Part 9 (1/2)

Thomas came beside her and held her arm.

'Feelin' faint, love?' he asked kindly.'Don't 'ee start worryin' over the lad, he'll soon find his feet, I reckon.'

She shook her head silently, unable to speak, she put her hands over her ears.

'It's them bells,' she cried suddenly. 'Won't they never cease, never?'

The children were looking at her curiously.

'Come to church, mother dear,' said Mary, 'and we'll all pray that Joe is returned safe and sound to us.'

Thomas pulled out his watch.

'We ought to be startin',' he began awkwardly.'Us has never been late in our lives as far as I can remember.'

They waited on the slip, a kind, hesitating little group, unequal to the occasion.

Janet drew her cloak about her, and fastened it at the neck.

'No - we mustn't be late.'

They walked back along the slip, and turned up the hill. The bells were hushed for a moment, and now another sound rose from the harbour; the hauling and rattling of chains. It was the Francis Hope weighing anchor.

The Coombes walked hurriedly to the stile that led across the fields. They tried to speak easily and naturally, but all were aware of their mother's silent grief. Poor Thomas blundered tactlessly, meaning to cheer and to comfort.

'Ah! well, we'll miss the lad's voice about the house for sure. 'Twill seem a different place without him.'

The bells started once more, screaming and insistent.

Janet tried to shut her mind to the sound, to put away every thought from her. It was autumn, the time of the year that she and Joseph loved the best. The ripe corn was cut, and the rough edges that were left were short and p.r.i.c.kly stubble to the feet. The hedges were bright with hips and haws, and in the gardens in Plyn drooped the scarlet fuchsias. Down in Polmear Valley below Lanoc Church the golden bracken was waist-high and soft lichen clung to the branches of the trees.The farms smelt of manure, and of the bitter wood smoke that rose from the bonfires of the fallen leaves. The swollen brook murmured loudly over the flat grey stones.The evening was grey and cold, the air hinting of mists arising from the river banks. In the elm tree by the church a thrush sang of the autumn, his note sweeter and more plaintive than in spring.

By the gate the family turned, and looked towards the harbour. Already the s.h.i.+p was clear of the land, and every sail set. Her bows were turned to the horizon, and Plyn lay behind her. Soon the land would be astern like a dark smudge in the coming dusk, and the lights would be swallowed up in the darkness.

'Well, there goes the last of Joseph,' sighed Thomas.

The s.h.i.+p slipped away like a bird upon the surface of the still water.The bells ceased ringing. Janet Coombe led the way into the church, followed by her husband and her children. She sat through the service dumb and unresponsive.

The setting sun caught the western windows in a beam of light. She knew this same beam would cross the path of the s.h.i.+p that sailed away.The little church was hushed and peaceful. Centuries old, it still held the presence of those folk who had knelt there in years gone by. The stones were worn with the knees of humble people, now in their graves, their names long buried and forgotten.Those who wors.h.i.+pped there beside Janet would one day in their turn come to the same unbroken silence and rest.

Their voices murmured in prayer now, as they responded to the preacher. Joseph in his s.h.i.+p thought of them kneeling there in Lanoc Church, and of his mother's pale face turned to the lattice windows.

The Francis Hope plunged on, with her stern lifting to the sea, and the fresh wind hissing in the flattened sails.

In Lanoc Church the voices sang loud and true, resounding in the old rafters, and with them the plaintive organ rose and fell.

Jesu - lover of my soul

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O! my Saviour, hide,

Till the storm of life be past,

Safe into the haven guide

O! receive my soul at last.

Janet sang with the rest, but her heart stole away from the sound of the hymn and from the voices of the people, beyond the bowed heads and the quivering candles; all she saw were the stars of heaven, and the lights of a s.h.i.+p upon a lonely sea.

12.

During the months that followed, Janet tried to accustom herself to Joseph's absence. At first it was as though all mortal feeling had left her. She felt as if she herself were dead, and that some mechanical being had taken hold of her limbs and her mind, to continue her life in the same narrow channels as before. Her body was like an empty husk, the nerves and the senses were departed. Outwardly there was no perceptible change, save that her head was carried somewhat higher; she wrapped herself in a cloak of pride to mask her grief.

For all her declaration and her cert.i.tude that a physical separation could mean nothing to her and Joseph, she was torn and shattered by the very longing for his presence. Wherever she walked in Plyn it seemed to her that she was treading in his footprints.

The hills and the cliffs resounded with his clamour, the marks of him were in the wet sand beneath the rocks, and in the breaking of the waves upon the sh.o.r.e.Wherever she turned she found herself searching for some sign of him, as though there was some double torture for her in the places where he had been that gave to her a bitter comfort.

The nights were long and tedious. Janet would be awake hour after hour, with Thomas slumbering heavily at her side, and she would turn her head to the c.h.i.n.k of air that came through the curtained latticed window, and watch for the white star in the dark blanket of the heavy sky. She tried to send herself through s.p.a.ce to the s.h.i.+p upon distant waters, and to stand beside her beloved as he watched through the night on the silent deck. She knew that his thoughts and his soul were with her, but these were not enough for her pitiful human wants. She cursed the weakness of her flesh that hungered for his nearness and his touch, she fought against the demand of her eyes to dwell upon him. To touch his hands and his body that was part of herself, to smell the familiar scent of sea and earth and sun that clung to his clothes, to taste the salt spray that washed from his skin, all these she claimed; but they were taken from her, leaving her half-asleep and a shadow of a woman.

The home she had made for him was hollow and denuded of warmth, it lacked the one reason for its existence.

At times the want of him gripped her like the pain she had suffered in the bearing of him, and she would leave the house and her children and climb once more the hill to the Castle ruins. No sound came from her, she made no gesture of despair. Her cheeks were free from the queer comfort of tears. All that she did was to stand with her back against the wall, her head uplifted, her eyes fixed on the hard grey line where sea and sky meet.

At home in Ivy House new events took place, were recognized and pa.s.sed into the natural scheme of daily life.