"No," said Eleanor laughing; and then she was vexed at herself that the laugh changed to a sob and the tears came. Wasshehysterical? It was very unlike her, but this seemed something like it. Neither could she immediately conquer the strangling sensation, between laughter and crying, which threatened her.
"My dear! I'm very sorry," said Mrs. Esthwaite. "You are too tired!—and it is my fault. Egbert will be properly angry with me."
But Eleanor conquered the momentary oppression, threw off her tears, and gave her hostess a peaceful kiss for good night; with which the little lady went off comforted. Then Eleanor sat down by her window, and with tears wet on her eyelashes yet, looked off to the beautiful moonlit harbour in the distance—and thought. Her thoughts were her own. Only some of them had a reference to certain words that speak of "sowing beside all waters," and a tender earnest remembrance of the seed she had just been scattering. "Beside all waters"—yes; and as Eleanor looked over towards the fair, peace-speaking view of Port Jackson, in New South Wales, she recollected the prayer that labourers might be sent forth into the vineyard.
"Know well, my soul, God's hand controlsWhate'er thou fearest;Round Him in calmest music rollsWhate'er thou hearest."
"That girl is the most lovely creature!" said Mrs. Esthwaite when she rejoined her husband.
"What have you been talking to her about? Now she will not be up in time to take a drive in the Domain."
"Yes, she will. She has got plenty of spirit. But oh, Egbert! to think of that girl going to put herself in those savage islands, where she won't see anybody!"
"It is absurd?" said her husband, but somewhat faintly.
"I couldn't but think to-night as I looked at her—you should have seen her.—Something upset her and set her to crying; then she wouldn't cry; and the little white hand she brushed across her eyes and then rested on the chair-back to keep herself steady—I looked at it, and I couldn't bear to think of her going to teach those barbarians. And her eyes were all such a glitter with tears and her feelings—I've fallen in love with her, Egbert."
"She's a magnificent creature," said Mr. Esthwaite. "Wouldn't she set Sydney a fire, if she was to be here a little while! But somebody has been beforehand with Sydney—so it's no use talking."
Eleanor was ready in good time for the drive, and with spirits entirely refreshed by the night's sleep and the morning's renewing power. Things looked like new things, unlike those which yesterday saw. All feeling of strangeness and loneliness was gone; her spirits were primed for enjoyment. Mr. and Mrs. Esthwaite both watched eagerly to see the effect of the drive and the scene upon her; one was satisfied, the other was not. The intent delight in Eleanor's eyes escaped Mrs. Esthwaite; she looked for more expression in words; her husband was content that Eleanor's mind was full of what he gave it to act upon. The Domain was an exquisite place for a morning drive; and the more stylish inhabitants of Sydney found it so; there was a good display of equipages, varying in shew and pretension. To Mrs. Esthwaite's disappointment neither these nor their owners drew Eleanor's attention; she did not even seem to see them; while the flowers in the woods through which part of the drive was cut, the innumerable, gorgeous, novel and sweet flowers of a new land, were a very great delight to her. All of them were new, or nearly so; how Eleanor contrasted them with the wild things of Plassy which she knew so well. And instead of the blackbird and green wren, there were birds of brilliant hues, almost as gay as the flowers over which their bright wings went, and yet stranger than they. It was a sort of drive of enchantment to Eleanor; the air was delightful, though warm; with no feeling of lassitude or oppression resulting from the heat.
There were other pleasures. From point to point, as they drove through the "bush," views opened upon them of the harbour and its islands, glittering in the morning sun. Changes of beauty; for every view was a little unlike the others and revealed the loveliness with a difference. Eleanor felt herself in a new world. She was quite ready for the gardens, when they got through the "bush."
The gardens were fine. Here she had a feast which neither of her companions could enjoy with her in anything like fellowship. Eleanor had not lived so long with Mrs. Caxton, entering into all her pursuits, without becoming somewhat well acquainted with plants; and now she was almost equally charmed at seeing her dear old home friends, and at making acquaintance with the glorious beauties that outshone them but could never look so kindly. Slowly Eleanor went through the gardens, followed by her host and hostess who took their enjoyment in observing her. In the Botanical Gardens Mr. Esthwaite came up alongside again, to tell her names and discuss specimens; he found Eleanor knew more about them than he did.
"All this was a wild 'bush'—nothing but rocks and trees, a few years ago," he remarked.
"This?this garden?"
"Yes, only so long ago as 1825."
"Somebody has deserved well of the community, then," said Eleanor. "It is a delicious place."
"General Sir Ralph Darling had that good desert. It is a fine thing to be in high place and able to execute great plans; isn't it?"
Eleanor rose up from a flower and gave Mr. Esthwaite one of her thoughtful glances.
"I don't know," she said. "His gardeners did the work, after all."
"They don't get the thanks."
"Thatis not what one works for," said Eleanor smiling. "So the thing is done—what matter?"
"If itisn'tdone,—what matter? No, no! I want to get the good of what I do,—in praise or in something else."
"What is Sir Ralph Darling the better of my thanks now?"
"Well, he's dead!" said Mr. Esthwaite.
"So I was thinking."
"Well, what do you mean? Do you mean that you would do nothing while you are alive, for fear you would not hear of it after you have left the world?"
"Not exactly."
"What then? I don't know what you are after."
"You say this was all a wilderness a few years ago—why should you despair of what you call the 'black islands?'"
"O ho!" said Mr. Esthwaite,—"we are there, are we? By a hop, skip, and jump—leaving the argument. That's like a woman."
"Are you sure?" said Eleanor.
"Like all the women I ever saw. Not one of them can stick to the point."
"Then I will return to mine," said Eleanor laughing—"or rather bring you up to it. I referred—and meant to refer you—to another sort of gardening, in which the labourer receives wages and gathers fruit; but the beauty of it is, that his wages go with him—he does not leave them behind—and the fruit is unto life eternal."
"That's fair," said Mr. Esthwaite. "See here—you don't preach, do you?"
"I will not, to you," said Eleanor. "Mr. Esthwaite, I will look at no more flowers I believe, this morning, since you leave the time of our stay to me."
Mr. Esthwaite behaved himself, and though a speech was on his tongue he was silent, and attended Eleanor home in an unexceptionable manner. Mrs. Esthwaite was in a dissatisfied mood of mind.
"I hope it will be a great while before you find a good chance to go toFiji!" she said.
"Do not wish that," said Eleanor: "for in that case I may have to take a chance that is not good."
"Ah but, you are not the sort of person to go there."
"I should be very sorry to think that," said Eleanor smiling.
"Well it is clear you are not. Just to look at you! I am sure you are exactly a person to look always as nice as you do now."
"I hope never to look less nice than I do now," said Eleanor, rather opening her eyes.
"What, in that place?"
"Why yes, certainly. Why not?"
"But you will not wear that flat there?"
Eleanor and Mr. Esthwaite here both gave way in a fit of laughter.
