Where the Reeds wave. A story

Prologue

. WM T was a sunless afternoon in July. The breeze was from the northeast, and the grey sea, touched with white where the waves broke, looked cold and sombre under the clouded sky. On the beach, close down to the sullen sounding water, a girl was standing motionless, her troubled gaze fixed on the waves as they flowed nearly to her feet. No rock broke the monotony of the long stretch of sand, VOL. I. I no one was in sight upon it except the girl, whose brown dress fluttered in the chill breeze. Presently she turned away from the sea, her winsome face pinched by cold and dread. " I wish I durst drown myself," she said, half over her breath. Walking quickly, she crossed the beach to a rough cart-track leading through a gap in the low sandy cliff up to a hamlet. Littleport had hardly attained the dignity of a village — neither dignity nor beauty, in fact, had anything to do with the place.

To the right of the sloping cartway ex tended a row of cottages, now standing perilously near the edge of the receding cliff, and presenting a gloomy bare black wall, for they were painted with tar on the seaward side. A " look-out " of homely construction was perched on the left. On the land side the aspect of this little colony of fisher-people was slightly improved, but still destitute of picturesqueness or gaiety. The chief feature was untidiness, — the untidiness of an ugly, or, not to be too harsh, plain person, which has none of the attractiveness of beauty's disorder. The lane was untidy, rough, and in one spot strewn with vegetable refuse ; the gardens were untidy ; the cottages had a disconsolate air of standing about as if they had been left to choose their own places and had come to a hopeless lock over the business.

Perhaps the fact that almost all the male part of the inhabitants spent their time at sea, using their homes as mere resting-places during the intervals on shore, accounted for the forlorn and neglected look of Littleport. As the girl climbed the slope, a woman who had just drawn a pailful of water from the well near the top, saw her, and called out — " Mary ! Ben's now got home, and he say George's boat is in too, and he's coming home by the next train." The speaker was young. She wore a pink cotton blouse, and a gay blue hand kerchief was tied over her flaxen head. Her face was beaming with her own happiness ; her tone was eager, as if she was giving welcome news to Mary. When the deep-sea fishermen come back from the eight weeks' trawling, there is joy in their snug little homes, and the women, associated in sympathy with their neigh bours from a community of danger and rejoicing, gladly spread the tidings to interested friends.

George was Mary's affianced husband, a fact which accounted for the archness in the young wife's sparkling eyes. " He'll be able to walk home with you," she added in kindly congratulation. " No. I'm not stopping, Eva," said Mary, who had coloured painfully. " I only came to see how his sister was, and bring her a few eggs. I'm now going home." Eva laughed out at this sudden coyness. " He'll be vexed at missing you, but he'll follow as soon as he's had his tea, you may be sure. The wedding's to be this time, isn't it, Mary, before he goes to the fishing ? " "What lovely roses !" exclaimed Mary, her eyes fixed admiringly on two at Eva's waist. The amiable young woman at once set down her pail and offered one of the roses to her friend. " I know you're fond of flowers, Mary — have it, do. I've been at the fruit-gather ing this morning, and Mrs. Page give 'em me.

That'll do for you to give to George — for a kiss ! " And she flicked her laugh ing lips with the soft crimson petals of the other. "I must go. I've been on the beach, and I've stopped longer than I ought. Father'll be wanting his tea before I'm back to ours, if I don't make haste. Good afternoon, Eva." Eva looked after the hurrying figure. " What's the matter with herr — running away from George like this, and colouring up every time I speak of him ? I wonder if they've quarrelled ? " With that she picked up her pail and bustled into the nearest cottage, to the delights of her reunion with Ben, of un limited talk, fresh herrings for tea and plaice for supper. Mary still walked fast, after Littleport was left behind. Her home was three miles inland ; the way lay through quiet, homely lanes between perfectly flat fields.

The few people she met greeted her in kindly fashion. She responded mechani cally ; she knew them all ; she had spent her young life among them, but there may come a time when to be known to every one of your neighbours may deepen a sorrow or intensify a dread. Mary glanced almost shrinkingly at the well-known faces of her little world. The lanes became still quieter ; across the fields could be descried the round tower of a ruined castle. Mary's father, though the son of a fisherman, was himself the manager of a farm. He dwelt in the lodge belonging to the modern house erected behind the ruins. That evening a tall, fair man in a blue jersey knocked at the door of the lodge. His face, freshened and tanned by sea breezes, broke into a broad smile when Mary's father opened the door. Mr. Burton beamed a hearty welcome in response.

