IN SMOOTH WATER.
"But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear."
The morning came for the "Queen Esther" to sail. Mr. and Mrs. Amos were
on board first, and watched with eyes both kind and anxious to see
Eleanor when she should come. The little bonnet with chocolate ribbands
did not keep them waiting and the first smile and kiss to Mrs. Amos
made _her_ sure that all was right. She had been able to see scarce
anything of Eleanor during the weeks on shore; it was a refreshment to
have her near again. But Eleanor had turned immediately to attend to
Mr. Esthwaite.
"This is the meanest, most abominable thing of a vessel," he said,
"that ever Christians travelled in! It is an absurd proceeding
altogether. Why if the boards don't part company and go to pieces
before you get to Tonga--which I think they will--they don't give room
for all three of you to sit down in the cabin at once."
"The deck is of better capacity," Eleanor told him briskly.
"Such a deck! I wonder _you_, cousin Eleanor, can make up your mind to
endure it. There is not a man living who is worth such a sacrifice.
Horrid!"
"We hope it won't last a great while," Mr. Amos told him.
"It won't! That's what I say. You will all be deposited in the bottom
of the ocean, to pay you for not having been contented on shore. I
would not send a dog to sea in such a ship!"
"Cousin Esthwaite, you had better not stay in a situation so
disagreeable to you. You harass yourself for nothing. Shake hands. You
see the skipper is going to make sail directly."
Eleanor with a little play in the manner of this dismissal, was enough
in earnest to secure her point. Mr. Esthwaite felt in a manner
constrained to take his departure. He presumed however in the
circumstances to make interest for a cousinly kiss for good bye; which
was refused him with a cooler demonstration of dignity than he had yet
met with. It nettled him.
"There was the princess," whispered Mr. Amos to his wife.
"Good!" said Mrs. Amos.
"Good bye!" cried Mr. Esthwaite, disappearing over the schooner's side.
"_You_ are not fit for a missionary! I told you so before."
Eleanor turned to Mrs. Amos, ignoring entirely this little transaction,
and smiled at her. "I hope he has not made you nervous," she said.
"No," said Mrs. Amos; "I am not nervous. If I did not get sick I should
enjoy it; but I suppose I shall be sick as soon as we get out of the
harbour."
"Let us take the good of it then, until we are out of the harbour,"
said Eleanor. "If the real 'Queen Esther' was at all like her namesake,
Ahasuerus must have had a disorderly household."
They sat down together on the little vessel's deck, and watched the
beautiful shores from which they were gliding away. Eleanor was glad to
be off. The stay at Sydney had become oppressive to her; she wanted to
be at the end of her journey and know her fate; and hope and reason
whispered that she had reason to be glad. For all that, the poor child
had a great many shrinkings of heart. A vision of Mr. Rhys never came
up in one of its aspects,--that of stern and fastidious
delicacy,--without her heart seeming to die away within her. She could
not talk now. She watched the sunny islands and promontories of the
bay, changing and passing as the vessel slowly moved on; watched the
white houses of Sydney, grateful for the home she had found there,
longing exceedingly for a home once again that should be hers by right;
hope and tremulousness holding her heart together. This was a conflict
that prayer and faith did not quell; she could only come to a state of
humble submissiveness; and she never thought of reaching Vuliva without
a painful thrill that almost took away her breath. But she was glad to
be on the way.
The vessel was very small, not of so much as eighty tons burthen; its
accommodations were of course a good deal as Mr. Esthwaite had said;
and more than that, the condition of the vessel and of its appointments
was such that Mrs. Amos felt as if she could hardly endure to shut
herself up in the cabin. Eleanor resolved immediately that _she_ would
not; the deck was a better plate; and she prevailed to have a mattress
brought there for Mrs. Amos, where the good lady, though miserably ill
as soon as they were upon the ocean roll, yet could be spared the close
air and other horrors of the place below deck. Eleanor wrapped herself
in her sea cloak, and lived as she could on deck with her; having a
fine opportunity to read the stars at night, and using it. The weather
was very fine; the wind favouring and steady; and in the Southern
Ocean, under such conditions, there were some good things to be had,
even on board the "Queen Esther." There were glorious hymn-singings in
the early night-time; and Eleanor had never sung with more power on the
"Diana." There were beautiful Bible discussions between her and Mr.
