Chapter 2

On the sea, the sea ! the unpalling, the opal-coloured, the divine ! What a thing a sea-place is in the summer weather J What does it matter if it is the most frightful collection of unsightly houses that ever disgraced a low coast — if dreary Hats, than which nor pancakes nor flounders could be flatter, stretch away behind it, flank it on either side ; if not the most abortive attempt at a tree is to be had, for love or money, within a circle of ten miles round it 1 What matter if it is crammed to overflowing with shopkeepers garmented in the brightest of their own wares (no great drawback to my mind), for why should not the poor souls disport themselves as well as we, though ice are vessels made of the finest porcelain clay, while they are nothing but common red delft? But anyhow, have not we got the dear, dear sea, and what can we want

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beside? What more do our eyes desire to light on, except perhaps the unfailing row of white bathing-machines, stand- ing unsteadily on rickety red wheels in various stages of paralysis, waiting to jolt down with us into the cool waters that look so caressing in their greenness 1 I appeal to every- body— which of our short joys since can, for a moment, be compared to the utter bliss, in one's child-days, of that arrival towards the end of some long June day, together with one's brethren, at one's poky sea-side lodgings, where the six weeks of midsummer holidays went by like a morning dream1? In spirit I see myself again, my small body clothed in a paletot of railway dust, my nurses groaning under a forest of wooden spades, laden with dozens of holland frocks warranted to resist the combined action of sand and salt water. How much, how deceptively sweeter the bread and butter tasted than in the despised nursery at home? What delicacy at any aldermanic banquet since has equalled the flavour of those goggle-eyed shrimps ? And then to go to bed with a smell of sea-weed in one's button-nose, and the boom of the sea in one's sleepy ears, and have beatific visions of such cockle-shells as the real world does not dream of.

Of the few people who know Pen Dyllas, most have an ill word for that small, dull, North- Wales watering-place. Innocent of band is it. Neither parade nor pier can it show, and its one pleasure-boat is generally looked upon with a sus- picious eye as being liable to the imputation of unseaworthi- ness. It seems to me to be like a modest young person, totally eclipsed, annihilated by, its exceedingly full-blown older sister, ugly Ryvel — all lodging-houses and dust and glare. Poor little place ! It is only a child of two years old, and not a well-grown, well-thriven child either. A few clumsy strokes will make a very sufficient drawing of it. T\vo rows of narrow slight houses gaze at each other placidly across a street, which has only lately been metamorphosed into a street from a little-travelled country road. There the portraits of groups of hatted Welshwomen on the letter-paper

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in the window of the librarian, stationer, and toy-merchant, stare calmly all day long at the one drab crinoline swinging sportively in the breeze outside the door of the mercer, grocer, and ironmonger opposite. Walk on but a few steps further and you come to that set of first-class residences (as the advertising placard thinks them) which rejoice in the martial name of Inkerman-terrace. Pin for pin alike are those bow- windowed houses ; lucky are they in that they have no vis-a- vis across the road to overlook them. If they were not so entirely shadeless they would be perfect, at least so say tho widowed ladies who own them. There Breadalbane House and its titled neighbours look with dignified repose into a green field, where feeble cricket tries to get itself played, sometimes by two efficient elevens of one long young man and three small boys. Then comes the railway, where luggage-trains drag their weary length, and where expresses flash by at night like some dark fabulous beast, with vague shape and far-seen glowing eyes, rushing roughly into the sleeper's dreams. And last, come the wind-blown broad sand-flats, where the tide goes out so absurdly far as to give one the idea of hiding itself somewhere round the corner out of sight.

Grand days, as to weather, come to despised Pen Dyllas as well as to finer places, and one had come on the 16th of June, 186—. The sun blazed away in his rare glory, — rare in these rainy isles, — and held out unconcealed threats of sunstroke to any who ventured too impudently into his kingly presence. But in his very fierceness there was benevolence, and nobody was afraid of him. Every ray of light which turned the shabby lodging-house carpets into cloth of gold, every mignonette -sweetened little breeze which stirred the scanty lodging-house curtains, said as plain as could be, 'Come out, come out, and be happy.' The birds said the same ; at least they turned it into an anthem, and sang it with a full choir. But it certainly was meltingly hot. The woody hills behind quiet Aber Fynach town were so drowsy

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that now, at mid-day, they were sleeping soundly, hazy, purple-hollowed, and the road trailed itself along like a dusty white snake.

