And then suddenly, with no warning, the breathless grey sweep of the sea itself, breaking beneath the pa.s.sing train, the high red cliffs of Devon, children who ran barefoot upon the shingle, and little boats like toys rocking against the tide.
They were in Cornwall now, her own country, and a weird, bewildering mixture of rugged hills and low, sweeping valleys, grey scattered cottages, tall forests, and swollen streams. In her excitement she got down at the wrong station, the junction for St Brides, and she had the anguish of seeing the train steam away in the distance, and her left with her luggage upon the narrow platform, some fifteen miles from her destination.
Ruthless and extravagant, careless of her money, Jennifer walked out of the station and found her way to a garage, and in less than twenty minutes she was being driven through the lanes towards Plyn in a hired and battered Ford.
Heedless of the white dust she took off her hat and let the wind run riot in her hair, she ignored the noisy engine and the fumes of petrol, and leaning forward she caught the scent of trees and hedges, primroses upon the banks, campion and flaming gorse, earth and the sun and the rain, and a distant shimmering tang of the sea.
They came upon the summit of a rolling hill. Down below, like a still lake in the valley of mountains, gleamed the wide grey waters of a harbour. A town was built up upon the farther hill, rising away in terraces to the cliffs. Old jumbled houses cl.u.s.tered together, the smoke curling from their slate chimneys. There were cobbled stone quays at the water"s edge, and steps leading to the doors of the cottages.
A ship was leaving the harbour, she was steaming past the entrance, and making her way slowly and majestically to the open sea. Three times she blew her siren, and the sound travelled up into the air and was echoed by the surrounding hills. Hovering over the masts of the ships at anchor the gulls cried.
The driver of the Ford turned in his seat to Jennifer and pointed. "Look there," he called, "that"s Plyn."
He jammed on his brakes and the car descended the steep, stony hill. Here there were whitewashed cottages on either side, and ducks and hens wandering in the ditches. Then a long stone wall and a cobbled slip and beyond this the wide expanse of harbour stretched to the sea, with the grey houses gazing down upon the shining water.
Jennifer left the car and leaned against the rough stone wall, and with one sweeping glance it seemed to her that she could gather to herself the whole of Plyn, she could break down the barrier of years that had meant separation and a dumb solitude; with a sigh and a strange awakening of her heart she looked upon that which was lost to her so long; and the peace so often sought came to her shyly, softly, like a message of hope.
Jennifer paid her car and crossed the ferry. She wandered through the long narrow street of Plyn, her suitcases in either hand, uncertain as to her direction or for whom she must inquire.
She remembered in some queer intuitive way that Ivy House was beyond the town, that it lay some little distance up the farther hill towards the cliffs and the open sea. And as she reckoned this there came the realization that Ivy House was hers no longer, that it had belonged now for many years to others of whom she knew nothing, that they could scarcely give her welcome without warning, and twilight was falling, and she was virtually a stranger in her own home.
Now she stopped, tired, hungry, a little dispirited, craving some welcome. Scarce knowing what she was about she laid her hand on the arm of a pa.s.ser-by and questioned him.
"Tell me," she asked him, "is there anyone in Plyn with the name of Coombe?"
The man gazed at her curiously.
"Which Coombe is it you"ll be wantin", my dear?" he inquired. "There"s several Coombes in Plyn, scattered here an" there you know."
Jennifer tried to summon up her courage. Forlorn and weary, she could remember no relative who had known her as a child, there had been uncles, cousins, many of them she was certain, but their Christian names and their faces were unknown to her.
"I"m not sure," she said unhappily. "It"s - it"s some years since I was here. I feel a little bewildered, and scarcely know where to turn."
"There"s the two Miss Coombes who keep the shop yonder opposite the Bank - might they be of help to you? They"re the daughters o" Samuel Coombe, but he"s been dead many a year. They"re elderly ladies, very good sort o" persons. Would you care to try there?"
"Oh, yes!" said Jennifer quickly."They might be able to advise me in some way. I feel rather abrupt to disturb them, are you sure they won"t mind? Perhaps it would be better if I went to a hotel."
"Are they relatives of yours, my dear, by any chance?"
"Yes - at least I hope so. My name is also Coombe."
"Well, then, Miss Mary and Miss Martha will make you welcome for sure. There"s the place just opposite, with the queer-shaped knocker on the door. Good night to you."
"Good night - and thank you."
She walked across the street and tapped upon the door. She felt nervous now and shy, uncertain of what she should say. Mary and Martha - she was sure these names formed some link in her memory.Aunt Mary - Aunt Martha - was it Harold who had mentioned them once, long ago? Even so, how could she be sure that they would know her?
