The Old Helmet. Volume I

"I wish you to understand this thoroughly. It will draw on consequences that you would not like. It will make me such a woman as you would not, I feel, wish your wife to be. I shall follow a course of life and action that in many things, I know, would be extremely distasteful to you. Yet I must follow them – I can do no other – I dare do no other. I cannot live as I have lived. No, not for any reward or consideration that could be offered me. Nor to avoid any human anger.

"I think you would probably choose never to see me at the Priory, rather than to see me there such a woman as I shall be. In that case I shall be very sorry for all the disagreeable consequences which would to you attend the annulling of the contract formed between us. My own part of them I am ready to bear.

"ELEANOR POWLE."

The letter was read through almost under Eleanor's own eyes. She looked furtively, as she could, to see how Mr. Carlisle took it. He did not seem to take it at all; she could find no change in his face. If the brow slightly bent before her did slightly knit itself in sterner lines than common, she could not be sure of it, bent as it was; and when he looked up, there was no such expression there. He looked as pleasant as possible.

"Do you want me to laugh at you?" he said.

"That was not the precise object I had in writing," said Eleanor soberly.

"I do not suppose it, and yet I feel very much like laughing at you a little. So you think you can make yourself a woman I would not like, – eh, my darling?"

He had drawn Eleanor's head down to his shoulder, within easy reach of his lips, but he did not kiss her. His right hand smoothed back the masses of her beautiful hair, and then rested on her cheek while he looked into the face thus held for near inspection; much as one handles a child. The touch was light and caressing, and calm as power too. Eleanor breathed quick. She could not bear it. She forced herself back where she could look at him.

"You are taking it lightly, but I mean it very seriously," she said. "I think I could – I think I shall. I did not write you such a letter without very deep reason."

He still retained his hold of her, and in his right hand had captured one of hers. This hand he now brought to his lips, kissing and caressing it.

"I do not think I understand it yet," he said. "What are you going to do with yourself? Is it your old passion for a monastic life come up again? do you want the old Priory built up, and me for a Father Confessor?"

Did he mean ever to loose his hold of the little hand he held so lightly and firmly? Never! Eleanor's head drooped.

"What is it, Eleanor?"

"It is serious work, Mr. Carlisle; and you will not believe me."

"Make me serious too. Tell me a little more definitely what dreadful thing I am to expect. What sort of a woman is my wife going to be?"

"Such a one as you would not have, if you knew it; – such a one as you never would have sought, if I had known it myself earlier; I feel sure." Eleanor's colour glowed all over her face and brow; nevertheless she spoke steadily.

"Enigmatical!" said Mr. Carlisle. "The only thing I understand is this – and this – " and he kissed alternately her cheek and lips. "Hereis my wife —here is what I wish her to be. It will be all right the twenty-first of next month. What will you do after that, Eleanor?"

Eleanor was silent, mortified, troubled, silenced. What was the use of trying to explain herself?

"What do you want to do, Eleanor? Give all your money to the poor? I believe that is your pet fancy. Is that what you mean to do?"

Eleanor's cheeks burnt again. "You know I have very little money to give, Mr. Carlisle. But I have determined to give myself."

"To me?"

"No, no. I mean, to duties and commands higher than any human obligation. And they may, and probably will, oblige me to live in a way that would not please you."

"Let us see. What is the novelty?"

"I am going to live – it is right I should tell you, whether you will believe me or not, – I am going to live henceforth not for this world but the other."

"How?" said he, looking at her with his clear brilliant eyes.

"I do not know, in detail. But you know, in the Church service, the pomps and vanities of the world are renounced; whatever that involves, it will find me obedient."

"What has put this fancy in your head, Eleanor?"

"A sense of danger, first, I think."

"A sense of danger! Danger of what?"

"Yes. A feeling of being unready for that other life to which I might at any time go; – that other world, I mean. I cannot be happy so." She was agitated; her colour was high; her nerves trembled.

"How came this 'sense of danger' into your head? what brought it, or suggested it?"

"When I was ill last summer – I felt it then. I have felt it since. I feel my head uncovered to meet the storm that may at any time break upon it. I am going to live, if I can, as people live whom you would laugh at; you would call them fanatics and fools. It is the only way for me to be happy; but you would not like it in one near you."

"Go in a black dress, Eleanor?"

She was silent. She very nearly burst into tears, but prevented that.

"You can't terrify me," said Mr. Carlisle, lazily throwing himself back in his chair. "I don't get up a 'sense of danger' as easily as you do, darling. One look in your face puts all that to flight at once. I am safe. You may do what you like."

"You would not say that by and by," said Eleanor.

"Would I not?" said he, rousing up and drawing her tenderly but irresistibly to his arms again. "But make proper amends to me for breaking rules to-night, and you shall have carte blanche for this new fancy, Eleanor. How are you going to ask my forgiveness?"

"You ought to ask mine – for you will not attend to me."

"Contumacious?" said he lightly, touching her lips as if they were a goblet and he were taking sips of the wine; – "then I shall take my own amends. You shall live as you please, darling, only take me along with you."

"You will not go."

"How do you know?"

"Neither your feeling nor your taste agree with it."

"What are you going to do!" said he half laughing, holding her fast and looking down into her face. "My little Eleanor! Make yourself a grey nun, or a blue Puritan? Grey becomes you, darling; it makes a duchess of you; and blue is set off by this magnificent brown head of yours. I will answer for my taste in either event; and I think you could bear, and consequently I could, all the other colours in the rainbow. As for your idea, of making yourself a woman that I would not like, I do not think you can compass it. You may try. I will not let you go too far."

"You cannot hinder it, Macintosh," said Eleanor in a low voice.

"Kiss me!" said he laughingly.

Eleanor slowly raised her head from his shoulder and obeyed, so far as a very dainty and shyly given permission went; feeling bitterly that she had brought herself into bonds from which only Mr. Carlisle's hand could release her. She could not break them herself. What possible reason could she assign? And so she was in his power.

"Cheeks hot, and hands cold," said Mr. Carlisle to himself as he walked away through the rooms. "I wish the twenty-first were to-morrow!" He stopped in the drawing-room to hold a consultation of some length with Mrs. Powle; in which however he confided to her no more than that the last night's attention to her nurse's daughter had been quite too much for Eleanor, and he should think it extremely injudicious to allow it again. Which Mrs. Powle had no idea of doing.

Neither had Eleanor any idea of attempting it. But she spent half that night in heart-ache and in baffled searchings for a path out of her difficulties. What could she do? If Mr. Carlisle would marry her, she saw no help for it; and to disgust him with her would be a difficult matter. For oh, Eleanor knew, that though he would not like a religious wife, he had good reason to trust his own power of regulating any tendency of that sort which might offend him. Once his wife, once let that strong arm have a right to be round her permanently; and Eleanor knew it would be an effectual bar against whatever he wished to keep at a distance.

Eleanor was armed with no Christian armour; no helmet or shield of protection had she; all she had was the strength of fear, and the resolute determination to seek until she should find that panoply in which she would be safe and strong. Once married to Mr. Carlisle, and she felt that her determination would be in danger, and her resolution meet another resolution with which it might have hard fighting to do. Ay, and who knew whether hers would overcome! She must not finish this marriage; yet how induce Mr. Carlisle to think of her as she wished?

"I declare," said Mrs. Powle coming into her room the next day, "that one night's sitting up, has done the work of a week's illness upon you, Eleanor! Mr. Carlisle is right."