‘Mother,’ she whimpered, ‘Mother, I don’t feel very well.’
The basin was fetched and she was sick.
‘I don’t want to go,’ she screamed - ‘I don’t want to go.’
Mother kissed her, but the kisses were wet through the veil, and the gloved hand could not comfort her.
Harold and Willie stood helplessly by the door. ‘I say - time’s getting on. The bus’ll be here in five minutes.’
Mother was dragging on Jennifer’s frieze coat, she was cramming the tight velour hat on to her head, snapping the elastic under her chin. ‘Oh! I don’t want to go, oh! please, I don’t want to go.’
But she was dragged downstairs, her teddy bear in her arms, and it seemed that the hall was full of people shaking hands with mother and there were jabbering voices talking too loudly.
They were in the bus now, and Jennifer tightly packed between Willie and mother.
The driver started his engine. ‘Good-bye . . . good-bye . . .’ She watched Ivy House left behind, empty and alone. From the open bedroom window the curtain was waving foolishly in the wind.
3
The earliest recollection of London to Jennifer Coombe was the call of bugles blowing from the barracks at the end of the street. They were the first things that woke her in the mornings, and the last things she heard before she fell asleep at night. In her mind they struck a note of incessant reminder that Plyn was far away, and that the sound of the sea would come to her no more. The bugles rang into her dreams, and she would wake with a start, and open her eyes upon the unfamiliar room with its massive wardrobe and its heavy curtains, and the chink of light that came to her from the window showed rows of slate roofs and thick chimney-pots stretching far into the distance.
Then there would be a sound on the landing outside, and the clang of a water-can in the passage. A knock on the door. Ethel the servant entered the room. She stumped across the floor with heavy footsteps, and drew aside the curtains with a crash. It seemed odd to Jennifer to be waited on, and she would have made friends with Ethel but for the fact of the brown mole on her chin. She slipped out of bed quietly and began to dress herself.
The gong would sound for prayers. Mother and Jennifer had to go downstairs and into the dining-room, and kneel at different chairs while the members of the boarding-house stole into the room. From her stool in the corner Jennifer could watch them coming downstairs, through a chink in the open door. She noticed that as soon as they reached the dining-room they put on different faces, something happened to their lips and their nostrils seemed pinched. Then there would be a rustle in the hall, and Jennifer cringed a little to herself, knowing that Grandmamma was just outside the door. Slowly she came into the room swaying from side to side, her great breasts heaving beneath her black dress, her white hair piled high on her head like a huge nest. As she moved she grunted to herself, and it took her nearly three minutes before she was seated in her chair, her bad foot on a cushion, and the Bible open before her.
Jennifer listened for the snap of her glasses, worn on a jumping piece of chain, and then the terrible voice boomed out - ‘Our Father, which art in Heaven,’ and a little chorus of voices followed her lead, anxious to do well.
The boarders gathered round the table for breakfast. She watched them over the rim of her cup, but if any of them met her eyes and spoke to her, she turned away and hung her head pretending she had not heard.
‘Seeing so many new faces has made the child shy,’ apologized her mother, ‘she is generally such a talkative little creature. ’And Jennifer clung to this weapon of shyness as a defence; she found that if she closed her mouth tight and gazed at the floor nobody took any notice of her and she was free to think by herself.
Only Grandmamma guessed that this was a trick. She knew that Grandmamma was watching her all the time. Once she had seen Jennifer take a piece of meat from her mouth and hide it under her spoon, and from that moment her eyes were upon her all the time, prying into her thoughts. ‘Bertha, love,’ said the terrible voice, ‘I fear that the child is faddy about her food.’
‘Why, no, Mamma, we have never had any trouble with her eating. You like the nice meat, don’t you, Jenny?’
‘Yes,’ she mumbled, and sat quite still with her cheeks bulging, chewing the fat over and over, knowing in her heart that Grandmamma was not deceived.
