Читать книгу: «The Old Helmet. Volume II», страница 20

In came Solomon; a very black specimen of the islanders, in a dress something like that which Eleanor had noticed on the man in the canoe. Solomon's features were undeniably good, if somewhat heavy; they had sense and manliness; and his eye was mildly quiet and genial in its expression. It brightened, Eleanor saw, as he listened to Mr. Rhys's words; to which she also listened without being able to understand them, and wondering at the warm feeling of her cheeks. Solomon's gratulations were mainly given with his face, for all the English words he could get out were, "glad – see – Misi Risi" – Mr. Rhys laughed and dismissed him, and went off himself.

Eleanor was half glad to be left alone for a time. She fastened the door, not for fear, but that her solitude might not be intruded upon; then walked up and down over the soft mats of the centre room and tried to bring her spirits to some quiet of realization. But she could not. The change had been so sudden, from her wandering state of uncertainty and expectation to absolute content and rest, of body and mind at once, that her mental like her actual footing seemed to sway and heave yet with the upheavings that were past. She could not settle down to anything like a composed state of mind. She could not get accustomed yet to Mr. Rhys in his new character. As the children say, it was "too good to be true."

A little unready to be still, she went off again into the room specially prepared for her, where the green jalousies shaded the windows. One window here was at the end; a direction in which Eleanor had not looked. She softly raised the jalousies a little, expecting to see just the waving bananas and other plants of the tropical garden that surrounded the house; or perhaps servants' offices, about which she had a good deal of curiosity.

Instead of that, the window revealed a landscape of such beauty that Eleanor involuntarily pulled up the blind and sat entranced before it. No such thing as servants or servants' offices. A wide receding stretch of broken country, rising in the distance to the dignity of blue precipitous hills; a gorge of which opened far away, to delight and draw the eye into its misty depth; a middle distance of lordly forest, with patches of clearing; bits of tropical vegetation at hand, and over them and over it all a tropical sky. In one direction the view was very open. Eleanor could discern a bit of a pathway winding through it, and once or twice a dark figure moving along its course. This was Vuliva! this was her foreign home! the region where darkness and light were struggling foot by foot for the mastery; where heathen temples were falling and heathen misery giving place to the joy of the gospel, but where the gospel had to fight them yet. Eleanor looked till her heart was too full to look any longer; and then turned aside to get the only possible relief in prayer.

The hour was near gone when she went to her window again. The day was cooling towards the evening. Well she guessed that this window had been specially arranged for her. In everything that had been done in the house she had seen that same watchful care for her pleasure and comfort. There never was a house that seemed to be so love's work; Mr. Rhys's own hand had most manifestly been everywhere; and the furniture that Mrs. Caxton had sent he had placed. But Mrs. Caxton had not sent all. Eleanor's eye rested on a dressing-table that certainly never came from England. It was pretty enough; it was very pretty, even to her notions; yet it had cost nothing, and was as nearly as possible made of nothing. Yes, for she looked; the frame was only some native reeds or canes and a bit of board; the rest was white muslin drapery, which would pack away in a very few square inches of room, but now hung in pretty folds around the glass and covered the frame. Eleanor just looked and wondered; no more; for the hour was up, and she went to her window and raised the jalousies again. She was more quiet now, she thought; but her heart throbbed with the thought of Mr. Rhys and his return.

She looked over the beautiful wild country, watching for him. The light was fair on the blue hills; the sea-breeze fluttered the leaves of the cocoanut trees and waved the long thick leaves of the banana. She heard no other sound near or far, till the quick swift tread she was listening for came to her ear. Nobody was to be seen; but the step was not to be mistaken. Eleanor got to the front door and had it open just in time to see him come.

They stood then together in the doorway, for the view was fair on the river side too. The opposite shore was beautiful, and the houses of the heathen village had a great interest for Eleanor, aside from their effect as part of the landscape; but her shyness was upon her again, and she had a thorough consciousness that Mr. Rhys did not see how the light fell on either shore. At last he put his arm round her and drew her up to his side, saying,

"And so you did not get my letters in Sydney. – Poor little dove!"

