IN THE HOUSE.
"Thou hast found ....
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,
And homestall thatched with leaves."
The walls of the house were, to an Englishwoman, a curiosity. They were
made of reeds; three layers or thicknesses of them being placed
different ways, and bound and laced together with sinnet; the strong
braid made of the fibre of the cocoanut-husk. It was this braid, woven
in and out, which produced the pretty mosaic effect Eleanor had
observed upon the outside. Mr. Rhys took her to a doorway, where she
could examine from within and from without this novel construction; and
explained minutely how it was managed.
"This looks like a foreign land," said Eleanor. "You had described it,
and I thought I had imagined it; but sight and feeling are quite a
different matter."
"I did not describe it to you?"
"No--O no; you described it to aunt Caxton."
He drew her back a step or two and laid her hand upon the post of the
door.
"What is this?" said Eleanor.
"That is a piece of the stem of the palm-fern."
"And these are its natural mouldings and markings! It is like elegant
carved work! It is natural, is it not?" she said suddenly.
"Certainly. The natives do execute very marvellous carving in wood,
with tools that would drive a workman at home to despair; but I have
not learned the art. Come here--the pillars that hold up the roof of
your house are of the same wood."
A double row of pillars through the whole length of the house gave it
stability; they were stems of the same palm fern, and as they had been
chosen and placed with a careful eye to size and position, the effect
of them was not at all inelegant. The building itself was of generous
length and width; and with a room cut off at each end, as the fashion
was, the centre apartment was left of really noble proportions; broad,
roomy, and lofty; with its palm columns springing up to its high roof
of thatch. Standing beside one of them, Eleanor looked up and declared
it a beautiful room.
"Do not look at the doors and windows," said Mr. Rhys. "I did not make
those--they were sent out framed. I had only the pleasure of putting
them in."
"And how did that agree with all your other work?"
"Well," he said decidedly. "That was my recreation."
"There is the prettiest mixture of wild and tame in this house," said
Eleanor, speaking a little timidly; for she was conscious all the while
how little Mr. Rhys was thinking of anything but herself. "Are these
mats made here?"
"Pure Fijian!"
The one at which Eleanor was looking, her eyes having fallen to the
floor, was both large and elegant. It was very substantially and neatly
made, and had a border fancifully wrought all round it, a few inches in
width. The pattern of the border was made with bits of worsted and
little white feathers. This mat covered all the centre of the room;
under it the whole floor was spread with other and coarser ones; and
others of a still different manufacture lined the walls of the room.
"One need not want a prettier carpet," said Eleanor, keeping her eyes
on the mat. Mr. Rhys put his arm round her and drew her off to one side
of the room, where he made her pause before a large square space which
was sunk a foot deep in the earth and bordered massively with a frame
of logs of hard wood.
"What do you think of that?"
"Mr. Rhys, what is it?"
"You would not take it for a fireplace?" he said with a comical look.
"But is it a fireplace?"
"That is what it is intended for. The Fijians make their fireplaces in
this manner."
"And you are a Fijian, I suppose."
"So are you."
"But Mr. Rhys, can a fireplace of this sort be useful in an English
house?"
"No. But in a Fijian house it may--as I have proved. The natives would
have a wooden frame here, at one side, to hold cooking vessels. You do
not need that, for you have a kitchen."
"With a fireplace like this?"
"Yes," he said, with a smile that had some raillery in it, which
Eleanor would not provoke.
"Suppose you come and look at something that is not Fijian," he went
on. "You must vary your attention."
He drew her before a little unostentatious piece of furniture, that
looked certainly as if it was made out of a good bit of English oak.
What it was, did not appear; it was very plain and rather massively
made. Now Mr. Rhys produced keys, and opened first doors; then a
drawer, which displayed all the characteristic contents and
arrangements of a lady's work-box on an extended scale. Love's work;
Eleanor could see her adopted mother in every carefully disposed supply
of needles and silks and braids and glittering Sheffield ware, and the
thousand and one appliances and provisions for one who was to be at a
very large distance from Sheffield and every home source of needle
furniture. Love recognized love's work, as Eleanor looked into the
drawer.
"Now you are ready to say this is a small thread and needle shop," said
Mr. Rhys; "but you will be mistaken if you do. Look further."