Amos--Bible contemplations, rather; in which they brought Scripture to
Scripture to illustrate their point; until Mr. Amos declared he thought
it would be a grand way of holding a Bible-class; and poor Mrs. Amos
listened, delighted, though too sick to put in more than a word now and
then. And Eleanor's heart gave a throb every time she recollected that
another day had gone,--so many more miles were travelled over,--they
were so much nearer the journey's end. Her companions found no fault in
her. There was nothing of the princess now, but a gentle, thoughtful,
excellent nurse, and capital cook. On board the "Diana" there had been
little need of her services for Mrs. Amos; little indeed that could be
done. Now, in the fresh air on the open deck of the little schooner,
Mrs. Amos suffered less in one way; but all the party were sharers in
the discomforts of close accommodations and utter want of nicety in
anything done or furnished on board. The condition of everything was
such that it was scarcely possible to eat at all for well people. Poor
Mrs. Amos would have had no chance except for Eleanor's helpfulness and
clever management. As on board the "Diana," there was nobody in the
schooner that would refuse her anything; and Mr. Amos smiled to himself
to see where she would go and what she would do to secure some little
comfort for her sick friend, and how placidly she herself munched sea
biscuit and bad bread, after their little stock of fruit from Sydney
had given out. She would bring a cup of tea and a bit of toast to Mrs.
Amos, and herself take a crust with the equanimity of a philosopher.
Eleanor did not care much what she eat, those days. Her own good times
were when everybody else was asleep except the man at the wheel; and
she would kneel by the guards and watch the strange constellations, and
pray, and sometimes weep a flood of tears. Julia, her mother and
Alfred, Mrs. Caxton, her own intense loneliness and shrinking delicacy
in the uncertainty of her position, they were all well watered in tears
at some of those watching hours when nobody saw.
The "Queen Esther" made the Friendly Islands in something less than a
month, notwithstanding Mr. Esthwaite's unfavourable predictions. At
Tonga she was detained a week and more; unlading and taking in stores.
The party improved the time in a survey of the island and mission
premises and in pleasant intercourse with their friends stationed
there. Or what would have been pleasant intercourse; it was impossible
for Eleanor to enjoy it. So near her destination now, she was impatient
to be off; and drew short breaths until the days of delay were ended,
and the little schooner once more made sail and turned her head towards
Vuliva. She had seen Tonga with but half an eye.
Two or three days would finish their journey now. The weather and wind
continued fair; they dipped Tonga in the salt wave, and stood on and on
towards the unseen haven of their hopes and duties. A new change came
over Eleanor. It could not be reason, for reason had striven in vain.
Perhaps it was nature, which turning a corner took a new view of the
subject. But from the time of their leaving Tonga, she was unable to
entertain such troublesome apprehensions of what the end of the voyage
might have in store for her. Something whispered it could be nothing
very bad; and that point that she had so dreaded began to gather a glow
of widely different promise. A little nervousness and trepidation
remained about the thought of it; the determination abode fast to see
the very first word and look and know what they portended; but in place
of the rest of Eleanor's downhearted fear, there came now an
overwhelming sense of shamefacedness. This was something quite new and
unexpected; she had never known in her life more than a slight touch of
it before; and now it consumed her. Even before Mr. and Mrs. Amos she
felt it; and her eyes shunned theirs the last day or two as if she had
been a shy child. Why was it? She could not help it. This seemed to be
as natural and as unreasonable as the other; and in her lonely night
watches, instead of trembling and sinking of heart, Eleanor was
conscious that her cheeks dyed themselves with that unconquerable
feeling of shame. Very inconsistent indeed with her former state of
feeling; and that was according to Mrs. Caxton's words; not being
reasonable, reason could not be expected from them in anything. Her
friends had not penetrated her former mood; this they saw and smiled
at; and indeed it made Eleanor very lovely. There was a shy, blushing
grace about her the last day or two of the voyage which touched all she
did; indeed Mrs. Amos declared she could see it through the little
close straw bonnet, and it made her want to take Eleanor in her arms
and keep her there. Mr. Amos responded in his way of subdued fun, that
it was lucky she could not; as it would be likely to be a disputed
possession, and he did not want to get into a quarrel with his brethren
the first minute of his getting to land.
