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A YEOMAN OF THE OLD BREED +XVIII. AN ASSEMBLY AT THE PILOT INN +XIX. ROBERT SMITTEN LOW +XX. MRS. LOVELL SHOWS A TAME BRUTE + +BOOK 3. +XXI. GIVES A GLIMPSE OF WHAT POOR VILLANIES THE STORY CONTAINS +XXII. EDWARD TAKES HIS COURSE +XXIII. MAJOR PERCY WARING +XXIV. WARBEACH VILLAGE CHURCH +XXV. OF THE FEARFUL TEMPTATION WHICH CAME UPON ANTHONY HACKBUT, AND + OF HIS MEETING WITH DAHLIA +XXVI. IN THE PARK +XXVII. CONTAINS A STUDY OF A FOOL IN TROUBLE +XXVIII. EDWARD'S LETTER +XXIX. FURTHERMORE OF THE FOOL + +BOOK 4. +XXX. THE EXPIATION +XXXI. THE MELTING OF THE THOUSAND +XXXII. LA QUESTION D'ARGENT +XXXIII. EDWARD'S RETURN +XXXIV. FATHER AND SON +XXXV. THE NIGHT BEFORE +XXXVI. EDWARD MEETS HIS MATCH +XXXVII. EDWARD TRIES HIS ELOQUENCE +XXXVIII. TOO LATE + +BOOK 5. +XXXIX. DAHLIA GOES HOME +XL. A FREAK OF THE MONEY-DEMON, THAT MAY HAVE BEEN ANTICIPATED +XLI. DAHLIA'S FRENZY +XLII. ANTHONY IN A COLLAPSE +XLIII. RHODA PLEDGES HER HAND +XLIV. THE ENEMY APPEARS +XLV. THE FARMER IS AWAKENED +XLVI. WHEN THE NIGHT IS DARKEST +XLVII. DAWN IS NEAR +XLVIII. CONCLUSION + + + + + +RHODA FLEMING + +BOOK 1. + +I. THE KENTISH FAMILY +II. QUEEN ANNE'S FARM +III. SUGGESTS THE MIGHT OF THE MONEY-DEMON +IV. THE TEXT FROM SCRIPTURE +V. THE SISTERS MEET +VI. EDWARD AND ALGERNON +VII. GREAT NEWS FROM DAHLIA +VIII. INTRODUCES MRS. LOVELL +IX. ROBERT INTERVENES +X. DAHLIA IS NOT VISIBLE +XI. AN INDICATIVE DUET IN A MINOR KEY + + + +CHAPTER I + +Remains of our good yeomanry blood will be found in Kent, developing +stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women. The +distinction survives there between Kentish women and women of Kent, as a +true South-eastern dame will let you know, if it is her fortune to belong +to that favoured portion of the county where the great battle was fought, +in which the gentler sex performed manful work, but on what luckless +heads we hear not; and when garrulous tradition is discreet, the severe +historic Muse declines to hazard a guess. Saxon, one would presume, +since it is thought something to have broken them. + +My plain story is of two Kentish damsels, and runs from a home of flowers +into regions where flowers are few and sickly, on to where the flowers +which breathe sweet breath have been proved in mortal fire. + +Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman-farmer of +the county. Both were of sound Kentish extraction, albeit varieties of +the breed. The farm had its name from a tradition, common to many other +farmhouses within a circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian +lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal +little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much +beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the ivy +grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could +hardly be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being +very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service, +and standing firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding it was a +high wall, built partly of flint and partly of brick, and ringed all over +with grey lichen and brown spots of bearded moss, that bore witness to +the touch of many winds and rains. Tufts of pale grass, and +gilliflowers, and travelling stone-crop, hung from the wall, and driblets +of ivy ran broadening to the outer ground. The royal Arms were said to +have surmounted the great iron gateway; but they had vanished, either +with the family, or at the indications of an approaching rust. Rust +defiled its bars; but, when you looked through them, the splendour of an +unrivalled garden gave vivid signs of youth, and of the taste of an +orderly, laborious, and cunning hand. + +The garden was under Mrs. Fleming's charge. The joy of her love for it +was written on its lustrous beds, as poets write. She had the poetic +passion for flowers. Perhaps her taste may now seem questionable. She +cherished the old-fashioned delight in tulips; the house was reached on a +gravel-path between rows of tulips, rich with one natural blush, or +freaked by art. She liked a bulk of colour; and when the dahlia dawned +upon our gardens, she gave her heart to dahlias. By good desert, the +fervent woman gained a prize at a flower-show for one of her dahlias, and +`Dahlia' was the name uttered at the christening of her eldest daughter, +at which all Wrexby parish laughed as long as the joke could last. There +was laughter also when Mrs. Fleming's second daughter received the name +of 'Rhoda;' but it did not endure for so long a space, as it was known +that she had taken more to the solitary and reflective reading of her +Bible, and to thoughts upon flowers eternal. Country people are not +inclined to tolerate the display of a passion for anything. They find it +as intrusive and exasperating as is, in the midst of larger +congregations, what we call genius. For some years, Mrs. Fleming's +proceedings were simply a theme for gossips, and her vanity was openly +pardoned, until that delusively prosperous appearance which her labour +lent to the house, was worn through by the enforced confession of there +being poverty in the household. The ragged elbow was then projected in +the face of Wrexby in a manner to preclude it from a sober appreciation +of the fairness of the face. + +Critically, moreover, her admission of great poppy-heads into her garden +was objected to. She would squander her care on poppies, and she had +been heard to say that, while she lived, her children should be fully +fed. The encouragement of flaunting weeds in a decent garden was +indicative of a moral twist that the expressed resolution to supply her +table with plentiful nourishment, no matter whence it came, or how +provided, sufficiently confirmed. The reason with which she was stated +to have fortified her stern resolve was of the irritating order, right in +the abstract, and utterly unprincipled in the application. She said, +`Good bread, and good beef, and enough of both, make good blood; and my +children shall be stout.' This is such a thing as maybe announced by +foreign princesses and rulers over serfs; but English Wrexby, in +cogitative mood, demanded an equivalent for its beef and divers economies +consumed by the hungry children of the authoritative woman. Practically +it was obedient, for it had got the habit of supplying her. Though +payment was long in arrear, the arrears were not treated as lost ones by +Mrs. Fleming, who, without knowing it, possessed one main secret for +mastering the custodians of credit. She had a considerate remembrance +and regard for the most distant of her debts, so that she seemed to be +only always a little late, and exceptionally wrongheaded in theory. +Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in helping to build up her children to +stoutness, and but for the blindness of all people, save artists, poets, +novelists, to the grandeur of their own creations, the inhabitants of +this Kentish village might have had an enjoyable pride in the beauty and +robust grace of the young girls,--fair-haired, black-haired girls, a +kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look upon. In stature, in +bearing, and in expression, they were, if I may adopt the eloquent modern +manner of eulogy, strikingly above their class. They carried erect +shoulders, like creatures not ashamed of showing a merely animal pride, +which is never quite apart from the pride of developed beauty. They were +as upright as Oriental girls, whose heads are nobly poised from carrying +the pitcher to the well. Dark Rhoda might have passed for Rachel, and +Dahlia called her Rachel. They tossed one another their mutual +compliments, drawn from the chief book of their reading. Queen of Sheba +was Dahlia's title. No master of callisthenics could have set them up +better than their mother's receipt for making good blood, combined with a +certain harmony of their systems, had done; nor could a schoolmistress +have taught them correcter speaking. The characteristic of girls having +a disposition to rise, is to be cravingly mimetic; and they remembered, +and crooned over, till by degrees they adopted the phrases and manner of +speech of highly grammatical people, such as the rector and his lady, and +of people in story-books, especially of the courtly French fairy-books, +wherein the princes talk in periods as sweetly rounded as are their +silken calves; nothing less than angelically, so as to be a model to +ordinary men. + +The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony; +and the youths of Wrexby and Fenhurst had no chance against her secret +Prince Florizels. Them she endowed with no pastoral qualities; on the +contrary, she conceived that such pure young gentlemen were only to be +seen, and perhaps met, in the great and mystic City of London. +Naturally, the girls dreamed of London. To educate themselves, they +copied out whole pages of a book called the `Field of Mars,' which was +next to the family Bible in size among the volumes of the farmer's small +library. The deeds of the heroes of this book, and the talk of the fairy +princes, were assimilated in their minds; and as they looked around them +upon millers', farmers', maltsters', and tradesmen's sons, the thought of +what manner of youth would propose to marry them became a precocious +tribulation. Rhoda, at the age of fifteen, was distracted by it, owing +to her sister's habit of masking her own dismal internal forebodings on +the subject, under the guise of a settled anxiety concerning her sad +chance. + +In dress, the wife of the rector of Wrexby was their model. There came +once to Squire Blancove's unoccupied pew a dazzling vision of a fair +lady. They heard that she was a cousin of his third wife, and a widow, +Mrs. Lovell by name. They looked at her all through the service, and the +lady certainly looked at them in return; nor could they, with any +distinctness, imagine why, but the look dwelt long in their hearts, and +often afterward, when Dahlia, upon taking her seat in church, shut her +eyes, according to custom, she strove to conjure up the image of herself, +as she had appeared to the beautiful woman in the dress of grey-shot +silk, with violet mantle and green bonnet, rose-trimmed; and the picture +she conceived was the one she knew herself by, for many ensuing years. + +Mrs. Fleming fought her battle with a heart worthy of her countrywomen, +and with as much success as the burden of a despondent husband would +allow to her. William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer, for whom +the wheels of the world went too fast:--a big man, appearing to be +difficult to kill, though deeply smitten. His cheeks bloomed in spite of +lines and stains, and his large, quietly dilated, brown ox-eyes, that +never gave out a meaning, seldom showed as if they had taken one from +what they saw. Until his wife was lost to him, he believed that he had a +mighty grievance against her; but as he was not wordy, and was by nature +kind, it was her comfort to die and not to know it. This grievance was +rooted in the idea that she was ruinously extravagant. The sight of the +plentiful table was sore to him; the hungry mouths, though he grudged to +his offspring nothing that he could pay for, were an afflicting prospect. +"Plump 'em up, and make 'em dainty," he advanced in contravention of his +wife's talk of bread and beef. + +But he did not complain. If it came to an argument, the farmer sidled +into a secure corner of prophecy, and bade his wife to see what would +come of having dainty children. He could not deny that bread and beef +made blood, and were cheaper than the port-wine which doctors were in the +habit of ordering for this and that delicate person in the neighbourhood; +so he was compelled to have recourse to secret discontent. The +attention, the time, and the trifles of money shed upon the flower +garden, were hardships easier to bear. He liked flowers, and he liked to +hear the praise of his wife's horticultural skill. The garden was a +distinguishing thing to the farm, and when on a Sunday he walked home +from church among full June roses, he felt the odour of them to be so +like his imagined sensations of prosperity, that the deception was worth +its cost. Yet the garden in its bloom revived a cruel blow. His wife +had once wounded his vanity. The massed vanity of a silent man, when it +does take a wound, desires a giant's vengeance; but as one can scarcely +seek to enjoy that monstrous gratification when one's wife is the +offender, the farmer escaped from his dilemma by going apart into a +turnip-field, and swearing, with his fist outstretched, never to forget +it. His wife had asked him, seeing that the garden flourished and the +farm decayed, to yield the labour of the farm to the garden; in fact, to +turn nurseryman under his wife's direction. The woman could not see that +her garden drained the farm already, distracted the farm, and most +evidently impoverished him. She could not understand, that in permitting +her, while he sweated fruitlessly, to give herself up to the occupation +of a lady, he had followed the promptings of his native kindness, and +certainly not of his native wisdom. That she should deem herself `best +man' of the two, and suggest his stamping his name to such an opinion +before the world, was an outrage. + +Mrs. Fleming was failing in health. On that plea, with the solemnity +suited to the autumn of her allotted days, she persuaded her husband to +advertise for an assistant, who would pay a small sum of money to learn +sound farming, and hear arguments in favour of the Corn Laws. To please +her, he threw seven shillings away upon an advertisement, and laughed +when the advertisement was answered, remarking that he doubted much +whether good would come of dealings with strangers. A young man, calling +himself Robert Armstrong, underwent a presentation to the family. He +paid the stipulated sum, and was soon enrolled as one of them. He was of +a guardsman's height and a cricketer's suppleness, a drinker of water, +and apparently the victim of a dislike of his species; for he spoke of +the great night-lighted city with a horror that did not seem to be an +estimable point in him, as judged by a pair of damsels for whom the +mysterious metropolis flew with fiery fringes through dark space, in +their dreams. + +In other respects, the stranger was well thought of, as being handsome +and sedate. He talked fondly of one friend that he had, an officer in +the army, which was considered pardonably vain. He did not reach to the +ideal of his sex which had been formed by the sisters; but Mrs. Fleming, +trusting to her divination of his sex's character, whispered a mother's +word about him to her husband a little while before her death. + +It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill. She +died, without lingering illness, in her own beloved month of June; the +roses of her tending at the open window, and a soft breath floating up to +her from the garden. On the foregoing May-day, she had sat on the green +that fronted the iron gateway, when Dahlia and Rhoda dressed the children +of the village in garlands, and crowned the fairest little one queen of +May: a sight that revived in Mrs. Fleming's recollection the time of her +own eldest and fairest taking homage, shy in her white smock and light +thick curls. The gathering was large, and the day was of the old nature +of May, before tyrannous Eastwinds had captured it and spoiled its +consecration. The mill-stream of the neighbouring mill ran blue among +the broad green pastures; the air smelt of cream-bowls and wheaten +loaves; the firs on the beacon-ridge, far southward, over Fenhurst and +Helm villages, were transported nearer to see the show, and stood like +friends anxious to renew acquaintance. Dahlia and Rhoda taught the +children to perceive how they resembled bent old beggar-men. The two +stone-pines in the miller's grounds were likened by them to Adam and Eve +turning away from the blaze of Paradise; and the saying of one receptive +child, that they had nothing but hair on, made the illustration undying +both to Dahlia and Rhoda. + +The magic of the weather brought numerous butterflies afield, and one +fiddler, to whose tuning the little women danced; others closer upon +womanhood would have danced likewise, if the sisters had taken partners; +but Dahlia was restrained by the sudden consciousness that she was under +the immediate observation of two manifestly London gentlemen, and she +declined to be led forth by Robert Armstrong. The intruders were youths +of good countenance, known to be the son and the nephew of Squire +Blancove of Wrexby Hall. They remained for some time watching the scene, +and destroyed Dahlia's single-mindedness. Like many days of gaiety, the +Gods consenting, this one had its human shadow. There appeared on the +borders of the festivity a young woman, the daughter of a Wrexby +cottager, who had left her home and but lately returned to it, with a +spotted name. No one addressed her, and she stood humbly apart. Dahlia, +seeing that every one moved away from her, whispering with satisfied +noddings, wished to draw her in among the groups. She mentioned the name +of Mary Burt to her father, supposing that so kind a man would not fail +to sanction her going up to the neglected young woman. To her surprise, +her father became violently enraged, and uttered a stern prohibition, +speaking a word that stained her cheeks. Rhoda was by her side, and she +wilfully, without asking leave, went straight over to Mary, and stood +with her under the shadow of the Adam and Eve, until the farmer sent a +messenger to say that he was about to enter the house. Her punishment +for the act of sinfulness was a week of severe silence; and the farmer +would have kept her to it longer, but for her mother's ominously growing +weakness. The sisters were strangely overclouded by this incident. They +could not fathom the meaning of their father's unkindness, coarseness, +and indignation. Why, and why? they asked one another, blankly. The +Scriptures were harsh in one part, but was the teaching to continue so +after the Atonement? By degrees they came to reflect, and not in a mild +spirit, that the kindest of men can be cruel, and will forget their +Christianity toward offending and repentant women. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Mrs. Fleming had a brother in London, who had run away from his Kentish +home when a small boy, and found refuge at a Bank. The position of +Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the degree of +influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but he had stuck +to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once confessed to his +sister that he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts the farmer +speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London Bank, holding money +of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning it over--farming golden +ground, as it were; consequently, that amount must now have increased to +a very considerable sum. You ask, What amount? But one who sits +brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with the imperturbable gravity +of creation upon chaos, will be as successful in evoking the concrete +from the abstract. The farmer saw round figures among the possessions of +the family, and he assisted mentally in this money-turning of Anthony's, +counted his gains for him, disposed his risks, and eyed the pile of +visionary gold with an interest so remote, that he was almost correct in +calling it disinterested. The brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of +expense that kept them separate. When Anthony refused, on petition, to +advance one hundred pounds to the farmer, there was ill blood to divide +them. Queen Anne's Farm missed the flourishing point by one hundred +pounds exactly. With that addition to its exchequer, it would have made +head against its old enemy, Taxation, and started rejuvenescent. But the +Radicals were in power to legislate and crush agriculture, and "I've got +a miser for my brother-in-law," said the farmer. Alas! the hundred +pounds to back him, he could have sowed what he pleased, and when it +pleased him, partially defying the capricious clouds and their treasures, +and playing tunefully upon his land, his own land. Instead of which, and +while too keenly aware that the one hundred would have made excesses in +any direction tributary to his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous +falls of moisture, and when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be +down on his knees, praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. +It was done, and bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the +enforced necessity to do it. + +On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved +brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a +mourner. "My place is one of great trust;" he said, "and I cannot be +spared." He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of +the funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any +man's springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow; +and the farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass. He +remarked in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no +less than he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against +"interferences." He desired Anthony to know that he also was "not a +beggar," and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a +solid yeoman's fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper +of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour his dead +wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was generally +conjectured that he had kept his word. + +Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He expressed +contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives. His +fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again, without +waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only to +pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet in +heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made, and not +always in the next street. A hint occurred that it would be a +gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no; for +holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought over +before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your post, you +never knew who maybe supplanting you. He did not promise that he could +come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the