“Nor did she lift an eye nor speak
a word,
Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of
it.”
Eleanor’s shamefacedness was
upon her in full force when she found herself in the
canoe pushing off from the schooner and her friends
there. She felt exceeding shy and strange, and
with that a feeling very like awe of her companion.
A feeling not quite unknown to her in former days
with the same person, and in tenfold force now.
There was no doubt to be sure of the secret mind of
them both towards each other; nevertheless, he had
never spoken to her of his affection, nor given her
the least sign of it, except on paper, up to that day;
and now he sat for all she could see as cool and grave
as ever by her side. The old and the new state
of things it was hard to reconcile all at once.
To do Eleanor justice, she saw as one sees without
looking; she was too shame-faced to look; she bent
her outward attention upon their boatman. He
was another native, of course, but attired in somewhat
more civilized style, though in no costume of civilized
lands. What he wore was more like a carman’s
frock at home than anything else it could be likened
to. He was of pleasant countenance, and paddled
along with great activity and skill.
They had been silent for the first
few minutes since leaving the schooner, till at length
Mr. Rhys asked her, with a little of the sweet arch
smile she remembered so well, “how she had liked
the first sight of a Fijian?” It brought such
a rush upon Eleanor of past things and present, old
times and changes, that it was with the utmost difficulty
she could make any answer at all.
“I was too much interested to
think of liking or disliking.”
“You were not startled?”
“No.”
“That was a heathen chief, of the opposite village.”
“He wanted something, did he not?”
“Yes; that the captain of the
schooner should accommodate him in something he thought
would be for his advantage. It was impossible,
and so I told him.”
Eleanor looked again towards the oarsman.
“This is one of our Christian brethren.”
“Are there many?” she
asked, though feeling as if she had no breath to ask.
“Yes. And we have cause
to be thankful every day at hearing of more. We
want ten times as many hands as we, have got.
How has the long voyage been to you?”
Eleanor answered briefly; but then
she was obliged to go on and tell of Mrs. Caxton,
and of Mr. and Mrs. Amos, and of various other matters;
to all which still she answered in as few words as
possible. She could not be fluent, with that
sense of strangeness upon her; conscious not only
that one of her hands was again in Mr. Rhys’s
hold, but that his eyes were never off her face.
He desisted at last from questions, and they both
sat silent; until the headland was rounded, and “There
is Vuliva!” came from Mr. Rhys’s lips.
In a little bay curve of the river,
behind the promontory, lay the village; looking pretty
and foreign enough. But very pretty it was.
The odd, or rather the strange-looking houses, sitting
apart from each other, some large and some small,
intermingled gracefully with trees whose shape and
leafage were as new, made a sweet picture. One
house in particular as they neared the shore struck
Eleanor; it had a neat colonnade of slender pillars
in front, and a high roof, almost like a Mansard in
form, but thatched with native thatch. A very
neat paling fence stretched along in front of this.
Very near it, a little further off, rose another building
that made Eleanor almost give a start of joy; so homelike
and pleasant it looked, as well as surprising.
This was an exceeding pretty chapel; again with a
high thatched roof, and also with a neat slight bell-tower
rising from one end. In front two doors at each
side were separated by a large and not inelegant window;
other windows and doors down the side of the building
promised light and airiness; and the walls were wrought
into a curious pattern; reminding Eleanor of the fanciful
brick work of a past style of architecture. Near
the shore and back behind the chapel and houses, reared
themselves here and there the slender stems of palm
and cocoa-nut trees, with their graceful tufts of
feathery foliage waving at top; other trees of various
kinds were mingled among them. Figures were seen
moving about, in the medium attire worn by their oarsman.
It was a pretty scene; cheerful and home-like, though
so unlike home. Further back from the river,
on the opposite shore, other houses could be seen;
the houses of the heathen village; but Eleanor’s
eyes were fastened on this one. Mr. Rhys said
not one word; only he held her hand in a still closer
grasp which was not meaningless.
“How pretty it is!” Eleanor
forced herself to say. He only answered, “Do
you like it?” but it was in such a satisfied
tone of preoccupation that Eleanor blushed and thought
she might as well leave his meditations alone.
