The Loving Spirit

  She must have slept some five hours when she awoke to a blinding flash of light in her eyes. She sat up, dazed and stupid, and saw her uncle standing beside the bed with a flash-light in his hands. He was fully dressed, and when she was about to exclaim he put his fingers over his lips, and glanced half fearfully towards the door.

  ‘Hush,’ he whispered, ‘we must not make a sound or they will hear us. Be quick, put on your dressing-gown and follow me.’

  What did he mean? Were there burglars in the house? Jennifer fumbled for her dressing-gown and her slippers.

  ‘Are they downstairs?’ she asked. ‘Is it impossible to get to the telephone? Perhaps if we make a noise it will scare them.’

  He shook his head and laid his hand on her arm. ‘Come with me.’

  He led the way into the front room, and to her surprise she saw that the lights were switched on and a large fire was burning in the grate. On the table there was much litter of papers and official documents, and what seemed to her to be pile after pile of bank-notes.

  ‘Whatever have you been doing with all these, Uncle Philip? Surely - why, I don’t believe you’ve been to bed at all. What’s the matter? Are there no burglars, then? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, Jennifer,’ he answered. ‘I am going to explain everything to you. Will you please sit down?’ She did so, gazing up at him in astonishment, while he stood with his back to the fire rubbing his hands together.

  ‘You see those papers scattered on the table?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What about them?’

  ‘There’s money there, Jennifer, stacks of it, bundles of it. All my money, shares, bonds, securities - crisp Bank of England notes. It belongs to me, do you understand, to me and to no one else.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘That is the question I was waiting for.You want to know who will inherit all this, you want to know who will have the right to spend it when I die. See, your fingers are itching to stretch towards that table - I know you - I know you. You think all that is going to be yours, eh? Don’t you, don’t you? But you’re wrong, see, you won’t touch a penny of it, not a farthing.’ He trembled with excitement and pointed his finger at her.

  ‘You’ve been considering yourself an heiress all these months, haven’t you? No use in denial, I’ve seen you, I’ve watched you. But you were mistaken, hopelessly, miserably mistaken. Look at me - I say - look at me.’

  He laughed, high pitched and shrill, he leaned towards the table and seized some of the papers, tearing them across, fluttering them before her eyes. ‘There - there - there goes your precious inheritance.’

  Jennifer made no answer. She knew now that her uncle was mad, she knew now that she must move warily, carefully, lest he should do himself and her some irreparable harm.

  ‘Uncle Philip,’ she said softly. ‘Supposing we talk all this over in the morning. You’re tired now, come along to bed.’

  He turned his narrow eyes upon her and smiled slowly. ‘No. I understand you too well. You think I am an old man to be fooled by you. I know you. As soon as my back is turned you creep down here and steal what doesn’t belong to you. No, I have been too clever for you. Much too clever!’ He made his way across the room and opened the door. Jennifer was aware of a queer, pungent smell that came from the passage, a smell of burning. She rose to her feet instantly, and crossed to the door.

  ‘What is it, what have you done?’

  The air was thick with smoke, it travelled up to her from the staircase, and from the hall below. She saw the glint of flames as they caught at the woodwork of the staircase, and licked the strips of paper from the walls.

  At once she remembered the two servants sleeping in their rooms at the top of the house. Then her uncle pushed her back into the study, locking the door.

  ‘No - you must not go,’ he cried, ‘you must come with me. I will not be alone, or they will break through to me and strangle me. We must keep them out, help me to keep them out, Jennifer.’

  He seized the tongs and tore a flaming log from the fire. He set alight the curtains, the carpets, the papers on the table, while she watched him, grown stiff with horror, unable to cry out. The flames made their way from the curtains to the wall-papers, burning fiercely now and bright, destroying all that stood in their way.

