The Old Helmet Volume I Part 31

"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 pa.s.sion 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.