Up came Eleanor with some trifle for Mrs. Amos which she had been
preparing.
"We are almost in, sister Eleanor!" said Mr. Amos. "The captain says he
sees the land."
Eleanor's start was somewhat prompt, to look in the direction of 'Queen
Esther's' figure-head.
"The light is failing--I don't believe you can see it," said Mr. Amos;
"not to know it from the clouds. The captain says he shall stand off
and on through the night, so as to have daylight to go in. The entrance
is narrow. I suppose, if all is well, we shall have a wedding
to-morrow?"
Eleanor asked Mrs. Amos somewhat hastily, if what she had brought her
was good?
"Delicious!" Mrs. Amos said; and pulling Eleanor's face down to her she
gave it a kiss which spoke more things than her mere thanks. She was
rewarded with the sight of that crimson veil which spread itself over
Eleanor's cheeks, which most people thought it was a pleasure to see.
Eleanor thought she should get little sleep that night; but she was
disappointed. She slept long and sweetly on her mattress; and awoke to
find it quite day, with fair wind, and the schooner setting her head
full on the land which rose up before her fresh and green, yes, and
exceeding lovely. Eleanor got up and shook herself out; her companions
were still sleeping. She rolled her mattress together and sat down upon
it, to watch the approaches to the land. Fresher and fairer and greener
every moment it lifted itself to her view; she could hardly bear to
look steadily; her head went down for a minute often under the pressure
of the thoughts that crowded together. And when she raised it up, the
lovely hills of the island, with their novel outline and green
luxuriance, were nearer and clearer and higher than they had been a
minute before. Now she could discern here and there, she thought,
something that must be a dwelling-house; then trees began to detach
themselves from the universal mass; she saw smoke rising; and she
became aware too, that along the face of the island, fronting the
approach of the schooner, was a wall of surf; and a line of breakers
that seemed to stretch right and left and to be without an interval in
their white continuity. Eleanor did not see how the schooner was going
to get in; for the surf did not break evidently on the shore of the
island, but on a reef extending around the shore and at some little
distance from it. Yet the vessel stood straight on; and the sweet smell
of the land began to come with the freshness of the morning air.
"Is this Vuliva before us?" she asked of the skipper whom she found
standing near.
"Ay, ay!"
"Where are you going to get in? I see no opening."
"Ay, ay! There _is_ an opening, though."
And soon, looking keenly, Eleanor thought she could discern it. Not
until they were almost upon it however; and then it was a place of
rough water enough, though the regular fall of the surf was interrupted
and there was only a general upheaving and commotion of the waves among
themselves. It was nothing very terrific; the tide was in a good state;
and presently Eleanor saw that they had passed the barrier, they were
in smooth water, and making for an opening in the land immediately
opposite which might be either the mouth of a river or an inlet of the
sea. They neared it fast, sailed up into it; and there to Eleanor's
mortification the skipper dropped anchor and swung to. She saw no
settlement. Some few scattered houses were plain enough now to be seen;
but nothing even like a village. Tufts of trees waved gracefully; rock
and hill and rich-coloured lowland spread out a variety of beauty;
where was Vuliva, the station? This might be the island. Where were the
people? Could they come no nearer than this?
Mr. Amos made enquiry. The village, the skipper said, was "round the
pint;" in other words, behind a woody headland which just before them
bent the course of the river into a sharp angle. The schooner would go
no further; passengers and effects were to be transported the rest of
the way in boats. People they would see soon enough; so the master of
the "Queen Esther" advised them.
"I suppose the natives will carry the news of the schooner being here,
and our friends will come and look after us," Mr. Amos said.
Eleanor changed colour, and sat with a beating heart looking at the
fair fresh landscape which was to be--perhaps--the scene of her future
home. The scene was peace itself. Still water after the upheavings of
the ocean; the smell and almost the fluttering sound of the green
leaves in the delicious wind; the ripple on the surface of the little
river; the soft stillness of land sounds, with the heavy beat of the
surf left behind on the reef outside. Eleanor drew a long breath.
People would find them out soon, the skipper had said. She was
exceedingly disposed to get rid of her sea dress and put on something
that looked like the summer morning; for without recollecting what the
seasons were in the Southern Ocean, that was what the time seemed like
to her. She looked round at Mrs. Amos, who was sitting up and beginning
to realize that she had done with the sea for the present.
