Then he would rise from the table, and take her face in his hands, and kiss her till the breath nearly left her body. ‘Stop it, stop it, Thomas, I tell you,’ and he would sigh and put her away from him. ‘It’s terrible, Janie, the way I am.’
She would hold Thomas close to her in the darkness, while he slept with his head against her cheek. She loved him for his strength and for his gentleness to her, for his special grave ways when he had the mood, and for the moments when like a clumsy child he’d cling to her, afraid of his own self.
‘You’ll stay mine, Janie, forever an’ ever? Whisper it true, for the words are sweet to hear!’ And she whispered them to him, knowing full well she’d be his loving, faithful wife till death came, but knowing also that there was a greater love than this awaiting her. From where it would come she did not know, but it was there, round the bend of the hills, biding until she was ready for it.
Meanwhile the first weeks passed and they became used to one another, and Janet grew accustomed to the presence of Thomas near her at all times, and his ever-ready wish to be close to her.
She busied herself with the house in the mornings, and if it happened that he was working hard she would take his dinner down to him herself in the yard, and sit beside him the while.
She loved the great trunks of trees, old and well seasoned, that lay waiting to be cut for planks, the sawdust on the ground, the smell of new rope and tar and the rough unformed shapes of boats. The thought would come into her mind that one day these planks would be living things, riding the sea with the wind for company; roaming the wide world over maybe; and she a woman in Plyn, with only a husband and a home. And she strove to banish these thoughts which belonged to the old wild Janet, and were not befitting to the wife of Thomas Coombe. She must remember that she wore a print gown now, and a smooth apron about her waist, and no longer a rough skirt for climbing the rocks beneath the Castle ruin. Sometimes of an afternoon she’d put on her bonnet, and walk up Plyn hill to her mother’s house, where there’d be tea served in the front parlour, and neighbours coming in for cake and talk.
It was strange for all that to be treated by the women as one of themselves, when it was only a bit of a while since she’d been scolded and chided for a mannerless girl. How many times had she put an eye to the keyhole of the parlour, holding her handkerchief to her mouth for fear of laughing, and listening to the chit-chat of the neighbours’ voices? And now she was one of them, sitting as prim as you like with her cup and saucer in her hands, inquiring after old Mrs Collins’ rheumatics, and shaking her head with the rest of them at the evil shocking ways of your Albie Trevase, who’d gotten the girl into trouble over at Polmear Farm.
‘Seems as young folks have no respeck for themselves nor for others these days,’ said Mrs Rogers. ‘’Tis runnin’ and la’fin’ an’ go-as-you-please from mornin’ till night. The lads won’ wait till they’re wed, good an’ proper, nor the gals neither.You should pray God on your knees and thank Him you’m safe, Mrs Coombe,’ turning to Janet, ‘for your heathenish runnin’ by yourself as a gal frightened your mother sore, it did.’
‘All th’ same, an’ thankin’ ye, Mrs Rogers,’ said Janet’s mother, ‘my Janie was never one for havin’ the lads take liberties with her.’
‘No, I didn’,’ declared Janet, with all the indignation of a young bride.
‘Mebbe not - mebbe not, I’m not sayin’ as you did, my dear. You’m wedded now, an’ can do as your husband bids you, without fearin’ the wrath of God. It’s treatin’ him well that’ll keep him, I tell you, an’ if you forget it you’ll find your Thomas slinkin’ after the farm girls, same as young Albie Trevase. An’ you can mind that, Mrs Coombe.’
Janet shook her head in scorn. They could say what they liked against her Thomas, there wasn’t a quieter nor soberer man in all Cornwall for sure.
She kept her mouth shut too, and wouldn’t answer the poking inquisitive questions they put to her. It was a common thing that all Plyn must know their neighbours’ business, and they’d keep it up for hours, worrying the very life out of a poor body.
‘If you feel sick-like in the mornin’ an’ queer, you’ll tell your mother direckly, my dear,’ said one of them, looking Janet up and down, for all the world like a sow on market day.
‘Ef it’s under your heart you feel it first, ‘tes a lad for sartin’,’ said another.
