Rhoda Fleming, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, Complete

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Intoxication followed this new conception of her. He lost altogether his
right judgement; even the cooler after-thoughts were lost. What sort of
man had Harry been, her first husband? A dashing soldier, a quarrelsome
duellist, a dull dog. But, dull to her? She, at least, was reverential to
the memory of him.

She lisped now and then of "my husband," very prettily, and with intense
provocation; and yet she worshipped brains. Evidently she thirsted for
that rare union of brains and bravery in a man, and would never surrender
till she had discovered it. Perhaps she fancied it did not exist. It
might be that she took Edward as the type of brains, and Harry of
bravery, and supposed that the two qualities were not to be had actually
in conjunction.

Her admiration of his (Edward's) wit, therefore, only strengthened the
idea she entertained of his deficiency in that other companion manly
virtue.

Edward must have been possessed, for he ground his teeth villanously in
supposing himself the victim of this outrageous suspicion. And how to
prove it false? How to prove it false in a civilized age, among
sober-living men and women, with whom the violent assertion of bravery
would certainly imperil his claim to brains? His head was like a stew-pan
over the fire, bubbling endlessly.

He railed at her to Algernon, and astonished the youth, who thought them
in a fair way to make an alliance. "Milk and capsicums," he called her,
and compared her to bloody mustard-haired Saxon Queens of history, and
was childishly spiteful. And Mrs. Lovell had it all reported to her, as
he was-quite aware.

"The woman seeking for an anomaly wants a master."

With this pompous aphorism, he finished his reading of the fair Enigma.

Words big in the mouth serve their turn when there is no way of
satisfying the intelligence.

To be her master, however, one must not begin by writhing as her slave.

The attempt to read an inscrutable woman allows her to dominate us too
commandingly. So the lordly mind takes her in a hard grasp, cracks the
shell, and drawing forth the kernel, says, "This was all the puzzle."

Doubtless it is the fate which women like Mrs. Lovell provoke. The truth
was, that she could read a character when it was under her eyes; but its
yesterday and to-morrow were a blank. She had no imaginative hold on
anything. For which reason she was always requiring tangible signs of
virtues that she esteemed.

The thirst for the shows of valour and wit was insane with her; but she
asked for nothing that she herself did not give in abundance, and with
beauty super-added. Her propensity to bet sprang of her passion for
combat; she was not greedy of money, or reckless in using it; but a
difference of opinion arising, her instinct forcibly prompted her to back
her own. If the stake was the risk of a lover's life, she was ready to
put down the stake, and would have marvelled contemptuously at the lover
complaining. "Sheep! sheep!" she thought of those who dared not fight,
and had a wavering tendency to affix the epithet to those who simply did
not fight.

Withal, Mrs. Lovell was a sensible person; clearheaded and shrewd;
logical, too, more than the run of her sex: I may say, profoundly
practical. So much so, that she systematically reserved the after-years
for enlightenment upon two or three doubts of herself, which struck her
in the calm of her spirit, from time to time.

"France," Edward called her, in one of their colloquies.

It was an illuminating title. She liked the French (though no one was
keener for the honour of her own country in opposition to them), she
liked their splendid boyishness, their unequalled devotion, their
merciless intellects; the oneness of the nation when the sword is bare
and pointing to chivalrous enterprise.

She liked their fine varnish of sentiment, which appears so much on the
surface that Englishmen suppose it to have nowhere any depth; as if the
outer coating must necessarily exhaust the stock, or as if what is at the
source of our being can never be made visible.

She had her imagination of them as of a streaming banner in the jaws of
storm, with snows among the cloud-rents and lightning in the
chasms:--which image may be accounted for by the fact that when a girl
she had in adoration kissed the feet of Napoleon, the giant of the later
ghosts of history.

It was a princely compliment. She received it curtseying, and disarmed
the intended irony. In reply, she called him "Great Britain." I regret to
say that he stood less proudly for his nation. Indeed, he flushed. He
remembered articles girding at the policy of peace at any price, and half
felt that Mrs. Lovell had meant to crown him with a Quaker's hat. His
title fell speedily into disuse; but, "Yes, France," and "No, France,"
continued, his effort being to fix the epithet to frivolous allusions,
from which her ingenuity rescued it honourably.