"How do you do?" said Eleanor.
"I should feel better if I could get on something clean."
"Come, then!"
The two ladies disappeared down the companion way, into one of the most
sorry tiring rooms, surely, that ever nicety used for that purpose. But
it served two purposes with Eleanor just now; and the second was a
hiding place. She did not want to be taken unawares, nor to be seen
before she could see. So under the circumstances she made both Mrs.
Amos and herself comfortable, and was as helpful as usual in a new
line. Then she went to look out; but nobody was in sight yet, gentle or
savage; all was safe; she went back to Mrs. Amos and fastened the door.
"Let us kneel down and pray together, will you?" she said. "I cannot
get my breath freely till we have done that."
Mrs. Amos's lips trembled as she knelt. And Eleanor and she joined in
many petitions there, while the very stillness of their little cabin
floor reminded them they were come to their desired haven, and the long
sea journey was over. They rose up and kissed each other.
"I am so glad I have known you!" said Mrs. Amos. "What a blessing you
have been to us! I wish we might be stationed somewhere together."
"I suppose that would be too good to hope for," said Eleanor. "I am
going to reconnoitre again."
Mrs. Amos half guessed why, and smiled to herself at Eleanor's blushing
shyness. "Poor child, her hands were all trembling too," she said in
her thoughts. They were broken off by a low summons to the cabin door,
which Eleanor held slightly ajar. Through the crack of the door they
had a vision.
On the deck of the "Queen Esther" stood a specimen of the native
inhabitants of the land. A man of tall stature, nobly developed in
limbs and muscles, he looked in his native undress almost of giant
proportions. His clothing was only a long piece of figured native cloth
wound about his loins, one end falling like a train to the very sloop's
deck. A thorough black skin was the only covering of the rest of his
person, and shewed his breadth of shoulder and strength of muscle to
good advantage; as if carved in black marble; only there was sufficient
graceful mobility and dignified ease of carriage and attitude; no
marble rigidity. Black he was, this savage, but not negro. The features
were well cut and good. What the hair might be naturally could only be
guessed at; the work of a skilful hair-dresser had left it something
for the uninitiated to marvel at. A band of three or four inches in
breadth, completely white, bordered the face; the rest, a very
luxuriant head, was jet black and dressed into a perfectly regular and
smooth roundish form, projecting everywhere beyond the white inner
border. He had an uncouth necklace, made of what it was impossible to
say, except that part of it looked like shells and part like some
animal's teeth; rings of one or two colours were on his fingers; he
carried no weapon. But in his huge, powerful black frame, uncouth
hair-dressing, and strange uncoveredness, he was a sufficiently
terrible object to unused eyes. In Tonga the ladies had seen no such
sight.
"Do shut the door!" said Mrs. Amos. "He may come this way, and there is
nobody that knows how to speak to him."
Eleanor shut the door, and looked round at her friend with a smile.
"I am foolish!" said Mrs. Amos laughing; "but I don't want to see him
just yet--till there is somebody to talk to him."
The door being fast, Eleanor applied herself to a somewhat large
knot-hole she had long ago discovered in it; one which she strongly
suspected the skipper had fostered, if not originated, for his own
convenience of spying what was going on. Through this knot-hole Eleanor
had a fair view of a good part of the deck, savage and all. He was
gesticulating now and talking, evidently to the captain and Mr. Amos,
the former of whom either did not understand or did not agree with him.
Mr. Amos, of course, was in the former condition. Eleanor watched them
with absorbed interest; when suddenly this vision was crossed by
another, that looked to her eyes much as a white angel might, coming
across a cloud of both moral and physical blackness. Mr. Rhys himself;
his very self, and looking very much like it; only in a white dress
literally, which in England she had never seen him wear. But the white
dress alone did not make the impression to her eyes; there was that air
of freshness and purity which some people always carry about with them,
and which has to do with the clear look of temperance as well as with
great particularity of personal care, and in part also grows out of the
moral condition. In three breathless seconds Eleanor took note of it
all, characteristics well known, but seen now with the novelty of long
disuse and with the background of that huge black savage, to whom Mr.
