IN THE BARN.
"It hath been the longest night
That e'er I watched, and the most heaviest."
Good resolutions are sometimes excellent things, but they are
susceptible of overturns. Eleanor's met with one.
She was sitting with Mr. Carlisle the very next day, in a disturbed
mood of mind; for he and her mother had been laying plans and making
dispositions with reference to her approaching marriage; plans and
dispositions in which her voice was not asked, and in which matters
were carried rapidly forward towards their consummation. Eleanor felt
that bands and chains were getting multiplied round her, fastening her
more and more in the possession of her captor, while her own mind was
preparing what would be considered resistance to the authority thus
secured. The sooner she spoke the better; but how to begin? She bent
over her embroidery frame with cheeks that gradually grew burning hot.
The soft wind that blew in from the open window at her side would not
cool them. Mr. Carlisle came and sat down beside her.
"What does all this mean?" said he laughingly, drawing his finger
softly over Eleanor's rich cheek.
"It's hot!" said Eleanor.
"Is it? I have the advantage of you. It is the perfection of a day to
me."
"Eleanor," cried Julia, bounding in through the window, "Mr. Rhys is
better to-day. He says so."
"Is he?" said Eleanor.
"Yes; you know how weak he was yesterday; he is not quite so weak
to-day."
"Who is Mr. Rhys?" said Mr. Carlisle.
"O he is nice! Eleanor says nice rhymes to Rhys. Wasn't my tea nice,
Eleanor? We had Miss Broadus to tea this afternoon. We had you
yesterday and Miss Broadus to-day. I wonder who will come next."
"Is this a sick friend you have been visiting?" said Mr. Carlisle, as
Julia ran off, having accomplished the discomfiture of her sister.
"No, not at all--only I stopped at Mrs. Williams' cottage to rest
yesterday; and he lives there."
"You saw him?"
"Yes; Julia found me, and I could not help seeing him."
"But you took _tea_ there, Eleanor? With whom?"
"I took tea with Julia and her sick friend. Why not? She was making a
cup of tea for him and gave me one. I was very glad of it. There was no
one else in the house."
"How is your sister allowed to do such things?"
"For a sick friend, Mr. Carlisle? I think it is well anybody's part to
do such things."
"I think I will forbid embroidery frames at the Priory, if they are to
keep me from seeing your eyes," said he, with one arm drawing her back
from the frame and with the other hand taking her fingers from it, and
looking into her face, but kissing her. "Now tell me, who is this
gentleman?"
Eleanor was irritated; yet the assumption of authority, calm and proud
as it was, had a mixture of tenderness which partly soothed her. The
demand however was imperious. Eleanor answered.
"He was Alfred's tutor--you have seen him--he has been very ill all
summer. He is a sick man, staying in the village."
"And what have you to do with such a person?"
"Nothing in the world! I stopped there to rest myself, because I was
too tired to walk home."
He smiled at her kindling indignation, and gave her a kiss by way of
forgiveness for it; then went on gravely.
"You have been to that cottage before, Eleanor?"
"Yes."
"How was that?"
"I went with Julia when she was carrying some refreshments to her sick
friend. I will do that for anybody, Mr. Carlisle."
"Say that over again," he said calmly, but with a manner that shewed he
would have it. And Eleanor could not resist.
"I would do that for anybody, Macintosh," she said gently, laying her
hand upon his arm.
"No, darling. You shall send nurses and supplies to all the folk in the
kingdom--if you will--but you shall pay such honour as this to nobody
but me."
"Mr. Carlisle," said Eleanor rousing again, "if I am not worthy your
trust, I am not fit to do either you or anybody else honour."
She had straightened herself up to face him as she said this, but it
was mortifying to feel how little she could rouse him. He only drew her
back into his arms, folding her close and kissing her again and again.
"You are naughty," he said, "but you are good. You are as sweet as a
rose, Eleanor. My wife will obey me, in a few things, and she shall
command me in all others. Darling, I wish you not to be seen in the
village again alone. Let some one attend you, if I am not at hand."
He suffered her to return to her embroidery; but though Eleanor's heart
beat and her cheek was flushed with contending feelings, she could not
find a word to say. Her heart rebelled against the authority held over
her; nevertheless it subdued her; she dared not bring her rebellion
into open light. She shrank from that; and hid now in her own thoughts
all the new revelations she had meant to draw forth for Mr. Carlisle's
entertainment. Now was no time. In fact Eleanor's consciousness made
her afraid that if she mentioned her religious purposes and uneasiness,
this man's acuteness would catch at the connecting link between the new
dereliction of duty and the former which had been just rebuked. That
would lay her open to imputations and suspicions too dishonouring to be
risked, and impossible to disprove, however false. She must hold her
tongue for the present; and Eleanor worked on at her embroidery, her
fingers pulling at it energetically, while feeling herself much more
completely in another's power than it suited her nature to be. Somehow
at this time the vision of Rythdale Priory was not the indemnification
it had seemed to her before. Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, but she did
not like to be governed by him; although with an odd inconsistency, it
was that very power of government which formed part of his attraction.