Had she ever been in love? He asked her the question. She stabbed him
with so straightforward an affirmative that he could not conceal the
wound.

"Have I not been married?" she said.

He began to experience the fretful craving to see the antecedents of the
torturing woman spread out before him. He conceived a passion for her
girlhood. He begged for portraits of her as a girl. She showed him the
portrait of Harry Lovell in a locket. He held the locket between his
fingers. Dead Harry was kept very warm. Could brains ever touch her
emotions as bravery had done?

"Where are the brains I boast of?" he groaned, in the midst of these
sensational extravagances.

The lull of action was soon to be disturbed. A letter was brought to him.

He opened it and read--

"Mr. Edward Blancove,--When you rode by me under Fairly Park, I did
not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then
I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you
to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are
not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to
appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what
you have done. If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are
one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on
horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think so. You
will not talk about the law after that night. The man you employed
I may punish or I may leave, though he struck the blow. But I will
meet you. To-morrow, a friend of mine, who is a major in the army,
will be down here, and will call on you from me; or on any friend of
yours you are pleased to name. I will not let you escape. Whether
I shall face a guilty man in you, God knows; but I know I have a
right to call upon you to face me.

"I am, Sir,
"Yours truly,

"Robert Eccles."

Edward's face grew signally white over the contents of this unprecedented
challenge. The letter had been brought in to him at the breakfast table.
"Read it, read it," said Mrs. Lovell, seeing him put it by; and he had
read it with her eyes on him.

The man seemed to him a man of claws, who clutched like a demon. Would
nothing quiet him? Edward thought of bribes for the sake of peace; but a
second glance at the letter assured his sagacious mind that bribes were
powerless in this man's case; neither bribes nor sticks were of service.
Departure from Fairly would avail as little: the tenacious devil would
follow him to London; and what was worse, as a hound from Dahlia's family
he was now on the right scent, and appeared to know that he was. How was
a scandal to be avoided? By leaving Fairly instantly for any place on
earth, he could not avoid leaving the man behind; and if the man saw Mrs.
Lovell again, her instincts as a woman of her class were not to be
trusted. As likely as not she would side with the ruffian; that is, she
would think he had been wronged--perhaps think that he ought to have been
met. There is the democratic virus secret in every woman; it was
predominant in Mrs. Lovell, according to Edward's observation of the
lady. The rights of individual manhood were, as he angrily perceived,
likely to be recognized by her spirit, if only they were stoutly
asserted; and that in defiance of station, of reason, of all the ideas
inculcated by education and society.

"I believe she'll expect me to fight him," he exclaimed. At least, he
knew she would despise him if he avoided the brutal challenge without
some show of dignity.

On rising from the table, he drew Algernon aside. It was an insufferable
thought that he was compelled to take his brainless cousin into his
confidence, even to the extent of soliciting his counsel, but there was
no help for it. In vain Edward asked himself why he had been such an
idiot as to stain his hands with the affair at all. He attributed it to
his regard for Algernon. Having commonly the sway of his passions, he was
in the habit of forgetting that he ever lost control of them; and the
fierce black mood, engendered by Robert's audacious persecution, had
passed from his memory, though it was now recalled in full force.

"See what a mess you drag a man into," he said.

Algernon read a line of the letter. "Oh, confound this infernal fellow!"
he shouted, in sickly wonderment; and snapped sharp, "drag you into the
mess? Upon my honour, your coolness, Ned, is the biggest part about you,
if it isn't the best."

Edward's grip fixed on him, for they were only just out of earshot of
Mrs. Lovell. They went upstairs, and Algernon read the letter through.

"'Midnight assassin,'" he repeated; "by Jove! how beastly that sounds.
It's a lie that you attacked him in the dark, Ned--eh?"

