The Loving Spirit Part 29

Then Harold walked through the Yard and was gone by the farm gates. Young John looked after him and frowned.

'What are you thinking, son?' asked Fred.

'He won't come back,' said the boy slowly.

'How d'you mean, he won't come back? Of course he will. He may stick London for a couple of years, but he'll be home in Plyn soon after.'

'No,' said John. 'I reckon it sounds soft what I said, but when I get feelings like that they're generally right. Remember what I told you about Uncle Christopher? You laughed at the time, but I just kind of knew in myself.'

'Now listen, my son, you're becoming a regular little prophet of despair. Cut all that stuff out of your head, it's silly, see? It's unhealthy and morbid, and your mother and I don't like it. See?'

'Sure.' The boy ran away whistling and vaulted a stile. He fumbled in his pocket for his catapult, and took careful aim at a pheasant that was flying low over the cut stubbles of wheat. He missed it, of course. Then he strolled through the fields to a point of high ground that overlooked the harbour and Polmear Creek. Through the trees he could see the spars of the wrecked Janet Coombe, while below him to his right the evening mists gathered round the tower of Lanoc Church.

John Stevens stuck his hands in his pockets, and watched the scene through half-closed eyes.

'I can't help these feelings that come to me,' he thought. 'I know I'll never see Harold nor Willie again, like I know that the ship in the creek won't be broken till they take the figurehead away. Father and mother don't believe me, but one day somebody will understand.'

Then he heard a shout from some boys in the fields beyond, and he waved to them, laughing, and ran away down the hill forgetting his thoughts.

Harold was throwing his things into his trunk. He straightened his back and sighed, and looked out upon the harbour water through his lodging window.

'I'll come back,' he whispered. 'Mother'll get fed up with London, and in a year or two we'll all be living here again, Willie, and Jenny, and I. Dad belonged here, and his father, and his grandfather. We belong too, we can't keep away, no more than Willie can stay from the sea. We'll come back to you, Plyn - in a year or two.'

Already he planned in his mind the happy years ahead, years of fulfilment and content; but he reckoned without knowledge and with only the bare substance of a dream.

In a year or two, he said, and it was then the autumn of 1912 . . .

5.

Gradually Jennifer became used to living in London at the boarding-house. She began to feel as though she had always looked out upon those stretches of slate roofs and chimney-pots. The buses rumbled past her bedroom window, and from the distance came the whistle of the Metropolitan trains and the throb of the traffic moving citywards.

Bertha Coombe had easily slipped back into the ways she had known as a girl.

Unconsciously she remembered the early days of her married life, when she and her husband had lived upon the bounty of Mrs Parkins, such as it was, and how quiet and humble he had been, aware of his weakness and of his failure to support her and the boys.This was the man her mother had known, ignorant of the change that hard work and Plyn had made in him, and slowly she too began to regard him in this past light, taking her mother's att.i.tude that she had been something of a saint to have stayed by him all those years. She still cried over his photograph and clung to her widow's weeds, but she talked of him now as 'poor Christopher', and shook her head sadly when his name was mentioned.

Harold, boylike and a little selfish, had stood a month at the boarding-house on his arrival in London, but no more. He had moved into lodgings nearby, resentful of the rules and regulations which his grandmother impelled at No. 7.

Willie made brief appearances every now and again, making shift with the boarding-house as his temporary home, but he grumbled in private to his brother, saying that he couldn't for the life of him see why they had come away from Plyn after all.

It was about this time that it was decided that Jennifer should go to day-school. At Plyn, of course, she would have attended the ordinary local board school like every other child, but such an idea as this shocked Mrs Parkins beyond measure, and rather than suffer the indignity of her grandchild receiving her education side by side with the poorest children of the district, she made inquiries about Miss Hanc.o.c.k's Private School in St John's Wood and offered to pay the necessary fee.

'She will soon get over her silly shyness when she mixes with young companions of her own age,' said Bertha. 'Sometimes I think she puts it on when she doesn't want to do something she is told. It's sheer naughtiness really.'

Grandmamma made a sucking sound with her teeth, and removed a piece of meat with her knitting needle.

'The child has been spoilt,' she announced, 'badly spoilt by her father, I should imagine. But then, what else would you expect?' She shrugged her gigantic shoulders and sniffed.