Certainly women are strange creatures. Meanwhile she tugged on at her
work with a hot cheek and a divided mind, and a wisely silent tongue;
and M. Carlisle sat by and made himself very busy with her, finding out
ways of being both pleasant and useful. Finally he put a stop to the
embroidery and engaged Eleanor in a game of chess with him; began to
teach her how to play it, and succeeded in getting her thoroughly
interested and diverted from her troublesome thoughts. They returned as
soon as he left her.
"I can never speak to him about my religious feelings," mused Eleanor
as she walked slowly to her own room,--"never! I almost think, if I
did, he would find means to cheat me out of them, in spite of all my
determinations--until it would be too late. What is to become of me?
What a double part I shall play now--my heart all one way, my outer
life all another. It must be so. I can shew these thoughts to no one.
Will they live, shut up in the dark so?"
Mr. Rhys's words about "seeking" recurred to her. Eleanor did not know
how, and felt strange. "I could follow his prayers, if I heard them,"
she said to herself;--"I do not know how to set about it. I suppose
reading the Bible is good--that and good books."
And that Eleanor tried. Good books however were by and by given up;
none that she had in the least suited her wants; only the Bible proved
both a light and a power to her. It had a great fascination for
Eleanor, and it sometimes made her hopeful; at any rate she persevered
in reading it, through gloom and cheer; and her mind when she was alone
knew much more of the former condition than of the latter. When not
alone, she was in a whirl of other occupations and interests. The
preparations for her marriage went on diligently; Eleanor saw it and
knew it, and would not help though she could not hinder. But she was
very far from happy. The style and title of Lady Rythdale had faded in
her imagination; other honour and glory, though dimly seen, seemed more
desirable to Eleanor now, and seemed endangered by this. She was very
uneasy. She struggled between the remaining sense of pride, which
sometimes arose to life, and this thought of something better; at other
times she felt as if her marriage with Mr. Carlisle would doom her
forever to go without any treasure but what an earthly coronet well
lined with ermine might symbolize and ensure. Meanwhile weeks flew by;
while Eleanor studied the Bible and sought for light in her solitary
hours at night, and joined in all Mr. Carlisle's plans of gayety by
day. September and October were both gone. November's short days begun.
And when the days should be at the shortest--"Then," thought Eleanor,
"my fate will be settled. Mr. Carlisle will have me; and I can never
disobey him. I cannot now."
November reached the middle, and there wanted but little more than a
month to the wedding-day. Eleanor sat one morning in her garden
parlour, which a mild day made pleasant; working by the glass door. The
old thought, "What will become of me!" was in her heart. A shadow
darkened the door. Eleanor looked up, fearing to see Mr. Carlisle; it
was her little sister Julia.
Julia opened the door and came in. "It is nice in the garden, Eleanor,"
she said. "The chrysanthemums are so beautiful as I never saw
them--white and yellow and orange and rose-colour, and a hundred
colours. They are beautiful, Eleanor."
"Yes."
"May I have a great bunch of them to take to Mr. Rhys?"
"Have what you like. I thought you used to take them without asking."
Julia looked serious.
"I wish I could go down to the village to-night, I know"--she said.
"_To-night!_ What do you wish that for?"
"Because, Mr. Rhys is going to preach; and I do want to go so much; but
I can't."
"Going to preach!--why is he so well as that?"
"He isn't well at all," said Julia,--"not what you would call well. But
he says he is well. He is white and weak enough yet; and I don't think
that is being well. He can't go to Lily Dale nor to Rythdale; so some
of the people are coming to Wiglands."
"Where is he going to preach?"
"Where do you think? In Mr. Brooks's barn. They won't let him preach at
the inn, and he can't have the church; and I _do_ want to see how he
can preach in the barn!"
Mr. Brooks was a well-to-do farmer, a tenant of the Rythdale estate,
living near the road to the old priory and half a mile from the village
of Wiglands. A consuming desire seized Eleanor to do as her little
sister had said--hear Mr. Rhys preach. The desire was so violent that
it half frightened her with the possibility of its fulfilment.
She told Julia that it was an absurd wish, and impracticable, and
dismissed her; and then her whole mind focussed itself on Mr. Brooks's
barn. Eleanor saw nothing else through the morning, whatever she was
doing. It was impossible! yet it was a first, last, and only chance,
perhaps in her life, of hearing the words of truth so spoken as she
knew they would be in that place that night. Besides, she had a craving
curiosity to know _how_ they would be spoken. One month more, Eleanor
once securely lodged in Rythdale Priory, and her chance of hearing any
words whatever spoken in a barn, was over for ever; unless indeed she
condescended to become an inspector of agricultural proceedings. Yet
she said to herself over and over that she had no chance now; that her
being present was a matter of wild impossibility; she said it and
re-said it, and with every time a growing consciousness that
impossibility should not stop her. At last impossibility shaped itself
into a plan.
"I am going down to see Jane Lewis, mamma," was Eleanor's announcement
at luncheon.
"To day, Eleanor?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"But Mr. Carlisle will be here, and he will not like it."
"He will have enough of me by and by, ma'am. I shall may be never have
another chance of taking care of Jane. I know she wants to see me, and
I am going to-day. And if she wants me very much, I shall stay all
night; so you need not send."
"What will Mr. Carlisle say to all that?"
"He will say nothing to it, if you do not give him an opportunity,
mamma. I am going, at all events."
"Eleanor, I am afraid you have almost too much independence, for one
who is almost a married woman."
