WYL'S HALL.
It does not fall to the lot of many travellers by sea to plough
through the yellow broken waters of the German Ocean where the coast
of Suffolk lies low and fertile. Thus it happens that these shores
are little visited, and never overrun by the cheap tourist. Upon
this bleak, shingly shore there are little villages and small ancient
towns quite unknown to the August holiday-seeker, who prefers
crowding down to the south coast. The main-line of the Great Eastern
Railway runs its northward course far inland, and sends out at
intervals a small feeler, often a single line traversed but once or
twice a day. Between these sleepy lines there are tracts of country
where the roads are mere beds of sand or shingle, quite unfit for
polite traffic--broad marshes intersected by sluices and waterways
too broad to jump, too unimportant to bridge, and at the edge of the
sea a great hopeless plain of unfathomable shingle. Five miles
across this country are equal to twelve upon a moderately good road.
Driving is impossible, riding impracticable, and walking unpleasant.
There is, indeed, a tiny coastguard path near the sea, but this is
often lost amidst the shingle; and even when the land rises to thirty
feet, in soft, sandy cliff, the walking is but doubtful.
The glory of this coast has departed; many of its villages and
towns--once important--have likewise gone ... into the sea. It is
dreary, if you will. I admit that it is dreary, but in its very
mournfulness there is a great beauty. I do not speak of the ruins of
bygone monasteries, of the tall, square-towered churches, of the
quaint black fishing hamlets--though these are picturesque
enough--but of the land itself. The long, unbroken shingle shore,
where is visible, upon the clean stones, a plank or an old basket for
miles away--where the shore retreats in ridges to the green seawall
or bank, each ridge marking the effect of some great storm. And over
the sea-wall, inland, a great wild, deserted marsh, or 'mesh,' as it
is called in Suffolk, dotted here and there with black-hulled,
white-sailed windmills, duly set at low tide by the solitary
'mesh'-man to pump the water into the sluices and so into the sea.
A golden sunset over these lands seen from the sea-wall is a wondrous
sight, for the land gleams like the heavens. The brilliant westering
light searches out all still waters craftily hidden amidst
marsh-grass and bulrush, making each pool and slow stream reflect the
gold of heaven.
But Suffolk by the sea is not all marsh. There are high sand-dunes,
where oaks grow to a wonderful stature and a mighty toughness; where
clean-limbed beeches rustle melodiously in the breeze that is never
still on the hottest autumn day; and where pines grow straight and
tall despite the salty breath of ocean.
The little town of Wyvenwich lies upon the northern slope of such a
bank as this. Before it spreads a bleak sandy plain seven miles
across, while behind all is fertility and leafy luxuriance. To the
south, over the hill, and past the ruins of a forgotten monastery,
lies a vast purple moor, which undulates inland until a mixed forest
of pine, oak and beech shuts out further investigation. The red
heather literally hangs over the sea, and a high tide, coupled with a
north-easterly gale, beating against the soft sand-cliffs, never
fails to reduce the breadth of Wyvenwich Moor a yard or so. The
heathland slopes gently down to a vast marsh, in the midst of which
stands a solitary red-brick cottage, the home of the marsh-man. The
nearest house to it is the Mizzen Heath Coast-guard Station, set back
from the greedy sea upon the height of the moor; and beyond that,
surrounded by trees on all sides except the front, is Wyl's Hall.
The parish register tells of Wylies since the thirteenth century.
Nothing of great importance, perhaps, but the name is there, and the
possessors of it appear to have done their duty faithfully in the
state of life in which they were placed. Baptism, marriage,
death--what could human ambition require beyond that? And now the
old race is extinct. A lonely widow, childless, almost kinless,
lives in Wyl's Hall; and the last possessor of the name, kindly
honest Admiral Wylie, lies in his great solitude among the nameless
northern dead, far away in the deserted Norse churchyard upon the
mountain-side.
Brenda Gilholme found a place for herself in the great human mill
where we are all so many 'hands' serving our little looms, feeding
our insignificant crushers with honest raw material which goes away
from us and never comes again. Even to her analytical,
deep-searching mind it was clear that Mrs. Wylie had need of someone
to bear her company in her widowhood, and so she stayed
unquestioningly at Wyl's Hall now that Mrs. Wylie had returned there.
Here she lived just like an ordinary little country maiden who knew
nothing of Greek verbs and was profoundly ignorant respecting
political economy. She knew all about the tides, and sympathized
with old Godbold, the marsh-man, when the north-east winds blew
against the ebbing tide, and laughed at all his five creaking
windmills. She learnt the names of all the six stalwart
coastguardsmen stationed at Mizzen Heath, and was deeply versed in
the smuggling lore of this famous smuggling country, where the most
honest and law-abiding man can scarcely look at the long deserted
coast, the intersected marshland, and the silent sandy roads, without
thinking of contraband wares. These coastguardsmen, with their civil
tongues and ready ways, occupied an important position in the
domestic economy of Wyl's Hall. Their little turf refuge was at the
foot of the kitchen garden, and there a pleasant-spoken man was to be
found by night and day.
