IN PERPLEXITIES.
"Look, a horse at the door,
And little King Charles is snarling;
Go back, my lord, across the moor,
You are not her darling."
Eleanor set out early to go home. She would not wait to be sent for.
The walk might set her pulses in motion again perhaps. The fog was
breaking away under the sun's rays, but it had left everything wet; the
morning was excessively chill. There was no grass in her way however,
and Eleanor's thick shoes did not fear the road, nor her feet the three
miles of way. The walk was good. It could not be said to be pleasant;
yet action of any kind was grateful and helpful. She saw not a creature
till she got home.
Home struck her with new sorrow, in the sense of the disappointment she
was going to bring to so many there. She made her own room without
having to speak to anybody; bathed and dressed for breakfast. How grave
her face was, this morning! She could not help that. And she felt that
it grew graver, when entering the breakfast room she found Mr. Carlisle
there.
"What have you done to yourself?" said he after they were seated at the
breakfast table.
"Taken a walk this morning."
"Judicious! in this air, which is like a suspended shower-bath! Where
did you go?"
"On the Wiglands road."
"If I had come in time, I should have taken you up before me, and cut
short such a proceeding. Mrs. Powle, you do not make use of your
authority."
"Seems hardly worth while, when it is on the point of expiring," said
Mrs. Powle blandly, with a smiling face.
"Why Eleanor had to come home," said Julia; "she spent the night in the
village. She could not help walking--unless mamma had sent the carriage
or something for her."
"Spent the night in the village!" said Mr. Carlisle.
"Eleanor took it into her head that she must go to take care of a sick
girl there--the daughter of her nurse. It is great foolishness, I
think, but Eleanor will do it."
"It don't agree with her very well," said Julia. "How you do look,
Eleanor, this morning!"
"She looks very well," said the Squire--"for all I see. Walking won't
hurt her."
What Mr. Carlisle thought he did not say. When breakfast was over he
drew Eleanor off into the library.
"How do you do this morning?" said he stopping to look at her.
"Not very well."
"I came early, to give you a great gallop to the other end of the
moor--where you wished to go the other day. You are not fit for it now?"
"Hardly."
"Did you sit up with that girl last night?
"I sat up. She did not want much done for her. My being there was a
great comfort to her."
"Far too great a comfort. You are a naughty child. Do you fancy,
Eleanor, your husband will allow you to do such things?"
"I must try to do what is right, Macintosh."
"Do you not think it will be right that you should pleasure me in what
I ask of you?" he said very gently and with a caressing action which
took away the edge of the words.
"Yes--in things that are right," said Eleanor, who felt that she owed
him all gentleness because of the wrong she had done.
"I shall not ask you anything that is not right; but if I should,--the
responsibility of your doing wrong will rest on me. Now do you feel
inclined to practise obedience a little to day?"
"No, not at all," said Eleanor honestly, her blood rousing.
"It will be all the better practice. You must go and lie down and rest
carefully, and get ready to ride with me this afternoon, if the weather
will do. Eh, Eleanor?"
"I do not think I shall want to ride to-day."
"Kiss me, and say you will do as I bid you."
Eleanor obeyed, and went to her room feeling wretched. She must find
some way quickly to alter this state of things--if she could alter
them. In the mean time she had promised to rest. It was a comfort to
lock the door and feel that for hours at any rate she was alone from
all the world. But Eleanor's heart fainted. She lay down, and for a
long time remained in motionless passive dismay; then nature asserted
her rights and she slept.
If sleep did not quite "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care" for her,
Eleanor yet felt much less ragged when she came out of her slumber.
There was some physical force now to meet the mental demand. The first
thing demanded was a letter to Mr. Carlisle. It was in vain to think to
tell him in spoken words what she wanted him to know; he would cut them
short or turn them aside as soon as he perceived their drift, before
she could at all possess him with the facts of the case. Eleanor sat
down before dressing, to write her letter, so that no call might break
her off until it was done.