friendliness of an +invitation. The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming in refusing to notice +Anthony's advance toward a reconciliation, was, on the whole, not +creditable to him. Spite is more often fattened than propitiated by +penitence. He may have thought besides (policy not being always a vacant +space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was capable of something stronger +and warmer, now that his humanity had been aroused. The speculation is +commonly perilous; but Farmer Fleming had the desperation of a man who +has run slightly into debt, and has heard the first din of dunning, which +to the unaccustomed imagination is fearful as bankruptcy (shorn of the +horror of the word). And, moreover, it was so wonderful to find Anthony +displaying humanity at all, that anything might be expected of him. +"Let's see what he will do," thought the farmer in an interval of his +wrath; and the wrath is very new which has none of these cool intervals. +The passions, do but watch them, are all more or less intermittent. + +As it chanced, he acted sagaciously, for Anthony at last wrote to say +that his home in London was cheerless, and that he intended to move into +fresh and airier lodgings, where the presence of a discreet young +housekeeper, who might wish to see London, and make acquaintance with the +world, would be agreeable to him. His project was that one of his nieces +should fill this office, and he requested his brother-in-law to reflect +on it, and to think of him as of a friend of the family, now and in the +time to come. Anthony spoke of the seductions of London quite +unctuously. Who could imagine this to be the letter of an old crabbed +miser? "Tell her," he said, "there's fruit at stalls at every +street-corner all the year through--oysters and whelks, if she likes-- +winkles, lots of pictures in shops--a sight of muslin and silks, and +rides on omnibuses--bands of all sorts, and now and then we can take a +walk to see the military on horseback, if she's for soldiers." Indeed, +he joked quite comically in speaking of the famous horse-guards--warriors +who sit on their horses to be looked at, and do not mind it, because they +are trained so thoroughly. "Horse-guards blue, and horse-guards red," he +wrote--"the blue only want boiling." There is reason to suppose that his +disrespectful joke was not original in him, but it displayed his +character in a fresh light. Of course, if either of the girls was to go, +Dahlia was the person. The farmer commenced his usual process of sitting +upon the idea. That it would be policy to attach one of the family to +this chirping old miser, he thought incontestable. On the other hand, he +had a dread of London, and Dahlia was surpassingly fair. He put the case +to Robert, in remembrance of what his wife had spoken, hoping that Robert +would amorously stop his painful efforts to think fast enough for the +occasion. Robert, however, had nothing to say, and seemed willing to let +Dahlia depart. The only opponents to the plan were Mrs. Sumfit, a +kindly, humble relative of the farmer's, widowed out of Sussex, very +loving and fat; the cook to the household, whose waist was dimly +indicated by her apron-string; and, to aid her outcries, the +silently-protesting Master Gammon, an old man with the cast of eye of an +antediluvian lizard, the slowest old man of his time--a sort of foreman +of the farm before Robert had come to take matters in hand, and thrust +both him and his master into the background. Master Gammon remarked +emphatically, once and for all, that "he never had much opinion of +London." As he had never visited London, his opinion was considered the +less weighty, but, as he advanced no further speech, the sins and +backslidings of the metropolis were strongly brought to mind by his +condemnatory utterance. Policy and Dahlia's entreaties at last prevailed +with the farmer, and so the fair girl went up to the great city. + +After months of a division that was like the division of her living +veins, and when the comfort of letters was getting cold, Rhoda, having +previously pledged herself to secresy, though she could not guess why it +was commanded, received a miniature portrait of Dahlia, so beautiful that +her envy of London for holding her sister away from her, melted in +gratitude. She had permission to keep the portrait a week; it was +impossible to forbear from showing it to Mrs. Sumfit, who peeped in awe, +and that emotion subsiding, shed tears abundantly. Why it was to be kept +secret, they failed to inquire; the mystery was possibly not without its +delights to them. Tears were shed again when the portrait had to be +packed up and despatched. Rhoda lived on abashed by the adorable new +refinement of Dahlia's features, and her heart yearned to her uncle for +so caring to decorate the lovely face. + +One day Rhoda was at her bed-room window, on the point of descending to +encounter the daily dumpling, which was the principal and the unvarying +item of the midday meal of the house, when she beheld a stranger trying +to turn the handle of the iron gate. Her heart thumped. She divined +correctly that it was her uncle. Dahlia had now been absent for very +many months, and Rhoda's growing fretfulness sprang the conviction in her +mind that something closer than letters must soon be coming. She ran +downstairs, and along the gravel-path. He was a little man, +square-built, and looking as if he had worn to toughness; with an evident +Sunday suit on: black, and black gloves, though the day was only +antecedent to Sunday. + +"Let me help you, sir," she said, and her hands came in contact with his, +and were squeezed. + +"How is my sister?" She had no longer any fear in asking. + +"Now, you let me through, first," he replied, imitating an arbitrary +juvenile. "You're as tight locked in as if you was in dread of all the +thieves of London. You ain't afraid o' me, miss? I'm not the party +generally outside of a fortification; I ain't, I can assure you. I'm a +defence party, and a reg'lar lion when I've got the law backing me." + +He spoke in a queer, wheezy voice, like a cracked flute, combined with +the effect of an ill-resined fiddle-bow. + +"You are in the garden of Queen Anne's Farm," said Rhoda. + +"And you're my pretty little niece, are you? 'the darkie lass,' as your +father says. "Little," says I; why, you needn't be ashamed to stand +beside a grenadier. Trust the country for growing fine gals." + +"You are my uncle, then?" said Rhoda. "Tell me how my sister is. Is she +well? Is she quite happy?" + +"Dahly?" returned old Anthony, slowly. + +"Yes, yes; my sister!" Rhoda looked at him with distressful eagerness. + +"Now, don't you be uneasy about your sister Dahly." Old Anthony, as he +spoke, fixed his small brown eyes on the girl, and seemed immediately to +have departed far away in speculation. A question recalled him. + +"Is her health good?" + +"Ay; stomach's good, head's good, lungs, brain, what not, all good. +She's a bit giddy, that's all." + +"In her head?" + +"Ay; and on her pins. Never you mind. You look a steady one, my dear. +I shall take to you, I think." + +"But my sister--" Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a +greeting from the threshold,-- + +"Brother Tony!" + +"Here he is, brother William John." + +"Surely, and so he is, at last." The farmer walked up to him with his +hand out. + +"And it ain't too late, I hope. Eh?" + +"It's never too late--to mend," said the farmer. + +"Eh? not my manners, eh?" Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in +this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and +some differences. + +"Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see," said the farmer, as they turned to +go in. + +"The 'darkie lass' you write of. She's like a coal nigh a candle. She +looks, as you'd say, 't' other side of her sister.' Yes, we've had a +talk." + +"Just in time for dinner, brother Tony. We ain't got much to offer, but +what there is, is at your service. Step aside with me." + +The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was +answered: after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed, and +nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce certain +points in some halting explanation. You would have said that a debtor +was humbly putting his case in his creditor's ear, and could only now and +then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes. They went in to Mrs. +Sumfit's shout that the dumplings were out of the pot: old Anthony bowed +upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats. But it was not +the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the house +were accustomed to; there was conversation. + +The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come. Anthony shyly, +but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the +train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station, +who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby. For +threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the +carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a +distance of fifteen miles. That was pretty good! + +"Home pork, brother Tony," said the farmer, approvingly. + +"And home-made bread, too, brother William John," said Anthony, becoming +brisk. + +"Ay, and the beer, such as it is." The farmer drank and sighed. + +Anthony tried the beer, remarking, "That's good beer; it don't cost +much." + +"It ain't adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's +not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure. Pure's my motto. 'Pure, +though poor!'" + +"Up there, you pay for rank poison," said Anthony. "So, what do I do? I +drink water and thank 'em, that's wise." + +"Saves stomach and purse." The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.' + +"Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone," said Anthony. + +"Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?" + +Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as +Anthony took him up: "And fifty-two times twenty-one?" + +"Well, that's, that's--how much is that, Mas' Gammon?" the farmer asked +in a bellow. + +Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself +with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new +burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off. + +"Ah never thinks when I feeds--Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts. +Gi'es it up." + +"Why, you're like a horse that never was rode! Try again, old man," said +the farmer. + +"If I drags a cart," Master Gammon replied, "that ain't no reason why I +should leap a gate." + +The farmer felt that he was worsted as regarded the illustration, and +with a bit of the boy's fear of the pedagogue, he fought Anthony off by +still pressing the arithmetical problem upon Master Gammon; until the old +man, goaded to exasperation, rolled out thunderingly,-- + +"If I works fer ye, that ain't no reason why I should think fer ye," +which caused him to be left in peace. + +"Eh, Robert?" the farmer transferred the question; "Come! what is it?" + +Robert begged a minute's delay, while Anthony watched him with hawk eyes. + +"I tell you what it is--it's pounds," said Robert. + +This tickled Anthony, who let him escape, crying: "Capital! Pounds it is +in your pocket, sir, and you hit that neatly, I will say. Let it be +five. You out with your five at interest, compound interest; soon comes +another five; treat it the same: in ten years--eh? and then you get into +figures; you swim in figures!" + +"I should think you did!" said the farmer, winking slyly. + +Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered +his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help. The +manifest evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said "mum" on that +head, gave the farmer a quiet glow. + +"When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin', sir," Mrs. Sumfit +suggested, coaxingly. + +"After dinner, mother--after dinner," said the farmer. + +"And we're waitin', are we, till them dumplings is finished?" she +exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon's plate. + +"After dinner we'll have a talk, mother." + +Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told +of Dahlia's temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less, +and again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon. +The veteran was still calmly tightening. His fork was on end, with a +vast mouthful impaled on the prongs. Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater, +was always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at Mrs. +Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the dish, +added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel. He looked at +her steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then holding +his plate out, in a remorseless way, said, "You make 'em so good, marm." + +Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense of +the remark, as well as to the compliment. + +"I don't want to hurry you, Mas' Gammon," she said; "Lord knows, I like +to see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my +Dahly waitin',--I feel pricked wi' a pin all over, I do; and there's my +blessed in London," she answered, "and we knowin' nothin' of her, and one +close by to tell me! I never did feel what slow things dumplin's was, +afore now!" + +The kettle simmered gently on the hob. Every other knife and fork was +silent; so was every tongue. Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed. +Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, "Oh, deary me!" but it was +useless. No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a +demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen +for himself. At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out, +almost tearfully,-- + +"When do you think you'll have done, Mas' Gammon?" + +Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork. He +half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,-- + +"When I feels my buttons, marm." + +After which he deliberately fell to work again. + +Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow. + +But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do +ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move. Master Gammon +cleared his plate. There stood in the dish still half a dumpling. The +farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality, +pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder. + +The vindictive old man, who was as tight as dumpling and buttons could +make him, refused it in a drooping tone, and went forth, looking at none. +Mrs. Sumfit turned to all parties, and begged them to say what more, to +please Master Gammon, she could have done? When Anthony was ready to +speak of her Dahlia, she obtruded this question in utter dolefulness. +Robert was kindly asked by the farmer to take a pipe among them. Rhoda +put a chair for him, but he thanked them both, and said he could not +neglect some work to be done in the fields. She thought that he feared +pain from hearing Dahlia's name, and followed him with her eyes +commiseratingly. + +"Does that young fellow attend to business?" said Anthony. + +The farmer praised Robert as a rare hand, but one affected with bees in +his nightcap,--who had ideas of his own about farming, and was obstinate +with them; "pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his way of +thinking's better 'n his seniors. It's the style now with all young +folks. Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man. It ain't +respectful t' age, I say. Gammon don't understand nothing about new +feeds for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons, +fiddle-faddle, for 'em. Robert's a beginner. What he knows, I taught +the young fellow. Then, my question is, where's his ideas come from, if +they're contrary to mine? If they're contrary to mine, they're contrary +to my teaching. Well, then, what are they worth? He can't see that. +He's a good one at work--I'll say so much for him." + +Old Anthony gave Rhoda a pat on the shoulder. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"Pipes in the middle of the day's regular revelry," ejaculated Anthony, +whose way of holding the curved pipe-stem displayed a mind bent on +reckless enjoyment, and said as much as a label issuing from his mouth, +like a figure in a comic woodcut of the old style:--"that's," he pursued, +"that's if you haven't got to look up at the clock every two minutes, as +if the devil was after you. But, sitting here, you know, the afternoon's +a long evening; nobody's your master. You can on wi' your slippers, up +wi' your legs, talk, or go for'ard, counting, twicing, and three- +timesing; by George! I should take to drinking beer if I had my +afternoons to myself in the city, just for the sake of sitting and doing +sums in a tap-room; if it's a big tap-room, with pew sort o' places, and +dark red curtains, a fire, and a smell of sawdust; ale, and tobacco, and +a boy going by outside whistling a tune of the day. Somebody comes in. +"Ah, there's an idle old chap," he says to himself, (meaning me), and +where, I should like to ask him, 'd his head be if he sat there dividing +two hundred and fifty thousand by forty-five and a half!" + +The farmer nodded encouragingly. He thought it not improbable that a +short operation with these numbers would give the sum in Anthony's +possession, the exact calculation of his secret hoard, and he set to work +to stamp them on his brain, which rendered him absent in manner, while +Mrs. Sumfit mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his knee, doubling +in her enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a side-glance of +reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity. + +Rhoda could bear it no more. + +"Now let me hear of my sister, uncle," she said. + +"I'll tell you what," Anthony responded, "she hasn't got such a pretty +sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got." + +The girl blushed scarlet. + +"Oh, she can mount them colours, too," said Anthony. + +His way of speaking of Dahlia indicated that he and she had enough of one +another; but of the peculiar object of his extraordinary visit not even +the farmer had received a hint. Mrs. Sumfit ventured to think aloud that +his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes, and +smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner. + +"Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no +half-holiday," said Anthony. + +"Why not?" the farmer asked. + +"I should be speculating--deep--couldn't hold myself in: Mexicans, +Peroovians, Venzeshoolians, Spaniards, at 'em I should go. I see bonds +in all sorts of colours, Spaniards in black and white, Peruvians--orange, +Mexicans--red as the British army. Well, it's just my whim. If I like +red, I go at red. I ain't a bit of reason. What's more, I never +speculate." + +"Why, that's safest, brother Tony," said the farmer. + +"And safe's my game--always was, always will be! Do you think"--Anthony +sucked his grog to the sugar-dregs, till the spoon settled on his nose-- +"do you think I should hold the position I do hold, be trusted as I am +trusted? Ah! you don't know much about that. Should I have money placed +in my hands, do you think--and it's thousands at a time, gold, and notes, +and cheques--if I was a risky chap? I'm known to be thoroughly +respectable. Five and forty years I've been in Boyne's Bank, and thank +ye, ma'am, grog don't do no harm down here. And I will take another +glass. 'When the heart of a man!'--but I'm no singer." + +Mrs. Sumfit simpered, "Hem; it's the heart of a woman, too: and she have +one, and it's dying to hear of her darlin' blessed in town, and of who +cuts her hair, and where she gets her gownds, and whose pills--" + +The farmer interrupted her irritably. + +"Divide a couple o' hundred thousand and more by forty-five and a half," +he said. "Do wait, mother; all in good time. Forty-five and a-half, +brother Tony; that was your sum--ah!--you mentioned it some time back-- +half of what? Is that half a fraction, as they call it? I haven't +forgot fractions, and logareems, and practice, and so on to algebrae, +where it always seems to me to blow hard, for, whizz goes my head in a +jiffy, as soon as I've mounted the ladder to look into that country. How +'bout that forty-five and a half, brother Tony, if you don't mind +condescending to explain?" + +"Forty-five and a half?" muttered Anthony, mystified. + +"Oh, never mind, you know, if you don't like to say, brother Tony." The +farmer touched him up with his pipe-stem. + +"Five and a half," Anthony speculated. "That's a fraction you got hold +of, brother William John,--I remember the parson calling out those names +at your wedding: 'I, William John, take thee, Susan;' yes, that's a +fraction, but what's the good of it?" + +"What I mean is, it ain't forty-five and half of forty-five. Half of +one, eh? That's identical with a fraction. One--a stroke--and two under +it." + +"You've got it correct," Anthony assented. + +"How many thousand divide it by?" + +"Divide what by, brother William John? I'm beat." + +"Ah! out comes the keys: lockup everything; it's time!" the farmer +laughed, rather proud of his brother-in-law's perfect wakefulness after +two stiff tumblers. He saw that Anthony was determined with all due +friendly feeling to let no one know the sum in his possession. + +"If it's four o'clock, it is time to lock up," said Anthony, "and bang to +go the doors, and there's the money for thieves to dream of--they can't +get a-nigh it, let them dream as they like. What's the hour, ma'am?" + +"Not three, it ain't," returned Mrs. Sumfit; "and do be good creatures, +and begin about my Dahly, and where she got that Bumptious gownd, and the +bonnet with blue flowers lyin' by on the table: now, do!" + +Rhoda coughed. + +"And she wears lavender gloves like a lady," Mrs. Sumfit was continuing. + +Rhoda stamped on her foot. + +"Oh! cruel!" the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied +her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it. "What's roused ye, +you tiger girl? I shan't be able to get about, I shan't, and then who's +to cook for ye all? For you're as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and +knows nothing." + +"Come, Dody, you're careless," the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs. +Sumfit's lamentations. + +"She stops uncle Anthony when he's just ready, father," said Rhoda. + +"Do you want to know?" Anthony set his small eyes on her: "do you want to +know, my dear?" He paused, fingering his glass, and went on: "I, Susan, +take thee, William John, and you've come of it. Says I to myself, when I +hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says I to +myself, I ain't a marrying man: and if these two, says I, if any progeny +comes to 'em--to bless them, some people'd say, but I know what life is, +and what young ones are--if--where was I? Liquor makes you talk, brother +William John, but where's your ideas? Gone, like hard cash! What I +meant was, I felt I might some day come for'ard and help the issue of +your wife's weddin', and wasn't such a shady object among you, after all. +My pipe's out." + +Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence. She divined +that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a long +time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of +Boyne's Bank: the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company. At last, he +touched on Dahlia. + +"What she wants, I can't make out," he said; "and what that good lady +there, or somebody, made mention of--how she manages to dress as she do! +I can understand a little goin' a great way, if you're clever in any way; +but I'm at my tea"--Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a picture. +"I ain't a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say, and walk +about and look at shops; but, I'm at my tea: I come home rather tired +there's the tea-things, sure enough, and tea's made, and, maybe, there's +a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts. When +everything's locked up and tight and right, I'm gay, and ask for a bit of +society: well, I'm at my tea: I hear her foot thumping up and down her +bed-room overhead: I know the meaning of that: I'd rather hear nothing: +down she runs: I'm at my tea, and in she bursts."