Yet though full of content in her
heart, Mr. Rhys and his affection seemed both at a
distance. It was so exactly the Mr. Rhys of Plassy,
that Eleanor could not in a moment realize their changed
relations and find her own place. A little thing
administered a slight corrective to this reckoning.
The little canoe had come to land.
Eleanor was taken out of it safely, and then for a
moment left to herself; for Mr. Rhys was engaged in
a colloquy with his boatman and another native who
had come up. Not being able to understand a word
of what was going on, though from the tones and gestures
she guessed it had reference to the disembarkation
of the schooner’s party, and a little ready
to turn her face from view, Eleanor stood looking
landward; in a maze of strangeness that was not at
all unhappy. The cocoa-nut tops waved gently a
welcome to her; she took it so; the houses looked
neat and inviting; glimpses of other unknown foliage
helped to assure her she had got home; the country
outlines, so far as she could see them, looked fair
and bright. Eleanor was taking note of details
in a dreamy way, when she was surprised by the sudden
frank contact of lips with hers; lips that had no
strangeness of their own to contend with. Turning
hastily, she saw that the natives with whom Mr. Rhys
had been talking had run off different ways, and they
two were alone. Eleanor trembled as much as she
had done when she first read Mr. Rhys’s note
at Plassy. And his words when he spoke did not
help her, they were spoken so exactly like the Mr.
Rhys she had known there. Not exactly, neither,
though he only said,
“Do you want this cloak on any longer?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Eleanor stammering, “I
do not feel it.”
Which was most literally true, for
at that moment she did not feel anything external.
He looked at her, and exercising his own judgment
proceeded to unclasp the cloak from her shoulders and
hang it on his arm, while he put her hand on the other.
“There is no need for you to
be troubled with this now,” said he. “I
only put it round you to protect your dress.”
And with her bag in his hand, they went up from the
river-side and past the large house with the colonnade.
“Whither now?” thought Eleanor, but she
asked nothing. One or two more houses were passed;
then a little space without houses; then came a paling
enclosure, of considerable size, apparently, filled
with trees and vines. A gate opened in this and
let them through, and Mr. Rhys led Eleanor up a walk
in the garden-like plantation, to a house which stood
encompassed by it. “Not at home yet!”
he remarked to her as they stood at the door; with
a slight smile which again brought the blood to her
cheeks. He opened the door and they went in.
“The good news is true, sister
Balliol!” he said to somebody that met them.
“I have brought you one of our friends, and there
are more to come, that I must go and look after.
Is brother Balliol at home?”
“No, he is not; he has gone over the river.”
“Then I will leave this lady
in your care, and I will go and see if I can find
canoes. I meant to have pressed him into my service.
This is Miss Powle, sister Balliol.”
The lady so called had come forward
to meet them, and now took Eleanor by the hand and
kissed her cordially. Mr. Rhys took her hand then,
when she was released, and explained.
“I am going back to the schooner
after our friends if I can find a canoe.”
And without more words, off he went.
Eleanor and Mrs. Balliol were left to look at each
other.
This latter was a lady of middle height,
and kindly if not fine features. A pair of good
black eyes too. But what struck Eleanor most
about her was her air; the general style of her figure
and dress, which to Miss Powle’s eyes was peculiar.
She wore her hair in a crop; and that seemed to Eleanor
a characteristic of the whole make up. Her dress
was not otherwise than neat, and yet that epithet would
never have occurred to one in describing it; all graces
of style or attire were so ignored. Her gown
sat without any; so did her collar; both were rather
uncivilized, without partaking of the picturesqueness
of savage costume. The face was by no means disagreeable;
lacking neither in sense, nor in spirit nor in kindliness;
but Eleanor perceived at once that the mind must have
a serious want somewhere, in refinement or discernment:
the exterior was so ruthlessly abandoned to ungainliness.
