For one morning the Earl rose up from his tossing bed to declare
he’d formate the company in himself only.
7
He pulled bells and he
shouted for his advisers, and he communicated with London by
telegrams; and there was now to be tremendous confabulation. The
Earl drew wealth from every part of the world, from the diamonds
in Africa and the tea in India, from railways passing through the
Canadian mountains and from the streets of houses that he
possessed in London.
8
But it appeared, there were those who
constrained the Earl, and who menaced him with the interests of his
heirs, and who would not let him disturb or tamper with the source
of his money where it was all set. This was a puzzle to us and a fret
to him. You should think he should readily lay his hand on the sum
of money, to formate the company and to float the Steamer. But,
however, the Earl could only do so by sacrificing out of his privy
purse.
He therefore cast about him, setting his eyes on all things in the
Estate. At the start of it, he felled the High Wood, and a contractor
purchased the timber from him. He gave over the drainage he was
executing upon the bog, and he undid the orders that had gone out
for the metalling of the lower road, for the stone bridge, for the
observatory and for the drying barns. He sold two farms that had
the tenancies fallen in, and he leased a mountain out to a sporting
syndicate. Throughout all, he did not raise a single rent, but he
closed up the Castle wing where the ball was held, he sacrificed
three gold-framed Italian pictures of very little size but great history,
which were carried away in a cart to go off to America, and he
sacrificed Mr. Harris out of the Estate Office.
The felling of the High Wood could not be hid, and the putting
stop to the works could be seen by all; but the Earl, it might be out
of grief or shame, made no private or public mention of Mr. Harris.
Mr. Harris was to continue till what he did was done. It might be
through lack of chance or through lack of heart, or it might be out
of respect for her confused father, but it appears Mr. Harris sent no
warning nor word to the Lady Mary as to what was now come
about.
Before the High Wood was stripped, my mother sent my brother
to fetch down branches and twigs. It was towards the end of winter;
a sweet, soft day. My brother was leading the ass cart up the ascent
when he overtook Lady Mary beside the track. Around her was the
bared hill and the lying trees and the stumps, and she says: There is
surely a great change here!
However, my brother says, ’Tis a wonder what we can see with
the trees gone.
The two looked below them upon the bends of the Lough and
upon the Castle, and the demesne and upon the Protestant church
with the graveyard and Bible house, and upon the island having the
ancient chapel, and upon the jetty expectant of the Steamer. Why,
it is like a picture, says Lady Mary, when you can see the whole!
You would wonder, says my brother, who painted it.
Lady Mary laid her hand on the ass’s neck, and they continued up
the ascent. There was this between herself and my brother, on
account they were both companions to Mr. Harris. At the flat place,
my brother commenced to glean up the twigs and branches, while
the Lady Mary, into some kind of dream, leaned herself on her hand
on the standing wheel of the cart. It was my brother, loading the
twigs and branches, who perceived the Earl coming legging it up the
slope, with Mr. Harris behind in attendance on him. It had now
come into the Earl’s mind to retrieve a share of timber from the
contractor to furnish joists and uprights for the Hotel. The Earl
looked this way, that way, pointing out with his stick, whereupon
Mr. Harris chalked on the chosen trees. The Lady Mary drew up to
watch the two.
The Earl draws his fingers down the length of his beard and
addresses himself to his daughter, Lady Mary. Isn’t it the great pity,
Mary, he says, that Harris will not behold the complete hotel?
Why so? says she, gripping the ass cart wheel.
Why, Harris is going from us, the Earl says. There are
9
great
opportunities for a young man to be found in the distant and future
countries, and it is no longer right to have him confined here. Isn’t
that so, Harris? threw in the Earl.
Mr. Harris nods with his head but makes no reply, and he does
not turn his eyes to the Lady Mary. I’m sure, my dear, says the
father, you’ll wish him fortune, for he has been very faithful with us.
The Lady Mary says only, Is this so?
It is, Lady Mary, says Mr. Harris, constrained to face her. He lifts
his pot hat and he stands with his head bowed, bare, as he had stood
by the Little Dog’s grave. My brother continues to stack up the
twigs and branches behind Lady Mary upon the cart.
