The Loving Spirit (34 page)

Then two nights ago Bertha and I were amongst those present at some musical gathering, a concert given in Queen’s Hall. Once more my old longing rose unsuppressed in my heart, as I listened with tears in my eyes to some plaintive Irish song, whose sad verses recalled my dear absent home. It seemed to me that I was indeed looking upon the peaceful harbour waters, and hearing the hungry clamour of gulls; the sea was at my feet and the hills behind me, and through the air I could hear the chimes of Lanoc Church. For all I knew you believed me dead and forgotten, or travelled far away into some distant land. I left the building in a dream, my wife holding to my arm; and there in the streets we beheld a striking emotional scene, the whole population of London gone crazy apparently, with flags waving and men shouting like children for joy, while the newsboys ran amongst them crying that Mafeking had been relieved.

The tumult and rejoicing had swept us too, and this seems the first moment since, that I am free to be able to write to you. Fancy, you were a girl of sixteen or seventeen years when I last saw you, and now I take it you are a young woman of nine and twenty, married perhaps, with children of your own.

I write to you because I expect Albie to be at sea, and Charlie at the war. Father I dare not approach after my last unanswered efforts, but I enclose letters from the children to him, hoping that this may move him. They are strong, healthy boys, and a great joy to me and my dear wife. Now, Katherine, should this not reach you, of which I cannot but entertain doubts, I shall think most seriously of taking the train to Plyn and risking the consequences. If, on the other hand, you do receive this safely, then I shall be eternally grateful for an early reply. If you could but fathom half the deep and earnest longing I have in my heart to look upon all your dear faces again, you would find it not difficult I believe to grant me this desire. Well, no more at present, and I will now close with my fond love to you, Father and all members of the family, remaining as ever your affectionate brother. Christopher

In this letter were enclosed the following notes from the two boys:

(eight years last September)

A few days later to Christopher’s wonder and delight an envelope came for him with the Plyn postmark. Not trusting his emotion at the breakfast table he withdrew to his room and read his sister’s long letter. Katherine had not spared herself, she had written clearly and fully a truthful account of everything that had taken place since her brother’s departure thirteen years ago.

For some time Christopher Coombe sat dumbfounded by the shock of this letter, and the news that it contained. That he, seemingly, had been the means of driving his father to acts of unprecedented cruelty and then to ultimate insanity was a thought of such horror and desolation that he knew he would never recover, never be able to pay back onefold of the peace which he had deliberately robbed, but must live the remainder of his days with the burden of another soul upon his, and go to his grave guilty of murder and the causing of misery to many lives. There was no punishment heavy enough to meet his case; those years of hard work, toil, and the threat of poverty, were as nothing compared to the vast suffering of his father.

On Friday evening Christopher sat in the corner of a third class carriage of the jolting train that was bearing him swiftly to Plyn.

The weather had been fair enough when he left Paddington but as the night advanced and the train sped towards the west an angry shower struck the carriage window, the wind howled, and he gathered from these signs that a sou’westerly gale would greet him on arrival at Plyn.

He snatched a few moments of sleep during the night, and then woke, pallid, unrefreshed, with a tremulous heart and shaking hands, as the train drew into the junction for Plyn. It was about seven-thirty in the morning, and the porter shouldered his box and placed it in the Plyn train. He was a young man, a stranger to Christopher, but the sound of his pleasant, west-country accent was like music to the ears of one who had not heard it for twelve years. Christopher Coombe, the wanderer who returned to his home.

The train shunted and groaned, the station-master whistled, and they were off.

The wide river stretching and turning away, the first sight of Truan woods fresh with their young green, the banks of yellow primroses clustered in the low valleys, and a glimpse of a blue carpet spread beneath the shivering trees, a carpet of bluebells and soft violets. The flaming gorse waved in the high hills, a lark hovered in the air, and the figure of a farmer with his team of horses paused for an instant on the skyline to watch the passing train.

Then the broad river widened, they were past the saw-mills now, past the farmhouse at the head of the creek, they were turning the bend and the white jetties swung into view, the tall dangling cranes, the masts of ships - sailing-vessels, steamers, dusty with clay. The rough harbour water, the weather-beaten horse-ferry making its way across to the farther hamlet, the sight of grey houses, grey smoke, wet shining roofs glistening in the morning sun - Plyn - home - home again once more.

The tears running down his face Christopher threw down the carriage window. The wild wind tossed at his bare head, he breathed in the pure, salt-laden air, he caught a whiff of the open sea beyond the point.

Forgotten was London, forgotten were the long dreary years of toil and strife, of love, bitterness, desire, and frustration, these were things that had never counted, that had served as some evil dream to tear him from this place that was part of him.

He was home again, home to Plyn where he belonged, where he had always belonged before birth, before creation; Plyn with her lapping harbour water; her forest of masts, her hungry wheeling gulls, her whisper of peace and comfort to a lonely heart; Plyn with her own grey silent beauty.

Home; he tore open the carriage door and stepped upon the familiar platform. Nobody recognized him. He had been a careless boy of twenty-two when he sailed away, and now he was a man nearing thirty-five, who had suffered much and worked hard, a man whose fair hair was growing thin on the top, whose forehead was lined, and whose shoulders stooped. No, there was nobody here who knew him, no one he knew himself. There was a woman standing on the platform, with eyes red from weeping, and her mouth working strangely. She held her coat up to her chin. He did not know her though, and would have passed her by if she had not looked up at him oddly, with a half-glance of recognition.

She put out her hand timidly and touched his arm. ‘Is it - is it you, Christopher?’ she asked.

It was his sister Katherine.

‘Why, Kate!’ he started, ‘I didn’t recognize you, I wasn’t thinking . . .’

At once she burst into a torrent of weeping.

‘You’re too late, brother, he’s gone - he’s gone.’

An icy hand clutched at Christopher’s heart. ‘What do you mean - Father - he’s dead?’

‘Lost - Christopher - lost last night and must be drowned. His cap and coat has been washed up on Pennytinny sands and the crabbers found the boat from the yard, cast adrift with her boards broken. His body hasn’t been recovered, it must be washed away, far out to sea.’

They clung to each other, brother and sister who had parted twelve years ago as boy and girl, and were now reunited, man and woman, after suffering and anguish.

‘You’re too late, Christopher, too late, he’s gone . . .’

6

 

 

C
hristopher was kept too busy during these first days to allow himself to be weighed down by the shock of his father’s death, there were many matters to which he must attend, bills to settle, and relatives to visit. The accounts seemed to have been kept very slackly at Ivy House, and Katherine told her brother, to his intense surprise, that since her father’s illness Uncle Philip Coombe had possessed the handling of their affairs. Their wants had been very few, but at the same time the interest he had paid in to her quarterly from the shares in the
Janet Coombe
was certainly very little, and they had existed barely on Joseph’s pension.

‘But Father owned nearly all the shares of the schooner,’ exclaimed Christopher, ‘besides having interests in many other vessels. I know that for a fact, for he often told me so. He surely never sold any of his rights, did he?’

‘Not to my knowledge,’ replied Katherine, ‘but then when he came over peculiar there is no knowing what he did not do.’

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.’