  Philip snatched the books from the shelves, he hurled them one by one into the centre of the room. The air was thick with smoke, the black smuts danced before Jennifer’s eyes, she watched the fire spread across the room, licking the ceiling, while moving amidst it was the figure of her uncle, laughing, sobbing, his hair singed, his hands outstretched flinging the books and the papers about him in confusion, feeding the hungry leaping flames.

  Jennifer flung herself against the door, which resisted all her efforts, shouting at the pitch of her lungs.Then the smoke entered her throat, she sank to her knees, coughing, choking, the tears running down her cheeks. She groped about on the floor for the key of the door which her uncle had thrown aside, and at length she found it, and fitted it to the lock. But when she opened the door it was to be driven back by the swirling, driving smoke from the passage outside, and the heat of the burning staircase.

  She heard something crash in the room behind her, a tall cabinet leaned from the wall, splintered and charred, and fell into the waiting flames.

  ‘Uncle Philip!’ she cried. ‘Uncle Philip, come away, come away!’

  He heard her voice, and stumbled towards her, swaying, suffocated.

  ‘Get back, Joseph, get back from me, I say.’ He brandished a chair above his head, he flung it towards her, knocking her sideways, bleeding and stunned into the passage outside. She stumbled to her feet and fought her way to the staircase leading to the rooms above. She heard a scream of terror, and looking back for the last time she could see through the open door of the study the bent figure of her Uncle Philip, his clothes alight, his hands outstretched, running round and round in circles, with the flames at his feet . . .

  She clung to the banisters, sick and giddy, dragging herself away from the fire below, knowing dimly that there was no escape, no means of safety. Part of the landing beneath her crashed, and she saw the floor sink into itself and crumble away.

  There were no walls left to the study now; it had vanished, gaping, blackened, and charred - and her uncle was gone.

  A cloud seemed to come upon Jennifer, seizing her throat, blinding her eyes, and she was falling, falling, part of the roaring flames and the crumbling stones.

  When John heard the door of the house slam, and knew that her good night was final, he turned away and walked down the terrace, impatient with Jennifer, angry that she had not listened to his words.

  He felt restless and unhappy, he knew that if he went to his rooms now sleep would not come to him. When he arrived at the yard he wandered towards the slipway, and after gazing at the still harbour water and the clear starlit sky above, he cast off the painter of his dinghy, and jumping into the boat he seized the paddles and began to pull away rapidly up harbour. He had no difficulty with the tide, for it was just about slack water, and the little boat shot away into mid-stream under his powerful stroke.

  John hoped that with this exercising of his body something of the fear and care in his mind would pass from him, leaving him in the end both weary and untroubled. He tried to persuade himself that this feeling that held sway over him was nothing but the physical want of Jennifer, that his efforts to make her return with him were due to that alone, and to none other. His suffering now was the result of frustration.

  He argued thus, knowing there was much truth in his self-accusation, but knowing also, in the depths of his reason, that he had another and more powerful motive. There was fear within him for her safety. Some danger threatened her, of which he had no knowledge, some horror was preparing to tear apart their happiness, bearing her away to the lost and lonely places. His hidden powers of foresight had risen swiftly, silently, against his will they had tak
en firm hold upon him, and now he was a prey to fear, with no means of protecting she who belonged to him, and who had laughed aside his strange warnings.

  Unconsciously John was pulling towards Polmear Creek; the dark form of the wrecked schooner cast her shadow on the water. He made fast the painter, and climbed aboard. He went below to the black cabin and sat on the bench against the table, his head in his hands. Here he had seen Jennifer for the first time, here she had turned her first startled gaze upon him, her dark head thrown back, angry at his intrusion, the tears upon her cheeks. Here they had read her father’s letters, their shoulders touching, her hair brushing his cheek.

  He remembered, with a strange thrill of pleasure and pain, that here he had also kissed her for the first time, she standing upon the companionway - between the cabin and the deck above, looking over her shoulder at him standing below, and he, blinded by something he did not understand, had caught her in his arms and carried her to the cabin, and there they had clung to one another, bewildered and lost, while he had whispered against her mouth. ‘Oh! Jenny - Jenny.’

