The Old Helmet Volume I Part 23

"She can do it herself," said Julia. "I am going to see to the fire in the other room."

"No, that would be inhospitable," Mr. Rhys said with a smile; "and I do not believe your sister knows how, Julia. She has not learned as many things as you have."

Julia gave her friend a very loving look and went at the fire without more words. Eleanor sat under a strange spell. She hardly knew her sister in that look; and there was about the pale pure face that lay on the couch, with its s.h.i.+ning eyes, an atmosphere of influence that subdued and enthralled her. It was with an effort that she roused herself to give the intended explanation of her being in that place.

Mr. Rhys heard her throughout.

"I am very glad you were thrown," he said; "since it has procured me the pleasure of seeing you."

"Mr. Carlisle will never let you ride alone again--that is one thing!"

said Julia. And having finished the fire and her exclamatory comments together, she ran off into the other room. Her last words had called up a deep flush on Eleanor's face. Mr. Rhys waited till it had pa.s.sed quite away, then he asked very calmly, and putting the question also with his bright eyes,

"How have you been, since I saw you last?"

The eyes were bright, not with the specular brightness of many eyes, but with a sort of fulness of light and keenness of intelligent vision.

Eleanor knew perfectly well to what they referred. She shrank within herself, cowered, and hesitated. Then made a brave effort and threw back the question.

"How have _you_ been, Mr. Rhys?"

"I have been well," he said. "You know it is the privilege of the children of G.o.d, to glory in tribulations. That is what I am doing."

"Have you been so very ill?" asked Eleanor.

"My illness gives me no pain," he answered; "it only incapacitates me for doing anything. And at first that was more grievous to me than you can understand. With so much to do, and with my heart in the work, it seemed as if my Master had laid me aside and said, 'You shall do no more; you shall lie there and not speak my name to men any longer.' It gave me great pain at first--I was tempted to rebel; but now I know that patience worketh experience. I thank him for the lessons he has taught me. I am willing to go out and be useful, or to lie here and be comparatively useless,--just as my Lord will!"

The slow deliberate utterance, which testified at once of physical weakness and mental power; the absolute repose of the bright face, touched Eleanor profoundly. She sat spell-bound, forgetting her overthrow and her fatigue and everything else; only conscious of her struggling thoughts and cares of the weeks past and of the presence and influence of the one person she knew who had the key to them.

"Having so few opportunities," he went on, "you will not be surprised that I hail every one that offers, of speaking in my Mater's name. I know that he has summoned you to his service, Miss Powle--is he your Master yet?"

Eleanor pushed her chair round, grating it on the floor, so as to turn her face a little away, and answered, "No."

"You have heard his call to you?"

Eleanor felt her whole heart convulsed in the struggle to answer or not answer this question. With great difficulty she kept herself outwardly perfectly quiet; and at last said hoa.r.s.ely, looking away from Mr. Rhys into the fire,

"How do you know anything about it?"

"Have you yielded obedience to his commands?" he said, disregarding her words.

"I do not know what they are--" Eleanor answered.

"Have you sought to find them out?"

She hesitated, and said "no." Her face was completely turned away from him now; but the tender intonation of the next words thrilled through every nerve of her heart and brain.

"Then your head is uncovered yet by that helmet of security which you were anxious about a little time ago?"

It was the speech of somebody who saw right into her heart and knew all that was going on there; what was the use of holding out and trying to maintain appearances? Eleanor's head sank; her heart gave way; she burst into tears. Now was her chance, she thought; the ice was broken; she would ask of Mr. Rhys all she wanted to know, for he could tell her. Before another word was spoken, in rushed Julia.

"I've got that going," she said; "you shall have some tea directly, Mr.

Rhys. I hope Mrs. Williams will stay away till I get through. Now it will take a little while--come here, Eleanor, and look at these beautiful ferns."

Eleanor was sitting upright again; she had driven the tears back. She hoped for another chance of speaking, when Julia should go to get her tea ready. In the mean while she moved her seat, as her sister desired her, to look over the ferns. This brought her into the neighbourhood of the couch, where Julia sat on a low bench, turning the great sheets of paper on the floor before her. It brought Eleanor's face into full view, too, she knew; but now she did not care for that. Julia went on rapturously with the ferns, asking information as before; and in Mr.

Rhys's answers there was a grave tone of preoccupation which thrilled on Eleanor's ear and kept her own mind to the point where it had been.

"Are there ferns out there where you are going if you get well, Mr.

Rhys? new ones?"

"I have no doubt of it."

"Then you will gather them and dry them, won't you?"

"I think it is very possible I may."

"I wish you wouldn't go! O Mr. Rhys, tell Eleanor about that place; she don't know about it. Tell her what you told me."

He did; perhaps to fill up the time and take Eleanor's attention from herself for the moment. He gave a short account of the people in question; a people of fine physical and even fine mental development, for savages; inhabiting a country of great beauty and rich natural resources; but at the same time sunk in the most abject depths of moral debas.e.m.e.nt. A country where the "works of the devil" had reached their utmost vigour; where men lived but for vile ends, and took the lives of their fellow-men and each other with the utmost ruthlessness and carelessness and horrible cruelty; and more than that, where they dishonoured human life by abusing, and even eating, the forms in which human life had residence. It was a terrible picture Mr. Rhys drew, in a few words; so terrible, that it did take Eleanor's attention from all else for the time.

"Is other life safe there?" she asked. "Do the white people who go there feel themselves secure?"

"I presume they do not."

"Then why go to such a horrible place?"

"Why not?" he asked. "The darker they are, the more they want light."

"But it is to jeopardize the very life you wish to use for them."

Mr. Rhys was silent for a moment, and when he spoke it was only to make a remark about the fern which lay displayed on the floor before Julia.

"That Hart's-tongue," said he, "I gathered from a cavern on the sea-coast--where it grew hanging down from the roof,--quant.i.ties of it."

"In a dark cavern, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia.

"Not in a dark part of the cavern. No, it grew only where it could have the light.--Miss Powle, I am of David's mind--'In G.o.d I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do to me.'"

He looked up at Eleanor as he spoke. The slight smile, the look, in Eleanor's mood of mind, were like a coal of fire dropped into her heart. It burned. She said nothing; sat still and looked at the fern on the floor.

"But will you not feel _afraid_, Mr. Rhys?" said Julia.

"Why no, Julia. I shall have nothing to be afraid of. You forget who will be with me."

Julia with that jumped up and ran off to see about her fire and kettle in the other room. Eleanor and Mr. Rhys were left alone. The latter did not speak. Eleanor longed to hear more, and made a great effort.

"I do not understand you," she said hoa.r.s.ely, for in the stir of her feelings she could not command a clear voice. "You say, He will be with you. What do you mean? We cannot see him now. How will he be with you?"

She had raised her eyes, and she saw a strange softness and light pa.s.s over the face she was looking at. Indefinable, unaccountable, she yet saw it; a s.h.i.+ning from the spiritual glory within, which Eleanor recognized, though she had never seen it before. Fire and water were in those bright eyes at once; and Eleanor guessed the latter evidence of emotion was for his ignorant questioner. She had no heart left. By such a flash of revelation the light from one spirit shewed the other its darkness; dimly known to her before; but now, once and forever, she knew where _she_ stood and where _he_ stood, and what the want of her life must be, till she should stand there too. Her face shewed but a little of the work going on with heavings and strugglings in her mind; yet doubtless it was as readable to her companion as his had been to her. She could only hear at the time--afterwards she pondered--the words of his reply.

"I cannot shew him to you;--but he will shew himself to you, if you seek him."