The weather had changed, and the ride home was begun under a cloudy sky. It grew very dark as they went on; impossible in many places to see the path. Mr. Carlisle was riding with her and the roads were well known to him and to the horses, and Eleanor did not mind it. She went on gayly with him, rather delighting in the novelty and adventure; till she heard a muttering of thunder. It was the only thing Eleanor's nerves dreaded. Her spirits were checked; she became silent and quiet, and hardly heard enough to respond to her companion's talk. She was looking incessantly for that which came at last as they were nearing the old ruins in the valley; a flash of lightning. It lit up the beautiful tower with its clinging ivy, revealed for an instant some bits of wall and the thick clustering trees; then left a blank darkness. The same illumination had entered the hidden places of memory, and startled into vivid life the scenes and the thoughts of a few months ago. All Eleanor's latent uneasiness was aroused. Her attention was absorbed now, from this point until they got home, in watching for flashes of lightning. They came frequently, but the storm was after all a slight one. The lightning lit up the way beautifully for the other members of the party. To Eleanor it revealed something more.
Mr. Carlisle's leave-taking at the door bespoke him well satisfied with the results of the evening. Eleanor shunned the questions and remarks of her family and went to her own room. There she sat down, in her riding habit and with her head in her hands. What use was it for her to be baroness of Rythdale, to be mistress of the Priory, to be Mr. Carlisle's petted and favoured wife, while there was no shield between her head and the stroke that any day and any moment might bring? And what after all availed an earthly coronet, ever so bright, which had nothing to replace it when its fading time should come? Eleanor wanted something more.
CHAPTER VII.
WITH THE FERNS.
"It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute."
It was impossible for Eleanor to shake off the feeling. It rose fresh with her the next day, and neither her own nor Mr. Carlisle's efforts could dispose of it. To do Eleanor justice, she did not herself wish to lose it, unless by the supply of her want; while she took special care to hide her trouble from Mr. Carlisle. They took great gallops on the moor, and long rides all about the country; the rides were delightful; the talks were gay; but in them all, or at the end of them certainly, Eleanor's secret cry was for some shelter for her unprotected head. The thought would come up in every possible connexion, till it haunted her. Not her approaching marriage, nor the preparations which were even beginning for it, nor her involuntary subjection to all Mr. Carlisle's pleasure, so much dwelt with Eleanor now as the question,—how she should meet the storm which must break upon her some day; or rather the sense that she could not meet it. The fairest and sweetest scene, or condition of things, seemed but to bring up this thought more vividly by very force of contrast.
Eleanor hid the whole within her own heart, and the fire burned there all the more. Not a sign of it must Mr. Carlisle see; and as for Dr. Cairnes, Eleanor could never get a chance for a safe talk with him. Somebody was always near, or might be near. The very effort to hide her thoughts grew sometimes irksome; and the whirl of engagements and occupations in which she lived gave her a stifled feeling. She could not even indulge herself in solitary consideration of that which there was nobody to help her consider.
She hailed one day the announcement that Mr. Carlisle must let the next day go by without riding or seeing her. He would be kept away at a town some miles off, on county business. Mr. Carlisle had a good deal to do with county politics and county business generally; made himself both important and popular, and lost no thread of influence he had once gathered into his hand. So Brompton would have him all the next day, and Eleanor would have her time to herself.
That she might secure full possession of it, she ordered her pony and went out alone after luncheon. She could not get free earlier. Now she took no servant to follow her, and started off alone to the moors. It was a delicious autumn day, mild and still and mellow. Eleanor got out of sight or hearing of human habitations; then let her pony please himself in his paces while she dropped the reins and thought. It was hardly in Eleanor's nature to have bitter thoughts; they came as near it on this occasion as they were apt to do; they were very dissatisfied thoughts. She was on the whole dissatisfied with everybody; herself most of all, it is true; but her mother and Mr. Carlisle had a share. She did not want to be married at Christmas; she did not even care about going to Switzerland, unless by her own good leave asked and obtained; she was not willing to be managed as a child; yet Eleanor was conscious that she was no better in Mr. Carlisle's hands. "I wonder what sort of a master he will make," she thought, "when he has me entirely in his power? I have no sort of liberty now." It humbled her; it was her own fault; yet Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, and thought that she loved him. She was young yet and very inexperienced. She also liked all the splendour of the position he gave her. Yet above the gratification of this, through the dazzle of wealth and pleasure and power, Eleanor discerned now a want these could not fill. What should she do when they failed? there was no provision in them for the want of them. Eleanor forgot her loss of independence, and pondered these thoughts till they grew bitter with pain. By turns she wished she had never seen Mr. Rhys, who she remembered first started them; or wished she could see him again.
In the stillness and freedom and peace of the wide moor, Eleanor had fearlessly given herself up to her musings, without thinking or caring which way she went. The pony, finding the choice left to him, had naturally enough turned off into a track leading over some wild hills where he had been bred; the locality had pleasant associations for him. But it had none of any kind for Eleanor; and when she roused herself to think of it, she found she was in a distant part of the moor and drawing near to the hills aforesaid; a bleak and dreary looking region, and very far from home. Neither was she very sure by which way she might soonest regain a neighbourhood that she knew. To follow the path she was on and turn off into the first track that branched in the right direction, seemed the best to do; and she roused up her pony to an energetic little gallop. It seemed little after the long bounds Black Maggie would take through the air; but it was brisk work for the pony. Eleanor kept him at his speed. It was luxurious, to be alone; ride as she liked, slow or fast, and think as she liked, even forbidden thoughts. Her own mistress once more. Eleanor exulted, all the more because she was a rebel. The wild moor was delicious; the freedom was delicious; only she was far from home and the afternoon was on the wane. She kept the pony to his speed.