Part 18 (1/2)

Without a word they left the house together and walked away, anywhere, it did not matter, wherever their feet should lead them. They went to a hotel, for they had eaten nothing since breakfast early that morning. It was now half past three in the afternoon. Christopher heaped the food on to his father's plate, as though he were a child. Joseph tried to smile, but the muscles of his face seemed stiff and frozen. An atmosphere of shadows clung about him. Christopher turned away, and struggled with his own meat, forcing the food down his throat, thinking helplessly of the life that awaited Joseph at Plyn.

When they had finished Christopher paid the bill, and they made their way outside again into the false suns.h.i.+ne. d.i.c.k was waiting to see them off at the station. He was staying five days in Plymouth. Then Joseph spoke for the first time.

'How did 'ee manage at the exam, d.i.c.k?' he said.

'Middlin' well, thank you, Uncle. I trust that I'll satisfy them all right.'

'That's good.' Joseph looked out of the carriage window beyond him. 'You see, I want you to be the new skipper of the Janet Coombe,' he said.

The two men knew then that the end was come. The sea and the s.h.i.+p would know Joseph no more.

'I'll do my level best, Uncle Joe.'

The train sped away, carrying father and son.

Christopher took his father's arm.

'Can't they save your eyes at all, father?' he whispered.

'I don't know,' said Joseph. 'Don't worry, boy.'

The tears were slowly trickling down Christopher's face.

'Father, can't I do anything?'

'All right, Chris, dear lad. It's like comin' to the end of a dream, that's all. It's only the s.h.i.+p I mind.'

Grey clouds gathered, and rain pattered against the carriage window.

12.

The first weeks after the Janet Coombe had sailed without him, Joseph seemed to sink into a coma of depression from which it was impossible to rouse him.

Annie was no help to him. She was frightened at his change of mood, and did not understand. Age, which Joseph had always despised and thrust from his mind, was now coming upon him.

Ivy House remained to him and the quiet strolling along the cliffs above the harbour. Joseph found some measure of content up at the rambling farm, with his sister who understood him better than his own family, and her boy Fred who possessed the strength that had been Janet's.

Queer, unaccountable thing this business of heredity.

Meanwhile, unknown to his father, Christopher was planning to go to sea.

He saw himself standing in his father's place, admired, respected, a little feared, carrying on the tradition of Coombe strength and gallantry.

Christopher had studied his father during the last months, he had learnt something of the love that had existed between Joseph and Janet, and he began to understand why this father of his had expected so much from the son.

Christopher told Joseph one evening when they sat together by the Castle ruins.

'Father, the Janet Coombe will be home in less than five weeks time, and I want to s.h.i.+p in her when she sails again.'

Joseph stretched out his hand to Christopher as though he were a little lad again.

'I knew you would go,' he said. 'It's stronger than you, Chris, it's somethin' in your blood there's no strugglin' agenst. I've waited so long for you to tell me this.'

'I'll do anything to make you proud of me, father, and I swear you will be before long.'

'I know. Oh! Chris boy, you've done a lot for me today, I'll never forget.'

'Thank you, father. I'm glad - I'm glad.'

The pair went down the hill together, the father with his arm round the son's shoulder.

Once more Joseph took heart, and the next weeks fled rapidly until the Janet Coombe was anch.o.r.ed again in Plyn harbour.

Christopher himself could scarcely wait for the time to pa.s.s. He was getting away from Plyn at last, and entering upon a strange unknown life. Never mind the risks, never mind the discomforts, this was freedom of a sort, and better than the drudgery at the yard.

The day before he sailed, the young man had occasion to go into the s.h.i.+pping office, and there he met his Uncle Philip, who showed himself surprisingly good-tempered.

'Going to sea, Christopher?' asked Philip. 'I can't somehow see a smart chap like you settling down to life on a rough schooner.'

The young man flushed awkwardly. 'I trust I shall make a success of it,' he said.

Philip Coombe looked him up and down, and leaning back in his chair, he picked his teeth with his penholder. An idea had come into his head.

'Your father is glad about this, I suppose?'

'Yes, Uncle; well, I admit it was to console him somewhat that I came to the decision.'

'I imagined that. I suppose you know where you are bound?'

'St John's, I hear, and then the Mediterranean. I've always had a wish to see some of these places, and it's queer to think I shall soon be there.'

'Hum! no doubt the sh.o.r.e will seem a splendid thing after the Atlantic. You'll discharge your Mediterranean freight at London. Ever been to London?'

'I've only been as far as Bristol,' replied Christopher, somewhat ashamed.

'Ah! London's the spot for a young man like you. You'd fall on your feet there right enough. Something of a dreamer, aren't you? London is the stepping-stone for the ambitious. Many a penniless boy has won fame and fortune in the capital, boys who, but for seizing their opportunities, would have spent their lives before the mast in some old vessel, such as you intend to do.'

A shadow seemed to lay itself across Christopher's heart.

'I hope to work my way to the top of my trade, Uncle,' he said in defiance. Philip Coombe whistled and shook his head.

'Don't you want to strike out on a line for yourself, be somebody? Is your ambition to be eventually the Master of a little schooner? She will be out of date when you get your ticket, some time in the nineteen hundreds.You're not as bright as I thought. Go off on your sailing s.h.i.+p and stay there as long as you like, but don't forget that London is waiting round the corner.'

Christopher left the office, his mind perplexed with a hundred new doubts and fears, as his uncle had intended it should be.