The Old Helmet. Volume II

"Yes, ma'am – not much. I found the Nepeta and the ivy-leaved Veronica under the hedge; and whitlow grass near the old tower. That's the willow catkin you know of course – and sloe. That's all – but it's spring."

A shade came over the faces of both. Where might another spring find her.

"I have got something more for you," said Mrs. Caxton.

"My letter, ma'am! – Had you one, aunt Caxton?"

"Yes."

Eleanor could not tell from her aunt's answer what the letter might be. She went off with her own, having parted suddenly with all the colour she had brought in with her. It returned again however soon.

Mrs. Powle declared that according to all her experience and power of judging of the world, her daughter and her sister Mrs. Caxton were both entirely crazy. She had never, in her life, heard of anything so utterly absurd and ridiculous as the proposition upon which they had required her to give an opinion. Her opinion found no words in the English language strong enough in which to give it. That Eleanor should be willing to forego every earthly prospect of good or pleasure, was like Eleanor; that is, it was like the present Eleanor; an entirely infatuated, blind, fanatical, unreasonable thing. Mrs. Powle had given up the expectation of anything wiser or better from her, until years and the consequences of her folly should have taught her when it would be too late. Why Eleanor, if she wished to throw herself away, should pitch upon the South Seas for the place of her retirement, was a piece of the same mysterious fatuity which marked the whole proceeding. Why she could think of no pleasanter wedding journey than a voyage of twelve thousand miles in search of a husband, was but another incomprehensible point. Mrs. Powle had a curiosity to know what Eleanor expected to live upon out there, where she presumed the natives practised no agriculture and wheaten flour was a luxury unknown? And what she expected to do? However, having thus given her opinion, Mrs. Powle went on to say, that she must quite decline to give it. She regarded Eleanor as entirely the child of her aunt Caxton, as she understood was also Mrs. Caxton's own view; most justly, in Mrs. Powle's opinion, since conversion and adoption to Mrs. Caxton's own family and mind must be amply sufficient to supersede the accident of birth. At any rate, Mrs. Powle claimed no jurisdiction in the matter; did not choose to exercise any. She felt herself incompetent. One daughter she had still remaining, whom she hoped to keep her own, guarding her against the influences which had made so wide a separation between her eldest and the family and sphere to which she belonged. Julia, she hoped, would one day do her honour. As for the islands of the South Seas, or the peculiar views and habits of life entertained by those white people who chose them for their residence, Mrs. Powle declared she was incapable from very ignorance of understanding or giving judgment about them. She made the whole question, together with her daughter, over to her sister Mrs. Caxton, who she did not doubt would do wisely according to her notions. But as they were not the notions of the world generally, they were quite incomprehensible to the writer, and in a sphere entirely beyond and without her cognizance. She hoped Eleanor would be happy – if it were not absurd to hope an impossibility.

But on one point the letter was clear, if on no other. Eleanor should not come home. She had ruined her own prospects; Mrs. Powle could not help that; she should not ruin Julia's. Whether she stayed in England or whether she went on her fool's voyage, this was a certain thing. She should not see Julia, to infect her. Mrs. Powle desired to be informed of Eleanor's movements; that if she went she herself might meet her in London before she sailed. But she would not let her see Julia either then or at any time.

This cruel letter broke Eleanor down completely. It settled the question of her life indeed; and settled it according to her wish and against her fears; but for all that, it was a letter of banishment and renunciation. With something of the feeling which makes a wounded creature run to shelter, Eleanor gathered up her papers and went down to Mrs. Caxton; threw them into her lap, and kneeling beside her put herself in her arms.

"What is it, my child?" said Mrs. Caxton. "What does your mother say to you?"

"She gives her consent – but she gives me up to you, aunt Caxton. She counts me your child and not hers."

"My love, I asked her to do so. You have been mine, in my own mind, for a long time past. My Eleanor!" – And Mrs. Caxton's kiss and her warm clasping arms spoke more than her words.

"But she renounces me – and she will not let me see Julia." – Eleanor was in very great distress.

"She will by and by. She will not hold to that."

"She says she will not at all. O aunt Caxton, I want to see Julia again!" —

"Were you faithful to Julia while you were with her?"

"Yes – I think so – while I could. I had hardly any chance the last winter I was at home; we were never together; but I seized what I could."

"Your mother kept you apart?"

"I believe so."

"My child, remember, as one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, so one word is as a thousand words; he can make it do his work. All we have to do is to be faithful, and then trust. You recollect the words of that grand hymn on the Will of God —

"'I do the little I can do,

And leave the rest to thee.'

"I don't think I know it."

Mrs. Caxton went on.

"'When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to thee.

"'I know not what it is to doubt;
My heart is ever gay;
I run no risk, for, come what will,
Thou always hast thy way.

"'I have no cares, O blessed will!
For all my cares are thine.
I live in triumph, Lord, for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.'"

Eleanor lifted up her face and pressed a long kiss on her aunt's lips.

"But I want to see Julia!"

"My love, I think you will. It will be some time yet before you can possibly leave England. I think your mother will withdraw her prohibition before that time. Meanwhile – "

Eleanor lay with her head on Mrs. Caxton's bosom, her brown eyes looking out with a sweet and sorrowful wistfulness towards the light. Mrs. Caxton read them.

"This gift would be very precious to me, my child," she said, tightening the pressure of the arms which still were wrapped round Eleanor, – "if I were not obliged so soon to make it over to somebody else. But I will not be selfish. It is unspeakably precious to me now. It gives me the right to take care of you. I asked your mother for it. I am greatly obliged to her. Now what are you going to do to-day?"