" Why, George, you're home again ! I'm glad to see you. And you haven't come first thing to see Mary, oh no ! just for a pipe with me, hey?" said the grizzled elder, laughing, and facetiously poking the caller in the ribs. The big fisherman looked sheepish under this good-humoured raillery, but of course he expected it, and liked it, as his happy, shy smile showed. " I was up to mine first, and just missed Mary, my sister say." He cast a glance round the kitchen, into which he had followed the farmer. " Haven't she got back yet ? " he exclaimed in disappoint ment. " She went out to feed the fowl. You'll find her in the castle-yard." George left the kitchen at once, crossed a rustic bridge over the moat, and passed through a little white gate into the large square enclosed by the ruins. The grass was coarse and uneven ; a horse was grazing at the opposite corner ; cocks strutted, hens pecked, and ducks waddled about in the once lordly precincts.

At one corner stood the tower, the shell of which was fairly entire. From this the crumbling wall ran along at some height, but it was not considered safe. The sky had cleared about the west, and a pale, watery brightness shone behind the old grey tower. Over the rest of the sky the clouds were gathered rather threaten ingly. The eager lover glanced around : no Mary was to be seen. He turned to the right, passed a frame covered over with wire-netting in which was a brood of ducklings, a hen-coop or two from which the disturbed mothers clucked disapproval, and pushed open still further the clumsy door leading into the tower. His entrance startled the pigeons which nested in numbers in the upper part, making them fly out with much clatter of wings, and apparently startled, too, the girl who was stooping over the ground and groping about with a slender stick, for she raised a pale, frightened face.

She did not look less frightened on seeing the man who had come in to find her. The semi obscurity of the place made him venture on a more frankly tender embrace than he would have offered outside. Mary, who at first was about to resist, yielded, but her lover's hearty kiss on either cheek brought no colour there, and she drew away from him with tears in her pretty brown eyes. " Why, Mary, what's the matter ? Aren't you glad to see me, dear ? " " Oh yes, George ! " " What are you hiding here for ? " " I wasn't hiding; I — I was looking for something I've lost," she replied, con fusedly. " I'll help you look. What was it, dear ? " " Oh, nothing of any consequence, and that's not here; I've looked all over. I can't have dropped that in here, after all." She seemed anxious to draw him away. " Well, then, come out of this hole and tell me why you ran away when Eva told you I was coming home," he said rallyingly, too happy in the near prospect of their marriage to take her behaviour as any thing more serious or less delightful than coquetry.

" You're not frightened of me, are you ? " he asked, bending down to look into her drooping face as they walked across the long grass to the break in the wall opposite. He repeated the question, but in a tone more disturbed than roguish, when they were pausing by the side of the deep moat. Mary looked up at the strong, manly face, where tenderness and love for her were so plain to be read. She knew his worth ; she knew how he loved her, what a good husband he would be to her — strange, strange that for one moment she could have forgotten all this ! — there was a brief struggle' between weakness and honesty. "Oh, I don't know what to do!" she exclaimed. The pain in her voice startled him. " Mary, what is it ? What's troubling you, my dear ? " " George, I've something to tell you. I can't marry you deceiving you " " Deceiving me ?

You, Mary ! " He laughed incredulously, but his laugh was uneasy — her distress was too great. " When you know, you'll never want to marry me," she said in scarcely audible tones, her white cheeks suddenly burning. "And then — oh, what'll become of me? Oh, I'm so afraid of father— he'll never forgive me — never ! " " He'll have no chance of not forgiving you for turning me off, for you can't have done anything to make me give you up, Mary," said the lover, stoutly. " Oh, George, how could I forget you for a moment ? If I'd thought — -if I'd only thought and not been mad ! " she exclaimed piteously, and broke down. He watched her mutely, wrung by her sobs, yearning to take her to his breast and comfort her, yet in spite of himself withheld by a fear, horribly suggested by her words. " There's one thing, George, would make you turn from me," she whispered, weeping, with hidden face.

" No, Mary!" He put out a silencing hand. She shrank at the stern tone and violent gesture, her tears checked almost like a child's by fresh alarm. " Oh, Mary, don't look at me like that, my dear ! You're not well — you're tired and sadly. Come in to father, there's a dear ; " and he coaxingly took her by the arm to lead her indoors. " George, stoop and I'll tell you ! I can't deceive you — even if father should kill me." He bent his head, and she whispered a few broken words. " My God ! No— no ! It isn't true ! " shouted George. The overwhelming shame of the girl's averted, shrinking figure was his answer. The man drew away from her, slowly step by step, as if still half incredulous. Then he turned his back sharply and gazed down at the dark water. As he left her side his heavy foot had crushed the beautiful rose which had fallen from Mary's waist.