Oh, father
! she says.
What is it, me darlin’, what is it now? says the Earl.
I don’t like, she says, like a dreamer, to see the High Wood lying.
And she looks from tree to tree on the ground, as though upon
every one of her fallen hopes.
Only wait now; now only wait, says the Earl, till the fine day you
see the Steamer come up the Lough.
It was on the eve of Mr. Harris’s going that the men buoyed
the channel for the Steamer. For they say the Lough has a very
treacherous bed. We watched them drop the plumb lines out of the
boats, and we followed up to number the buoys behind them. From
then on, our children could not sleep for thinking and talking about
the Steamer; and a mountainy woman prophesied it would have
golden sails, and be carrying back to us all the Earls formerly driven
from our shores. Meanwhile, the Castle held locked up the mystery
of the saddening hearts within it. It was said Lady Mary beseeched
her father, who had no ear for her, being deep in plans. It was said
she beseeched Mr. Harris, in the dark of the evening, to take her to
share his fortunes in American lands, but that he in his humbleness
found her too lofty for this, and in his faithfulness would not betray
the Earl. For Mr. Harris was carrying to America a letter of com
mendation in the Earl’s own hand, to some ostensible person in
America who should promote him up for the Earl’s sake. And but
and for the Earl’s letter, Mr. Harris had nothing but the few pounds
put by. For whatever reason, if it was truly said that the Lady Mary
beseeched him there in the evening, it was equally said Mr. Harris
put her away from him, tears coursing down his face as they did
hers. But it was also said that she said nothing, only prayed to God
to stretch out His hand. We all saw winter upon her face.
My brother was at the Castle gates when the trap came out of
the avenue carrying Mr. Harris, with his possessions and gun-case
strapped on behind. The horse was impatient and they had few
farewells. My brother had a wish through the greater part of his life
to be following Mr. Harris to America, but he never did so in the
end of all. The groom let the horse go, and round the turn of the
road, Mr. Harris bestowing no backward look on the Castle.
Little account was taken of Mr. Harris’s going, due to the Earl
himself setting out for London, for the sealing of the business about
the Steamer. His going from us was attended by the usual prepar
ation, ceremonial and skeltering. All could see the Earl about this
time was consumed with all these contests into only the bones and
beard; his height was bowed with his stooping
10
and calculations,
and the nobility of the eye flashed out like the wick of a naked
lamp.
11
He ate only what would have sustained a sparrow and he was
loth to rest. We held, and Her Ladyship held, however, that the
fulfilment of the Steamer should once more set him up. We shook
our heads, but we foresaw nothing. It came to be known later that
the mountainy woman saw the Bird in the air upon the top of the
Castle the day the Earl with Her Ladyship went to London. It was
given out, the Earl was to bring back the Steamer with him; we were
less cast down at his going on that account.
The chill caught the Earl in London, causing him to die far from
his own land. When they carried the telegram to the Castle, the rain
was weeping into the Lough. They drew down the blinds of the
hundred windows and bolted the white-painted shutters upon them.
There was silence; and clouds rolled down upon those lamenting in
the upper parts of the mountains. The Protestant clergyman and the
priest went to address themselves to the Lady Mary, but they were
graciously turned away. No word came out of that tomb place. On
the third day, the men opened the vault and polished the silver
plates on the other coffins, and swept the vault and strewed it over
with ferns.
12
In the evening of that day, it became known that the
Steamer was to bring back the Earl’s body.
From before the grey of that dawn, we were all travelling down
to the Lough side. We were in our hundreds; the aged women upon
the ass carts were keeping their shawls drawn over upon their faces;
and the aged men were never raising their heads bowed with the
grief of time. The women held their young children speechlessly by
the hand; and the men were withdrawn from them and stood apart.
The girls stood leaning upon each other in the edge of the water,
and we young fellows in our black decent clothes mounted some
way into the stripped woods. The two shores of the Lough were
white with our faces; and from each shore we faced on the other’s
grief, with rain all the time falling down between. The wet ran from
the fringe of the women’s shawls and penetrated into the men’s
bones. There was no wailing nor keening; the Castle forbidding us
with its shut eyes. No weeping was heard louder than the Lough
tide creeping upon the stones. From awaiting the Steamer this long
time we were become still as the stones themselves.