"Write – to Fiji," said Eleanor slowly and without moving.

"Right; and so will I. And do not you be overmuch concerned about

Julia. There is another verse of that hymn, which I often think of —

"'I love to see thee bring to nought,
The plans of wily men;
When simple hearts outwit the wise,
O thou art loveliest then!'"

CHAPTER XII

IN WAITING

"If Proteus like your journey, when you come,
No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone;
I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal."

The way was clear, and Eleanor wrote to Fiji as she had said. She could not however get rid of her surprise that her mother had permitted the tenor of these letters to be what it was. What had moved Mrs. Powle, so to act against all her likings and habits of action? How came she to allow her daughter to go to the South Seas and be a missionary?

Several things which Eleanor knew nothing of, and which so affected the drift of Mrs. Powle's current of life that she was only, according to custom, sailing with it and not struggling against it. When people seem to act unlike themselves, it is either that you do not know themselves, or do not know some other things which they know. So in this case. For one thing, to name the greatest first, Mr. Carlisle was unmistakeably turning his attention to another lady, a new star in the world of society; an earl's daughter and an heiress. Whether heart-whole or not, which was best known to himself, Mr. Carlisle was prosecuting his addresses in this new quarter with undoubted zeal and determination. It was not the time for Eleanor now to come home! Let her do anything else, – was the dictate of pride. Now to come home, or even not to come home, remaining Eleanor Powle, was to confess in the world's eye a lamentably lost game; to take place as a rejected or vainly ambitious girl; the would-have-been lady of Rythdale. Anything but that! Eleanor might almost better die at once. She would not only have ruined her own prospects, but would greatly injure those of Julia, on whom her mother's hopes and pride were now all staked. Alfred was taken from her and put under guardians; Mrs. Powle did not build anything on him; he was a boy, and when he was a man he would be only Alfred Powle. Julia promised to be a beauty; on her making a fine match rested all Mrs. Powle's expectations from this world; and she was determined to spare no pains, expense, nor precautions. Therefore she resolved that the sisters should not be together, cost what it might. Good bye to all her cares or hopes on Julia's behalf, looking to a great establishment, if Julia became a Methodist! She might go on a farm like her aunt and sell cheeses. The thought of those cheeses froze the blood in Mrs. Powle's veins; that was a characteristic of good blood, she firmly believed. Therefore on every account, for every reason, nothing better could happen than that Eleanor should go to the South Seas. She would escape the shame of coming home; Julia would be out of danger of religious contamination; and she herself would be saved from the necessary odium of keeping one daughter in banishment and the other in seclusion; which odium she must incur if both of them remained in England and neither of them ever saw the other. All this would be cleverly saved. Then also, if Eleanor married a missionary and went to the other end of the world, her case could be very well dismissed as one of a religious enthusiasm – a visionary, fanatical excitement. Nay, there could be made even a little éclat about it. There would be no mortification, at any rate, comparable to that which must attend supposed overthrown schemes and disappointed ambition. Eleanor had chosen her own course, backed by her wealthy relation, Mrs. Caxton, who had adopted her; and whose views were entirely not of this world. Mrs. Powle deplored it, of course, but was unable to help it. Besides, Mrs. Caxton had answered, on her own knowledge, for the excellent character and superior qualities of the gentleman Eleanor was to marry; there was no fault to be found with him at all, except that he was a fanatic; and as Eleanor was a fanatic herself, that was only a one-sided objection.

Yes, Mrs. Caxton had answered for all that, on her own knowledge, of many years' standing; and she had said something more, which also weighed with Mrs. Powle and which Mrs. Powle could also mention among the good features of the case, without stating that it had had the force of an inducement with herself. Mrs. Caxton had asked indeed to be permitted to consider Eleanor her own, and had promised in that case to make Eleanor entirely her own care, both during Mrs. Caxton's life and afterwards; leaving Mrs. Powle free to devote all her fortune to Julia that would have been shared with Julia's sister. Mrs. Powle's means were not in her estimation large; she wanted every penny of them for the perfecting and carrying out of her plans which regarded her youngest daughter; she consented that the elder should own another mother and guardian. Mrs. Powle agreed to it all. But not satisfied with any step of the whole affair nevertheless, which all displeased her, from beginning to end, her own action included, she expressed her determination to Eleanor in terms which half broke Eleanor's heart; and left a long, lingering, sore spot there. To Mrs. Caxton Mrs. Powle's writing was much better worded; civil if not kind, and well mannered if not motherly.

The thing was done, at all events; Eleanor was formally made over to another mother and left free to do whatever her new guardian pleased. Letters of a different sort of temper were sent off upon their long journey to the South Seas; and there began a busy time at Plassy, in anticipation of Eleanor's following them. It was still very uncertain when that might be; opportunities must be waited for; such an opportunity as would satisfy Mrs. Caxton. In the mean while a great deal of business was on hand. Mrs. Caxton even made a journey up to London and took Eleanor with her; for the sake of inquiries and arrangements which could not be attended to from a distance. For the sake of purchases too, which could be made nowhere but in London. For Mrs. Caxton was bent, not only on supplying Eleanor with all that could be thought of in the way of outfit; but also on getting together to accompany or precede her everything that could be sent that might be useful or helpful to Mr. Rhys or comfortable in the household; in short, to transfer England as nearly as possible to Fiji. As freights of course were expensive, all these matters must be found and compressed in the smallest compass they could possibly know as their limits; and Mrs. Caxton was very busy. London did not hold them but a fortnight; the rest of the time work was done at Plassy.