The Old Helmet Volume II Part 38

"To this gentleman, you mean!" Mrs. Powle said tartly.

A light came into Eleanor's eyes; she was silent a minute and then with the colour rising all over her face she said, "He is abundantly worthy of all and much more than I am."

"Well I do not understand this matter, as you said," Mrs. Powle answered in some discomfiture. "Tell me of something I do understand.

What society will you have where you are going, Eleanor?"

"I shall be too busy to have much time for society, mamma," Eleanor answered, good-humouredly.

"No such thing--you will want it all the more. Sister Caxton, is it not so?"

"People do not go out there without consenting to forego many things,"

Mrs. Caxton answered; "but there is One who has promised to be with his servants when they are about his work; and I never heard that any one who had that society, pined greatly for want of other."

Mrs. Powle opened her eyes at Mrs. Caxton's quiet face; she set this speech down in her mind as uncontaminated fanaticism. She turned to Eleanor.

"Do the people there wear clothes?"

"The Christians clothe themselves, mamma; the heathen portion of the people hardly do, I believe. The climate requires nothing. They have a fas.h.i.+on of dress of their own, but it is not much."

"And can you help seeing these heathen?"

"No, of course not."

"Well you _are_ changed!" said Mrs. Powle. "I would never have thought you would have consented to such degradation."

"I go that I may help mend it, mamma."

"Yes, you must stoop yourself first."

"Think how Jesus stooped--to what degradation--for us all."

Mrs. Powle paused, at the view of Eleanor's glistening eyes. It was not easy to answer, moreover.

"I cannot help it," she said. "You and I take different views on the subject. Do let us talk of something else; I am always getting on something where we cannot agree. Tell me about the place, Eleanor."

"What, mamma? I have not been there."

"No, but of course you know. What do you live in? houses or tents?"

"I do not know which you would call them; they are not stone or wood.

There is a skeleton frame of posts to uphold the building; but the walls are made of different thicknesses of reeds, laid different ways and laced together with sinnet."

"What's _sinnet?_"

"A strong braid made of the fibre of the cocoa-nut--of the husk of the cocoanut. It is made of more and less size and strength, and is used instead of iron to fasten a great many sorts of things; carpentry and boat building among them."

"Goodness! what a place. Well go on with your house."

"That is all," said Eleanor smiling; "except that it is thatched with palm leaves, or gra.s.s, or cane leaves. Sometimes the walls are covered with gra.s.s; and the braid work done in patterns, so as to have a very artistic effect."

"And what is inside?"

"Not much beside the people."

"Well, tell me what, for instance. There is something, I suppose. The walls are not bare?"

"Not quite. There are apt to be mats, to sit and lie on;--and pots for cooking, and baskets and a chest perhaps, and a great mosquito curtain."

"Are you going to live in a house like that, Eleanor?"

Mrs. Powle's face expressed distress. Eleanor laughed and declared she did not know.

"It will have some chairs for her to sit upon," said Mrs. Caxton; "and I shall send some china cups, that she may not have to drink out of a cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l."

"But I should like that very well," said Eleanor; "and I certainly think a Fijian wooden dish, spread with green leaves, is as nice a vessel for food as can be."

Mrs. Powle rose up and began to arrange her shawl, with an air which said, "I do not understand it!"

"Mamma, what are you about?"

"Eleanor, you make me very uncomfortable."

"Do I? Why should I, mamma?"

"It is no use talking." Then suddenly facing round on Eleanor she said, "What are you going to do for servants in that dreadful place?"

"Mr. Rhys says he has a most faithful servant--who is much attached to him, and does as well as he can desire."

"One of those native savages?"

"He was; he is a Christian now, and a good one."

Mrs. Powle looked as if she did not know how to believe her daughter.

"Aren't you afraid of what you are about, Eleanor--to venture among those creatures? and to take all that voyage first, alone? Are you not afraid?"

There was that in the very simpleness and quietness of Eleanor's answer that put her negative beyond a question. Mrs. Powle sat down again for very bewilderment.

"Why are you not afraid?" she said. "You never were afraid of little things, I know; but those houses--Are there no thieves among those heathen?"

"A good many."

"What is to keep them out of your house? Anybody could cut through a reed wall with a knife--and make no noise about it. Where is your security?"

Alas, in the one face there was such ignorance, in the other such sorrowful consciousness of that ignorance, that the two faces at first looked mutely into each other across the gulf between them.

"Mamma," said Eleanor, "why will you not understand me? Do you not know,--the Eternal G.o.d is our refuge!"

The still, grand expression of faith Mrs. Powle could not receive; but the speaking of Eleanor's eyes she did. She turned from them.