"Why yes I will; if I find it, as I suppose I shall, the most comfortable thing."
"But you cannot wear white dresses there?"
"If I cannot, I will submit to it, but, my dear cousin, I have brought little else but white dresses with me. For such a climate, what else is so good?"
"Not like that you wore yesterday?"
"They are all very much alike, I believe. What was the matter with that?"
"Why, it was so—" Mrs. Esthwaite paused. "But how can you get them washed? do you expect to have servants there?"
"There are plenty of servants, I believe; not very well trained, indeed, or it would not be necessary to have so many. At any rate, they can wash, whatever else they can do."
"I don't believe they would know how to wash your dresses."
"Then I can teach them," said Eleanor merrily.
"You!To wash a cambrick dress!"
"That, or any other."
"Eleanor, do not talk so!"
"Certainly not, if you do not wish it. I was only putting you to rest on the score of my laundry work."
"With those hands!" said Mrs. Esthwaite expressively.
Eleanor looked down at her hands, for a moment a higher and graver expression flitted over her face, then she smiled again.
"I should be ashamed of my hands if they were good for nothing."
"Capital!" said Mr. Esthwaite. "That's what I like. That is what I call having spirit. I like to see a woman have some character of her own; something besides hands, in fact."
"But Eleanor, I do not understand. I am serious. You never washed; how can you know how?"
"That was precisely my reasoning; so I learned."
"Learned towash?You?"
"Yes."
"You did it with your own hands?"
"The dress you were so good as to approve," said Eleanor smiling, "it was washed and done up by myself."
"Do you expect to have to do it for yourself?" said Mrs. Esthwaite looking intensely horrified.
"No, not generally; but to teach somebody, or upon occasion, you know. You see," she said smiling again her full rich smile, "I am bent upon having my white dresses."
Mrs. Esthwaite was too full for speech, and her husband looked at his new cousin with an eye of more absolute admiration than he had yet bestowed on her. Eleanor's thoughts were already on something else; springing forward to meet Mr. Amos and his letters.
Breakfast was over however before he arrived. Much to her chagrin, she was obliged to receive him in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Esthwaite; no private talk was possible. Mr. Esthwaite engaged him immediately in an earnest but desultory conversation, about Sydney, Eleanor, and the mission, and the prospect of their getting to their destination; which Mr. Esthwaite prophesied would not be within any moderate limits of time. Mr. Amos owned that he had heard of no opportunity, near or far. The talk lasted a good while and it was not till he was taking leave that Eleanor contrived to follow him out and gain a word to herself.
"There are no letters for you," said Mr. Amos, speaking under his breath, and turning a cheerful but concerned face towards Eleanor. "I have made every enquiry—at the post-office, and of everybody likely to know about such things. There are none, and they know of none."
Eleanor said nothing; her face grew perceptibly white.
"There is nothing the matter with brother Rhys," said Mr. Amos hastily; "we have plenty of news from him—all right—he is quite well, and for a year past has been on another station; different from the one he was on when you last heard from him. There is nothing the matter—only there are no letters for you; and there must be some explanation of that."
He paused, but Eleanor was silent, only her colour returned a little.
"We want to get away from here as soon as possible, I suppose," Mr. Amos went on half under breath; "but as yet I see no opening. It will come."
"Yes," said Eleanor somewhat mechanically. "You will let me know—"
"Certainly—as soon as I know anything myself; and I will continue to make enquiry for those letters. Mr. Armitage is away in the country—he might know something about them, but nobody else does; and he ought to have left them with somebody else if he had them. But there can be nothing wrong about it; there is only some mistake, or mischance; the letters from Vuliva where brother Rhys is, are quite recent and everything is going on most prosperously; himself included. And we are to proceed to the same station. I am very glad for ourselves and for you."
"Thank you—" Eleanor said; but she was not equal to saying much. She listened quietly, and with her usual air, and Mr. Amos never discovered the work his tidings wrought; he told his wife, sister Powle looked a little blank, he thought, at missing her expected despatches, and no wonder. It was an awkward thing.
Eleanor slowly made her way up to her room and sat down, feeling as if the foundations of the earth, toherstanding, had given way. She was more overwhelmed with dismay than she would have herself anticipated in England, if she could have looked forward to such a catastrophe. Reason said there was not sufficient cause; but poor Eleanor was to feel the truth of Mrs. Caxton's prediction, that she would find out again that certain feelings might be natural that were not reasonable. Nay, reason said on this occasion that the failure of letters proved too much to justify the distress she felt; it proved a combination of things, that no carelessness nor indifference nor unwillingness to write, on the part of Mr. Rhys, could possibly have produced. Let him feel how he would, he would have written, hemusthave written to meet her there; all his own delicacy and his knowledge of hers affirmed and reaffirmed that letters were in existence somewhere, though it might be at the bottom of the ocean. Reason fought well; to what use, when nature trembled, and shivered, and shrank. Poor Eleanor! she felt alone now, without a mother and without shelter; and the fair shores of Port Jackson looked very strange and desolate to her; a very foreign land, far from home. What if Mr. Rhys, with his fastidious notions of delicacy, did not fancy so bold a proceeding as her coming out to him? what if he disapproved? What if, on further knowledge of the place and the work, he had judged both unfit for her; and did not, for his own sake only in a selfish point of view, choose to encourage her coming? in that case her beingcomewould make no difference; he would not shelter himself from a judgment displeasing to him, because the escape from its decisions was rendered easy. What iffor his own sakehis feeling had changed, and he wanted her no longer? years had gone by since he had seen her; it must have been a wayward fancy that could ever have made him think of her at first; and now, about his grave work in a distant land, and with leisure to correct blunders of fancy, perhaps he had settled into the opinion that it was just as well that his coming away had separated them; and did not feel able to welcome her appearance in Australia, and was too sincere to write what he did not feel; so wrote nothing? Not very like Mr. Rhys, reason whispered; but reason's whisper, though heard, could not quiet the sensitive delicacy which trembled at doubt. So miserable, so chilled, so forlorn, Eleanor had never felt in her life; not when the 'Diana' first carried her away from the shores of her native land.
What was she to do? that question throbbed at her heart; but it answered itself soon. Stay in Australia she could not; go home to England she could not; no, not upon this mere deficiency of testimony. There was only one alternative left; she must go on whenever Mr. and Mrs. Amos should move. Nature might tremble and quiver, and all Eleanor's nerves did; but there was no other course to pursue. "I can tell," she thought,—"I shall know—the first word, the first look, will tell me the whole; I cannot be deceived. I must go on and meet that word and look, whatever it costs me—I must; and then, if it is—if it is not satisfying to me, then aunt Caxton shall have me! I can go back, as well as I have come. Shame and misery would not hinder me—they would not be so bad as my staying here then."
