The Old Helmet. Volume I

CHAPTER XVII.

AT GLANOG

How did the days pass after that? In restless anxiety, with Eleanor; in miserable uncertainty and remorse and sorrow. She counted the hours till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what the immediate effect would be. It might be, to bring him down to Plassy with the utmost speed of post-horses; and again Eleanor reckoned the stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postillions could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for this storm to burst upon Plassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and went out. She wandered for hours, among unnumbered, and almost unheeded, beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come; the storm had not burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the supper time and hours of the evening, at the state of fear and constraint in which Eleanor evidently dwelt.

"My dear, did you like this man?" she said when they were bidding each other good night.

"Mr. Carlisle? – yes, very well; if only he had not wanted me to marry him."

"But you fear him, Eleanor."

"Because, aunt Caxton, he always had a way of making me do just what he wished."

"Are you so easily governed, Eleanor, by one whom you do not love? I should not have thought it."

"I do not know how it was, aunty. I had begun wrong, in the first place; I was in a false position; – and lately Mr. Carlisle has taken it into his head, very unnecessarily, to be jealous; and I could not move a step without subjecting myself to a false imputation."

"Good night, my dear," said her aunt. "If he comes, I will take all imputations on myself."

But Mr. Carlisle did not come. Day passed after day; and the intense fear Eleanor had at first felt changed to a somewhat quieter anticipation; though she never came home from a ride without a good deal of circumspection about getting into the house. At last, one day when she was sitting with her aunt the messenger came from the post, and one of those letters was handed to Eleanor that she knew so well; with the proud seal and its crest. Particularly full and well made she thought this seal was; though that was not so very uncommon, and perhaps she was fanciful; but it was a magnificent seal, and the lines of the outer handwriting were very bold and firm. Eleanor's cheeks lost some colour as she opened the envelope, which she did without breaking the bright black wax. Her own letter was all the enclosure.

The root of wrong even unconsciously planted, will bear its own proper and bitter fruits; and Eleanor tasted them that day, and the next and the next. She was free; she was secure from even an attempt to draw her back into the bonds she had broken; when Mr. Carlisle's pride had taken up the question there was no danger of his ever relenting or faltering; and pride had thrown back her letter of withdrawal in her face. She was free; but she knew she had given pain, and that more feeling was stung in Mr. Carlisle's heart than his pride.

"He will get over it, my dear," said her aunt coolly. But Eleanor shed many tears for a day or two, over the wrong she had done. Letters from Ivy Lodge did not help her.

"Home is very disagreeable now," wrote her little sister Julia; "mamma is crying half the day, and the other half she does not feel comfortable – " (a gentle statement of the case.) "And papa is very much vexed, and keeps out of doors the whole time and Alfred with him; and Mr. Rhys is gone away, and I have got nobody. I shouldn't know what to do, if Mr. Rhys had not taught me; but now I can pray. Dear Eleanor, do you pray? I wish you were coming home again, but mamma says you are not coming in a great while; and Mr. Rhys is never coming back. He said so."

Mrs. Powle's letter was in strict accordance with Julia's description of matters; desperately angry and mortified. The only comfort was, that in her mortification she desired Eleanor to keep away from home and out of her sight; so Eleanor with a certain rest of heart in spite of all, prepared herself for a long quiet sojourn with her aunt at the cheese-farm of Plassy. Mrs. Caxton composedly assured her that all this vexation would blow over; and Eleanor's own mind was soon fain to lay off its care and content itself in a nest of peace. Mrs. Caxton's house was that, to anybody worthy of enjoying it; and to Eleanor it had all the joy not only of fitness but of novelty. But for a lingering care on the subject of the other question that had occupied her, Eleanor would in a little while have been happier than at any former time in her life. How was it with that question, which had pressed so painfully hard during weeks and months past? now that leisure and opportunity were full and broad to take it up and attend to it. So they were; but with the removal of difficulty came in some degree the relaxing of effort; opportunity bred ease. It was so simple a thing to be good at Plassy, that Eleanor's cry for it became less bitter. Mrs. Caxton's presence, words, and prayers, kept the thought constant alive; yet with more of soothing and hopeful than of exciting influence; and while Eleanor constantly wished she were happy like her, she nevertheless did not fail to be happy in her own way.

The aunt and niece were excellently suited to each other, and took abundant delight in each other's company. Eleanor found that what had been defective in her own education was in the way to be supplied and made up to her singularly; here, of all places, on a cheese-farm! So it was. To her accomplishments and materials of knowledge, she now found suddenly superadded, the necessity and the practice of thinking. In Mrs. Caxton's house it was impossible to help it. Judgment, conscience, reason, and good sense, were constantly brought into play; upon things already known and things until then not familiar. In the reading of books, of which they did a good deal; in the daily discussion of the newspaper; in the business of every hour, in the intercourse with every neighbour, Eleanor found herself always stimulated and obliged to look at things from a new point of view; to consider them with new lights; to try them by a new standard. As a living creature, made and put here to live for something, she felt herself now; as in a world where everybody had like trusts to fulfil and was living mindful or forgetful of his trust. How mindful Mrs. Caxton was of hers, Eleanor began every day with increasing admiration to see more and more. To her servants, to her neighbours, with her money and her time and her sympathies, for little present interests and for world-wide and everlasting ones, Mrs. Caxton was ever ready, active, watchful; hands full and head full and heart full. That motive power of her one mind and will, Eleanor gradually found, was the centre and spring of a vast machinery of good, working so quietly and so beneficently as proved it had been in operation a long, long time. It was a daily deep lesson to Eleanor, going deeper and deeper every day. The roots were striking down that would shoot up and bear fruit by and by.

