The Waif from the Waves; a story of three lives, etc

Preface

. The following story is the third of a sort of tiny trilogy, of which "The Broken Vow" and "The Child of Stafferton " form the preceding two. Like them it is a trifling tale, the composition of which has been an amusement and a rest in the midst of graver work. Like them it is, of course, a romance. Like them also, it represents facts in the deeper experience of life. Faults were found — not unnaturally — by some who took notice of the former little stories — which per haps may be found, by the same class of critics — if they notice my little book at all — with this. That is inevitable. Still so many have, privately or pub licly, been kind to my former slender efforts — have been so good to Lady Dorothy and Lady May — that I am in hopes they may have a generous feeling for " My Little Lettice," and may find in her story something to cheer them, or while away an idle hour.

Anyhow, I shall not feel — any more than I did before — that stray hours have been wasted — which otherwise might have been full of weariness or sorrow ■in writing this little story, if for some I succeed, in Preface. VIII it, in giving a deeper sense of the beauty of real love, the sweetness of simplicity, straightforwardness and courage, the nobleness of constancy, the glory of goodness, the reality of unseen things, and the power of repentance in bringing labouring souls nearer to the Light of Life. W. J. Knox Little. The College, Worcester. September 4th, 1S93. PRELUDE. I INTRODUCE the following story to my readers because it had a special interest for myself. I do not suppose that the story itself or this preface of mine will meet the eye of any except such as are immediate friends of the various persons concerned, just now, and perhaps not until we are all in our graves.

I think it is an interesting story, however, and I have leave from those who have a right to give it, to pre face it, for any who may care to be made acquainted with it, in my own way. I am May Durrell, only daughter of Sir William Durrell, Bart., of Stafferton, and Lady May, — the romantic history of whose early lives is recorded in " The Child of Stafferton." Among my mother's many friends, there are three families with whom she has always maintained the closest and most affec tionate relations. One of these is the Ravensthorpes, and the other two are the Ferrers of Markland Priory and the Trelormans of Markland Hall. Everyone who is the least likely to be interested in us and our affairs, is sure to know the touching story of the beautiful Lady Dorothy, mother of the present Lord Ravensthorpe, and they are equally sure to know a great deal about the story of my own dear father and my own sweet mother — Sir William Durrell and Lady May.

What they are not likely to know, un- B less they read the following story, is the equally strange and touching history of our dear friends at Markland. Whether the four families are peculiarly oppressed with superstition — as I daresay some people would think— or whether these "some people" are only a little stupid themselves, and facts of another world are not always so hidden from us mortals as is sometimes imagined, it is not my business to decide ; but there is no doubt that in all three cases those most concerned went through striking episodes in their lives, and those episodes connected themselves much with another world. I and my brother had often asked our father to give us a full account of what I may call the Mystery of Markland, for indeed there was real mystery — and I am not merely playing with the sensational in speaking of it in this way.

I knew that Lettice — the daughter of Sir Ralph Ferrers — who had stayed with us at Stafferton, had been somehow or another the heroine of it before her marriage, and that it had chiefly to do with herself and her husband. When she was with us here I thought her the most beautiful creature I ever saw ; it was not so much her features which struck you — although they were fine and delicately chiselled — but the expression of her face. When it was quiet it set you dreaming, it seemed to suggest such depth of character, and when she was touched by anything that pleased her, it broke into such a sunshine of smiles ! She was what people would call dark, I suppose, for she had piles of that sort of golden brown hair which Aunt Dorothy says was so beautiful in her mother, and her eyes were a deep hazel, but her complexion was as fair as enamel and her lips red.

She had a graceful figure, and walked with a springy step. I think the charm about her was her decision of character, her entire simplicity and — what I may call — her even ness of character. You always knew " where to find her." In many ways she reminded me of my own sweet mother, although they were really quite different in a hundred things ; I suppose what I mean about them both is the fact of their genuine reality. I don't know why I have been writing in the past tense, except that my mind has been wandering back to Lettice's first visit to Stafferton, for really she is just the same now only a little older. As for her husband, he is the most delightful creature in the world, a thorough sailor, and even now quite like a boy ; and I defy anybody in their senses to avoid falling in love with him.