Mrs. Balliol took her to an inner
room, where the cloak and the bonnet were left; and
returned then to her occupations in the other apartment,
while Eleanor set herself down at the window to make
observations. The room was large and high, cheerful
and airy, with windows at two sides. The one
where she sat commanded a view of little beside the
garden, with its luxuriant growth of fruit trees and
shrubs and flowers. A tropical looking garden;
for the broad leaves of the banana waved there around
its great bunches of fruit; the canopy of a cocoa-nut
palm fluttered slightly overhead; and various fruits
that Eleanor did not know displayed themselves along
with the pine-apples that she did know. This
garden view seemed very interesting to Eleanor, to
judge by her intentness; and so it was for its own
qualities, besides that a bit of the walk could be
seen by which she had come and the wicket which had
let her in and by which Mr. Rhys had gone out; but
in good truth, as often as she turned her eyes to
the scene within, she had such a sense of being herself
an object of observation and perhaps of speculation,
that she was fain to seek the garden again. And
it was true, that while Mrs. Balliol plied her needle
she used her eyes as well, and her thoughts with her
needle flew in and out, as she surveyed Eleanor’s
figure in her neat fresh print dress. And the
lady’s eyebrows grew prophetical, not to say
ominous.
“She’s too handsome!” that
was the first conclusion. “She is quite
too handsome; she cannot have those looks without
knowing it. Better have brought a plain face
to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as
if she was just come out of a hair-dresser’s! hum ruffle
all down the neck of her dress flowing
sleeves too, and ruffles round them. And
a buckle in her belt a gold buckle, I do
believe. And shoes?”
The shoes were unexceptionable, but
they fitted well on a nice foot; and the hands were
too small and white and delicate ever to have done
anything, or ever to be willing to do anything.
That was the point. No harm in small hands, Mrs.
Balliol allowed, if they did not betray their owner
into daintiness of living. She pursued her lucubrations
for some time without interrupting those of Eleanor.
“Are you from England, sister?”
“From England yes;
but we made some stay in Australia by the way,”
said Eleanor turning from the window to take a more
sociable position nearer her hostess.
“A long voyage?”
“Not remarkably long. I had good companions.”
“From what part of England?”
“The borders of Wales, last.”
“Brother Rhys is from Wales isn’t
he?”
“I do not know,” said
Eleanor, vexed to feel the flush of blood to her cheeks.
“Ah? You have known brother Rhys before?”
with a searching look.
“Yes.”
“And how do you think you shall like it in Fiji?”
“You can hardly expect me to
tell under such short trial,” said Eleanor smiling.
“There are trials enough. I suppose you
expect those, do you not?”
“I do not mean to expect them
till they come,” said Eleanor, still smiling.
“Do you think that is wise?”
said the other gravely. “They will come,
I assure you, fast enough; do you not think it is
well to prepare the mind for what it has to go through,
by looking at it beforehand?”
“You never know beforehand what
is to be gone through,” said Eleanor.
“But you know some things; and
it is well, I think, to harden oneself against what
is coming. I have found that sort of discipline
very useful. Sister, may I ask you a searching
questions?”
“Certainly! If you please,” said
Eleanor.
“You know, we should be ready
to give every one a reason of the hope that is in
us. I want to ask you, sister, what moved you
to go on a mission?”
Astonishment almost kept Eleanor silent;
then noticing the quick eyes of Mrs. Balliol repeating
the enquiry at her face, the difficulty of answering
met and joined with a small tide of indignation at
its being demanded of her. She did not want to
be angry, and she was very near being ready to cry.
Her mind was in that state of overwrought fulness
when a little stir is more than the feelings can bear.
Among conflicting tides, the sense of the ludicrous
at last got the uppermost; and she laughed, as one
laughs whose nerves are not just under control; heartily
and merrily. Mrs. Balliol was confounded.
“I should not have thought it
was a laughing matter,” she remarked
at length. But the gravity of that threw Eleanor
off again; and the little hands and ruffled sleeves
were reviewed under new circumstances. And when
Eleanor got command of herself, she still kept her
hand over her eyes, for she found that she was just
trembling into tears. She held it close pressed
upon them.
“Perhaps you are fatigued, sister?”
said Mrs. Balliol, in utter incapacity to account
for this demonstration.
