The Old Helmet. Volume I

"How can I give it satisfaction?" said Eleanor sitting up and looking at the doctor. "I feel myself guilty – I know myself exposed to ruin, to death that means death; what can I give to my conscience, to make it be still?"

"The Church offers absolution for their sins to all that are truly sorry for them," said the doctor. "Are you penitent on account of your sins, Miss Eleanor?"

"Penitent? – I don't know," said Eleanor drooping a little from her upright position. "I feel them, and know them, and wish them away; but if I were penitent, they would be gone, wouldn't they? and they are not gone."

"I see how it is," said the doctor. "You have too much leisure to think, and your thoughts are turning in upon themselves and becoming morbid. I think this is undue sensitiveness, my dear Miss Eleanor. The sins we wish away, will never be made a subject of judgment against us. I shall tell my friend Mr. Carlisle that his presence is wanted here, for something more important than the interests of the county. I shall tell him he must not let you think too much. I think he and I together can put you right. In the mean while, you read my little book."

"Dr. Cairnes, what I have said to you is said in strict confidence. I do not wish it spoken of, even to my mother."

"Of course, of course!" said the doctor. "That is all understood. The Church never reveals her children's secrets. But I shall only give him a little gentle hint, which will be quite sufficient, I have no doubt; and I shall have just the co-operation that I desire."

"How excellent your cheese is, Dr. Cairnes."

"Ah! you like it," said the doctor. "I am proud. I always purchase my cheese myself – that is one thing I do not leave to my sister. But this one I think is particularly fine. You won't take a half glass of ale with it? – no, – I know Mr. Carlisle does not like ale. But it would be a good sequent of your ride, nevertheless."

"I did not ride, sir. I walked."

"Walked from Ivy Lodge! All this way to see me, Miss Eleanor?"

"No sir – only for a walk, and to see the ruins. Then I was driven to take shelter here."

"I am very glad of it! I am very glad of it!" said the doctor. "I have not enjoyed my luncheon so much in a year's time; and you delight me too, my dear Miss Eleanor, by your present dispositions. But walk all the way here! I shall certainly write to Mr. Carlisle."

Eleanor's cheeks flushed, and she rose. "Not only all the way here, but all the way back again," said she; "so it is time I bade you good bye."

The doctor was very anxious to carry her home in the chaise; Eleanor was more determined that he should not; and determination as usual carried the day. The doctor shook his head as he watched her off.

"Are you going to shew this spirit to Mr. Carlisle?" he said.

Which remark gave Eleanor an impetus that carried her a third of her way home. During the remaining two thirds she did a good deal of thinking; and arrived at the Lodge with her mind made up. There was no chance of peace and a good time for her, without going away from home. Dr. Cairnes' officiousness would be sure to do something to arouse Mr. Carlisle's watchfulness; and then – "the game will be up," said Eleanor to herself. "Between his being here and the incessant expectation of him, there will be no rest for me. I must get away." She laid her plans.

After dinner she slipped away and sought her father in his study. It was called his study, though very little of that character truly belonged to it. More truly it balanced between the two purposes of a smoking-room and an office; for county business was undoubtedly done there; and it was the nook of retirement where the Squire indulged himself in his favoured luxury, the sweet weed. The Squire took it pure, in a pipe; no cigars for him; and filling his pipe Eleanor found him. She lit the pipe for him, and contrary to custom sat down. The Squire puffed away.

"I thought you didn't care for this sort of thing, Eleanor," he remarked. "Are you learning not to mind it already? It is just as well! Perhaps your husband will want you to sit with him when he smokes."

"I would not do that for any man in the world, papa, except you!"

"Ho! Ho!" said the Squire. "Good wives, my dear, do not mind trifles.

They had better not, at any rate."

"Papa," said Eleanor, whose cheeks were flaming, "do you not think, since a girl must give up her liberty so completely in marrying, that she ought to be allowed a good little taste of it beforehand?"

"St. George and the Dragon! I do," said the Squire. "Your mother says it tends to lawlessness – and I say, I don't care. That is not my concern. If a man cannot rule his wife, he had better not have one – that is my opinion; and in your case, my dear, there is no fear. Mr. Carlisle is quite equal to his duties, or I am mistaken in him."

Eleanor felt nearly wild under her father's speeches; nevertheless she sat perfectly quiet, only fiery about her cheeks.