"Is independence a quality entirely given up, ma'am, when 'the ring is
on'?"
"Certainly! I thought you knew that. You must make up your mind to it.
You are a noble creature, Eleanor; but my comfort is that Mr. Carlisle
will know how to manage you. I never could, to my satisfaction. I
observe he has brought you in pretty well."
Eleanor left the room; and if the tide of her independence could have
run higher, her mother's words would have furnished the necessary
provocative.
Jane Lewis was a poor girl in the village; the daughter of one who had
been Eleanor's nurse, and who now old and infirm, and unable to do much
for herself or others, watched the declining days of her child without
the power to give them much relief. Jane was dying with consumption.
The other member of the family was the old father, still more helpless;
past work and dependent on another child for all but the house they
lived in. That, in earlier days, had been made their own. Eleanor was
their best friend, and many a day, and night too, had been a sunbeam of
comfort in the poor house. She now, when the day was far enough on its
wane, provided herself with a little basket of grapes, ordered her
pony, and rode swiftly down to the village; not without attendance this
time, though confessing bitterly to herself the truth of her mother's
allegations. At the cottage door she took the basket; ordered the pony
should come for her next morning at eight o'clock, and went into the
cottage; feeling as if she had for a little space turned her back upon
troublesome people and things and made herself free. She went in
softly, and was garrulously welcomed by her old nurse and her husband.
It was so long since they had seen her! and she was going to be such a
great lady! and they knew she would not forget them nevertheless. It
was not flattery. It was true speech. Eleanor asked for Jane, and with
her basket went on into the upper little room where the sick girl lay.
There felt, when she had got above the ground floor, as if she was
tolerably safe.
It was a little low room under the thatch, in which Eleanor now hid
herself. A mere large closet of a room, though it boasted of a
fireplace, happily. A small lattice under the shelving roof let in what
it could of the light of a dying November day. The bed with its sick
occupant, two chairs, a little table, and a bit of carpet on the floor,
were all the light revealed. Eleanor's welcome here was also most
sincere; less talkative, it was yet more glad than that given by the
old couple down stairs; a light shone all over the pale face of the
sick girl, and the weary eye kindled, at sight of her friend.
Extreme neatness was not the characteristic of this little low room,
simply for want of able hands to ensure it. Eleanor's first work was to
set Jane to eating grapes; her next, to put the place in tidy order.
"Lady Rythdale shall be useful once more in her life," she thought. She
brushed up the floor, swept the hearth, demolished cobwebs on the
walls, and rubbed down the chairs. She had borrowed an apron and cap
from old Mrs. Lewis. The sick girl watched her with eager eyes.
"I can't bear to see you a doing of that, Miss Eleanor," she exclaimed.
"Hush, Jane! Eat your grapes."
"You've a kind heart," said the girl sighing; "and it's good when them
that has the power has the feelings."
"How are your nights now, Jane?"
"They're tedious--I lie awake so; and then I get coughing. I am always
so glad to see the light come in the mornings! but it's long a coming
now. I can't get nobody to hear me at night if I want anything."
"Do you often want something?"
"Times, I do. Times, I get out of wanting, because I can't have--and
times I only want worse."
"_What_ do you want, Jane?"
"Well, Miss Eleanor,--I conceit I want to see somebody. The nights is
very long--and in the dark and by myself--I gets feared."
To Eleanor's dismay she perceived Jane was weeping.
"What in the world are you afraid of, Jane? I never saw you so before."
"'Tisn't of anything in _this_ world, Miss Eleanor," said Jane. Her
face was still covered with her hands, and the grapes neglected.
Eleanor was utterly confounded. Had Jane caught her feeling? or was
this something else?
"Are you afraid of spirits, Jane?"
"No, Miss Eleanor."
"What is it, then? Jane, this is something new. I never saw you feeling
so before."
"No, ma'am--and I didn't. But there come a gentleman to see me, ma'am."
"A gentleman to see you? What gentleman?"
"I don't know, Miss Eleanor; only he was tall, and pale-like, and black
hair. He asked me if I was ready to die--and I said I didn't know what
it was I wanted if I wasn't; and he told me---- Oh, I know I'll never
have rest no more!"
A burst of weeping followed these words. Eleanor felt as if a
thunderbolt had broken at her feet; so terrible to her, in her own
mood, was this revelation of a kindred feeling. She stood by the
bedside, dismayed, shocked, a little disposed to echo Jane's despairing
prophecy in her own case.
"Did he say no more to you, Jane?"
"Yes, Miss Eleanor, he did; and every word he said made me feel worser.
His two eyes was like two swords going through me; and they went
through me so softly, ma'am, I couldn't abear it. They killed me."
"But, Jane, he did not mean to kill you. What did he say?"
"I don't know, Miss Eleanor--he said a many things; but they only made
me feel----how I ain't fit----"
There was no more talking. The words were broken off by sobs. Eleanor
turned aside to the fire-place and began to make up the fire, in a
blank confusion and distress; feeling, to use an Arabic phrase, as if
the sky had fallen. She could give no comfort; she wanted it herself.
The best she could think of, was the suggestion that the gentleman
would come again, and that then he would make all things plain. Would
he come while Eleanor was there, that afternoon? What a chance! But she
remembered it was very unlikely. He was to preach in the evening; he
would want to keep all his strength for that. And now the question
arose, how should she get to the barn.