The door opened, and a tall white-haired old woman with soft blue eyes and pink cheeks waited on the threshold.
"Is that Annie Hocking with my paper," she began. "Oh! I beg your pardon, miss, I didn"t see proper in this fallin" light. Shop"s closed now; were you wantin" anything particular?"
Jennifer, the hard, cool, resolute Jennifer, who had left No. 7 Maple Street with such a.s.surance, was trembling now, a little girl again ready to cry.
"Excuse me," she said. "I am sorry to worry you, but I wasn"t quite sure what to do or where to go. Could you tell me - was Christopher Coombe any relation of yours?"
The woman stared at her blankly for a moment, taken by surprise. Then her face cleared, and she smiled.
"Yes, indeed," she answered. "He was my first cousin, an" I looked after him an" his brothers as lads, me an" my sister between us. Aunties, he called us always."
"Oh!" said Jennifer, the tears rising in her eyes. "Oh! I"m so glad, so glad. You won"t remember me, of course, but I"m his daughter - I"m Jennifer Coombe."
"Why" - the woman"s face puckered up strangely, she took a step forward - "you"m never Jenny - poor Christopher"s little Jenny?"
"Yes."
The woman called over her shoulder: "Martha - come here quick; why, did you ever? Who"d ha" believed it possible!"
Another old woman, the living image of her sister, but shorter and stouter appeared from the back room.
"What"s all this to-do?"
"Why, here"s Christopher"s little girl - grown up an" big. You remember Jenny, Martha?"
"That"s never Christopher"s girl? Merciful Lord - whatever next. There now - I can scarce believe me eyes. Where you"m sprung from, my dear - so sudden after all these years? Come inside, my dear, an" let"s have a peep at you proper."
They led her into the little black kitchen overlooking the harbour. The curtains were not yet drawn, and through the window Jennifer could see the shadows of evening fall upon the water and the lights of the ships at anchor. The room was small and cosy. There was a cheerful fire burning in the low grate, and the table was laid for a simple supper - bread, cheese, and hot pasties. The room was lit by four candles, they flickered and danced in the cool air that blew gently through the open window. A cat lay stretched upon the hearth, licking its paws. There was an old-fashioned dresser in the corner of the room, crowded with china, and a clock ticked above it, solemn and slow. On the hob above the oven a kettle hummed softly.
Suddenly from without came the churning sound of water stirred by a ship"s propeller, the grating, hollow rattle of the chain, a whistle and the hoa.r.s.e cries of men.
Jennifer heard the sounds, she listened as though to the echoes of forgotten dreams, she saw herself a child leaning from the bedroom window carried in her father"s arms, stretching out her hands towards the distant lights. She looked around the little room, she saw the homely comfort of the fire, the quiet flickering candles, the shadows playing upon the ceiling, the simple cottage furniture, the waiting meal, the faces of the two old women smiling, tender, holding out their hands to her in welcome.
Jennifer turned from them, blinded by tears, ashamed of her foolishness, but helpless, immeasurably content.
"You don"t know what this means," she said,"but this is home to me, home at last."
9.
The following day there was much to be said and discussed. The aunts would have the whole story of Jennifer"s running away, and her reasons; they inquired of this London they had never seen and how irksome it must have been for the poor child to have borne it so long; and how these thirteen years had changed the little girl they had known, and then the war and such unrest, and they had heard of Harold"s death but not of Willie"s; what sadness and misery it was for sure, and many were gone from Plyn never to return, the place itself greatly changing according to some but scarcely spoilt for all that.
Then Jennifer in her turn inquired what relatives were living, but though she heard many names, and uncle this and cousin that, she admitted they meant nothing to her.
Later she walked in Plyn and to her dismay found she remembered little, save the angle of the place here and there, the slope of the hill leading to the cliffs, the Castle ruin, the path across the fields to the church. The town itself seemed unfamiliar and quaint, but no less dear for all her short memory.
It was the harbour that delighted her most, the ships, the sailing boats, the glimpse of the jetties near the station, the wide grey sweep of water and the c.h.i.n.k of open sea beyond the entrance.
Then she stole away up the road and through the fields, to the tower of a church she could see rising above the slope of the hill.
Jennifer came to Lanoc.
She wandered among the graves searching for the one she loved. For some time she looked about her in vain, and lastly she arrived next a thorn hedge and an elm tree, and here were many stones bearing the Coombe name, some plain and recent, others ivy-covered, worn with age.