The same course of reasoning brought everybody to the same conclusion. ' It is too bakingly hot for a long walk. Let us go the shore.' And so on the shore, towards half-past twelve o'clock, you might have seen all the elite of Pen Dyllas drinking in the faint ocean wind, thirstily, thriftily, as if afraid of wasting any, and saying in their hearts that God was good. There young men threw stones by thousands and never hit anything ; did not intend to, they would have averred, if you had asked them. There muslin-clad damsels paddled daintily with their fingers in little sea-pools and miniature lagoons, and fished out infinitesimal bits of sea- weed, and small green crabs, actively unwilling, or filled little fancy baskets with ugly, worthless, dingy stone, changed in the crucible of the imagination into agates, and onyxes, and amethysts. There old people tottered, and basked, and the great sun-god warmed even their froggy old blood for a bit. And they looked out rheumy-eyed, over the sea, and pondered, perhaps, on its everlastingness — in its perpetual change, defying change — in contrast to their own short tether. Pondered much, more probably, on their gout, and their port wine, and their knitting, and their grandchildren. And those grandchildren dug, and squabbled, and got coated with dirt, and bored their adoring relatives, after the manner of such small deer.

One group did not precisely come under any of these heads, but, I think, it was enjoying itself as much as any. It was a very small group, consisting of only two persons. Lovers, of course 1 Well, no. Not exactly. The first person was a white Pomeranian dog, with the face of a fox, with an excitable temperament, a great deal of fluffy hair, and a tail rather resembling a prolonged rabbit's scut. This said hound was smelling, with scientific enjoyment, at a delicious heap, composed of sea-tangle, rotten wood, and dead starfish. The

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other person was a young woman, sitting very comfortably on the shingle, all alone. She was not in any peculiarly grace- ful attitude ; in fact, ease seemed to have been more in her thoughts than elegance, when she chose her position. Her hat was pulled down a la highwayman, very low over her eyes, to balk the sun's inquisitiveness (it rather whetted other people's curiosity, by-the-by, which she might or might not have been aware of, I would not say which) ; and her hands were holding each other tight round her knees. N.B. Be- ing innocent of gloves, they were in process of being dyed a good rich oak colour.

Not a beauty, this young woman. She would cut but a sorry figure amongst a set of straight-featured, lily and rose fair ones. A face that there would be about a thousand different opinions of, and perhaps not one altogether com- mendatory or approbative. Yet, for some reason or other, Kate Chester was a girl that men were apt to look twice at : not seldom three or even four times ; whom some looked at once too often for their peace of mind. Now for an inventory of her few charms ; which, somehow, did the work of other people's many. Olivia's description of herself in Shakespeare's Twelfth Niylit, — 'Two gray eyes, item, two lips indifferent red,' &c., will not serve here. A great deal, though no miraculous quantity, of bright hair ; bright, without a speck of gold near it. Neither wholly red nor wholly brown, were those well-plaited locks. Brown was, of the two, their pre- dominant hue, with just a dash of red to keep them warm and a-glow. They could have been easily matched out of the dead leafy treasures that autumn scatters in a dank wood. Very, very low down, faultily low, some good judges said, they grew on a fairly white brow, and thence went off, crisply, fuzzily, in a most unaffected wave. Big green eyes, rather deeply put in ; not peculiarly luminous- or eloquent, on ordinary occasions ; rather soft, not very ; but which when the torch of passion should light up their green depths, would (you felt sure) have power to look through and through you; would follow you

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about, perhaps, as the eyes of some well-limned pictures dc. A small turn-up nose, much animadverted on by contemporary girls (what a handle that inquisitive little feature did give to Kate's adversaries !). Well, it did defy all rules, certainly, but then it never got red. Cheeks pale, not very apt at blushing prettily ; mouth came under the head of the wide, full-lipped, smiling, but with a good deal of lurking gravity, and an im- mensity of latent, undeveloped passion in some of the curves it fell into. Laughing innocent lips that seemed to expect life to be one long pleasant jest. Such as this face .was, it was nicely set on a warm, round throat, like a pillar (only that a pillar is cold), as unlike a swan's as one thing could be un- like another.

