The Old Helmet Volume II Part 44

"Don't you fear anything," said Mr. Esthwaite, "now you have overcome so many troubles and got to this haven of rest. We will take care of your boxes. I suppose you have brought enough to stock the whole Navigator's group--or Fiji, is it, you are going to? I would go to any other one rather--but never mind; the boxes shall be stored; and maybe you'll unpack them here after all. Captain, what about that luggage?--"

Eleanor went down to give directions, and presently came on deck again, all ready to go ash.o.r.e. There was a little delay on account of the baggage; and meanwhile Mr. Esthwaite was introduced to Mr. and Mrs.

Amos.

"I am very much obliged to you for taking care of this cousin of mine,"

he said to them. "I am sure she is worth taking care of. And now I should like to take care of you in turn. Will you go to my house, and make us happy?"

They explained that they were going elsewhere.

"Well, come and see her then; for she will be wanting to see somebody.

We will do the best for her we can; but still--you know--absent friends have the best claim. By the way! didn't I hear some sweet Methodist singing as I came up? was it on this s.h.i.+p? You haven't got any Methodists on board, captain; have you?"

"I've been one myself, this voyage!" said the captain.

"I wouldn't," said Mr. Esthwaite. "The Church service is the only one to be used at sea. Every other sounds--I don't know how--incompatible.

There is something in the gentle swell of the rolling waves, and in the grandeur of the horizon, that calls for the finest form of words mortals could put together; and when you have got such a form, why not use it?"

"You did not like the form of the singing then?" said Mr. Amos smiling.

"No," said Mr. Esthwaite drily,--"it struck me that if there had been a cathedral roof over it, one of those voices would have lifted the rafters and gone on; and that would not have been reverential, you know. Now, my young cousin!--"

"Mr. Amos," said Eleanor aside to him and colouring deeply, "if there are any letters for me at the house where you are going, or at the post-office, will you send them to me?"

"I will certainly make it my care, and bring them to you myself."

"I'll send for anything you want," said Mr. Esthwaite. "What's that?

letters? We'll get all there is in Sydney, and there is a good deal, waiting for this young lady. I've had one floor of my warehouse half full for some months back already. No use of it for myself."

At last they got off; and it was not quickly, for Eleanor had to give a good bye to everybody on board. Mr. Esthwaite looked on smiling, until he was permitted to hand her down the vessel's side, and lodged her in the wherry.

"Now you are out of the s.h.i.+p," said he looking keenly at her. "Aren't you glad?"

"I have some good friends in her," said Eleanor.

"Friends! I should think so. Those were salt tears that were shed for your coming away. Positively, I don't think a man of them could see clear to take his last look at you."

Neither were Eleanor's feelings quite unmixed at this moment. She expected to see Mr. and Mrs. Amos again; with the rest her intercourse was finished; and it had been of that character which leaves longing and tender memories behind. She felt all that now. And she felt much more. With the end of her voyage in the "Diana" came, at least for the present, an end to her inward tranquillity. Now there were letters awaiting her; letters for which she had wished nervously so long; now she was near Fiji and her new life; now she dared to realize, she could not help it, what all the voyage she had refused to think of, as still in a hazy distance of the future. Here it was, nigh at hand, looming up through the haze, taking distinctness and proportions; and Eleanor's heart was in a state of agitation to which that sound little member was very little accustomed. However, the outward effect of all this was to give her manner even an unwonted degree of cool quietness; and Mr.

Esthwaite was in a state between daunted and admiring. Both of them kept silence for a little while after leaving the s.h.i.+p, while the wherry pulled along in the beautiful bay, pa.s.sing among a crowd of vessels of all sorts and descriptions, moving and still. The scene was lively, picturesque, pleasant, in the highest degree.

"How does my cousin like us on a first view?"

"It is a beautiful scene!" said Eleanor. "What a great variety of vessels are here!"

"And isn't this just the finest harbour in the world?"

"I have heard a great deal of Port Philip," said Eleanor smiling. "I understand there is a second Bay of Naples there."

"I don't care for the Bay of Naples! We have sunk all that. We are in a new world. Wait till you see what I will shew you to-morrow. Now look at that wooded point, with the white houses spotting it; those are fine seats; beautiful view and all that; and at Sydney you can have everything you want, almost at command."

"You know," said Eleanor, "that is not absolutely a new experience to me. In England, we have not far to seek."

"O you say so! Much you know about it. You have been in such a nest of a place as my cousin Caxton spreads her wings over. I never was in a nest, till I made one for myself. How is my good cousin?"

The talk ran upon home things now until they reached the town and landed at a fine stone quay. Then to the Custom House, where business was easily despatched; then Mr. Esthwaite put Eleanor into a cab and they drove away through the streets for his house in the higher part of the city. Eleanor's eyes were full of business. How strange it was! So far away from home, and so long living on the sea, now on landing to be greeted by such a mult.i.tude of familiar sounds and sights. The very cab she was driving in; the omnibuses and carts they pa.s.sed; the English-cut faces; the same street cries; the same trades revealing themselves, as she had been accustomed to in London. But now and then there came a difference of Australasia. There would be a dray drawn by three or four pair of bullocks; London streets never saw that turn-out; and then Eleanor would start at seeing a little group of the natives of the country, dressed in English leavings of costume. Those made her feel where she was; otherwise the streets and houses and shops had very much of a home air. Except indeed when a curious old edifice built of logs peeped in among white stone fronts and handsome shop windows; the relics, Mr. Esthwaite told her, of that not so very far distant time when the town first began to grow up, and the "bush" covered almost all the ground now occupied by it. Eleanor was well pleased to be so busied in looking out that she had little leisure for talking; and Mr.