  Afterwards they had sat upon the bench, looking at each other with new eyes, Jennifer wondering and silent, and he, triumphant, miserable, unable to keep his hands and his lips away from her. Later, when they were accustomed to one another, they had laughed at those early moments of feverish confusion, and they had agreed that they must be the first pair of lovers to make the cabin of a ship their trysting-place.

  John rested his face upon his hands, and the thoughts jumbled in his brain, and here he slept awhile, awaking some few hours later, cold and ill, knowing he must be gone.

  Once more he climbed down into his waiting boat, and as he gazed at the white figurehead above him, it seemed to him that she whispered a message with her lips, that she counselled him go quickly if he would save Jennifer, for the danger was come upon her and she had need of him.

  He turned his eyes upon the town of Plyn, shrouded in the quiet of the night, and when his gaze travelled in the direction of the terraces he knew.

  For there, out of the darkness, leapt the vivid streak of a flame.

  When John reached the house he had to fight his way through the crowd of people, shouting and crying in the road outside.

  The engine, small and inadequate, was of little use against the terrific force of this fire, and though the men worked furiously, tirelessly, playing their hoses upon the burning buildings, the sheet of water hissing into the air, beating against the walls, it seemed they could not quench those fierce and hungry flames that turned and twisted into the sky.

  John laid his hands upon one of the firemen, shouting in his ear above the roar and crackle of the flames, ‘Are they safe? The people of the house - are they safe?’

  The man shook his head, his eyes scared, his face ashen. He pointed to the escape, placed against one of the higher windows.

  ‘There’s two women brought down, the servants of the place, but the walls are falling - the other floors must be rotted through by now - look there - Mr Stevens - look there!’

  A cry rose from the mass of people assembled in the terrace, and one of the firemen lifted his hand and shouted: ‘Keep back there - keep back, I say!’

  Part of the front facing of the house collapsed, crumbling in a molten mass of smouldering bricks and charred burning wood. The men began to drag the escape away from the doomed building.

  ‘No, no!’ shouted John. ‘There are living people inside, I tell you. You must get to them - you must, you must.’

  Once more the escape was flung against the high windows. ‘Come back, Mr Stevens,’ yelled someone, ‘come back, there can’t be no one there alive - it’s too late - the flames have got them.’

  Deaf to their cries and warnings John climbed up the escape to the rooms of the burning house. He flung himself inside one of the windows, and a cloud of smoke swept upon him, filling his lungs, dazing his brain.

  ‘Jennifer . . .’ he cried. ‘Jennifer . . . Jennifer!’

  He felt his way forward, until he stumbled against a rotting, crumbling staircase, where the angry flames leapt at him from the passage beneath.

  ‘Jennifer,’ he called helplessly. ‘Jennifer - Jennifer!’

  Then he saw her lying where part of the stairway was giving way. It seemed to him that she was slipping with it, slipping away from him into the chaos of horror and fear, down into the hungry flames.

  He reached forward and took her in his arms, and as he fell on to the landing above he saw the stairway where she had been lying disappear before his eyes, swept away by the fire that mounted steadily towards them.

  Someone seized hold of his arm, someone shouted in his ear, and he knew that they were being dragged forward - forward - out of the blinding, suffocating smoke to the cold pure air of the open window, to the moving heavens and the falling stars, to the cries of the people who waited below, their faces upturned . . .

  When Jennifer opened her eyes she saw John kneeling beside her, and she smiled, holding out her hands to him. And as he held her, she hiding her face against his shoulder with no knowledge of what had passed, he raised his eyes above her head and saw that the house where they had been was no more now than a crumbled shell, outlined against the dark sky.

  12

  Jennifer stands on the hill above Plyn, looking down upon the harbour.