It was a weary, anxious, sorrowful writing; done with some tears and
some mute prayers for help; with images constantly starting into her
mind that she had to put aside together with the hot drops they called
forth. The letter was finished, when Eleanor was informed that Mr.
Carlisle waited for her.
"To ride, I suppose," she thought. "I will not go." She put on a house
dress and went down to the library, where her mother and Mr. Carlisle
were together; looking both of them so well pleased!
"You are not dressed for riding!" he said, taking her into his arms.
"As you see," returned Eleanor.
"I have brought a new horse for you. Will you change your dress?"
"I think not. I am not equal to anything new."
"Have you slept?"
"Yes, but I have not eaten; and it takes both to make muscle. I cannot
even talk to you till after tea."
"Have you had no luncheon?"
"I was asleep."
"Mrs. Powle," said the gentleman, "you do not take care of my interests
here. May I request you to have this want supplied--I am going to take
Eleanor a great gallop presently; she must have something first." He
put Eleanor in an easy chair as he spoke, and stood looking at her.
Probably he saw some unusual lines of thought or care about the face,
but it was by no means less fine for that. Mr. Carlisle liked what he
saw. Refreshments came; and he poured out chocolate for her and served
her with an affectionate supervision that watched every item. But when
after a very moderate meal Eleanor's hand was stretched out for another
piece of bread, he stopped her.
"No," he said; "no more now. Now go and put on your habit."
"But I am very hungry," said Eleanor.
"No matter--you will forget it in five minutes. Go and put on your
habit."
Eleanor hesitated; thought that perhaps after all the ride would be the
easiest way of passing the afternoon; and went.
"Well you do understand the art of command," said Mrs. Powle
admiringly. "She would never have done that for me."
Mr. Carlisle did not look surprised, nor gratified, nor in fact shew
anything whatever in his looks. Unless it were, that the difference of
effects produced by himself and his future mother-in-law, was very much
a matter of course. He stood before the fire, with no change at all in
his clear hazel eyes, until Eleanor appeared. Then they sparkled.
Eleanor was for some reason or other particularly lovely in his eyes
to-day.
The horse he had brought for her was a superb Arabian, shewing nerve
and fire in every line of his form and starting muscle, from the tips
of the ears down to the long fetlock and beautiful hoof. Shewing fire
in the bright eye too. A brown creature, with luxuriant flowing mane
and tail.
"He is not quite so quiet as Black Maggie," Mr. Carlisle said as he put
Eleanor upon his back; "and you must not curb him, Eleanor, or he will
run."
They went to the moor; and by degrees getting wonted to her fiery
charger and letting him display his fine paces and increase his speed,
Eleanor found the sensation very inspiriting. Even Black Maggie was not
an animal like this; every motion was instinct with life and power, and
not a little indication of headstrongness and irritability gave a great
additional interest and excitement to the pleasure of managing him. Mr.
Carlisle watched her carefully, Eleanor knew; he praised her handling.
He himself was mounted on a quiet, powerful creature that did not make
much shew.
"If this fellow--what is his name?"
"Tippoo Sultan."
"If he were by any chance to run--would that horse you are riding keep
up with him?"
"I hope you will not try."
"I don't mean it--but I am curious. There, Mr. Carlisle, there is the
place where I was thrown."
"A villainous looking place. I wish it was mine. How do you like
Tippoo?"
"Oh, he is delightful!"
Mr. Carlisle looked satisfied, as he might; for Eleanor's colour had
become brilliant, and her face had changed greatly since setting out.
Strength and courage and hope seemed to come to her on Tippoo's back,
facing the wind on the moor and gallopping over the wild, free way.
They took in part the route Eleanor had followed that day alone, coming
back through the village by a still wider circuit. As they rode more
moderately along the little street, if it could be called so--the
houses were all on one side--Eleanor saw Mr. Rhys standing at Mrs.