And that she might, he unlocked a pair of smaller inner doors; the
little piece of furniture developed itself immediately into a capital
secretary. As thoroughgoing as the work-box, but still more
comprehensive, here were more than mere materials and conveniences for
writing; it was a depository for several small but very precious
treasures of a scientific and other kinds; and even a few books lay
nestling among them, and there was room for more.
"What is this!" Eleanor exclaimed when she had got her breath.
"This is--Mrs. Caxton! I do not know whether she expected you to turn
sempstress immediately for the colony--or whether she intended you for
another vocation, as I do."
"She sent this from England!"
"It was made by nobody worse than a London cabinet-maker. I did not
know whether you would choose to have it stand in this place, or in the
only room that can properly be called your own. Come in here;--the
other part of the house is, you will find, pretty much public."
"Even your study?"
"That is no exception, sometimes. I am a public man, myself."
The partition wall of this room was nicely lined with mats; the door
was like a piece of the wall, swinging to noiselessly, but Mr. Rhys
shewed Eleanor how she could fasten it securely on the inside. Eleanor
had been taken into this room on her first arrival; but had then been
unable to see anything. Now her eyes were in requisition. Here there
was even more attention paid to comfort and appearances than in the
dining-room. In the simplest possible manner; but somebody had been at
work there who knew that elegance is attainable without the help of
opulence; and that eye and hand can do what money cannot. Eye and hand
had been busy everywhere. Very pretty and soft native mats were on the
floor; the windows were shaded with East Indian _jalousies;_ and not
only personal convenience but tastes were regarded in the various
articles of furniture and the arrangement of them. Good sense was
regarded too. Camp chairs and tables were useful for packing and
moving, as well as neat to the eye; white draperies relieved their
simplicity; shelves were hung against the wall in one place for books,
and filled; and in the floor stood an easy chair of excellent
workmanship, into which Mr. Rhys immediately put Eleanor. But she
started up to look at it.
"Did aunt Caxton send all these things?" she said with a tear in her
eye.
"She has sent almost too many. These are but the beginning, Look here,
Eleanor."
He opened a door at one end of the room, hidden under mat hangings like
the other, which disclosed a large space lined with shelves; several
articles reposing on them, and on the floor below sundry chests and
boxes.
"This is your storeroom. Here you may revel in the riches you do not
immediately wish to display. This is yours; I have a storeroom on my
own part."
"And what is in those chests and boxes, Mr. Rhys?"
"I don't know! except that it is aunt Caxton again. You will find
tablecloths and napkins--I can certify that--for I stumbled upon them;
but I thought they had best not see the light till their owner came. So
I locked them up--and here are the keys."
"And who put up all these nice shelves?"
"Your head carpenter."
"And have you been doing all this for me?" said Eleanor.
He laughed and took her in his arms again, looking at her with that
mixture of expressions.
"I wish I could give you some of my content!" he said.
"I do not want it!" said Eleanor laughing.
"Is that declaration entirely generous?"
Eleanor had no mind, like a wise woman, to answer this question; but
she was held under the inspection of an eye that she knew of old clear
and keen beyond all others to untie the knot of anybody's meaning. She
flushed up very much and tried to turn it off, for she saw he had a
mind to have the answer.
"You do not want me to give account of every idle word after that
fashion?" she said lightly.
"Hush--hush," he said, with a gravity that had much sweetness in it. "I
cannot have you speak in that way."
"I will not--" said Eleanor, suddenly much more sober than he was.
"There are too many that have the habit of using their Master's words
to point their own sentences. Do not let us use it. Come to my
study--you did not see it before dinner, I think."
Eleanor was glad he could smile again, for at that minute she could
not. She felt whirled back to Plassy, and to Wiglands, to the time of
their old and very different relations. She could not realize the new,
nor quietly understand her own happiness; and a very fresh vivid sense
of his character made her feel almost as much awe of him as affection.
That was according to old habit too. But if she felt shy and strange,
she was the only one; for Mr. Rhys was in a very gay mood. As they went
through the dining-room he stopped to shew and display to her numerous
odd little contrivances and arrangements; here a cupboard of rustic,
and very pretty too, native work; or at least native materials. There a
more sophisticated beaufet, which had come from Sydney by Mrs. Caxton's
order. "Dear Mrs. Caxton!" said Mr. Rhys,--"she has forgotten nothing.
I am only in astonishment what she can have found to fill your new
invoice of boxes."
