Sometimes he could scarcely stand for the ache in his head, and the shooting pains in his right eye. This eye was always red and bloodshot now, the lid swollen and the pupil magnified. A mist came over it at times, and now started on his left eye, though the pain in this was less severe.
He began to find it impossible to focus objects, a dark patch leapt and danced before him, obstructing his view. Sometimes the sight was clear, and then the shooting pains would come again and the dark patches, and he would be unable to read the compass under the light of the binnacle.
When this happened for the first time, he went below to the cabin, and sat awhile in silence, helpless, like a lost child, then he summoned his nephew Dick and told him of his fears.
‘Come, sir, it can’t be much; perhaps you’ve strained your sight somehow, and it will come all right by degrees.’
The man did his best to hearten the skipper, but he was afraid there must be something seriously wrong for all that.
‘I don’t know, Dick,’ said Joseph, his head in his hands, ‘this ain’t anythin’ sudden like, it’s been creepin’ on me gradual an’ slow. I’ve felt it for months back, an’ arrant coward I’ve never said a word to no one. Then my marriage - well, I reckon that put the whole matter out o’ my mind. An’ now it’s come upon me in full force, worse than ever before. What am I goin’ to do, Dick, tell me, what am I goin’ to do?’
‘Have a heart, Uncle Joe,’ said Dick. ‘Maybe ’tisn’t as bad as you think. As soon as we gets back to Plyn you take train to Plymouth an’ see a doctor. It’s wonderful what medicine can do nowadays.’
And so he went on deck, leaving Joseph alone.
The Janet Coombe anchored in Plyn harbour on the first day of February 1888. How word had spread among the crew of the skipper’s trouble was a mystery, for Dick had mentioned nothing of it, but nevertheless by the next morning it was all over the town.
Joseph sent Dick to the office to settle accounts with Philip, for ever since his marriage to Annie, he had never spoken to his brother.
Philip Coombe at once questioned the mate about the skipper’s eye trouble. ‘What’s this story of my brother’s blindness, eh?’ he asked. ‘He’ll have to see a doctor, you know.’
‘Oh! there’s no cause for alarm,’ replied Dick coldly. ‘You know how things get round in Plyn, whether they’re true or not. Uncle Joe’s had headaches, that’s all, he’s goin’ over to Plymouth, I believe, to buy some stuff to cure ’em.’
‘Hum,’ said Philip. ‘It’s all very well for you to keep calm, young fellow, and pretend to send me about my business. It happens this is my business. I’ve got equal shares in the ship with my brother, and I’m not going to risk my money in a vessel that’s skippered by a crock. Joe will have to retire.’
‘No one can make the skipper retire unless there’s a doctor’s certificate provin’ he’s unfit for work,’ said Dick swiftly.
Philip laughed and rose from his seat.
‘This will break him up,’ muttered Dick, half to himself.
‘Better that, than break up the ship,’ was the cruel retort.
Dick made no attempt to relate this conversation to Joseph, but later in the day he met his cousin Christopher, and taking him aside, he explained the gravity of the situation.
Christopher was shocked beyond measure. ‘This will be a terrible blow to my father,’ he said slowly. ‘God knows what will become of him, Dick. You know what a restless fellow he is. Life ashore will be hell for him. Even my stepmother will find herself unequal to the task of keeping him content. Do you really and truly believe this eye of his will be blinded?’
‘I don’t know, Chris. It looks bad from outward appearance, but one can’t depend solely on that. The only thing to do is to get him to Plymouth and have him properly examined. I reckon we all three had better go together, you’re the only one of the family he’ll listen to. I have to come up before the Board of Trade as you know, to try and secure my Master’s ticket. If the skipper gets notice to quit I’ll do my level best to take on his job, and prove a credit to him if I can. It’s a rotten sad business though.’
‘You’re a good chap, Dick,’ sighed Christopher. ‘I wish to God I was more like you. It’s me that ought to be doin’ this. What a rotter I am.’
‘Nonsense, lad, I’m nearly eight years older than you, that’s all. You’ll find your feet soon, and your father will be no end proud of you. Dad says you work steady at the yard, and so do Tom an’ the others.’
‘Maybe, Dick, but I hate the work, an’ there’s the truth.’
‘Come to sea, Chris, it’s the only life for a man, and you’d please the poor skipper then.’
‘What’s the use? I’m just an out-an’-out waster, I know. Oh! hell, cousin, I swear I’ll make good in time, and my father won’t have cause for shame.’
A week later, Joseph, accompanied by his eldest son and his nephew, took train to Plymouth, where Dick went straight to sit for his Board of Trade examination. Joseph watched him go, remembering his own feelings twenty-five years back, filled with hope and strength, and the knowledge of Janet waiting for him in Plyn. And now he was fifty-three, with his youth behind him.
Joseph stayed alone in the doctor’s room leaving Christopher in the hall. He was there exactly half an hour. Christopher heard his step coming slowly down the stairs, and raising his head saw somebody bent and frail, who stared before him as one lost in a desolate place.
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 sunshine. Dick 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, Dick?’ 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 ship 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 ship 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 fath
er, 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 ship 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 anchored again in Plyn harbour.
Christopher himself could scarcely wait for the time to pass. 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 shipping 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 shore 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 ship 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 passed 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 ship.
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 ship was reported safe in London, and Joseph breathed again. It would not be long now. The ship 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 attitude 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 ship 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.
&nbs
p; ‘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 God! . . . 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 passed, 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 ship, 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 ship, 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.