The Old Helmet. Volume I

CHAPTER XV.

IN THE HILLS

The house-door opened first to shew a girl in short petticoats and blue jacket holding up a light. Eleanor made towards it, across a narrow strip of courtyard. She saw only the girl, and did not feel certain whether she had come to the right house. For neither Mrs. Caxton nor her home had ever been seen by any of Mr. Powle's children; though she was his own sister. But Mrs. Caxton had married quite out of Mrs. Powle's world; and though now a widow, she lived still the mistress of a great cheese farm; quite out of Mrs. Powle's world still. The latter had therefore never encouraged intercourse. Mrs. Caxton was an excellent woman, no doubt, and extremely respectable; still, Ivy Lodge and the cheese farm were further apart in feeling than in geographical miles; and though Mrs. Caxton often invited her brother's children to come and pick butter-cups in her meadows, Mrs. Powle always proved that to gather primroses in Rythdale was a higher employment, and much better for the children's manners, if not for their health. The Squire at this late day had been unaffectedly glad of Eleanor's proposal; avowing himself not ashamed of his sister or his children either. For Eleanor herself, she had no great expectation, except of rural retirement in a place where Mr. Carlisle would not follow her. That was enough. She had heard besides that the country was beautiful, and her aunt well off.

As she stepped up now doubtfully to the girl with the light, looking to see whether she were right or wrong, the girl moved a little aside so as to light the entrance, and Eleanor passed on, discerning another figure behind. A good wholesome voice exclaimed, "You are welcome, my dear! It is Eleanor?" and the next instant Mr Powle's daughter found herself taken into one of those warm, gentle, genial embraces, that tell unmistakeably what sort of a heart moves the enfolding arms. It was rest and strength at once; and the lips that kissed her – there is a great deal of character in a kiss – were at once sweet and firm.

"You have been all day travelling, my dear. You must be in want of rest."

There was that sort of clear strength in the voice, to which one gives, even in the dark, one's confidence. Eleanor's foot fell more firmly on the tiled floor, as she followed her aunt along a passage or two; a little uncertainty in her heart was quieted; she was ready prepared to expect anything pleasant; and as they turned in at a low door, the expectation was met.

The door admitted them to a low-ceiled room, also with a tiled floor, large and light. A good wood fire burned in the quaint chimney-piece; before it a table stood prepared for supper. A bit of carpet was laid down under the table and made a spot of extra comfort in the middle of the floor. Dark plain wainscotting, heavy furniture of simplest fashion, little windows well curtained; all nothing to speak of; all joined inexplicably to produce the impression of order, stability and repose, which seized upon Eleanor almost before she had time to observe details. But the mute things in a house have an odd way of telegraphing to a stranger what sort of a spirit dwells in the midst of them. It is always so; and Mrs. Caxton's room assured Eleanor that her first notions of its mistress were not ill-founded. She had opportunity to test and strengthen them now, in the full blaze of lamp and firelight; as her aunt stood before her taking off her bonnet and wrappers and handing them over to another attendant with a candle and a blue jacket.

In the low room Mrs. Caxton looked even taller than belonged to her; and she was tall, and of noble full proportions that set off her height. Eleanor thought she had never seen a woman of more dignified presence; the head was set well back on the shoulders, the carriage straight, and the whole moral and physical bearing placid and quiet. Of course the actual movement was easy and fine; for that is with every one a compound of the physical and moral. Scarcely Elizabeth Fry had finer port or figure. The face was good, and strong; the eyes full of intelligence under the thick dark brows; all the lines of the face kind and commanding. A cap of very plain construction covered the abundant hair, which was only a little grey. Nothing else about Mrs. Caxton shewed age. Her dress was simple to quaintness; but, relieved by her magnificent figure, that effect was forgotten, or only remembered as enhancing the other. Eleanor sat down in a great leather chair, where she had been put, and looked on in a sort of charmed state; while her aunt moved about the table, gave quiet orders, made quiet arrangements, and finally took Eleanor's hand and seated her at the tea-table.