Here was Herbert Coombe and his wife, here was Mary Coombe, Samuel and his wife Posy; there was someone named Elizabeth Stevens and her husband Nicholas, there were sons and grandchildren of these people. Close to the hedge was a stone that seemed older than the others, it was sunk a little, and the ivy so cl.u.s.tered about the writing that Jennifer had to break some of it away to see the blurred and faded name.
"Janet Coombe of Plyn, born April 1811, died September 1863, and also Thomas Coombe, husband of the above, born December 1805, died September 1882. Sweet Rest At Last."
There was no stone older than this, and she wondered if these were the first Coombes, the founders of the family. A little away to the left were two single graves, near to one another. Here lay Susan Collins Coombe, dearly beloved wife of Joseph Coombe, and the other grave, smaller, unkept, was also his wife"s,"Annie, wife of Joseph Coombe, died 1890, aged twenty-four years." Joseph himself was not here.Was it he who had been her grandfather, and whom her mother had spoken of as selfish and cruel? Poor Annie, aged twenty-four- Then at last she found that for which she had been seeking, apart, on a rising slope of ground, with the letters cut clear and strong against the white stone."Christopher Coombe, son of Joseph and Susan Collins Coombe, who gave up his life fearlessly on the night of 5 April 1912, aged forty-six years."
Jennifer knelt down and smoothed away some of the tangled gra.s.s, she found an empty pot amidst some rubbish by the side of the hedge, and this she filled with water from a tap next the church, and placed inside it the daffodils she had brought for him.
Then she stood up, and looked upon the little group of graves, these last resting-places of her people, so quiet and peaceful in the still churchyard, unmolested save for the blossom that fell from the trees in the farther orchard.
And Jennifer turned, knowing them free from trouble and distress, and went home through the fields to Plyn.
Half-way down the hill she asked a pa.s.sing boy the exact whereabouts of Ivy House, but he shook his head and said there was no such house in Plyn. She insisted, however, saying she had lived there before the war, and he called to a woman across the road, "D"you know anything of Ivy House, Mrs Tamlin? The young lady says she lived there, but I"ve never heard of it."
"Oh! that"s Seaview she"ll be meaning," answered the woman. "It was called Ivy House once some years ago, I believe."
"No ivy on it now, miss," grinned the boy. "It"s a fine new-looking place. Mr and Mrs Watson are the present owners. Look, that"s it, away yonder, standing in its own garden."
Jennifer walked uncertainly towards the square, middle sized house, surrounded by a trim box hedge.
There was a green gate, and a trim path leading to the front door. This door was also painted a bright green. The roof was obviously new, the old grey slates were gone, and shining black ones in their place. No ivy now on the face of the house, but to relieve the bare appearance the owners had stuck a couple of pillars of eastern origin beneath the lower windows. Where the wash-house had been they had built a small conservatory, and facing the garden, leading from the original parlour, the path had been constructed into an attempt at a verandah.
A woman was lying in an orange hammock, with a Pekingese dog in her lap, and an elderly man was stooping over a flower bed, snipping at something with a pair of scissors.
He rose and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
"I think it would be wise if we spread a little lime here, my dear," he called to the woman, and seeing Jennifer staring at him over the hedge he frowned and turned his back. The dog began to yap excitedly.
"Quiet, Boo-Boo," cried the man, and then said in a tone, unnecessarily loud, "He"s a good little watch dog all the same. He knows when strangers are about."
Jennifer turned and ran down the hill, her eyes burning and her heart throbbing while she was aware of something sticking in her throat which she could not control.
Seaview. But that was only a phase of time to those new people, they could not alter the truth. They imagined that the place belonged to them, to change it as they willed, but somewhere there was no hammock, no yapping dog, only a little girl waving to her daddy, swinging backwards and forwards on the garden gate.
That day Jennifer helped her aunts with the shop, but she was scarcely needed, for the business was simple and easy, and they were both well accustomed to the work for all their sixty-nine years of age.
In the evening Jennifer begged them to tell her something of the old days in Plyn, of her father as a boy, of her grandfather, and of the worries and cares that had been part of their life.
One by one Jennifer conjured up the scenes of the past, she saw the men and women whose name she bore live out their little lives, knowing sorrow, joy, suffering, and despair, loving and hating one another, and so pa.s.s away out of the scheme of things, realities no more, nothing but the grey tomb-stones in Lanoc Churchyard.
Janet - Joseph - Christopher - Jennifer, all bound together in some strange and thwarted love for one another, handing down this strain of restlessness and suffering, this intolerable longing for beauty and freedom; all searching for the nameless things, the untrodden ways, but finding peace only in Plyn and in each other; each one torn apart from his beloved by the physical separation of death, yet remaining part of them for ever, bound by countless links that none could break, uniting in one another the living presence of a wise and loving spirit.
