The Old Helmet. Volume II

"Where did you lose the rest of it, Eleanor?"

"It was in London."

He saw by the light in Eleanor's eyes, which looked at him now, that there was something behind. Yet she hesitated.

"Sealed lips?" said he bending forward again to her face. "You must unseal them, Eleanor."

"Do you want me to tell you all that?" she asked questioningly.

"I want you to tell me everything."

"It is only a long story."

"Do not make it short."

An easy matter! to go on and tell it with her two hands prisoners, and those particularly clear eyes looking into her face. It served to shew the grace that belonged to Eleanor, the way that in these circumstances she began what she had to say. Where another woman would have been awkward, she spoke with the simple sweet poise of manner that had been the admiration of many a company, and that made Mr. Rhys now press the little hands closer in his own. A little evident shy reluctance only added to the grace.

"It is a good while ago – I felt, Mr. Rhys, that I wanted, – just that which makes one willing to go anywhere and do anything; though not for that reason. I expected to live in England always. I wanted to know more of Christ. I wanted it, not for work's sake but for happiness' sake. I was a Christian, I suppose; but I knew – I had seen and felt – that there were things, – there was a height of Christian life and attainment, that I had not reached; but where I had seen other people, with a light upon their brows that I knew never shined upon mine. I knew whence it came – I knew what I wanted – more knowledge of Christ, more love of him."

"When was this?"

"It is a good while ago. It is – it was, – time seems so confused to me! – I know it was the winter after you went away. I think it was near the spring. We were in London."

"Yes."

"I was cold at the heart of religion. I was not happy. I knew what I wanted – more love to Christ."

"You did love him."

"Yes; but you know what it is just to love him a little. I went as duty bade me; but the love of him did not make all duty happy. I had seen you live differently – I saw others – and I could not be content as I was.

"We were in town then. One night I sat up all night, and gave the whole night to it."

"To seeking Jesus?"

"I wanted to get out of my coldness and find him!"

"And you found him?"

"Not soon. I spent the night in it. I prayed – and I walked the floor and prayed – and I shed a great many tears over the Bible. I felt as if I must have what I wanted – but I could not seem to get any nearer to it. The whole night passed away – and I had wearied myself – and I had got nothing.

"The dawn was just breaking, when I got up from my knees the last time. I was almost giving up in despair. I had done all I could – what could I do more? I went to the window and opened it. The light was just creeping up in the sky – there was a little streak of brightness along the horizon, or of light rather, but it was the herald of brightness. I felt desolate and tired, and like giving up hope and quest together. The dull grey canopy overhead seemed just like my heart. I cannot tell you how enviously I looked at the eastern dawn, wishing the light would break upon my own horizon. I shall never forget it. It was dusky yet down in the streets and over the housetops; the city had not waked up in our quarter; it was still yet, and the breath of the morning's freshness came to me and revived me and mocked me both at once. I could have cried for sadness, if I had not been too down-hearted and weary.

"While I stood there, hearing the morning's promise, I suppose, without knowing it – there came up from the streets somewhere below me, and near, the song of a chimney-sweep. I can never tell you how it came! It came – but not yet; at first I only knew what he was singing by the notes of the air; but the next verse he began came up clear and strong to me at the window. He was singing those words —

"'Twas a heaven below
My Redeemer to know;
And the angels could do nothing more,
Than to fall at his feet,
And the story repeat,
And the Lover of sinners adore.'

"I thought, it seemed that a band of angels came and carried those words up past my window! And the dawn came in my heart. I cannot tell you how, – I seemed to see everything at once. I saw what a heaven below it is, to know the love of Christ. I think my heart was something like the Ganges when the tide is coming in. I thought, if the angels could do nothing more than praise him, neither could I! I fell at his feet then – I do not think I have ever really left them since – not for long at a time; and since then my great wish has been to be allowed to glorify him. I have had no fears of anything in the way."

Eleanor had not been able to get through her "long story" without tears; but they came very much against her will. She could not see, yet somehow she felt the strong sympathetic emotion with which she was listened to. She could hear it, in the subdued intonation of Mr. Rhys's words.

"'Keep yourselves in the love of God.' How shall we do it, Eleanor?"

She answered without raising her eyes – "'The Lord is good unto them that wait for him.'"

"And, 'if ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.'"

There was silence a moment.

"That commandment must take me away for a while, Eleanor." She looked up.

"I thought," he said, with his sweet arch smile, "I might take so much of a honeymoon as one broken day – but there is a poor sick man a mile off who wants me; and brother Balliol has had the schooner affairs to attend to. I shall be gone an hour. Will you stay here? or shall I take you to the other house?"

"May I stay here?"

"Certainly. You can fasten the door, and then if any visiters come they will think I am not at home. I will give Solomon directions."

"Who is Solomon?"

"Solomon is – I will introduce him to you!" and with a very bright face Mr. Rhys went off into his study, coming back again in a moment and with his hat. He went to a door opposite that by which Eleanor had entered the house, and blew a shrill whistle.