Two minutes, and he strode back, as if a sudden thought had broken the tension of horror at the dis covery that the rose of his own love was crushed under foot of man. " Who is it ? " he panted at the droop ing Mary's ear. " No one you know," came in a muffled voice — "a — a stranger — a visitor from — Harnmouth." "And you took up with a stranger? You care for him ? " Under the fierceness and scorn of these words she shrank and moaned. " Oh ! " she gasped ; and again, " Oh ! —I shall never get over it! I shall die of it ! " " Because he's left you ? " " No," said Mary, with a touch of dignity ; " because I'm ashamed and — and sorry. I don't know how I could do it. I was mad. He was a gentleman, and he only made love to amuse himself ; and I — I was silly enough to be flattered and pleased — it was hard not to — because he was a gentleman.

Oh, I was mad ! I never loved but you. He is never coming back." George returned to the moat's edge, to stand a few paces from that disconsolate figure bowed down by shame and the dread of exposure. The man had a hard struggle, which lasted he had no idea how long, for it made an immeasurable chasm between the past and the future ; but the picture of the poor girl's terror of her blighted future was always vividly before him. Her stifled voice, her frightened VOL. I. eyes — which had been such gentle and frank and happy eyes — darkened by the dread of cruel disgrace, her cowering away now from him, — all these things touched his pity. Only he could save the gentle creature — whose weakness had been her undoing — from terrible shipwreck. Could he withhold that rescue ? Pity and humanity pleaded not in vain.

A few minutes first — a few minutes in which to control the giddy anguish of uprooted hopes, betrayed love and trust — and he stole back to within two yards of her. " Mary," he said hoarsely, "that shan't make no difference. I'll — marry you when we fixed." " George, George, will you ? Can you really forgive me ? I'll always remember your goodness. I never loved none but you. I'll be a true and loving wife to you for ever." In her relief and gratitude she put her hand on his arm, holding up her tear-wet face full of penitence and affection. He moved away from the touch as if unaware of it and of the offered kiss. Without another word they crossed the grass towards the bridge, she walking humbly a step behind him. Leaning on the bridge-rail was a clumsy, uncouth man of twenty-three, with a rough face and restless, eager eyes.

He made way for them, replying to George's absent " Hullo, Virty !" with an inarticulate mutter. His gaze was fixed excitedly on Mary, and he detained her when George hurried into the lodge to say good evening to Mr. Burton. When excited, the half-witted man, Virty, spoke too rapidly to be intelligible, and at first a mere babble of harsh syllables was poured forth. At length, with a sort of wrench, he said — " Has he gone ? " " Who, Virty ? " asked Mary, gently. Every one was kind to the poor fellow. " Him " — he jerked his thumb towards the cream - coloured house behind the ruined wall — "the gennelum from there." Mary cast a frightened glance after George ; but he had disappeared into the lodge. " Yes, he's gone," she answered hurriedly. Virty uttered a grunt expressive of angry disappointment, seemed irresolute, and finally slouched down the drive and out at the gate, muttering as he fingered something in his waistcoat pocket.

Chapter I

" KV'SSlELL, this is pretty!" said Pauline 1 ' H assail. " Yes, this is pretty," assented her brother. They were standing on the bridge which carried the quiet country lane across a narrow part of Somerby Broad. It was a calm evening in April. The sky, which in that flat country of low horizons has a vast extent, was pale and almost covered with a network of white cloudlets, silvery bright about the west. The broad lay as smooth as a mirror, a silver sheet of water between its low grassy shores. On one side of the bridge big clumps of trees, their soft brown masses not yet lightened by green, shut in the water, which, in its perfect tranquillity and pale sheen, appeared to lie asleep. A wide space beside the lane, guarded by a row of tall willows, was filled with the stubble of last year's reeds ; those that had escaped cutting stood up lightly and scantily about the irregular edge, a faded bracken brown against the clear grey water.

On the other side, to which the Hassalls were gazing, the expanse was more open ; trees were few and small, fringing here and there, in meagre little tufts, the distant grassy margins, which were almost on a level with the smooth expanse of mere. A bright silver sunset cast a glittering reflection across a tiny bay, its soft radiance bringing out the fresh green of the low-lying meadows and touching the white walls and red roofs of a cottage or two. Young willows, which grew from under the side of the lane and hung over the water, were full of catkins. The sun light transfigured the stretch of greyish white lane which, with an edging of spring green, passed out of sight between trees, giving promise of prettiness beyond — a promise which was not fulfilled. For Little Somerby was in a flat, homely country a part whose lack of beauty or even picturesqueness was somewhat pathetic.