‘I can look after myself, thank you, without a word from here, an’ a word from there,’ retorted Janet, who hated their prying ways. Even Thomas himself seemed anxious over his wife’s health.
‘You’re pale this mornin’, Janie,’ he would say, ‘maybe you’re feelin’ tired and strange in yourself.You’d tell me, love, if there’s somethin’ - wud’n you?’
It was as if he were longing for her to admit it, yet afraid of her answer all the same.
‘Why, yes lad, I’ll not hide anythin’ from you when the time comes,’ said Janet, with some weariness.
True, she had felt tired and sick of late, but she thought it was nothing and would pass. Thomas knew better though. He held Janet close to him, and buried his face in her long dark hair.
‘I thought I was proud an’ content when I married you, Janie, but I had’n reckoned there’d be a moment as sweet as this. It’s like if I were grander than any man on earth, Janie, because of lovin’ you. Seems if I can see our lad on your knee, and us sittin’ afore the fire.’
Janet smiled, and held his face with her hands.
‘I’m glad to be pleasin’ you, true,’ said she.
Soon it was all over Plyn that Janet Coombe was ‘in the family way’.
Her mother talked as if it were all her doing, and already the sisters chose little patterns of soft white wool to make the needful clothes.
Thomas sang at his work in the yard, with a smile on his lips, yet serious for all that, and looking ahead in his mind. Soon he would have a son, and in time the lad would work by his side and learn how to handle a saw, and to judge good timber. For of course the child would be a boy.
It seemed to Janet there was much fuss and ado for a small thing, and to hear the way Thomas and her mother talked anyone would imagine there had never been a baby born before.
As for herself she didn’t know what to think, one way or the other. It was a natural thing to happen when folks got wed, and it would be pleasant and strange to have a child to dress and to care for. It made her happy too that Thomas should be content. She would sit in her rocking chair in the evenings before the fire, for it was getting on for winter now and chill at nights, while Thomas watched her with tender eyes.
It was peaceful there in her home, with the cold rain shut outside and the damp misty hills, and the sound of the wild harbour water coming not to her mind. The singing kettle, the supper laid ready on the table, the quiet flickering candles; and Thomas’s hand in hers and the baby coming and all.
She felt soothed and restful, did Janet, and she wasn’t afraid of the pain that would happen, in spite of the terrible tales the neighbours poured into her ears. There wasn’t a happier home in Plyn than hers and Thomas’s.
He read to her sometimes of an evening from the Bible, in his low grave voice, spelling out the difficult words carefully to himself beforehand.
‘Fancy to think of all those folks begotin’ each other, and them stretchin’ in a long line through the ages,’ she would say thoughtfully, rocking herself to and fro in the chair.
‘If the first ones hadn’ started nothin’ would ha’ come of it all. It’s a great responsibility on two folks that has children. The Bible says,“Thy seed shall multiply for ever.”Why,Thomas, folks’ll come from us lovin’ each other, on an’ on, with no countin’ them.’
‘Give over worryin’, sweetheart. You’m always thinkin’ of a hundred years from now, and queer fanciful nonsense.Think of the lad that’s coming to us. That’s enough for your mind, I reckon.’
‘I don’t know, Thomas. It’s mighty strange the ways of life an’ love. Peopl
e dyin’ an’ that.’
‘But Janie, parson says all true believers, and them that has faith, goes straight to God in Heaven, amongst the angels.’
‘An’ s’posin’ they leaves behind them someone they love, who’s weak an’ pitiful, an’ has’n the heart to walk by hisself in the world?’
‘God looks after ’un, Janie.’
‘But no one could live in Heaven, Thomas, and be at peace, when sorryin’ for the loved ones left behind. Think of them callin’ out, askin’ for help.’
‘You mus’n talk so wild, sweetheart. The Bible speaks the truth. The happiness in Heaven is beyond our knowledge. Folks are so peaceful there, they don’t give a thought to the sinful world.’
The wind blew around the house, sighing and tapping against the window pane, crying mournfully like a lost thing. The candles quivered and shuddered. Then the rain mingled with the wind, and the night air was filled with weeping and sorrow. Away below the cliff the sea thundered against the rocks. The trees were bent back with the force of the wind, and from the branches fell the last wet leaves.