So the question of action was settled; but the question of feeling not so soon. Eleanor's enjoyment was gone, of all the things she had enjoyed those first twenty-four hours, and of all others which her entertainers brought forward for her pleasure. Yet Eleanor kept her own counsel, and as they did not know the cause she had for trouble, so neither did they discover any tokens of it. She did not withdraw herself from their kind efforts to please her, and they spared no pains. They took her in boat excursions round the beautiful harbour. They shewed her the pretty environs of the Parramatta river. Nay, though it was not very easy for him to leave his business, Mr. Esthwaite went with her and his wife to the beautiful Illawarra district; put the whole party on horses, and shewed Eleanor a land of tropical beauty under the clear, bracing, delicious warm weather of Australia. Fern trees springing up to the dimensions of trees indeed, with the very fern foliage she was accustomed to in low herbaceous growth at home; only magnified superbly. There were elegant palms, too, with other evergreens, and magnificent creepers; and floating out and in among them in great numbers were gay red-crested cockatoos and other tropical birds. The character of the scenery was exquisite. Eleanor saw one or two of the fair lake-like lagoons of that district, eat of the fish from them; for they made a kind of gypsey expedition, camping out and providing for themselves fascinatingly; and finally returned in the steamer from Wollongong to Sydney. Her friends would have taken her to see the gold diggings if it had been possible. But Eleanor saw it all, all they could shew her, with half a heart. She had learned long ago to conceal what she felt.
"I think she wants to get away," said Mrs. Esthwaite one night, half vexed, wholly sorry.
"That's what it is to be in love!" said her husband. "You won't keep her in Sydney. Do you notice she has given up smiling?"
"No!" said his wife indignantly; "I notice no such thing. She is as ready to smile as anybody I ever saw."—And I wish I had as good reason! was the mental conclusion; for Eleanor and she had had many an evening talk by that time, and many a hymn had been listened to.
"All very well," said Mr. Esthwaite; "but she don't smile as she did at first. Don't you remember?—that full smile she used to give once in a while, with a little world of mischief in the corners? I would like to see it the next time!—"
"I declare," said Mrs. Esthwaite, "I think you take quite an impertinent interest in people's concerns. She wouldn't let you see it, besides."
At which Mr. Esthwaite laughed.
So near people came to it; and Eleanor covered up her troublesome thoughts within her own heart, and gave Mr. Esthwaite the benefit of that impenetrable coolness and sweetness of manner which a good while ago had used to bewitch London circles. In the effort to hide her real thoughts and feelings she did not quite accommodate it to the different latitude of New South Wales; and Mr. Esthwaite was a good deal struck and somewhat bewildered.
"You have mistaken your calling," he said one evening, standing beforeEleanor and considering her.
"Do you think so?"
"There! Yes, I do. I think you were born to govern."
"I am sadly out of my line then," said Eleanor laughing.
"Yes. You are. That is what I say. You ought to be this minute a duchess—or a governor's lady—or something else in the imperial line."
"You mistake my tastes, if you think so."
"I do not mistake something else," muttered Mr. Esthwaite; and then Mr.Amos entered the room.
"Here, Amos," said he, "you have made an error in judging of this lady—she is no more fit to go a missionary than I am. She—she goes about with the air of a princess!"
Mrs. Esthwaite exclaimed, and Mr. Amos took a look at the supposed princess's face, as if to reassure or inform his judgment. Apparently he saw nothing to alarm him.
"I am come to prove the question," he said composedly; then turning to Eleanor,—"I have heard at last of a schooner that is going to Fiji, or will go, if we desire it."
This simple announcement shot through Eleanor's head and heart with the force of a hundred pounder. An extreme and painful flush of colour answered it; nobody guessed at the pain.
"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Esthwaite getting up again and standing before Mr. Amos,—"you have found a vessel, you say?"
"Yes. A small schooner, to sail in a day or two."
"What schooner? whom does she belong to? Lawsons, or Hildreth?"
"To nobody, I think, but her master. I believe he sails the vessel for his own ends and profits."
"What schooner is it? what name?"
"The 'Queen Esther,' I think."
"You cannot go in that!" said Mr. Esthwaite turning off. "The 'Queen Esther'!—I know her. She's not fit for you; she's a leaky old thing, that that man Hawkins sails on all sorts of petty business; she'll go to pieces some day. She ain't sea-worthy, I don't believe."
"It is not as good a chance as might be, but it is the first that has offered, and the first that is likely to offer for an unknown time," Mr. Amos said, looking again to Eleanor.
"When does she sail?"
"In two days. She is small, and not in first-rate order; but the voyage is not for very long. I think we had better go in her."
"Certainly. How long is the voyage, regularly?"
"A fortnight in a good ship, and a month in a bad one," struck in Mr. Esthwaite. "You'll never get there, if you depend on the 'Queen Esther' to bring you."
"We go to Tonga first," said Mr. Amos. "The 'Queen Esther' sails with stores for the stations at Tonga and the neighbourhood; and will carry us further only by special agreement; but the master is willing, and I came to know your mind about it."
"I will go," said Eleanor. "Tell Mrs. Amos I will meet her on board—when?"
"Day after to-morrow morning."
"Very well. I will be there. Will she take the additional lading of my boxes?"
"O yes; no difficulty about that. It's all right."
"How can I do with the things you have stored for me?" Eleanor said toMr. Esthwaite. "Can the schooner take them too?"
"What things?"
"Excuse me—perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you said you had half your warehouse, one loft of it, taken up with things for me?"
"Those things are gone, long ago," said Mr. Esthwaite, in a dogged kind of mood which did not approve of the proposed journey or conveyance.
"Gone?"
"Yes. According to order. Mrs. Caxton wrote, Forward as soon as possible; so I did."
Again Eleanor's brow and cheeks and her very throat were covered with a rush of crimson; but when Mr. Amos took her hand on going away its touch made him ask involuntarily if she were well?
"Perfectly well," Eleanor answered, with something in her manner that reminded Mr. Amos, though he could not tell why, of the charge Mr. Esthwaite had brought. Another look into Eleanor's eyes quieted the thought.
"Your hand is very cold!" he said.
"It's a sign of"—Mr. Esthwaite would have said "fever," but Eleanor had composedly faced him and he was silent; only busied himself in shewing Mr. Amos out, without a word that he ought not to have spoken. Mr. Amos went home and told his wife.
"I think she is all right," he said; "but she does not look to me just as she did before we landed. I dare say she has had a great deal of admiration here—"
"I dare say she feels bad," said good Mrs. Amos.
"Why?"
"If you were not a man, you would know," Mrs. Amos said laughing. "She is in a very trying situation."
"Is she? O, those letters! It is unfortunate, to be sure. But there must be some explanation."
"The explanation will be good when she gets it," Mrs. Amos remarked. "I hope somebody who is expecting her is worthy of her. Poor thing! I couldn't have done it, I believe, even for you."
"But soon I heard the dash of oars,I heard the pilot's cheer;My head was turned perforce away,And I saw a boat appear."