"I did not attack him at all," said Edward. "He behaved like a ruffian to
you, and deserved shooting like a mad dog."

"Did you, though," Algernon persisted in questioning, despite his
cousin's manifest shyness of the subject "did you really go out with that
man Sedgett, and stop this fellow on horseback? He speaks of a blow. You
didn't strike him, did you, Ned? I mean, not a hit, except in
self-defence?"

Edward bit his lip, and shot a level reflective side-look, peculiar to
him when meditating. He wished his cousin to propose that Mrs. Lovell
should see the letter. He felt that by consulting with her, he could
bring her to apprehend the common sense of the position, and be so far
responsible for what he might do, that she would not dare to let her
heart be rebellious toward him subsequently. If he himself went to her it
would look too much like pleading for her intercession. The subtle
directness of the woman's spirit had to be guarded against at every
point.

He replied to Algernon,--

"What I did was on your behalf. Oblige me by not interrogating me. I give
you my positive assurance that I encouraged no unmanly assault on him."

"That'll do, that'll do," said Algernon, eager not to hear more, lest
there should come an explanation of what he had heard. "Of course, then,
this fellow has no right--the devil's in him! If we could only make him
murder Sedgett and get hanged for it! He's got a friend who's a major in
the army? Oh, come, I say; this is pitching it too stiff. I shall insist
upon seeing his commission. Really, Ned, I can't advise. I'll stand by
you, that you may be sure of--stand by you; but what the deuce to say to
help you! Go before the magistrate.... Get Lord Elling to issue a warrant
to prevent a breach of the peace. No; that won't do. This quack of a
major in the army's to call to-morrow. I don't mind, if he shows his
credentials all clear, amusing him in any manner he likes. I can't see
the best scheme. Hang it, Ned, it's very hard upon me to ask me to do the
thinking. I always go to Peggy Lovell when I'm bothered. There--Mrs.
Lovell! Mistress Lovell! Madame! my Princess Lovell, if you want me to
pronounce respectable titles to her name. You're too proud to ask a woman
to help you, ain't you, Ned?"

"No," said Edward, mildly. "In some cases their wits are keen enough. One
doesn't like to drag her into such a business."

"Hm," went Algernon. "I don't think she's so innocent of it as you
fancy."

"She's very clever," said Edward.

"She's awfully clever!" cried Algernon. He paused to give room for more
praises of her, and then pursued:

"She's so kind. That's what you don't credit her for. I'll go and consult
her, if positively you don't mind. Trust her for keeping it quiet. Come,
Ned, she's sure to hit upon the right thing. May I go?"

"It's your affair, more than mine," said Edward.

"Have it so, if you like," returned the good-natured fellow. "It's worth
while consulting her, just to see how neatly she'll take it. Bless your
heart, she won't know a bit more than you want her to know. I'm off to
her now." He carried away the letter.

Edward's own practical judgement would have advised his instantly sending
a short reply to Robert, explaining that he was simply in conversation
with the man Sedgett, when Robert, the old enemy of the latter, rode by,
and, that while regretting Sedgett's proceedings, he could not be held
accountable for them. But it was useless to think of acting in accordance
with his reason. Mrs. Lovell was queen, and sat in reason's place. It was
absolutely necessary to conciliate her approbation of his conduct in this
dilemma, by submitting to the decided unpleasantness of talking with her
on a subject that fevered him, and of allowing her to suppose he required
the help of her sagacity. Such was the humiliation imposed upon him.
Further than this he had nothing to fear, for no woman could fail to be
overborne by the masculine force of his brain in an argument. The
humiliation was bad enough, and half tempted him to think that his old
dream of working as a hard student, with fair and gentle Dahlia
ministering to his comforts, and too happy to call herself his, was best.
Was it not, after one particular step had been taken, the manliest life
he could have shaped out? Or did he imagine it so at this moment, because
he was a coward, and because pride, and vanity, and ferocity alternately
had to screw him up to meet the consequences of his acts, instead of the
great heart?