The first thing was to soothe Jane. Eleanor succeeded in doing that
after a while. She made her a cup of tea and a piece of toast, and took
some herself; and sat in the darkening light musing how she should do.
One good thing was secure. She had not been followed up this afternoon,
nor sent for home; both which disagreeables she had feared. Jane dozed,
and she thought; and the twilight fell deeper and deeper.
There was after all only one way in which Eleanor could accomplish her
desire; though she turned the matter all round in her head before she
would see it, or determine upon adopting it. No mortal that she knew
could be trusted with the secret--if she meant to have it remain a
secret: and that at all costs was Eleanor's desire. Julia might have
been trusted, but Julia could not have been brought along. Eleanor was
alone. She thought, and trembled, and made up her mind.
The hour must be waited for when people from the village would be
setting forth to go to Brooks' farm. It was dark then, except some
light from the stars. Eleanor got out a bonnet of Jane's, which the
owner would never use again; a close little straw bonnet; and tied over
it a veil she had taken the precaution to bring. Her own hat and mantle
she laid away out of sight, and wrapped round her instead a thick
camlet cloak of the sick girl's, which enveloped her from head to feet.
Pretty good disguise--thought Eleanor to herself. Mr. Carlisle would
not find her out in this. But there was no danger of _his_ seeing her.
She was all ready to steal out; when she suddenly recollected that she
might be missed, and the old people in terror make a hue and cry after
her. That would not do. She stripped off the bonnet again and awoke the
sleeping girl.
"Jane," she said bending over her, "I have somebody else to see--I am
going out for a little while. I will be back and spend the night with
you. Tell your mother to leave the door open for me, if she wishes to
go to bed; and I will look after you. Now go to sleep again."
Without waiting for Jane to think about it, Eleanor slipped out, bonnet
in hand, and went softly down stairs. The old man was already gone to
bed in a little inner chamber; the old mother sat dozing by the fire.
Standing behind her Eleanor put on the bonnet, and then gently opening
the house door, with one step was in the road. A moment stood still;
but the next moment set off with quick, hasty steps.
It was damp and dark; the stars were shining indeed, yet they shed but
a glimmering and doubtful light upon Eleanor's doubtful proceeding. She
knew it was such; her feet trembled and stumbled in her way, though
that was as much with the fever of determination as with the hinderings
of doubt. There was little occasion for bodily fear. People, she knew,
would be going to the preaching, all along the way; she would not be
alone either going or coming. Nevertheless it was dark, and she was
where she had no business to be; and she hurried along rather nervously
till she caught sight of one or two groups before her, evidently bent
for the same place with herself. She slackened her footsteps then, so
as to keep at a proper distance behind them, and felt that for the
present she was secure. Yet, it was a wild, strange walk to Eleanor.
Secure from personal harm she might be, and was, no doubt; but who
could say what moral consequences might follow her proceeding. What if
her mother knew it? what if Mr. Carlisle? Eleanor felt she was doing a
very questionable thing; but the desire to do it on her part amounted
to a necessity. She must hear these words that would be spoken in the
barn to-night. They would be on the subject that of all others
interested her, and spoken by the lips that of all others could alone
speak to the purpose. So Eleanor felt; so was in some measure for her
the truth; and amid all her sense of doubt and danger and inward
trembling, there was a wild thrill of delight at accomplishing her
object. She would hear--yes, she would hear--what Mr. Rhys had to say
to the people that night. Nobody should ever know it; neither he nor
others; but if they _did_, she would run all risks rather than be
balked.
It was a walk never to be forgotten. Alone, though near people that
knew not she was near; in the darkness of night; the stars shewing only
the black forms of trees and hedgerows, and a line of what could not be
called light, where the road ran; keeping in the shadow of the hedge
and hurrying along over the undiscerned footway;--it was a novel
experience for one who had been all her life so tended and sheltered as
she. It was strange and disagreeable. Waymarks did not seem familiar;
distances seemed long. Eleanor wished the walk would come to an end.
It did at last. The people,--there was a stream of them now pouring
along the road, indeed so many that Eleanor was greatly surprised at
them,--turned off into a field, within which at a few rods from the
road stood the barn in question; at the door of which one or two lamps
hung out shewed that something unusual was going on there. Mr. Brooks
had several barns, the gables and roofs of which looked like a little
settlement in the starlight, not far off; but this particular barn
stood alone, and was probably known to the country people from former
occasions; for they streamed towards it and filed in without any
wavering or question. So Eleanor followed, trembling and wondering at
herself; passed the curtain that hung at the door, and went in with the
others.
The place that received them was a great threshing-floor, of noble
proportions, for a threshing-floor. Perhaps Mr. Brooks had an eye to
contingencies when he built it. On two sides it was lined with grain,
rising in walls of cereal sweetness to a great height; and certainly,
if Eleanor had been in many a statelier church, she had never been in
one better ventilated or where the air was more fragrantly scented. But
a new doubt struck her. Could it be right to hold divine service in
such a place? Was this a fit or decorous temple, for uses of such high
and awful dignity? The floor was a bare plank floor; footfalls echoed
over it. The roof was high indeed; but no architect's groining of beams
reminded one that the place was set apart to noble if not sacred
purposes. Nothing but common carpenter's joinery was over her head, in
the roof of the barn. The heads of wheat ears instead of carved
cornices and pendents; and if the lights were dim, which they certainly
were, it did not seem at all a religious light. Only at the further
end, where a table and chair stood ready for the preacher, some tall
wax candles threw a sufficient illumination for all present to see him
well. Was that his pulpit? What sort of preaching could possibly be had
from it?