The morning came for the "Queen Esther" to sail. Mr. and Mrs. Amos were on board first, and watched with eyes both kind and anxious to see Eleanor when she should come. The little bonnet with chocolate ribbands did not keep them waiting and the first smile and kiss to Mrs. Amos madehersure that all was right. She had been able to see scarce anything of Eleanor during the weeks on shore; it was a refreshment to have her near again. But Eleanor had turned immediately to attend to Mr. Esthwaite.
"This is the meanest, most abominable thing of a vessel," he said, "that ever Christians travelled in! It is an absurd proceeding altogether. Why if the boards don't part company and go to pieces before you get to Tonga—which I think they will—they don't give room for all three of you to sit down in the cabin at once."
"The deck is of better capacity," Eleanor told him briskly.
"Such a deck! I wonderyou, cousin Eleanor, can make up your mind to endure it. There is not a man living who is worth such a sacrifice. Horrid!"
"We hope it won't last a great while," Mr. Amos told him.
"It won't! That's what I say. You will all be deposited in the bottom of the ocean, to pay you for not having been contented on shore. I would not send a dog to sea in such a ship!"
"Cousin Esthwaite, you had better not stay in a situation so disagreeable to you. You harass yourself for nothing. Shake hands. You see the skipper is going to make sail directly."
Eleanor with a little play in the manner of this dismissal, was enough in earnest to secure her point. Mr. Esthwaite felt in a manner constrained to take his departure. He presumed however in the circumstances to make interest for a cousinly kiss for good bye; which was refused him with a cooler demonstration of dignity than he had yet met with. It nettled him.
"There was the princess," whispered Mr. Amos to his wife.
"Good!" said Mrs. Amos.
"Good bye!" cried Mr. Esthwaite, disappearing over the schooner's side. "Youare not fit for a missionary! I told you so before."
Eleanor turned to Mrs. Amos, ignoring entirely this little transaction, and smiled at her. "I hope he has not made you nervous," she said.
"No," said Mrs. Amos; "I am not nervous. If I did not get sick I should enjoy it; but I suppose I shall be sick as soon as we get out of the harbour."
"Let us take the good of it then, until we are out of the harbour," said Eleanor. "If the real 'Queen Esther' was at all like her namesake, Ahasuerus must have had a disorderly household."
They sat down together on the little vessel's deck, and watched the beautiful shores from which they were gliding away. Eleanor was glad to be off. The stay at Sydney had become oppressive to her; she wanted to be at the end of her journey and know her fate; and hope and reason whispered that she had reason to be glad. For all that, the poor child had a great many shrinkings of heart. A vision of Mr. Rhys never came up in one of its aspects,—that of stern and fastidious delicacy,—without her heart seeming to die away within her. She could not talk now. She watched the sunny islands and promontories of the bay, changing and passing as the vessel slowly moved on; watched the white houses of Sydney, grateful for the home she had found there, longing exceedingly for a home once again that should be hers by right; hope and tremulousness holding her heart together. This was a conflict that prayer and faith did not quell; she could only come to a state of humble submissiveness; and she never thought of reaching Vuliva without a painful thrill that almost took away her breath. But she was glad to be on the way.
The vessel was very small, not of so much as eighty tons burthen; its accommodations were of course a good deal as Mr. Esthwaite had said; and more than that, the condition of the vessel and of its appointments was such that Mrs. Amos felt as if she could hardly endure to shut herself up in the cabin. Eleanor resolved immediately thatshewould not; the deck was a better plate; and she prevailed to have a mattress brought there for Mrs. Amos, where the good lady, though miserably ill as soon as they were upon the ocean roll, yet could be spared the close air and other horrors of the place below deck. Eleanor wrapped herself in her sea cloak, and lived as she could on deck with her; having a fine opportunity to read the stars at night, and using it. The weather was very fine; the wind favouring and steady; and in the Southern Ocean, under such conditions, there were some good things to be had, even on board the "Queen Esther." There were glorious hymn-singings in the early night-time; and Eleanor had never sung with more power on the "Diana." There were beautiful Bible discussions between her and Mr. Amos—Bible contemplations, rather; in which they brought Scripture to Scripture to illustrate their point; until Mr. Amos declared he thought it would be a grand way of holding a Bible-class; and poor Mrs. Amos listened, delighted, though too sick to put in more than a word now and then. And Eleanor's heart gave a throb every time she recollected that another day had gone,—so many more miles were travelled over,—they were so much nearer the journey's end. Her companions found no fault in her. There was nothing of the princess now, but a gentle, thoughtful, excellent nurse, and capital cook. On board the "Diana" there had been little need of her services for Mrs. Amos; little indeed that could be done. Now, in the fresh air on the open deck of the little schooner, Mrs. Amos suffered less in one way; but all the party were sharers in the discomforts of close accommodations and utter want of nicety in anything done or furnished on board. The condition of everything was such that it was scarcely possible to eat at all for well people. Poor Mrs. Amos would have had no chance except for Eleanor's helpfulness and clever management. As on board the "Diana," there was nobody in the schooner that would refuse her anything; and Mr. Amos smiled to himself to see where she would go and what she would do to secure some little comfort for her sick friend, and how placidly she herself munched sea biscuit and bad bread, after their little stock of fruit from Sydney had given out. She would bring a cup of tea and a bit of toast to Mrs. Amos, and herself take a crust with the equanimity of a philosopher. Eleanor did not care much what she eat, those days. Her own good times were when everybody else was asleep except the man at the wheel; and she would kneel by the guards and watch the strange constellations, and pray, and sometimes weep a flood of tears. Julia, her mother and Alfred, Mrs. Caxton, her own intense loneliness and shrinking delicacy in the uncertainty of her position, they were all well watered in tears at some of those watching hours when nobody saw.
The "Queen Esther" made the Friendly Islands in something less than a month, notwithstanding Mr. Esthwaite's unfavourable predictions. At Tonga she was detained a week and more; unlading and taking in stores. The party improved the time in a survey of the island and mission premises and in pleasant intercourse with their friends stationed there. Or what would have been pleasant intercourse; it was impossible for Eleanor to enjoy it. So near her destination now, she was impatient to be off; and drew short breaths until the days of delay were ended, and the little schooner once more made sail and turned her head towards Vuliva. She had seen Tonga with but half an eye.