It struck Eleanor with a curious pleasure, these words. They would have been true, she knew, in the lips of no other mortal, as also certainly to no other mortal would it have occurred to use them. She was not the sort of person by any means to whom such an appellation would generally be given. To be sure her temper was of the finest, but then also it had a body to it. Yet here she knew it was true; and he knew; it was spoken not by any arrogance, but by a purely frank and natural understanding of their mutual natures and relations. She answered by a smile, exceeding sweet and sparkling, as well as conscious, to the face that was looking down at her with a little bit of provoking archness upon its gravity; and their lips met in a long sealing kiss. Husband and wife understood each other.

Perhaps Mr. Rhys knew it, for it seemed as if his lips could hardly leave hers; and Eleanor's face was all manner of lights.

"What has become of Alfred?" he asked, in an irrelevant kind of manner, by way of parenthesis.

"I have not seen him – hardly – since you left England. He is not under mamma's care now."

"And my friend Julia? You have told me but a mite yet about everybody."

"Julia is your friend still. But Julia – I have not seen her in a long, long time."

"How is that?"

"Mamma would not let me. O Mr. Rhys! – we have been kept apart. I could not even see her when I came away."

"Why?"

"Mamma – she was afraid of my influence over her."

"Is it possible!"

"Julia was going on well – setting her face to do right. Now – I do not know how it will be. Even our letters are overlooked."

"I need not ask how your mother is. I suppose she is trying to save one of her daughters for the world."

Eleanor's thoughts swept a wide course in a few minutes; remembered whose hand instrumentality had saved her from such a fate and had striven for Julia. With a sigh that was part sorrow and part gratitude, Eleanor laid her head softly on Mr. Rhys's shoulder. With such tenderness as one gives to a child, and yet rarer, because deeper and graver, she was made at home there.

"Don't you want to take a walk to the chapel?"

"O yes!" – But she was held fast still.

"And shall we give sister Balliol the pleasure of our company to tea, as we come back?"

"If you please – if you like."

"I do not like it at all," said Mr. Rhys frankly – "but I suppose we must."

"Think of finding the restraints of society even in Fiji!" said Eleanor trying to laugh, as she brought her bonnet and they set out.

"You must find them everywhere – unless you live to please yourself;" said Mr. Rhys, with his sweet grave look; and Eleanor was consoled.

The walk to the church was not very long, and she could have desired it longer. The river shore, and the view on the other side, and the village by which they passed, the trees and the vegetable gardens and the odd thatched roofs – everything was pretty and new to Eleanor's eyes. They passed all they had seen in coming from the landing that morning, taking this time a path outside the mission premises. Past the house with the row of pillars in front, which Eleanor learned was a building for the use of the various schools. A little further on stood the chapel. It was neat and tasteful enough to please even an English eye; and indeed looked more English than foreign on a distant view; and standing there in the wilderness, with its little bell-tower rising like a witness for all that was good in the midst of a heathen land, the feelings of those who looked upon it had need be very tender and very deep.

"This chapel is dear to our eyes," said Mr. Rhys. "Everything is, that costs such pains. This poor people have made it; and it is one of the best pieces of work in Fiji. It was all done by the labour of their hearts and hands."

"That seems to be the style of carpentry in this country," said Eleanor.

"The chief made up his mind on a good principle – that for a house of the true God, neither time nor material could be too precious. On that principle they went to work. The timber used in the building is what we call green-heart – the best there is in Fiji. To find it, they had to travel over many a mile of the country; and remember, there are no oxen here, no horses; they had no teams to help them. All must be done by the labour of the hands. I think there were about eighty beams of green-heart timber needed for the house – some of them twelve and some of them fifty feet long. In about three months these were collected; found and brought in from the woods and hills, sometimes from ten miles away. While the young men were doing this, the old men at home were all day beating cocoanut husk, to separate the fibre for making sinnet. All day long I used to hear their beaters going; it was good music; and when at the end of every few days the woodcutters came home with their timber – so soon as they were heard shouting the news of their coming – there was a general burst and cry and every creature in the village set off to meet them and help drag the logs home. Women and children and all went; and you never saw people so happy.