“Not much. I beg your pardon!”
said Eleanor. “I believe I am a little
unsettled at first getting here. If you please,
I will try being quite quiet for awhile if
you will let me be so discourteous?”
“Do so!” said Mrs. Balliol.
“Anything to rest you.” And Eleanor
went back to her window, and turning her face to the
garden again rested her head on her hand; and there
was a hush. Mrs. Balliol worked and mused, probably.
Eleanor did as she had said; kept quiet. The quiet
lasted a long time, and the tropical day grew up into
its meridian heats; yet it was not oppressive; a fine
breeze relieved it and made it no other than pleasant.
Home at last! This great stillness and quiet,
after the ocean tossings, and months of voyaging,
and change, and heart-uncertainty. The peace
of heart now was as profound; but so profound, and
so thankfully recognized, that Eleanor’s mood
was a little unsteady. She needed to be still
and recollect herself, as she could looking out into
the leaves of a great banana tree there in the garden,
and forgetting the house and Mrs. Balliol.
The quiet lasted a long time, and
was broken then by the entrance of Mr. Balliol.
His wife introduced him; and after learning that he
could now render no aid to Mr. Rhys, he immediately
entered into a brisk conversation with the new comer
Mr. Rhys had brought. That went well, and was
also strengthening. Eleanor was greatly pleased
with him. He was evidently a man of learning
and sense and spirit; a man of excellent parts, in
good cultivation, and filled with a most benign and
gentle temper of goodness. It was a pleasure to
talk to him; and while they were talking the party
from the schooner arrived.
Eleanor felt her “shamefacedness”
return upon her, while all the rest were making acquaintance,
welcoming and receiving welcome. She stood aside.
Did they know her position? While she was thinking,
Mr. Rhys came to her and put her again in her chair
by the window. Mrs. Amos had been carried off
by Mrs. Balliol. The two other gentlemen were
in earnest converse. Mr. Rhys took a seat in
front of Eleanor and asked in a low voice if she wished
for any delay?
“In what?” said Eleanor, though she knew
the answer.
“Coming home.”
He was almost sorry for her, to see
the quick blood flash into her face. But she
caught her breath and said “No.”
“You know,” he said; how
exactly like the Mr. Rhys of Plassy! “I
would not hurry you beyond your pleasure. If
you would like to remain here a day or two, domiciled
with Mrs. Balliol, and rest, and see the land you
have only to say what you wish.”
“I do not wish it,” said
Eleanor, finding it very difficult to answer at all “I
wish it to be just as you please.”
“You must know what my pleasure
is. Does your heart not fail you, now you are
here?” he asked still lower and in a very gentle
way.
“No.”
“Eleanor, have you had any doubts
or failings of heart at any time, since you left England?”
“No. Yes! I did, once at
Sydney.”
“At Sydney?” repeated Mr. Rhys
in a perceptibly graver tone.
“Yes at Sydney when I
did not get any letters from you.”
“You got no letters from me?”
“No.”
“At Sydney?”
“No,” said Eleanor venturing to look up.
“Did you not see Mr. Armitage?”
“Mr. Armitage! O he was
in the back country I remember now Mr. Amos
said that; and he never returned to Sydney while we
were there.”
An inarticulate sound came from Mr.
Rhys’s lips, between indignation and impatience;
the strongest expression of either that Eleanor had
ever heard from him.
“Then Mr. Armitage had the letters?”
“Certainly! and I am in the
utmost surprise at his carelessness. He ought
to have left them in somebody else’s charge,
if he was quitting the place himself. When did
you hear from me?”
The flush rose again, not so vividly, to Eleanor’s
face.
“I heard in England those letters you
know.”
“Those letters I trusted to Mrs. Caxton?”
“Yes.”
“And not since! Well, you
are excused for your heart failing that once.
Who is to do it, Eleanor? Mr. Amos?”
“If you please I should like ”
He left her for a moment to make his
arrangements; and for that moment Eleanor’s
thoughts leaped to those who should have been by her
side at such a time, with a little of a woman’s
heart-longing. Mrs. Caxton, or her mother!
If one of them might have stood by her then! Eleanor’s
head bent with the moment’s poor wish.