Esthwaite sat by and smiled in satisfaction. But this blessed immunity could not last. The cab stopped before a house in George street.

"Has she come?" exclaimed a voice as the door opened; and a head full of curls put itself out into the hall;--"have you brought her? Oh how delightful! How glad I am!--" and the owner of the curls came near to be introduced, hardly waiting for the introduction, and to give Eleanor the most gleeful sort of a welcome.

"And she was on that s.h.i.+p, the 'Diana,' Egbert? how nice! Just as you thought; and I was so afraid it was nothing but another disappointment.

I was afraid to look out when the cab came. Now come up stairs, cousin Eleanor, and I will take you to your room. You must be tired to death, are you not?"

"Why should I?" said Eleanor as she tripped up stairs after her hostess. "I have done nothing for four months."

"Look here!" shouted Mr. Esthwaite from the hall--"Louisa, don't stop to talk over the fas.h.i.+ons now--it is dinner-time. How soon will you be down?"--

"Don't mind him," said pretty Mrs. Esthwaite, leading the way into a light pleasant room overlooking the bay;--"sit down and rest yourself.

Would you like anything before you dress? Now just think you are at home, will you? It's too delightful to have you here!"

Eleanor went to the window, which overlooked a magnificent view of the harbour. Very oddly, the thought in her mind at that moment was, how soon an opportunity could be found for her to make the rest of her voyage. Scarce landed, she wanted to see the means of getting away again. Her way she saw, over the harbour; where was her conveyance?

While she stood looking, her new-found cousin was considering her; the erect beautiful figure, in all the simplicity of its dress; the close little bonnet with chocolate ribbands, the fine grave face under it, lastly the little hand which rested on the back of the chair, for Eleanor's sea-glove was off. And a certain awe grew up in Mrs.

Esthwaite's mind.

"Cousin Eleanor," said she, "shall I leave you to dress? Dinner will be ready presently, and Egbert will be impatient, I know, till you come down stairs again."

"Thank you. I will be but a few minutes. How beautiful this is! O how beautiful,--to my eyes that have seen no beauty but sea beauty for so long. And the air is so good."

"I am glad you like it. Is it prettier than England?"

"Prettier than England!" Eleanor looked round smiling. "Nothing could be that."

"Well I didn't know. Mr. Esthwaite is always running down England, you see, and I don't know how much of it he means. I came away when I was so little, I don't remember anything of course--"

Here came such a shout of "Louisa!--Louisa!"--from below, that Mrs.

Esthwaite laughing was obliged to obey it and go, and Eleanor was left.

There was not much time then for anything; yet a minute Eleanor was held at the window by the bay with its wooded sh.o.r.es and islands glittering in the evening light; then she turned from it to pray, for her heart needed strength, and a great sense of loneliness had suddenly come over her. Fighting this feeling, and dressing, both eagerly, in a little time she was ready to descend and encounter Mr. Esthwaite and dinner.

An encounter it was to Mr. Esthwaite. He had put himself in very careful order; though that, to do him justice, was an habitual weakness of his; and he met his guest when she appeared with a bow of profound recognition and appreciation. Yet Eleanor was only in the simplest of all white dresses; without lace or embroidery. No matter. The rich hair was in perfect arrangement; the fine figure and fine carriage in their unconscious ease were more imposing than anything pretentious can ever be, even to such persons as Mr. Esthwaite. He measured his young guest correctly and at once. His wife took the measure of Eleanor's gown meanwhile, and privately studied what it was that made it so graceful; a problem she had not solved when they sat down to dinner.

The dinner was sumptuous, and well served. Mr. Esthwaite took delight evidently in playing his part of host, and some pride both housekeeping and patriotic in shewing to Eleanor all the means he had to play it with. The turtle soup he declared was good, though she might have seen better; the fish from Botany Bay, the wild fowl from the interior, the game of other kinds from the Hunter river, he declared she could not have known surpa.s.sed anywhere. Then the vegetables were excellent; the potatoes from Van Dieman's Land, were just better than all others in the world; and the dessert certainly in its abundance of treasures justified his boasting that Australia was a grand country for anybody that liked fruit. The growth of the tropics and of the cooler lat.i.tudes of England met together in confusion of beauty and sweetness on Mr.

Esthwaite's table. There were oranges and pineapples on one hand, peaches, plums, melons, from the neighbouring country; with all sorts of English-grown fruits from Van Dieman's Land; gooseberries, pears and grapes. Native wines also he pressed on his guest, a.s.suring her that some of them were as good as Sauterne, and others very fair claret and champagne. Eleanor took the wines on credit; for the rest, her eyes enabled her to give admiration where her taste fell short. And admiration was expected of her. Mr. Esthwaite was in a great state of satisfaction, having very much to do in the admiring way himself.

"Did Louisa keep you up stairs to begin upon the fas.h.i.+ons?" said he, as he pulled a pineapple to pieces.

"I see you have very little appreciation of that subject," said Eleanor.

"Yes!" said Mrs. Esthwaite,--"just ask him whether he thinks it important that _his_ clothes should be cut in the newest pattern, and how many good hats he has thrown away because he got hold of something new that he liked better. Just ask him! He never will hear me."

"I am going to ask her something," said Mr. Esthwaite. "See here;--you are not going to those savage and inhospitable islands, are you?"