Eleanor looked round the place. There was no really lighted part of it
except about that table and chair. It was impossible for people to see
each other well from a little distance off, unless thoroughly well
known.
Eleanor felt there was very little danger indeed that anybody should
recognize her identity, in Jane's bonnet and cloak. That was so much
comfort. Another comfort was, that the night was mild. It was not like
November. A happy circumstance for everybody there; but most of all for
the convalescent preacher, whose appearance Eleanor looked for now with
a kind of fearful anxiety. If he should have been hindered from coming,
after all! Her heart beat hard. She stood far back behind most of the
people, near the door by which she had entered. A few benches and
chairs were in the floor, given up to the use of the women and the aged
people. Eleanor marvelled much to see that there were some quite old
people among the company. The barn was getting very full.
"There is a seat yonder," said some one touching her on the elbow.
"Won't you have it?"
Eleanor shook her head.
"You had better," he said kindly; "there's a seat with nobody in it;
there's plenty of room up there. Come this way."
Eleanor was unwilling to go further forward, yet did not like to trust
her voice to speak, nor choose to draw attention to herself in any way.
She was needlessly afraid. However, she yielded to the instance of her
kind neighbour and followed him among the crowd to the spot he had
picked out for her. She would have resisted further, if she had known
where this spot was; for it was far forward in the barn, more than half
way between the door and the candle-lighted table, and in the very
midst of the assembly. There was no help for it now; she could not go
back; and Eleanor was thankful for the support the seat gave her. She
was trembling all over. A vague queer feeling of her being about
something wrong, not merely in the circumstances of her getting there,
but in the occasion itself, haunted her with a sort of superstition.
Could such an assembly be rightfully gathered for such a purpose in
such a place? Could it be right, to speak publicly of sacred things
with such an absence of any public recognition of their sacredness? In
a bare barn? an unconsecrated building, with no beauty or dignity of
observance to give homage to the work and the occasion? Eleanor was a
compound of strange feelings; till she suddenly became conscious of a
stir in the gathered throng, and then heard on the plank floor a step
that she intuitively knew. As the step and the tall figure that it bore
passed close by her on the way to the table, an instant sense of quiet
and security settled down on her. Nervousness died away. There was one
person there now that she knew; the question of his coming was settled,
and her coming was not for nothing; and moreover, whatever business he
was concerned in was right, in all its parts! She was sure of that. She
watched him, with a great bound of exultation in her heart; watched him
kneel down for prayer as he reached his place; and wondered, while awe
mixed with her wonder, how he could do it, before and amongst all those
people as he was; not shut off in a distant chancel alone by himself,
but there with everybody crowding upon him. Her wonder had but little
space to exercise itself. After a few minutes Mr. Rhys rose and gave
out a hymn; and every thought of Eleanor's was concentrated on the
business and on the speaker.
She knew nothing about hymns except that they were sung in church; all
such lyrics were unfamiliar to her, though the music of them was not.
It was always stately music, with an organ, in the swell of which the
words were lost. There could be no organ in a barn. Instead of that,
the whole assembly rose to their feet and struck out together into a
sweet air which they sung with a vast deal of spirit. No difficulty
about hearing the words now; the music was not at a distance; the words
were coming from every lip near Eleanor, and were sung as if they were
a personal matter. Perhaps she was in a mood to be easily touched; but
the singing did reach her and move her profoundly.
"When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid
farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes."
The sense of this, Eleanor did not thoroughly understand, yet the
general spirit of it was not to be mistaken. And the soft repetition of
the last line struck her heart sorrowfully. Here was her want breathed
out again. "And wipe my weeping eyes.--I'll bid farewell to every fear,
and wipe my weeping eyes." Eleanor was perhaps the only one who did not
sing; nobody paid better attention.
The hymn was followed by a prayer. If the one had touched Eleanor, the
other prostrated her in the dust. She heard a child of God speaking to
his Father; with a simplicity of utterance, a freedom of access, and a
glow of happy affections, evident in every quietly spoken word, that
testified to his possession of the heavenly treasures that were on his
tongue; and made Eleanor feel humbled and poor with an extreme and
bitter sense of want. Her heart felt as empty as a deep well that had
gone dry. This man only had ever shewed her what a Christian might be;
she saw him standing in a glory of heavenly relationships and
privileges and character, that were a sort of transfiguration. And
although Eleanor comprehended but very imperfectly wherein this glory
might lie, she yet saw the light, and mourned her own darkness.
Eleanor's mind went a great way during the minutes of that prayer;
according to the strange fashion in which the work of many days is
sometimes done in one. She was sorry when it ended; however, every part
of the services had a vivid new interest for her. Another hymn, and
reading, during which her head was bowed on her breast in still
listening; it was curious, how she had forgot all about being in a
barn; and then the sermon began. She had to raise up her head when that
began; and after a while Eleanor could not bear her veil, and threw it
back, trusting that the dim light would secure her from being known.