Lewis's door; he saw her. Involuntarily her bow in return to his
salutation was very low. At the same instant Tippoo started, on a run
to which all his former gallopping had been a gentle amble. This was
not ungentle; the motion had nothing rough; only Eleanor was going in a
straight line over the ground at a rate that took away her breath. She
had presence of mind not to draw the curb rein, but she felt that she
could hardly endure long the sort of progress she was making through
the air. It did not seem to be on the ground. Her curiosity was
gratified on one point; for after the first instant she found Mr.
Carlisle's powerful grey straining close beside her. Nevertheless
Tippoo was so entirely in earnest that it was some little time--it
seemed a very long one--before the grey could get so close to the brown
and so far up with him that Mr. Carlisle could lay his hand upon the
thick brown mane of Tippoo and stoop forward to speak to him. As soon
as that was done once or twice, Tippoo's speed gradually relaxed; and a
perseverance in his master's appeals to his reason and sense of duty,
brought the wild creature back to a moderate pace and the air of a
civilized horse. Mr. Carlisle transferred his grasp from the mane to
Eleanor's hand.
"Eleanor, what did you do that for?"
"Do what? I did nothing."
"You curbed him. You drew the rein, and he considered himself insulted.
I told you he would not bear it."
"He has had nothing to bear from me. I have not drawn the curb at all,
Robert."
"I must contradict you. I saw you do it. That started him."
Eleanor remained silent and a little pale. Was Mr. Carlisle right? The
ride had until then done her a great deal of good; roused up her
energies and restored in some degree her spirit; the involuntary race
together with the sudden sight of Mr. Rhys, had the effect to bring
back all the soberness which for the moment the delight and stir of the
exercise had dissipated. She went on pondering various things.
Eleanor's letter to Mr. Carlisle was in the pocket of her habit, ready
for use; she determined to give it him when he left her that evening;
that was one of her subjects of thought. Accordingly he found her very
abstracted and cold the rest of the way; grave and uninterested. He
fancied she might have been startled by her run on Tippoo's back,
though it was not very like her; but he did not know what to fancy. And
true it is, that a remembrance of fear had come up to Eleanor after
that gallop. _Afraid_ she was not, at the time; but she felt that she
had been in a condition of some peril from which her own forces could
not have extricated her; that brought up other considerations, and
sadly in Eleanor's mind some words of the hymn they had sung last night
in the barn floated over among her thoughts:
"When I can read my title clear, To mansions in the skies, I'll bid
farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes."
Very simple words; words that to some ears have become trite with
repetition; but thoughts that went down into the depths of Eleanor's
heart and garrisoned themselves there, beyond the power of any attacks
to dislodge. Her gravity and indifference piqued Mr. Carlisle,
curiosity and affection both. He spent the evening in trying to
overcome them; with very partial success. When he was leaving her,
Eleanor drew the letter from her pocket.
"What is this?" said he taking it.
"Only a letter for you."
"From you! The consideration of that must not be postponed." He broke
the seal. "Come, sit down again. I will read it here."
"Not now! Take it home, Macintosh, and read it there. Let it wait so
long."
"Why?"
"Never mind why. Do! Because I ask you."
"I don't believe I can understand it without you beside me," said he
smiling, and drawing the letter from its envelope while he looked at
her.
"But there is everybody here," said Eleanor glancing at another part of
the room where the rest of the family were congregated. "I would rather
you took it home with you."
"It is something that requires serious treatment?"
"Yes."
"You are a wise little thing," said he, "and I will take your advice."
He put the letter in his pocket; then took Eleanor's hand upon his arm
and walked her off to the library. Nobody was there; lamplight and
firelight were warm and bright. Mr. Carlisle placed his charge in an
easy chair by the library table, much to her disappointment; drew
another close beside it, and sat down with his arm over the back of
hers to read the letter. Thus it ran:
"It is right you should know a change which has taken place in me since
the time when I first became known to you. I have changed very much,
though it is a change perhaps which you will not believe in; yet I feel
that it makes me very different from my old self, and alters entirely
my views of almost everything. Life and life's affairs--and aims--do
not look to me as they looked a few months ago; if indeed I could be
said to have taken any view at all of them then. They were little more
than names to me, I believe. They are great realities now.