But with the touch of Mr. Rhys’s hand when he
returned to her, with the sound of his voice, there
came as it always did to Eleanor, healing and strength.
The one little word “Come,” from his lips,
drove away all mental hobgoblins. He said nothing
more, but there was a great tenderness in the manner
of his taking her upon his arm. His look Eleanor
dared not meet. She felt very strange yet; she
could not get accustomed to the reality of things.
This man had never spoken one word of love to her,
and now she was standing up to be married to him.
The whole little party stood together,
while the marriage service of the English church was
read. It was preceded however by a prayer that
was never read nor written. After the service
was over, and after Eleanor had been saluted by the
two ladies who were all the representatives of mother
and sister and friends for her on the occasion, Mr.
Rhys whispered to her to get her bonnet. Eleanor
gladly obeyed. But as soon as it appeared, there
was a general outcry and protest. What were they
going to do?”
“Take her to see how her house
looks,” said Mr. Rhys. “You forget
I have something to shew.”
“But you will bring her back
to dinner? do, brother Rhys. We shall have dinner
presently. You’ll be back?”
“If the survey is over in time but
I do not think it will,” he answered gravely.
“Then tea you will
come then? Let us all be together at tea.
Will you?”
“It is a happiness we have had
no visitors before dinner! I will see about it,
sister Balliol, thank you; and take advice.”
And glad was Eleanor when they got
away; which was immediately, for Mr. Rhys’s
motions were prompt. He led her now not to the
wicket by which she had come, but another way, through
the garden wilderness still, till another slight paling
with a wicket in it was passed and the wilderness
took a somewhat different character. The same
plants and trees were to be seen, but order and pleasantness
of arrangement were in place of vegetable confusion;
neat walks ran between the luxuriant growing bananas,
and led gradually nearer to the river; till another
house came in view; and passing round the gable end
of it, Eleanor could cast her eye along the building
and take the effect. It was long and low, with
a high picturesque thatched roof, and the walls fancifully
wrought in a pattern, making a not unpretty appearance.
The door was in the middle; she had no time to see
more, for Mr. Rhys unlocked it and led her in.
The interior was high, wide, and cool
and pleasant after the hot sun without; but again
she had no time to make observations. Mr. Rhys
led her immediately on to an inner room. Eleanor’s
eyes were dazed and her heart was beating; she could
hardly see anything, except, as one takes impressions
without seeing, that this answered to the inner room
at Mrs. Balliol’s, and had far more the air
of being furnished and pleasantly habitable.
What gave it the air she could not tell; for Mr. Rhys
was unfastening her bonnet and throwing it off, and
then taking her sea-cloak from his arm and casting
that somewhat carelessly away; and then his arms enfolded
her. It was the first time they had been really
alone since her coming; and now he was silent, so silent
that Eleanor could scarcely bear it. She was
aware his eyes were studying her fixedly, and she
felt as if they could see nothing beside the conscious
mounting of the blood from cheek to brow, which reached
what to her was a painful flush. Probably he
saw it, for the answer came in a little closer pressure
of the arms that were about her. She ventured
to look up at last; she was unable to endure this silent
inspection; and then she saw that his face was full
of emotion that wrought too deep for words, too deep
even for caresses, beyond the one or two grave kisses
with which he had welcomed her. It overcame Eleanor
completely. She could not meet the look.
It was much more than mere joy or affection; there
was an expression of the sort of tenderness with which
a mother would clasp a lost child; a full keen sympathy
for all she had done and gone through and ventured
for him, for all her loneliness and forlornness that
had been, and that was still with respect to all the
guardians of her childhood or womanhood up to that
hour. Eleanor’s head sank down. She
felt none of that now for which his looks expressed
such keen regard; she had got to her resting-place,
not the less for all the awe and strangeness of it,
which were upon her yet. She could have cried
for a very different feeling; but she would not; it
did not suit her. Mr. Rhys let her be still for
a few minutes. When he did speak, his voice was
gravely tender indeed, as it had been to her all day,
but there was no sentimentality about it. He
spoke clear and abrupt, as he often did.