But she felt that she must see as well as hear, this one time.
Of all subjects in the world to fall in with Eleanor's mood, the sermon
to-night was on _peace_. The peace that the Lord Jesus left as his
parting gift to his people; the peace that is not as the world giveth.
How the world gives, Mr. Rhys briefly set forth; with one hand, to take
away with the other--as a handful of gold, what proves but a clutch of
ashes--as the will-o'-the-wisp gives, promise but never possession.
Eleanor would not have much regarded these words from any other lips;
they accorded with her old theory of disgust with the world. From Mr.
Rhys she did regard them, because no word of his fell unheeded by her.
But when he went on from that to speak of Christ's gift, and how that
is bestowed--his speech was as bitter in her heart as it was sweet in
his mouth. The peace he held up to her view,--the joy in which a child
of God lives and walks--and dies; the security of every movement, the
confidence in every action, the rest in all turmoil, the fearlessness
in all danger; the riches in the midst of poverty, the rejoicing even
in time of sorrow; the victory over sin and death, wrought in him as
well as for him;--Eleanor's heart seemed to die within her, and at the
same time started in a struggle for life. Had the words been said
coldly, or as matter of speculative belief, or as privilege not
actually entered into, it would have been a different thing. Eleanor
might have sat back in her chair and listened and sorrowed for herself
in outward quiet. But there was unconscious testimony from every tone
and look of the speaker that he told the people but of what he knew.
The pale face was illumined by a high grave light, that looked like a
halo from the unseen world; it was nothing less to Eleanor; and the
mouth in its general set so sober, broke occasionally into a smile so
sweet, that it straitened Eleanor's heart with its unconscious
tale-telling. As the time went on, the speaker began to illustrate his
words by instances; instances of the peace which Christians have shewn
to be theirs in all sorts of circumstances where the world would have
given them none, or would have surely withdrawn the gift once made. In
poverty--in pain--in loneliness--in the want of all things--in the
close prospect of suffering, and in the presence of death. Wonderful
instances they were! glorious to the power of that Redeemer, who had
declared, "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. In the world ye
shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world." How the speaker's eye flushed and fired; flushed with tears,
and fired with triumph; what a tint rose on the pale cheek, testifying
to the exultation he felt; with what tremulous distinctness the words
were sometimes given--and heard in the breathless stillness to the
furthest corner of the place. It was too much at last. Feeling was
wrought too high. Eleanor could not bear it. She bowed her head on her
hand to hide the tears that would come, and only struggled to keep her
sobs quiet that she might not lose a word. There were other sobs in the
assembly that were less well controlled; they were audible; Eleanor
could not endure to hear them, for she feared her excitement would
become unmanageable. Nevertheless by strong effort she succeeded in
keeping perfectly still; though she dared not raise her head again till
the last hymn and prayers were over, and the people made a general stir
all round her. Then she too rose up and turned her face in the
direction whither they were all turning, towards the door.
She made her way out with the crowd blindly, conscious that it was all
over--that was the prominent thought--and yet that work was done which
would never be "over" for her. So conscious of this, that she had no
care either of her whereabouts or of her walk home, except in an
incidental sort of way. She got out into the starlight, and stepped
over the grassy sward of the field in a maze; she hardly felt the
ground; it was not till she reached the fence and found herself in the
road, that Eleanor really roused up. Then it was necessary to turn in
one direction or the other; and Eleanor could not tell which to take.
She stood still and tried to collect herself. Which side of the road
was the barn? She could not remember; she was completely confused and
turned about; and in the starlight she could be sure of no tree or
fence or other landmark. She stood still, while the people poured past
her and in groups or in pairs took the one direction or the opposite.
Part went one way and part went the other, to Wiglands and to Rythdale.
Eleanor longed to ask which way somebody was going, but she was afraid
of betraying herself. She did not dare. Yet if she took the wrong
turning, she might find herself in the Rythdale valley, a great
distance from Wiglands, and with a lone road to traverse all the way
back again. Her heart beat. What should she do? The people poured past
her, dividing off right and left; they would be all scattered soon to
their several homes, and she would be left alone. She must do something
quickly. Yet she shrank very much from speaking, and still stood by the
fence trembling and hesitating.
"Are you alone?" said a voice at her shoulder that she knew very well.
If a cannon had gone off at her feet, it would not have startled
Eleanor more. The tone of the question implied that _she_ was known.
She was too startled to answer. The words were repeated. "Are you
alone?"
Eleanor's "yes" got out, with nothing distinguishable except the last
letter.
"I have a waggon here," said he. "Come with me."
The speaker waited for no answer to the words which were not a request;
and acting as decidedly as he had spoken, took hold of Eleanor's arm
and led her forward to a little vehicle which had just drawn up. He
helped her into it, took his place beside her, and drove away; but he
said not another word.
It was Mr. Rhys, and Eleanor knew that he had recognized her. She sat
in a stupor of confusion and shame. What would he think of her! and
what could she make him think? Must she be a bold, wild girl in his
estimation for ever? Why would he not speak? He drove on in perfect
silence. Eleanor must say something to break it. And it was extremely
difficult, and she had to be bold to do that.
