The next morning Christopher went down into the town to the office on the quay.
The name of Hogg and Williams still stood above the doorway, in spite of the fact that Williams too was dead, and that Philip Coombe alone held the power in his hands.
After sending in his name Christopher was kept waiting nearly twenty minutes, and finally when his patience was exhausted and he was about to leave, the clerk said that Mr Coombe was disengaged.
He found his uncle little changed, though he must be past sixty now. His face was as grey and colourless as ever, his sandy hair little streaked with grey. He looked up from his desk and motioned Christopher to a chair, as though it were only yesterday that they had parted.
‘Well, nephew,’ he said, ‘I heard you were back again and wondered whether you would drop in and see me for old time’s sake. You’ve altered tremendously. I should not have known you. And how is London? Did you make a fortune? I often searched the papers for mention of your name, “young Cornishman rises to sudden fame” sort of thing, but I never found you there.’
‘I have not come to talk of my own affairs, Uncle,’ answered Christopher, ‘but of my dead father’s, which I am told have been in your hands.’
‘Quite so. Yes, I felt it my duty to relieve your sister, she seemed a timid, inexperienced sort of girl, with no knowledge of such matters. And my wretched brother - no doubt you know the whole story?’
‘He was kept at Sudmin Asylum three years longer than was necessary, and at your express orders,’ replied Christopher.
‘Come, nephew, I am not going to quarrel with you. Your father was a raving madman in 1890, when you were enjoying yourself in London.’
‘But my sister tells me he was never violent in any way - he never occasioned them bodily harm, until that night.’
Philip shrugged his shoulders.
‘It merely proves that it is impossible to trust insanity,’ he said. ‘Of course your father would have broken out some time or other.’
‘Not unless he was driven to it,’ suggested Christopher. ‘Who is to know what scene took place between you that Christmas Eve, eh - can you answer me that?’
Philip Coombe narrowed his eyes, his fingers tapped slowly on the desk before him. ‘Have a care, nephew,’ he said softly, ‘you are playing a dangerous game. I am a powerful man in Plyn these days. Do you want to be arrested for libel?’
Christopher sat back into the chair from which he had half risen. It was impossible to get the better of his uncle.
‘All right, Uncle Philip, you have won again. The past must be past, and it is I who will bear the blame. But let us attend to business. I wish to know the exact amount of my father’s estate.’
‘I must tell you that my brother was grossly careless in his affairs, I had a great deal of trouble to put them to rights. For instance, he owed this firm a considerable amount. I had to arrange this naturally, in my capacity as senior partner, and putting aside his relation to me.When all these various accounts were paid - well - there was very little left. I have all the papers quite in order should you wish to see them.’
‘What about the shares in various vessels, and most particularly the Janet Coombe?’ asked Christopher.
‘The sums from these amounted to very little,’ answered his uncle. ‘And in fact I was obliged to sell his shares in the Janet Coombe in order to pay for his keep at the asylum.’
‘You mean you made them over to yourself?’
‘That is, perhaps, a more brutal way of putting it.You could scarcely expect me to pay for his internment out of my own pocket.’
Christopher seized his hat with trembling hands.
‘God,’ he said. ‘I’ll have the law on you for this.’
Philip laughed. ‘You will find that extremely difficult and embarrassing to yourself. I have done nothing that is not perfectly within legal rights. Go read up the law, nephew, and return when you have done so.’
The nephew was beaten, and he had the sense to realize it.
‘If there is a God above, you will be punished for this one day, Uncle Philip,’ he said slowly.
‘I am glad to hear your exalted opinion, nephew.You were always cut out for a failure, as I often told your father. So it is to be enemies, eh?’
‘I could never be your friend.’
‘Few men care to have me as their enemy, I give you my warning here and now.’
‘I am not afraid of you.’
‘Found your courage, have you? You lost it when you went to sea twelve years ago if I remember, and your father lost his reason at the same time.’
