The Old Helmet. Volume II

"Of course you do not. That boy has been a most notorious pickpocket and thief."

"Exactly what I should have supposed."

"Did you observe that he had washed his face?"

"I think I observed how imperfectly it was done."

"Ah, but it is the first time probably in years that it has touched water, except when his lips touched it to drink. Do you know, that is a sign of reformation?"

"Water?"

"Washing. It is the hardest thing in the world to get them to forego the seal and the bond of dirt. It is a badge of the community of guilt. If they will be brought to wash, it is a sign that the bond is broken – that they are willing to be out of the community; which will I suppose regard them as suspected persons from that time. Now you can understand why I was glad."

Hardly; for the fire and water sparkling together in Eleanor's eyes expressed so much gladness that it quite went beyond Mr. Carlisle's power of sympathy. He remained silent a few moments.

"Eleanor, I wish you would answer one question, which puzzles me. Why do you go to that place?"

"You do not like it?"

"No, nor do you. What takes you there?"

"There are more to be taught than there are teachers for," said Eleanor looking at her questioner. "They want help. You must have seen, there are none too many to take care of the crowds that come; and many of those teachers are fatigued with attendance in the week."

"Do you go in the week?"

"No, not hitherto."

"You must not think of it! It is as much as your life is worth to go Sundays. I met several companies of most disorderly people on my way – do you not meet such?"

"Yes."

"What takes you there, Eleanor, through such horrors?"

"I have no fear."

"No, I suppose not; but will you answer my question?"

"You will hardly be able to understand me," said Eleanor hesitating. "I like to go to these poor wretches, because I love them. And if you ask me why I love them, – I know that the Lord Jesus loves them; and he is not willing they should be in this forlorn condition; and so I go to try to help get them out of it."

"If the Supreme Ruler is not willing there should be this class of people, Eleanor, how come they to exist?"

"You are too good a philosopher, Mr. Carlisle, not to know that men are free agents, and that God leaves them the exercise of their free agency, even though others as well as themselves suffer by it. I suppose, if those a little above them in the social scale had lived according to the gospel rule, this class of people never would have existed."

"What a reformer you would make, Eleanor!"

"I should not suit you? Yes – I do not believe in any radical way of reform but one."

"And that is, what? – counsellor."

"Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you."

"Radical enough! You must reform the reformers first, I suppose you know."

"I know it."

"Then, hard as it is for me to believe it, you do not go to Field-Lane by way of penance?"

"The penance would be, to make me stay away."

"Mrs. Powle will do that, unless I contrive to disturb the action of her free agency; but I think I shall plunge into the question of reform, Eleanor. Speaking of that, how much reformation has been effected by these Ragged institutions?"

"Very much; and they are only as it were beginning, you must remember."

"Room for amendment still," said Mr. Carlisle. "I never saw such a disorderly set of scholars in my life before. How do you find an occasional somersault helps a boy's understanding of his lesson?"

"Those things were constant at first; not occasional," said Eleanor smiling; "somersaults, and leaping over the forms, and shouts and catcalls, and all manner of uproarious behaviour. That was before I ever knew them. But now, think of that boy's washed face!"

"That was the most partial reformation I ever saw rejoiced in," said

Mr. Carlisle.

"It gives hope of everything else, though. You have no idea what a bond that community of dirt is. But there are plenty of statistics, if you want those, Mr. Carlisle. I can give you enough of them; shewing what has been done."

"Will you shew them to me to-night?"

"To-night? it is Sunday. No, but to-morrow night, Mr. Carlisle; or any other time."

"Eleanor, you are very strict!"

"Not at all. That is not strictness; but Sunday is too good to waste upon statistics."

She said it somewhat playfully, with a shilling of her old arch smile, which did not at all reassure her companion.

"Besides, Mr. Carlisle, you like strictness a great deal better than I do. There is not a law made in our Queen's reign or administered under her sceptre, that you would not have fulfilled to the letter – even down to the regulations that keep little boys off the grass. It is only the laws of the Great King which you do not think should be strictly kept."

She was grave enough now, and Mr. Carlisle swallowed the reproof as best he might.