"Then the building was done in the same spirit. Many a time when I was busy with them, overlooking their work, I have heard them chanting to each other words from the Bible – band against band. One side would sing – 'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded.' – Then the other side would answer, 'The Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.' I cannot tell you how sweet it was. There was another chant they were very fond of. A few would begin with Solomon's petition – 'Have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day: that thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place,' – and here a number of the other builders would join in with their cry – 'Hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make!' And so in the next verse, when it came near the end the others would join in – 'And when thou hearest, forgive!' – "

"I should think you would love it!" said Eleanor, with her eyes full of tears. "And I should think the Lord would love it."

"Come in, and see how it looks on the inside."

The inside was both simple and elegant, after a quaint fashion; for it was Fijian elegance and Fijian simplicity. A double row of columns led down the centre of the building; they looked like mahogany, but it was only native wood; and the ornamental work at top which served for their capitals, was done in sinnet. Over the doors and windows triangular pediments were elaborately wrought in black with the same sinnet. The roof was both quaint and elegant. It was done in alternate open and close reed-work, with broad black lines dividing it; and ornamental lashings and bandings of sinnet were used about the fastenings and groinings of spars and beams. Then the wings of the communion rail were made of reed-work, ornamented; the rail was a beautiful piece of nut timber, and the balusters of sweet sandal wood. The whole effect exceeding pretty and graceful, though produced with such simple means.

"Mr. Ruskin ought to have had this as an illustration of his 'Lamp of

Sacrifice,'" said Eleanor. "How beautiful! – "

"The 'Lamp of Truth,' too," said Mr. Rhys. "It is all honest work. That side was done by our heathen neighbours. The heathen chief sent us his compliments, said he heard we were engaged in a great work, and if we pleased he would come and help us. So he did. They built that side of the wall and the roof."

"Did they do it well?"

"Heartily."

"Do they come to attend worship in it?"

"The chapel is a great attraction. Strangers come to see – if not to worship, – and then we get a chance to tell the truth to them."

"And Mr. Rhys, how is the truth prospering generally?"

"Eleanor, we want men! – and that seems to be all we want. My heart feels ready to break sometimes, for the want of helpers. I am glad of brother Amos coming – very glad! – but we want a hundred where we have one. It is but a few weeks since a young man came over from one of the islands, a large and important island, bringing tidings that a number of towns there had given up heathenism – all wanting teachers – and there were no teachers for them. In one place the people had built a chapel; they had gone so far as that; it was at Koroivonu – and they gathered together the next Sunday after it was finished, great numbers of the people, filled the chapel and stood under some bread-fruit trees in front of it, and stood there waiting to have some one come and tell them the truth – and there was no one. My heart is ready to weep blood when I think of these things! The Tongan who came with the news came with his eyes full of tears. And this is no strange nor solitary case of Koroivonu."

Mr. Rhys walked the floor of the little chapel, his features working, his breast heaving. Eleanor sat thinking how little she could do – how much she would!

"You have native helpers – ?" she said gently.

"Praise the Lord for what they are! but we want missionaries. We want help from England. We cannot get it from the Colonies – not fast enough. Eleanor," – and he stopped short and faced her – "a few months ago, to give you another instance, I was beholder of such a scene as this. I was to preach to a community that were for the first time publicly renouncing heathenism. It was Sunday." – Mr. Rhys spoke slowly, evidently exercising some control over himself; how often Eleanor had seen him do that in the pulpit! —

"I stood on the shores of a bay, reefed in from the ocean. I wish I could put the scene before you! On the land side, one of the most magnificent landscapes stretched back into the country, with almost every sort of natural beauty. Before me the bay, with ten large canoes moored in it. An island in the bay, I remember, caught the light beautifully; and beyond that there was the white fence of breakers on the reef barrier. The smallest of the canoes would hold a hundred men; they were the fleet of Thakomban, one of Fiji's fiercest kings formerly, with himself and his warriors on board.

"My preaching place was on what had been the dancing grounds of a village. I had a mat stretched on three poles for an awning – such a mat as they make for sails; – and around me were nine others prepared in like manner. This was my chapel. Just at my left hand was a spot of ground where were ten boiling springs; and until that Sunday, one of them had been the due appointed place for cooking human bodies. That was the place and the preparation I looked at in the still Sunday morning, before service time.