“Do you want to go back to the other house to
dinner?”
“Do you wish it?” said Eleanor looking
up to find out.
“I wish to see nothing earthly, this afternoon,
but your face.”
“Then do let it be so!” said Eleanor.
He laughed and kissed her, more gaily
this time, without seeming able to let her out of
his arms; and left her at last with the injunction
to keep still a minute till he should return, and
on no account to begin an examination of the house
by herself. Very little danger there was!
Eleanor had not the free use of her eyes yet for anything.
Presently he came back, put her hand on his arm, and
led her out into the middle apartment.
“Do you know,” he said
as he passed through this, keeping her hand in his
own, and looking down at her face, “what
is the first lesson you have to learn?”
“No,” said Eleanor, most unaffectedly
frightened; she did not know why.
“The first thing we have to
do, on taking possession here to-day is, to give our
thanks and offer our prayers in company. Do not
you think so?”
“Yes ” said Eleanor breathlessly.
“But what then?”
“I mean together, not
that it should be all on one side. You with me,
as well as I with you.”
“Oh no, Mr. Rhys!”
“Why not? Mrs. Rhys?”
“Do not ask me! That would be dreadful!”
“I do not think you will find it so.”
Eleanor stopped short, near the other
end of the great apartment. “I cannot do
it!” she exclaimed with tears in her eyes, but
spoke gravely.
“One can always do what is right.”
“Not to-day ” whispered Eleanor.
“One can always do right to-day,”
he answered smiling. “And it is best to
begin as we are going on. Come!”
He took her hand and led her forward
into the room at the other end of the house; his study,
Eleanor saw with half a glance by the books and papers
and tables that were there. Still keeping her
hand fast in his, they knelt together; and certainly
the prayer that followed was good for nervousness,
and like the sunshine to dispel all manner of clouds.
Eleanor was quieted and subdued; she could not help
it; all sorts of memories and associations of Plassy
and Wiglands gathered in her mind, back of the thoughts
that immediately filled it. Hallowed, precious,
soothing and joyful, those minutes of prayer were while
Mr. Rhys spoke; in spite of the minutes to follow
that Eleanor dreaded. And though her own words
were few, and stammering, they were different from
what she would have thought possible a quarter of
an hour before; and not unhappy to look back upon.
Detaining her when they arose, Mr.
Rhys asked with something of his old comical look,
whether she thought she could eat a dinner of his
ordering? Eleanor had no doubt of it.
“You think you could eat anything
by this time!” said he. “Poor child!
But my credit is at stake suppose you wait
here a few minutes, until I see whether all is right.”
He went off, and Eleanor sat still,
feeling too happy to want to look about her.
He came again presently, to lead Eleanor to the dining-room.
In the lofty, spacious, and by no
means inelegant middle apartment of the house, a little
table stood spread, looking exceeding diminutive in
contrast with the wide area and high ceiling of the
room. Here Mr. Rhys with a very bright look established
Eleanor, and proceeded to make amends for keeping
her so long from Mrs. Balliol’s table. Much
to her astonishment there was a piece of broiled chicken
and a dish of eggs nicely cooked, and Mr. Rhys was
pouring out for her some tea in delicate little cups
of china.
“You see aunt Caxton, do you not?” he
said.
“O aunt Caxton! in these cups.
I thought so. But I had no idea you had such
cooks in Fiji?”
“They will learn in
time,” said he shortly. “You perceive
this is an unorganized establishment. I have
not indulged in tablecloths yet; but you will put
things to rights.”
“Tablecloths?” said Eleanor.
“Yes you have such
things lying in wait for you. You have a great
deal to do. And in the first place, you are to
find out the good qualities of these fruits of the
land,” he said, giving her portions of several
vegetable preparations with which and with fruits the
table was filled.
“What is this?” said Eleanor.
“Taro; one of the valuable things
with which nature has blessed Fiji. The natives
cultivate it well and carefully. That is yam;
and came from a root five and a half feet long.
Eleanor I do not at all comprehend how
you come to be sitting there!”
It was so strange and new to Eleanor,
and Mr. Rhys was such a compound of things new and
things old to her, that a little chance word like
this was enough to make her flutter and change colour.