Eleanor was a sweet companion to her aunt all those months. In her fresh, young, rich nature, Mrs. Caxton had presently seen the signs of strength, without which no character would have suited her; while Eleanor's temper was of the finest; and her mind went to work vigorously upon whatever was presented for its action. Mrs. Caxton wisely took care to give it an abundance of work; and furthermore employed Eleanor in busy offices of kindness and help to others; as an assistant in some of her own plans and habits of good. Many a ride Eleanor took on the Welsh pony, to see how some sick person was getting on, or to carry supplies to another, or to give instruction to another, or to oversee and direct the progress of matters on which yet another was engaged. This was not new work to her; yet now it was done in the presence at least, if not under the pressure, of a higher motive than she had been accustomed to bring to it. It took in some degree another character. Eleanor was never able to forget now that these people to whom she was ministering had more of the immortal in them than of even the earthly; she was never able to forget it of herself. And busy and happy as the winter was, there often came over her those weary longings for something which she had not yet; the something which made her aunt's course daily so clear and calm and bright. What sort of happiness would be Eleanor's when she got back to Ivy Lodge? She asked herself that question sometimes. Her present happiness was superficial.

The spring meanwhile drew near, and signs of it began to be seen and felt, and heard. And one evening Mrs. Caxton got out the plan of her garden, and began to consider in detail its arrangements, with a view to coming operations. It was pleasant to see Mrs. Caxton at this work, and to hear her; she was in her element. Eleanor was much surprised to find not only that her aunt was her own head gardener, but that she had an exquisite knowledge of the business.

"This sulphurea I think is dead," remarked Mrs. Caxton. "I must have another. Eleanor – what is the matter?"

"Ma'am?"

"You are drawing a very long breath, my dear. Where did it come from?"

The reserve which Eleanor had all her life practised before other people, had almost from the first given way before her aunt.

"From a thought of home, aunt Caxton. I shall not be so happy when I get back there."

"The happiness that will not bear transportation, Eleanor, is a very poor article. But they will not want you at home."

"I am afraid of it."

"Without reason. You will not go home this spring, my dear; trust me.

You are mine for a good long time yet."

Mrs. Caxton was wiser than Eleanor; as was soon proved. Mrs. Powle wrote, desiring her daughter, whatever she did, not to come home then; nor soon. People would think she was come home for her wedding; and questions innumerable would be asked, the mortification of which would be unbearable. Whereas, if Eleanor kept away, the dismal certainty would by degrees become public, that there was to be no match at all between Rythdale and the Lodge. "Stay away till it all blown over, Eleanor," wrote her mother; "it is the least you can do for your family." And the squire even sent a word of a letter, more kind, but to the same effect. He wanted his bright daughter at home, he said; he missed her; but in the circumstances, perhaps it would be best, if her aunt would be so good as to keep her.

Eleanor carried these letters to Mrs. Caxton, with a tear in her eye, and an humbled, pained face.

"I told you so," said her aunt. "How could people expect that Mr. Carlisle's marriage would take place three months after the death of his mother? that is what I do not understand."

"They arranged it so, and it was given out, I suppose. Everything gets known. He was going abroad in the spring, or immediately after; and meant not to go without me."

"Now you are my child, my dear, and shall help me with my roses," said her aunt kissing her, and taking Eleanor in her arms. "Eleanor, is that second question settled yet?"

"No, aunt Caxton."

"You have not chosen yet which master you will serve, – the world or the Lord?"

"O yes, ma'am – I have decided that. I know which I want to be."

"But not which you will be."

"I mean that, ma'am."

"You are not a servant of the Lord now, Eleanor?"

"No, aunt Caxton – I don't see how. I am dark."

"Christ says, 'He that is not with me is against me.' A question that is undecided, decides itself. Eleanor, decide this question to-night."

"To-night, ma'am?"

"Yes. I am going to send you to church."

"To church! There is no service to-night, aunt Caxton."

"Not at the church where you have been – in the village. There is a little church in the valley beyond Mrs. Pynce's cottage. You are going there."

"I do not remember any. Why, aunt Caxton, the valley is too narrow there for anything but the road and the brook; the mountains leave no room – hardly room for her house."

"You have never been any further. Do you not remember a sharp turn just beyond that place?"

"Yes, I do."

"You will see the chapel when you get round the turn."

The place Mrs. Caxton alluded to, was a wild, secluded, most beautiful valley, the bottom of which as Eleanor said was almost filled up with the road, and the brook which rushed along its course to meet the river; itself almost as large as another river. Where the people could be found to go to a church in such a region, she could not imagine. Heather clothed the hills; fairy cascades leaped down the rocks at every turning, lovely as a dream; the whole scene was wild and lonely. Hardly any human habitations or signs of human action broke the wild reign of nature all the valley through. Eleanor was sure of a charming ride at least, whether there was to be a congregation in the church at the end of it or no; and she prepared herself accordingly. Mrs. Caxton was detained at home; the car did not go; three or four of the household, men and women, went on ponies as Eleanor did.

They set off very early, while the light was fair and beautiful yet, for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village; it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she; when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. Then she had been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty. Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take. Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her.

How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from this point into a comparatively broad valley, bordered with higher hills as it widened in the distance. The light still shewed its entrancing beauty; wooded, and spotted with houses and habitations of all kinds; from the very humble to the very lordly, and from the business factories of to-day, back to the ruined strongholds of the time when war was business. Wide and delicious the view was, as much as it was unexpected; and spring's softened colouring was all over it. Eleanor made a pause of a few seconds as soon as all this burst upon her; her next thought was to look for the church. And it was plain to see; a small dark edifice, in excellent keeping with its situation; because of its colour and its simple structure, which half merged it among the rocks and the hills.