This accounted for the accent of half grateful concession in Pauline's remark. That illusory promise of further attractions drew her on beyond the bridge. All she found was some gorse, bushes of which gilded a corner of waste ground beside the water ; then the lane's dull length passed between straggling cottages of the plainest kind. But for the gorse she was grateful. Her brother was not sorry to be left to solitary contemplation for a few minutes. The glittering of the sun on the water revealed such slight movement as there was in it ; a post or two driven into the foreground showed intensely dark against the illumined surface, and enhanced the bright effect. From the trees behind him came now and again the tender note of a wood-pigeon, and over a low field on his left a lark was pouring forth a gush of crystal melody.

Now and then a little splash broke the stillness of the broad, as a small fish sprang up and vanished before it could be seen. Presently his eye was caught by something moving beyond the sunset reflection. A boat had just come into sight round a rather distant bend of land to the right. He watched it idly, a half-smile beginning to dawn in his eyes. Nearer the boat came on its course across to the opposite side, and the rower could be discerned to be a girl, who rowed with an air of practised ease. She did not appear to be in any haste, for, tempted to linger by the sunset, she rested on her oars and turned to gaze at the silvery west, so that her face could be seen in more than profile by the loiterer on the bridge. It was a young face, with delicate features. There was a great purity and clearness in the outlines of chin and cheek and slender neck.

The hazel eyes were a contrast to the sunny hair. Those eyes, large and dreamy and grave, filled the fair little face with thought and character. Her ungloved hands, small and of fine shape, were tanned by exposure. To all appearance she was unconscious of the presence of any one on the bridge, or she was quite indifferent, as one in her own world apart. She glanced from the sky to the shining water, around at the grassy margins and the brown reeds, in the way of an artist or a great lover of nature, and then slowly pulled her oars again. Still gazing, she passed out of sight behind the alders and willows on Hassall's left. " Who is that ? " whispered Pauline, eagerly. She was at his elbow, having returned unnoticed. Her brother looked round with a dreamy smile. " The lady of the mere, I should >' say.

" Why, she is lovely, Maurice ! " " Yes." " And you really don't know who she is ? " " Oh yes, I know. She is a fisherman's daughter, and she lives at that cottage," he replied, indicating a yellow cottage at a little distance. " Then she is one of your parishioners, and you know her ? " " No ; I haven't called on her parents yet. Don't scold me, Pauline," he said, with a laugh at her surprised eyebrows. " I have been rather remiss, I own. Per haps I didn't want to spoil the impression produced by the lady of the mere by coming to close quarters." Pauline replied with a nod of compre hension and a laugh. " Just like Maurice ! " she said to herself. " He's the oddest compound of practical energy and dreamy fastidiousness." " I'm not so unjust as to scold you — you've been here only six weeks !

Then you have seen her before ? " " Once or twice, on the broad. She rows herself, and apparently always goes out alone." " Ah ! there she is again. While talking they had begun to walk homewards, and had passed the short hedge of low-growing willows which had hidden the girl from view. A small piece of rough grass lay beside the lane and open to it, divided some fifty yards off by a straight, wide ditch leading out from the broad. The young rower had pulled her boat close up to the mouth of this and had stepped on to the grass. She walked quickly along the side of the cuttino-, crossed a narrow wooden bridge over another tiny canal at right angles to the first, and passed out of sight again behind the tall bushy hedge which bounded it. " I shall hasten to make her acquain tance," said Pauline, in prompt, decided tones.

There was decision in Pauline's manner and countenance, as well as in her full cordial voice. She was a person with flavour, both pleasant and pungent, in her personality. Some people tasted the pungency only, and found it too strong for them ; others, who had less relish for insipidity, found the pleasantness in the pungency. Her large grey eyes, frank and honest, were full of vivacity ; her mouth, with a few lines of suffering and experience about it, was firm, but very easily moved to laughter. For the rest, her hair was dark brown, her figure was supple and good, her complexion neither dark nor fair, and her age thirty. No one had called her handsome, except her lover, who was dead, but he had been far, far nearer the mark than the solitary voice that had once pronounced her plain. Her brother was barely two inches taller than his sister, who was not herself tall.

He was fairer, with brown eyes and hair. The paleness and delicacy left by recent illness made his plain, but refined and sensitive, features a still greater con trast to Pauline's, where vigour and character were so marked. He was two years her elder. " She isn't of the ordinary run of fisher men's daughters, I feel perfectly sure," added Pauline. " She doesn't look like the others," Maurice agreed. " Did you notice, Maurice, she never once looked at us ? She must have seen us, and she must know you by sight." " Everybody here knows me by sight — the new clergyman, disabled from active work, and stranded in this out-of-the-way corner for his health." Pauline slipped her hand within her brother's arm, in response, not to any bitterness of tone, for the words were lightly uttered, but to the sorrow which she knew was in the speaker's heart.