"I do not know how to tell you in what this change in me consists, for
I doubt you will neither like it nor believe in it. Yet you _must_
believe in it; for I am not the woman I was a little while ago; not the
woman you think me now. If I suffered you to go on as you are, in
ignorance of it, I should be deceiving you. I have opened my eyes to
the fact that this life is not the end of life. I see another
beyond,--much more lasting, unknown, strange, perhaps not very distant.
The thought of it presses upon me like a cloud. I want to be ready for
it--I feel I am not ready--and that before I can be ready, not only my
views but my character must be changed. I am determined it shall. For,
Mr. Carlisle, there is a Ruler whose government extends over this life
and that, whose requisitions I have never met, whose commands I have
never obeyed, whom consequently I fear; and until this fear is changed
for another feeling I cannot be happy. I will not live the life I have
been leading; careless and thoughtless; I will be the servant of this
Ruler whom hitherto I have disregarded. Whatever his commands are,
those I will follow; at all costs, at any sacrifice; whatever I have or
possess shall be used for his service. One thing I desire; to be a true
servant of God, and not fear his face in displeasure. To secure that, I
will let everything else in the world go.
"I wish you to understand this thoroughly. It will draw on consequences
that you would not like. It will make me such a woman as you would not,
I feel, wish your wife to be. I shall follow a course of life and
action that in many things, I know, would be extremely distasteful to
you. Yet I must follow them--I can do no other--I dare do no other. I
cannot live as I have lived. No, not for any reward or consideration
that could be offered me. Nor to avoid any human anger.
"I think you would probably choose never to see me at the Priory,
rather than to see me there such a woman as I shall be. In that case I
shall be very sorry for all the disagreeable consequences which would
to you attend the annulling of the contract formed between us. My own
part of them I am ready to bear.
"ELEANOR POWLE."
The letter was read through almost under Eleanor's own eyes. She looked
furtively, as she could, to see how Mr. Carlisle took it. He did not
seem to take it at all; she could find no change in his face. If the
brow slightly bent before her did slightly knit itself in sterner lines
than common, she could not be sure of it, bent as it was; and when he
looked up, there was no such expression there. He looked as pleasant as
possible.
"Do you want me to laugh at you?" he said.
"That was not the precise object I had in writing," said Eleanor
soberly.
"I do not suppose it, and yet I feel very much like laughing at you a
little. So you think you can make yourself a woman I would not
like,--eh, my darling?"
He had drawn Eleanor's head down to his shoulder, within easy reach of
his lips, but he did not kiss her. His right hand smoothed back the
masses of her beautiful hair, and then rested on her cheek while he
looked into the face thus held for near inspection; much as one handles
a child. The touch was light and caressing, and calm as power too.
Eleanor breathed quick. She could not bear it. She forced herself back
where she could look at him.
"You are taking it lightly, but I mean it very seriously," she said. "I
think I could--I think I shall. I did not write you such a letter
without very deep reason."
He still retained his hold of her, and in his right hand had captured
one of hers. This hand he now brought to his lips, kissing and
caressing it.
"I do not think I understand it yet," he said. "What are you going to
do with yourself? Is it your old passion for a monastic life come up
again? do you want the old Priory built up, and me for a Father
Confessor?"
Did he mean ever to loose his hold of the little hand he held so
lightly and firmly? Never! Eleanor's head drooped.
"What is it, Eleanor?"
"It is serious work, Mr. Carlisle; and you will not believe me."
"Make me serious too. Tell me a little more definitely what dreadful
thing I am to expect. What sort of a woman is my wife going to be?"
"Such a one as you would not have, if you knew it;--such a one as you
never would have sought, if I had known it myself earlier; I feel
sure." Eleanor's colour glowed all over her face and brow; nevertheless
she spoke steadily.
