight of the cl.u.s.tered houses, the church tower, the coming and going of ships; the crying of gulls, the peace of continual beauty, the love and kindness of the people who understood. It seemed to her that she possessed the companionship of those who were part of her, the very air rang with their voices, and their footsteps echoed on the hills.
She could see Christopher"s figure outlined against the sky, his fair hair blown by the light wind, his eyes tender as he watched the life in the cottages below. She heard him whistle to his dog, and then disappear over the brow of the hill in the wake of the setting sun.
Harold and Willie ran with her across the fields, they taught her to dive from the projecting rock in Castle Cove, they shouted with laughter as she shivered on the brink.
It was Harold who guided her to the gull"s nest in the cliff; it was Willie who showed her how to spin for mackerel. They walked three abreast, over the stretching hills, arguing, discussing . . .
Other voices were with her too, the voice of Joseph when she sailed a boat, making her careless of time and weather, setting her blood on fire with the zest of the stinging spray and the wet wind. Joseph who taught her the triumphant power of a sou"westerly gale, the thrill of a lifting sea and a straining mast, the weird exultation of danger.
But there was one who understood her best, one from whom she withheld no secret, one who soothed all irritation, all idle questionings, all vague perplexities, all hidden doubts.
On the sloping fo"c"sle head of the wrecked Janet Coombe Jennifer would lie, her cheek against the bulwark, her hand upon the bow-spirit; and beneath her a white figurehead gazed seaward, not a painted wooden carving with patched colouring chipped and old, but someone who was part of Jennifer herself, someone who cried and whispered in the depths of her being, someone who was loving and infinitely wise. Someone who knew that restlessness came from a rebellious mind, that fancied loneliness was the outcome of an awakening heart, that sleeplessness was due to the hunger of instinct, that dreams were the prelude to fulfilment, that fear was the tremor of a spirit craving completion - and that the cause of these things and the sweet anguish and torment within Jennifer was the sight of John climbing down to her from the hills above.
11.
Philip Coombe rarely went to the office now. His business was left almost entirely in the hands of his head clerk, as nearly forty-five years before the senior partner Hogg had done in entrusting it to him.
Philip was eighty-seven.
He sat all day in the front room overlooking the harbour, in his house in Marine Terrace. This was the room where Annie had visited him twice a week in the last months of her life, this was the room where Joseph had struck him to the ground. It was to this room that Christopher should have come, with murder in his heart, when the storm raged and the rain and wind shattered themselves against the window.
Now nearly fifteen years had pa.s.sed since then, and opposite him in this room of memories sat a girl in the likeness of Janet, with Joseph"s eyes and Joseph"s hair, a girl who held no fear of him, who laughed and sang, a girl who waited for him to die that she might seize upon his money, who already scattered it far and wide, careless, triumphant, holding him in her power.
This was the Jennifer he saw before him. Someone who embodied in her person the souls of Janet, and Joseph, and Christopher, someone who watched him day and night that he might not escape from their keeping, someone whose presence was a continual reproach and a reminder, tormenting his memory, a haunting spirit.Yet he dared not turn her from his door, he dared not bid her be gone and be lost to him, for then he would be enveloped by the presence of unseen things, of whispering voices, of soundless footsteps; he would turn in his chair and feel the gathering shadows about him, the cl.u.s.tering of dark, malevolent thoughts, the existence of shrouded figures, motionless, behind him, their breath fanning his forehead, and then creeping nearer, nearer, seizing upon him with cold, abhorrent hands . . . Better a living hated form, better a real physical detestation than an unknown horror.
Thus Philip clung to life and to the nearness of Jennifer whom he loathed, rather than lose himself in the fear that waited for him, that loomed close, so close.
And Jennifer watched this old and trembling man, crouching before his fire for all the midsummer days without, his wrinkled hands like the claws of a bird, rubbing slowly one against the other.
He spoke seldom, addressing her when he did so with unfailing courtesy, inquiring after her health, and expressing a hope that she was finding everything to her satisfaction.
Then he moistened his thin, racked lips with his tongue, and turned his narrow, deep-set eyes away from her hated face, back to the glow of the little fire, the coals sinking in upon one another, fanned by one single blue flame.
"She is wondering when I shall die," he thought, "she is wondering if I have made my will, and where it is hidden."
And Philip schemed how he could prevent her from robbing him of his wealth. He had made no will, therefore if he died leaving none behind him the value of his estate would go to his next-of-kin. Jennifer - his next-of-kin. Jennifer, or the other Coombes scattered about Plyn. All day he puzzled the matter.
While Jennifer, ignorant of his fancies, leaned out of the window, seeing nothing but a fair untidy head and a pair of long legs walking towards her, heard nothing but a whistle and a distant shout, and a voice which called "Jenny, come down," cared for nothing but to walk with her hand in his, singing s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, to stand on the hill with her cheek against his shoulder. "Do you want to bathe, sweet, or shall we just muck about in a boat and fish?" and to answer "I don"t mind, John," knowing he felt the same. To be half-asleep on the thwart beneath the blistering sun, the line dangling in her careless hand, and to open one eye and see him laughing at her, waving a glistening wriggling fish,"Wake up, you lazy little beggar, and do some work"; to pull home away from the path of the setting sun, wrapped in his jacket so much too big for her that the sleeves hung down below her hands, weary, happy, saying no word, and smiling at him for no reason . . .
"Tomorrow"s Sat.u.r.day - I"ll get away from the yard at two-thirty, and we"ll have the whole afternoon out here. Is that all right for you?"
"Lovely. You"ll bring the bait?"
"Sure."
"I"ll bring the cigarettes."
"Not cold, Jenny?"
"No."
"Been dull at all?"
"Frightfully."
"Same here. G.o.d! I"m sick of the sight of your face."