He perceived it, and bent his attention to amuse her
with the matters of the table; and told her wonders
of the natural productions of Fiji. But in the
midst of this Mr. Rhys’s hand would come abstracting
her tea-cup to fill it again; and then Eleanor watched
while he did it; and he made himself a little private
amusement about getting it sugared right and finding
how she liked it; and Eleanor wondered at him and
her tea-cup together, and stirred her tea in a subdued
state of mind.
“One hardly expects to see such
a nice little teaspoon in Fiji,” she remarked.
“Aunt Caxton, again,” said Mr. Rhys.
“But Mr. Rhys, your Fijians
must be remarkable cooks! Or have you taught
them?”
“I have taught nobody in that line.”
“Then are they not remarkable for their skill
in cookery?”
“As a nation, I think they are;
and it is one evidence of their mental development.
They have a great variety of native dishes, some of
which, I believe, are not despicable.”
“But these are English dishes.”
“Do justice to them, then, like a good Englishwoman.”
Eleanor’s praise was not undeserved;
for the chicken and yam were excellent, and the sweet
potatoe which Mr. Rhys put upon her plate was roasted
very like one that had been in some hot ashes at home.
But everything except the dishes was strange, Mr.
Rhys’s hand included. Through the whole
length of the house, and of course through the middle
apartment, ran a double row of columns, upholding the
roof. If Eleanor’s eye followed them up,
there was no ceiling, but the lofty roof of thatch
over her head. Under her foot was a mat, of native
workmanship; substantial and neat, and very foreign
looking. And here were aunt Caxton’s cups;
and if she lifted her eyes Eleanor felt
most strange then, although most at home.
The taro and yam and sweet potatoe
were only an introduction to the fruit, which was
beautiful as a shew. A native servant came in
and removed the dishes, and then set on the table
a large basket, in which the whole dessert was very
simply served. Cocoanuts and bananas, oranges
and wild plums, bread-fruit and Malay apples, came
piled together in beautiful mingling. Mr. Rhys
went himself to a sort of beaufet in the room and
brought plates.
“Servants cannot be said to
be in complete training,” he said with a humourous
look as he seated himself. “It would be
strange if they were, when there has been no one to
train them. And in Fiji.”
“I do not understand,”
said Eleanor. “Have you been keeping house
he all by yourself? I thought not, from what
Mrs. Balliol said.”
“You may trust sister Balliol
for being always correct. No, for the last few
months, until lately, I have been building this house.
Since it was finished I have lived in it, partly;
but I have taken my principal meals at the other house.”
“You have been building it?”
“Or else you would not be in
it at this moment. There is no carpenter to be
depended on in Fiji but yourself. You have got
to go over the house presently and see how you like
it. Are you ready for a banana? or an orange?
I think you must try one of these cocoanuts.”
“But you had people to help you?”
“Yes. At the rate of two boards a day.”
“But, Mr. Rhys, if you cannot
get carpenters, where can you get cooks? or
do the people have this by nature?”
“When you ask me properly, I
will tell you,” he said, with a little pucker
in the corners of his mouth that made Eleanor take
warning and draw off. She gave her attention
to the cocoanut, which she found she must learn how
to eat. Mr. Rhys played with an orange in the
mean time, but she knew was really busy with nothing
but her and her cocoanut. When she would be tempted
by no more fruit, he went off and brought a little
wooden bowl of water and a napkin, which he presented
for her fingers, standing before her to hold it.
Eleanor dipped in her fingers, and then looked up.
“You should not do this for
me, Mr. Rhys!” she said half earnestly.
But he stooped down and took his own
payment; and on the whole Eleanor did not feel that
she had greatly the advantage of him. Indeed Mr.
Rhys had payment of more sorts than one; for cheeks
were rosy as the fingers were white which she was
drying, as she had risen and stood before him.
She looked on then with great edification, to see his
fingers deliberately dipped in the same bowl and dried
on the same napkin; for very well Eleanor knew they
would have done it for no mortal beside her.
And then she was carried off to look at the walls of
her house.