The Old Helmet. Volume II

"I hope so," said Eleanor faintly. "It seems a strange thing to me, aunt Caxton, that this should have happened to me – just now when I am so needed at home. Papa is unwell – and I was beginning to get his ear, – and I have great influence over Julia, who only wants leading to go in the right way. And I am taken away from all that. I cannot help wondering why."

"Let it be to the glory of God, Eleanor; that is all your concern. The rest you will understand by and by."

"But that is the very thing. It is hard to see how it can be to his glory."

"Do not try," said Mrs. Caxton smiling. "The Lord never puts his children anywhere where they cannot glorify him; and he never sends them where they have not work to do or a lesson to learn. Perhaps this is your lesson, Eleanor – to learn to have no home but in him."

Eleanor's eyes filled very full; she made no answer.

But one thing is certain; peace settled down upon her heart. It would be difficult to help that at Plassy. We all know the effect of going home to the place of our childhood after a time spent in other atmosphere; and there is a native air of the spirit, in which it feels the like renovating influence. Eleanor breathed it while they sat at the table; she felt she had got back into her element. She felt it more and more when at family prayer the whole household were met together, and she heard her aunt's sweet and high petitions again. And the blessing of peace fully settled down upon Eleanor when she was gone up to her room and had recalled and prayed over her aunt's words. She went to sleep with that glorious saying running through her thoughts – "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations."

CHAPTER IX

IN CORRESPONDENCE

"But there be million hearts accurst, where no sweet sunbursts shine,
And there be million hearts athirst for Love's immortal wine;
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above,
And if we did our duty, it might be full of love."

Peace had unbroken reign at Plassy from that time. Eleanor threw herself again eagerly into all her aunt's labours and schemes for the good and comfort of those around her. There was plenty to do; and she was Mrs. Caxton's excellent helper. Powis came into requisition anew; and as before, Eleanor traversed the dales and the hills on her various errands, swift and busy. That was not the only business going. Her aunt and she returned to their old literary habits, and read books and talked; and it was hard if Eleanor in her rides over the hills and over the meadows and along the streams did not bring back one hand full of wild flowers. She dressed the house with them, getting help from the garden when necessary; botanized a good deal; and began to grow as knowing in plants almost as Mrs. Caxton herself. She would come home loaded with wild thyme and gorse and black bryony and saxifrage and orchis flowers, having scoured hill and meadow and robbed the hedge-rows for them, which also gave her great tribute of wild roses. Then later came crimson campion and eyebright, dog roses and honeysuckles, columbine and centaury, grasses of all kinds, and harebell, and a multitude impossible to name; though the very naming is pleasant. Eleanor lived very much out of doors, and was likened by her aunt to a rural Flora or Proserpine that summer; though when in the house she was just the most sonsy, sensible, companionable little earthly maiden that could be fancied. Eleanor was not under size indeed; but so much like her own wild flowers in pure simpleness and sweet natural good qualities that Mrs. Caxton was sometimes inclined to bestow the endearing diminutive upon her; so sound and sweet she was.

"And what are all these?" said Mrs. Caxton one day stopping before an elegant basket.

"Don't you like them?"

"Very much. Why you have got a good many kinds here."

"That is Hart's Tongue, you know – that is wall spleenwort, and that is the other kind; handsome things are they not?"

"And this?"

"That is the forked spleenwort. You don't know it? I rode away, away up the mountain for it yesterday That is where I got those Woodsia's too – aren't they beautiful? I was gay to find those; they are not common."

"No. And this is not common, to me."

"Don't you know it, aunt Caxton? It grows just it the spray of a waterfall – this and this; they are polypodies. That is another – that came from the old round tower."

"And where did you get these? – these waterfall ferns?"

"I got them at the Bandel of Helig."

"There? My dear child! how could you, without risk?"

"Without much risk, aunty."

"How did you ever know the Bandel?"

"I have been there before, aunt Caxton."

"I think I never shewed it to you?"

"No ma'am; – but Mr. Rhys did."