The reason why my interest and my brother's had been stirred about the Markland story was this. In the gallery of Stafferton we have a considerable collection of pictures of various kinds. My father himself, as everyone knows, was half Italian, and had pronounced artistic power; but above all, like his father before him, he possessed the peculiar gift of a portrait painter, and I suppose he possesses it still, although — from the many calls upon his time — he does not do much in that way now, and he declares that he never had sufficient training in the right use of colour. Whether or not his colouring is perfect of course I cannot say, but any one who looks at his portraits can see plainly enough that he has succeeded B again and again in catching the mystery of characteristic and varying expression which gives real life to a human face.

There is one large portrait in the gallery at Stafferton painted by him, and painted with the utmost care. He himself always thought that it was the best likeness he had ever done, except indeed that portrait of my mother, done by him in Rome before they were married, which made him famous, and which was called "The Lyric Love." This other to which I refer is very different. It is a portrait of a young man dressed in the costume of an Italian pifferaro. The figure is of moderate height and strongly built. The face could scarcely be called handsome in the strict sense of the term, for the features are somewhat irregular, but there is about it that strange fascination which comes from an interior light in the soul, from a simple and manly heart, and from a character of combined strength and tenderness, which is more in real beauty than that which is called strictly handsome.

The forehead is high and white ; the eyes large and grey, with that dark look in the pupils which indicates an easy tendency to dilate and contract unexpectedly ; the lashes long and black ; the eyebrows arched and exactly pencilled ; the lines about the mouth firm ; the red lips slightly parted, and giving a hint of the possibility of breaking suddenly into a sunlight of smiles, and the masses of black curly hair just hinted at from beneath the picturesque cap of the Italian peasant. Over the whole picture there is an air of grace and refinement, and even though you are drawn to it by that most forcible attraction, the sense of being in the presence of a pure and strong and sunny soul, yet the pre dominating tone is unquestionably one of sadness, and it is this which startles you into the feeling that about that life there hangs some interesting mystery.

This was the portrait of Henry St. Aldham, Viscount Markland, only son of the Earl of Tre lorman. He had been my father's fast friend in early days, and moreover there was a certain simi larity in the romance of the lives of both of them which certainly touched my father's imagination. There are few things more really interesting I think — though this may be considered a purely femi nine idea — than the ins and outs of family chronicles. The history of any soul, if it can be carefully traced, is generally a romance of joy or sorrow ; but there are some families in whose fate Fortune seems to have taken a delight in playing off some of her strangest freaks. Everybody, as I have said, knows the touching story of the Ravensthorpes and their beautiful grandmother, Lady Dorothy, recorded in " The Broken Vow."

The vicissitudes through which my own father and mother have passed in their earlier days have been chronicled, as I have reminded my readers, in the story of " The Child of Stafferton," and now there is this third romance of real life belonging to these dear friends of ours, and which at last came to my knowledge in the following way. My father had often laughed at my brother and my self when we questioned him about his ItaWnn pifferaro in a way that put us off and stimulated our curiosity, by assuring us that it was too long, too romantic and too ghostly a story to be told without expending too much time and pains, and the reason — so he said — why he never could be induced to grant my request was this, that for a long time his own lips had been sealed as to much that he really knew about it him self ; that other details which were essential to a knowledge of all, had not been known to him at first hand ; that an old lady in the neighbourhood of Mark land, who had had much to do at critical points with the development of the events, had promised to get the story written down ; that that manuscript, when it was completed, he would place in my hands ; and that to attempt to tell me the story before I had read the manuscript would only be to spoil the whole thing.

With this I have been, up till now, obliged to be content, for although my father is as kind as man can be, when he has thoroughly made up his mind on any point that is an end of it. However the time came when my wish was grati fied, and it fell out in this way : Those who have read "The Child of Stafferton," will not have forgotten that Lady Dorothy, who was so close a friend to my father and mother in their early days. In later times, I need hardly say, she has been much with us in Stafferton. The boys love her and so do I, and we always call her " Aunt Dorothy," although I do not think she is really related to us at all. Her imper turbable good temper, her downright manner, her rough-and-ready sort of ways, by which she vainly attempts to conceal the ready sympathies of a very tender heart, together with her entire devotion to myself and my brothers, to say nothing of her enthu siastic love for my mother and father, make her the he Waif from the Waves. 7 idol of the house, and when Aunt Dorothy is with us we are always happy.