Two or three days would finish their journey now. The weather and wind continued fair; they dipped Tonga in the salt wave, and stood on and on towards the unseen haven of their hopes and duties. A new change came over Eleanor. It could not be reason, for reason had striven in vain. Perhaps it was nature, which turning a corner took a new view of the subject. But from the time of their leaving Tonga, she was unable to entertain such troublesome apprehensions of what the end of the voyage might have in store for her. Something whispered it could be nothing very bad; and that point that she had so dreaded began to gather a glow of widely different promise. A little nervousness and trepidation remained about the thought of it; the determination abode fast to see the very first word and look and know what they portended; but in place of the rest of Eleanor's downhearted fear, there came now an overwhelming sense of shamefacedness. This was something quite new and unexpected; she had never known in her life more than a slight touch of it before; and now it consumed her. Even before Mr. and Mrs. Amos she felt it; and her eyes shunned theirs the last day or two as if she had been a shy child. Why was it? She could not help it. This seemed to be as natural and as unreasonable as the other; and in her lonely night watches, instead of trembling and sinking of heart, Eleanor was conscious that her cheeks dyed themselves with that unconquerable feeling of shame. Very inconsistent indeed with her former state of feeling; and that was according to Mrs. Caxton's words; not being reasonable, reason could not be expected from them in anything. Her friends had not penetrated her former mood; this they saw and smiled at; and indeed it made Eleanor very lovely. There was a shy, blushing grace about her the last day or two of the voyage which touched all she did; indeed Mrs. Amos declared she could see it through the little close straw bonnet, and it made her want to take Eleanor in her arms and keep her there. Mr. Amos responded in his way of subdued fun, that it was lucky she could not; as it would be likely to be a disputed possession, and he did not want to get into a quarrel with his brethren the first minute of his getting to land.
Up came Eleanor with some trifle for Mrs. Amos which she had been preparing.
"We are almost in, sister Eleanor!" said Mr. Amos. "The captain says he sees the land."
Eleanor's start was somewhat prompt, to look in the direction of 'QueenEsther's' figure-head.
"The light is failing—I don't believe you can see it," said Mr. Amos; "not to know it from the clouds. The captain says he shall stand off and on through the night, so as to have daylight to go in. The entrance is narrow. I suppose, if all is well, we shall have a wedding to-morrow?"
Eleanor asked Mrs. Amos somewhat hastily, if what she had brought her was good?
"Delicious!" Mrs. Amos said; and pulling Eleanor's face down to her she gave it a kiss which spoke more things than her mere thanks. She was rewarded with the sight of that crimson veil which spread itself over Eleanor's cheeks, which most people thought it was a pleasure to see.
Eleanor thought she should get little sleep that night; but she was disappointed. She slept long and sweetly on her mattress; and awoke to find it quite day, with fair wind, and the schooner setting her head full on the land which rose up before her fresh and green, yes, and exceeding lovely. Eleanor got up and shook herself out; her companions were still sleeping. She rolled her mattress together and sat down upon it, to watch the approaches to the land. Fresher and fairer and greener every moment it lifted itself to her view; she could hardly bear to look steadily; her head went down for a minute often under the pressure of the thoughts that crowded together. And when she raised it up, the lovely hills of the island, with their novel outline and green luxuriance, were nearer and clearer and higher than they had been a minute before. Now she could discern here and there, she thought, something that must be a dwelling-house; then trees began to detach themselves from the universal mass; she saw smoke rising; and she became aware too, that along the face of the island, fronting the approach of the schooner, was a wall of surf; and a line of breakers that seemed to stretch right and left and to be without an interval in their white continuity. Eleanor did not see how the schooner was going to get in; for the surf did not break evidently on the shore of the island, but on a reef extending around the shore and at some little distance from it. Yet the vessel stood straight on; and the sweet smell of the land began to come with the freshness of the morning air.
"Is this Vuliva before us?" she asked of the skipper whom she found standing near.
"Ay, ay!"
"Where are you going to get in? I see no opening."
"Ay, ay! Thereisan opening, though."
And soon, looking keenly, Eleanor thought she could discern it. Not until they were almost upon it however; and then it was a place of rough water enough, though the regular fall of the surf was interrupted and there was only a general upheaving and commotion of the waves among themselves. It was nothing very terrific; the tide was in a good state; and presently Eleanor saw that they had passed the barrier, they were in smooth water, and making for an opening in the land immediately opposite which might be either the mouth of a river or an inlet of the sea. They neared it fast, sailed up into it; and there to Eleanor's mortification the skipper dropped anchor and swung to. She saw no settlement. Some few scattered houses were plain enough now to be seen; but nothing even like a village. Tufts of trees waved gracefully; rock and hill and rich-coloured lowland spread out a variety of beauty; where was Vuliva, the station? This might be the island. Where were the people? Could they come no nearer than this?
Mr. Amos made enquiry. The village, the skipper said, was "round the pint;" in other words, behind a woody headland which just before them bent the course of the river into a sharp angle. The schooner would go no further; passengers and effects were to be transported the rest of the way in boats. People they would see soon enough; so the master of the "Queen Esther" advised them.
"I suppose the natives will carry the news of the schooner being here, and our friends will come and look after us," Mr. Amos said.
Eleanor changed colour, and sat with a beating heart looking at the fair fresh landscape which was to be—perhaps—the scene of her future home. The scene was peace itself. Still water after the upheavings of the ocean; the smell and almost the fluttering sound of the green leaves in the delicious wind; the ripple on the surface of the little river; the soft stillness of land sounds, with the heavy beat of the surf left behind on the reef outside. Eleanor drew a long breath. People would find them out soon, the skipper had said. She was exceedingly disposed to get rid of her sea dress and put on something that looked like the summer morning; for without recollecting what the seasons were in the Southern Ocean, that was what the time seemed like to her. She looked round at Mrs. Amos, who was sitting up and beginning to realize that she had done with the sea for the present.
"How do you do?" said Eleanor.
"I should feel better if I could get on something clean."
"Come, then!"
The two ladies disappeared down the companion way, into one of the most sorry tiring rooms, surely, that ever nicety used for that purpose. But it served two purposes with Eleanor just now; and the second was a hiding place. She did not want to be taken unawares, nor to be seen before she could see. So under the circumstances she made both Mrs. Amos and herself comfortable, and was as helpful as usual in a new line. Then she went to look out; but nobody was in sight yet, gentle or savage; all was safe; she went back to Mrs. Amos and fastened the door.
"Let us kneel down and pray together, will you?" she said. "I cannot get my breath freely till we have done that."
Mrs. Amos's lips trembled as she knelt. And Eleanor and she joined in many petitions there, while the very stillness of their little cabin floor reminded them they were come to their desired haven, and the long sea journey was over. They rose up and kissed each other.
"I am so glad I have known you!" said Mrs. Amos. "What a blessing you have been to us! I wish we might be stationed somewhere together."
"I suppose that would be too good to hope for," said Eleanor. "I am going to reconnoitre again."
Mrs. Amos half guessed why, and smiled to herself at Eleanor's blushing shyness. "Poor child, her hands were all trembling too," she said in her thoughts. They were broken off by a low summons to the cabin door, which Eleanor held slightly ajar. Through the crack of the door they had a vision.