'Jenny dear,' said Bertha, 'run along.'

So Jennifer 'ran along', and went upstairs to her bedroom, and leaned out of the window watching the rain fall on the chimney-pots and the grey sloping roofs.

She shut her eyes tight and tried to make a picture in her mind of Plyn, but her old powers of visualization seemed to have deserted her, and when she conjured up the sea all that came to her was the wide beach and the pier at Clacton where Mother had taken her for three weeks in the summer. Even her old bedroom over the porch at Ivy House was confused now, and dim; she had forgotten the position of the bed and the pattern of the wallpaper. All she remembered was a fair tangled head on a pillow, someone who slept with his head in his hands and beside whom it was warm and comforting to lie - but his face was gone from her.

Somewhere a little girl ran barefoot on the sweeping hills with the sun in her eyes and the wind behind her, ships sailed away from the grey harbour waters to the open sea, and the gulls cried. Then she opened her eyes and the steady rain fell over London, the traffic rumbled in the street below, and the high, shrill call of the bugle summoned the soldiers in the barracks opposite.

Her first term at school was a success. She soon found that it mattered little how she did her lessons as long as her writing was neat.

In the middle of her second term a terrible thing happened which left a lasting impression on her mind. The princ.i.p.al complained of her and wrote to her mother, and for many weeks she crept about the boarding-house like a little criminal, aware of cold looks and shudders from her mother and grandmamma.

It happened that Jennifer had noticed a group of children in her form who sat apart over their milk and biscuits, and whispered in each other's ears. She crossed over to them and a thin giggling girl with curls called Lillias seized her by the waist and asked her if she would join.

'Join what?' said Jennifer.

'Our secret society for finding out things. It's a sort of spying game, and we tell each other secrets.' This sounded rather exciting.

'Could I be captain?' asked Jennifer.

'Yes, if you like.'

Lillias put her arm through one of her friend's and whispered something. 'Ooh!' said the other with round eyes. 'Do you really? How did you find out?' They cl.u.s.tered together in a group, nodding excitedly.

'H'sh - don't tell anyone.'

Jennifer fidgeted.

'What's your old secret, anyway?'

'Lillias knows,' came the whisper.

'Knows what?'

'How babies are born.'

A quiver of excitement ran through the group, with Lillias in the centre, proud and admired.

'Oh?' said Jennifer casually, 'that's nothing. Everybody knows.'

'Do you know?'

She hesitated a minute, uncertain of her answer. She had never considered the question before. At all costs she must keep to her status as captain.

'Yes, you silly,' she lied.

'Jennifer knows too!' was the exclamation. 'Tell us, quick.'

'You can tell them if you like,' said Jennifer graciously, and Lillias leaned forward, the words tumbling from her mouth.

'They don't come with angels at all, they grow inside people.'

'Oh! - how do you know?'

'I asked my sister, she's fourteen. And there's a funny word that tells you, I looked it up in the dictionary.'

Jennifer gazed at her in surprise. Was this true? What an extraordinary thing. For a moment she was taken off her guard.

'Pooh!' she said, 'I don't believe it. How could they?'

'There,' screamed Lillias triumphantly,'then you didn't know after all.'

'Yes, I did - yes, I did,' shouted Jennifer.'I was only pretending I didn't to see what you would say.'

The lame excuse was received in silence.

'Anyway,' she went on, 'I know more than any of you 'cos I've had a baby!'

'Oh! you fibber, you haven't. Why, you're not grown up.'

'Yes, I have,' said Jennifer, inventing rapidly, dazzled by her audience, 'I had one last summer but I gave it away to - to a friend.'

'No, you couldn't. Only married ladies have babies.'

'Well, I did. People said it was a miracle. I b'lieve someone put it in a paper, but I forget.'

'Jennifer! It's a story, you're making it up. What did it feel like? Did it grow inside you?'

'Oh! yes, easy as anything. I'm magic. Mother says I'm going to have another one in the holidays.' With this last bombsh.e.l.l the children melted away, awestruck, biting their fingers.

Later in the week when she was doing her preparation in her bedroom, her mother called her to come down into the drawing-room. She found Grandmamma and Mother sitting in front of the fire with flushed pained faces, and Mother had a letter opened in her hands.