" Decidedly," Maurice went on jestingly, " it was a case of cut — or, rather, we may take it as a proof of your idea that she is not a common girl. The instinct of society will not let her acknowledge her pastor until he has been introduced to her." " It seemed to me as if such serene disregard of passers-by were habitual." " I've no doubt you are right. If the whispers that have reached me are true, she hasn't a cheerful home, poor child. Mrs. Field told me there was a general belief that Mr. and Mrs. Amis, the parents, have not spoken to each other for ten years or longer. Allowing for neighbourly exaggeration, the story remains appalling." " Indeed it does ! What a dreary home for that poor girl ! No wonder she looks so pensive and controls her beautiful eyes so well. That sort of thing always casts a shadow over the children."

" Ah ! now you are sorry for her, there will be no bounds to your interest," said Maurice, laughingly. "We shall see," was the tranquil re joinder. " It depends on the girl herself. My first interest and efforts are claimed by our new home. I think, do you know, there are some good features about it," she said in a slow, tentative fashion, which suggested a not too buoyant re bound from a disappointment. " Yes, I think there may be — when one has toned down one's mind to the hum blest expectations," said her brother, dryly. Both glanced around. The lane lead ing them homeward lay between flat fields, their hedges dotted sparsely by trees of stunted growth. At intervals stood a cottage, or perhaps two cottages ; for Little Somerby, which began nearly a mile from the broad on one side, never gathered itself whole-heartedly together for a village proper, but straggled along in a most disconnected way until well past the mere.

Its cottages were of the vol. i. plainest style of architecture — straight up-and-down little buildings of dull red brick, with steep tiled roofs, the doors and windows meagrely framed in a line with the walls, which gave the whole dwelling a bald appearance. Ornament was eschewed in a spirit of morose puritanism, or perhaps in strict and necessary economy, for there was a frugality of material as well as of skilled labour which seemed to point to the latter reason. Drab painted doors, little wooden gates not too well hung, homely partitions of rough boards, tar-covered, betrayed the ingenious amateur. In some gardens a partition of dry tall reeds, closely bound together, testified to the proximity of the broad. It was a region of small, very small farms. A cottage hardly above the style of a labourer's would have its little stack and ramshackle barn and cart-shed, which, with its score or so of fowls, proclaimed its dignity as a farm.

The hawthorn hedges were newly green, and the banks beneath were en livened with speedwell and dandelions, with tufts of golden gorse half imbedded in the grass. Wallflowers, set in thick rows along the cottage-sides, were coming out, and already their fragrance, so pure and fresh, stole into the cool spring evening. Bushes and trees in the little gardens were white with bios som, and here and there a big branch of white bloom was thrown into relief against the dark brown of a reed-thatched barn. Near the church the lane grew narrower, and passed between high hedges, well •clipt, mostly of holly. Some tall trees grew here, and gave beauty to the curve os road. There were even two picturesque cottages — low, their walls washed with soft yellow, their windows diamond-paned, the roof deep and thatched.

The church was small, grey, and old, with a thatched roof to the nave, and a squat, square tower. Both brother and sister glanced at the modest edifice, and then, as if by one impulse, turned to each other. There was sympathy, even condolence, in Pauline's eyes ; in her brother's a sadness that tried to hide behind a faint smiling humorousness. That little country church in its scrap of churchyard, and the flat region through which they had just walked, symbolized only too completely to both the change in their circumstances, which was still so recent and painful. From a busy parish in London, from congenial work, congenial associates, and the stimulating atmosphere of intellectual activity, it was an immense change to be set down in Little Somerby among rustics. The cause, above all, was disheartening.

Maurice had had modest ambitions ; he wanted to do well in his profession, if it were but to get beyond the rank and file of the insignificant ; and if hard work and untiring zeal could have brought him within reach of his desires, he had had a very good chance. Suddenly his health gave way ; the doctor's sentence was decided : light work in the country. The perpetual curacy of Little Somerby answered the prescription, and Maurice, with a heavy sense of being a failure, was glad to obtain the living. Opposite the church, and standing side ways to the lane, was a little house, once white, but now pale grey — a quaint dwell ing, with green Venetian shutters to its five front windows. It stood in a green garden snugly shut in by a thick double hedge, and was the appointed residence of the curate.