"At that time, the time appointed for service, a drum was beat and the conch shell blown; the same shell which had been used to give the war call. Directly all those canoes were covered with men, and they were plunging into the water and wading to shore. These were Thakomban and his warriors. Not blacked and stripped and armed for fighting, but washed and clothed. They were stopping in that place on their way somewhere else, and now coming and gathering to hear the preaching. On the other side came a procession from the village; and down every hillside and along every path, I could see scattering groups and lines of comers from the neighbouring country. These were the heathen inhabitants, coming up now to hear the truth and profess by a public act of worship that they were heathens no longer. They all gathered round me there under the mat awnings, and sat on the grass looking up to hear, while I told them of Jesus."

Mr. Rhys's voice was choked and he broke off abruptly. Eleanor guessed how he had talked to that audience; she could see it in his flushing face and quivering lip. She could not find a word to say, and let him lead her in silence and slowly away from the chapel and towards the mission house. Before entering the plantation again, Eleanor stopped and said in a low voice,

"What can I do?"

He gave her a look of that moved sweetness she had seen in him all day, and answered with his usual abruptness,

"You can pray."

"I do that."

"Pray as Paul prayed – for your mother, and for Julia, and for Fiji, and for me. Do you know how that was?"

"I know what some of his prayers were."

"Yes, but I never thought how Paul prayed, until the other day. You must put the scattered hints together. Wait until we are at home – I will shew you."

He pushed open the wicket and they went in; and the rest of the evening Eleanor talked to Mrs. Amos or to Mr. Balliol; she sheered off a little from his wife. There was plenty of interesting conversation going on with one and another; but Eleanor had a little the sense of being to that lady an object of observation, and drew into a corner or into the shade as much as she could.

"Your wife is very handsome, brother Rhys," Mrs. Balliol remarked in an aside, towards the end of the evening.

"That is hardly much praise from you, sister Balliol," he answered gravely. "I know you do not set much store by appearances."

"She is very young!"

Both looked over to the opposite corner where Eleanor was talking to Mrs. Amos, sitting on a low seat and looking up; a little drawn back into the shade, yet not so shaded but that the womanly modest sweetness of her face could be seen well enough. Mr. Rhys made no answer.

"I judge, brother Rhys, that she has been brought up in the great world," – Mrs. Balliol went on, looking across to the ruffled sleeve.

"She is not in it now," Mr. Rhys observed quietly.

"No; – she is in good hands. But, brother Rhys, do you think our sister understands exactly what sort of work she has come to do here?"

"She is teachable," he answered with great imperturbability.

"Well, you will be able to train her, if she wants it. I am glad to know she is in such good hands. I think she has hardly yet a just notion of what lies before her, brother Rhys."

"When did you make your observations?"

"She was with me, you know – you left her with me this morning. We were alone, and we had a little conversation."

"Mrs. Balliol, do you think a just notion of anything call be formed in half an hour?"

His question was rather grave, and the lady's eyes wavered from meeting his. She fidgeted a little.

"O you know best, of course," she said; "I have had very little opportunity – I only judged from the want of seriousness; but that might have been from some other cause. You must excuse me, if I spoke too frankly."

"You can never do that to me," he said. "Thank you, sister Balliol. I will take care of her."

Mrs. Balliol was reassured. But neither during their walk home nor ever after, did Mr. Rhys tell Eleanor of this little bit of talk that had concerned her.

CHAPTER XX
AT WORK

 
"My Lady comes; my Lady goes; he can see her day by day,
And bless his eyes with her beauty, and with blessings strew her way."
 

The breakfast-table was as much of a mystery to Eleanor as the dinner had been. Not because it looked so homelike; though in the early morning the doors and windows were all open and the sunlight streaming through on Mrs. Caxton's china cups and silver spoons. It all looked foreign enough yet, among those palm-fern pillars, and on the Fijian mat with its border made of red worsted ends and little white feathers. The basket of fruit, too, on the table, did not look like England. But the tea was unexceptionable, and there was a piece of fresh fish as perfectly broiled as if it had been brought over by some genius or fairy, smoking hot, from an English gridiron. And in the order and arrangements of the table, there had been something more than native skill and taste, Eleanor was sure.