--Here followed a +dramatic account of Dahlia's manner of provocation, which was closed by +the extinction of his pipe. + +The farmer, while his mind still hung about thousands of pounds and a +certain incomprehensible division of them to produce a distinct +intelligible total, and set before him the sum of Anthony's riches, could +see that his elder daughter was behaving flightily and neglecting the +true interests of the family, and he was chagrined. But Anthony, before +he entered the house, had assured him that Dahlia was well, and that +nothing was wrong with her. So he looked at Mrs. Sumfit, who now took +upon herself to plead for Dahlia: a young thing, and such a handsome +creature! and we were all young some time or other; and would heaven have +mercy on us, if we were hard upon the young, do you think? The motto of +a truly religious man said, try 'em again. And, maybe, people had been a +little hard upon Dahlia, and the girl was apt to take offence. In +conclusion, she appealed to Rhoda to speak up for her sister. Rhoda sat +in quiet reserve. + +She was sure her sister must be justified in all she did but the picture +of the old man coming from his work every night to take his tea quite +alone made her sad. She found herself unable to speak, and as she did +not, Mrs. Sumfit had an acute twinge from her recently trodden foot, and +called her some bitter names; which was not an unusual case, for the kind +old woman could be querulous, and belonged to the list of those whose +hearts are as scales, so that they love not one person devotedly without +a corresponding spirit of opposition to another. Rhoda merely smiled. + +By-and-by, the women left the two men alone. + +Anthony turned and struck the farmer's knee. + +"You've got a jewel in that gal, brother William John." + +"Eh! she's a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too +much of a thinker, I reckon. She's got a temper of her own too. I'm a +bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if +she don't alter. It's flightiness; that's all. You mustn't think ill of +poor Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they +act up to it: she was her mother's favourite." + +"Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord." + +"She was," said the farmer, bowing his head. + +"And a good wife," Anthony interjected. + +"None better--never a better; and I wish she was living to look after her +girls." + +"I came through the churchyard, hard by," said Anthony; "and I read that +writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first +person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and, +thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye--that I +could, of course." + +The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the +characteristic reservation. + +"Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could," he remarked, rather coldly. + +"It'll never be much," sighed Anthony. + +"Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close," the farmer +adopted a similar tone. + +"What's money!" said Anthony. + +The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness: + +"Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that," he +said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a +partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods. + +"What do you call having money?" observed the latter, clearly in the +trap. "Fifty thousand?" + +"Whew!" went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff. + +"Ten thousand?" + +Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still +kindly. + +"Come," quoth Anthony, "ten thousand's not so mean, you know. You're a +gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. I'll tell ye, many a +gentleman'd be glad to own it. Lor' bless you! But, you know nothing of +the world, brother William John. Some of 'em haven't one--ain't so rich +as you!" + +"Or you, brother Tony?" The farmer made a grasp at his will-o'-the-wisp. + +"Oh! me!" Anthony sniggered. "I'm a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up +things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews ain't such fools, though a +curse is on 'em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the +multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No; +I'm not to be compared to gentlemen. My property's my respectability. I +said that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, I'll tell you what, +brother William John, it's an emotion when you've got bags of thousands +of pounds in your arms." + +Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of +dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the +riches possessed by his wife's brother, that a very little tempted him to +childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony himself +furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth. He had, +besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever accustomed to +take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him that Anthony was +really about to be seduced into a particular statement of the extent of +the property which formed his respectability (as Anthony had chosen to +put it), he got up a little game in his head by guessing how much the +amount might positively be, so that he could subsequently compare his +shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed his wild ideas as much +as possible; thought over what his wife used to say of Anthony's saving +ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of the Funds, of many bold +strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of Anthony's close style of +living, and of the lives of celebrated misers; this done, he resolved to +make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below the mark. + +Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial +relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and +contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast +from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The +farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred pounds--outlying +debts, or so, excluded--as what Anthony's will, in all likelihood, would +be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand. +Bequeathed--how? To him and to his children. But to the children in +reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make +capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two +young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life +of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or +even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning no +more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot across +him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the +patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and +died to enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could not +refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though +bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be +accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering +his age. The farmer thought of his own health, and it was with a pang +that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance +doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants from out the +muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and +forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not +have to pay a higher rate of interest than he. + +"Are you insured, brother Tony?" the question escaped him. + +"No, I ain't, brother William John;" Anthony went on nodding like an +automaton set in motion. "There's two sides to that. I'm a long-lived +man. Long-lived men don't insure; that is, unless they're fools. That's +how the Offices thrive." + +"Case of accident?" the farmer suggested. + +"Oh! nothing happens to me," replied Anthony. + +The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned. + +"Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?" + +"With all my heart, brother William John." + +The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation +which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date +of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that the +farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly a +generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows +touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came +back to the women, and tea, the farmer's mind was cooler, and all his +reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea. + +"What is the matter, father?" said Rhoda. + +"I'll tell you, my dear," Anthony replied for him. "He's envying me some +one I want to ask me that question when I'm at my tea in London." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughter's good-night kiss until +the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily, +he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses on a visit +to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path had opened to +his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think nothing of it; to +dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and +simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and +a right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty +times as much as he possessed--and what that might amount to no one knew. +In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to +give advice to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and +warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by +indicating the natural basis of the allurement. Happily for young and +for old, the intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften +it. Rhoda thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened +to good and wise things. + +"Your sister," he said--"but we won't speak of her. If I could part with +you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back." + +"Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now," said Rhoda. + +"Ay," the farmer mused. "If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday +night, she wouldn't complain o' the quiet. But, there--you neither of +you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be +proud to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And +if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes +mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once +open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes. And what I +said to your poor mother's true. I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not +equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about +here--no; they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them, +maybe." + +The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his +unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society of +girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure +him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly. + +Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what +poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy +of her sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had +become. + +"Depend you on it, my dear," said Mrs. Sumfit, "my Dahly's grown above +him. That's nettles to your uncle, my dear. He can't abide it. Don't +you see he can't? Some men's like that. Others 'd see you dressed like +a princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures! +But one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a woman's the better +for bein' dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest +heart, it is your bonnet. What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear +round arm in the po'trait, and her finger up making a dimple in her +cheek, as if she was thinking of us in a sorrowful way. That's the arts +o' being lady-like--look sad-like. How could we get a bonnet for you?" + +"My own must do," said Rhoda. + +"Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin' out for an +airin'; and she to feel it! Pretty, that'd be!" + +"She won't be ashamed of me," Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little +tune, and said firmly--"It's no use my trying to look like what I'm not." + +"No, truly;" Mrs. Sumfit assented. "But it's your bein' behind the +fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me, for +any pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country--you're like in a +coalhole for the matter o' that. While London, my dear, its pavement and +gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if you're not in the fashion, the little +wicked boys of the streets themselves 'll let you know it; they've got +such eyes for fashions, they have. And I don't want my Dahly's sister to +be laughed at, and called 'coal-scuttle,' as happened to me, my dear, +believe it or not--and shoved aside, and said to--'Who are you?' For she +reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr. Robert agreed upon +that." + +Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, "It would please me if people +didn't speak about my looks." + +The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to the +eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and +a girl's instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken to +heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him. + +The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise +of her person. She beheld her face at times, and shivered. The face was +so strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing +brown eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin +and nose, so unlike Dahlia's, whose nose was, after a little dip from the +forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed shaped to +a cup. Rhoda's outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of a +heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face, +when studied, inspired in its owner's mind a doubt of her being even nice +to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by a +blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her +head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably +good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by the +doubt. As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a +landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery. She felt, +without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she prayed +for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and +obscure. + +But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit--was opening +its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty +thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the +splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue +heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being +beckoned. + +At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken +of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia, +on the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two +instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety +as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train. "That's a +thing which makes a man feel his strength's nothing," he said. "You +can't stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop. +Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam, +I feel like a baby. You can't stop trains." + +"You can trip 'em," said Anthony, a remark that called forth general +laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources. + +Rhoda was vexed by Robert's devotion to his strength. She was going, and +wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at +him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw +verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy +matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his +fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmer's life was best, and +gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London. + +She sneered in her soul, thinking "how little he knows of the constancy +in the nature of women!" adding, "when they form attachments." + +Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he +expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March +sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave +trouble, nor cost a penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of +your artificial contrivances. + +"Same as I say to Miss Dahly," he took occasion to remark; "but no!--no +good. I don't believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind. +'Look,' says I, 'at a violet.' 'Look,' says she, 'at a rose.' Well, +what can ye say after that? She swears the rose looks best. You swear +the violet costs least. Then there you have a battle between what it +costs and how it looks." + +Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a +look from Anthony. Whereupon Rhoda cried out,-- + +"Dahlia was right--she was right, uncle." + +"She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander. She wasn't right +as a farmer's daughter with poor expectations.--I'd say humble, if humble +she were. As a farmer's daughter, she should choose the violet side. +That's clear as day. One thing's good, I admit; she tells me she makes +her own bonnets, and they're as good as milliners', and that's a proud +matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I +suppose, she's sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. I've found +her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she reply-- +she always has a reply: 'Uncle, I know the value of money better. 'You +mean, you spend it,' I says to her. 'I buy more than it's worth,' says +she. And I'll tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name +to be, sir; if you beat women at talking, my lord! you're a clever chap." + +Robert laughed. "I give in at the first mile." + +"Don't think much of women--is that it, sir?" + +"I'm glad to say I don't think of them at all." + +"Do you think of one woman, now, Mr. Robert Armstrong?" + +"I'd much rather think of two." + +"And why, may I ask?" + +"It's safer." + +"Now, I don't exactly see that," said Anthony. + +"You set one to tear the other," Robert explained. + +"You're a Grand Turk Mogul in your reasonings of women, Mr. Robert +Armstrong. I hope as your morals are sound, sir?" + +They were on the road to church, but Robert could not restrain a swinging +outburst. + +He observed that he hoped likewise that his morals were sound. + +"Because," said Anthony, "do you see, sir, two wives--" + +"No, no; one wife," interposed Robert. "You said 'think about;' I'd +'think about' any number of women, if I was idle. But the woman you mean +to make your wife, you go to at once, and don't 'think about' her or the +question either." + +"You make sure of her, do you, sir?" + +"No: I try my luck; that is all." + +"Suppose she won't have ye?" + +"Then I wait for her." + +"Suppose she gets married to somebody else?" + +"Well, you know, I shouldn't cast eye on a woman who was a fool." + +"Well, upon my--" Anthony checked his exclamation, returning to the +charge with, "Just suppose, for the sake of supposing--supposing she was +a fool, and gone and got married, and you thrown back'ard on one leg, +starin' at the other, stupified-like?" + +"I don't mind supposing it," said Robert. "Say, she's a fool. Her being +a fool argues that I was one in making a fool's choice. So, she jilts +me, and I get a pistol, or I get a neat bit of rope, or I take a clean +header with a cannon-ball at my heels, or I go to the chemist's and ask +for stuff to poison rats,--anything a fool'd do under the circumstances, +it don't matter what." + +Old Anthony waited for Rhoda to jump over a stile, and said to her,-- + +"He laughs at the whole lot of ye." + +"Who?" she asked, with betraying cheeks. + +"This Mr. Robert Armstrong of yours." + +"Of mine, uncle!" + +"He don't seem to care a snap o' the finger for any of ye." + +"Then, none of us must care for him, uncle." + +"Now, just the contrary. That always shows a young fellow who's +attending to his business. If he'd seen you boil potatoes, make +dumplings, beds, tea, all that, you'd have had a chance. He'd have +marched up to ye before you was off to London." + +"Saying, 'You are the woman.'" Rhoda was too desperately tickled by the +idea to refrain from uttering it, though she was angry, and suffering +internal discontent. "Or else, 'You are the cook,'" she muttered, and +shut, with the word, steel bars across her heart, calling him, mentally, +names not justified by anything he had said or done--such as mercenary, +tyrannical, and such like. + +Robert was attentive to her in church. Once she caught him with his eyes +on her face; but he betrayed no confusion, and looked away at the +clergyman. When the text was given out, he found the place in his Bible, +and handed it to her pointedly--"There shall be snares and traps unto +you;" a line from Joshua. She received the act as a polite pawing +civility; but when she was coming out of church, Robert saw that a blush +swept over her face, and wondered what thoughts could be rising within +her, unaware that girls catch certain meanings late, and suffer a fiery +torture when these meanings are clear to them. Rhoda called up the pride +of her womanhood that she might despise the man who had dared to distrust +her. She kept her poppy colour throughout the day, so sensitive was this +pride. But most she was angered, after reflection, by the doubts which +Robert appeared to cast on Dahlia, in setting his finger upon that +burning line of Scripture. It opened a whole black kingdom to her +imagination, and first touched her visionary life with shade. She was +sincere in her ignorance that the doubts were her own, but they lay deep +in unawakened recesses of the soul; it was by a natural action of her +reason that she transferred and forced them upon him who had chanced to +make them visible. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live for +anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting with +Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her secretly- +distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder with the +waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became necessary to +call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift her box, Rhoda +felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between him and her uncle +concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but representing, as +Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the conflict of hard +words, a principle. Those who can persuade themselves that they are +fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe reckoned upon to +overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small coin; so the cabman +went away discomfited. He used such bad language that Rhoda had no pity +for him, and hearing her uncle style it "the London tongue," she thought +dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to listen to it through so long a +season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs. Wicklow, Anthony's landlady, +undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which operation she began by +praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at the same time shaking +Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a compliment was intended. +"This is our London way," she said. But Rhoda was most disconcerted when +she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her daughter and Dahlia were out +together, and say, that she had no doubt they had found some pleasant and +attentive gentleman for a companion, if they had not gone purposely to +meet one. Her thoughts of her sister were perplexed, and London seemed a +gigantic net around them both. + +"Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here," said Anthony; "that's +what fine bonnets mean." + +Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her +virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to suppose +that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She +half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false +Zion, and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's +daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia +had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the +singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no +willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, "Her Bible!" with +a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from +her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in +the ear of one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs. +Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an +extreme gravity. + +"Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I +call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had +said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!" + +"It was mother's Bible," interposed Rhoda. + +Mrs. Wicklow replied: "And I wish all young women to be as innocent as +you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good +young woman. I'm never deceived in character." + +Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber, +bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be +talking till the cock crowed hoarse. + +"There's a poultry-yard close to us?" said Rhoda; feeling less at home +when she heard that there was not. + +The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window, +and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb. +And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the +row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of stars +was pleasant as the faces of friends. "People are kind here," she +reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a young +gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice voice. +He was fair. "I am dark," came a spontaneous reflection. She undressed, +and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the street door +open, and leaped to think that her sister approached, jumping up in her +bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that were conducting her joy +to her: but she quickly recomposed herself, and feigned sleep, for the +delight of revelling in her sister's first wonderment. The door was +flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called by Dahlia's voice, and then +there was a delicious silence, and she felt that Dahlia was coming up to +her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to be stooped near, that she might +fling out her arms, and draw the dear head to her bosom. But Dahlia came +only to the bedside, without leaning over, and spoke of her looks, which +held the girl quiet. + +"How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!" Dahlia murmured. "She's +changed, but it's all for the better. She's quite a woman; she's a +perfect brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and +those black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet! Oh, why is she here? +What's meant by it? I knew nothing of her coming. Is she sent on +purpose?" + +Rhoda did not stir. The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful +to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still. + +"I came for my Bible," she heard Dahlia say. "I promised mother--oh, my +poor darling mother! And Dody lying in my bed! Who would have thought +of such things? Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere. What +will become of me? Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep! I lie for +hours, and can't sleep. She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just +as she used to in the old farm days!" + +Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost +frigid, and could not move. + +Dahlia went to the looking-glass. "How flushed I am!" she murmured. +"No; I'm pale, quite white. I've lost my strength. What can I do? How +could I take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, +and dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning! I can't--I +can't If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it." + +She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs. Rhoda's +eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless sympathy +held her still frost-bound. All at once she heard the window open. Some +one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's name. A deep +bell swung a note of midnight. + +"Go!" cried Dahlia. + +The window was instantly shut. + +The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy shaking +of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and hum. It +was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into the bed, +and they were locked together. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed +establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the country-- +are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and even as +the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house. Boyne +himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and Hamble +were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble was Blancove- +-the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and charities, who, +besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very acute head for +banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches. His brother was +Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close relatives there +existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by open contempt of a +mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet contempt of a life +devoted to indolence on the other. Nevertheless, Squire Blancove, though +everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior for his city-gained +title and commercial occupation, sent him his son Algernon, to get the +youth into sound discipline, if possible. This was after the elastic +Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his colonel, relinquished his +cornetcy and military service. Sir William received the hopeful young +fellow much in the spirit with which he listened to the tales of his +brother's comments on his own line of conduct; that is to say, as homage +to his intellectual superiority. Mr. Algernon was installed in the Bank, +and sat down for a long career of groaning at the desk, with more +complacency than was expected from him. Sir William forwarded excellent +accounts to his brother of the behaviour of the heir to his estates. It +was his way of rebuking the squire, and in return for it the squire, +though somewhat comforted, despised his clerkly son, and lived to learn +how very unjustly he did so. Adolescents, who have the taste for running +into excesses, enjoy the breath of change as another form of excitement: +change is a sort of debauch to them. They will delight infinitely in a +simple country round of existence, in propriety and church-going, in the +sensation of feeling innocent. There is little that does not enrapture +them, if you tie them down to nothing, and let them try all. Sir William +was deceived by his nephew. He would have taken him into his town-house; +but his own son, Edward, who was studying for the Law, had chambers in +the Temple, and Algernon, receiving an invitation from Edward, declared a +gentle preference for the abode of his cousin. His allowance from his +father was properly contracted to keep him from excesses, as the genius +of his senior devised, and Sir William saw no objection to the scheme, +and made none. The two dined with him about twice in the month. + +Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a +young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing +Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant +soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and +reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and +indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two +imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In +reality, Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better +stuff. Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being +an effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit, +and one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe +to be correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it, +when he sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self. +Algernon might mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if +they continued their courses together, there was danger that Algernon +would degenerate into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and be +tempted unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than +perdition to this sort of creature. + +But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the +romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become +Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge +is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable, +but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and +fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position +attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views. Civilization +had tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it. Moreover, +sitting now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No wonder, +then, that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and +Australian wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new +made over there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath +that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean +for the present. + +The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a +widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry +Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his +much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had +served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his +lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically +admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's +burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a +giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however, +decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always +said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know +how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was +wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was +laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous +resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do +more for us than a dark disguise. + +Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian +climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden +and white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned +streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, +of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, +and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, +let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours +with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off +her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and +ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon +rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at +your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen. + +Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of which +no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully one of +the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but when +lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes are indeed +unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of Edward: "He +is sure to rise; he has such good principles." Edward said of Margaret: +"She only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand." These +sentences scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the speakers; +but outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have broken +apart. It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one another +as sharp a sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once betrothed +them, but was now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and lived +partly with her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her +aunt's husband, and a little by herself, which was when she counted money +in her purse, and chose to assert her independence. She had a name in +the world. There is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy +downward, that blood is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a +woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very +young, can they be attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her +overpowering beauty. It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under +the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of +black flame. Boys adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the +birds of air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered +experience) thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour. +Was it her fault that she had a name in the world? + +Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a +photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith, +dark with a serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured +photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to +choose between them. Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the +plump rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant +cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or +prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of +artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is +blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the +faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were +thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not +yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the fair +widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful +intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips +came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained, +were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose +mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a line, +and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting. + +It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water, +arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the +sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through +certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and +tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a +tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a +little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of +the two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips +and falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for +the wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout +muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to +knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship +under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always +do look. + +"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style, +"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence +groaning." + +"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty +motion of the gloves. + +"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and +learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg +and knock a fellow's hat off with the other." + +"Stick to your fists." + +"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so." + +"You talk too much." + +"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you." + +"I want country air." + +"You said you were going out, old Ned." + +"I changed my mind." + +Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot +minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings +to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table, +shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt +with a funereal coffee-tinge. + +"What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know," Algernon +remarked as he rose. "Anything connected with the country disagreeable +to you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these +beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen. +Did you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again, +are you?" + +And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of +blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily +became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he +prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the +room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration +for the distracted occupant of the chambers below. Algernon accepted the +truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove. + +"There! that's a pleasant morning breather," he said, and sauntered to +the window to look at the river. "I always feel the want of it when I +don't get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the +gloves to begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go +down to the city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong +way. My father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of +cash, by jingo!" + +He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness. + +"I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club. It's +sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work? +There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he +missed a day. And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits. I +believe he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They +say that old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the +office now. Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive +ten pounds a year extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I +could earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to +my salary. I've got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred +and fifty per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags, as +they do that old fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty +pounds at a pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?" + +"The chops are coming," said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and +plunged into a book, and spoke echoing. + +"Here's little Peggy Lovell." Algernon faced this portrait. "It don't +do her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. +She's starting for town, I hear." + +"She is starting for town," said Edward. + +"How do you know that?" Algernon swung about to ask. + +Edward looked round to him. "By the fact of your not having fished for a +holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I +hope." + +The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned. + +"Oh, she was well," he said. "Ha! I see there can be some attraction in +your dark women." + +"You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion." Edward gave a +two-edged response. "What train did you come up by last night?" + +"The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I +got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old +Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's +always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to +have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face." + +Edward launched forth an invective against fair women. + +"What have they done to you-what have they done?" said Algernon. + +"My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If +they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They can't +help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with +anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at +all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair; +so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports." + +"By jingo!" cried Algernon, "my stomach reports that if provision doesn't +soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned? Let's give +up the women, and take to a French cook." + +Edward yawned horribly. "All in good time. It's what we come to. It's +philosophy--your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a +fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!" + +"By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!" Algernon +exclaimed. "It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and +muzzled--a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave the service. It +was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all tradesmen! I sit +on a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a nigger in the +office. That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going to the +office in a rage." + +"Will you try on the gloves again?" was Edward's mild suggestion. + +Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when +he was empty. + +They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element +of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask. +Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put the +ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking +little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of +Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared +at a blank wall as regarded Edward's. + +"Going out after breakfast, Ned?" said Algernon. "We'll walk to the city +together, if you like." + +Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. "You're not going +to the city to-day?" + +"The deuce, I'm not!" + +"You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your pleasure +to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing." + +Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the +portraits, and said, "Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name. +Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?" + +"If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs. +Lovell." Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. "Listen to me: +you'll get into a mess there." + +"If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect +to the lady." + +"Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know +that I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry +out. She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. +Do you know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to +believe that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that +means. I declined to be a chief party in a scandal." + +"Declined to fight the fellow?" interposed Algernon. "More shame to +you!" + +"I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege +of speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as +she played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I +don't bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose +much by the privation to which I subject myself." + +"I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So," said Algernon, "I should lose +tremendously." + +"You will lose, mark my words." + +"Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?" said Algernon. + +"Yes; I've done," Edward answered. + +"Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you +assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will." + +"That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she +detests," said Edward, relentless in his insight; "and, consequently, +gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at +present." + +Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire. +"I'm hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose +she sets me as a spy upon you!" + +A smile ran along Edward's lips. "I don't think you'd know it, if she +did." + +"Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty," bawled Algernon, in an +extremity of disgust. "Don't I know what game you're following up? +Isn't it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?" + +"It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in +my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So +much is perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a +clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst. +Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little dog +to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's +charming while it lasts. Will you shake it?" + +"Your tail, man?" Algernon roared in pretended amazement. + +Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. "No; my hand." + +They shook hands. + +"All right," said Algernon. "You mean well. It's very well for you to +preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in +love." + +"Virtue! by heaven!" Edward cried; "I wish I were entitled to preach it +to any man on earth." + +His face flushed. "There, good-bye, old fellow," he added. + +"Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine +with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged." + +Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club, +dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his +acceptance, and left him. + +Edward set his brain upon a book of law. + +It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian +stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters. +Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that +brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said. + +These were the contents:-- + +"I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself +when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold +street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how I +love you! I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears +all night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am +thankful you did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been +guidance, for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her, I +love her so. I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her +there; and I had to say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I +call you Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write +kindly to me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life +seems quite behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch. I +declare to you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was +surprised when I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on +the bed; suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was +thinking. I never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see +they are, and I only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh, +so wretched and stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. +Oh, if, you are angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make +you pity me. I know I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not +trust you, Edward. My mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I +trust my heart and everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish +and wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such +a streaked thing to look at. If I had rubbed my face with a +scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing +me. It would excuse you for hating me. Do you? Does he hate her? She +loves you. She would die for you, dear Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was +told to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness. +I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear from you. + + "Believe me, + "Your tender, loving, broken-hearted, + + "Dahlia." + + There was a postscript:-- + + "May I still go to lessons?" + +Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced +triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps, +but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used. + +"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he +said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to +lessons, by all means." + +Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing +the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will +find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits +contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal, +or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had been +admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness +without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on +the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All +through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and +tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when the +morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one. The +confession was made; but his name was reserved. Dahlia spoke of him with +such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a +creature kissing his feet. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with +moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing +one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how +beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister, +Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily +believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was of +an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the +weakness of mortality. She thought that one who could so transform her +sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must +be what Dahlia said he was. She asked shyly for his Christian name; but +even so little Dahlia withheld. It was his wish that Dahlia should keep +silence concerning him. + +"Have you sworn an oath?" said Rhoda, wonderingly. + +"No, dear love," Dahlia replied; "he only mentioned what he desired." + +Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered +her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well. + +As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully +and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an +old ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls, +and appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. "Father shall not +always want money," she said. She was particular in prescribing books +for Rhoda to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of +history, and poets, and quoted their verses. "For my darling will some +day have a dear husband, and he must not look down on her." Rhoda shook +her head, full sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical +words naturally. "Yes, dearest, when you know what love is," said +Dahlia, in an underbreath. + +Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor +homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed +the notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was +fixed upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from +London placed her beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many +chords. A less subservient reader would have set them down as variations +of the language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word +and change of mood, from the, "I am unworthy, degraded, wretched," to "I +am blest above the angels." If one letter said, "We met yesterday," +Rhoda's heart beat on to the question, "Shall I see him again to-morrow?" +And will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and absorbed her +thoughts. + +So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a +prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a +letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked "urgent and +private," she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the +surprise was a shock to her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal, +and walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder. + +The letter ran thus:-- + +"My Own Innocent!--I am married. We leave England to-day. I must not +love you too much, for I have all my love to give to my Edward, my own +now, and I am his trustingly for ever. But he will let me give you some +of it--and Rhoda is never jealous. She shall have a great deal. Only I +am frightened when I think how immense my love is for him, so that +anything--everything he thinks right is right to me. I am not afraid to +think so. If I were to try, a cloud would come over me--it does, if only +I fancy for half a moment I am rash, and a straw. I cannot exist except +through him. So I must belong to him, and his will is my law. My prayer +at my bedside every night is that I may die for him. We used to think +the idea of death so terrible! Do you remember how we used to shudder +together at night when we thought of people lying in the grave? And now, +when I think that perhaps I may some day die for him, I feel like a +crying in my heart with joy. + +"I have left a letter--sent it, I mean--enclosed to uncle for father. He +will see Edward by-and-by. Oh! may heaven spare him from any grief. +Rhoda will comfort him. Tell him how devoted I am. I am like drowned to +everybody but one. + +"We are looking on the sea. In half an hour I shall have forgotten the +tread of English earth. I do not know that I breathe. All I know is a +fear that I am flying, and my strength will not continue. That is when I +am not touching his hand. There is France opposite. I shut my eyes and +see the whole country, but it is like what I feel for Edward--all in dark +moonlight. Oh! I trust him so! I bleed for him. I could make all my +veins bleed out at a sad thought about him. And from France to +Switzerland and Italy. The sea sparkles just as if it said "Come to the +sun;" and I am going. Edward calls. Shall I be punished for so much +happiness? I am too happy, I am too happy. + +"God bless my beloved at home! That is my chief prayer now. I shall +think of her when I am in the cathedrals. + +"Oh, my Father in heaven! bless them all! bless Rhoda! forgive me! + +"I can hear the steam of the steamer at the pier. Here +is Edward. He says I may send his love to you. + +"Address:-- + + "Mrs. Edward Ayrton, + "Poste Restante, + "Lausanne, + "Switzerland. + +"P.S.--Lausanne is where--but another time, and I will always tell you +the history of the places to instruct you, poor heart in dull England. +Adieu! Good-bye and God bless my innocent at home, my dear sister. I +love her. I never can forget her. The day is so lovely. It seems on +purpose for us. Be sure you write on thin paper to Lausanne. It is on a +blue lake; you see snow mountains, and now there is a bell ringing-- +kisses from me! we start. I must sign. + + "Dahlia." + +By the reading of this letter, Rhoda was caught vividly to the shore, and +saw her sister borne away in the boat to the strange countries; she +travelled with her, following her with gliding speed through a +multiplicity of shifting scenes, opal landscapes, full of fire and +dreams, and in all of them a great bell towered. "Oh, my sweet! my own +beauty!" she cried in Dahlia's language. Meeting Mrs. Sumfit, she called +her "Mother Dumpling," as Dahlia did of old, affectionately, and kissed +her, and ran on to Master Gammon, who was tramping leisurely on to the +oatfield lying on toward the millholms. + +"My sister sends you her love," she said brightly to the old man. Master +Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened +his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to emit +the customary quack. + +"And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and you, +and you, and you." + +Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased her +heart of its laughing bubbles. After which, she fell to a meditative +walk of demurer joy, and had a regret. It was simply that Dahlia's hurry +in signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing "Dahlia +Ayrton" written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the +change in her life. + +That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete in +the absence of the bridal name. She fancied Dahlia to have meant, +perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger. +"Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you," she heard her sister say. +But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning would +"Dahlia Ayrton," the new name in the dear handwriting, have looked! "And +I have a brother-in-law," she thought, and her cheeks tingled. The banks +of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks fringing the copse, grew +rich in colour, as she reflected that this beloved unknown husband of her +sister embraced her and her father as well; even the old bent beggarman +on the sandy ridge, though he had a starved frame and carried pitiless +faggots, stood illumined in a soft warmth. Rhoda could not go back to +the house. + +It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the virtue +of his wife's opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation +concerning him. + +"Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?" he put the question +bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert. + +Robert took a quick breath, and replied, "I have." + +"Then make your choice," said the farmer, and tried to go about his +business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: "Which +one is it, my boy?" + +Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth. + +"I think I shall leave her to tell that," was his answer. + +"Why, don't ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?" quoth Mr. +Fleming. + +"I mayn't know whether she prefers to choose me," said Robert. + +The farmer smiled. + +"You never can exactly reckon about them; that's true." + +He was led to think: "Dahlia's the lass;" seeing that Robert had not had +many opportunities of speaking with her. + +"When my girls are wives, they'll do their work in the house," he +pursued. "They may have a little bit o' property in land, ye know, and +they may have a share in--in gold. That's not to be reckoned on. We're +an old family, Robert, and I suppose we've our pride somewhere down. +Anyhow, you can't look on my girls and not own they're superior girls. +I've no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying, if +it's not to their turn. They're handy with th' needle. They dress +conformably, and do the millinery themselves. And I know they say their +prayers of a night. That I know, if that's a comfort to ye, and it +should be, Robert. For pray, and you can't go far wrong; and it's +particularly good for girls. I'll say no more." + +At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present. Mr. Fleming fidgeted, blamed +her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her +absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy. + +They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice +immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the +front part of the house. Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed +face. + +"Lord!" said Mrs. Sumfit, "how I tremble!" + +Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house. The dread of +evil news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it, +Robert conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so; the +farmer, that the policy of permitting Dahlia's continued residence in +London concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the +threatening of a mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite. +It is the insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay +stress on the wilfulness of uneducated minds. Robert walked across the +fields, walking like a man with an object in view. As he dropped into +one of the close lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda standing +under an oak, her white morning-dress covered with sun-spots. His +impulse was to turn back, the problem, how to speak to her, not being +settled within him. But the next moment his blood chilled; for he had +perceived, though he had not felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen were +standing near her, addressing her. And it was likewise manifest that she +listened to them. These presently raised their hats and disappeared. +Rhoda came on toward Robert. + +"You have forgotten your dinner," he said, with a queer sense of shame at +dragging in the mention of that meal. + +"I have been too happy to eat," Rhoda replied. + +Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and +asked: "Has uncle come?" + +"Did you expect him?" + +"I thought he would come." + +"What has made you happy?" + +"You will hear from uncle." + +"Shall I go and hear what those--" + +Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken out. +Rhoda's face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to +contempt. + +She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily +misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature. Doubtless +her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would hurt +him shrewdly now. The foolishness of a man having much to say to a +woman, and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was +perceptible about him. A shout from her father at the open garden-gate, +hurried on Rhoda to meet him. Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming's elbow. + +"You know it? You have her letter, father?" said Rhoda, gaily, beneath +the shadow of his forehead. + +"And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been," said Anthony, +with a speculating eye upon Rhoda's dark bright face. + +Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father. + +William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter. + +"Listen all! This is from a daughter to her father." + +And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:-- + + Dear Father,-- + + "My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England. + I ought to have concealed nothing, I know. Try to forgive me. I + hope you will. I shall always think of you. God bless you! + + "I am, + "Ever with respect, + "Your dearly loving Daughter, + + "Dahlia." + +"Dahlia Blank!" said the farmer, turning his look from face to face. + +A deep fire of emotion was evidently agitating him, for the letter +rustled in his hand, and his voice was uneven. Of this, no sign was +given by his inexpressive features. The round brown eyes and the ruddy +varnish on his cheeks were a mask upon grief, if not also upon joy. + +"Dahlia--what? What's her name?" he resumed. "Here--'my husband will +bring me to see you'--who's her husband? Has he got a name? And a blank +envelope to her uncle here, who's kept her in comfort for so long! And +this is all she writes to me! Will any one spell out the meaning of it?" + +"Dahlia was in great haste, father," said Rhoda. + +"Oh, ay, you!