Women are weak where sailors are concerned. Mrs. Wylie set an evil
example with the London newspaper, and the portly cook followed with
surreptitious cold pudding when her dishes were washed on a warm
evening. There was always something requiring a man's hand at Wyl's
Hall, and the coastguards had a certain leisure, during which the
most somnolent could scarcely sleep. No man slumbers quite
peacefully about five o'clock in the evening, however actively
employed he may have been during the previous night; and, indeed, at
all times of day or night there was usually one of the six Mizzen
Heath guardians awake and off duty.
Into this little world, shut off by shallow seas in front, closed in
by vast moors behind, Brenda had quietly made her way like some new
and gracious flower when the flowers of earth were still frozen in.
In it she had found a place, among its denizens a welcome. And this
was life. This the end and aim of all existence. To do a little
good, to leave a pleasant memory in a few hearts. Ah, my brothers,
the marble slabs in every church tell of men's virtues and men's
deeds; lauding them and praising them beyond their value! 'And of
Mary, his wife, who died at the age of seventy-six.' A short record,
a simple statement. We do not hear of _her_ virtues and _her_ deeds,
and only a few of us vaguely surmise that she may have had a hand in
the shaping of that wonderful vessel, her lord and master, whose good
name will go down to posterity--an example to men unborn. Could the
life of 'Mary, his wife,' be dissected, I think it would prove to be
a cleaner record.
And so Brenda, in her way, was doing her share of unrecorded good,
working out her small existence in a daily round of trivial
self-sacrifices, self-suppressions, self-abnegations, as the majority
of women are doing round us now. In a manner she was happy, for
youth itself is a happiness, because it is a deceptive glamour of
anticipation--anticipation which, thank God! we can never learn to
recognise as destined to certain disappointment. At times she
vaguely questioned the benefit accruing from the possession of an
exceptional education, but fortunately she was unaware that she was
endowed with an exceptional intellect. She did not suspect that she
could have scanned the wide expanse of sea and land spread out around
the coastguards' refuge without finding a human mind worthy so much
as to hold mere passing intercourse with hers.
She never looked upon this existence as permanent. It could not
last. Something would come, some change for good or evil, and the
powers--the infinite womanly powers of love and self-sacrifice--would
have a larger scope. Meanwhile she did her duty by Mrs. Wylie with
unfailing energy and inexhaustible cheerfulness. Between these two
women, as between the elder and Theo Trist, there had been no
definite exchange of sentiments. Both would have said that their
tacit devotion to each other was nothing else than a practical
worldly arrangement of mutual advantage and equal benefit.
Mrs. Wylie was almost her old self again. At times the former
cheerfulness of demeanour would lighten up the old house. There was
the same capable sense of comfort in her presence, the same readiness
to make the best of unpropitious environments. Her own sorrow, never
publicly aired, was hidden deeply beneath a certain cheerfulness
which can only be described as worldly. Worldliness is not a vice,
it is a social virtue. Why should we parade our sorrows and clothe
ourselves in a meek coat of obtrusive resignation? There is enough
grief in life to justify a little slurring over, a little avoidance
of grievous topics. If Mrs. Wylie never referred to her late husband
in touching terms, it was not because his memory was devoid of
meaning to her; it was because she cordially disliked any approach to
cant, because the memory was too sacred a thing to be discussed. Of
course, society at large and her neighbours in particular had a say
in the matter--the usual kind of say--flavoured with tea and thin
bread, garnished with spite and kindly malice. But Mrs. Wylie had
always been rashly indifferent to criticism. She had chosen to
ignore the precious advice of sundry female counsellors, who knew
infinitely more about her affairs and their mismanagement than she
did herself. And this was the result--the neighbourhood would talk,
it is a way neighbourhoods have, and really there was cause for it.
Cause, indeed--I should think so! Why, Miss Ferret, the elderly
unmarried daughter of the late vicar of Wyvenwich, had never even
been told the details of the small tragedy in Norway. And instead of
coming down quietly to Wyl's Hall the widow had actually lived in her
chambers in town--a flat, near Piccadilly. A flat, indeed, and
Admiral Wylie scarce cold in his grave! There is some deep reproach
in this which is not quite clear to my obtuse male brain, but I am
assured upon the best authority that the matter was much spoken of at
Wyvenwich. There are some people whose chief aim in life seems to be
to avoid being spoken of. They try all their days to walk in a
trodden path, to live a vegetating existence, which is so absolutely
commonplace and everyday, so compassed about by rule and the safe
guiding of precedent, that there is absolutely nothing left to speak
about. Then they shake their lace-caps, or pull down their starched
waistcoats, and, in the self-laudation of their bloodless hearts, are
happy.