"Eleanor, you are going to turn preacher too, as well as reformer?

Well, I will come to you, dear, and put myself under your influences.

You shall do what you please with me."

Too much of a promise, and more of a responsibility than Eleanor chose to take. She went into the house with a sober sense that she had a difficult part to play; that between Mr. Carlisle and her mother, she must walk very warily or she would yet find herself entangled before she was aware. And Mr. Carlisle too had a sober sense that Eleanor's religious character was not of a kind to exhale, like a volatile oil, under the sun of prosperity or the breezes of flattery. Nevertheless, the more hard to reach the prize, the more of a treasure when reached. He never wanted her more than now; and Mr. Carlisle had always, by skill and power, obtained what he wanted. He made no doubt he would find this instance like the others.

For the present, the thing was to bring a bill into parliament "for the reformation of juvenile offenders" – and upon its various provisions Mr. Carlisle came daily to consult Eleanor, and take advice and receive information. Doubtless there was a great deal to be considered about the bill, to make it just what it should be; to secure enough and not insist upon too much; its bearings would be very important, and every point merited well the deepest care and most circumspect management. It enlisted Eleanor's heart and mind thoroughly; how should it not? She spent hours and hours with Mr. Carlisle over it; wrote for him, read for him, or rather for those the bill wrought for; talked and discussed and argued, for and against various points which she felt would make for or against its best success. Capital for M. Carlisle. All this brought him into constant close intercourse with her, and gave him opportunities of recommending himself. And not in vain. Eleanor saw and appreciated the cool, clear business head; the calm executive talent, which seeing its ends in the distance, made no hurry but took the steps and the measures surest to attain them, with patient foresight. She admired it, and sometimes also could almost have trembled when she thought of its being turned towards herself. And was it not, all the while? Was not Eleanor tacitly, by little and little, yielding the ground she fought so hard to keep? Was she not quietly giving her affirmative to the world's question, – and to Mr. Carlisle's too? To the former, yes; for the latter, she knew and Mr. Carlisle knew that she shewed him no more than the regard that would not satisfy him. But then, if this went on indefinitely, would not he, and the world, and her mother, all say that she had given him a sort of prescriptive right to her? Ay, and Eleanor must count her father too now as among her adversaries' ranks. She saw it and felt it somewhat bitterly. She had begun to gain his ear and his heart; by and by he might have listened to her on what subject she pleased, and she might have won him to the knowledge of the truth that she held dearest. Now, she had gained his love certainly, in a measure, but so had Mr. Carlisle. Gently, skilfully, almost unconsciously it seemed, he was as much domiciled in her father's room as she was; and even more acceptable. The Squire had come to depend on him, to look for him, to delight in him; and with very evident admission that he was only anticipating by a little the rights and privileges of sonship. Eleanor could not absent herself neither; she tried that; her father would have her there; and there was Mr. Carlisle, as much at home, and sharing with her in filial offices as a matter of rule, and associating with her as already one of the family. It is true, in his manner to Eleanor herself he did not so step beyond bounds as to give her opportunity to check him; yet even over this there stole insensibly a change; and Eleanor felt herself getting deeper and deeper in the toils. Her own manner meanwhile was nearly perfect in its simple dignity. Except in the interest of third party measures, which led her sometimes further than she wanted to go, Eleanor kept a very steady way, as graceful as it was steady. So friendly and frank as to give no cause of umbrage; while it was so cool and self-poised as to make Mr. Carlisle very uneasy and very desperate. It was just the manner he admired in a woman; just what he would like to see in his wife, towards all the rest of the world. Eleanor charmed him more by her high-bred distance, than ever she had done by the affection or submissiveness of former days. But he was pretty sure of his game. Let this state of things go on long enough, and she would have no power to withdraw; and once his own, let him have once again the right to take her to his breast and whisper love or authority, and he knew he could win that fine sweet nature to give him back love as well as obedience, – in time. And so the bill went on in its progress towards maturity. It did not go very fast.

All this while the sisters saw very little of each other. One morning Eleanor waylaid Julia as she was passing her door, drew her in, and turned the key in the lock. The first impulse of the two was to spring to each other's arms for a warm embrace.