On the deck of the "Queen Esther" stood a specimen of the native inhabitants of the land. A man of tall stature, nobly developed in limbs and muscles, he looked in his native undress almost of giant proportions. His clothing was only a long piece of figured native cloth wound about his loins, one end falling like a train to the very sloop's deck. A thorough black skin was the only covering of the rest of his person, and shewed his breadth of shoulder and strength of muscle to good advantage; as if carved in black marble; only there was sufficient graceful mobility and dignified ease of carriage and attitude; no marble rigidity. Black he was, this savage, but not negro. The features were well cut and good. What the hair might be naturally could only be guessed at; the work of a skilful hair-dresser had left it something for the uninitiated to marvel at. A band of three or four inches in breadth, completely white, bordered the face; the rest, a very luxuriant head, was jet black and dressed into a perfectly regular and smooth roundish form, projecting everywhere beyond the white inner border. He had an uncouth necklace, made of what it was impossible to say, except that part of it looked like shells and part like some animal's teeth; rings of one or two colours were on his fingers; he carried no weapon. But in his huge, powerful black frame, uncouth hair-dressing, and strange uncoveredness, he was a sufficiently terrible object to unused eyes. In Tonga the ladies had seen no such sight.
"Do shut the door!" said Mrs. Amos. "He may come this way, and there is nobody that knows how to speak to him."
Eleanor shut the door, and looked round at her friend with a smile.
"I am foolish!" said Mrs. Amos laughing; "but I don't want to see him just yet—till there is somebody to talk to him."
The door being fast, Eleanor applied herself to a somewhat large knot-hole she had long ago discovered in it; one which she strongly suspected the skipper had fostered, if not originated, for his own convenience of spying what was going on. Through this knot-hole Eleanor had a fair view of a good part of the deck, savage and all. He was gesticulating now and talking, evidently to the captain and Mr. Amos, the former of whom either did not understand or did not agree with him. Mr. Amos, of course, was in the former condition. Eleanor watched them with absorbed interest; when suddenly this vision was crossed by another, that looked to her eyes much as a white angel might, coming across a cloud of both moral and physical blackness. Mr. Rhys himself; his very self, and looking very much like it; only in a white dress literally, which in England she had never seen him wear. But the white dress alone did not make the impression to her eyes; there was that air of freshness and purity which some people always carry about with them, and which has to do with the clear look of temperance as well as with great particularity of personal care, and in part also grows out of the moral condition. In three breathless seconds Eleanor took note of it all, characteristics well known, but seen now with the novelty of long disuse and with the background of that huge black savage, to whom Mr. Rhys was addressing some words, of explanation or exhortation—Eleanor could not tell which. She noticed the quiet pleasant manner of his speech, which certainly looked not as if Mrs. Amos had any reason for her fears; but he was speaking earnestly, and she observed too the unbending look of the savage in answer and a certain pleasant deference with which he appeared to be listening. Mr. Rhys had taken off his hat for a moment—it hung in his hand while the other brushed the hair from his forehead. Eleanor's eye even in that moment fell to the hand which carried the hat; it was the same,—she recognized it with a curious sense of bringing great and little things together,—it was the same white and carefully looked-after hand that she remembered it in England. Mr. Rhys's own personal civilization went about with him.
Eleanor did not hear any of Mrs. Amos's words to her, which were several; and though Mrs. Amos, half alarmed by her deafness, did not know but she might be witnessing something dreadful on deck, and spoke with some importunity. Eleanor was thinking she had not a minute to lose. Beyond the time of Mr. Rhys's talking to the other visitor on the schooner's deck, there could be but small interval before he would learn all about her being on board; two words to the skipper or Mr. Amos would bring it out; and if she wished to gain that first minute's testimony of look and word, she must be beforehand with them. She thought of all that with a beating heart in one instant's flash of thought, hastily caught up her ship cloak without daring to stop to put it on, slipped back the bolt of the door, and noiselessly passed out upon the deck. She neither heard nor saw anybody else; she was conscious of an intense and pitiful shame at being there and at thus presenting herself; but everything else was second to that necessity, to know from Mr. Rhys's look, with an absolute certainty, wherehestood. She was not at that moment much afraid; yet the look she must see. She went forward while he was yet speaking to his black neighbour, she stood still a little behind him, and waited. She longed to hide her eyes, yet she looked steadfastly.Howshe looked, neither she nor perhaps anybody else knew. There was short opportunity for observation.
Mr. Rhys had no sooner finished his business with his sable friend, when he turned the other way; and of course the motionless figure standing so near his elbow, the woman's bonnet and drapery, caught his first glance. Eleanor was watching, with eyes that were strained already with the effort; they got leave to go down now. The flash of joy in those she had been looking at, the deep tone of the low uttered, "Oh, Eleanor!" which burst from him, made her feel on the instant as if she were paid to the full, not only for all she had done, but for all that life might have of disagreeable in store for her. Her eyes fell; she stood still in a sudden trance of contentment which made her as blind and deaf as another feeling had made her just before. Those two words—there had been such a depth in them, of tenderness and gladness; and somehow she felt in them too an appreciation of all she had done and gone through. Eleanor was satisfied. She felt it as well in the hold of her hand, which was taken and kept in a clasp as who should say, 'This is mine.'
Perhaps it was out of consideration for her state, that without any further reference to her he turned to Mr. Amos and claimed acquaintance and brotherhood with him; and for a little while talked, informing himself of various particulars of their journey and welfare; never all the while loosing his hold of that hand, though not bringing her into the conversation, and indeed standing so as somewhat to shield her. The question of landing came up and was discussed. The skipper objected to send the schooner's boat, on the score that it would leave too few men on board to take care of the vessel. Mr. Rhys had only a small canoe with him, manned by a single native. So he decided forthwith to return to the village and despatch boats large enough to bring the missionaries and their effects to land; but about that there might be some delay. Then for the first time he bent down and spoke to Eleanor; again that subdued, tender tone.
"Are you ready to go ashore?"
"Yes."
"I will take you with me. Do you want anything out of this big ship? The canoes may not be immediately obtained, for anything but the live freight."
He took the grey ship cloak from Eleanor's arm and put it round her shoulders. She felt that she was alone and forlorn no more; she had got home. She was a different creature that went into the cabin to kiss Mrs. Amos, from the Eleanor that had come out.
"I've seen him!" whispered Mrs. Amos. "Eleanor! you will not be married till we come, will you?"
"I hope not—I don't know," said Eleanor hurriedly seizing her bag and passing out again. Another minute, and it and she were taken down the side of the schooner and lodged in the canoe; and their dark oarsman paddled off.
"Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word,Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it."
