Men may love their own country, but the sea, with its ever-varying humours, kind and cruel by turn, exacts a fuller devotion. A woman once told me of her love for her native country. She happened to be a practical, prosaic, middle-aged woman of the world. We were seated on a gorgeous sofa in a blaze of artificial light, amidst artificial smiles, listening to the murmurs of artificial conversation. Something moved her; some word of mine fell into the well of her memory and set the still pool all rippling. I listened in silence. She spoke of Dartmoor, and I think I understood her. At the end I said:
“What Dartmoor is to you, the sea is to me;” and she smiled in a strange, sympathetic way.
That is the nearest approach that I have met of a love for land which is akin to the love of sea.
In Brenda’s case, as in all, this newfound passion influenced her very nature. If love—love, I mean, of a woman—will alter a man’s whole mode of life, of action, and of thought, surely these lesser passions leave their mark as well.
Undoubtedly the girl caught from the great sea some of its patient contentment; for the ocean is always content, whether it be glistening beneath a cloudless sky, or rolling, sweeping onwards before the wind in broad gray curves. Those who work upon the great waters are different from other men in the possession of a certain calm equanimity, which is like no other condition of mind. It is the philosophy of the sea.
At first Brenda had dreaded the thought of being imprisoned, as it were, in this tiny east coast fishing village with her sister. This was no outcome of a waning love, but rather a proof that her feelings towards her sister were as true and loyal as ever. She feared that Alice would lower herself in her sight. She dreaded the necessary tête-à-têtes because she felt that her sister’s character had not improved, and could not well bear the searching light of a close familiarity.
After the first hour or two, however, the sisters appeared to settle down into a routine of life which in no way savoured of familiarity. The last two years had hopelessly severed them, and now that they were alone together the gulf seemed to widen between them.
Brenda was aware that some great change had come over her life or that of her sister. They no longer possessed a single taste or a single interest in common. Whether the fault lay entirely at her own door, or whether Alice were partially or wholly to blame, the girl did not attempt to decide. She merely felt that it would be simple hypocrisy to pretend a familiarity she did not feel. Yet she loved her sister, despite all. The tie of blood is strangely strong in some people; with others it is no link at all.
After an uncomfortable meal had been bravely sat out subsequent to Brenda’s arrival, the younger sister announced her intention of going out for a long ramble down the coast. Alice complained that she had no energy, predicted that the dismal flat land and muddy sea were about to prove fatal to her health, and subsided into a yellow-backed novel. This was a fair sample of their life in exile.
Alice deluged her weak intellect with fiction of no particular merit, and Brenda learnt to love the sea. For her the bleak deserted shore, the long, low waves rolling in continuously, the dirty sweeping of sandbanks near the shore, and the endless fields of shingle, acquired a mournful beauty which few can find in such things.
Only once was reference made to Theodore Trist, and then the subject was tacitly tabooed, much to the relief of Brenda. This happened during the first evening of their joint exile. Doubtless a sudden fit of communicativeness came over Alice just as they come to the rest of us—at odd moments, without any particular raison d’être.
The miserable shuffling waiter had removed all traces of their simple evening meal, and Brenda was looking between the curtains across the sea, which shimmered beneath the rays of a great yellow moon. Alice had taken up her novel, but its pages had no interest for her just then. She had appropriated the only easy-chair in the room, and was leaning back against its worn leather stuffing with a discontented look upon her lovely face. Her small red mouth had acquired of late a peculiar “set” expression, as if the lips were habitually pressed close with an effort.
“Theo,” she said, without looking towards the tall, slim form by the window, “has changed.”
Brenda moved the curtain a little more to one side, so that the old wooden rings rattled on the pole. Then she leant her shoulder against the framework of the window, and turned her face towards the firelight. Her gentle gaze rested on the beautiful form gracefully reclining in the deep chair. She noted the easy repose of each limb, the proud poise of the golden head, and the clearcut profile showing white against the dingy background. There was no glamour in her eyes, such as would have blinded the judgment of nine men out of ten; but there was in its place the great tie of sisterly love.
Brenda, looking on that beauty, knew that it was the curse of her sister’s life. Instead of envying her, she was mentally meting out pity and allowance.
“I suppose,” she said, without much encouragement in her manner, “that we have all changed in one way or another.”
“But Theo has changed in more than one way.”
“Has he?”
“Yes. His manner is quite different from what it used to be; and he seems self-absorbed—less energetic, less sympathetic.”
Brenda did not answer at once. She turned slightly, and looked out of the window, resting her fingers upon the old wooden framework.
“You