"Why there are not many," said Eleanor.
He looked at her and laughed. "You will be doing nothing but unpacking
for days to come," he said. "I have done what I never thought I should
do--married a rich wife."
"Why aunt Caxton sends the things quite as much to you as to me."
"Does she?"
"I am sure, if anybody is poor, I am."
"If that speech means _me_," said Mr. Rhys with a little bit of
provokingness in the corners of his mouth,--"I don't take it. I do not
feel poor; and never did. Not to-day certainly, with whole shiploads
coming in."
"I do not know of a single unnecessary thing but your microscope."
"Have you brought that?" he said with a change of tone. "It would be
just like Mrs. Caxton to come out and make us a visit some day! I
cannot think of anything else she could give us, that she has not
given. Look at my book-cases."
Eleanor did, thinking of their owner. They were of plainest
construction, but so made that they would take to pieces in five
minutes and become packing cases with the books packed, all ready for
travel; or at pleasure, as now, stand up in their place in the study in
the form of very neat bookcases. They were not large; a Fijian
missionary's library had need be not too extensive; but Eleanor looked
over their contents with hurried delight.
The rest of the room also spoke of Mrs. Caxton; in light neat tables
and chairs and other things. Here too, though not a hand's turn had
apparently been wasted, everything, simple as it was, had a sort of
pleasantness of order and fitness which left the eye gratified. Eleanor
read that and the meaning of it. Here were contrivances again that Mr.
Rhys had done; shelves, and brackets, and pins to hang things; nothing
out of use, but all so contrived as to give a certain elegant effect to
this plain work-room. Even the book and paper disorder was not that of
a careless man. Still it was not like the room at the other end of the
house. The mats that floored and lined it were coarser; there were no
_jalousies_ at the windows; and no easy chair anywhere. One thing it
had like the other; a storeroom cut off from it. This was a large one,
like Eleanor's, and filled. His money-drawer, Mr. Rhys called it. All
sorts of articles valued by the natives were there; Mrs. Caxton had
taken care to send a large supply. These were to serve the purposes of
barter. Mr. Rhys displayed to Eleanor the stores of iron tools, cotton
prints, blankets, and articles of clothing, that were stowed away
there; stowed away with an absolute order and method which again she
looked at as significant of one side at least of Mr. Rhys's character.
He amused himself with displaying everything; shewed her the whole of
the new and strangely appointed establishment over which she had come
to preside, so far at least as the house contained it; and when he had
brought her to something like an apparent share in his own gay mood, at
last placed her in a camp chair in the dining-room, which he had set in
the middle of the floor, and opened the door of the house. It gave
Eleanor a lovely view. The plantations had been left open, so that the
eye had a fair range down to the river and to the opposite shore, where
another village stood. It was seen under bright sunshine now. Mr. Rhys
let her look a moment, then shut the door, and came and sat down before
her, taking both her hands in his own; and Eleanor knew from a glance
at his face that the same thoughts were working within him that had
wrought that moved look before dinner--when she first came. She felt
her colour mounting; it tried her to be silent under his eye in that
way.
"Mr. Rhys, do you remember preaching to me one day at Plassy--when we
were out walking?"
"Yes," he said with a half laugh.
"I wish you would do it again."
"I will preach you a sermon every morning if you like."
"No, but now. I wish you would, so as to make me realize that you are
the same person."
"I am not the same person at all!" he said.
"Why are you not?" said Eleanor opening her eyes at him.
"In those days I was your pastor and friend simply. The difference is,
that I have acquired the right to love you--take care of you--and scold
you."
"It seems to me that last was a privilege you exercised occasionally in
those times," said Eleanor archly.
"Not at all! In those days I was a poor fellow that did not dare say a
word to you."
Eleanor's recollections were of sundry exceptions to this rule, so
marked and prominent in her memory that she could not help laughing.
"O Mr. Rhys, don't you remember--"
"What?" said he with the utmost gravity.
But Eleanor had stopped, and coloured now brilliantly.
"It seems that your recollections are of a questionable character," he
said. Eleanor did not deny it.
"What is it you wish me _not_ to remember?"
"It was a time when you said I was very wrong," said Eleanor meekly,
"so do not call it back."
He bent forward to kiss her, which did not steady Eleanor's thoughts at
all.
"Do you want preaching?" he said.