Eleanor's shamefacedness was upon her in full force when she found herself in the canoe pushing off from the schooner and her friends there. She felt exceeding shy and strange, and with that a feeling very like awe of her companion. A feeling not quite unknown to her in former days with the same person, and in tenfold force now. There was no doubt to be sure of the secret mind of them both towards each other; nevertheless, he had never spoken to her of his affection, nor given her the least sign of it, except on paper, up to that day; and now he sat for all she could see as cool and grave as ever by her side. The old and the new state of things it was hard to reconcile all at once. To do Eleanor justice, she saw as one sees without looking; she was too shame-faced to look; she bent her outward attention upon their boatman. He was another native, of course, but attired in somewhat more civilized style, though in no costume of civilized lands. What he wore was more like a carman's frock at home than anything else it could be likened to. He was of pleasant countenance, and paddled along with great activity and skill.
They had been silent for the first few minutes since leaving the schooner, till at length Mr. Rhys asked her, with a little of the sweet arch smile she remembered so well, "how she had liked the first sight of a Fijian?" It brought such a rush upon Eleanor of past things and present, old times and changes, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could make any answer at all.
"I was too much interested to think of liking or disliking."
"You were not startled?"
"No."
"That was a heathen chief, of the opposite village."
"He wanted something, did he not?"
"Yes; that the captain of the schooner should accommodate him in something he thought would be for his advantage. It was impossible, and so I told him."
Eleanor looked again towards the oarsman.
"This is one of our Christian brethren."
"Are there many?" she asked, though feeling as if she had no breath to ask.
"Yes. And we have cause to be thankful every day at hearing of more. We want ten times as many hands as we, have got. How has the long voyage been to you?"
Eleanor answered briefly; but then she was obliged to go on and tell of Mrs. Caxton, and of Mr. and Mrs. Amos, and of various other matters; to all which still she answered in as few words as possible. She could not be fluent, with that sense of strangeness upon her; conscious not only that one of her hands was again in Mr. Rhys's hold, but that his eyes were never off her face. He desisted at last from questions, and they both sat silent; until the headland was rounded, and "There is Vuliva!" came from Mr. Rhys's lips.
In a little bay curve of the river, behind the promontory, lay the village; looking pretty and foreign enough. But very pretty it was. The odd, or rather the strange-looking houses, sitting apart from each other, some large and some small, intermingled gracefully with trees whose shape and leafage were as new, made a sweet picture. One house in particular as they neared the shore struck Eleanor; it had a neat colonnade of slender pillars in front, and a high roof, almost like a Mansard in form, but thatched with native thatch. A very neat paling fence stretched along in front of this. Very near it, a little further off, rose another building that made Eleanor almost give a start of joy; so homelike and pleasant it looked, as well as surprising. This was an exceeding pretty chapel; again with a high thatched roof, and also with a neat slight bell-tower rising from one end. In front two doors at each side were separated by a large and not inelegant window; other windows and doors down the side of the building promised light and airiness; and the walls were wrought into a curious pattern; reminding Eleanor of the fanciful brick work of a past style of architecture. Near the shore and back behind the chapel and houses, reared themselves here and there the slender stems of palm and cocoa-nut trees, with their graceful tufts of feathery foliage waving at top; other trees of various kinds were mingled among them. Figures were seen moving about, in the medium attire worn by their oarsman. It was a pretty scene; cheerful and home-like, though so unlike home. Further back from the river, on the opposite shore, other houses could be seen; the houses of the heathen village; but Eleanor's eyes were fastened on this one. Mr. Rhys said not one word; only he held her hand in a still closer grasp which was not meaningless.
"How pretty it is!" Eleanor forced herself to say. He only answered, "Do you like it?" but it was in such a satisfied tone of preoccupation that Eleanor blushed and thought she might as well leave his meditations alone.
Yet though full of content in her heart, Mr. Rhys and his affection seemed both at a distance. It was so exactly the Mr. Rhys of Plassy, that Eleanor could not in a moment realize their changed relations and find her own place. A little thing administered a slight corrective to this reckoning.
The little canoe had come to land. Eleanor was taken out of it safely, and then for a moment left to herself; for Mr. Rhys was engaged in a colloquy with his boatman and another native who had come up. Not being able to understand a word of what was going on, though from the tones and gestures she guessed it had reference to the disembarkation of the schooner's party, and a little ready to turn her face from view, Eleanor stood looking landward; in a maze of strangeness that was not at all unhappy. The cocoa-nut tops waved gently a welcome to her; she took it so; the houses looked neat and inviting; glimpses of other unknown foliage helped to assure her she had got home; the country outlines, so far as she could see them, looked fair and bright. Eleanor was taking note of details in a dreamy way, when she was surprised by the sudden frank contact of lips with hers; lips that had no strangeness of their own to contend with. Turning hastily, she saw that the natives with whom Mr. Rhys had been talking had run off different ways, and they two were alone. Eleanor trembled as much as she had done when she first read Mr. Rhys's note at Plassy. And his words when he spoke did not help her, they were spoken so exactly like the Mr. Rhys she had known there. Not exactly, neither, though he only said,
"Do you want this cloak on any longer?"
"Yes, thank you," said Eleanor stammering,—"I do not feel it."
Which was most literally true, for at that moment she did not feel anything external. He looked at her, and exercising his own judgment proceeded to unclasp the cloak from her shoulders and hang it on his arm, while he put her hand on the other.
"There is no need for you to be troubled with this now," said he. "I only put it round you to protect your dress." And with her bag in his hand, they went up from the river-side and past the large house with the colonnade. "Whither now?" thought Eleanor, but she asked nothing. One or two more houses were passed; then a little space without houses; then came a paling enclosure, of considerable size, apparently, filled with trees and vines. A gate opened in this and let them through, and Mr. Rhys led Eleanor up a walk in the garden-like plantation, to a house which stood encompassed by it. "Not at home yet!" he remarked to her as they stood at the door; with a slight smile which again brought the blood to her cheeks. He opened the door and they went in.
"The good news is true, sister Balliol!" he said to somebody that met them. "I have brought you one of our friends, and there are more to come, that I must go and look after. Is brother Balliol at home?"
"No, he is not; he has gone over the river."
"Then I will leave this lady in your care, and I will go and see if I can find canoes. I meant to have pressed him into my service. This is Miss Powle, sister Balliol."
The lady so called had come forward to meet them, and now took Eleanor by the hand and kissed her cordially. Mr. Rhys took her hand then, when she was released, and explained.
"I am going back to the schooner after our friends—if I can find a canoe."
And without more words, off he went. Eleanor and Mrs. Balliol were left to look at each other.
This latter was a lady of middle height, and kindly if not fine features. A pair of good black eyes too. But what struck Eleanor most about her was her air; the general style of her figure and dress, which to Miss Powle's eyes was peculiar. She wore her hair in a crop; and that seemed to Eleanor a characteristic of the whole make up. Her dress was not otherwise than neat, and yet that epithet would never have occurred to one in describing it; all graces of style or attire were so ignored. Her gown sat without any; so did her collar; both were rather uncivilized, without partaking of the picturesqueness of savage costume. The face was by no means disagreeable; lacking neither in sense, nor in spirit nor in kindliness; but Eleanor perceived at once that the mind must have a serious want somewhere, in refinement or discernment: the exterior was so ruthlessly abandoned to ungainliness.