Rhys was addressing some words, of explanation or exhortation--Eleanor
could not tell which. She noticed the quiet pleasant manner of his
speech, which certainly looked not as if Mrs. Amos had any reason for
her fears; but he was speaking earnestly, and she observed too the
unbending look of the savage in answer and a certain pleasant deference
with which he appeared to be listening. Mr. Rhys had taken off his hat
for a moment--it hung in his hand while the other brushed the hair from
his forehead. Eleanor's eye even in that moment fell to the hand which
carried the hat; it was the same,--she recognized it with a curious
sense of bringing great and little things together,--it was the same
white and carefully looked-after hand that she remembered it in
England. Mr. Rhys's own personal civilization went about with him.
Eleanor did not hear any of Mrs. Amos's words to her, which were
several; and though Mrs. Amos, half alarmed by her deafness, did not
know but she might be witnessing something dreadful on deck, and spoke
with some importunity. Eleanor was thinking she had not a minute to
lose. Beyond the time of Mr. Rhys's talking to the other visitor on the
schooner's deck, there could be but small interval before he would
learn all about her being on board; two words to the skipper or Mr.
Amos would bring it out; and if she wished to gain that first minute's
testimony of look and word, she must be beforehand with them. She
thought of all that with a beating heart in one instant's flash of
thought, hastily caught up her ship cloak without daring to stop to put
it on, slipped back the bolt of the door, and noiselessly passed out
upon the deck. She neither heard nor saw anybody else; she was
conscious of an intense and pitiful shame at being there and at thus
presenting herself; but everything else was second to that necessity,
to know from Mr. Rhys's look, with an absolute certainty, where _he_
stood. She was not at that moment much afraid; yet the look she must
see. She went forward while he was yet speaking to his black neighbour,
she stood still a little behind him, and waited. She longed to hide her
eyes, yet she looked steadfastly. _How_ she looked, neither she nor
perhaps anybody else knew. There was short opportunity for observation.
Mr. Rhys had no sooner finished his business with his sable friend,
when he turned the other way; and of course the motionless figure
standing so near his elbow, the woman's bonnet and drapery, caught his
first glance. Eleanor was watching, with eyes that were strained
already with the effort; they got leave to go down now. The flash of
joy in those she had been looking at, the deep tone of the low uttered,
"Oh, Eleanor!" which burst from him, made her feel on the instant as if
she were paid to the full, not only for all she had done, but for all
that life might have of disagreeable in store for her. Her eyes fell;
she stood still in a sudden trance of contentment which made her as
blind and deaf as another feeling had made her just before. Those two
words--there had been such a depth in them, of tenderness and gladness;
and somehow she felt in them too an appreciation of all she had done
and gone through. Eleanor was satisfied. She felt it as well in the
hold of her hand, which was taken and kept in a clasp as who should
say, 'This is mine.'
Perhaps it was out of consideration for her state, that without any
further reference to her he turned to Mr. Amos and claimed acquaintance
and brotherhood with him; and for a little while talked, informing
himself of various particulars of their journey and welfare; never all
the while loosing his hold of that hand, though not bringing her into
the conversation, and indeed standing so as somewhat to shield her. The
question of landing came up and was discussed. The skipper objected to
send the schooner's boat, on the score that it would leave too few men
on board to take care of the vessel. Mr. Rhys had only a small canoe
with him, manned by a single native. So he decided forthwith to return
to the village and despatch boats large enough to bring the
missionaries and their effects to land; but about that there might be
some delay. Then for the first time he bent down and spoke to Eleanor;
again that subdued, tender tone.
"Are you ready to go ashore?"
"Yes."
"I will take you with me. Do you want anything out of this big ship?
The canoes may not be immediately obtained, for anything but the live
freight."
He took the grey ship cloak from Eleanor's arm and put it round her
shoulders. She felt that she was alone and forlorn no more; she had got
home. She was a different creature that went into the cabin to kiss
Mrs. Amos, from the Eleanor that had come out.
"I've seen him!" whispered Mrs. Amos. "Eleanor! you will not be married
till we come, will you?"
"I hope not--I don't know," said Eleanor hurriedly seizing her bag and
passing out again. Another minute, and it and she were taken down the
side of the schooner and lodged in the canoe; and their dark oarsman
paddled off.