His name had scarcely been mentioned before since Eleanor had come to the farm. It was mentioned now with a cognizance of that fact. Mrs. Caxton was silent a little.

"Why have you put these green things here without a rose or two? they are all alone in their greenness."

"I like them better so, aunty. They are beautiful enough by themselves; but if you put a rose there, you cannot help looking at it."

Mrs. Caxton smiled and turned away.

One thing in the midst of all these natural explorations, remained unused; and that a thing most likely, one would have thought, to be applied to for help. The microscope stood on one side apparently forgotten. It always stood there, in the sitting parlour, in full view; but nobody seemed to be conscious of its existence. Eleanor never touched it; Mrs. Caxton never spoke of it.

From home meantime, Eleanor heard little that was satisfactory. Julia was the only one that wrote, and her letters gave painful subjects for thought. Her father was very unlike himself, Julia said, and growing more feeble and more ill every day; though by slow degrees. She wished Eleanor would write her letters without any religion in them; for she supposed that was what her mother would not let her read; so she never had the comfort of seeing Eleanor's letters for herself, but Mrs. Powle read aloud bits from them. "Very little bits, too," added Julia, "I guess your letters have more religion in them than anything else. But you see it is no use." Eleanor read this passage aloud to Mrs. Caxton.

"Is that true, Eleanor?"

"No, ma'am. I write to Julia of everything that I do, all day long, and of everything and everybody that interests me. What mamma does not like comes in, of course, with it all; but I do very little preaching, aunt Caxton."

"I would go on just so, my dear. I would not alter the style of my letters."

So the flowers of June were replaced by the flowers of July; and the beauties of July gave place to the purple "ling" of August, with gentian and centaury and St. John's wort; and then came the Autumn changes, with the less delicate blossoms of that later time, amidst which the eclipsed meadow-sweet came quite into favour again. Still Eleanor brought wild things from the hills and the streams, though she applied more now to Mrs. Caxton's home store in the garden; wild mints and Artemisias and the Michaelmas daisy still came home with her from her rides and walks; the rides and walks in which Eleanor was a ministering angel to many a poor house, many an ignorant soul and many a failing or ailing body.

Then came October; and with the first days of October the news that her father was dead.

It added much bitterness to Eleanor's grief, that Mrs. Powle entirely declined to have her come home, even for a brief stay. If she chose to submit to conditions, her mother wrote, she would be welcome; it was not too late; but if she held to her perversity, she must bear the consequences. She did not own her nor want her. She gave her up to her aunt Caxton. Her remaining daughter was in her hands, and she meant to keep her there. Eleanor, she knew, if she came home would come to sow rebellion. She should not come to do that, either then or at all.

Mildly quiet and decided Mrs. Powle's letter was; very decided, and so cool as to give every assurance the decision would be persisted in. Eleanor felt this very much. She kept on her usual way of life without any variation; but the radiant bright look of her face was permanently saddened. She was just as sweet and companionable an assistant to her aunt as ever; but from month to month Mrs. Caxton saw that a shadow lay deep upon her heart. No shadow could have less of anything like hard edges.

They had been sitting at work one night late in the winter, those two, the aunt and the niece; and having at last put up her work Eleanor sat gravely poring into the red coals on the hearth; those thought-provoking, life-stirring, strange things, glowing and sparkling between life and death like ourselves. Eleanor's face was very sober.

"Aunt Caxton," she said at length, – "my life seems such a confusion to me!"

"So everything seems that we do not understand," Mrs. Caxton said.

"But is it not, aunty? I seem taken from everything that I ought most naturally to do – papa, Julia, mamma. I feel like a banished person, I suppose; only I have the strange feeling of being banished from my place in the world."

"What do you think of such a life as Mr. Rhys is leading?"

"I think it is straight, and beautiful," – Eleanor answered, looking still into the fire. "Nothing can be further from confusion. He is inhis place."

"He is in a sort of banishment, however."

"Not from that! And it is voluntary banishment – for his Master's sake.That is not sorrowful, aunt Caxton."

"Not when the Lord's banished ones make their home in him. And I do not doubt but Mr. Rhys does that."