  Although the sun is already high in the heavens, the little town is still wrapped in an early morning mist. It clings to Plyn like a thin blanket lending to the place a faint whisper of unreality as if the whole has been blessed by the touch of ghostly fingers. The tide is ebbing, the quiet waters escape silently from the harbour and become one with the sea, unruffled and undisturbed. No straggling cloud, no hollow wind breaks the calm beauty of the still white sky. For an instant a gull hovers in the air, stretching his wide wings to the sun, then he cries suddenly, and dives, losing himself in the mist below.

  Three and a half years have passed since the night of the fire, the night when it seemed to John and to Jennifer that they would be separated for ever.The years have passed swiftly, bewildering and sweet, and now the horror and anguish of that time is no more than a dim memory to both of them, bringing no threat to their present happiness, no suggestion of fear and trouble to their peace and content.

  Few changes have found their way to Plyn. The blackened, gaping building on Marine Terrace is demolished, and the last bricks cleared away, and a new house has been built there in its place, and has been taken over as a private hotel for visitors in the summer months.

  The faded board with the letters ‘Hogg and Williams’, that once swung above the red brick office on the cobbled quay, is gone now, and painted in gold lettering on the door is the sign of ‘James Austin, Ltd.’

  The town of Plyn is as prosperous as ever; every day throughout the year ships enter the harbour and make their way up to the jetties by the entrance to the river, the sound of their sirens echoing in the air, thrown back by the surrounding hills. One of the most striking parts of this modern Plyn is the large ship-building yard, which extends beyond the original premises to the opening of Polmear Creek. There is no ugliness in its growth, no offensive iron girders, no unsightly structure; John Stevens’s Yard is a forest of small masts, the ground a mass of great timber, and inside the hanging sheds can be seen the smooth but unfinished shapes of boats.

  These racing yachts are famous throughout the West Country, and their designer one of the best loved and respected men in Plyn.

  Jennifer turns, and sees John coming up the hill towards her. She smiles, and goes to him.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ she asks him. ‘Don’t you know you ought to be in the yard, slaving away for the sake of your wretched wife and son?’

  He laughs and pulls her towards him. ‘I don’t care if there are fifty million people watching, I had to follow you, and tell you how sick I am of you. Do you know we’ve been married three years ago today, Jenny? It seems like centuries.’

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; She runs her fingers through his hair, pulling it over his eyes.

  ‘D’you remember the bells pealing from Lanoc, and how angry we were when we didn’t want anyone to know? And we thought we’d be romantic and go by boat up Polmear Creek to the church, and then half-way the engine stopped!’

  ‘Yes - and I thought “Thank God I needn’t marry the woman after all.”’

  ‘John - I’ve been moody, and trying at times - have you ever regretted it all, seriously I mean?’

  ‘Jenny, sweet . . .’

  ‘Funny to think we’ll be together always, John - never caring for or wanting anyone else. Funny to think our fathers and mothers loved, and our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers - perhaps they all said the things we’ve told each other, up here, on the top of Plyn hill in the morning sun.’

  ‘Why think about them, sweetheart? I feel selfish today - I only want to remember us - not all the little sad tomb-stones in Lanoc Churchyard.’

  She clings to him suddenly, looking the while over his shoulder.

  ‘A hundred years ago there were two others standing here, John, the same as us now. People of our blood, who belong to us. Perhaps they were happy like we are happy, long, long ago.’

  ‘Think so, Jenny?’

  ‘Oh! John, people can say whatever they damn well please about work, ambition, art, and beauty - all the funny little things that go to make up life - but nothing, nothing matters in the whole wide world but you and I loving one another, and Bill kicking his legs in the sun in the garden below.’

  They wander down the hillside without a word.

  Their house is five minutes’ walk from the yard. It stands on the slip-way, part of the original loft, added on to and extended, where Thomas Coombe first made the models of his boats. At high tide the water creeps above the slip, washing its way to the doorway of the house.

  Bill is two. He is lying on his tummy, tugging at the grass with his hands. Jennifer picks him up under her arms, and smacks his fat behind.