Now it so happened that I had not been very well, and not very long ago, Aunt Dorothy, who is always roving, got a good excuse for carrying me off from the school-room and taking me with her to get some sea-air on the Cornish coast. Our head-quarters were to be at Markland Hall. I was sorry to think that Lettice was not likely to be there, as they had gone abroad ; but I was glad to get the chance of seeing the place, and determined, if pos sible, to learn all about the mystery about which my father refused to speak. " I shall introduce you, May, dear," said Aunt Dorothy, " to old Miss Martha Ferrers. She is a charming old lady, worth knowing on her own account, but besides that, she might perhaps allow you, if you can only get at her soft side, to read the story, which I know by her own wish, Lettice has written about the mysterious matters at Markland, before she married Harry.

You remember that pifferaro picture about which you were always bother ing your father ? well, if you read Lettice's manuscript it will be all quite clear." It was early in October when Aunt Dorothy and I set out on our travels. She had been to Ravensthorpe for the " Angels' Festival," for it has become a religious obligation with all the members of that family to assemble there if possible then. I j oined her at York. We stayed at Salisbury, for I wanted to see the glorious cathedral and to visit George Herbert's home at Bemerton, and it was about the middle of the month when we reached Markland. Markland Hall is one of those stately houses which cannot fail to impress you by its dignity. It is nothing like so perfect as Ravensthorpe, for it has been added to and altered so many times, and the front is not nearly so beautiful as Stafferton.

It is, however, a great deal larger than either, and quite marvellously rambling. You approach it by a long straight avenue, ascending by a steady slope from the woods below. The trees break off as you near the house, and there are sweeps of smooth green lawn ; then a bridge as old as the Tudors crosses a moat, which is a moat where the water is constantly though slowly in motion, and beyond the bridge a great arched gateway under a central tower. Inside the gate is a regular courtyard, which is so large that it is never gloomy, and gave me the feeling as I entered it of being in one of the colleges of our old universities. On the right, as you enter the main courtyard, is another arched gateway, not quite in the centre either, of the buildings by which there is entrance to another courtyard.

This is smaller than the first, later in date, and of extraordinary beauty. It seems to have been built in the early days of Henry VII.'s reign, and its roof supplies patterns of the most exquisite chimney work in England, unsurpassed I should think, unless perhaps at Compton Winyatts. From the first courtyard you can pass across the moat at the back by a drive which curves to the right, and leads to the stables. These are modern, and more or less hidden in the last mass of wood which extends behind the house ; but the striking feature in the whole pile of buildings is this, from the back of the second court and at the other side of the moat there stretches a long line of buildings in the direction of the stables, and separated from the path which leads to them. These buildings are the most ancient at Markland, and their connection with the second courtyard is by a bridge thrown up from one building to another, after the manner of the bridge at Venice.

Just where this line of buildings touches the moat, there rises at the angle a lofty tower, so lofty as far to overtop the solid tower by which the first court is entered, and to command a sweeping view of the surrounding coun try and the sea. For Markland Hall stands within earshot of the roar of the Atlantic. The ground from the park gates right down in the valley ascends with a steadily increasing gradient, until you reach the platform on which the house stands. The woods are thick and luxuriant in the hollows, and in the spring time there is in them a wealth of wild flowers, and in the autumn they are rich with the bracken in its russet brown ; and the deer find plenty of shelter under the great oaks, as the oaks themselves find plenty of shelter under the rising cliffs, but as you near the hall the trees show a steady tendency to bend eastward and southward, and the topmost foliage is burned, if one may say so, by the north-west wind ; and the circling clouds of rooks prefer for the most part to wheel about in the lower woods, and the more nearly you approach the Hall you feel, before you can see a sign of it, that you are approaching the sea.

Eehind the mass of buildings the woods cease alto gether, except for some weary, patient,suffering clumps of trees round the stables, which are lashed and scourged by the gale. Walk directly up the slopes of grass which lie behind the ornamental metal gates that guard the flower-beds at the back, and before very long a dip in the cliffs on the left shows you a long stretch of shining sea ; go higher still and crossing a gravel path which, within the circuit of the park, leads round the headland, you are startled to find yourself on the very edge of threatening crags. In front stretches the wide expanse of the open ocean ; behind, the long expanse of grassy slope, then the great Hall on its artificial, flattened platform, with its commanding watch-tower emerging from the trees ; below, the stately woods and sheltered valleys, and to right and left, peak after peak of outstretching head land and curve after curve of receding creek.