"Not poppies, nor mandragora" could have had such a power of soothing over Eleanor's spirits. She sat at the table like a fairy princess under a friendly incantation; and the spell was not broken by any word or look on the part of her hostess. No questions of curiosity; no endeavours to find out more of Eleanor than she chose to shew; no surprise expressed at her mid-winter coming; nor so much pleasure as would have the effect of surprise. So naturally and cordially and with as much simplicity her visit was taken, as if it had been a yearly accustomed thing, and one of Mr. Powle's children had not now seen her aunt for the first time. Indeed so rare was the good sense and kindness of this reception, that Eleanor caught herself wondering whether her aunt could already know more of her than she seemed to know; and not caring if she did! Yet it was impossible, for her mother would not tell her story, and her father could not; and Eleanor came round to admiring with fresh admiration this noble-looking, new-found relation, whose manner towards herself inspired her with such confidence and exercised already such a powerful attraction. And this was the mistress of a cheese-farm! Eleanor could not help being moved with a little curiosity on her part. This lady had no children; no near relations; for she was ignored by her brother's family. She lived alone; was she not lonely? Would she not wear misanthropical or weary traces of such a life? None; none were to be seen. Clear placidness dwelt on the brow, that looked as if nothing ever ruffled it; the eye was full of business and command; and the mouth, – its corners told of a fountain of sweetness somewhere in the region of the heart. Eleanor looked, and went back to her cup of tea and her supper with a renewed sense of comfort.

The supper was excellent too. It would have belied Mrs. Caxton's look of executive capacity if it had not been. No fault was to be discerned anywhere. The tea-service was extremely plain and inexpensive; such as Mrs. Powle could not have used; that was certain. But then the bread, and the mutton chops, and the butter, and even the tea, were such as Mrs. Powle's china was never privileged to bear. And though Mrs. Caxton left in the background every topic of doubtful agreeableness, the talk flowed steadily with abundance of material and animation, during the whole supper-time. Mrs. Caxton was the chief talker. She had plenty to tell Eleanor of the country and people in the neighbourhood; of things to be seen and things to be done; so that supper moved slowly, and was a refreshment of mind as well as of body.

"You are very weary, my dear," said Mrs. Caxton, after the table was cleared away, and the talk had continued through all that time. And Eleanor confessed it. In the calm which was settling down upon her, the strain of hours and days gone by began to be felt.

"You shall go to your room presently," said Mrs. Caxton; "and you shall not get up to breakfast with me. That would be too early for you."

Eleanor was going to enter a protest, when her aunt turned and gave an order in Welsh to the blue jacket then in the room. And then Eleanor had a surprise. Mrs. Caxton took a seat at a little distance, before a stand with a book; and the door opening again, in poured a stream of blue jackets, three or four, followed by three men and a boy. All ranged themselves on seats round the room, and Mrs. Caxton opened her book and read a chapter in the Bible. Eleanor listened, in mute wonder where this would end. It ended in all kneeling down and Mrs. Caxton offering a prayer. An extempore prayer, which for simplicity, strength, and feeling, answered all Eleanor's sense of what a prayer ought to be; though how a woman could speak it before others and before men, filled her with astonishment. But it filled her with humility too, before it was done; and Eleanor rose to her feet with an intense feeling of the difference between her aunt's character and her own; only equalled by her deep gladness at finding herself under the roof where she was.

Her aunt then took a candle and lighted her through the tiled passages, up some low wooden stairs, uncarpeted; along more passages; finally into a large low matted chamber, with a row of little lattice windows. Comfort and simplicity were in all its arrangements; a little fire burning for her; Eleanor's trunks in a closet. When Mrs. Caxton had shewed her all that was necessary, she set down her candle on the low mantelshelf, and took Eleanor in her arms. Again those peculiar, gentle firm kisses fell upon her lips. But instead of "good night," Mrs. Caxton's words were,

"Do you pray for yourself, Eleanor?"

Eleanor dropped her head like a child on the breast before her. "Aunt Caxton, I do not know how!"

"Then the Lord Jesus has not a servant in Eleanor Powle?"

Eleanor was silent, thoughts struggling.

"You have not learned to love him, Eleanor?"

"I have only learned to wish to do it, aunt Caxton! I do wish that. It was partly that I might seek it, that I wanted to come here."

Then Eleanor heard a deep-spoken, "Praise the Lord!" that seemed to come out from the very heart on which she was leaning. "If you have a mind to seek him, my dear, he is willing that you should find. 'The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him.'"

She kissed Eleanor on the two temples, released her and went down stairs. And Eleanor sat down before her fire, feeling as if she were in a paradise.