"It seems to me, then, that Uncle Philip set himself against my grandfather from the first, and because he hated him he carried the bitterness on into the next generation - Daddy, too, had to suffer." Jennifer was filled with anger and loathing for this old man who had brought such ruin and misery to her family.
"I"d like to make him suffer now," she said. "I"d like to bring fear to him as he has done to others. We don"t know anything about death; why should he be allowed to go free now, just because he"s so old, and n.o.body has the pluck to stand up to him? I believe that"s the truth of the whole matter. No one has the pluck."
"Oh! your Cousin Fred stood up to him, an" bravely too," interrupted Aunt Martha. "When he was a young man it was he took your grandfer" from Sudmin, and it was he spoke him to his face in the office hard by after your dad died, full seventeen years later. Fred was a good friend to Christopher an" Uncle Joseph."
"I wish I could thank him, but wasn"t it he who was killed in the war?"
"Yes - poor man. Which year was it, Mary? - 1917, I"m thinkin". He left a widow an" boy, but Norah didn"t long survive him.The boy though - well - there"s a regular Coombe if you like. He"s our celebrity in Plyn these days."
"Yes, indeed," smiled Martha, "we"m proud o" John. John"s the talk of all folk now."
"Why, what does he do?" asked Jennifer. "I seem to remember playing once with a boy called John, but he was older than me."
"That "ud be John all right, when he was up to the farm with his family. I mind your dad would take you there visitin" at times. Well, John"s a great lad, a splendid lad. He tried to get to France in a little boat during the war, only a young chap he was, bare seventeen, but not a fear in his heart, bless him. Off he started at dead o" night, in an old tub scarce seaworthy it appeared, but luckily he was found off Plymouth somewheres, an" sent back home with a caution."
"Oh! what a shame!" said Jennifer. "Then he never got to the war?"
"No, my dear, he didn"t, he was under age you see. Well, then his poor mother died - such a to-do, there was John left with the farm on his hands, an" a tidy sum of money in the bargain.
"So what d"you think he does, Jenny?" cried Martha excitedly, her cheeks flushing with pride.
Jennifer shook her head, smiling at the two old women.
"I"m sure I can"t guess."
"He sets brother Tom an" Cousin Jim up in the yard again which hadn"t been used since the trouble o" the licadation, an" he himself goes off over the country to learn his trade, findin" out this, an" improvin" on that, and back he comes four years ago with every trick at his fingers" ends, an" since then he"s done nothin" but build yachts, build yachts - from winter till summer, with orders comin" through to him from all over the place, an" Plyn in quite a ferment over the whole business. Why - look through the window, my dear, to the right of the harbour, see that huge ship there, stretchin" to Polmear Point, see them buildin"s an" sheds, those cranes, an" the tops of masts - well, that"s John"s yard, Jenny - built beyond the original Coombes" Yard, but ten times as big. There now, did you ever see anythin" like it?"
"Has he really done all that in four years? He must have worked like a navvy. What"s that mast tipping up behind the crane?"
"Why, that"s the new 100-ton sailing cruiser he"s havin" built. There"s two of John"s boats racin" at Cowes this year he tells me, two smaller ones built in his second year. They belongs to some gentlemen over to Falmouth. They"ll be comin" here for the Regatta in August for sure."
"So I suppose they"ve gained back all their losses, and are making more money now than they ever did in the old days."
"That"s right, my dear, that"s right. An" brother Tom lives in a fine big cottage now, with a fair sized garden, and Jim next door with his married daughter. They"re elderly men now, of course, like ourselves, but they still work - why, I"ve never seen such workers as they, did you, Mary?"
"No - I declare, but then it"s all John"s doing. He"s the one. Ah! Jenny, if only your dad could ha" lived to see this, my dear."
"He would be proud and happy, wouldn"t he?" asked Jennifer. "Just to know that everything had come all right. He wouldn"t mind the changes do you think?"
"O" course not, he"d be surprised no doubt, but "tis a change for the better as everyone can see."
"What does Uncle Philip say to all this?"
"Turns up his nose, you may be sure, an" ignores the whole proceedin"s. If he"d been younger no doubt he"d ha" worked against it, puttin" in his evil spoke."
"I think I shall go and see my fine Uncle Philip," said Jennifer frowning. "I"m not afraid of him."
"Why, deary me, you"d never do that, would you? Mercy on us, he"d eat you alive."