--you're the one, I know," returned the farmer. "It's +sister and sister, with you." + +"But she was very, very hurried, father. I have a letter from her, and I +have only 'Dahlia' written at the end--no other name." + +"And you suspect no harm of your sister." + +"Father, how can I imagine any kind of harm?" + +"That letter, my girl, sticks to my skull, as though it meant to say, +'You've not understood me yet.' I've read it a matter of twenty times, +and I'm no nearer to the truth of it. But, if she's lying, here in this +letter, what's she walking on? How long are we to wait for to hear? I +give you my word, Robert, I'm feeling for you as I am for myself. Or, +wasn't it that one? Is it this one?" He levelled his finger at Rhoda. +"In any case, Robert, you'll feel for me as a father. I'm shut in a dark +room with the candle blown out. I've heard of a sort of fear you have in +that dilemmer, lest you should lay your fingers on edges of sharp knives, +and if I think a step--if I go thinking a step, and feel my way, I do cut +myself, and I bleed, I do. Robert, just take and say, it wasn't that +one." + +Such a statement would carry with it the confession that it was this one +for whom he cared this scornful one, this jilt, this brazen girl who +could make appointments with gentlemen, or suffer them to speak to her, +and subsequently look at him with innocence and with anger. + +"Believe me, Mr. Fleming, I feel for you as much as a man can," he said, +uneasily, swaying half round as he spoke. + +"Do you suspect anything bad?" The farmer repeated the question, like +one who only wanted a confirmation of his own suspicions to see the fact +built up. "Robert, does this look like the letter of a married woman? +Is it daughter-like--eh, man? Help another: +I can't think for myself--she ties my hands. Speak out." + +Robert set his eyes on Rhoda. He would have given much to have been able +to utter, "I do." Her face was like an eager flower straining for light; +the very beauty of it swelled his jealous passion, and he flattered +himself with his incapacity to speak an abject lie to propitiate her. + +"She says she is married. We're bound to accept what she says." + +That was his answer. + +"Is she married?" thundered the farmer. "Has she been and disgraced her +mother in her grave? What am I to think? She's my flesh and blood. Is +she--" + +"Oh, hush, father!" Rhoda laid her hand on his arm. "What doubt can +there be of Dahlia? You have forgotten that she is always truthful. +Come away. It is shameful to stand here and listen to unmanly things." + +She turned a face of ashes upon Robert. + +"Come away, father. She is our own. She is my sister. A doubt of her +is an insult to us." + +"But Robert don't doubt her--eh?" The farmer was already half distracted +from his suspicions. "Have you any real doubt about the girl, Robert?" + +"I don't trust myself to doubt anybody," said Robert. + +"You don't cast us off, my boy?" + +"I'm a labourer on the farm," said Robert, and walked away. + +"He's got reason to feel this more 'n the rest of us, poor lad! It's a +blow to him." With which the farmer struck his hand on Rhoda's shoulder. + +"I wish he'd set his heart on a safer young woman." + +Rhoda's shudder of revulsion was visible as she put her mouth up to kiss +her father's cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +That is Wrexby Hall, upon the hill between Fenhurst and Wrexby: the white +square mansion, with the lower drawing-room windows one full bow of glass +against the sunlight, and great single trees spotting the distant green +slopes. From Queen Anne's Farm you could read the hour by the stretching +of their shadows. Squire Blancove, who lived there, was an irascible, +gouty man, out of humour with his time, and beginning, alas for him! to +lose all true faith in his Port, though, to do him justice, he wrestled +hard with this great heresy. His friends perceived the decay in his +belief sooner than he did himself. He was sour in the evening as in the +morning. There was no chirp in him when the bottle went round. He had +never one hour of a humane mood to be reckoned on now. The day, indeed, +is sad when we see the skeleton of the mistress by whom we suffer, but +cannot abandon her. The squire drank, knowing that the issue would be +the terrific, curse-begetting twinge in his foot; but, as he said, he was +a man who stuck to his habits. It was over his Port that he had +quarrelled with his rector on the subject of hopeful Algernon, and the +system he adopted with that young man. This incident has something to do +with Rhoda's story, for it was the reason why Mrs. Lovell went to Wrexby +Church, the spirit of that lady leading her to follow her own impulses, +which were mostly in opposition. So, when perchance she visited the +Hall, she chose not to accompany the squire and his subservient guests to +Fenhurst, but made a point of going down to the unoccupied Wrexby pew. +She was a beauty, and therefore powerful; otherwise her act of +nonconformity would have produced bad blood between her and the squire. + +It was enough to have done so in any case; for now, instead of sitting at +home comfortably, and reading off the week's chronicle of sport while he +nursed his leg, the unfortunate gentleman had to be up and away to +Fenhurst every Sunday morning, or who would have known that the old cause +of his general abstention from Sabbath services lay in the detestable +doctrine of Wrexby's rector? + +Mrs. Lovell was now at the Hall, and it was Sunday morning after +breakfast. The lady stood like a rival head among the other guests, +listening, gloved and bonneted, to the bells of Wrexby, West of the +hills, and of Fenhurst, Northeast. The squire came in to them, groaning +over his boots, cross with his fragile wife, and in every mood for +satire, except to receive it. + +"How difficult it is to be gouty and good!" murmured Mrs. Lovell to the +person next her. + +"Well," said the squire, singling out his enemy, "you're going to that +fellow, I suppose, as usual--eh?" + +"Not 'as usual,'" replied Mrs. Lovell, sweetly; "I wish it were!" + +"Wish it were, do you?--you find him so entertaining? Has he got to +talking of the fashions?" + +"He talks properly; I don't ask for more." Mrs. Lovell assumed an air of +meekness under persecution. + +"I thought you were Low Church." + +"Lowly of the Church, I trust you thought," she corrected him. "But, for +that matter, any discourse, plainly delivered, will suit me." + +"His elocution's perfect," said the squire; "that is, before dinner." + +"I have only to do with him before dinner, you know." + +"Well, I've ordered a carriage out for you." + +"That is very honourable and kind." + +"It would be kinder if I contrived to keep you away from the fellow." + +"Would it not be kinder to yourself," Mrs. Lovell swam forward to him in +all tenderness, taking his hands, and fixing the swimming blue of her +soft eyes upon him pathetically, "if you took your paper and your +slippers, and awaited our return?" + +The squire felt the circulating smile about the room. He rebuked the +woman's audacity with a frown; "Tis my duty to set an example," he said, +his gouty foot and irritable temper now meeting in a common fire. + +"Since you are setting an example," rejoined the exquisite widow, "I have +nothing more to say." + +The squire looked what he dared not speak. A woman has half, a beauty +has all, the world with her when she is self-contained, and holds her +place; and it was evident that Mrs. Lovell was not one to abandon her +advantages. + +He snapped round for a victim, trying his wife first. Then his eyes +rested upon Algernon. + +"Well, here we are; which of us will you take?" he asked Mrs. Lovell in +blank irony. + +"I have engaged my cavalier, who is waiting, and will be as devout as +possible." Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon a smile. + +"I thought I hit upon the man," growled the squire. "You're going in to +Wrexby, sir! Oh, go, by all means, and I shan't be astonished at what +comes of it. Like teacher, like pupil!" + +"There!" Mrs. Lovell gave Algernon another smile. "You have to bear the +sins of your rector, as well as your own. Can you support it?" + +The flimsy fine dialogue was a little above Algernon's level in the +society of ladies; but he muttered, bowing, that he would endeavour to +support it, with Mrs. Lovell's help, and this did well enough; after +which, the slight strain on the intellects of the assemblage relaxed, and +ordinary topics were discussed. The carriages came round to the door; +gloves, parasols, and scent-bottles were securely grasped; whereupon the +squire, standing bare-headed on the steps, insisted upon seeing the party +of the opposition off first, and waited to hand Mrs. Lovell into her +carriage, an ironic gallantry accepted by the lady with serenity +befitting the sacred hour. + +"Ah! my pencil, to mark the text for you, squire," she said, taking her +seat; and Algernon turned back at her bidding, to get a pencil; and she, +presenting a most harmonious aspect in the lovely landscape, reclined in +the carriage as if, like the sweet summer air, she too were quieted by +those holy bells, while the squire stood, fuming, bareheaded, and with +boiling blood, just within the bounds of decorum on the steps. She was +more than his match. + +She was more than a match for most; and it was not a secret. Algernon +knew it as well as Edward, or any one. She was a terror to the soul of +the youth, and an attraction. Her smile was the richest flattery he +could feel; the richer, perhaps, from his feeling it to be a thing +impossible to fix. He had heard tales of her; he remembered Edward's +warning; but he was very humbly sitting with her now, and very happy. + +"I'm in for it," he said to his fair companion; "no cheque for me next +quarter, and no chance of an increase. He'll tell me I've got a salary. +A salary! Good Lord! what a man comes to! I've done for myself with the +squire for a year." + +"You must think whether you have compensation," said the lady, and he +received it in a cousinly squeeze of his hand. + +He was about to raise the lank white hand to his lips. + +"Ah!" she said, "there would be no compensation to me, if that were +seen;" and her dainty hand was withdrawn. "Now, tell me," she changed +her tone. "How do the loves prosper?" + +Algernon begged her not to call them 'loves.' She nodded and smiled. + +"Your artistic admirations," she observed. "I am to see her in church, +am I not? Only, my dear Algy, don't go too far. Rustic beauties are as +dangerous as Court Princesses. Where was it you saw her first?" + +"At the Bank," said Algernon. + +"Really! at the Bank! So your time there is not absolutely wasted. What +brought her to London, I wonder?" + +"Well, she has an old uncle, a queer old fellow, and he's a sort of +porter--money porter--in the Bank, awfully honest, or he might half break +it some fine day, if he chose to cut and run. She's got a sister, +prettier than this girl, the fellows say; I've never seen her. I expect +I've seen a portrait of her, though." + +"Ah!" Mrs. Lovell musically drew him on. "Was she dark, too?" + +"No, she's fair. At least, she is in her portrait." + +"Brown hair; hazel eyes?" + +"Oh--oh! You guess, do you?" + +"I guess nothing, though it seems profitable. That Yankee betting man +'guesses,' and what heaps of money he makes by it!" + +"I wish I did," Algernon sighed. "All my guessing and reckoning goes +wrong. I'm safe for next Spring, that's one comfort. I shall make +twenty thousand next Spring." + +"On Templemore?" + +"That's the horse. I've got a little on Tenpenny Nail as well. But I'm +quite safe on Templemore; unless the Evil Principle comes into the +field." + +"Is he so sure to be against you, if he does appear?" said Mrs. Lovell. + +"Certain!" ejaculated Algernon, in honest indignation. + +"Well, Algy, I don't like to have him on my side. Perhaps I will take a +share in your luck, to make it--? to make it?"--She played prettily as a +mistress teasing her lap-dog to jump for a morsel; adding: "Oh! Algy, you +are not a Frenchman. To make it divine, sir! you have missed your +chance." + +"There's one chance I shouldn't like to miss," said the youth. + +"Then, do not mention it," she counselled him. "And, seriously, I will +take a part of your risk. I fear I am lucky, which is ruinous. We will +settle that, by-and-by. Do you know, Algy, the most expensive position +in the world is a widow's." + +"You needn't be one very long," growled he. + +"I'm so wretchedly fastidious, don't you see? And it's best not to sigh +when we're talking of business, if you'll take me for a guide. So, the +old man brought this pretty rustic Miss Rhoda to the Bank?" + +"Once," said Algernon. "Just as he did with her sister. He's proud of +his nieces; shows them and then hides them. The fellows at the Bank +never saw her again." + +"Her name is--?" + +"Dahlia." + +"Ah, yes!--Dahlia. Extremely pretty. There are brown dahlias--dahlias +of all colours. And the portrait of this fair creature hangs up in your +chambers in town?" + +"Don't call them my chambers," Algernon protested. + +"Your cousin's, if you like. Probably Edward happened to be at the Bank +when fair Dahlia paid her visit. Once seems to have been enough for both +of you." + +Algernon was unread in the hearts of women, and imagined that Edward's +defection from Mrs. Lovell's sway had deprived him of the lady's sympathy +and interest in his fortunes. + +"Poor old Ned's in some scrape, I think," he said. + +"Where is he?" the lady asked, languidly. + +"Paris." + +"Paris? How very odd! And out of the season, in this hot weather. It's +enough to lead me to dream that he has gone over--one cannot realize +why." + +"Upon my honour!" Algernon thumped on his knee; "by jingo!" he adopted a +less compromising interjection; "Ned's fool enough. My idea is, he's +gone and got married." + +Mrs. Lovell was lying back with the neglectful grace of incontestable +beauty; not a line to wrinkle her smooth soft features. For one sharp +instant her face was all edged and puckered, like the face of a fair +witch. She sat upright. + +"Married! But how can that be when we none of us have heard a word of +it?" + +"I daresay you haven't," said Algernon; "and not likely to. Ned's the +closest fellow of my acquaintance. He hasn't taken me into his +confidence, you maybe sure; he knows I'm too leaky. There's no bore like +a secret! I've come to my conclusion in this affair by putting together +a lot of little incidents and adding them up. First, I believe he was at +the Bank when that fair girl was seen there. Secondly, from the +description the fellows give of her, I should take her to be the original +of the portrait. Next, I know that Rhoda has a fair sister who has run +for it. And last, Rhoda has had a letter from her sister, to say she's +away to the Continent and is married. Ned's in Paris. Those are my +facts, and I give you my reckoning of them." + +Mrs. Lovell gazed at Algernon for one long meditative moment. + +"Impossible," she exclaimed. "Edward has more brains than heart." And +now the lady's face was scarlet. "How did this Rhoda, with her absurd +name, think of meeting you to tell you such stuff? Indeed, there's a +simplicity in some of these young women--" She said the remainder to +herself. + +"She's really very innocent and good," Algernon defended Rhoda. "she is. +There isn't a particle of nonsense in her. I first met her in town, as I +stated, at the Bank; just on the steps, and we remembered I had called a +cab for her a little before; and I met her again by accident yesterday." + +"You are only a boy in their hands, my cousin Algy!" said Mrs. Lovell. + +Algernon nodded with a self-defensive knowingness. "I fancy there's no +doubt her sister has written to her that she's married. It's certain she +has. She's a blunt sort of girl; not one to lie, not even for a sister +or a lover, unless she had previously made up her mind to it. In that +case, she wouldn't stick at much." + +"But, do you know," said Mrs. Lovell--"do you know that Edward's father +would be worse than yours over such an act of folly? He would call it an +offence against common sense, and have no mercy for it. He would be +vindictive on principle. This story of yours cannot be true. Nothing +reconciles it." + +"Oh, Sir Billy will be rusty; that stands to reason," Algernon assented. +"It mayn't be true. I hope it isn't. But Ned has a madness for fair +women. He'd do anything on earth for them. He loses his head entirely." + +"That he may have been imprudent--" Mrs. Lovell thus blushingly hinted +at the lesser sin of his deceiving and ruining the girl. + +"Oh, it needn't be true," said Algernon; and with meaning, "Who's to +blame if it is?" + +Mrs. Lovell again reddened. She touched Algernon's fingers. + +"His friends mustn't forsake him, in any case." + +"By Jove! you are the right sort of woman," cried Algernon. + +It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward +might haply come to mean something disastrous to him. The touch of Mrs. +Lovell's hand made him forget Rhoda in a twinkling. He detained it, +audaciously, even until she frowned with petulance and stamped her foot. + +There was over her bosom a large cameo-brooch, representing a tomb under +a palm-tree, and the figure of a veiled woman with her head bowed upon +the tomb. This brooch was falling, when Algernon caught it. The pin +tore his finger, and in the energy of pain he dashed the brooch to her +feet, with immediate outcries of violent disgust at himself and +exclamations for pardon. He picked up the brooch. It was open. A +strange, discoloured, folded substance lay on the floor of the carriage. +Mrs. Lovell gazed down at it, and then at him, ghastly pale. He lifted +it by one corner, and the diminutive folded squares came out, revealing a +strip of red-stained handkerchief. + +Mrs. Lovell grasped it, and thrust it out of sight. + +She spoke as they approached the church-door: "Mention nothing of this to +a soul, or you forfeit my friendship for ever." + +When they alighted, she was smiling in her old affable manner. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Some consideration for Robert, after all, as being the man who loved her, +sufficed to give him rank as a more elevated kind of criminal in Rhoda's +sight, and exquisite torture of the highest form was administered to him. +Her faith in her sister was so sure that she could half pardon him for +the momentary harm he had done to Dahlia with her father; but, judging +him by the lofty standard of one who craved to be her husband, she could +not pardon his unmanly hesitation and manner of speech. The old and deep +grievance in her heart as to what men thought of women, and as to the +harshness of men, was stirred constantly by the remembrance of his +irresolute looks, and his not having dared to speak nobly for Dahlia, +even though he might have had, the knavery to think evil. As the case +stood, there was still mischief to counteract. Her father had willingly +swallowed a drug, but his suspicions only slumbered, and she could not +instil her own vivid hopefulness and trust into him. Letters from Dahlia +came regularly. The first, from Lausanne, favoured Rhoda's conception of +her as of a happy spirit resting at celestial stages of her ascent upward +through spheres of ecstacy. Dahlia could see the snow-mountains in a +flying glimpse; and again, peacefully seated, she could see the +snow-mountains reflected in clear blue waters from her window, which, +Rhoda thought, must be like heaven. On these inspired occasions, Robert +presented the form of a malignant serpent in her ideas. Then Dahlia made +excursions upon glaciers with her beloved, her helpmate, and had +slippings and tumblings--little earthly casualties which gave a charming +sense of reality to her otherwise miraculous flight. The Alps were +crossed: Italy was beheld. A profusion of "Oh's!" described Dahlia's +impressions of Italy; and "Oh! the heat!" showed her to be mortal, +notwithstanding the sublime exclamations. Como received the blissful +couple. Dahlia wrote from Como:-- + + "Tell father that gentlemen in my Edward's position cannot always + immediately proclaim their marriage to the world. There are + reasons. I hope he has been very angry with me: then it will be + soon over, and we shall be--but I cannot look back. I shall not + look back till we reach Venice. At Venice, I know I shall see you + all as clear as day; but I cannot even remember the features of my + darling here." + +Her Christian name was still her only signature. + +The thin blue-and-pink paper, and the foreign postmarks--testifications +to Dahlia's journey not being a fictitious event, had a singular +deliciousness for the solitary girl at the Farm. At times, as she turned +them over, she was startled by the intoxication of her sentiments, for +the wild thought would come, that many, many whose passionate hearts she +could feel as her own, were ready to abandon principle and the bondage to +the hereafter, for such a long delicious gulp of divine life. Rhoda +found herself more than once brooding on the possible case that Dahlia +had done this thing. + +The fit of languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness, and +blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious +womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of +terror, not knowing how far she had fallen. + +After such personal experiences, she suffered great longings to be with +her sister, that the touch of her hand, the gaze of her eyes, the tone of +Dahlia's voice, might make her sure of her sister's safety. + +Rhoda's devotions in church were frequently distracted by the occupants +of the Blancove pew. Mrs. Lovell had the habit of looking at her with an +extraordinary directness, an expressionless dissecting scrutiny, that was +bewildering and confusing to the country damsel. Algernon likewise +bestowed marked attention on her. Some curious hints had been thrown out +to her by this young gentleman on the day when he ventured to speak to +her in the lane, which led her to fancy distantly that he had some +acquaintance with Dahlia's husband, or that he had heard of Dahlia. + +It was clear to Rhoda that Algernon sought another interview. He +appeared in the neighbourhood of the farm on Saturdays, and on Sundays he +was present in the church, sometimes with Mrs. Lovell, and sometimes +without a companion. His