"I see you recognize me, Mr. Rhys," she said.
"I recognized you in the meeting," he answered in perfect gravity.
Eleanor felt it. She was checked. She was punished.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked after a little more time.
"I will take you wherever you tell me you desire."
Grave and short. Eleanor could not bear it.
"You think very hardly of me, Mr. Rhys," she said; "but I was spending
the night at a poor girl's house in the village--she is ill, and I was
going to sit up with her--and I knew you were to preach at that
place--and--" Eleanor's voice choked and faltered.
"And what could prompt you to go alone, Miss Powle?"
"I wanted to go--" faltered Eleanor. "I knew it would be my last
chance. I felt I must go. And I could go no way but alone."
"May I ask what you mean by 'your last chance?'"
"My last chance of hearing what I wanted to hear--what I can't help
thinking about lately. Mr. Rhys, I am not happy."
"Did you understand what you heard to-night?"
"In part I did--I understood, Mr. Rhys, that you have something I have
not,--and that I want." Eleanor spoke with great emotion.
"The Lord bless you!" he said, with a tenderness of tone that broke her
down at once. "Trust Jesus, Miss Powle. He can give it to you. He only
can. Go to him for what you want, and for understanding of what you do
not understand. Trust the Lord! Make your requests known to him, and
believe that he will hear your prayers and answer them, and more than
fulfil them. Now where shall I set you down?"
"Anywhere--" Eleanor said as well as she could. "Here, if you please."
"Here is no house. We are just at the entrance of the village."
"This is a good place then," said Eleanor. "I do not want anybody to
see me."
"Miss Powle," said her guardian, and he spoke with such extreme gravity
that Eleanor was half frightened,--"did you come without the knowledge
of your friends at home?"
"Yes, to the place we have come from. Mamma knew I was going to spend
the night with a sick girl in the village--she did not know any more."
"It was very dangerous!" he said in the same tone.
"I knew it. I risked that. I felt I must come."
"You did very wrong," said her companion. It hurt her that he should
say it, and have cause; but she was so miserable before, that it could
be felt only in the dull way in which pain added to pain sometimes
makes itself known. She was subdued, humbled, ashamed. She said nothing
more, nor did he, until after passing two or three houses they arrived
at a spot where the trees and the road were the only village
representatives; a clear space, with no house very near, and no person
in sight. Mr. Rhys drew up by the side of the road, and helped Eleanor
out of the waggon. He said only "Good night," but it was said kindly
and sympathizingly, and with the earnest grasp of the hand that Eleanor
remembered. He got into the waggon again, but did not drive away as she
expected; she found he was walking his horse and keeping abreast of her
as she walked. Eleanor hurried on, reached Mrs. Lewis's cottage, paused
a second at the door to let him see that she had reached her stopping
place, and went in.
All still; the embers dying on the hearth, a cricket chirrupping under
it. Mrs. Lewis was gone to bed, but had not covered up the fire for
fear her young lady might want it. Eleanor did not dare sit down there.
She drew the bolt of the house door; then softly went up the stairs to
Jane's room. Jane was asleep. Eleanor felt thankful, and moved about
like a shadow. She put the brands together in a sort of mechanical way;
for she knew she was chilly and needed fire bodily, though her spirit
was in a fever. The night had turned raw, and the ride home had been
not so cheering mentally as to do away with the physical influence of a
cold fog. Eleanor put off bonnet and cloak, softly piled the brands
together and coaxed up a flame; and sat down on a low stool on the
hearth to spread her hands over it, to catch all the comfort she could.
Comfort was not near, however. Jane waked up in a violent fit of
coughing; and when that was subdued or died away, as difficult a fit of
restlessness was left behind. She was nervous and uneasy; Eleanor had
only too much sympathy with both moods, nevertheless she acted the part
of a kind and delicate nurse; soothed Jane and ministered to her, even
spoke cheerful words; until the poor girl's exhausted mind and body
sank away again into slumber, and Eleanor was free to sit down on the
hearth and fold her hands.
Then she began to think. Not till then. Indeed what she did then at
first was not to think, but to recall in musing all the scenes and as
far as possible all the words of that evening; with a consciousness
behind this all the while that there was hard thinking coming. Eleanor
went dreamily over the last few hours, looking in turn at each image so
stamped upon her memory; felt over again the sermon, the hymns, the
prayers; then suddenly broke from her musings to face this
consciousness that was menacing her. Set herself to think in earnest.
What was it all about? Eleanor might well have shunned it, might well
grasp it in desperation with a sudden inability to put it off any
longer. Down in her heart, as strong as the keep of an old castle, and
as obstinate-looking, was the feeling--"I do not want to marry Mr.
Carlisle." Eleanor did not immediately discern its full outline and
proportions, in the dim confusion which filled her heart; but a little
steady looking revealed it, revealed it firm and clear and established
there. "I do not want to marry him--I will not marry him"--she found
the words surging up from this stronghold. Pride and ambition cowering
somewhere said, "Not ever? Do you mean, not at all? not ever?"--"Not
ever!"--was the uncompromising answer; and Eleanor's head dropped in
agony. "Why?" was the next question. And the answer was clear and
strong and ready. "I am bent upon another sort of life than his life--I
am going another way--I _must_ live for aims and objects which he will
hate and thwart and maybe hinder--I _will not_ walk with him in his
way--I cannot walk with him in mine--I cannot, oh, I do not wish, to
walk with him at all!" Eleanor sat face to face with this blank
consciousness, staring at it, and feeling as if the life was gradually
ebbing out of her. What was she to do? The different life and temper
and character, and even the face, of Mr. Rhys, came up to her as so
much nobler, so much better, so much more what a man should be, so much
more worthy of being liked. But Eleanor strove to put that image away,
as having very truly, she said to herself, nothing to do with the
present question. However, she thought she could not marry Mr.
