‘Another cup of tea, Francis?’
‘Thank you, Bertha love, I have had sufficient.’ His beastly smile of possession, aware of himself, and she fluttering, tremulous, eager to please.
And Jennifer condemned to watch them, conscious of the falsity of the whole position. She could not imagine how she would act under the circumstances.
The days passed, and nothing had been said. Jennifer began to look about her for another job.
She had just passed her nineteenth birthday. Apparently London was overcrowded with girls wanting to be typists; she almost despaired of ever finding a post. She would read the lists of ‘Wanted’ in the Daily Telegraph, but none of them seemed particularly suitable or worthy of notice. Life was rather a grind, and not so terribly amusing; she wondered why she was bothering at all. That idiot Horton had a tiresome way of seizing the Daily Telegraph before anyone else in the house, and reading it from page to page. She determined to prevent him by rising earlier in the morning, and running through the advertisements while they were waiting for breakfast.
The third morning that Jennifer did this she stopped half-way upon the stairs, a few steps from the drawing-room. The door was open, and she saw Horton with his arms round her mother. He had obviously just kissed her, and not for the first time. Her mother was patting her hair, and making a silly little face in the glass.
‘Francis, I think we ought to tell them,’ she was saying, ‘people will begin to talk.’
‘If you wish it, my Bertha, I propose that we make the announcement official at breakfast this morning.Wedding bells in the offing, h’m? What a sensation it will cause.’
‘I think Mama is expecting it, but I don’t know about Jenny.’
‘Oh!’ he laughed, ‘leave Jennifer to me. She won’t be any trouble, I assure you. A little firm handling is needed, that is all. We will soon be firm friends, you know. A father’s will, eh?’
‘Francis - how wonderful you are.’
Jennifer heard no more. She went upstairs and into her mother’s bedroom. She took the faded, rather dusty photograph of Christopher Coombe from behind its vase on the mantelpiece. Then she glanced out of the window at the rows of chimney-pots stretching over London. The bugle summons rang out from the barracks across the street. ‘Listen, Daddy,’ she said, ‘what do you suggest I do?’
‘ . . . And so, my very dear friends one and all, I have the extreme pleasure of informing you that your dearly-loved and respected hostess, Bertha Coombe, has done me the honour of consenting to become Mrs Horton.’
Cries of surprise, gratification, and polite approval came from the little crowd of boarders assembled in the dining-room. ‘Isn’t that just too romantic for words . . . we had no idea . . . heartiest congratulations . . . you’re a lucky man . . .’
‘I suppose you are all anxious to hear when the happy event will take place,’ he continued. ‘Well, I don’t mind admitting it will be soon, very soon. Naturally, I am impatient, and I trust my dear wife-to-be shares my sentiments.’
Bertha nodded, and smiled up at Christopher’s successor.
‘I do not propose to rob you of her for long. Just a three weeks’ honeymoon in some quiet corner, and we will continue to live here as before.’
‘What’s that, what’s he going to do in a quiet corner?’ whispered Mrs Parkins. ‘Tell him to speak up, Bertha.’
‘Hush, Mamma dear - he was referring to Ventnor.’
Horton was losing himself in a sea of eloquence.
‘. . . Not only has she made me the happiest man on earth, but she has saved me from a drab and lonely bachelorhood, she has prevented me from straying and wandering in the paths of life with no fixed purpose, a rolling - er - stone gathers no - and so on, or in other words better to wear out than to rust out . . .’ He broke off in some confusion.
‘Go on dear,’ murmured Bertha, ‘it’s beautiful.’
‘What I mean is, dear friends, that I trust I will bring as much content to her as I know she will bring to me.’ He sat down amidst a chorus of applause.
‘But where is Jenny?’ asked someone.
‘Hasn’t she congratulated the happy pair?’
‘Yes - where is Jennifer?’
Her seat at the table was empty. No one had noticed this before.
‘Jennifer is late for breakfast,’ said her grandmother. ‘What is she up to? Some nonsense or other.’
At that moment Jennifer came into the room. She wore a tweed coat over her jumper and skirt, and a brown squash hat tilted to one side. In her hands she carried a couple of small suitcases, and a disreputable old mackintosh hung over her shoulder, covered with ink stains.
‘Jennifer,’ exclaimed Grandmamma, ‘what is the meaning of this?’
‘Jenny - what is it?’ cried her mother. The boarders gaped up at her, interested but confused.
Lastly Mr Horton, in his new dignity, rose from the table. ‘Dear Jennifer,’ he began, ‘I think you owe your mother an explanation. Why this - er - costume? And those portmanteaux? ’
They waited for her answer.
‘I’m going away,’ said Jennifer.
‘You intend leaving us, making your departure in this absurd high-handed way?’
He watched her face incredulously.
Grandmamma shook with anger, and Bertha fumbled for her handkerchief.
‘Listen to me, Mr Horton,’ said Jennifer, ‘what I do and where I go is my affair. I hear you are going to marry my mother: that’s your affair. I hope from the bottom of my heart you’ll both be happy. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’
‘But Jenny - one moment, I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you, Mother? Well, it doesn’t matter very much, does it? You want to lead your life in a new way, and I’m going to do the same with mine. I’ve had just over thirteen years of the present one, and believe me it’s enough. I’ll send you a picture postcard from time to time. Good-bye - everybody.’
‘Stop her - stop her,’ said Grandmamma, purple in the face. ‘There’s some man at the bottom of this; she’s no better than she should be. Find out where she is going?’
Jennifer waved her suitcase in farewell.
‘I’m going to the place where I belong,’ she shouted. ‘I’m going home to my own people - home to Plyn.’
8
Jennifer had exactly five pounds, six shillings, and fourpence halfpenny when she left No. 7 Maple Street. She lugged her two suitcases along with her into various buses, and arrived at Paddington with three-quarters of an hour to wait before the twelve o’clock train should bear her away from London for ever.Thirty-two shillings and sixpence of her capital went on her third-class ticket, and three shillings more on a cup of coffee, two rashers of bacon, and a banana, for she had eaten no breakfast. During this wait she had time to think over her crazy flight from the boarding-house. It had been her home since she was six years old, and she had left her mother without one pang of regret. ‘I must be terribly unnatural, ’ thought Jennifer sadly.‘But it can’t be helped. I was probably born without a heart; I believe some people are.’
She sat, rather aghast at herself, watching the movement of people about the platform, the roll of trolleys, the bustle of porters, the sudden shrieks and shuntings of departing trains.
Thirteen years before she had arrived here, at this very station, clinging to her mother’s hand, subdued, tearful, utterly bewildered by the lights and the clamour, and it seemed to her now that those years had counted as nothing in her life, that she was still unchanged and unaltered from the child of six years old, who had felt herself alone. Jennifer sat in the corner of the carriage, and the train bore her swiftly from the city she detested, the roofs of houses stretching to the horizon, the crowded, threaded streets, the roar and clatter, the luxury, poverty, and squalor, the narrow faces of men and women; the train carried her past flat meadows and small hedges, glimpses of a narrow river, scattered towns, and a dull make-believe of country.
Later her spirits rose wit
hin her, strangely disturbed and content, for the flatness was left behind and they came upon rolling hills and a high white skyline, paths leading across the downs, sheep wandering in a thin unbroken line, and groups of labourers who raised their hands and waved.
And then suddenly, with no warning, the breathless grey sweep of the sea itself, breaking beneath the passing 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 clustered 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 passer-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 assurance, 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 hoarse 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 chink of open sea beyond the entrance.