It was all the more so, from the unlikeness of everything that met her eye, to all she had known before. The chimney-piece at which she was looking as she sat there – it was odd and quaint as possible, to a person accustomed only to the modern fashions of the elegant world; the fire-tongs and shovel would have been surely consigned to the kitchen department at Ivy Lodge. Yet the little blazing fire, framed in by its rows of coloured tiles, looked as cheerfully into Eleanor's face as any blaze that had ever greeted it. All was of a piece with the fireplace. Simple to quaintness, utterly plain and costless, yet with none of the essentials of comfort forgotten or neglected; from the odd little lattice windows to the tiled floor, everything said she was at a great distance from her former life, and Mr. Carlisle. The room looked as if it had been made for Eleanor to settle her two life-questions in it. Accordingly she took them up without delay; but Eleanor's mind that night was like a kaleidoscope. Images of different people and things started up, with wearying perversity of change and combination; and the question, whether she would be a servant of God like her aunt Caxton, was inextricably twisted up with the other question; whether she could escape being the baroness of Rythdale and the wife of Mr. Carlisle. And Eleanor did nothing but tire herself with thinking that night; until the fire was burnt out and she went to bed. Nevertheless she fell asleep with a sense of relief more blissful than she had known for months. She had put a little distance at least between her and her enemies.

Eleanor had meant to be early next day, but rest had taken too good hold of her; it was long past early when she opened her eyes. The rays of the morning sun were peeping in through the lattices. Eleanor sprang up and threw open, or rather threw back, one of the windows, for the lattice slid in grooves instead of hanging on hinges. She would never have found out how to open them, but that one lattice stood slightly pushed back already. When it was quite out of her way, Eleanor's breath almost stopped. A view so wild, so picturesque, so rare in its outlines of beauty, she thought she had never seen. Before her, at some distance, beyond a piece of broken ground, rose a bare-looking height of considerable elevation, crowned by an old tower massively constructed, broken, and ivy-grown. The little track of a footpath was visible that wound round the hill; probably going up to the tower. Further beyond, with evidently a deep valley or gorge between, a line of much higher hills swept off to the left; bare also, and moulded to suit a painter of weird scenes, yet most lovely, and all seen now in the fair morning beams which coloured and lighted them and the old tower together. Nothing else. The road indeed by which she had come passed close before Eleanor's window; but trees embowered it, though they had been kept down so as not to hinder this distant view. Eleanor sat a long while spell-bound before the window.

A noise disturbed her. It was one of the blue jackets bringing a tray with breakfast. Eleanor eagerly asked if Mrs. Caxton had taken breakfast; but all she got in return was a series of unintelligible sounds; however as the girl pointed to the sun, she concluded that the family breakfast hour was past. Everything strange again! At Ivy Lodge the breakfast hour lasted till the lagging members of the family had all come down; and here there was no family! How could happiness belong to anybody in such circumstances? The prospect within doors, Eleanor suddenly remembered, was yet more interesting than the view without. She eat her breakfast and dressed and went down.

But to find the room where she had been the evening before, was more than her powers were equal to. Going from one passage to another, turning and turning back, afraid to open doors to ask somebody; Eleanor was quite bewildered, when she happily was met by her aunt. The morning kiss and greeting renewed in her heart all the peace of last night.

"I cannot find my way about in your house, aunt Caxton. It seems a labyrinth."

"It will not seem so long. Let me shew you the way out of it."

Through one or two more turnings Mrs. Caxton led her niece, and opening a door took her out at the other side, the back of the house, where Eleanor's eyes had not been. Here there was a sort of covered gallery, extending to some length under what was either an upper piazza or the projection of the second story floor. The ground was paved with tiles as usual, and wooden settles stood along the wall, and plain stone pillars supported the roof. But as Eleanor's eyes went out further she caught her aunt's hand in ecstasy.

From almost the edge of the covered gallery, a little terraced garden sloped down to the edge of a small river. The house stood on a bank above the river, at a commanding height; and on the river's further shore a rich sweep of meadow and pasture land stretched to the right and left and filled the whole breadth of the valley; on the other side of which, right up from the green fields, rose another line of hills. These were soft, swelling, round-topped hills, very different in their outlines from those in another quarter which Eleanor had been enjoying from her window. It was winter now, and the garden had lost its glory; yet Eleanor could see, for her eye was trained in such matters, that good and excellent care was at home in it; and some delicate things were there for which a slight protection had been thought needful. The river was lost to view immediately at the right; it wound down from the other hand through the rich meadows under a thick embowering bosky growth of trees; and just below the house it was spanned by a rude stone bridge, from which a hedged lane led off on the other side. All along the fences or hedges which enclosed the fields grew also beautiful old trees; the whole landscape was decked with wood growth, though the hills had little or none. All the more the sweet contrast; the rare harmony; the beautiful mingling of soft cultivation with what was wild and picturesque and barren. And the river gurgled on, with a fresh sound that told of its activity; and a very large herd of cows spotted the green turf in some of the meadows on the other side of the stream.