Carlisle; and intrenched herself a little while in that position, until
the next subject came up for consideration; how she could escape from
it? What reason could be assigned? Only this religious one could be
given--and it might be, it might well be, that Mr. Carlisle would not
on his part consider that reason enough. He would certainly hope to
overcome the foundation on which it stood; and if he could not, Eleanor
was obliged to confess to herself that she believed he loved her to
that degree that he would rather have her a religious wife than not his
wife at all. What should Eleanor do? Was she not bound? had she not
herself given him claims over her which she had no right to disallow?
had he not a right to all her fulfilment of them? Eleanor did not love
him as he loved her; she saw that with singular and sudden
distinctness; but there again, when she thought of that as a reason for
not fulfilling her contract, she was obliged to own that it would be no
reason to Mr. Carlisle. He never had had ground to suppose that Eleanor
gave him more than she had expressed; but he was entirely content with
what he had and his own confidence that he could cultivate it into what
he pleased. There was no shaking loose from him in that way. As Eleanor
sat on the hearth and looked at the ashes, in reality looking at Mr.
Carlisle, her own face grew wan at what she saw there. She could give
him no reason for changing their relations to each other, that would
make him hold her a bit the less closely, no, nor the less fondly. What
could Eleanor do? To go on and be Mr. Carlisle's wife, if necessary;
give him all the observance and regard that she could, that she owed
him, for having put herself in a false position where she could not
give him more;--Eleanor saw nothing else before her. But one thing
beside she would do. She would make Mr. Carlisle clearly and fully
understand what sort of a woman he must expect in her. She would
explain thoroughly what sort of a life she meant to lead. Justly
stated, what would that be?
Eleanor thought; and found herself determined, heart and soul, to
follow the path of life laid before her that evening. Whether "peace"
could visit her, in the course that seemed to lie through her future
prospects, Eleanor much doubted; but at any rate she would have the
rest of a satisfied conscience. She would take the Bible for her rule.
Mr. Rhys's God should be her God, and with all she had of power and
ability she would serve him. Dim as religious things still were to her
vision, one thing was not dim, but shiningly clear; the duty of every
creature to live the devoted servant of that Lord to whom he belongs by
creation and redemption both. Here Eleanor's heart fixed, if it had a
fixed point that tumultuous night; but long before it settled anywhere
her thoughts were bathed in bitter tears; in floods of weeping that
seemed fit to wash her very heart away. It occurred to Eleanor, if they
could, how much trouble would be saved! She saw plenty before her. But
there was the gripe of a fear and a wish upon her heart, that
overmastered all others. The people had sung a hymn that evening, after
the first one; a hymn of Christian gladness and strength, to an air as
spirited as the words. Both words and air rang in her mind, through all
the multifarious thoughts she was thinking; they floated through and
sounded behind them like a strain of the blessed. Eleanor had taken one
glance at Mr. Rhys while it was singing; and the remembrance of his
face stung her as the sight of an angel might have done. The counter
recollection of her own misery in the summer at the time she was ill;
the longing want of that security and hope and consequent rest of mind,
was vividly with her too. Pushed by fear and desire, Eleanor's
resolution was taken. She saw not the way clear, she did not know yet
the "wicket-gate" towards which Bunyan's Pilgrim was directed; like him
however she resolved to "keep the light in her eye, and run."
The fire had died all out; the grey ashes were cold; she was very cold
herself, but did not know it. The night had waned away, and a light had
sprung in at the window which Eleanor thought must be the dawn. It was
not; it was the old moon just risen, and struggling through the fog.
But the moon was the herald of dawn; and Eleanor got up from the
hearth, feeling old and stiff; as if she had suddenly put on twenty
years of age more than she came to the village with. The room was quite
too cold for Jane, she remembered; and softly she went up and down for
kindling and lighted up the fire again. Till she had done that, she
felt grey and stern, like the November morning; but when the fire
crackled and sparkled before her, and gave its cheery look and
comforting warmth to her chilled senses, some curious sympathy with
times that were gone and that she dared not hope to see again, smote
Eleanor with a softer sorrow; and she wept a very rain of new tears.
These did her good; they washed some of the bitterness out of her; and
after that she sat thinking how she should manage; when Mr. Rhys's
parting words suddenly recurred to her. A blanker ignorance how they
should be followed, can scarcely be imagined, in a person of general
sense and knowledge. Nevertheless, she bowed herself on the hearth,
surely not more in form than in feeling, and besought of that One whose
aid she knew not how to ask, that he would yet give it to her and
fulfil all her desires. Eleanor was exhausted then. She sat in a stupor
of resting, till the faint illumination of the moon was really replaced
by a growing and broadening light of day. The night was gone.