"Yes indeed! It will do me good."
"I will give you some words to think of, that I lived in all yesterday.
'Beloved of God.' They are wonderful words, that Paul says belong to
all the saints; and they were about me yesterday like a halo of glory,
from morning to night."
Now Eleanor was all right; now she recognized Mr. Rhys and herself, and
listened to every word with her old delight in them. Now she could use
her eyes and look at him, though she well saw that he was considering
her with that full, moved tenderness that she had felt in him all day;
even when he was talking and thinking of other things he did not cease
to remember _her_.
"Eleanor, what do you know about the meaning of those words?"
"Little!" she said. "And yet, a little."
"You know that _we_ were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb
idols--or after others in our own hearts--as helplessly as the poor
heathen around us. But we have got the benefit of that word,--'I will
call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which
was not beloved.'"
"Yes!"
"Then look at our privileges--'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in
safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he
shall dwell between is shoulders.'--Heavenly security; unearthly joy; a
hiding-place where the troubles of earth cannot reach us."
Mr. Rhys left his position before Eleanor at this, and with a brow all
alight with its thoughts began to pace up and down in front of her;
just as he had done at Plassy, she remembered. She ventured not a word.
Her heart was very full.
"Then look how we are bidden to increase our rejoicing and to delight
ourselves in the store laid up for us; we are not only safe and happy,
but fed with dainties. All things are ready; Christ says he will sup
with us; and we are bidden--'Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved.' 'He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and
he that believeth on me shall never thirst.'
"And then, Eleanor, if we are the elect of God, holy and beloved, what
bowels of mercies should be in us; how precious all other beloved of
him should be to us; how we should be constrained by his love. Are you?
I am. I am willing to spend and be spent for these people among whom we
are. I am sure there are many, many children of God among them, come
and coming. I seek no better than to labour for them. It is the delight
of my soul! Eleanor, how is it with you?"
He had stood still before her during these last words, and now sat down
again, taking her hands and looking with his undeceivable gaze into her
face.
"I desire the same thing. I dare not say, I desire it as strongly as
you do,--but it is my very wish."
"Is it for the love of Christ--or for love of these poor creatures? or
for any other reason?"
"I can hardly separate the first two," said Eleanor, looking a little
wistfully. "The love of Christ is at the bottom of it all."
"There is no other motive," he said; "no other that will do the work;
nothing else that will work true love to them. But when I think of my
Master--I am willing to do or be anything, I think, in his service!"
He quitted her hands and began slowly walking up and down again.
"Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor, "what can I do?"
"Are you ready to encounter disagreeablenesses, and hardships, and
privations, in the work?"
"Yes; and discouragements."
"There are no such things. There ought to be no such things. I never
feel nor have felt discouraged. That is want of faith. Do you remember,
Eleanor, 'The clouds are the dust of his feet?' Think--our eyes are
blinded by the dust, we look at nothing else, and we do not see the
glory of the steps that are taken."
"That is true. O Mr. Rhys, that is glorious!"
"Then you are not afraid? I forewarn you, little annoyances are
sometimes harder to bear than great ones. It is one of the most trying
things that I have to meet," said Mr. Rhys standing still with a funny
face,--"to have Ra Mbombo's beard sweep my plate when I am at dinner."
"What does he do that for?"
"He is so fond of me."
"That is being too fond, certainly."
"It is an excess of affectionate attention,--he gets so close to me
that we have a community of things. And you will have, Eleanor, some
days, a perpetual levee of visitors. But what is all that, for Christ?"
"I am not afraid," said Eleanor with a most unruffled smile.
"I wrote to frighten you."
"But I was not frightened. Are things no better in the islands than
when you wrote?"
"Changing--changing every day; from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan to God. Literally. There are heathen temples here, in
which a few years ago if a woman or a child had dared cross the
threshold they would have been done to death immediately. Now those
very temples are used as our schools. On our way to the chapel we shall
pass almost over a place where there used to be one of the ovens for
cooking human bodies; now the grass and wild tomatoes are growing over
it. I can take you to house after house, where men and women used to be
eaten, where now if you stand to listen you may hear hymns of praise to
Jesus and prayer going up in his name. Praise the Lord! It is grand to
be permitted to live in Fiji now!"--
Eleanor was hushed and silent a few minutes, while Mr. Rhys walked
slowly up and down. Then she spoke with her eyes full of sympathetic
tears.
