The Old Helmet. Volume I

It was a very fast train, too; and growing in importance and thickening in its urgency of speed. Every day the preparations converged more nearly towards their great focus, the twenty-first of December. Eleanor felt the whirl of circumstances, felt borne off her feet and carried away with them; and felt it hopelessly. She knew not what to urge that should be considered sufficient reason either by her mother or Mr. Carlisle for even delaying, much less breaking off the match. She was grave and proud, and unsatisfactory, as much as it was in her nature to be, partly on purpose; and Mr. Carlisle was not satisfied, and hurried on things all the more. He kept his temper perfectly, whatever thoughts he had; he rode and walked with Eleanor, when she would go, with the same cool and faultless manner; when she would not, he sometimes let it pass and sometimes made her go; but once or twice he failed in doing this; and recognized the possibility of Eleanor's ability to give him trouble. He knew his own power however; on the whole he liked her quite as well for it.

"What is the matter with you, my darling?" he said one day. "You are not like yourself."

"I am not happy," said Eleanor. "I told you I had a doubt unsettled upon my mind; and till that doubt is put at rest I cannot be happy; I cannot have peace; you will take no pleasure in me."

"Why do you not settle it then?" said Mr. Carlisle, quietly.

"Because I have no chance. I have not a moment to think, in this whirl where I am living. If you would put off the twenty-first of next month to the twenty-first of some month in the spring – or summer – I might have a breathing place, and get myself in order. I cannot, now."

"You will have time to think, love, when you get to the Priory," Mr. Carlisle observed in the same tone – an absolute tone.

"Yes. I know how that would be!" Eleanor answered bitterly. "But I can take no pleasure in anything, – I cannot have any rest or comfort, – as long as I know that if anything happened to me – if death came suddenly – I am utterly unready. I cannot be happy so."

"I think I had better send Dr. Cairnes to see you," said Mr. Carlisle. "He is in duty bound to be the family physician in all things spiritual where they need him. But this is morbid, Eleanor. I know how it is. These are only whims, my darling, that will never outlive that day you dread so much."

He had drawn her into his arms as he spoke; but in his touch and his kiss Eleanor felt or fancied something masterful, which irritated her.

"If I thought that, Mr. Carlisle," she said, – "if I knew it was true, – that day would never come!"

Mr. Carlisle's self-control was perfect; so was his tact. He made no answer at all to this speech; only gave Eleanor two or three more of those quiet ownership kisses. No appearance of discomposure in his manner or in his voice when he spoke; still holding her in his arms.

"I shall know how to punish you one of these days for this," he said. "You may expect to be laughed at a little, my darling, when you turn penitent. Which will not hinder the moment from coming."

And so, dismissing the matter and her with another light touch of her lips, he left her.

"Will it be so?" thought Eleanor. "Shall I be so within his control, that I shall even sue to him to forget and pardon this word of my true indignation? Once his wife – once let the twenty-first of December come – and there will be no more help for me. What shall I do?"

She was desperate, but she saw no opening. She saw however the next day that Mr. Carlisle was coldly displeased with her. She was afraid to have him remain so; and made conciliations. These were accepted immediately and frankly, but so at the same time as made her feel she had lost ground and given Mr. Carlisle an advantage; every inch of which he knew and took. Nobody had seen the tokens of any part of all this passage of arms; in three days all was just as it had been, except Eleanor's lost ground. And three days more were gone before the twenty-first of December.

CHAPTER X.

AT LUNCHEON

"And, once wed,
So just a man and gentle, could not choose
But make my life as smooth as marriage-ring."

"Macintosh, do you ever condescend to do such a thing as walk? – take a walk, I mean?"

"You may command me," he answered somewhat lazily.

"May I? For the walk; but I want further to make a visit in the village."

"You may make twenty, if you feel inclined. I will order the horses to meet us there – shall I? or do you not wish to do anything but walk to-day?"

"O yes. After my visit is paid, I shall be ready."

"But it will be very inconvenient to walk so far in your habit. Can you manage that?"

"I expect to enlighten you a good deal as to a woman's power of managing," said Eleanor.

"Is that a warning?" said he, making her turn her face towards him.

Eleanor gratified him with one of her full mischievous smiles.

"Did anybody ever tell you," said he continuing the inspection, "that you were handsome?"

"It never was worth anybody's while."

"How was that?"

"Simply, that he would have gained nothing by it."

"Then I suppose I should not, or you think so?"

"Nothing in the world. Mr. Carlisle, if you please, I will go and put on my hat."

The day was November in a mild mood; pleasant enough for a walk; and so one at least of the two found it. For Eleanor, she was in a divided mood; yet even to her the exercise was grateful, and brought some glow and stir of spirits through the body to the mind. At times, too, now, she almost bent before what seemed her fate, in hopelessness of escaping from it; and at those times she strove to accommodate herself to it, and tried to propitiate her captor. She did this from a twofold motive. She did fear him, and feared to have him anything but pleased with her; half slumbering that feeling lay; another feeling she was keenly conscious of. The love that he had for her; a gift that no woman can receive and be wholly unmoved by it; the affection she herself had allowed him to bestow, in full faith that it would not be thrown away; that stung Eleanor with grief and self-reproach; and made her at times question whether her duty did not lie where she had formally engaged it should. At such times she was very subdued in gentleness and in observance of Mr. Carlisle's pleasure; subdued to a meekness foreign to her natural mood, and which generally, to tell the truth, was accompanied by a very unwonted sedateness of spirits also; something very like the sedateness of despair.

She walked now silently the first half of the way; managing her long habit in a way that she knew Mr. Carlisle knew, though he took no open notice of it. The day was quite still, the road footing good. A slight rime hung about the distance, veiled faintly the Rythdale woods, enshrouded the far-off village, as they now and then caught glimpses of it, in its tuft of surrounding trees. Yet near at hand, the air seemed clear and mellow; there was no November chill. It was a brown world, however, through which the two walked; life and freshness all gone from vegetation; the leaves in most cases fallen from the trees, and where they still hung looking as sear and withered as frost and decay could make them.

"Do you abhor all compliments?" said Mr. Carlisle, breaking a silence that for some time had been broken only by the quick ring of their footsteps upon the ground.

"No, sir."

"That is frank; yet I am half afraid to present the one which is on my lips."

"Perhaps it is not worth while," said Eleanor, with a gleam of a smile which was very alluring. "You are going to tell me, possibly, that I am a good walker."

"I do not know why I should let you silence me. No, I was not going to tell you that you are a good walker; you know it already. The compliment of beauty, that you scorned, was also perhaps no news to you. What I admire in you now, is something you do not know you have – and I do not mean you shall, by my means."

Eleanor's glance of amused curiosity, rewarded him.

"Are you expecting now, that I shall ask for it?"

"No; it would not be like you. You do not ask me for anything – that you can help, Eleanor. I shall have to make myself cunning in inventing situations of need that will drive you to it. It is pleasanter to me than you can imagine, to have your eyes seek mine with a request in them."

Eleanor coloured.

"There are the fieldfares!" she exclaimed presently.

"What is there melancholy in that?" said Mr. Carlisle laughingly.

"Nothing. Why?"

"You made the announcement as if you found it so."

"I was thinking of the time I saw the fieldfares last, – when they were gathering together preparing for their taking flight; and now here they are back again! It seems so little while – and yet it seems a long while too. The summer has gone."