‘May I get down, please?’ and then she slipped from the table and ran out of the room, pulling the last greasy bit of fat out of her mouth and hiding it in the pot of ferns that nobody ever remembered to dust, which stood by the entrance to the lobby. This lobby was the place where the gentlemen boarders washed their hands, and hung their coats, and left their wet umbrellas turned upside down if it was raining. The lobby was at the end of the little passage by the head of the stairs leading to the basement. Jennifer liked the lobby. It had a familiar feeling of security, the tweed coat on the hook smelt of Daddy, and the mackintoshes were old and used as his had been. The men left their cigarettes here sometimes, squashed on the floor.
Jennifer would wait for them to come out of the dining-room, and once they were in the lobby they smiled and laughed as though they were pleased to be free.They never patted her, or said silly things, they treated her as one of themselves. They were away from the house all day, and only came back in the evenings. It made some sort of interest to lean from the window and watch them mount the steps, and fumble in their pockets for keys.
She went into the hall, biting her finger, looking away when they said ‘Hullo, you,’ but pleased all the same. She followed them into the lobby, and listened to their brisk voices talking to one another. She liked the eager careful way they washed their hands, turning them over and over and squelching them with soap, and then they unbuttoned their trousers and passed into the lavatory, taking no more notice of her than if she had been a cat.
Ladies were never like this, jolly and happy together, they whispered in her ear and took her quietly to a bedroom, closing the door very softly in case somebody should have noticed.
For a week the lobby was the chief interest to Jennifer, for she scarcely went out of doors at all as Mother was supposed to be ‘settling down’. And then one evening Grandmamma noticed that she disappeared from the drawing-room as soon as voices sounded in the hall. She herself was going up to speak to a servant, and as she passed along the hall, leaning heavily on her stick, she caught sight of a small figure hanging on to the door knob of the lobby, with one of the boarders brushing past her into the lavatory.
‘Jennifer.’ She started in fright, and saw the huge massive presence of Grandmamma peering at her from the staircase.
‘Jennifer, whatever are you doing in the gentlemen’s lobby?’
She flushed crimson at once, guilty as a criminal, and stole away before anything more could be said to her.
After tea Jennifer crouched with a picture book on her knee, but she never turned a page; she kept it there as a blind, listening the while to the scraps of conversation, expecting any moment that there would be a long silence and Grandmamma would say, ‘You must tell us now, Jennifer, what you were doing in the lobby.’
Bed time came and nothing had been said, nor was it mentioned the next day, or the day after - but she never went along with the men again, and if someone said casually, ‘Oh! I must have left it in the lobby,’ her heart jumped and her face and hands turned hot.
The weeks passed by, and still they remained in the boarding-house with Grandmamma, and Daddy had not come.
No one ever told her anything, she had to listen to what people said to each other, or make it up for herself. Once mother read a letter from Harold . . . ‘It seems queer to see the old home shut up. Willie sailed yesterday in great spirits, and I miss him tremendously. The yard is a most depressing sight, and both Cousin Tom and James are very cut up. It’s rotten how things have turned out for them. The old ship is still on the mud, and likely to lay there till she’s broken up. Poor Dad, I am thankful he will never know . .
.’ Here mother folded the letter and put it away.
What wouldn’t he know? Why should Daddy never know? Jennifer looked at her mother sharply, but she had turned to Grandmamma and was talking about something else. Why did they never mention his name in front of her? There was some secret that they refused to tell, but they were too clever to be caught. They treated her like a baby. She was afraid to know this secret, and yet she must.
Jennifer hugged her knees and bit her nails. She was thinking out some plan whereby she could trick Grandmamma and Mother into a confession. Mother was sewing by the open window, glancing down at the hot, airless street and the buses. Grandmamma perched her spectacles on her nose and opened the evening paper.
Jennifer wandered towards her mother and pretended to play with the tassels on the curtain. She banged them backwards and forwards against the glass, knowing that this would cause irritation.
‘Jenny, stop doing that.’
She obeyed sulkily, and then pulled at her mother’s hand.
‘When are we going home?’
No answer. ‘When, Mum - when are we going home?’