The rain relented and the mist clouds withdrew slowly away from
the tops of the Earl’s mountains; wherefore word passed through us,
he would be coming soon. Then, surely, we heard the cry of the
Steamer, distantly entering down the Lough. From its nature it could
be no other cry. The girls advanced further into the water and the
young men mounted further up on the hills, and the aged men and
women raised up their heads, and the infants cried out at this new
thing. The sun could no longer withhold itself, and descended upon
the water in a ray. The Steamer again cried out, and we again
trembled. When she had cried the third time, she came turning
towards us round the bend.
So white was she that we all smiled with sorrow. No sail bore
her, only a sail of smoke which was devoured up by the sun. She
advanced towards us along the buoyed passage, trembling but
steady, cleaving a long wake. We now smelled her rich oil and heard
the engines in her internal parts. The sun leaned on her, and from
her inward trembling her brass polished ornamentation flashed. She
amazed the Lough and amazed the mountains; and she knocked
upon the heaviness of our hearts. But on her forepart she carried the
Earl’s coffin. So past and by, and cleaving between our hundreds
travelled the coffin bearing the laurel wreath, and so travelled the
Steamer bearing the coffin. So the Steamer entered the Lough for
the first time.
She came to us, she passed by us; and as she passed we turned to
pursue her upon her course. She stilled down her engines as she
approached the jetty; and it was thus the Steamer stole past the
Castle face. And it was the Castle now drew our eyes – for the
shutters opened upon one terrace window, from which the Lady
Mary stepped out alone. The height of the Castle and the wide
of the water made the Lady Mary appear to us very small. She
advances to the balustrade of the terrace, to come as near the
Steamer as she could come. She puts her hand to shade her eyes
from the almighty whiteness striking out from its flank. We could
not see her face to see did it change. She attentively, slowly turns
her head, watching the Steamer proceed past her; she considers its
wake and looks over the balustrade. For below in the chopping and
heave of the wake’s end the Castle’s watery image is broken up.
There were few to perceive the Lady Mary turn around and go
back and shut the window behind her, for the hundreds of us were
now trampling down from the woods and speeding by on the tracks,
and the shores and the stony places. We were gathered at the jetty
to meet the Earl.
The Lost Hope
“
M
iss Mapsby – how nice that you are still here!”
Miss Mapsby, thus accosted, did not so much as start. “‘Still?’” she
repeated, in her most daunting manner. “We have not been away.”
Turning, she latched her garden gate behind her with a proprietary
firmness that said much – Bertram realised that nothing short of a
direct hit could have dislodged Miss Mapsby from Windy Bend.
And Miss Moira probably had not been consulted.
He saw, too, that she must have found his remark either
patronising or over-familiar. Decades of success had not covered his
sensitiveness with more than a very thin crust: if, as a celebrity, he
had come to allow himself naïve little exclamations of private feeling
– flattering to the hearer, who became confident, and always
flatteringly received – he had not lost his dislike of putting a foot
wrong.
He had not been at Seale-on-Sea since the war: it
was
nice for
him (nicer than she could know) to see Miss Mapsby come
doughtily down her garden steps as though nothing had happened
in the meantime. The steps zigzagged to the gate between walls of
rockery neatly tufted with plants. Stoutly gloved and shod, Miss
Mapsby carried her shopping basket on the crook of her elbow and
her dog’s leash coiled round her wrist. Windy Bend, an Edwardian
villa so much embowered as to look like a cottage, was niched in its
steep garden towards the top of the hill above Seale-on-Sea. This
October morning of 1945 still had, to Bertram’s senses, the sweet
but aching quiet of a morning after a storm. For Seale, from which
on clear days you could see France, had in the bad days been in the
front line. Hints of what must be happening, muffled by censorship,
had not ceased to prey on Bertram’s imagination. It gave a focus, this
little town, to his aesthetic horror of loss and change.