All through February and March the two ladies had lived happily at
Wyl's Hall, without longing for the busier life of London. The human
mind is even more adaptable to circumstances than the body that
carries it. Small interests soon take the place of large, and
quietude follows on excitement without any great mental change being
necessary.
At times Mrs. Wylie heard about Theodore Trist--usually a vague
rumour that he was in London, or Paris, or Berlin. In his deliberate
way he was building up for himself a great reputation in that inner
diplomatic world which is a sealed chamber for prying journalism of
the cheaper sort. Upon certain international subjects the newspaper
he served was without rival, but the closest observer could not
detect his pen or assign any statement to him. The secret remained
inviolate between himself and his editor. The position of Theodore
Trist was unique, and has not since been approached. His grasp of
the great subject of war was extraordinary at this time of his life,
when all his faculties were in full strength. From the lock of a
Berdan rifle to the construction of a trench, from the strap of a
knapsack to the details of a treaty, his knowledge was unrivalled.
In diplomacy he could have made his mark had he so wished, but he
contented himself with studying the art as a sailor learns
astronomy--merely as a factor in his profession. In some countries
he was cordially hated--notably in Germany, where the peculiar
circumstances of his position were incomprehensible. The Teutonic
mind cannot grasp certain motives which solely depend upon a sense of
honour or find birth in a scrupulous uprightness. Far be it from
this impartial pen to speak ill of any man or men; but having lived
among Germans in their own country, in their daily life and work,
also in other countries and in different circumstances; having had
transactions--friendly, commercial, and unfriendly--with them, I
hereby make note of the fact that our self-complacent neighbours are
mentally and totally unable to comprehend why a man, possessing
certain knowledge and certain power, should hesitate to use it for
his own personal benefit.
That which we in our trammelled smallness call 'scruple' they possess
not; and to that cause must be assigned the reason that the great
Teutonic nation never understood Theodore Trist. His position was to
them an anomaly. They could not realize that he was capable of
serving two nations--France and England--honestly at the same time,
and so they distrusted him. He was hated because he had dared to
criticise a military policy which was modestly considered in Berlin
as the ablest yet conceived since armies first ruled the world.
Added to this there was the rankling sore of an unforgotten story,
told bluffly and with scathing sarcasm in a French and English
newspaper simultaneously--the story of a dastardly attempt to extract
information from a faithful Alsatian peasant woman by means of what
in barbarous ages we would have denominated infamous torture.
Once Mrs. Wylie heard directly from Theodore Trist--a short note,
sent with some quaint old jewellery he had brought back from the
Slavonski Bazar in Moscow for herself and Brenda.
March was drawing to a close, and the low Suffolk lands were already
green by reason of their dampness, when a second communication
arrived at Wyl's Hall from the busy correspondent.
'May I,' he asked tersely, 'come down for a day or two to see you?
Please answer by telegraph.'
The note came at breakfast-time, and a messenger was at once
despatched to Wyvenwich with a telegram.
'It is quite an age since we have seen Theo,' observed Mrs. Wylie
pleasantly, as she wrote out the message.
Brenda, who was occupied with her letters, acquiesced carelessly; but
in a few moments she laid the communications aside and took up the
newspaper. With singular nonchalance she opened it and went towards
the window. There was nothing very peculiar in this action, and yet
the girl's movements were in some slight and inexplicable way
embarrassed. It seemed almost as if she did not wish Mrs. Wylie to
notice that she was looking at the newspaper. During breakfast there
was a furtive anxiety visible in the manner and voice of these
deceitful women. Each attempted to rejoice openly over the advent of
Theodore Trist, and at the same time carefully avoided seeking a
reason for his unusual mode of procedure; for Trist was a man who
never invited himself. Indeed, his habit was one of apprehensive
self-suppression; except in the battle-field, he was nervously afraid
of being _de trop_.
While the table was being cleared Brenda left the room on some small
errand, and Mrs. Wylie literally pounced upon the newspaper the
moment the door was closed. With practised hand and eye she sought
the column containing foreign intelligence. Eagerly she scanned the
closely-printed lines, but disappointment was the evident result.
'Not a word,' she reflected--'not a word. But perhaps that is all
the worse. Theo is coming down here for some specific reason, I am
sure. Either to say good-bye or ... or for something else.
War--war--war! I feel it in the air!'
And the good lady stood there in the bow-window gazing through the
rime-shaded panes away across the moor, over the green and mournful
sea. Her clever gray eyes were half-closed, owing to a peculiar
contraction of the eyelids--a little habit she indulged in when
thinking in her brave cheery way of those things, my sisters, which
you have greater leisure to meditate over than we men--of the
happiness and the great joy we seem ever about to grasp, and which
with melancholy invariability slips through our earthly fingers,
fades from our earthly eyes. I sometimes think that when other women
would have wept Mrs. Wylie contracted her eyelids, set her lips, and
looked 'very courageous and of a good faith.'
Unconsciously she was looking away towards the east, to those
mysterious lands, whence so many chapters of the world's history have
been drawn.