"Enigmatical!" said Mr. Carlisle. "The only thing I understand is
this--and this--" and he kissed alternately her cheek and lips. "_Here_
is my wife--_here_ is what I wish her to be. It will be all right the
twenty-first of next month. What will you do after that, Eleanor?"
Eleanor was silent, mortified, troubled, silenced. What was the use of
trying to explain herself?
"What do you want to do, Eleanor? Give all your money to the poor? I
believe that is your pet fancy. Is that what you mean to do?"
Eleanor's cheeks burnt again. "You know I have very little money to
give, Mr. Carlisle. But I have determined to give _myself_."
"To me?"
"No, no. I mean, to duties and commands higher than any human
obligation. And they may, and probably will, oblige me to live in a way
that would not please you."
"Let us see. What is the novelty?"
"I am going to live--it is right I should tell you, whether you will
believe me or not,--I am going to live henceforth not for this world
but the other."
"How?" said he, looking at her with his clear brilliant eyes.
"I do not know, in detail. But you know, in the Church service, the
pomps and vanities of the world are renounced; whatever that involves,
it will find me obedient."
"What has put this fancy in your head, Eleanor?"
"A sense of danger, first, I think."
"A sense of danger! Danger of what?"
"Yes. A feeling of being unready for that other life to which I might
at any time go;--that other world, I mean. I cannot be happy so." She
was agitated; her colour was high; her nerves trembled.
"How came this 'sense of danger' into your head? what brought it, or
suggested it?"
"When I was ill last summer--I felt it then. I have felt it since. I
feel my head uncovered to meet the storm that may at any time break
upon it. I am going to live, if I can, as people live whom you would
laugh at; you would call them fanatics and fools. It is the only way
for me to be happy; but you would not like it in one near you."
"Go in a black dress, Eleanor?"
She was silent. She very nearly burst into tears, but prevented that.
"You can't terrify me," said Mr. Carlisle, lazily throwing himself back
in his chair. "I don't get up a 'sense of danger' as easily as you do,
darling. One look in your face puts all that to flight at once. I am
safe. You may do what you like."
"You would not say that by and by," said Eleanor.
"Would I not?" said he, rousing up and drawing her tenderly but
irresistibly to his arms again. "But make proper amends to me for
breaking rules to-night, and you shall have _carte blanche_ for this
new fancy, Eleanor. How are you going to ask my forgiveness?"
"You ought to ask mine--for you will not attend to me."
"Contumacious?" said he lightly, touching her lips as if they were a
goblet and he were taking sips of the wine;--"then I shall take my own
amends. You shall live as you please, darling, only take me along with
you."
"You will not go."
"How do you know?"
"Neither your feeling nor your taste agree with it."
"What _are_ you going to do!" said he half laughing, holding her fast
and looking down into her face. "My little Eleanor! Make yourself a
grey nun, or a blue Puritan? Grey becomes you, darling; it makes a
duchess of you; and blue is set off by this magnificent brown head of
yours. I will answer for my taste in either event; and I think you
could bear, and consequently I could, all the other colours in the
rainbow. As for your idea, of making yourself a woman that I would not
like, I do not think you can compass it. You may try. I will not let
you go too far."
"You cannot hinder it, Macintosh," said Eleanor in a low voice.
"Kiss me!" said he laughingly.
Eleanor slowly raised her head from his shoulder and obeyed, so far as
a very dainty and shyly given permission went; feeling bitterly that
she had brought herself into bonds from which only Mr. Carlisle's hand
could release her. She could not break them herself. What possible
reason could she assign? And so she was in his power.
"Cheeks hot, and hands cold," said Mr. Carlisle to himself as he walked
away through the rooms. "I wish the twenty-first were to-morrow!" He
stopped in the drawing-room to hold a consultation of some length with
Mrs. Powle; in which however he confided to her no more than that the
last night's attention to her nurse's daughter had been quite too much
for Eleanor, and he should think it extremely injudicious to allow it
again. Which Mrs. Powle had no idea of doing.
