The Old Helmet Volume II Part 55

"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 ma.s.sively 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 n.o.body 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 part.i.tion 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Pla.s.sy, 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 coa.r.s.er; 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 Pla.s.sy--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."