Christopher went out into the street without a word.
7
Christopher Coombe was a proud man when he brought his wife and sons home for the first time. They drove through the long street of Plyn, and the horse climbed steadily up the back-breaking hill to the house that stood, ivy-covered, in its plot of garden.
Christopher led his wife to the large bedroom over the porch. ‘This is ours. Tell me that you are pleased with it all and that you will not miss London too much?’
She smiled at him, and shook her head.
‘Here, Dad,’ cried Willie, leaning out of the window, ‘the ivy’s thick here like a tree. Thick enough for climbing.’
‘Come out of it at once,’ called his mother anxiously, ‘you’ll be breaking your neck.’
Willie jumped unwillingly from the window, and turned his back upon the branches where Joseph Coombe, his grandfather, had climbed to greet Janet - long, long ago.
‘Run and wash your hands, boys,’ said their father,‘for supper will be ready.’
Bertha laid her coat and hat on the bed, the big double bed where Thomas and Janet Coombe had lain side by side, sixty, seventy years back.
‘It’s a nice room,’ she said to her husband, ‘it has such a happy atmosphere.’
Christopher sighed and laid his head against her cheek.
‘I’m so glad we’ve come home,’ he whispered.
Then they went downstairs to supper, leaving the room to the first stars and the shadows.
Once they were settled down and no longer strange to Plyn, Christopher took up his work at the Yard as business manager. He was touched by the way he had been welcomed home again, and was determined to assist his cousins and Uncle Herbert in keeping ‘Coombe’s Yard’ on the same high level it had always been.
Never again, he feared, would it know quite the same prosperity it had experienced during his grandfather Thomas and his Uncle Samuel’s time.Year by year now the steamships were growing in importance, big clumsy vessels of iron or steel, built for power and not for beauty.
It was strange how easily Christopher fell into his old ways of living after twelve years’ absence, and stranger still, he considered, how now that his youth was past his one-time restlessness and discontent had also departed.
He saw now that it was he who had been narrow in the old days, not those around him, and that by forgetting himself and watching the lives of the people he had discovered an inner source of happiness which had, hitherto, been unpossessed.
When the Janet Coombe returned to Plyn, Christopher descended the hill at once to greet Dick, and to ask pardon for that day of desertion twelve years ago.
He was greatly moved to find himself once more on the deck of the old schooner. It was true he had known three months’ hardship and misery in her, but she was a plucky, wonderful little vessel for all that. She was nearly forty years old, she had braved every kind of sea and weather, and had never belied her reputation for speed or shamed her builders, nor drowned a man who sailed in her. She had been the pride and joy of his father’s heart, and a symbol of beauty to his own childhood.
He explained the grace of her lines to Harold and Willie as they pulled round her in a dinghy, and showed them the stately little figurehead beneath the bowsprit, who had not changed in all the years, save for the dimming of her white paint and the blue feather in her hat.
‘That’
s your great-grandmother, boys,’ said Christopher.‘She was a very splendid woman by all accounts and greatly loved in Plyn.’
‘Did you ever know her, Dad?’ asked Harold.
‘No, sonnie, she died before I was born.’
‘D’you think she’s frightened up there when the sea’s rough?’ said little Willie awestruck.
‘I’ve heard my father say she didn’t know the meaning of the word fear when she was alive,’ replied Christopher, shading his eyes with his hand to see more clearly.
‘Grandfather was proud of the ship and her, I guess,’ said Harold after a minute’s silence. ‘She looks alive enough now, don’t she, Dad?’
‘Yes, boy, I reckon she does.’
The three of them gazed up at Janet, high above their heads, her eyes gazing seaward, her chin in the air.
‘Look, she’s smiling,’ laughed Willie.
Then they pulled away towards Plyn, leaving the ship to the ebb tide and the gulls.