Thomas drew the curtains close, and pulled the rocking chair nearer to the fire.
‘Keep warm, love, and don’t heed the wind an’ the rain.’ Janet wrapped her shawl about her shoulders, and watched the firelight dance and flicker.
‘I’ll not bide in Heaven, nor rest here in my grave. My spirit will linger with the ones I love - an’ when they’re sorrowful and feared in themselves, I’ll come to them; and God Himself won’t keep me.’
Thomas closed the Bible with a sigh, and put it away on its shelf in the corner.
He must not chide Janet for her words, for women had queer notions at times like these.
He picked up the little sock that had fallen to the floor. ‘’Tes terrible small, Janie,’ he said anxiously. ‘Will the lad’s foot be no bigger than that?’
3
The long winter months passed slowly, Christmas came and went, and now the first breath of spring could be felt in the air. The sharp white frosts were no longer so hard in the mornings, and the very branches of the trees spread themselves into the sky, unfolding the tight round buds.
White lambs frisked in the fields above Plyn, and in the low sheltered places grew the pale primroses.
At Ivy House there was a bright atmosphere of mystery and expectation, for Janet Coombe was near her time.
Her mother was ever in and out of the place, with her fussy bustling air, lending a hand to the cooking and the cleaning to save her daughter work.Thomas’s manner was sharp and impatient, giving hard words now and then to the men at the yard, and being short even to his good-natured, muddle-headed uncle.
They forgave him for it all the same, for these were anxious nervous moments for the young man.
Janet herself watched the fuss and commotion with a smile on her lips, and a laughing, wondering look in her eyes.
She didn’t feel ill at all; it was only natural that the baby should come to her in the spring of the year.
Why, many was the time she’d helped carry the new-born lambs down from the fields, over to Polmear Farm; and seen the patient wounded eyes of the cows as they licked their sturdy little frightened calves, they shaking on their four legs.
It seemed to her that there was nothing more simple and homely than the birth of a young thing, whether it was a child in a cottage or a lamb on the hills. It was all the same in the end. The lambs cried for food and comfort, and nestled against the sheep who gave it them, while a woman clasped her baby to her breast. But she could not for the life of her see the reason for these nods and muttered whispers, and the tying of ribbons on the cradle in the bedroom, and her mother’s meaning smile at inquisitive neighbours calling, and Thomas’s agonized pleading that she should lie down and rest herself.
‘I wish you’d away, all of you, and go about your business and let me be. I’m not feared o’ pain nor trouble, and if I had my way I’d leave you to your ribbon-tyin’, and soup-makin’ and take myself to the quiet fields to have my baby, I would, ’midst the cattle and the sheep who’d understand.’
‘Merciful Lord, if it’s that you’re thinkin’ of, then bed’s the place for you, and hasty too,’ cried her mother, and she packed poor Janet upstairs without more ado.
Two days later, on 5 March, Janet’s son Samuel was born. ‘’Twas a beautiful confinement,’ declared old Mrs Coombe to the neighbours. ‘Easier an’ better than Doctor an’ I’d ever thought. She bore it wonderful, the dear brave gal that she is, an’ is goin’ on splendid. As for the boy, ‘tes a picture o’ health, and the livin’ image of his father.’
A string of flags was hoisted at the yard, and drinks given round to the men in honour of the event.
Janet lay back on her pillows, her dark hair pushed back from her pale face, her eyes fixed musingly on the baby in her arms.
What a queer mite of a thing it was, with its little bald head and watery blue eyes. She could not herself see any likeness in it to Thomas, try as she did. She hoped she would remember to call it ‘him’, and not ‘it’.
Still, it was pleasant and strange to feel a small warm body next to you, and to know it was yourself that had done it. And Thomas’s face was a joy to see.
He tiptoed into the room with heavy creaky boots, his face very red, and his blue eyes nearly starting out of his head.
‘Janie, are you’m feelin’ terrible bad?’ he asked her in a low hoarse whisper. She had to shake her head at him, and hide her smile, for fear he should be vexed. Then she drew back the coverlet, and showed him their bit of a lad, nestled in the crook of her arm. Thomas’s mouth opened wide, his long legs nearly twisted themselves inside out, and he stood there gazing, his smile stretching from one ear to the other. Janet could not help laughing at the sight of him, rocking there on his two feet with his red smiling face, and saying not a word.