Neither had Eleanor any idea of attempting it. But she spent half that
night in heart-ache and in baffled searchings for a path out of her
difficulties. What could she do? If Mr. Carlisle _would_ marry her, she
saw no help for it; and to disgust him with her would be a difficult
matter. For oh, Eleanor knew, that though he would not like a religious
wife, he had good reason to trust his own power of regulating any
tendency of that sort which might offend him. Once his wife, once let
that strong arm have a right to be round her permanently; and Eleanor
knew it would be an effectual bar against whatever he wished to keep at
a distance.
Eleanor was armed with no Christian armour; no helmet or shield of
protection had she; all she had was the strength of fear, and the
resolute determination to seek until she should find that panoply in
which she would be safe and strong. Once married to Mr. Carlisle, and
she felt that her determination would be in danger, and her resolution
meet another resolution with which it might have hard fighting to do.
Ay, and who knew whether hers would overcome! She must not finish this
marriage; yet how induce Mr. Carlisle to think of her as she wished?
"I declare," said Mrs. Powle coming into her room the next day, "that
one night's sitting up, has done the work of a week's illness upon you,
Eleanor! Mr. Carlisle is right."
"In what?"
"He said you must not go again."
"I think he is somewhat premature in arranging my movements."
"Don't you like it?" said Mrs. Powle laughing a little. "You must learn
to submit to that. I am glad there is somebody that can control you,
Eleanor, at last. It does me good. It was just a happiness that you
never took anything desperate into your head, for your father and you
together were more than a match for me; and it's just the same with
Julia. But Julia really is growing tame and more reasonable, I think,
lately."
"Good reason why," thought Eleanor moodily. "But that is a better sort
of control she is under."
"I am charged with a commission to you, Eleanor."
"What is it, ma'am?"
"To find out what particular kind of jewels you prefer. I really don't
know, so am obliged to ask you--which was not in my commission."
"Jewels, mamma!"
"Jewels, my lady."
"O mamma! don't talk to me of jewels!"
"Nor of weddings, I suppose; but really I do not see how things are to
be done unless they are to be talked about. For instance, this matter
of your liking in jewellery--I think rubies become you, Eleanor; though
to be sure there is nothing I like so well as diamonds. What is the
matter?"
For Eleanor's brown head had gone down on the table before her and her
face was hidden in her hands. She slowly raised it at her mother's
question.
"Mamma, Mr. Carlisle does not know what he is doing!"
"Pray what do you mean?"
"He thinks he is marrying a person who will be gay and live for and in
the world, as he lives--and as he would wish me. Mamma, I will not! I
never will. I never shall be what he likes in that respect. I mean to
live a religious life."
"A religious life! What sort of a life is that?"
"It is what you do not like--nor he."
"A religious life! Eleanor, you do not suppose Mr. Carlisle would wish
his wife to lead an irreligious life?"
"Yes--I do."
"I should not like you to tell _him_ that," said Mrs. Powle colouring
with anger. "How dare you say it? What sort of a religious life do you
want to live?"
"Such a one as the Bible bids, mamma," Eleanor said in a low voice and
drooping her head. "Such a one as the Prayer Book recommends, over and
over."
"And you think Mr. Carlisle would not like that? What insinuations you
are making against us all, Eleanor. For of course, I, your mother, have
wished you also to live this irreligious life. We are a set of heathens
together. Dr. Cairnes too. He was delighted with it."
"It changes nothing, mamma," said Eleanor. "I am resolved to live in a
different way; and Mr. Carlisle would not like it; and if he only knew
it, he would not wish to marry me; and I cannot make him believe it."
"You have tried, have you?"
"Yes, I have tried. It was only honest."
"Well I did not think you were such a fool, Eleanor! and I am sure he
did not. Believe you, you little fool? he knows better. He knows that
he will not have had you a week at the Priory before you will be too
happy to live what life he pleases. He is just the man to bring you
into order. I only wish the wedding-day was to-morrow."