Now for Kate's figure. I do not think it was exactly of the cut of the Venus de Medici, but, for all that, it always seemed to me rather ensnaring to the fancy, in its partridge- like plumpness, soft undulating contours, and pretty round- nesses ; so removed from scragginess, and free from angles. Many women affirmed that it was too full, too developed for a girl of twenty. The Misses M 'Scrag, whose admirers might have sat with comfort in the shade cast by their collar-bones, were particularly stiff on this point ; but no man was ever yet heard to give in his adhesion to this feminine fiat. Anyhow the light did seem to fall lovingly, as in the case of the ' Gardener's Daughter/ on * the bounteous wave of such a breast as never pencil drew,' and on the waist — no marvel of waspish tenuity, but naturally healthily firm and shapely. Her common little blue-and-white cotton gown draped the pretty shoulders and bust, and expressed them as well as a grander garment would have done. She and it were on good terms, did each other good service, and became one another very satisfactorily. There she sat, lazy, happy, passive; a pretty patch of blue on the gray stones.

Lamb says that he has tried reading out-of-doors in a sunny garden, and has found it only a pretence, a thing impossible of accomplishment ; and such s*erop,d to have been Kate's

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case, for her book was tossed down by her side, and an in- quisitive little gust was turning over the leaves, as if it too was interested in the story, and wanted to see what the end was. But it was only appearances that were against Kate. She had read every word of it without skipping ; had come to ' Finis ' about five minutes ago, and had very barely escaped the degradation of crying over the last page. Her book was one that, I think, few people were willing to put down when once they had taken hold of it. It grasped the attention, and held it prisoned in a sweet detention, and its name was Whyte Melville's Interpreter. Kate had just been reading with rather a lump in her throat, how, when the sacristan opened the door of the De Rohans' vault, the gentle breeze went in with him, into that grim charnel-house, and ' stirred the heavy silver fringe on the pall of Victor's coffin.' Those few words had a sort of fascination for Kate. Her brain was passively recipient of the idea they conveyed, and her deep eyes looked out over the water, full of a girl's speculations.

' Poor Victor ! poor Victor ! ' she thought ; and then she tried mentally to project herself into the situation of the wretched, remorseful Frenchwoman, the coquette whose peni- tence came too late ; the frail wife, whose heart was lying by the cold heart of the gallant young Hungarian noble. ' J would not have treated him so ; at least I do not think so, and yet who knows what I might do, if I were a great beauty and a princess like her 1 Some say that virtue is only ab- sence of temptation. Bah! That is a hateful, godless maxim, worthy of Rochefoucauld. I suppose that he got his idea of woman's character from studying Madame de Longueville's excellences. But I wonder, now, is love such an irresistible power, such an ail-conquering influence (the greatest of human influences), as they make out in books like this, or is it an odd sort of pleasant dangerous drunkenness that one is well rid of 1 Well, it is evident that I do not know much about it practically, or I could not analyse it so coolly. Could I, Tip 1 Now, where is that misguided dog gone 1 Tip, Tip,

