The Old Helmet. Volume I

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. "Hereis 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.

CHAPTER X.

AT LUNCHEON

"And, once wed,So just a man and gentle, could not chooseBut make my life as smooth as marriage-ring."

"Macintosh, do you ever condescend to do such a thing as walk? – take a walk, I mean?"

"You may command me," he answered somewhat lazily.

"May I? For the walk; but I want further to make a visit in the village."

"You may make twenty, if you feel inclined. I will order the horses to meet us there – shall I? or do you not wish to do anything but walk to-day?"

"O yes. After my visit is paid, I shall be ready."

"But it will be very inconvenient to walk so far in your habit. Can you manage that?"

"I expect to enlighten you a good deal as to a woman's power of managing," said Eleanor.

"Is that a warning?" said he, making her turn her face towards him.

Eleanor gratified him with one of her full mischievous smiles.

"Did anybody ever tell you," said he continuing the inspection, "that you were handsome?"

"It never was worth anybody's while."

"How was that?"

"Simply, that he would have gained nothing by it."

"Then I suppose I should not, or you think so?"

"Nothing in the world. Mr. Carlisle, if you please, I will go and put on my hat."

The day was November in a mild mood; pleasant enough for a walk; and so one at least of the two found it. For Eleanor, she was in a divided mood; yet even to her the exercise was grateful, and brought some glow and stir of spirits through the body to the mind. At times, too, now, she almost bent before what seemed her fate, in hopelessness of escaping from it; and at those times she strove to accommodate herself to it, and tried to propitiate her captor. She did this from a twofold motive. She did fear him, and feared to have him anything but pleased with her; half slumbering that feeling lay; another feeling she was keenly conscious of. The love that he had for her; a gift that no woman can receive and be wholly unmoved by it; the affection she herself had allowed him to bestow, in full faith that it would not be thrown away; that stung Eleanor with grief and self-reproach; and made her at times question whether her duty did not lie where she had formally engaged it should. At such times she was very subdued in gentleness and in observance of Mr. Carlisle's pleasure; subdued to a meekness foreign to her natural mood, and which generally, to tell the truth, was accompanied by a very unwonted sedateness of spirits also; something very like the sedateness of despair.

She walked now silently the first half of the way; managing her long habit in a way that she knew Mr. Carlisle knew, though he took no open notice of it. The day was quite still, the road footing good. A slight rime hung about the distance, veiled faintly the Rythdale woods, enshrouded the far-off village, as they now and then caught glimpses of it, in its tuft of surrounding trees. Yet near at hand, the air seemed clear and mellow; there was no November chill. It was a brown world, however, through which the two walked; life and freshness all gone from vegetation; the leaves in most cases fallen from the trees, and where they still hung looking as sear and withered as frost and decay could make them.

"Do you abhor all compliments?" said Mr. Carlisle, breaking a silence that for some time had been broken only by the quick ring of their footsteps upon the ground.

"No, sir."

"That is frank; yet I am half afraid to present the one which is on my lips."

"Perhaps it is not worth while," said Eleanor, with a gleam of a smile which was very alluring. "You are going to tell me, possibly, that I am a good walker."

"I do not know why I should let you silence me. No, I was not going to tell you that you are a good walker; you know it already. The compliment of beauty, that you scorned, was also perhaps no news to you. What I admire in you now, is something you do not know you have – and I do not mean you shall, by my means."

Eleanor's glance of amused curiosity, rewarded him.

"Are you expecting now, that I shall ask for it?"

"No; it would not be like you. You do not ask me for anything – that you can help, Eleanor. I shall have to make myself cunning in inventing situations of need that will drive you to it. It is pleasanter to me than you can imagine, to have your eyes seek mine with a request in them."