"It seems to me, Mr. Rhys," she said, "that the Fijians are remarkably good cooks!"

"Uncommon, for savages," said Mr. Rhys with perfect gravity.

"This fish is excellent."

"There is no better fish-market in the world, for variety and abundance, than we have here."

"But I mean, it is broiled just like an English fish. Isaac Walton himself would be satisfied with it."

"Isaac Walton never saw such fishing as is carried on here. The natives are at home in the water from their childhood – men and women both; – and the women do a good deal of the fishing. But the serious business is the turtle fishing. It is a hand to hand conflict. The men plunge into the water and grapple bodily with the turtle, after they have brought them into an enclosure with their nets. Four or five men lay hold of one, if it is a large fellow, and they struggle together under water till the turtle thinks he has the worst of the bargain, and concludes to come to the surface."

"Does not the turtle sometimes get the better?"

"Sometimes."

"Mr. Rhys, have you any particular duty to-day?"

"I don't see how you can keep up that form of expression!" said he, with a comic gravity of dislike.

"Why not?"

"It is not treating me with proper confidence."

Her look in reply was so very pretty, both blushing and winsome, that the corners of his mouth were obliged to give way.

"You know what my first name is, do not you?"

"Yes," said Eleanor.

"The people about call me 'Misi Risi' – I am not going to have my wife a

Fijian to me."

The lights on Eleanor's face were very pretty. With the same contained smile he went on.

"I gave you my name yesterday. It is yours to do what you like with; but the greatest dishonour you can shew to a gift, is not to use it at all."

"That is the most comical putting of the case that ever I heard," said

Eleanor, quite unable to retain her own gravity.

"Very good sense," said Mr. Rhys, with a dry preservation of his.

"But after all," said Eleanor, "you gave me your second name, if you please – I do not know what I have to do with the first."

"You do not? Is it possible you think your name is Henry or James, or something else? You are Rowland Rhys as truly as I am – only you are the mistress, and I am the master."

Eleanor's look went over the table with something besides laughter in the brown eyes, which made them a gentle thing to see.

"Mr. Rhys, I am thinking, what you will do to this part of you to make it like the other?"

He gave her a glance, at which her eyes went down instantly.

"I do not know," he said with infinite gravity. "I will think about it.

Preaching does not seem to do you any good."

Eleanor bent her attention upon her bread and fruit. He spoke next with a change of tone, giving up his gravity.

"Do you know your particular duty to-day?"

"I thought," said Eleanor, – "that as yesterday you shewed me the head-carpenter, perhaps this morning you would let me see the chief cook."

"That is not the first thing. You must have a lesson in Fijian; now that I hope you are instructed in English."

He carried her off to his study to get it. The lesson was a matter of amusement to Mr. Rhys, but Eleanor set herself earnestly to learn. Then he said he supposed she might as well see her establishment at once, and took her out to the side of the house where she had not been.

It was a plantation wilderness here too, though particularly devoted to all that in Fiji could belong to a kitchen garden. English beans and peas had been sown, and were flourishing; most of the luxuriance that met the eye had a foreign character. Beautiful order was noticeable everywhere. Mr. Rhys seemed to have forgotten all about the servants; he pleased himself with leading Eleanor through the walks and shewing her which were the plants of the yam and the kumera and other native fruits and vegetables. Bananas were here too, and the graceful stems of the sugar cane; and overhead the cocoa-nut trees waved their feathery plumes in the air.

"Who did all this?" Eleanor asked admiringly.

"Solomon – with a head gardener over him."

"Solomon is – I saw him yesterday?"

"Yes. He came with me from Vulanga. He is a nice fellow. He is a Christian, as I told you; and a true labourer in the great vineyard. I believe he never misses an opportunity to speak to his countrymen in a quiet way and tell them the truth. He has brought a great many to know it. In my service he is very faithful."