If a coward, Dahlia was his home, his refuge, his sanctuary. Mrs. Lovell
was perdition and its scorching fires to a man with a taint of cowardice
in him.

Whatever he was, Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge
himself that. Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting
music. His ideas turned to subterfuge. His aim was to keep the good
opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered
straightway upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of
winning her, to bewilder and deceive a woman's instincts.

CHAPTER XXIII

Over a fire in one of the upper sitting-rooms of the Pilot Inn, Robert
sat with his friend, the beloved friend of whom he used to speak to
Dahlia and Rhoda, too proudly not to seem betraying the weaker point of
pride. This friend had accepted the title from a private soldier of his
regiment; to be capable of doing which, a man must be both officer and
gentleman in a sterner and less liberal sense than is expressed by that
everlasting phrase in the mouth of the military parrot. Major Percy
Waring, the son of a clergyman, was a working soldier, a slayer, if you
will, from pure love of the profession of arms, and all the while the
sweetest and gentlest of men. I call him a working soldier in opposition
to the parading soldier, the coxcomb in uniform, the hero by accident,
and the martial boys of wealth and station, who are of the army of
England. He studied war when the trumpet slumbered, and had no place but
in the field when it sounded. To him the honour of England was as a babe
in his arms: he hugged it like a mother. He knew the military history of
every regiment in the service. Disasters even of old date brought groans
from him. This enthusiastic face was singularly soft when the large dark
eyes were set musing. The cast of it being such, sometimes in speaking of
a happy play of artillery upon congregated masses, an odd effect was
produced. Ordinarily, the clear features were reflective almost to
sadness, in the absence of animation; but an exulting energy for action
would now and then light them up. Hilarity of spirit did not belong to
him. He was, nevertheless, a cheerful talker, as could be seen in the
glad ear given to him by Robert. Between them it was "Robert" and
"Percy." Robert had rescued him from drowning on the East Anglian shore,
and the friendship which ensued was one chief reason for Robert's
quitting the post of trooper and buying himself out. It was against
Percy's advice, who wanted to purchase a commission for him; but the
humbler man had the sturdy scruples of his rank regarding money, and his
romantic illusions being dispersed by an experience of the absolute
class-distinctions in the service, Robert; that he might prevent his
friend from violating them, made use of his aunt's legacy to obtain
release. Since that date they had not met; but their friendship was fast.
Percy had recently paid a visit to Queen Anne's Farm, where he had seen
Rhoda and heard of Robert's departure. Knowing Robert's birthplace, he
had come on to Warbeach, and had seen Jonathan Eccles, who referred him
to Mrs. Boulby, licenced seller of brandy, if he wished to enjoy an
interview with Robert Eccles.

"The old man sent up regularly every day to inquire how his son was
faring on the road to the next world," said Robert, laughing. "He's tough
old English oak. I'm just to him what I appear at the time. It's better
having him like that than one of your jerky fathers, who seem to belong
to the stage of a theatre. Everybody respects my old dad, and I can laugh
at what he thinks of me. I've only to let him know I've served an
apprenticeship in farming, and can make use of some of his ideas--sound!
every one of 'em; every one of 'em sound! And that I say of my own
father."

"Why don't you tell him?" Percy asked.

"I want to forget all about Kent and drown the county," said Robert. "And
I'm going to, as far as my memory's concerned."

Percy waited for some seconds. He comprehended perfectly this state of
wilfulness in an uneducated sensitive man.

"She has a steadfast look in her face, Robert. She doesn't look as if she
trifled. I've really never seen a finer, franker girl in my life, if
faces are to be trusted."

"It's t' other way. There's no trifling in her case. She's frank. She
fires at you point blank."

"You never mentioned her in your letters to me, Robert."

"No. I had a suspicion from the first I was going to be a fool about the
girl."

Percy struck his hand.

"You didn't do quite right."

"Do you say that?"

Robert silenced him with this question, for there was a woman in Percy's
antecedent history.

The subject being dismissed, they talked more freely. Robert related the
tale of Dahlia, and of his doings at Fairly.

