They have several children and the boys follow their father into the family business with the exception of Philip who becomes a clerk at the local shipping office and Joseph, who like Janet, longs to go to sea.

Philip features in all chapters of the book and is portrayed as a dark force, withdrawn and distant from the rest of the family.

Joseph wins the girl's hand, but gradually, as failing sight prevents him from going to sea, he broods, becomes mentally unstable and his young wife dies in childbirth.

He hears his dead mother Janet calling him and they meet at the castle ruin on the cliff, when he returns his brother Philip has him committed to an asylum.

Philip, who has risen to the head position in the shipping business, advises there is nothing left and the shares were used to pay the costs of the asylum.

At the end of the third part of the book Christopher dies trying to save the Janet Coombe when it is caught in bad weather near the harbour entrance.

The Jane Slade figurehead was removed from the ship and a fibreglass replica is in place on a beam at Ferryside whilst the original lies within.

Daphne du Maurier was married at the same church in 1933 to Frederick Browning who had decided to visit Fowey having read the book The Loving Spirit.