The voice was a whine now, pleading, grumbling.
‘Don’t be such a nuisance, Jenny. Go and find something to do.’
‘But I want to know when we’re going home?’
‘We are not going home, child, we’re living in London now, you know that perfectly well. Stop that fidgeting. Do you want to go somewhere?’
Jennifer moved away to the middle of the room. She saw her Grandmamma fixing her with stern disapproving eyes.
There was no way of escape. Plyn was lost to her.
Soon she would know the full truth, and terrified as she was yet she had to continue in her search for it.
She moved near the door, so as to be able to run the instant she knew. Grandmamma had laid down her paper and was yawning. Now was the time to catch her.
‘Where’s my daddy?’ asked Jennifer.
No one spoke, and she felt little pricks of fear steal into her body.
Mother had on her awkward face, it was puckered and queer.
A flat patch of colour came on to Grandmamma’s cheeks.
Jennifer twisted the handle of the door. She waited a moment, and then frightened at her own daring she spoke boldly, rudely.
‘I believe Daddy’s dead,’ she said.
And when they made no attempt to scold her or reprove her, but gazed at her with strained, embarrassed eyes, she knew by the silence that this was the truth at last.
4
The shipbuilding yard of Thomas Coombe and Sons was empty of timber and gear. There was no longer the clanging of the hammer, nor the high-pitched song of the saw. Ships must go elsewhere to be refitted and re-classed, yachtsmen must wander farther up the harbour in search of a designer for their craft. The shed in the corner of the yard was taken over by the engineer in need of premises; he set up his garage on the spot where the Janet Coombe was built. Greasy young mechanics in stained overalls lounged about the place with spanners in their hands, a Ford lorry shunted in and out of the yard gates, filling the air with petrol fumes and oil, air that once had been laden with the bitter tang of pitch, barked ropes, and tar. The loft building had not been sold, the big wide loft where Thomas Coombe and his sons had chipped and chiselled at their models. His namesake and grandson Thomas, together with his Cousin James, still clung to this place as a last remnant of their departed trade, but they used it no longer as a workshop and as a dwelling of inspiration, but as a boat store, humble and insignificant. Motor boats were housed here during the winter, and occasional small sailing craft used for pleasure in the summer. Pulling boats and dinghies could be left here for a small charge.
His father dead, his mother and sister gone to London, the yard sold, and his brother away at sea, Harold Coombe had no wish to remain a school-teacher in Plyn.
The house was sold successfully, lock, stock, and barrel, and it was hurtful to pass his old home every day on the way to the school and see other people at the doors, other children at the windows. After some months of hard thinking and consideration he resigned his position at the school, having first made certain of a post in London.
His last night in Plyn, Harold told his plans to his father’s best friend and favourite cousin, the farmer Fred Stevens. Fred was forty-two now, and had stood staunchly by Christopher during the case of Coombes versus Hogg and Williams.
‘I don’t want to give up teaching, Cousin Fred,’ said Harold. ‘It may not lead to great things, but it’s a fine job for all that and I’m proud of it.’
‘D’you think you can stick the drudgery of it, working yourself to the bone with scarce a prospect of advancement, and in London too - crowded out with youngsters like yourself? ’
‘I’m going to have a shot at it anyway. It’ll be a wrench leaving Plyn, but after all I was born in London, and lived there till I was nine. I shan’t feel really strange. Then there’s Mum and Jenny. Poor little kid, it’s been rather tough luck on her. Not much fun for her in that boarding-house, along with my old grandmother.’
Fred Stevens whistled in disgust. ‘I wish your mother hadn’t run off in such a hurry. She and Jenny could have come here, and welcome. Norah was only saying so to me the other evening. It would have done John good to have a small companion. Only children stand in danger of being spoilt, what?’
‘Not John,’ laughed Harold. ‘The lad has got his head screwed on the right way. I’ve had him under me in school and I know. He doesn’t say much, but he thinks all the same. Good boy that.’
‘Think so?’ The father smiled.