Eleanor drew herself up, and her face changed from soft and sorrowful
to stubborn. She kept silence.
"In this present matter of jewels," said Mrs. Powle returning to the
charge, "I suppose I am to tell him that a plain set of jet is as much
as you can fancy; or that, as it would be rather uncommon to be married
in black, you will take bugles. What he will say I am sure I don't
know."
"You had better not try, mamma," said Eleanor. "If the words you last
said are true, and I should be unable to follow my conscience at
Rythdale Priory, then I shall never go there; and in that case the
jewels will not be wanted, except for somebody else whose taste neither
bugles nor jet would suit."
"Now you have got one of your obstinate fits on," said Mrs. Powle, "and
I will go. I shall be a better friend to you than to tell Mr. Carlisle
a word of all this, which I know will be vanished in another month or
two; and if you value your good fortune, Eleanor, I recommend you to
keep a wise tongue between your teeth in talking to him. I know one
thing--I wish Dr. Cairnes, or the Government, or the Church, or whoever
has it in hand, would keep all dissenting fools from coming to Wiglands
to preach their pestiferous notions here! and that your father would
not bring them to his house! That is what I wish. Will you be
reasonable, and give me an answer about the jewels, Eleanor?"
"I cannot think about jewels, mamma."
Mrs. Powle departed. Eleanor sat with her head bowed in her hands; her
mind in dim confusion, through which loomed the one thought, that she
must break this marriage. Her mother's words had roused the evil as
well as the good of Eleanor's nature; and along with bitter
self-reproaches and longings for good, she already by foretaste champed
the bit of an authority that she did not love. So, while her mind was
in a sea of turmoil, there came suddenly, like a sun-blink upon the
confusion, a soft question from her little sister Julia. Neither mother
nor daughter had taken notice of her being in the room. The question
came strangely soft, for Julia.
"Eleanor, do you love Jesus?"
Eleanor raised her head in unspeakable astonishment, startled and even
shocked, as one is at an unheard-of thing. Julia's face was close
beside her, looking wistful and anxious, and tender also. The look
struck Eleanor's heart. But she only stared.
"Do you?" said Julia wistfully.
It wrought the most unaccountable convulsion in Eleanor's mind, this
little dove's feather of a question, touching the sore and angry
feelings that wrestled there. She flung herself off her chair, and on
her knees by the table sobbed dreadfully. Julia stood by, looking as
sober as if she had been a ministering angel.
Eleanor knew what the question meant--that was all. She had heard Mr.
Rhys speak of it; she had heard him speak of it with a quiver on his
lip and a flush in his face, which shewed her that there was something
in religion that she had never fathomed, nor ever before suspected;
there was a hidden region of joy the entrance to which was veiled from
her. To Eleanor the thing would have been a mere mystery, but that she
had seen it to be a reality; once seen, that was never to be forgotten.
And now, in the midst of her struggles of passion and pain, Julia's
question came innocently asking whether she were a sharer in that
unearthly wonderful joy which seemed to put its possessor beyond the
reach of struggles. Eleanor's sobs were the hard sobs of pain. As
wisely as if she had really been a ministering angel, her little sister
stood by silent; and said not another word until Eleanor had risen and
taken her seat again. Nor then either. It was Eleanor that spoke.
"What do you know about it, Julia?"
"Not much," said the child. "_I_ love the Lord Jesus--that is all,--and
I thought, perhaps, from the way you spoke, that you did. Mr. Rhys
would be so glad."
"He? Glad? what do you mean, Julia?"
"I know he would; because I have heard him pray for you a great many
times."
"No--no," said Eleanor turning away,--"I know nothing but fear. I do
not feel anything better. And they want me to think of everything else
in the world but this one thing!"
"But you will think of it, Eleanor, won't you?"
Eleanor was silent and abstracted. Her sister watched her with strange
eyes for Julia, anxiously observant. The silence lasted some time.
