"Do you remember coming to visit the old window in the ruins, just before you went to Pla.s.sy that time?" he said, looking round at her with a smile.
His wife though she was, Eleanor could not help a warm flush of consciousness coming over her at the recollection.
"I remember," she said demurely. "It was in December."
"What were you afraid of at that time?"
"Mr. Carlisle."
"Did you think it was _he_ whom you heard?"
"No. I thought it was you."
"Then why were you afraid?"
"I had reason enough," said Eleanor, in a low voice. "Mr. Carlisle had taken it into his head to become jealous of you."
She answered with a certain straightforward dignity, but Mr. Rhys had a view of dyed cheeks and a face which shrank from his eye. He beheld it, no doubt, for a little while; at least he was silent; and ended with one or two kisses which to Eleanor"s feeling, for she dared not look, spoke him very full of satisfaction. But he never brought up the subject again.
The thoughts raised by the talk about the basket of fruit recurred again a few days later. Eleanor had got into full train of her island life by this time. She was studying hard to learn the language, and beginning to speak words of it with her strange muster of servants.
Housekeeping duties were fairly in hand. She had begun to find out, too, what Mr. Rhys had foretold her respecting visitors. They came in groups and singly, at all hours nearly on some days, to see the new house and the new furniture and the new wife of "Misi Risi." Eleanor could not talk to them; she could only be looked at, and answer through an interpreter their questions and requests, and watch with unspeakable interest these strange poor people, and admire with unceasing admiration Mr. Rhys"s untiring kindness, patience, and skill, in receiving and entertaining them. They wanted to see and understand every new thing and every new custom. They were polite in their curiosity, but insatiable; and Mr. Rhys would shew and explain and talk, and never seem annoyed or weary; and then, whenever he got a chance, put in his own claim for attention, and tell them of the Gospel. Eleanor always knew from his face and manner, and from theirs, when this sort of talk was going on; and she listened strangely to the unknown words in which her heart went along so blindly. When he thought her not needed, or when he thought her tired, Mr. Rhys would dismiss her to her own room, which he would not have invaded; and Eleanor"s reverence for her husband grew with every day, although she would not at the beginning have thought that possible.
At the end of these first few days, Eleanor went one afternoon into Mr.
Rhys"s study. He was in full tide of work now. The softly swinging door let her in without much noise, and she stood still in the middle of the room, in doubt whether to disturb him or no. He was busy at his writing-table. But Mr. Rhys had good ears, even when he was busy. While she stood there, he looked up at her. She was a pretty vision for a man to see and call wife. She was in one of the white dresses that had stirred Mrs. Esthwaite"s admiration; its spotless draperies were in as elegant order as ever they had been for Mrs. Powle"s drawing room; the rich banded brown hair was in as graceful order. She stood there very bright, very still, looking at him.
"You have been working a long time, Rowland. You want to stop and rest."
"Come here, and rest me," he answered stretching out his hand.
"Rowland," said Eleanor when she had been standing a minute beside him.
"Mrs. Balliol wants me to cut off my hair."
Mr. Rhys looked up at her, for with one arm round her he was still bending attention upon his work. He glanced up as if in doubt or wonder.
"I have been over to see her," Eleanor repeated, "and she counsels me to cut off my hair; cut it short."
"See you don"t!" he said sententiously.
"Why?" said Eleanor.
"It would be the cause of our first and last quarrel."
"Our first," said Eleanor stifling some hidden amus.e.m.e.nt; "but how could you tell that it would be the last?"
"It would be so very disagreeable!" Mr. Rhys said, with a gravity so dryly comic that Eleanor"s gravity was destroyed.
"Mrs. Balliol says I shall find it, my hair, I mean, very much in my way."
"It would be in _my way_, if it was cut off."
"She says it will take a great deal of precious time. She thinks that your razor would be better applied to my head."
"Than to what other object?"
"Than to its legitimate use and application. She wants me to get you to let your beard grow, and to cut off my hair. "It"s unekal"--as Sam Weller says."
Eleanor was laughing; she could not see Mr. Rhys"s face very well; it was somewhat bent over his papers; but the side view was of unprovokable gravity. A gravity however which she had learned to know covered a wealth of amus.e.m.e.nt or of mischief, as the case might be. She knelt down to bring herself within better speaking and seeing distance.
"Rowland, what sort of people are your coadjutors?"
"They are the Lord"s people," he answered.
Eleanor felt somewhat checked; the gravity of this answer was of a different character; but she could not refrain from carrying the matter further; she could not let it rest there.
"Do you mean," she said a little timidly, but persistently, "that you are not willing to speak of them as they are, _to me?_"
He was quite silent half a minute, and Eleanor grew increasingly sober.
He said then, gently but decidedly,
"There are two persons in the field, of whose faults I am willing to talk to you; yours and my own."
"And of others you think it is wrong, then, to speak even so privately and kindly as we are speaking?" Eleanor was very much chagrined. Mr.
Rhys waited a moment, and then said, in the same manner,
"I cannot do it, Eleanor."
He got up a moment after and went out of the room. Eleanor felt almost stunned with surprise and discomfort. This was the second time, in the few days that she had been with him, that he had found her wrong in something. It troubled her strangely; and the sense of how much he was better than she--how much higher his sphere of living than the one she moved in--pressed her heart down almost to the ground. She stood by the writing-table where she had risen to her feet, with her eyes brimful of tears, but so still even to her eyelids that the tears had not overflowed. She supposed Mr. Rhys had gone out. In another moment however she heard his step returning and he entered the study. Eleanor moved instantly to leave it, but he met and stayed her with a look infinitely sweet; turned her about, and made her kneel down with him.
And then he poured out a prayer for charity; not merely the kindness that throws a covering over the failings of others, or that holds back the report of what they have been; but the overabounding heavenly love that will send its brightness into the dark places of human society and with its own richness fill the barren spots; and above all, for that love of Jesus the King, that makes all his servants dear, for that spirit of Christ that looks with his own love and forbearance on all that need it. And so, as the speaker prayed, he shewed his own possession of that which he asked for; so revealed the tender and high walk of his own mind and its near familiarity with heavenly things, that Eleanor thought her heart would break. The feeling, how far he stood above her in knowledge and in goodness, while it was a secret and deep joy, yet gave her acute pain such as she never had felt before.
She would not weep; it was a dry aching pain, that took part of its strength from the thought of having done or shewn something that he did not like. But Mr. Rhys went on to pray for her alone; and Eleanor was conquered then. Tears came and she cried like a little child, and all the hard pain of pride or of fear was washed away; like the dust from the leaves in a summer shower.
She was so far healed, but she would have run way when they rose from their knees if he had permitted her. He had no such intention. Keeping fast hold of her hand he brought her to a seat by the window, opened it, for the day was now cooling off and the sea-breeze was fresh; and taking the book of their studies he put her into a lesson of Fijian practice; till Eleanor"s spirits were thoroughly restored. Then throwing away the book and taking her in his arms he almost kissed the tears back again.
"Eleanor----" he said, when he saw that her eyes were wet, and her colour and her voice were fluttering together.
"What?"
"You must bear the inconvenience of your hair for my sake. Tell sister Balliol you wear it by my express orders."
Eleanor"s look was lovely. She saw that the gentleness of this speech was intended to give her back just that liberty she might think was forbidden. Humbleness and affection danced in her face together.
"And you do not object to white dresses, Rowland?"
"Never--when they are white--" he said with one of his peculiar smiles.
"Rowland," said Eleanor, now completely happy again, "you ought to have those jalousie blinds at these windows. You want them here much more than I do."
"How will you prove that?"
"By putting them here; and then you will confess it."