'Jenny,' she said gravely, 'here is a letter from Miss Hanc.o.c.k telling us about your naughtiness. Grandmamma and I are so unhappy we don't know what is going to be done.'

Jennifer's knees trembled. Whatever had happened? What had she done? 'What does Miss Hanc.o.c.k say?' she asked timidly.

'One of the parents wrote to her complaining that her child had gone home with horrid ideas and thoughts that you had put into her head. Miss Hanc.o.c.k spoke to this child, Lillias, I believe you have had her to tea here, and she cried and said it was all some secret game of which you were the head, and the idea of it was to find out about - about babies and things. Jenny - how could you.'

'It was only pretence,' stammered Jennifer, 'I didn't know really, I'd never thought. But Lillias was so boasting. I didn't do anything naughty, she said she knew how babies were born and I said I had had one, and that . . .'

'Jennifer!' Mother gazed at her in disgust.

Grandmamma sniffed, and then laughed grimly.

'What did I tell you, Bertha? I always knew the child had a nasty mind. Do you remember how she used to wait about the lobby for the gentlemen?'

At the mention of the lobby Jennifer blushed crimson.

'There,' said Grandmamma, pointing at her. 'Look at her guilty face. She owns up to it. She knew she was doing something wrong. A child of her age, with such ideas. Bertha, this is revolting.'

Jennifer twisted her hands in front of her, wretchedly distressed. What had the lobby got to do with babies?

'Jenny,' said Mother sadly, 'I don't know how I'm going to look upon you in the same way again. All this has shocked me so deeply that I can never forget it.To think my own little girl should have nasty, vulgar curiosity . . .'

She shuddered as she folded the letter.

'You must write to Miss Hanc.o.c.k and say how sorry you are, otherwise she will never take you back. Will you promise Grandmamma and me that you will never think these horrid thoughts any more?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

'You see, Jenny, it's made me so sad I feel I can't trust you.'

She looked helplessly across at Grandmamma.

'Of course we know what branch of the family is to be blamed for this,' said Grandmamma slowly. 'Possibly it is too late to alter anything now. I wonder what other ideas the child has?'

She fixed her heavy, brooding eye on her granddaughter. Jennifer's eyes fell beneath the piercing glance. Nasty, vulgar curiosity, Mother had said. She must mean things like drawing pictures of naked ladies . . . She had done this - perhaps Grandmamma had found some of her old drawings. If only she could fly somewhere far away, and never, never come back . . .

Then Grandmamma played her trump card.

'I wonder what your daddy would have said to this.'

The room swung round before Jennifer's eyes, her heart thumped, and spreading out her hands helplessly she ran from the room, anywhere, away - away - seeking some possibility of escape.

In July, Grandmamma, Mother, Harold, and Jennifer went away for a fortnight to rooms in Swanage. It made a change from the dreariness of Maple Street, and she enjoyed the sands and the bathing, and the nearness of the glittering sea.

These sands were spoilt by all the people, though, by deck chairs, crying children, and barking dogs.

'Plyn wasn't like this, was it, Harold?' she asked anxiously, and he pulled her hair and laughed - 'Rather not.'

She sighed with a queer feeling of relief, and hoped he would not wonder if she had forgotten.

He forgot to build sand castles with her this summer, he was always reading the newspapers aloud to Mother and Grandmamma, nothing interesting, but long, boring pieces about other countries.

As she rounded a sand house with her hands, and carefully placed a white sh.e.l.l for the door, she would hear him say - 'England'll have to decide one way or the other, you know, if it comes to a dust-up.'

Then she would seize hold of her bucket and run across to the edge of the sea to fill it, spilling little drops of water behind her as she returned.

Harold would tilt his straw hat over his face. 'I don't know, Mum, but it seems there's bound to be war. Of course it will all be over by Christmas.'

And Jennifer made a moat for her house, and sprinkled the water inside it to look real.

One day it rained, and they had to stay indoors at the lodgings. Mother and Grandmamma were sewing by the window, and Jennifer had her painting-book on her knee. She was painting a sailor in a bright blue coat, and she had smudged the colour on to the white page.

Suddenly Harold burst into the room, a paper in his hand, and the back of his coat wet from the rain.