She had raised her eyes, and she saw a strange softness and light pass over the face she was looking at. Indefinable, unaccountable, she yet saw it; a shining from the spiritual glory within, which Eleanor recognized, though she had never seen it before. Fire and water were in those bright eyes at once; and Eleanor guessed the latter evidence of emotion was for his ignorant questioner. She had no heart left. By such a flash of revelation the light from one spirit shewed the other its darkness; dimly known to her before; but now, once and forever, she knew where she stood and where he stood, and what the want of her life must be, till she should stand there too. Her face shewed but a little of the work going on with heavings and strugglings in her mind; yet doubtless it was as readable to her companion as his had been to her. She could only hear at the time—afterwards she pondered—the words of his reply.
"I cannot shew him to you;—but he will shew himself to you, if you seek him."
There was no chance for more words; Julia came in again; and was thereafter bustling in and out, getting her cup of tea ready. Eleanor could not meet her little sister's looks and probable words; she turned hastily from the ferns and the couch and put herself at the window with her back to everybody. There was a wild cry in her heart—"What shall I do! what shall I do!" One thing she must have, or be miserable; how was she to make it her own. As soon as she turned her face from that cottage room and what was in it, she must meet the full blast of opposing currents; unfavourable, adverse, overwhelming. Her light was not strong enough to stand that blast, Eleanor knew; it would be blown out directly;—and she left in darkness. In a desperate sense of this, a desperate resolve to overcome it somehow, a despairing powerlessness to contend, she sat at the window seeing nothing. She was brought to herself at last by Julia's, "Eleanor—Mr. Rhys wants you to take a cup of tea." Eleanor turned round mechanically, took the cup, and changed her place for one near the fire.
She never forgot that scene. Julia's part in it gave it a most strange air to Eleanor; so did her own. Julia was moving about, quite at home, preparing cups of tea for everybody, herself included; and waiting upon Mr. Rhys with a steady care and affectionateness which evidently met with an affectionate return. The cottage room with its plain furniture—the little common blue cups in which the tea was served—the fire in the chimney on the coarse iron fire-dogs—the reclining figure on the couch, and her own riding-habit in the middle of the room; were all stereotyped on Eleanor's memory for ever. The tea refreshed her very much.
"How are you going to get home, Miss Powle?" asked her host. "Have you sent for a carriage?"
"No—I saw nobody to send—I can walk it quite well now," said Eleanor. And feeling that the time was come, she set down her tea-cup and came to bid her host good-bye; though she shrank from doing it. She gave him her hand again, but she had no words to speak.
"Good-bye," said he. "I am sorry I am not well enough to come and see you; I would take that liberty."
"And so I shall never see him again," thought Eleanor as she went out of the cottage; "and nobody will ever speak any more words to me of what I want to hear; and what will become of me! What chance shall I have very soon—what chance have I now—to attend to these things? to get right? and what chance would all these things have with Mr. Carlisle? I could manage my mother. What will become of me!"
Eleanor walked and thought, both hard, till she got past the village; finding herself alone, thought got the better of haste, and she threw herself down under a tree to collect some order and steadiness in her mind if possible before other interests and distractions broke in. She sat with her face buried in her hands a good while. And one conclusion Eleanor's thoughts came to; that there was a thing more needful than other things; and that she would hold that one thing first in her mind, and keep it first in her endeavours, and make all her arrangements accordingly. Eleanor was young and untried, but her mind had a tolerable back-bone of stiffness when once aroused to take action; her conclusion meant something. She rose up, then; looked to see how far down the sun was; and turning to pursue her walk vigorously—found Mr. Carlisle at her side. He was as much surprised as she.
"Why Eleanor! what are you doing here?"