Volume II Part 25 (2/2)
”I would go on just so, my dear. I would not alter the style of my letters.”
So the flowers of June were replaced by the flowers of July; and the beauties of July gave place to the purple ”ling” of August, with gentian and centaury and St. John's wort; and then came the Autumn changes, with the less delicate blossoms of that later time, amidst which the eclipsed meadow-sweet came quite into favour again. Still Eleanor brought wild things from the hills and the streams, though she applied more now to Mrs. Caxton's home store in the garden; wild mints and Artemisias and the Michaelmas daisy still came home with her from her rides and walks; the rides and walks in which Eleanor was a ministering angel to many a poor house, many an ignorant soul and many a failing or ailing body.
Then came October; and with the first days of October the news that her father was dead.
It added much bitterness to Eleanor's grief, that Mrs. Powle entirely declined to have her come home, even for a brief stay. If she chose to submit to conditions, her mother wrote, she would be welcome; it was not too late; but if she held to her perversity, she must bear the consequences. She did not own her nor want her. She gave her up to her aunt Caxton. Her remaining daughter was in her hands, and she meant to keep her there. Eleanor, she knew, if she came home would come to sow rebellion. She should not come to do that, either then or at all.
Mildly quiet and decided Mrs. Powle's letter was; very decided, and so cool as to give every a.s.surance the decision would be persisted in.
Eleanor felt this very much. She kept on her usual way of life without any variation; but the radiant bright look of her face was permanently saddened. She was just as sweet and companionable an a.s.sistant to her aunt as ever; but from month to month Mrs. Caxton saw that a shadow lay deep upon her heart. No shadow could have less of anything like hard edges.
They had been sitting at work one night late in the winter, those two, the aunt and the niece; and having at last put up her work Eleanor sat gravely poring into the red coals on the hearth; those thought-provoking, life-stirring, strange things, glowing and sparkling between life and death like ourselves. Eleanor's face was very sober.
”Aunt Caxton,” she said at length,--”my life seems such a confusion to me!”
”So everything seems that we do not understand,” Mrs. Caxton said.
”But is it not, aunty? I seem taken from everything that I ought most naturally to do--papa, Julia, mamma. I feel like a banished person, I suppose; only I have the strange feeling of being banished from my place in the world.”
”What do you think of such a life as Mr. Rhys is leading?”
”I think it is straight, and beautiful,”--Eleanor answered, looking still into the fire. ”Nothing can be further from confusion. He is in _his_ place.”
”He is in a sort of banishment, however.”
”Not from that! And it is voluntary banishment--for his Master's sake.
_That_ is not sorrowful, aunt Caxton.”
”Not when the Lord's banished ones make their home in him. And I do not doubt but Mr. Rhys does that.”
”Have you ever heard from him, aunt Caxton.”
”Not yet. It is almost time, I think.”
”It is almost a year and a half since he went.”
”The communication is slow and uncertain,” said Mrs. Caxton. ”They do not get letters there, often, till they are a year old.”
”How impossible it used to be to me,” said Eleanor, ”to comprehend such a life; how impossible to understand, that anybody should leave home and friends and comfort, and take his place voluntarily in distance and danger and heathendom. It was an utter enigma to me.”
”And you understand it now?”
”O yes, aunty,” Eleanor went on in the same tone; and she had not ceased gazing into the coals;--”I see that Christ is all; and with him one is never alone, and under his hand one can never be in danger. I know now how his love keeps one even from fear.”
”You are no coward naturally.”
”No, aunt Caxton--not about ordinary things, except when conscience made me so, some time ago.”
”That is over now?”
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