Mrs. Balliol took her to an inner room, where the cloak and the bonnet were left; and returned then to her occupations in the other apartment, while Eleanor set herself down at the window to make observations. The room was large and high, cheerful and airy, with windows at two sides. The one where she sat commanded a view of little beside the garden, with its luxuriant growth of fruit trees and shrubs and flowers. A tropical looking garden; for the broad leaves of the banana waved there around its great bunches of fruit; the canopy of a cocoa-nut palm fluttered slightly overhead; and various fruits that Eleanor did not know displayed themselves along with the pine-apples that she did know. This garden view seemed very interesting to Eleanor, to judge by her intentness; and so it was for its own qualities, besides that a bit of the walk could be seen by which she had come and the wicket which had let her in and by which Mr. Rhys had gone out; but in good truth, as often as she turned her eyes to the scene within, she had such a sense of being herself an object of observation and perhaps of speculation, that she was fain to seek the garden again. And it was true, that while Mrs. Balliol plied her needle she used her eyes as well, and her thoughts with her needle flew in and out, as she surveyed Eleanor's figure in her neat fresh print dress. And the lady's eyebrows grew prophetical, not to say ominous.
"She's too handsome!"—that was the first conclusion. "She is quite too handsome; she cannot have those looks without knowing it. Better have brought a plain face to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as if she was just come out of a hair-dresser's!—hum—ruffle all down the neck of her dress—flowing sleeves too, and ruffles roundthem. And a buckle in her belt—a gold buckle, I do believe. And shoes?"
The shoes were unexceptionable, but they fitted well on a nice foot; and the hands—were too small and white and delicate ever to have done anything, or ever to be willing to do anything. That was the point. No harm in small hands, Mrs. Balliol allowed, if they did not betray their owner into daintiness of living. She pursued her lucubrations for some time without interrupting those of Eleanor.
"Are you from England, sister?"
"From England—yes; but we made some stay in Australia by the way," said Eleanor turning from the window to take a more sociable position nearer her hostess.
"A long voyage?"
"Not remarkably long. I had good companions."
"From what part of England?"
"The borders of Wales, last."
"Brother Rhys is from Wales—isn't he?"
"I do not know," said Eleanor, vexed to feel the flush of blood to her cheeks.
"Ah? You have known brother Rhys before?" with a searching look.
"Yes."
"And how do you think you shall like it in Fiji?"
"You can hardly expect me to tell under such short trial," said Eleanor smiling.
"There are trials enough. I suppose you expect those, do you not?"
"I do not mean to expect them till they come," said Eleanor, still smiling.
"Do you think that is wise?" said the other gravely. "They will come, I assure you, fast enough; do you not think it is well to prepare the mind for what it has to go through, by looking at it beforehand?"
"You never know beforehand what is to be gone through," said Eleanor.
"But you know some things; and it is well, I think, to harden oneself against what is coming. I have found that sort of discipline very useful. Sister, may I ask you a searching questions?"
"Certainly! If you please," said Eleanor.
"You know, we should be ready to give every one a reason of the hope that is in us. I want to ask you, sister, what moved you to go on a mission?"
Astonishment almost kept Eleanor silent; then noticing the quick eyes of Mrs. Balliol repeating the enquiry at her face, the difficulty of answering met and joined with a small tide of indignation at its being demanded of her. She did not want to be angry, and she was very near being ready to cry. Her mind was in that state of overwrought fulness when a little stir is more than the feelings can bear. Among conflicting tides, the sense of the ludicrous at last got the uppermost; and she laughed, as one laughs whose nerves are not just under control; heartily and merrily. Mrs. Balliol was confounded.
"I should not have thought it was a laughing matter,"—she remarked at length. But the gravity of that threw Eleanor off again; and the little hands and ruffled sleeves were reviewed under new circumstances. And when Eleanor got command of herself, she still kept her hand over her eyes, for she found that she was just trembling into tears. She held it close pressed upon them.
"Perhaps you are fatigued, sister?" said Mrs. Balliol, in utter incapacity to account for this demonstration.
"Not much. I beg your pardon!" said Eleanor. "I believe I am a little unsettled at first getting here. If you please, I will try being quite quiet for awhile—if you will let me be so discourteous?"
"Do so!" said Mrs. Balliol. "Anything to rest you." And Eleanor went back to her window, and turning her face to the garden again rested her head on her hand; and there was a hush. Mrs. Balliol worked and mused, probably. Eleanor did as she had said; kept quiet. The quiet lasted a long time, and the tropical day grew up into its meridian heats; yet it was not oppressive; a fine breeze relieved it and made it no other than pleasant. Home at last! This great stillness and quiet, after the ocean tossings, and months of voyaging, and change, and heart-uncertainty. The peace of heart now was as profound; but so profound, and so thankfully recognized, that Eleanor's mood was a little unsteady. She needed to be still and recollect herself, as she could looking out into the leaves of a great banana tree there in the garden, and forgetting the house and Mrs. Balliol.
The quiet lasted a long time, and was broken then by the entrance of Mr. Balliol. His wife introduced him; and after learning that he could now render no aid to Mr. Rhys, he immediately entered into a brisk conversation with the new comer Mr. Rhys had brought. That went well, and was also strengthening. Eleanor was greatly pleased with him. He was evidently a man of learning and sense and spirit; a man of excellent parts, in good cultivation, and filled with a most benign and gentle temper of goodness. It was a pleasure to talk to him; and while they were talking the party from the schooner arrived.
Eleanor felt her "shamefacedness" return upon her, while all the rest were making acquaintance, welcoming and receiving welcome. She stood aside. Did they know her position? While she was thinking, Mr. Rhys came to her and put her again in her chair by the window. Mrs. Amos had been carried off by Mrs. Balliol. The two other gentlemen were in earnest converse. Mr. Rhys took a seat in front of Eleanor and asked in a low voice if she wished for any delay?
"In what?" said Eleanor, though she knew the answer.
"Coming home."
He was almost sorry for her, to see the quick blood flash into her face. But she caught her breath and said "No."
"You know," he said; how exactly like the Mr. Rhys of Plassy!—"I would not hurry you beyond your pleasure. If you would like to remain here a day or two, domiciled with Mrs. Balliol, and rest, and see the land—you have only to say what you wish."
"I do not wish it," said Eleanor, finding it very difficult to answer at all—"I wish it to be just as you please."
"You must know what my pleasure is. Does your heart not fail you, now you are here?" he asked still lower and in a very gentle way.
"No."
"Eleanor, have you had any doubts or failings of heart at any time, since you left England?"
"No. Yes!—I did, once—at Sydney."
"At Sydney?"—repeated Mr. Rhys in a perceptibly graver tone.
"Yes—at Sydney—when I did not get any letters from you."
"You got no letters from me?"
"No."
"At Sydney?"