"Solomon is my fast friend and very faithful servant," he said returning to Eleanor. "You saw him at dinner – but it is time he should know you."

In came Solomon; a very black specimen of the islanders, in a dress something like that which Eleanor had noticed on the man in the canoe. Solomon's features were undeniably good, if somewhat heavy; they had sense and manliness; and his eye was mildly quiet and genial in its expression. It brightened, Eleanor saw, as he listened to Mr. Rhys's words; to which she also listened without being able to understand them, and wondering at the warm feeling of her cheeks. Solomon's gratulations were mainly given with his face, for all the English words he could get out were, "glad – see – Misi Risi" – Mr. Rhys laughed and dismissed him, and went off himself.

Eleanor was half glad to be left alone for a time. She fastened the door, not for fear, but that her solitude might not be intruded upon; then walked up and down over the soft mats of the centre room and tried to bring her spirits to some quiet of realization. But she could not. The change had been so sudden, from her wandering state of uncertainty and expectation to absolute content and rest, of body and mind at once, that her mental like her actual footing seemed to sway and heave yet with the upheavings that were past. She could not settle down to anything like a composed state of mind. She could not get accustomed yet to Mr. Rhys in his new character. As the children say, it was "too good to be true."

A little unready to be still, she went off again into the room specially prepared for her, where the green jalousies shaded the windows. One window here was at the end; a direction in which Eleanor had not looked. She softly raised the jalousies a little, expecting to see just the waving bananas and other plants of the tropical garden that surrounded the house; or perhaps servants' offices, about which she had a good deal of curiosity.

Instead of that, the window revealed a landscape of such beauty that Eleanor involuntarily pulled up the blind and sat entranced before it. No such thing as servants or servants' offices. A wide receding stretch of broken country, rising in the distance to the dignity of blue precipitous hills; a gorge of which opened far away, to delight and draw the eye into its misty depth; a middle distance of lordly forest, with patches of clearing; bits of tropical vegetation at hand, and over them and over it all a tropical sky. In one direction the view was very open. Eleanor could discern a bit of a pathway winding through it, and once or twice a dark figure moving along its course. This was Vuliva! this was her foreign home! the region where darkness and light were struggling foot by foot for the mastery; where heathen temples were falling and heathen misery giving place to the joy of the gospel, but where the gospel had to fight them yet. Eleanor looked till her heart was too full to look any longer; and then turned aside to get the only possible relief in prayer.

The hour was near gone when she went to her window again. The day was cooling towards the evening. Well she guessed that this window had been specially arranged for her. In everything that had been done in the house she had seen that same watchful care for her pleasure and comfort. There never was a house that seemed to be so love's work; Mr. Rhys's own hand had most manifestly been everywhere; and the furniture that Mrs. Caxton had sent he had placed. But Mrs. Caxton had not sent all. Eleanor's eye rested on a dressing-table that certainly never came from England. It was pretty enough; it was very pretty, even to her notions; yet it had cost nothing, and was as nearly as possible made of nothing. Yes, for she looked; the frame was only some native reeds or canes and a bit of board; the rest was white muslin drapery, which would pack away in a very few square inches of room, but now hung in pretty folds around the glass and covered the frame. Eleanor just looked and wondered; no more; for the hour was up, and she went to her window and raised the jalousies again. She was more quiet now, she thought; but her heart throbbed with the thought of Mr. Rhys and his return.

She looked over the beautiful wild country, watching for him. The light was fair on the blue hills; the sea-breeze fluttered the leaves of the cocoanut trees and waved the long thick leaves of the banana. She heard no other sound near or far, till the quick swift tread she was listening for came to her ear. Nobody was to be seen; but the step was not to be mistaken. Eleanor got to the front door and had it open just in time to see him come.

They stood then together in the doorway, for the view was fair on the river side too. The opposite shore was beautiful, and the houses of the heathen village had a great interest for Eleanor, aside from their effect as part of the landscape; but her shyness was upon her again, and she had a thorough consciousness that Mr. Rhys did not see how the light fell on either shore. At last he put his arm round her and drew her up to his side, saying,

"And so you did not get my letters in Sydney. – Poor little dove!"

It struck Eleanor with a curious pleasure, these words. They would have been true, she knew, in the lips of no other mortal, as also certainly to no other mortal would it have occurred to use them. She was not the sort of person by any means to whom such an appellation would generally be given. To be sure her temper was of the finest, but then also it had a body to it. Yet here she knew it was true; and he knew; it was spoken not by any arrogance, but by a purely frank and natural understanding of their mutual natures and relations. She answered by a smile, exceeding sweet and sparkling, as well as conscious, to the face that was looking down at her with a little bit of provoking archness upon its gravity; and their lips met in a long sealing kiss. Husband and wife understood each other.

Perhaps Mr. Rhys knew it, for it seemed as if his lips could hardly leave hers; and Eleanor's face was all manner of lights.