"Then, papa, to come to the point, don't you think in the little time that remains to me for my own, I might be allowed to do what I please with myself?"

"I should say it was a plain case," said the Squire. "Take your pleasure, Nellie; I won't tether you. What do you want to do, child? I take it, you belong to me till you belong to somebody else."

"Papa, I want to run away, and make a visit to my aunt Caxton. I shall never have another chance in the world – and I want to go off and be by myself and feel free once more, and have a good time."

"Poor little duck!" said her father. "You are a sensible girl, Nellie.

Go off; nobody shall hinder you."

"Papa, unless you back me, mamma and Mr. Carlisle will not hear of it."

"I'd go before he comes down then," said the Squire, knocking the ashes out of his pipe energetically. "St. George! I believe that man half thinks, sometimes, that I am one of his tenantry? The lords of Rythdale always did lord it over everything that came in their way. Now is your only chance, Eleanor; run away, if you're a mind to; Mr. Carlisle is master in his own house, no doubt, but he is not master in mine; and I say, you may go. Do him no harm to be kept on short commons for a little while."

With a joyful heart Eleanor went back to the drawing-room, and sat patiently still at some fancy work till Mrs. Powle waked up from a nap.

"Mamma, Dr. Cairnes wants me to be confirmed."

"Confirmed!" – Mrs. Powle echoed the word, sitting bolt upright in her chair and opening her sleepy eyes wide at her daughter.

"Yes. He says I ought to be confirmed. He has given me a book upon confirmation to study."

"I wonder what you will do next!" said Mrs. Powle, sinking back. "Well, go on, if you like. Certainly, if you are to be confirmed, it ought to be done before your marriage. I wish anything would confirm you in sober ways."

"Mamma, I want to give this subject serious study, if I enter into it; and I cannot do it properly at home. I want to go away for a visit."

"Well?" said Mrs. Powle, thinking of some cousins in London.

"I want to be alone and quiet and have absolute peace for awhile; and this death of Lady Rythdale makes it possible. I want to go and make a visit to my aunt Caxton."

"Caxton!" – Mrs. Powle almost screamed. "Caxton! There! In the mountains of Wales! Eleanor, you are perfectly absurd. It is no use to talk to you."

"Mamma, papa sees no objection."

"He does not! So you have been speaking to him! Make your own fortunes, Eleanor! I see you ruined already. With what favour do you suppose Mr. Carlisle will look upon such a project? Pray have you asked yourself?"

"Yes, ma'am; and I am not going to consult him in the matter."

The tea-equipage and the Squire came in together and stopped the conversation. Eleanor took care not to renew it, knowing that her point was gained. She took her father's hint, however, and made her preparations short and sudden. She sent that night a word, telling of her wish, to Mrs. Caxton; and waited but till the answer arrived, waited on thorns, to set off. The Squire looked rather moody the next day after his promise to Eleanor; but he would not withdraw it; and no other hindrance came. Eleanor departed safely, under the protection of old Thomas, the coachman, long a faithful servitor in the family. The journey was only part of the distance by railway; the rest was by posting; and a night had to be spent on the road.

Towards evening of the second day, Eleanor began to find herself in what seemed an enchanted region. High mountains, with picturesque bold outlines, rose against the sky; and every step was bringing her deeper and deeper among them, in a rich green meadow valley. The scenery grew only wilder, richer, and lovelier, until the sun sank behind the high western line; and still its loveliness was not lost; while grey shades and duskiness gathered over the mountain sides and gradually melted the meadows and their scattered wood growth into one hue. Then only the wild mountain outline cut against the sky, and sometimes the rushing of a little river, told Eleanor of the varied beauty the evening hid.

Little else she could see when the chaise stopped and she got out. Dimly a long, low building stretched before her at the side of the road; the rippling of water sounded softly at a little distance; the fresh mountain air blew in her face; then the house-door opened.

CHAPTER XV.

IN THE HILLS

"Face to face with the true mountainsI stood silently and still,Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings,From the air about the hill,And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonair good will."