Follow ing the path from Markland Head to southward, the coast-line dips and then rises again to the height of another headland. Within a dozen yards or more of the edge of this cliff stands the old church of Mark land. The churchyard stretches round it, and is guarded on the side towards the sea by a low stone wall, which nature has welded together on the land side with masses of moss and lichen. The churchyard is rich in tombstones of all kinds, flat slabs, and old brown crosses — and the dead lie undisturbed, with the open heaven above them, except for the song of the sea-birds, and the roar of the billows, and the wailing of the wind. Looking over the sea-wall, how ever, the traveller discovers that the Church Cliff, as it is called, is not the outermost point of land in that direction ; beyond it, seaward, lies a mass of rock ending in a high point which confronts the waves.

This rock would have been an island but for a natural bridge which joins it to the Church Cliff and which is reached by two narrow paths, one descending from the churchyard wall in almost precipitous zigzags, and one winding from the eastward along the cliffs at about half distance from the summit and the sea. This island-like promontory is called Monk's Island and the forward eminence which ends it towards the ocean is called the Monk's Crag. Descending from the churchyard further south, the path leads the traveller into a deep creek, in which, sheltered under overhanging cliffs and close upon the edge of the sea, lies the little fishing village of Markland. The houses run irregularly along a semi circular road, defended in front by a sea wall, and boats of all kinds are dragged up almost into the street during the rougher times of winter, or heave about in the quiet bttle harbour, and bask like lazy birds in the sunlight in the summer days.

From the centre of the village street up through a narrow gorge which separates the cliffs, there runs a road ascending towards the uplands ; beside the road on your right hand as you ascend there runs a noisy stream descending towards the sea. Along the banks of the stream immediately where the curve gives shelter by the cliffs, there are stately trees and all the appanage of spring decoration — flowers and bending grasses, and sheltering shrubs, and ferns and bracken — which belongs to an English woodland dell. About half a mile from the village, an old stone bridge crosses the stream to the right of the traveller ascend ing, and the road which crosses it skirts along a high old-fashioned wall upon its left, evidently built to protect some stately grounds within, and travelling up this road you find yourself unexpectedly close to great iron gates, hung on brown pillars surmounted by griffins holding shields ; and looking through the gates still to your left, you see the long and beautiful facade of an old English mansion not a day younger as it stands than the latter part of the fourteenth century.

This is Markland Priory. The Priory stands on a sort of triangular piece of land, the base of which is formed by the building itself and the apex by the meeting of the stream and the road which crosses the bridge. The house consists of two wings standing at right angles to one another ; the shorter one forms the frontage which we have noticed as seen from the great gates, and is finished at either end by two prominent gables jutting out from the flat. The other wing is longer, and looks down towards the valley and the sea. It is a magnificent piece of old middle-age masonry, curiously uninjured by time or change. In front is a broad terrace guarded by stone balustrades ; from this there falls, at the end near the road, broad flights of steps to another terrace, and then another flight to another still, and at length the lower level is reached and the remaining ground below is a quaint old-fashioned garden with yew hedges and stiff walks.

Some splendid trees rise up at either end ; their feathering tops could be touched by the hand as one leans over the balustrade of the upper terrace of all, and looks down on the wealth of leaves and flowers which in The W aif from the Waves. 13 spring and summer-time meet the eye on every level of the descending staircase. Behind the Priory, in the angle formed by these two wings, there is a stretch of smooth grass in which in spring and summer there are beds of brilliant flowers. A fountain fills the centre, and on the hot evenings of August you hear the quiet plash, almost the only sound in the dreamy house. Open the gate beyond this grassy courtyard, you find yourself in a quaint old-fashioned garden stretching behind the Priory on the level land and sheltered by various trees. This garden towards the west ends in a low broad wall, and on the garden side of it a wide walk, one end closed by the woods which divide the place from the stream, and the other terminated by the quaint gable end of the facade.

Lean over this wall and you see all the descending terraces described above, the old garden at their feet, and beyond, the break in the cliffs and the red roofs and the curling smoke of Markland village, and then the wide stretch of cloud-swept or shining sea. This walk is called the Prior's Walk, and would you enjoy the dreamy hours of a summer evening or the delirium of the storm towards the close of a winter day, the Prior's Walk is the place to find them, in its deep seclusion and yet commanding position, ministered to by gardens and woods and stream and distant cottages and rocks and sea. Markland Hall, and Markland Church, and Mark land Priory, and the little village and the wind-swept gash of the cliffs — these are the scene of a great part of our story. Markland Hall and Markland Priory had been religious houses in the past.