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Tip ! ' And she broke off the thread of her reflections short, to throw a very small stone, weakly, at Tip, who appeared to be coming to a decided difference of opinion with another dog errant, whose taste for dead starfish, &c., clashed with his own. ' I cannot but think that there are plenty of other en- joyments that would fill one's life quite as well, and suffi- ciently, and a good deal more peaceably, without any of those dreadful hot and cold fits that one is subject to in typhus fever and love. Why, there are so many things in this world that are positively delicious, that have no more to say to love than I have to that Bluecoat boy over there. The very fact of being alive and well and breathing this sea-breeze ought to satisfy any rational creature. Look at me now. I have done very well without love, at least love in that technical sense, without this fine passion, for twenty years, and I do not see why I should not do it for twenty years more. That is rather a pretty girl, and the man is not unlike a gentleman. They were the people that sat before us in church last Sunday. They are bride and bridegroom, I'm sure ; for they had only one prayer-book between them, and it had an ivory back. "What absurdly false pictures novels do give one of love, the drawings they make of it are so out of perspective ! They represent it as the one main interest of life, instead of being, as it mostly is, a short unimportant little episode. I declare it is enough to give one a disgust for the whole concern. I do believe it is one great imposture, one of those old well- established lies that the world will go on believing. Ah, yes ; mine is the right view. What a pity that I cannot get anybody to agree with me ! Juste del ! what an exhibition of Magenta stockings !

" Oh, wad some power the giftie gi'e us, To see oursels as others see us ! "

Well, if it did, there would be a great many more suicides in tho world than there are at present. Yes, I am wiser than the rest of the world. Wiser than Dante and Shakespeare, auJ

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Tennyson perhaps1? Ah, by-the-by, that is the rub! Do Juliet, and Imogene, and Francesca of Rimini, and Fatiuia talk nonsense 1 If they do, I would rather have their non- sense than any other people's sense. Yes, yes, after all I do believe they are pretty nearly right. Love must be the one great bliss of this world, though I know nothing about it. I wonder what it feels like? Perhaps that great bliss will never come to me ; most likely not. I never yet saw the man who could arouse it. Did not I, though 1 I am not s< > sure of that. I may as well keep to truth, now I am alone. I wonder was Victor anything like Colonel Stamer1? Oh, no — not a bit. Victor was light, and about six times as good- looking. Dear me, how silly ! And how disgracefully hungry the sea makes one. Why, it is one o'clock, and shall not I get a homily from old Piggy for being late 1 '

Up she jumped on this reflection and took off herself, her cotton gown, and her Pomeranian dog, at a pretty quick rate, with her thoughts divided between love in the abstract and luncheon in the concrete, and followed at her departing by the admiring eyes, the utterly-approving gaze, of a retired grocer and a brace of attorney's clerks.

Poor little Kate! she looked cheery and light-hearted enough now, one would say ; and yet, but two years ago, she had vehemently protested, and firmly believed, that she never, never could feel happy again in this world ; it was nonsense to suppose that she could. That was in 0110 of those brain- rending moments which one wonders afterwards, curiously, how one could live through, — which one never could live through and be sane if a blessed numbness were not sent us to wrap our senses in, — when she had pressed her warm quivering lips, half shrinking from the clayey contact, but resolute in despairing, detaining affection, on her mother's dead brow, whose cold would but feebly be compared to polar ico or statued marble. She had taken it as an insult, and spoken out angrily in answer, when some pitying friend had hinted to her that part-agonizing, part-soothing truth, that time would

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dull her anguish, would bring her comfort. ' Comfort ! ' she said, scornfully ; ' comfort must be the result of forgetfulness,' and she did not want to forget. She would rather be miser- able for ever than that. And then, too, she had prayed more ardently than she had ever supplicated any boon before that she might die also. Selfish, cruel mortal ! She would have dragged that lost one back out of those welcoming skyey gates if she had had the power. But God was more merciful. Ue took the poor patient mother, very suffering very world-weary, to Himself, and gave her rest, and left the little daughter to toil and moil and weep for yet a little space — bid a little one, before His messenger came to fetch her too. And the sun shone, and the birds sang, and the mignonette on Mrs Ches- ter's grave sent up a sweet message from earth to heaven, from the resting-place of the dead woman's tired body to the resting- place of the living woman's satisfied soul ; and before the crape on her dress had grown shabby, Kate had begun to laugh again verv heartily, had begun to care whether her black gown fitted well or not, and would have shuddered and trembled sorely if she had seen near her the mower with hi* scythe whom she had invoked in the madness of her grief.