The house-door opened first to shew a girl in short petticoats and blue jacket holding up a light. Eleanor made towards it, across a narrow strip of courtyard. She saw only the girl, and did not feel certain whether she had come to the right house. For neither Mrs. Caxton nor her home had ever been seen by any of Mr. Powle's children; though she was his own sister. But Mrs. Caxton had married quite out of Mrs. Powle's world; and though now a widow, she lived still the mistress of a great cheese farm; quite out of Mrs. Powle's world still. The latter had therefore never encouraged intercourse. Mrs. Caxton was an excellent woman, no doubt, and extremely respectable; still, Ivy Lodge and the cheese farm were further apart in feeling than in geographical miles; and though Mrs. Caxton often invited her brother's children to come and pick butter-cups in her meadows, Mrs. Powle always proved that to gather primroses in Rythdale was a higher employment, and much better for the children's manners, if not for their health. The Squire at this late day had been unaffectedly glad of Eleanor's proposal; avowing himself not ashamed of his sister or his children either. For Eleanor herself, she had no great expectation, except of rural retirement in a place where Mr. Carlisle would not follow her. That was enough. She had heard besides that the country was beautiful, and her aunt well off.

As she stepped up now doubtfully to the girl with the light, looking to see whether she were right or wrong, the girl moved a little aside so as to light the entrance, and Eleanor passed on, discerning another figure behind. A good wholesome voice exclaimed, "You are welcome, my dear! It is Eleanor?" and the next instant Mr Powle's daughter found herself taken into one of those warm, gentle, genial embraces, that tell unmistakeably what sort of a heart moves the enfolding arms. It was rest and strength at once; and the lips that kissed her – there is a great deal of character in a kiss – were at once sweet and firm.

"You have been all day travelling, my dear. You must be in want of rest."

There was that sort of clear strength in the voice, to which one gives, even in the dark, one's confidence. Eleanor's foot fell more firmly on the tiled floor, as she followed her aunt along a passage or two; a little uncertainty in her heart was quieted; she was ready prepared to expect anything pleasant; and as they turned in at a low door, the expectation was met.

The door admitted them to a low-ceiled room, also with a tiled floor, large and light. A good wood fire burned in the quaint chimney-piece; before it a table stood prepared for supper. A bit of carpet was laid down under the table and made a spot of extra comfort in the middle of the floor. Dark plain wainscotting, heavy furniture of simplest fashion, little windows well curtained; all nothing to speak of; all joined inexplicably to produce the impression of order, stability and repose, which seized upon Eleanor almost before she had time to observe details. But the mute things in a house have an odd way of telegraphing to a stranger what sort of a spirit dwells in the midst of them. It is always so; and Mrs. Caxton's room assured Eleanor that her first notions of its mistress were not ill-founded. She had opportunity to test and strengthen them now, in the full blaze of lamp and firelight; as her aunt stood before her taking off her bonnet and wrappers and handing them over to another attendant with a candle and a blue jacket.

In the low room Mrs. Caxton looked even taller than belonged to her; and she was tall, and of noble full proportions that set off her height. Eleanor thought she had never seen a woman of more dignified presence; the head was set well back on the shoulders, the carriage straight, and the whole moral and physical bearing placid and quiet. Of course the actual movement was easy and fine; for that is with every one a compound of the physical and moral. Scarcely Elizabeth Fry had finer port or figure. The face was good, and strong; the eyes full of intelligence under the thick dark brows; all the lines of the face kind and commanding. A cap of very plain construction covered the abundant hair, which was only a little grey. Nothing else about Mrs. Caxton shewed age. Her dress was simple to quaintness; but, relieved by her magnificent figure, that effect was forgotten, or only remembered as enhancing the other. Eleanor sat down in a great leather chair, where she had been put, and looked on in a sort of charmed state; while her aunt moved about the table, gave quiet orders, made quiet arrangements, and finally took Eleanor's hand and seated her at the tea-table.

"Not poppies, nor mandragora" could have had such a power of soothing over Eleanor's spirits. She sat at the table like a fairy princess under a friendly incantation; and the spell was not broken by any word or look on the part of her hostess. No questions of curiosity; no endeavours to find out more of Eleanor than she chose to shew; no surprise expressed at her mid-winter coming; nor so much pleasure as would have the effect of surprise. So naturally and cordially and with as much simplicity her visit was taken, as if it had been a yearly accustomed thing, and one of Mr. Powle's children had not now seen her aunt for the first time. Indeed so rare was the good sense and kindness of this reception, that Eleanor caught herself wondering whether her aunt could already know more of her than she seemed to know; and not caring if she did! Yet it was impossible, for her mother would not tell her story, and her father could not; and Eleanor came round to admiring with fresh admiration this noble-looking, new-found relation, whose manner towards herself inspired her with such confidence and exercised already such a powerful attraction. And this was the mistress of a cheese-farm! Eleanor could not help being moved with a little curiosity on her part. This lady had no children; no near relations; for she was ignored by her brother's family. She lived alone; was she not lonely? Would she not wear misanthropical or weary traces of such a life? None; none were to be seen. Clear placidness dwelt on the brow, that looked as if nothing ever ruffled it; the eye was full of business and command; and the mouth, – its corners told of a fountain of sweetness somewhere in the region of the heart. Eleanor looked, and went back to her cup of tea and her supper with a renewed sense of comfort.