"Mr. Rhys, what can I do?"
"What you have to do at present," he said with a change of tone, "is to
take care of me and learn the language,--both languages, I should say!
And in the mean while you had better take care of your pins,"--he
stooped as he spoke, to pick up one at her feet and presented it with
comical gravity. "You must remember you are not in England. Here you
could not spend pin-money even if you had it."
"If I were inclined to be extravagant," said Eleanor laughing at him,
"your admonition would be thrown away; I have brought such quantities
with me."
"Of pins?"
"Yes."
"I hope you will not ever use them!"
"Why not?"
"I do not see what a properly made dress has to do with pins."
But at this confession of masculine ignorance Eleanor first looked and
then laughed and covered her face, till he came and sat down again and
by forcible possession took her hands away.
"You have no particular present occasion to laugh at me," he said.
"Eleanor, what made you first willing to quit England and go anywhere?"
The answer to this was first an innocent look, and then an extreme
scarlet flush. She could not hide it, with her hands prisoners; she sat
in a pretty state of abashment. A slight giving way of the mouth bore
witness that he read and understood it, though his immediate words were
reassuringly grave and unchanged in tone.
"I remember, you did not comprehend such a thing as possible, at one
time. When was that changed? You used to have a great fear."
"I lost part of that at Plassy."
"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.
"What has become of Alfred?" he asked, in an irrelevant kind of manner,
by way of parenthesis.
"I have not seen him--hardly--since you left England. He is not under
mamma's care now."
"And my friend Julia? You have told me but a mite yet about everybody."
"Julia is your friend still. But Julia--I have not seen her in a long,
long time."
"How is that?"
"Mamma would not let me. O Mr. Rhys!--we have been kept apart. I could
not even see her when I came away."
"Why?"
"Mamma--she was afraid of my influence over her."
"Is it possible!"
"Julia was going on well--setting her face to do right. Now--I do not
know how it will be. Even our letters are overlooked."
"I need not ask how your mother is. I suppose she is trying to save one
of her daughters for the world."
Eleanor's thoughts swept a wide course in a few minutes; remembered
whose hand instrumentality had saved her from such a fate and had
striven for Julia. With a sigh that was part sorrow and part gratitude,
Eleanor laid her head softly on Mr. Rhys's shoulder. With such
tenderness as one gives to a child, and yet rarer, because deeper and
graver, she was made at home there.
"Don't you want to take a walk to the chapel?"
"O yes!"--But she was held fast still.
"And shall we give sister Balliol the pleasure of our company to tea,
as we come back?"
"If you please--if you like."
"I do not like it at all," said Mr. Rhys frankly--"but I suppose we
must."
"Think of finding the restraints of society even in Fiji!" said Eleanor
trying to laugh, as she brought her bonnet and they set out.
"You must find them everywhere--unless you live to please yourself;"
said Mr. Rhys, with his sweet grave look; and Eleanor was consoled.
The walk to the church was not very long, and she could have desired it
longer. The river shore, and the view on the other side, and the
village by which they passed, the trees and the vegetable gardens and
the odd thatched roofs--everything was pretty and new to Eleanor's
eyes. They passed all they had seen in coming from the landing that
morning, taking this time a path outside the mission premises. Past the
house with the row of pillars in front, which Eleanor learned was a
building for the use of the various schools. A little further on stood
the chapel. It was neat and tasteful enough to please even an English
eye; and indeed looked more English than foreign on a distant view; and
standing there in the wilderness, with its little bell-tower rising
like a witness for all that was good in the midst of a heathen land,
the feelings of those who looked upon it had need be very tender and
very deep.
"This chapel is dear to our eyes," said Mr. Rhys. "Everything is, that
costs such pains. This poor people have made it; and it is one of the
best pieces of work in Fiji. It was all done by the labour of their
hearts and hands."
"That seems to be the style of carpentry in this country," said Eleanor.