The Hall, though altered now in many respects, had been an abbey of considerable importance at the time when monastic institutions in England came to an end. What is now known as the Priory had probably been an affiliated house at some time or other ; but long before the suppression, it had in some way or other been granted to, or settled upon, the Ferrers of Penarmon. I do not know how they got that name, but ever since, I suppose, they first settled in the west, they have been as often spoken of in Cornwall as the "Penarmons" as by their actual name of Ferrers. Somehow or another they were always on good terms with the Abbey, and the family seem to have had a quasi " religious " character. It is said that the ejection of the monks from the Abbey had been effected with even more than the ordinary brutality and injustice which marked the action of Henry VIII. and his despicable creature — Cromwell.

Tradition asserted that the last of the superiors of the Great Monastery had been hounded to his death by the ruffianly bands whom Cromwell led to do his bidding. It was believed in the country side that he had been driven to the cliffs on the rocky peninsula beyond Markland Head and flung into the sea. What the truth may have really been it is hard to say, but the pointed rock from which the unfortunate abbot was said to have met his death has ever been known as the Monk's Crag. Men said that many misfortunes had beset the family who owned the confiscated lands, and that again and again the frightened fishermen had seen on certain stormy nights the shadowy figure of a monk on the headland — with hands now clasped in entreaty, now raised in denunciation — rise up in deeper blackness than the darkness of the stormy sky, and that when the wraith was seen, some strange misfortune followed to the owners of the Hall.

The Priory of Markland had, as I have said, long before those days, been in the hands of the ancient family of Ferrers. In consequence, perhaps, of many kindnesses shown by this family — who were not altogether well affected towards the king — to the banished community, their peace and happiness had been much disturbed. They managed, however, to avoid any open rupture with authority, and although robbed and impoverished by court favourites, they never lost the Priory and, at least, part of the lands connected with it. A real tradition of religion seemed to live in the family. They had always been faithful Catholics, and when the final rupture came with Rome at a later time, they still remained faithful to our own part of the Catholic Church, and would have nothing to do with the intrigues of the Roman Court, although they often ran great risks in sheltering persecuted priests at a time when things were in such confusion that it was difficult for Catholics to know exactly where they were.

They had been equally faithful in resisting Puritan innovations and maintain ing a steady dislike to Protestant superstitions. Though they were nothing like so wealthy or so prosperous in some ways as the St. Aldhams, to whom Markland Hall had been granted, they had always had a much greater influence in the neigh bourhood, and especially among the poor of the fishing villages. For the Ferrers of Penarmon had been there for ever ; they were as much an obvious necessity to the fishermen at Markland as the ocean itself. The property had descended steadily from father to son, and among them there had always been sailors. For the first time for generations, when this story begins, there was no heir at the Priory, for Lettice Ferrers was Sir Ralph's only child. The St. Aldhams of Markland Hall had a very different record.

Their property was immense and their wealth considerable, but the tenure of their possessions had not been altogether happy. Long ago, the head of the family had first of all been made Viscount Markland and then afterwards Earl of Trelorman. Somehow, whatever happened, they always seemed to be on the winning side in politics, and yet in other ways misfortune seemed to dog their steps. It was said that in each generation there had been some saddening catastrophe. Sometimes the eldest son had died before attaining manhood ; sometimes the possessor of the place had himself met with a violent death ; sometimes their lives had been embittered by the undutifulness of their children. The Earl of Trelorman who was living when Lettice's story begins, had certainly not been a happy man, and his son, Lord Markland, the pifferaro of my father's portrait at Stafferton, had had a saddening story.

Somehow or another for generations there had been a kind of traditional coldness between the family of the Priory and the family at the Hall, and there was a prophecy repeated again and again among the fisher-folk of the village, that there could be no happiness at Markland Hall, until Markland Priory were united to it by the ocean. This was expressed in the popular distich, well known in the country side, which ran as follows : — "And shall the curse for sin and wrong Removed from Trelorman be ? Only when in the closest bond Penarmon joins them from the sea." It was an odd prophecy, and no one had a notion what it meant, but it had its meaning, and for me and for many others who really believed that this world and another are closely bound together, the following story is interesting as it shows how that prophecy came true.