The supper was excellent too. It would have belied Mrs. Caxton's look of executive capacity if it had not been. No fault was to be discerned anywhere. The tea-service was extremely plain and inexpensive; such as Mrs. Powle could not have used; that was certain. But then the bread, and the mutton chops, and the butter, and even the tea, were such as Mrs. Powle's china was never privileged to bear. And though Mrs. Caxton left in the background every topic of doubtful agreeableness, the talk flowed steadily with abundance of material and animation, during the whole supper-time. Mrs. Caxton was the chief talker. She had plenty to tell Eleanor of the country and people in the neighbourhood; of things to be seen and things to be done; so that supper moved slowly, and was a refreshment of mind as well as of body.

"You are very weary, my dear," said Mrs. Caxton, after the table was cleared away, and the talk had continued through all that time. And Eleanor confessed it. In the calm which was settling down upon her, the strain of hours and days gone by began to be felt.

"You shall go to your room presently," said Mrs. Caxton; "and you shall not get up to breakfast with me. That would be too early for you."

Eleanor was going to enter a protest, when her aunt turned and gave an order in Welsh to the blue jacket then in the room. And then Eleanor had a surprise. Mrs. Caxton took a seat at a little distance, before a stand with a book; and the door opening again, in poured a stream of blue jackets, three or four, followed by three men and a boy. All ranged themselves on seats round the room, and Mrs. Caxton opened her book and read a chapter in the Bible. Eleanor listened, in mute wonder where this would end. It ended in all kneeling down and Mrs. Caxton offering a prayer. An extempore prayer, which for simplicity, strength, and feeling, answered all Eleanor's sense of what a prayer ought to be; though how a woman could speak it before others and before men, filled her with astonishment. But it filled her with humility too, before it was done; and Eleanor rose to her feet with an intense feeling of the difference between her aunt's character and her own; only equalled by her deep gladness at finding herself under the roof where she was.

Her aunt then took a candle and lighted her through the tiled passages, up some low wooden stairs, uncarpeted; along more passages; finally into a large low matted chamber, with a row of little lattice windows. Comfort and simplicity were in all its arrangements; a little fire burning for her; Eleanor's trunks in a closet. When Mrs. Caxton had shewed her all that was necessary, she set down her candle on the low mantelshelf, and took Eleanor in her arms. Again those peculiar, gentle firm kisses fell upon her lips. But instead of "good night," Mrs. Caxton's words were,

"Do you pray for yourself, Eleanor?"

Eleanor dropped her head like a child on the breast before her. "Aunt Caxton, I do not know how!"

"Then the Lord Jesus has not a servant in Eleanor Powle?"

Eleanor was silent, thoughts struggling.

"You have not learned to love him, Eleanor?"

"I have only learned to wish to do it, aunt Caxton! I do wish that. It was partly that I might seek it, that I wanted to come here."

Then Eleanor heard a deep-spoken, "Praise the Lord!" that seemed to come out from the very heart on which she was leaning. "If you have a mind to seek him, my dear, he is willing that you should find. 'The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him.'"

She kissed Eleanor on the two temples, released her and went down stairs. And Eleanor sat down before her fire, feeling as if she were in a paradise.