"The chief made up his mind on a good principle--that for a house of
the true God, neither time nor material could be too precious. On that
principle they went to work. The timber used in the building is what we
call green-heart--the best there is in Fiji. To find it, they had to
travel over many a mile of the country; and remember, there are no oxen
here, no horses; they had no teams to help them. All must be done by
the labour of the hands. I think there were about eighty beams of
green-heart timber needed for the house--some of them twelve and some
of them fifty feet long. In about three months these were collected;
found and brought in from the woods and hills, sometimes from ten miles
away. While the young men were doing this, the old men at home were all
day beating cocoanut husk, to separate the fibre for making sinnet. All
day long I used to hear their beaters going; it was good music; and
when at the end of every few days the woodcutters came home with their
timber--so soon as they were heard shouting the news of their
coming--there was a general burst and cry and every creature in the
village set off to meet them and help drag the logs home. Women and
children and all went; and you never saw people so happy.
"Then the building was done in the same spirit. Many a time when I was
busy with them, overlooking their work, I have heard them chanting to
each other words from the Bible--band against band. One side would
sing--'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven of
heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have
builded.'--Then the other side would answer, 'The Lord hath chosen
Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.' I cannot tell you how
sweet it was. There was another chant they were very fond of. A few
would begin with Solomon's petition--'Have thou respect unto the prayer
of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto
the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee
to-day: that thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day,
even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there:
that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make
toward this place,'--and here a number of the other builders would join
in with their cry--'Hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall
make!' And so in the next verse, when it came near the end the others
would join in--'And when thou hearest, forgive!'--"
"I should think you would love it!" said Eleanor, with her eyes full of
tears. "And I should think the Lord would love it."
"Come in, and see how it looks on the inside."
The inside was both simple and elegant, after a quaint fashion; for it
was Fijian elegance and Fijian simplicity. A double row of columns led
down the centre of the building; they looked like mahogany, but it was
only native wood; and the ornamental work at top which served for their
capitals, was done in sinnet. Over the doors and windows triangular
pediments were elaborately wrought in black with the same sinnet. The
roof was both quaint and elegant. It was done in alternate open and
close reed-work, with broad black lines dividing it; and ornamental
lashings and bandings of sinnet were used about the fastenings and
groinings of spars and beams. Then the wings of the communion rail were
made of reed-work, ornamented; the rail was a beautiful piece of nut
timber, and the balusters of sweet sandal wood. The whole effect
exceeding pretty and graceful, though produced with such simple means.
"Mr. Ruskin ought to have had this as an illustration of his 'Lamp of
Sacrifice,'" said Eleanor. "How beautiful!--"
"The 'Lamp of Truth,' too," said Mr. Rhys. "It is all honest work. That
side was done by our heathen neighbours. The heathen chief sent us his
compliments, said he heard we were engaged in a great work, and if we
pleased he would come and help us. So he did. They built that side of
the wall and the roof."
"Did they do it well?"
"Heartily."
"Do they come to attend worship in it?"
"The chapel is a great attraction. Strangers come to see--if not to
worship,--and then we get a chance to tell the truth to them."
"And Mr. Rhys, how is the truth prospering generally?"
"Eleanor, we want men!--and that seems to be all we want. My heart
feels ready to break sometimes, for the want of helpers. I am glad of
brother Amos coming--very glad!--but we want a hundred where we have
one. It is but a few weeks since a young man came over from one of the
islands, a large and important island, bringing tidings that a number
of towns there had given up heathenism--all wanting teachers--and there
were no teachers for them. In one place the people had built a chapel;
they had gone so far as that; it was at Koroivonu--and they gathered
together the next Sunday after it was finished, great numbers of the
people, filled the chapel and stood under some bread-fruit trees in
front of it, and stood there waiting to have some one come and tell
them the truth--and there was no one. My heart is ready to weep blood
when I think of these things! The Tongan who came with the news came
with his eyes full of tears. And this is no strange nor solitary case
of Koroivonu."
Mr. Rhys walked the floor of the little chapel, his features working,
his breast heaving. Eleanor sat thinking how little she could do--how
much she would!
"You have native helpers--?" she said gently.
"Praise the Lord for what they are! but we want missionaries. We want
help from England. We cannot get it from the Colonies--not fast enough.
Eleanor,"--and he stopped short and faced her--"a few months ago, to
give you another instance, I was beholder of such a scene as this. I
was to preach to a community that were for the first time publicly
renouncing heathenism. It was Sunday."--Mr. Rhys spoke slowly,
evidently exercising some control over himself; how often Eleanor had
seen him do that in the pulpit!--
"I stood on the shores of a bay, reefed in from the ocean. I wish I
could put the scene before you! On the land side, one of the most
magnificent landscapes stretched back into the country, with almost
every sort of natural beauty. Before me the bay, with ten large canoes
moored in it. An island in the bay, I remember, caught the light
beautifully; and beyond that there was the white fence of breakers on
the reef barrier. The smallest of the canoes would hold a hundred men;
they were the fleet of Thakomban, one of Fiji's fiercest kings
formerly, with himself and his warriors on board.