"No wonder this garden looks nice," said Eleanor.

"I asked Solomon one day about his religious experience. He said he was very happy; he had enjoyed religion all the day. He said he rose early in the morning and prayed that the Lord would greatly bless him and keep him; and that it had been so, and generally was so when he attended to religious duties early in the morning. 'But if I neglect and rush into the world,' he said, 'without properly attending to my religious duties, nothing goes right. I am wrong in my own heart, and no one round me is right.'"

"Good testimony," said Eleanor. "Is he your cook as well as your gardener?"

"I had forgotten all about the cook," said Mr. Rhys. "Come and see the kitchen."

Near the main dwelling house, in this planted enclosure, were several smaller houses. Mr. Rhys at last took Eleanor that way, and permitted her to inspect them. The one nearest the main building was fitted for a laundry. The furthest was a sleeping house for the servants. The middle one was the kitchen. It was a Fijian kitchen. Here was a large fireplace, of the original fashion which had moved Eleanor's wonder in the dining-room; with a Fijian framework of wood at one side of it, holding native vessels of pottery, larger and smaller, and variously shaped, for cooking purposes. Some more homelike iron utensils were to be seen also; with other kitchen appurtenances, water jars and so forth. A fire had been in the fireplace, and the signs of cookery were remaining; but in all the houses, nobody was anywhere visible.

"Solomon is gone to collect your servants," said Mr. Rhys. "That explains the present solitude."

"Did he cook that fish?"

"I have not tried him in cooking," said Mr. Rhys with a gravity that was perfect. "I do not know what he could do if he was tried."

"Who did it then?"

His smile was wonderfully pleasant – now that it could be no longer kept back – as he answered, "Your servant."

"You, Rowland! And the dinner yesterday?"

"Do not praise me," he said with the same look, "lest I should spoil the dinner to-day. I do not expect there will be anybody here till afternoon."

"Then you shall see what I can do!"

"I do not believe you know how. I have been long enough in the wilderness to learn all trades. You never learned how to cook at Wiglands."

"But at Plassy I did."

"Did aunt Caxton let you into her kitchen?"

"Yes."

"I shall not let you into mine."

"She went with me there. I have not come out here to be useless. I will take care of the dinner to-day."

"No, you shall not," said Mr. Rhys, drawing her away from the kitchen. "You have got enough to do to-day in unpacking boxes. There will be servants this evening to attend to all you want; and for the present you are my care."

"Rowland, I should like it."

Which view of the case did not seem to be material. At least it was answered in a silencing kind of way, as with his arm about her he led her in through the bananas to the house. It silenced Eleanor effectually, in spite of being very serious in her wish. She put it away to bide another opportunity.

Mr. Rhys gave her something else to do, as he had said. The boxes had in part been brought from the schooner, and there was employment for both of them. He drew out nails, and took off covers, and did the rough unpacking; while the arranging and bestowing of the goods thus put under her disposal kept Eleanor very busy. His part of the work was finished long before hers, and Mr. Rhys withdrew to his study for some other work. Eleanor, happy and busy, with touched thoughts of Mrs. Caxton, put away blankets and clothes and linen and calicos, and unpacked glass, and stowed on her shelves a whole store of home comforts and necessaries; marvelling between whiles at Mr. Rhys's varieties of power in making himself useful and wishing she could do what she thought was better her work than his – the work to be done in the kitchen before the servants came home. By and by, Mr. Rhys came out of the study again, and found Eleanor sitting on the mat before a huge round hamper, uncovered, filled with Australian fruit. This was a late arrival, brought while he had been shut up at his work. Grapes and peaches and pears and apricots were crowded side by side in rich and beautiful abundance and confusion. Eleanor sat looking at it. She was in a working dress, of the brown stuff her aunt's maids wore at home; short sleeves left her arms bare to the elbow; and the full jacket and hoopless skirt did no wrong to a figure the soft outlines of which they only disclosed. Mr. Rhys stopped and stood still. Eleanor looked up.

"Mr. Esthwaite has sent these on in the schooner unknown to me! What shall I do with them all?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Rhys. "It is the penalty that attaches to wealth."