It was all the more so, from the unlikeness of everything that met her eye, to all she had known before. The chimney-piece at which she was looking as she sat there – it was odd and quaint as possible, to a person accustomed only to the modern fashions of the elegant world; the fire-tongs and shovel would have been surely consigned to the kitchen department at Ivy Lodge. Yet the little blazing fire, framed in by its rows of coloured tiles, looked as cheerfully into Eleanor's face as any blaze that had ever greeted it. All was of a piece with the fireplace. Simple to quaintness, utterly plain and costless, yet with none of the essentials of comfort forgotten or neglected; from the odd little lattice windows to the tiled floor, everything said she was at a great distance from her former life, and Mr. Carlisle. The room looked as if it had been made for Eleanor to settle her two life-questions in it. Accordingly she took them up without delay; but Eleanor's mind that night was like a kaleidoscope. Images of different people and things started up, with wearying perversity of change and combination; and the question, whether she would be a servant of God like her aunt Caxton, was inextricably twisted up with the other question; whether she could escape being the baroness of Rythdale and the wife of Mr. Carlisle. And Eleanor did nothing but tire herself with thinking that night; until the fire was burnt out and she went to bed. Nevertheless she fell asleep with a sense of relief more blissful than she had known for months. She had put a little distance at least between her and her enemies.

Eleanor had meant to be early next day, but rest had taken too good hold of her; it was long past early when she opened her eyes. The rays of the morning sun were peeping in through the lattices. Eleanor sprang up and threw open, or rather threw back, one of the windows, for the lattice slid in grooves instead of hanging on hinges. She would never have found out how to open them, but that one lattice stood slightly pushed back already. When it was quite out of her way, Eleanor's breath almost stopped. A view so wild, so picturesque, so rare in its outlines of beauty, she thought she had never seen. Before her, at some distance, beyond a piece of broken ground, rose a bare-looking height of considerable elevation, crowned by an old tower massively constructed, broken, and ivy-grown. The little track of a footpath was visible that wound round the hill; probably going up to the tower. Further beyond, with evidently a deep valley or gorge between, a line of much higher hills swept off to the left; bare also, and moulded to suit a painter of weird scenes, yet most lovely, and all seen now in the fair morning beams which coloured and lighted them and the old tower together. Nothing else. The road indeed by which she had come passed close before Eleanor's window; but trees embowered it, though they had been kept down so as not to hinder this distant view. Eleanor sat a long while spell-bound before the window.

A noise disturbed her. It was one of the blue jackets bringing a tray with breakfast. Eleanor eagerly asked if Mrs. Caxton had taken breakfast; but all she got in return was a series of unintelligible sounds; however as the girl pointed to the sun, she concluded that the family breakfast hour was past. Everything strange again! At Ivy Lodge the breakfast hour lasted till the lagging members of the family had all come down; and here there was no family! How could happiness belong to anybody in such circumstances? The prospect within doors, Eleanor suddenly remembered, was yet more interesting than the view without. She eat her breakfast and dressed and went down.

But to find the room where she had been the evening before, was more than her powers were equal to. Going from one passage to another, turning and turning back, afraid to open doors to ask somebody; Eleanor was quite bewildered, when she happily was met by her aunt. The morning kiss and greeting renewed in her heart all the peace of last night.

"I cannot find my way about in your house, aunt Caxton. It seems a labyrinth."

"It will not seem so long. Let me shew you the way out of it."

Through one or two more turnings Mrs. Caxton led her niece, and opening a door took her out at the other side, the back of the house, where Eleanor's eyes had not been. Here there was a sort of covered gallery, extending to some length under what was either an upper piazza or the projection of the second story floor. The ground was paved with tiles as usual, and wooden settles stood along the wall, and plain stone pillars supported the roof. But as Eleanor's eyes went out further she caught her aunt's hand in ecstasy.

From almost the edge of the covered gallery, a little terraced garden sloped down to the edge of a small river. The house stood on a bank above the river, at a commanding height; and on the river's further shore a rich sweep of meadow and pasture land stretched to the right and left and filled the whole breadth of the valley; on the other side of which, right up from the green fields, rose another line of hills. These were soft, swelling, round-topped hills, very different in their outlines from those in another quarter which Eleanor had been enjoying from her window. It was winter now, and the garden had lost its glory; yet Eleanor could see, for her eye was trained in such matters, that good and excellent care was at home in it; and some delicate things were there for which a slight protection had been thought needful. The river was lost to view immediately at the right; it wound down from the other hand through the rich meadows under a thick embowering bosky growth of trees; and just below the house it was spanned by a rude stone bridge, from which a hedged lane led off on the other side. All along the fences or hedges which enclosed the fields grew also beautiful old trees; the whole landscape was decked with wood growth, though the hills had little or none. All the more the sweet contrast; the rare harmony; the beautiful mingling of soft cultivation with what was wild and picturesque and barren. And the river gurgled on, with a fresh sound that told of its activity; and a very large herd of cows spotted the green turf in some of the meadows on the other side of the stream.