Eleanor"s smile and answer were as cool as if her whole nature had not been in a stir of excitement.
"What in the world do _you_ expect to do there?" said her host with a strong tone of disapprobation. ""Wasting sweetness on the desert air"
is nothing to it; this is positive desecration!"
Eleanor let the opinion pa.s.s, and eat the pineapple which he gave her with an apparently unimpaired relish.
"You don"t know what sort of a place it is!" he insisted.
"I cannot know, I suppose, without going."
"Suppose you stay here," said Mr. Esthwaite; "and we"ll send for anybody in the world you please! to make you comfortable. Seriously, we want good people in this colony; we have got a supply of all other sorts, but those are in a deficient minority."
"In that case, I think everybody that stays here is bound to supply one."
"See here--who is that gentleman that is so fortunate as to be expecting you? what is his name?"
"Mr. Esthwaite! for shame!" said his wife. "I think you are a very presuming cousin."
Mr. Esthwaite knew quite well that he was, but he smiled to himself with satisfaction to see the answer his question had called up into Eleanor"s cheeks. The rich dye of crimson was pretty to behold; her words were delayed long enough to mark either difficulty of speaking or displeasure at the necessity for it. Mr. Esthwaite did not care which it was. At last Eleanor answered, with calm distinctness though without facing him.
"Do you not know the name?"
"I--I believe Mrs. Caxton must have mentioned it in one of her letters.
She ought, and I think she did."
An impatient throb of displeasure pa.s.sed through Eleanor"s veins. It did not appear. She said composedly, "The name is Rhys--it is a Welsh name--spelled R, h, y, s."
"Hm! I remember. What sort of a man is he?"
Eleanor looked up, fairly startled with the audacity of her host; and only replied gravely, "I am unable to say."
Mr. Esthwaite at least had a sense of humour in him; for he smiled, and his lips kept pertinaciously unsteady for some time, even while he went on talking.
"I mean--is he a man calculated for savage, or for civilized life?"
"I hope so," said Eleanor wilfully.
"Mr. Esthwaite! you astonish me!" said his wife.
Mr. Esthwaite seemed however highly amused. "Do you know what savage life is?" he said to Eleanor. "It is not what you think. It is not a garden of roses, with a pineapple tucked away behind every bush. Now if you would come here--here is a grand opening. Here is every sort of work wanting you--and Mr. Rhys--whatever the line of his talents may be. We"ll build him a church, and we"ll go and hear him, and we"ll make much of you. Seriously, if my good cousin had known what she was sending you to, she would have wished the "Diana" should sink with you on board, rather than get to the end of her voyage. It is quite self-denial enough to come here--when one does not expect to gain anything by it."
"Mr. Esthwaite! Egbert!" cried his wife. "Now you are caught!
Self-denial to come here! That is what you mean by all your talk about the Colonies and England!"
"Don"t be--silly,--my dear," said her husband. "These people would think it so. I don"t; but I am addressing myself to their prejudices.
Self-denial is what they are after."
"It is not what I am after," said Eleanor laughing. "I must break up your prejudices."
"What are you after, then. Seriously, what are you going to those barbarous islands for--putting friendship and all such regards out of the question? Wheat takes you there,--without humbug? You must excuse me--but you are a very extraordinary person to look at,--as a missionary."
Eleanor could hardly help laughing. She doubted whether or no this was a question to be answered; discerning a look of seriousness, as she thought, beneath the gleam in her host"s eyes, she chose to run the risk of answering. She faced him, and them, as she spoke.
"I love Jesus. And I love to do his work, wherever he gives it to me; or, as I am a woman and cannot do much, I am glad to help those who can."
Mr. Esthwaite was put out a little. He had words on his lips that he did not speak; and piled Eleanor"s plate with various fruit dainties, and drank one or two gla.s.ses of his Australian claret before he said anything more; an interval occupied by Eleanor in cooling down after her last speech, which had flushed her cheeks prodigiously.
"That"s a sort of work to be done anywhere," he said finally, as if Eleanor had but just spoken. "I am sure it can be done here, and much better for you. Now see here--I like you. Don"t you suppose, if you were to try, you could persuade this Mr. Rhys to quit those regions of darkness and come and take the same sort of work at Sydney that he is doing there?"
"No."
"Seems decided!--" said Mr. Esthwaite humourously, looking towards his wife. "I am afraid this gentleman is a positive sort of character.
Well!--there is no use in struggling against fate. My dear, take your cousin off and give her some coffee. I will be there directly."
The ladies left him accordingly; and in the pretty drawing-room Mrs.
Esthwaite plied Eleanor with questions relating to her voyage, her destination, and above all, the England of which she had heard so much and knew so little. Her curiosity was huge, and extended to the smallest of imaginable details; and one thing followed another with very little of congruous nature between them. And Eleanor answered, and related, and described, and the while thought--where her letters were?
Nevertheless she gave herself kindly to her hostess"s gratification, and patiently put her own by; and the evening ended with Mrs. Esthwaite being in a state of ecstatic delight with her new-found relation. Mr.
Esthwaite had kept silence and played the part of listener for the larger portion of the evening, using his eyes and probably his judgment freely during that time. As they were separating, he asked Eleanor whether she could get up at six o"clock?
Eleanor asked what for?
"Do, for once; and I will take you a drive in the Domain."
"What Domain? yours, do you mean?"
"Not exactly. I have not got so far as that. No; it"s the Government Domain--everybody rides and drives there, and almost everybody goes at six o"clock. It"s worth going; botanical gardens, and all that sort of thing."
Eleanor swiftly thought, that it was scarce likely Mr. Amos would have her letters for her, or at least bring them, so early as that; and she might as well indulge her host"s fancy if not her own. She agreed to the proposal, and Mrs. Esthwaite went rejoicing with her to her room.
"You"ll like it," she said. "The botanical gardens are beautiful, and I dare say you will know a great deal more about them than I do. O it"s delightful to have you here! I only cannot bear to think you must go away again."
"You are very kind to me," said Eleanor gratefully. "My dear aunt Caxton will be made glad to know what friends I have found among strangers."
"Don"t speak about it!" said Mrs. Esthwaite, her eyes fairly glistening with earnestness. "I am sure if Egbert can do anything he will be too glad. Now won"t you do just as if you were at home? I want you to be completely at home with us--now and always. You must feel very much the want of your old home in England! being so far from it, too."
"Heaven is my home," said Eleanor cheerfully; "I do not feel the loss of England so much as you think. That other home always seems near."
"Does it?" said Mrs. Esthwaite. "It seems such an immense way off, to me!"
"I used to think so; but it is near to me now. So it does not so much matter whereabouts on the earth I am."
"It must be nice to feel so!" said Mrs. Esthwaite with an unconscious sigh.
"Do you not feel so?" Eleanor asked.
"O no. I do not know anything about it. I am not good--like you."
"It is not goodness--not my goodness--that makes heaven my home," said Eleanor smiling at her and taking her hands.