The Loving Spirit (51 page)

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

 

 

J
ennifer 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.’

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.

John tickles his nose with a piece of straw, and Bill sneezes, shouting with laughter.

Across the harbour comes the sound of hammers, of wood cracking beneath the blow of axes. It is the sound of workmen breaking up a wreck in Polmear Creek. She is no more than a hulk now, a few battered timbers.

Jennifer raises her eyes to the great beam that stands outside the room facing the harbour.

This is Bill’s nursery.

Placed against the beam is the figurehead of a ship. She leans beyond them all, a little white figure with her hands at her breast, her chin in the air, her eyes gazing towards the sea.

High above the clustered houses and the grey harbour waters of Plyn, the loving spirit smiles and is free.

 

Bodinnick-by-Fowey
October 1929-January 1930