To women these small associations are, perhaps, dearer than they are to us men. No doubt they love to be known and greeted by their neighbours, rich or poor, while we are often indifferent. The want of human sympathy, of human interest and mutual aid is the most prominent feature in town life. Men live and die, rejoice and grieve, laugh and weep almost under the same roof, and never share their laughter or mingle their tears. Faces may grow familiar, but hearts remain estranged, because perforce each man must fight for himself on the pavement, and there is no time to turn aside and lend a helping hand.
Brenda did not lose sight of the possibility that Mrs. Wylie might be longing for the familiar faces and pleasant voices of the humble dwellers in Wyvenwich; but the proposal to return to Wyl’s Hall was apparently unpremeditated, and therefore the girl doubted its sincerity.
“Not on my account?” she inquired doubtfully, without looking up.
“No. On my own. I am longing for the old place, Brenda. This fog and gloom makes one think of the brightness of Wyvenwich and the sea, which is always lovely in a frost. Let us go at once—tomorrow or the next day. The winter is by no means over yet, and London is detestable. Even if we are snowed up at Wyl’s Hall, it does not matter much, for it is always bright and cheery despite its loneliness. We will take plenty of books and work.”
The girl made no further demur, and presently caught the infection of her companion’s cheerful enthusiasm. Mrs. Wylie possessed the pleasant art of making life a comfortable thing under most circumstances, and for such as her a sudden move has no fears. While Trist adapted himself to circumstances, Mrs. Wylie seemed to adapt circumstances to herself, which is, perhaps, the more difficult art.
The good lady seemed somewhat relieved when the move was finally decided upon and arranged; nevertheless, there was a look of anxiety on her round face when she sought her room that night.
“I wish,” she observed to her own reflection in the looking-glass, “that I knew what to do. I must be a terrible coward. It would be so very easy to ask Brenda outright … though … I know what the answer would be … poor child! And I might just as well have spoken out boldly when I went to see him that night. It is a difficult predicament, because—they are both so strong!”
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 mainline 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 seawall, 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 seawall 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