8
It seemed to Christopher these times that no day dawned alike in Plyn. He would rise in the mornings keen and refreshed, eager to get to his work and be out in the open, and content at the prospect of a full day in front of him.
He soon became very fond of his steady, kindly hearted cousins. Tom was another Samuel, James another Herbert, and Christopher respected and loved them as his father Joseph had loved his brothers. This work too, once fancied as monotonous, was varied and absorbing, it was like a miracle to watch the gradual growth and shaping into a stately vessel from what had been loose timbers and rough planks.
Christopher had long since got over his old distrust of the sea, and during the summer and even the fine days in winter when a boat could get outside the harbour, he would accompany the boys on some fishing or sailing expedition. He was now as steady in a boat as on the land. He was careful and safe, never reckless like Joseph had been, but with a keen eye to the winds and currents, and seldom going wrong in his estimate of the weather. Deep in his heart he felt he owed it to his father to give some measure of his life to the sea, and it was with this thought in his mind that he volunteered as a member of the Plyn lifeboat crew. His name and his steadiness won him a position, and it was a proud moment for Christopher when the offer of his services was accepted. He knew then that he had retrieved something of the honour that had left him when he deserted the Janet Coombe, and that Joseph himself would have looked into his eyes with love and forgiveness.
The sea and the earth were dear to Christopher because he had discovered them so late, and because he had once known the lesser things, tawdry and valueless.
And side by side with his love for them grew his love for humanity, a great tenderness for simple people whose lives were unswept by restlessness and fever, who lived for their women and their children, for their little joys and sorrows, who worked daily through the long years at the tasks their forefathers had done, who climbed on Sundays the path across the fields to worship their God in Lanoc Church.
Christopher talked with them, and moved amongst them, he saw the beauty of the old people and the tenderness of children, he listened to their calm minds, he sorrowed at their partings and rejoiced at their laughter, he perceived the strength and kindliness of men, the instinct and loveliness of women. He knew that until now he had lived without wisdom, without truth, but from henceforth he would dwell for ever in the high places amongst the very humble, the very lowly, that he had been born only to come to this understanding, to give help to those who called unto him, to love with them, suffer with them, to go his way asking for no reward, no ultimate thanksgiving, only to gladden his heart with the light that shone upon the faces of these people.
9
In April 1906, Jennifer Coombe was born. Her coming was a great joy to Christopher. When the two boys were babies he had been passing through a critical period of his life, but now he had no worries, and there was nothing to prevent him from giving his whole time to this daughter of his.
She went to her father readily at quite an early age. Her serious little face would lighten at his approach as she grew older, and she would wave her hands when he returned from work in the evenings, making as he always did straight for her cot or her pram. Bertha she seemed to accept as a necessary person to wash her, feed her, and clothe her; she submitted to these attentions gravely and with a placid air of resignation. Bertha it was who taught her that she could do this, but she mustn’t do that, she was a good girl if she swallowed up her food, and did not cry at bed-time, but she was a naughty girl if she bit her toenails or wetted her drawers.
But it was Daddy who lifted her on his shoulders and ran with her round the garden, it was Daddy who let her ride horses on his foot, and it was to Daddy she whispered she was sorry in the evening, if there had been some scene during the day.
It was pleasant to have a young child about the house, for Harold and Willie were grown to be young men now who shaved regularly and smoked, though the elder was not yet twenty-one.
Richard Coombe, who was now fifty, felt that it was too late for him to start afresh, and as long as he was fit and able, he would continue to skipper the gallant little schooner in her fight for freights.
Albert Coombe had left his barque and was gone into steam; he now commanded a five-thousand-ton vessel belonging to a company at Adelaide, and he spent most of his time in Australian waters.
Charlie Coombe had returned to England after the conclusion of the Boer war, and had put in a few weeks at Plyn, but he was soon away again with his regiment, and was now stationed in India.
Kate Coombe was married and had left Plyn to live in Yorkshire.