‘Yes - I think John will turn out all right.’
Soon after Harold rose to go.
‘I’d better be clearing off now, Cousin Fred, though I hate to say good-bye. Think of me this time tomorrow night in London. I’ll be wishing myself back again in Plyn before long. I’ll try and persuade my mother to come down for holidays if I can, though it’ll be a struggle. D’you think in a year or two she’ll be fed up with town, and long for the country again?’
‘You never know with women,’ smiled Fred. ‘Anyway, she can always send Jenny down here if the child is looking poorly and needs a change. Norah will take great care of her. And John can put on his best company manners, can’t you, John?’
‘Where is the boy? John?’
A head looked in at the window.
‘Come and say good-bye to Harold. He’s off to London tomorrow.’
The boy climbed in over the sill. John Stevens was eleven, and tall for his age, with long legs that didn’t know what to do with themselves. His eyes were blue like his father’s, and his fair hair toppled over his face.
‘Sorry you’re going,’ he said abruptly.
‘I’m sorry too, John, but things have turned out so and it’s no use grumbling.’ The boy nodded.
‘Think you’ll ever come back?’
‘I mean to. I should feel rotten if I thought I was never going to see any of you again, all the family, and Plyn - and everything.’
‘Of course he’ll come back, he and Willie. In a couple of years’ time you’ll have made your fortune and be settling down here in retirement,’ laughed Fred cheerfully. ‘Willie’ll be running some gigantic liner in here for his own amusement. How’s he getting on with this wireless business, Harold?’
‘Very well, Cousin Fred, and he seems dead keen. I don’t follow it myself at all.’
‘No more do I, but they say it’s going to be darned useful. Well, good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you.We won’t forget you in Plyn. Come back to us before long, and don’t let London spoil you. Give my love to your mother.’
‘Good-bye, Cousin Fred, and - thanks terribly for all you’ve done for us. Neither Willie nor I will ever forget - good-bye John, see you again some time, eh?’
‘Sure.’
Then Harold walked through the Yard and was gone by the farm gates. Young John looked after him and frowned.
‘What
are you thinking, son?’ asked Fred.
‘He won’t come back,’ said the boy slowly.
‘How d’you mean, he won’t come back? Of course he will. He may stick London for a couple of years, but he’ll be home in Plyn soon after.’
‘No,’ said John. ‘I reckon it sounds soft what I said, but when I get feelings like that they’re generally right. Remember what I told you about Uncle Christopher? You laughed at the time, but I just kind of knew in myself.’
‘Now listen, my son, you’re becoming a regular little prophet of despair. Cut all that stuff out of your head, it’s silly, see? It’s unhealthy and morbid, and your mother and I don’t like it. See?’
‘Sure.’ The boy ran away whistling and vaulted a stile. He fumbled in his pocket for his catapult, and took careful aim at a pheasant that was flying low over the cut stubbles of wheat. He missed it, of course. Then he strolled through the fields to a point of high ground that overlooked the harbour and Polmear Creek. Through the trees he could see the spars of the wrecked Janet Coombe, while below him to his right the evening mists gathered round the tower of Lanoc Church.
John Stevens stuck his hands in his pockets, and watched the scene through half-closed eyes.
‘I can’t help these feelings that come to me,’ he thought. ‘I know I’ll never see Harold nor Willie again, like I know that the ship in the creek won’t be broken till they take the figurehead away. Father and mother don’t believe me, but one day somebody will understand.’
Then he heard a shout from some boys in the fields beyond, and he waved to them, laughing, and ran away down the hill forgetting his thoughts.
Harold was throwing his things into his trunk. He straightened his back and sighed, and looked out upon the harbour water through his lodging window.
‘I’ll come back,’ he whispered. ‘Mother’ll get fed up with London, and in a year or two we’ll all be living here again, Willie, and Jenny, and I. Dad belonged here, and his father, and his grandfather. We belong too, we can’t keep away, no more than Willie can stay from the sea. We’ll come back to you, Plyn - in a year or two.’