"When does Mr. Rhys--Is he going to preach again, Julia, that you know
of?"
"I guess not. He was very tired after he preached the other night; he
lay on the couch and did not move the whole next day. He is better
to-day."
"You have seen him this morning?"
"O yes. I see him every day; and he teaches me a great many things. But
he always prays for you."
Eleanor did not wish to keep up the conversation, and it dropped. And
after that, things went on their train.
It was a very fast train, too; and growing in importance and thickening
in its urgency of speed. Every day the preparations converged more
nearly towards their great focus, the twenty-first of December. Eleanor
felt the whirl of circumstances, felt borne off her feet and carried
away with them; and felt it hopelessly. She knew not what to urge that
should be considered sufficient reason either by her mother or Mr.
Carlisle for even delaying, much less breaking off the match. She was
grave and proud, and unsatisfactory, as much as it was in her nature to
be, partly on purpose; and Mr. Carlisle was not satisfied, and hurried
on things all the more. He kept his temper perfectly, whatever thoughts
he had; he rode and walked with Eleanor, when she would go, with the
same cool and faultless manner; when she would not, he sometimes let it
pass and sometimes made her go; but once or twice he failed in doing
this; and recognized the possibility of Eleanor's ability to give him
trouble. He knew his own power however; on the whole he liked her quite
as well for it.
"What is the matter with you, my darling?" he said one day. "You are
not like yourself."
"I am not happy," said Eleanor. "I told you I had a doubt unsettled
upon my mind; and till that doubt is put at rest I cannot be happy; I
cannot have peace; you will take no pleasure in me."
"Why do you not settle it then?" said Mr. Carlisle, quietly.
"Because I have no chance. I have not a moment to think, in this whirl
where I am living. If you would put off the twenty-first of next month
to the twenty-first of some month in the spring--or summer--I might
have a breathing place, and get myself in order. I cannot, now."
"You will have time to think, love, when you get to the Priory," Mr.
Carlisle observed in the same tone--an absolute tone.
"Yes. I know how that would be!" Eleanor answered bitterly. "But I can
take no pleasure in anything,--I cannot have any rest or comfort,--as
long as I know that if anything happened to me--if death came
suddenly--I am utterly unready. I cannot be happy so."
"I think I had better send Dr. Cairnes to see you," said Mr. Carlisle.
"He is in duty bound to be the family physician in all things spiritual
where they need him. But this is morbid, Eleanor. I know how it is.
These are only whims, my darling, that will never outlive that day you
dread so much."
He had drawn her into his arms as he spoke; but in his touch and his
kiss Eleanor felt or fancied something masterful, which irritated her.
"If I thought that, Mr. Carlisle," she said,--"if I knew it was
true,--that day would never come!"
Mr. Carlisle's self-control was perfect; so was his tact. He made no
answer at all to this speech; only gave Eleanor two or three more of
those quiet ownership kisses. No appearance of discomposure in his
manner or in his voice when he spoke; still holding her in his arms.
"I shall know how to punish you one of these days for this," he said.
"You may expect to be laughed at a little, my darling, when you turn
penitent. Which will not hinder the moment from coming."
And so, dismissing the matter and her with another light touch of her
lips, he left her.
"Will it be so?" thought Eleanor. "Shall I be so within his control,
that I shall even sue to him to forget and pardon this word of my true
indignation? Once his wife--once let the twenty-first of December
come--and there will be no more help for me. What shall I do?"
She was desperate, but she saw no opening. She saw however the next day
that Mr. Carlisle was coldly displeased with her. She was afraid to
have him remain so; and made conciliations. These were accepted
immediately and frankly, but so at the same time as made her feel she
had lost ground and given Mr. Carlisle an advantage; every inch of
which he knew and took. Nobody had seen the tokens of any part of all
this passage of arms; in three days all was just as it had been, except
Eleanor's lost ground. And three days more were gone before the
twenty-first of December.