‘You’ve never seen a baby afore, I reckon,’ she told him. ‘Touch ’un, he’s alive you know!’
Thomas stretched out a cautious finger - and laid it on his son’s cheek.
The baby opened his eyes and blinked.
‘Did you see him?’ cried Thomas delightedly. ‘Why, he knows me already.’
‘Stuff an’ nonsense,’ said old Mrs Coombe. ‘Why, the poor babe can’t even see yet. Did you ever hear the like?’ and she pushed him out of the room, for fear the man’s silly ways should tire her daughter.
It was not long before Janet was herself again, and up and about the house.
Samuel was a good child, and gave very little trouble. He neither fretted nor wailed overmuch, but behaved himself as a healthy normal baby.Thomas could scarcely leave him alone for a minute, and begrudged the time spent down at the yard. To his immense pride and joy he was permitted to carry his son in his arms, on visits to the grandmother up the hill on Sunday afternoons.
Janet trudged beside him, thankful to be rid of her burden for a while. Thomas’s step was firm and slow, he carried his head high, and every minute he’d be stopping to show the baby to a neighbour.
‘Why, he favours you for sure, Mr Coombe,’ they would say. ‘’Tes your very eyes in his little head, an’ the same fair colourin’.’
‘Now, do you mean it true?’ smiled Thomas. ‘Did you hear, Janie? Mrs Rogers here says she reckons the boy takes after me.’
‘He surely do,’ sighed Janet, for she had heard the same thing over and over again, and it had never surprised her that a baby should be like his father.
In her mother’s house the child was handed round from neighbour to neighbour, and kissed by his aunts, and rocked on his grandmother’s knee; while Thomas watched them with anxious, jealous eyes.‘Have a care now, you’ll be droppin’ him.’
Janet sat remote on the other side of the hearth, listening to the murmur of their voices as they spoke their baby language to the child.
She wondered at the amount of petting and smarming that went on, when she knew the lad was happiest alone in his cot, or when he la
y naked after his bath kicking in her arms. It was queer that folks had not the sense to see it, and Thomas too, with the rest of them. But he was as weak as water, was Thomas, where young Samuel was concerned.
When Janet was undressing the baby in the evening, and he stretched out his small closed fists into the air, his proud father would take this as a sign of strength.
‘Look, Janie, look at the muscle in his arms.That boy’s goin’ to handle a saw all right.’
And the first year passed, with the three of them together in the home, happy and content in one another.
In the autumn of 1831 old Uncle Coombe was laid low with rheumatics, and the whole care of the business at the yard fell upon Thomas. Now he took it upon himself to make changes and improvements where he would. The slip was enlarged, and the mud dredged away from the beach below, so that a larger type of boat altogether could be launched from the side in safety.
Orders came creeping in one by one for sturdy well-built fishing boats to withstand the winter gales, and Thomas had few moments to spare now for playing with his boy. The knowing ones in Plyn nodded their heads and pointed at him with pride, saying it was a fine thriving business young Coombe was building up for himself.
‘’Tes a good man, that Thomas o’ yourn, young Janet,’ they’d say to his wife.‘The lucky woman you are with sich a husband, an’ a fine healthy boy i’ the bargain.’
And it pleased Janet to hear them praise her husband, for the people of Plyn were ever ready to find fault with the smallest thing. Samuel crawled on the floor at her feet, and rolled on his back; he clutched at the sky with his hands and gazed at his mother solemnly, with his small, thoughtful face, so like his father’s. Janet would wait to put him to bed until Thomas came home in the evening, and then he’d be laid in his cradle by the kitchen fire while the pair of them sat themselves down to supper, happy and content, to talk over the day’s events.
‘The big boat’s gettin’ along fine, Janie. We’ll be puttin’ the planks on her tomorrow forenoon. I’m mighty pleased with that timber we brought down ten months back from Truan woods. ‘Tes the same that we’m usin’ now. I reckon any boat I build won’ go to pieces, unless they put her on the rocks, Janie.’