CHAPTER IX.

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.