"My preaching place was on what had been the dancing grounds of a
village. I had a mat stretched on three poles for an awning--such a mat
as they make for sails;--and around me were nine others prepared in
like manner. This was my chapel. Just at my left hand was a spot of
ground where were ten boiling springs; and until that Sunday, one of
them had been the due appointed place for cooking human bodies. That
was the place and the preparation I looked at in the still Sunday
morning, before service time.
"At that time, the time appointed for service, a drum was beat and the
conch shell blown; the same shell which had been used to give the war
call. Directly all those canoes were covered with men, and they were
plunging into the water and wading to shore. These were Thakomban and
his warriors. Not blacked and stripped and armed for fighting, but
washed and clothed. They were stopping in that place on their way
somewhere else, and now coming and gathering to hear the preaching. On
the other side came a procession from the village; and down every
hillside and along every path, I could see scattering groups and lines
of comers from the neighbouring country. _These_ were the heathen
inhabitants, coming up now to hear the truth and profess by a public
act of worship that they were heathens no longer. They all gathered
round me there under the mat awnings, and sat on the grass looking up
to hear, while I told them of Jesus."
Mr. Rhys's voice was choked and he broke off abruptly. Eleanor guessed
how he had talked to that audience; she could see it in his flushing
face and quivering lip. She could not find a word to say, and let him
lead her in silence and slowly away from the chapel and towards the
mission house. Before entering the plantation again, Eleanor stopped
and said in a low voice,
"What can I do?"
He gave her a look of that moved sweetness she had seen in him all day,
and answered with his usual abruptness,
"You can pray."
"I do that."
"Pray as Paul prayed--for your mother, and for Julia, and for Fiji, and
for me. Do you know how that was?"
"I know what some of his prayers were."
"Yes, but I never thought how Paul prayed, until the other day. You
must put the scattered hints together. Wait until we are at home--I
will shew you."
He pushed open the wicket and they went in; and the rest of the evening
Eleanor talked to Mrs. Amos or to Mr. Balliol; she sheered off a little
from his wife. There was plenty of interesting conversation going on
with one and another; but Eleanor had a little the sense of being to
that lady an object of observation, and drew into a corner or into the
shade as much as she could.
"Your wife is very handsome, brother Rhys," Mrs. Balliol remarked in an
aside, towards the end of the evening.
"That is hardly much praise from you, sister Balliol," he answered
gravely. "I know you do not set much store by appearances."
"She is very young!"
Both looked over to the opposite corner where Eleanor was talking to
Mrs. Amos, sitting on a low seat and looking up; a little drawn back
into the shade, yet not so shaded but that the womanly modest sweetness
of her face could be seen well enough. Mr. Rhys made no answer.
"I judge, brother Rhys, that she has been brought up in the great
world,"--Mrs. Balliol went on, looking across to the ruffled sleeve.
"She is not in it now," Mr. Rhys observed quietly.
"No;--she is in good hands. But, brother Rhys, do you think our sister
understands exactly what sort of work she has come to do here?"
"She is teachable," he answered with great imperturbability.
"Well, you will be able to train her, if she wants it. I am glad to
know she is in such good hands. I think she has hardly yet a just
notion of what lies before her, brother Rhys."
"When did you make your observations?"
"She was with me, you know--you left her with me this morning. We were
alone, and we had a little conversation."
"Mrs. Balliol, do you think a just notion of _anything_ call be formed
in half an hour?"
His question was rather grave, and the lady's eyes wavered from meeting
his. She fidgeted a little.
"O you know best, of course," she said; "I have had very little
opportunity--I only judged from the want of seriousness; but that might
have been from some other cause. You must excuse me, if I spoke too
frankly."
"You can never do that to me," he said. "Thank you, sister Balliol. I
will take care of her."
Mrs. Balliol was reassured. But neither during their walk home nor ever
after, did Mr. Rhys tell Eleanor of this little bit of talk that had
concerned her.