So Christopher had none of his own family with him in Plyn, he was the only one to remain faithful to his home. He seemed closer to cousins Dick and Fred, and Tom and James at the Yard, than he had ever been to his two brothers. Christopher seemed to have found his way into the hearts of folk. There was always a welcome for him and a smile in the poorer cottages. People felt that here was someone who had suffered and was made sweeter by his suffering, here was one who accepted life patiently and without pride, who offered his sympathy and understanding to any who made call upon it.
Christopher felt that he had indeed reached safe anchorage after his weary wandering. The future years stretched peacefully in front of him and the ever-growing wonder and beauty of little Jennifer filled his days with a blessed sensation of promise and fulfilment.
10
By the autumn of 1911, orders came few and far between down to the Yard. It seemed that no more schooners or barquentines were being built; owners were commanding iron and steel vessels from the up-to-date yards in the big ports, and the ever-sounding hammer and saw was infrequently heard in Plyn these days.The trade grew yearly for the clay, many more ships lay alongside the jetties than had done so in Christopher’s boyhood.
The town thrived and flourished, land was thrown open for building, new houses were springing up where once had been fields, and wide highroads stretched across the country instead of the narrow winding lanes. Farmers went to market now on motor bicycles and Ford cars, the old gingles were scrapped and the ponies turned out to grass.
Herbert, now seventy-five, did little but shake his head and declare that Plyn had fallen upon evil times, and he withdrew from activities and contented himself in grumbling.
Tom and James, men of over fifty, who had been boys during the great shipbuilding boom, could but submit to fate and progress and put as bold a face on the matter as possible.
So it seemed as though there would be no young blood to follow on and continue the Coombe tradition, which saddened Christopher greatly at times, and he was often thankful that his father Joseph was not alive to see the decay and pity of it. His two boys, of course, now earned their own living, and could look after themselves. But it was a sad outlook all the same, for unless steady work could be continued it seemed as though the Yard would fall into total disuse.
In the autumn of 1911, with the pros
pect of a long winter ahead and a minimum of work, the Coombe cousins met at the Yard to discuss business. Christopher’s heart bled to see the expressions on the faces of the two men, once so confident and determined, and now set in deep lines of worry and doubt. He would have given his own home to be able to be at that moment rich and prosperous, and order with sublime folly a fleet of schooners. They discussed plans for the coming winter from every conceivable angle of hope, but could hit upon nothing that offered certainty of employment. It was not until the meeting was about to break up, having arrived at no solution to their problem, when Christopher remembered Uncle Philip. After all, he was their own kith and kin their own flesh and blood, he had risen by his brains to a position of authority in Plyn, he was prosperous, surely he could, at seventy-two, with no ties or family of his own, hold out a helping hand to his people.
‘I’d as soon draw blood from a stone as draw money from him,’ said James Coombe grimly. ‘The old skinflint, he’s never given a penny to his relatives nor to charity, far as I can see. What’s the use of makin’ beggars of ourselves, to ask his charity, knowin’ as ‘twill be refused. My father reared fifteen of us, an’ I know ’twas hard for him at times, but never a suggestion from Uncle Philip to put any of us boys in business. My brothers are scattered now, three at sea, two dead, one over to Falmouth, and one to Carne, none of ’em prosperous. ’
‘He might ha’ offered poor Aunt Mary somethin’, after my father and mother were taken, but he didn’t even go to her funeral or see that she was buried decent,’ said Tom.
‘I know folks always said ’twas he who sent your own father crazy, Chris,’ remarked James.‘Uncle Joe would ha’ soon recovered if ‘t’addent been for Uncle Philip puttin’ in his spoke. There’s none know the trewth o’ that Christmas Eve yet, nor never will, I reckon. Then keepin’ him there at Sudmin those five years, ’twas shameful, an’ desarvin’ hard words, but he’ll never get ’em, he’s too wily for we by long chalks.’