appearance sent her quick wits travelling +through many scales of possible conduct: and they struck one ringing +note:--she thought that by the aid of this gentleman a lesson might be +given to Robert's mean nature. It was part of Robert's punishment to see +that she was not unconscious of Algernon's admiration. + +The first letter from Venice consisted of a series of interjections in +praise of the poetry of gondolas, varied by allusions to the sad smell of +the low tide water, and the amazing quality of the heat; and then Dahlia +wrote more composedly:-- + +"Titian the painter lived here, and painted ladies, who sat to him +without a bit of garment on, and indeed, my darling, I often think it was +more comfortable for the model than for the artist. Even modesty seems +too hot a covering for human creatures here. The sun strikes me down. I +am ceasing to have a complexion. It is pleasant to know that my Edward +is still proud of me. He has made acquaintance with some of the officers +here, and seems pleased at the compliments they pay me. + +"They have nice manners, and white uniforms that fit them like a kid +glove. I am Edward's 'resplendent wife.' A colonel of one of the +regiments invited him to dinner (speaking English), 'with your +resplendent wife.' Edward has no mercy for errors of language, and he +would not take me. Ah! who knows how strange men are! Never think of +being happy unless you can always be blind. I see you all at home-- +Mother Dumpling and all--as I thought I should when I was to come to +Venice. + +"Persuade--do persuade father that everything will be well. Some persons +are to be trusted. Make him feel it. I know that I am life itself to +Edward. He has lived as men do, and he can judge, and he knows that +there never was a wife who brought a heart to her husband like mine to +him. He wants to think, or he wants to smoke, and he leaves me; but, oh! +when he returns, he can scarcely believe that he has me, his joy is so +great. He looks like a glad thankful child, and he has the manliest of +faces. It is generally thoughtful; you might think it hard, at first +sight. + +"But you must be beautiful to please some men. You will laugh--I have +really got the habit of talking to my face and all myself in the glass. +Rhoda would think me cracked. And it is really true that I was never so +humble about my good looks. You used to spoil me at home--you and that +wicked old Mother Dumpling, and our own dear mother, Rhoda--oh! mother, +mother! I wish I had always thought of you looking down on me! You made +me so vain--much more vain than I let you see I was. There were times +when it is quite true I thought myself a princess. I am not worse- +looking now, but I suppose I desire to be so beautiful that nothing +satisfies me. + +"A spot on my neck gives me a dreadful fright. If my hair comes out much +when I comb it, it sets my heart beating; and it is a daily misery to me +that my hands are larger than they should be, belonging to Edward's +'resplendent wife.' I thank heaven that you and I always saw the +necessity of being careful of our fingernails. My feet are of moderate +size, though they are not French feet, as Edward says. No: I shall never +dance. He sent me to the dancing-master in London, but it was too late. +But I have been complimented on my walking, and that seems to please +Edward. He does not dance (or mind dancing) himself, only he does not +like me to miss one perfection. It is his love. Oh! if I have seemed to +let you suppose he does not love me as ever, do not think it. He is most +tender and true to me. Addio! I am signora, you are signorina. + +"They have such pretty manners to us over here. Edward says they think +less of women: I say they think more. But I feel he must be right. Oh, +my dear, cold, loving, innocent sister! put out your arms; I shall feel +them round me, and kiss you, kiss you for ever!" + +Onward from city to city, like a radiation of light from the old +farm-house, where so little of it was, Dahlia continued her journey; and +then, without a warning, with only a word to say that she neared Rome, +the letters ceased. A chord snapped in Rhoda's bosom. While she was +hearing from her sister almost weekly, her confidence was buoyed on a +summer sea. In the silence it fell upon a dread. She had no answer in +her mind for her father's unspoken dissatisfaction, and she had to +conceal her cruel anxiety. There was an interval of two months: a blank +fell charged with apprehension that was like the humming of a toneless +wind before storm; worse than the storm, for any human thing to bear. + +Rhoda was unaware that Robert, who rarely looked at her, and never sought +to speak a word to her when by chance they met and were alone, studied +each change in her face, and read its signs. He was left to his own +interpretation of them, but the signs he knew accurately. He knew that +her pride had sunk, and that her heart was desolate. He believed that +she had discovered her sister's misery. + +One day a letter arrived that gave her no joyful colouring, though it +sent colour to her cheeks. She opened it, evidently not knowing the +handwriting; her eyes ran down the lines hurriedly. After a time she +went upstairs for her bonnet. + +At the stile leading into that lane where Robert had previously seen her, +she was stopped by him. + +"No farther," was all that he said, and he was one who could have +interdicted men from advancing. + +"Why may I not go by you?" said Rhoda, with a woman's affected +humbleness. + +Robert joined his hands. "You go no farther, Miss Rhoda, unless you take +me with you." + +"I shall not do that, Mr. Robert." + +"Then you had better return home." + +"Will you let me know what reasons you have for behaving in this manner +to me?" + +"I'll let you know by-and-by," said Robert. "At present, You'll let the +stronger of the two have his way." + +He had always been so meek and gentle and inoffensive, that her contempt +had enjoyed free play, and had never risen to anger; but violent anger +now surged against him, and she cried, "Do you dare to touch me?" trying +to force her passage by. + +Robert caught her softly by the wrist. There stood at the same time a +full-statured strength of will in his eyes, under which her own fainted. + +"Go back," he said; and she turned that he might not see her tears of +irritation and shame. He was treating her as a child; but it was to +herself alone that she could defend herself. She marvelled that when she +thought of an outspoken complaint against him, her conscience gave her no +support. + +"Is there no freedom for a woman at all in this world?" Rhoda framed the +bitter question. + +Rhoda went back as she had come. Algernon Blancove did the same. +Between them stood Robert, thinking, "Now I have made that girl hate me +for life." + +It was in November that a letter, dated from London, reached the farm, +quickening Rhoda's blood anew. "I am alive," said Dahlia; and she said +little more, except that she was waiting to see her sister, and bade her +urgently to travel up alone. Her father consented to her doing so. +After a consultation with Robert, however, he determined to accompany +her. + +"She can't object to see me too," said the farmer; and Rhoda answered +"No." But her face was bronze to Robert when they took their departure. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the +season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre +was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply +take the hint that he must pay for himself. + +Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and fidgety +as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over his fat +goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea, and his +red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless butter- +man, for supper. + +He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he was +not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the +mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which +delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer +would behold. + +During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more +suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and +to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus +shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his +sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the +buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. "If ever you +come up to London, brother William John," said Anthony, "you mind you go +about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says +you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner +fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands to +the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be +topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a +shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody +that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats +off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming +into the city, but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off +his hat to me. It's a fact, I have." + +In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative, +that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an +apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost +voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased +the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only +half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he +employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants' +placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And he +would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have +stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to make +it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals of +the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his lucky +mental illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to procure +an order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much wine as +you like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask, walking +down gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan to be +tapped and tried, that men may know them. The idea of paying two +shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the +richly-coloured prospect. "That'll show him something of what London +is," thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition that +the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open air +imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into those +marvellous caverns. "By George! it's like a boy's story-book," cried +Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the farmer's +amazement--acted it with his arms extended, and his hat unseated, and +plunged into wheezy fits of laughter. + +He met his guests at the station. Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in +what, to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad +brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings, +struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at any +Bank in London. + +"You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?" he inquired, with +an artistic sentiment for things in keeping. + +"I do," said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it. + +"All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street," Anthony rejoined, +and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung. + +"Glad to see your old uncle--are ye?" + +Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal +object of seeing her sister. + +"There!" cried Anthony, "you never get a compliment out of this gal. She +gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there +mayn't be, a kernel inside--she don't care." + +"But there ain't much in it!" the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing his +fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since +Anthony's question about the purse. + +"Not much--eh! brother William John?" Anthony threw up a puzzled look. +"Not much baggage--I see that--" he exclaimed; "and, Lord be thanked! no +trunks. Aha, my dear"--he turned to Rhoda--"you remember your lesson, do +ye? Now, mark me--I'll remember you for it. Do you know, my dear," he +said to Rhoda confidentially, "that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made +the cabman pay for--there was the cream of it!--that was better than +Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as a sniff of +sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to feel +young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat--cabmen? Ah! I've stood +up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair. +Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling +cabmen--they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and +they've done. But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy +myself. I've got devil in me--never you fear--but it's all on the side +of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which +won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous." + +Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place +between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but +it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and +Anthony had his way. + +"I rather astonished you, brother William John," he said, when they were +in the street. + +The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked. + +"Don't you judge by appearances, that's all," Anthony remarked, setting +down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for +impressiveness. + +"Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to +the left, and quiet parts." He seized the bag anew. "Just listen. +That's the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. +It's a good notion, ain't it? Hark!--I got that notion from one of your +penny papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days--poetry up +in a corner, stories, tales o' temptation--one fellow cut his lucky with +his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be a +lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their +hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of a +policeman--a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his +dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often, they +called him--'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and +turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his +having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had him +out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy. And +found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle +young scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for a +penny. I tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always +profitable. The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the +rest." + +Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional +efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances +were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn +over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's +house. Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the +omnibuses running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann +Wicklow, who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside +shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to +accompany them. Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post +outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon. + +"My love to Dahly," he said. "She was always a head and shoulders over +my size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I +got my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at +Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my +money." He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared. + +The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside +to her: "You heard what he said." Rhoda was frozen with her heart's +expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered +the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every one +she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after long +separation. + +She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets so +lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she +felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she +hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign +country. Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. +It was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace. + +"Not for worlds would she enter the house," she said, in a general tone; +she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did +not invite her. + +Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood out +in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the +other hueless residences. She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and her +heart sank. The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a +careful reckoning, as she remarked,-- + +"I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to a +certainty." + +Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips +of garden walks. A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron gate +leading up to No. 15. Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they +might be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing +that London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required, +and paid for it, do their business like lightning. Her observation was +illustrated the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a +gentleman suddenly sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and was +whirled away, with as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if a +pantomimic trick had been performed. Rhoda pressed forward a step in +advance of her father. + +"It may have been her husband," she thought, and trembled. The curtains +up in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's +face? Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out +for them!--a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her +black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the door, +whose "Oh, if you please, Miss," came in contact with "My sister--Mrs.--, +she expects me. I mean, Mrs.--" but no other name than "Dahlia" would +fit itself to Rhoda's mouth. + +"Ayrton," said the maid, and recommenced, "Oh, if you please, Miss, and +you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word, +would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment, +and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for +her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you +call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be +here." + +The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her +lesson. Rhoda was stunned. + +"Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?--Not at home?" she said. + +"No: don't ye hear?" quoth the farmer, sternly. + +"She had my letter--do you know?" Rhoda appealed to the maid. + +"Oh, yes, Miss. A letter from the country." + +"This morning?" + +"Yes, Miss; this morning." + +"And she has gone out? What time did she go out? When will she be in?" + +Her father plucked at her dress. "Best not go making the young woman +repeat herself. She says, nobody's at home to ask us in. There's no +more, then, to trouble her for." + +"At twelve o'clock to-morrow?" Rhoda faltered. + +"Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and +punctually she would be here," said the maid. + +The farmer hung his head and turned. Rhoda followed him from the garden. +She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment by +Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: "You saw him go out, didn't +you?--into the cab?" that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her gabble. + +Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen? And if so, why was Dahlia +away from her husband? She questioned in her heart, but not for an +answer, for she allowed no suspicions to live. The farmer led on with +his plodding country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious +face, not speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him, +and let him be. Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings +he was to take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of +the business that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely. At +last she announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed to express +curiosity. Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about strange things +in the way of purchases. At that moment the farmer threw up his +umbrella, shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,-- + +"Oh, father, why do we want to ride?" + +"Yes, I tell ye!" said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar. + +"It is an expense, when we can walk, father." + +"What do I care for th' expense? I shall ride." He roared again for a +cab, and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not being +spoken to, became gravely placid as before. They were put down at +Boyne's Bank. Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand +away some paces from the door. They were kept about a quarter of an hour +waiting between two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way and +another, when out, at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with little +finicking steps, and hurried past them head foremost, his arms narrowed +across a bulgy breast. He stopped to make sure that they were following, +beckoned with his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate. Marvellous was +his rounding of corners, his threading of obstructions, his skilful +diplomacy with passengers. Presently they lost sight of him, and stood +bewildered; but while they were deliberating they heard his voice. He +was above them, having issued from two swinging bright doors; and he +laughed and nodded, as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by which +they were to understand that he was relieved of a weight. + +"I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John," he said. +"Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away +from you just now? Let any chap try to stop me! They may just as well +try to stop a railway train. Steam's up, and I'm off." + +He laughed and wiped his forehead. Slightly vexed at the small amount of +discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,-- + +"You don't think much of it. Why, there ain't another man but myself +Boyne's Bank would trust. They've trusted me thirty year:--why shouldn't +they go on trusting me another thirty year? A good character, brother +William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin. Didn't +you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you--eh? That was a matter of +one-two-three-four" Anthony watched the farmer as his voice swelled up on +the heightening numbers: "five-six-six thousand pounds, brother William +John. People must think something of a man to trust him with that sum +pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted--eh? don't you +think so?" + +He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible +temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their +stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of +which he really thought nothing at all--nothing! until the farmer's +countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was +dissolved in his brain. It was now manifest to him that Anthony was +trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers of +Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very +respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for +safety and credited him with the amount. Nay, more; it was fair to +imagine that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so +deep, had let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of +their prominent object in doing so. + +Mr. Fleming said, "Ah, yes, surely." + +He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy +exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when +he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the +same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf, +himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing to +swallow a very little for comfort. + +"Oh, of course!" said Anthony, jeeringly. "Out? If you catch her in, +these next three or four days, you'll be lucky. Ah, brother William +John!" + +The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head, +exclaimed: "What's the matter, man?" + +"How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!" + +"Ah!" went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his +neckerchief. + +"Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John." + +"Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!" + +"Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and +marry decently--eh?" and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with +Miss Wicklow. "What does she look so down about, my dear? Never be +down. I don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd +like him to be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who +farms. What does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days? Why, +he farms with brains. You'll find that in my last week's Journal, +brother William John, and thinks I, as I conned it--the farmer ought to +read that! You may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old +uncle's fond of ye." + +On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand. +It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the heart +to have missed her dear father and her darling sister. But her husband +had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases, and do a +dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged to take her +away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father very, very +soon. She wished she were her own mistress that she might run to them, +but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that she could +never call five minutes her own. She would entreat them to call +tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings. "But, oh! +my dear, my blessed Rhoda!" the letter concluded, "do keep fast in your +heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I pray it +every night and all day long. Beg father to stop till we meet. Things +will soon be arranged. They must. Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how handsome +you have grown. It is very well to be fair for a time, but the brunettes +have the happiest lot. They last, and when we blonde ones cry or grow +thin, oh! what objects we become!" + +There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations. + +The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead. + +Rhoda said: "Let us wait, father." + +When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the +secret meaning out of it. Thinking over it was useless; except for this +one thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome? +Perhaps the housemaid had prattled. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched at full +length upon the sofa of a pleasantly furnished London drawing-room, +sobbing to herself, with her handkerchief across her eyes. She had cried +passion out, and sobbed now for comfort. + +She lay in her rich silken dress like the wreck of a joyful creature, +while the large red Winter sun rounded to evening, and threw +deep-coloured beams against the wall above her head. They touched the +nut-brown hair to vivid threads of fire: but she lay faceless. Utter +languor and the dread of looking at her eyelids in the glass kept her +prostrate. + +So, the darkness closed her about; the sickly gas-lamps of the street +showing her as a shrouded body. + +A girl came in to spread the cloth for dinner, and went through her +duties with the stolidity of the London lodging-house maidservant, poking +a clogged fire to perdition, and repressing a songful spirit. + +Dahlia knew well what was being done; she would have given much to have +saved her nostrils from the smell of dinner; it was a great immediate +evil to her sickened senses; but she had no energy to call out, nor will +of any kind. The odours floated to her, and passively she combated them. + +At first she was nearly vanquished; the meat smelt so acrid, the potatoes +so sour; each afflicting vegetable asserted itself peculiarly; and the +bread, the salt even, on the wings of her morbid fancy, came steaming +about her, subtle, penetrating, thick, and hateful, like the pressure of +a cloud out of which disease is shot. + +Such it seemed to her, till she could have shrieked; but only a few fresh +tears started down her cheeks, and she lay enduring it. + +Dead silence and stillness hung over the dinner-service, when the outer +door below was opened, and a light foot sprang up the stairs. + +There entered a young gentleman in evening dress, with a loose black +wrapper drooping from his shoulders. + +He looked on the table, and then glancing at the sofa, said: + +"Oh, there she is!" and went to the window and whistled. + +After a minute of great patience, he turned his face back to the room +again, and commenced tapping his foot on the carpet. + +"Well?" he said, finding these indications of exemplary self-command +unheeded. His voice was equally powerless to provoke a sign of +animation. He now displaced his hat, and said, "Dahlia!" + +She did not move. + +"I am here to very little purpose, then," he remarked. + +A guttering fall of her bosom was perceptible. + +"For heaven's sake, take away that handkerchief, my good child! Why +have you let your dinner get cold? Here," he lifted a cover; "here's +roast-beef. You like it--why don't you eat it? That's only a small +piece of the general inconsistency, I know. And why haven't they put +champagne on the table for you? You lose your spirits without it. If +you took it when these moody fits came on--but there's no advising a +woman to do anything for her own good. Dahlia, will you do me the favour +to speak two or three words with me before I go? I would have dined +here, but I have a man to meet me at the Club. Of what mortal service is +it shamming the insensible? You've produced the required effect, I am as +uncomfortable as I need be. Absolutely! + +"Well," seeing that words were of no avail, he summed up expostulation +and reproach in this sigh of resigned philosophy: "I am going. Let me +see--I have my Temple keys?--yes! I am afraid that even when you are +inclined to be gracious and look at me, I shall not, be visible to you +for some days. I start for Lord Elling's to-morrow morning at five. I +meet my father there by appointment. I'm afraid we shall have to stay +over Christmas. Good-bye." He paused. "Good-bye, my dear." + +Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, "By the way, do you want +anything? Money?--do you happen to want any money? I will send a blank +cheque tomorrow. I have sufficient for both of us. I shall tell the +landlady to order your Christmas dinner. How about wine? There is +champagne, I know, and bottled ale. Sherry? I'll drop a letter to my +wine-merchant; I think the sherry's running dry." + +Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been +her sense of smell. She could not have spoken, though her vitality had +pressed for speech. It would have astonished him to hear that his +solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not +esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and +for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles +to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of +sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties? + +"Well, good-bye," he said, finally. The door closed. + +Had Dahlia's misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well +as her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure. But +with the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the +dinner-table would have saluted her, and it had already caused her +suffering enough. She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself, +"I am dead;" and softly revelling in that corpse-like sentiment. +She scarcely knew that the door had opened again. + +"Dahlia!" + +She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her. + +"Dahlia, my poor girl!" Her hand was pressed. It gave her no shudders. + +"I am dead," she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her +heart and stir it. + +"Dahlia, do be reasonable! I can't leave you like this. We shall be +separated for some time. And what a miserable fire you've got here! You +have agreed with me that we are acting for the best. It's very hard on +me I try what I can to make you comf--happy; and really, to see you +leaving your dinner to get cold! Your hands are like ice. The meat +won't be eatable. You know I'm not my own master. Come, Dahly, my +darling!" + +He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief. + +Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it +languidly to the wall. + +"Are you ill, my dear?" he asked. + +Men are so considerately practical! He begged urgently to be allowed to +send for a doctor. + +But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical +consolations! She moaned a refusal to see the doctor. + +Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally +uttered it. + +"Say good-bye to me," he whispered. "And my pretty one will write to me. +I shall reply so punctually! I don't like to leave her at Christmas; and +she will give me a line of Italian, and a little French--mind her +accents, though!--and she needn't attempt any of the nasty German- +-kshrra-kouzzra-kratz!--which her pretty lips can't do, and won't do; but +only French and Italian. Why, she learnt to speak Italian! "La dolcezza +ancor dentro me suona." Don't you remember, and made such fun of it at +first? 'Amo zoo;' 'no amo me?' my sweet!" + +This was a specimen of the baby-lover talk, which is charming in its +season, and maybe pleasantly cajoling to a loving woman at all times, +save when she is in Dahlia's condition. It will serve even then, or she +will pass it forgivingly, as not the food she for a moment requires; but +it must be purely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects the poor +chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with +unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her +the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to +blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe +brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the +play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days +will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will +thereby gain any advantage she is seeking. + +But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even +perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She felt +the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, "Good-bye, +Edward." + +He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, "Good-bye, +darling," he said. "But I must see her sit to table first. Such a +wretched dinner for her!" and he mumbled, "By Jove, I suppose I shan't +get any at all myself!" His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner +which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt. + +"Never mind," he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully, +thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed +dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone. + +For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes +looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were +mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin +pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold, +the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and +made no pretensions to allure it. + +The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical +appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the +poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the +philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so +little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the +windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell, +and said,-- + +"Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love. I've rung the bell +for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you +don't take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some +wine out. The champagne, at all events, won't be flat." + +He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was +still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and +sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face. + +An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the +maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the +wall, tottering away to her chamber. + +"Ah, poor thing!" ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the +demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in +a young man's calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,--quite +the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life? +It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that +for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are +tragic and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an +admirable wine--a sure specific for the sex! + +He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it +forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia's +housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He +welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room +royally open. + +Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of +comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks. +He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a +distant street: "Jump into a cab--champagne's nothing without ice, even +in Winter," he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to +name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice. + +The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within +those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came up +herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour +hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate +commands. One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs. +Ayrton in her room. He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrton's glass being +brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became more +exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that when +she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her for her +contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her protestations, +that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to their dinner, she +with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she sank in her chair. + +"It's not bad, after all," said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of +half-cold meat with champagne. "The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This +is Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip." + +She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and +could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased +him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went formally +through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and talked, +and she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she required +nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and setting +bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment. + +Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast, +that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom +of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward. + +"Has my darling seen her sister?" he asked softly. + +Dahlia answered, "No," in the same tone. + +Both looked away. + +"She won't leave town without seeing you?" + +"I hope--I don't know. She--she has called at our last lodgings twice." + +"Alone?" + +"Yes; I think so." + +Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered +uneasily. + +"Why not write to her, then?" + +"She will bring father." + +The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first, +while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her, +that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over +her, when his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her +relapsing at present. + +"You can't see your father?" + +"No." + +"But, do. It's best." + +"I can't." + +"Why not?" + +"Not--" she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap. + +"Yes, yes; I know," said he; "but still! You could surely see him. You +rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear." + +"No more." + +"Well; as I was saying, you force him to think--and there is no necessity +for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and then a +little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to gain time. +You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too. He has his +own idea of things. He's a proud man, as I've told you; tremendously +ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money +market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend against. Things +can't be done at once. If I give him a shock--well, we'll drop any +consideration of the consequences. Write to your sister to tell her to +bring your father. If they make particular inquiries--very unlikely I +think--but, if they do, put them at their ease." + +She sighed. + +"Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?" said he. + +There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient +twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said: + +"My sister called twice at my--our old lodgings. The second time, she +burst into tears. The girl told me so." + +"But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia." + +"Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids too." + +"Well, that maybe her way." + +"I have only seen her cry once, and that was when mother was dying, and +asked her to fetch a rose from the garden. I met her on the stairs. She +was like wood. She hates crying. She loves me so." + +The sympathetic tears rolled down Dahlia's cheeks. + +"So, you quite refuse to see your father?" he asked. + +"Not yet!" + +"Not yet," he repeated. + +At the touch of scorn in his voice, she exclaimed: + +"Oh, Edward! not yet, I cannot. I know I am weak. I can't meet him now. +If my Rhoda had come alone, as I hoped--! but he is with her. Don't +blame me, Edward. I can't explain. I only know that I really have not +the power to see him." + +Edward nodded. "The sentiment some women put into things is +inexplicable," he said. "Your sister and father will return home. They +will have formed their ideas. You know how unjust they will be. Since, +however, the taste is for being a victim--eh?" + +London lodging-house rooms in Winter when the blinds are down, and a +cheerless fire is in the grate, or when blinds are up and street-lamps +salute the inhabitants with uncordial rays, are not entertaining places +of residence for restless spirits. Edward paced about the room. He lit +a cigar and puffed at it fretfully. + +"Will you come and try one of the theatres for an hour?" he asked. + +She rose submissively, afraid to say that she thought she should look ill +in the staring lights; but he, with great quickness of perception, +rendered her task easier by naming the dress she was to wear, the jewels, +and the colour of the opera cloak. Thus prompted, Dahlia went to her +chamber, and passively attired herself, thankful to have been spared the +pathetic troubles of a selection of garments from her wardrobe. When she +came forth, Edward thought her marvellously beautiful. + +Pity that she had no strength of character whatever, nor any pointed +liveliness of mind to match and wrestle with his own, and cheer the +domestic hearth! But she was certainly beautiful. Edward kissed her +hand in commendation. Though it was practically annoying that she should +be sad, the hue and spirit of sadness came home to her aspect. Sorrow +visited her tenderly falling eyelids like a sister. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +But great, powerful London--the new universe to her spirit +But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it..... +But you must be beautiful to please some men +Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's heart, lay stretched.... +Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive men, and very personable women +It was her prayer to heaven that she might save a doctor's bill +Mrs. Fleming, of Queen Anne's Farm, was the wife of a yeoman +My plain story is of two Kentish damsels +The idea of love upon the lips of ordinary men, provoked Dahlia's irony +The kindest of men can be cruel +William John Fleming was simply a poor farmer + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v1 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4421.zip b/4421.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4567168 --- /dev/null +++ b/4421.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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