"Oh! we agree," he said, noting a curious smile that Percy could not
smooth out of sight. "I know it was odd conduct. I do respect my
superiors; but, believe me or not, Percy, injury done to a girl makes me
mad, and I can't hold back; and she's the sister of the girl you saw. By
heaven! if it weren't for my head getting blind now when my blood boils,
I've the mind to walk straight up to the house and screw the secret out
of one of them. What I say is--Is there a God up aloft? Then, he sees
all, and society is vapour, and while I feel the spirit in me to do it, I
go straight at my aim."

"If, at the same time, there's no brandy in you," said Percy, "which
would stop your seeing clear or going straight."

The suggestion was a cruel shock. Robert nodded. "That's true. I suppose
it's my bad education that won't let me keep cool. I'm ashamed of myself
after it. I shout and thunder, and the end of it is, I go away and think
about the same of Robert Eccles that I've frightened other people into
thinking. Perhaps you'll think me to blame in this case? One of those Mr.
Blancoves--not the one you've heard of--struck me on the field before a
lady. I bore it. It was part of what I'd gone out to meet. I was riding
home late at night, and he stood at the corner of the lane, with an old
enemy of mine, and a sad cur that is! Sedgett's his name--Nic, the
Christian part of it. There'd just come a sharp snowfall from the north,
and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the rear-cloud; and I saw
Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the gentleman had no stick. I'll
give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not meaning to be active in a
dastardly assault.

"But why was he in consultation with my enemy? And he let my enemy--by
the way, Percy, you dislike that sort of talk of 'my enemy,' I know. You
like it put plain and simple: but down in these old parts again, I catch
at old habits; and I'm always a worse man when I haven't seen you for a
time. Sedgett, say. Sedgett, as I passed, made a sweep at my horse's
knees, and took them a little over the fetlock. The beast reared. While I
was holding on he swung a blow at me, and took me here."

Robert touched his head. "I dropped like a horse-chestnut from the tree.
When I recovered, I was lying in the lane. I think I was there flat, face
to the ground, for half an hour, quite sensible, looking at the pretty
colour of my blood on the snow. The horse was gone. I just managed to
reel along to this place, where there's always a home for me. Now, will
you believe it possible? I went out next day: I saw Mr. Edward Blancove,
and I might have seen a baby and felt the same to it. I didn't know him a
bit. Yesterday morning your letter was sent up from Sutton farm. Somehow,
the moment I'd read it, I remembered his face. I sent him word there was
a matter to be settled between us. You think I was wrong?"

Major Waring had set a deliberately calculating eye on him.

"I want to hear more," he said.

"You think I have no claim to challenge a man in his position?"

"Answer me first, Robert. You think this Mr. Blancove helped, or
instigated this man Sedgett in his attack upon you?"

"I haven't a doubt that he did."

"It's not plain evidence."

"It's good circumstantial evidence."

"At any rate, you are perhaps justified in thinking him capable of this:
though the rule is, to believe nothing against a gentleman until it is
flatly proved--when we drum him out of the ranks. But, if you can fancy
it true, would you put yourself upon an equal footing with him?"

"I would," said Robert.

"Then you accept his code of morals."

"That's too shrewd for me: but men who preach against duelling, or any
kind of man-to-man in hot earnest, always fence in that way."

"I detest duelling," Major Waring remarked. "I don't like a system that
permits knaves and fools to exercise a claim to imperil the lives of
useful men. Let me observe, that I am not a preacher against it. I think
you know my opinions; and they are not quite those of the English
magistrate, and other mild persons who are wrathful at the practice upon
any pretence. Keep to the other discussion. You challenge a man--you
admit him your equal. But why do I argue with you? I know your mind as
well as my own. You have some other idea in the background."

"I feel that he's the guilty man," said Robert.

"You feel called upon to punish him."

"No. Wait: he will not fight; but I have him and I'll hold him. I feel
he's the man who has injured this girl, by every witness of facts that I
can bring together; and as for the other young fellow I led such a dog's
life down here, I could beg his pardon. This one's eye met mine. I saw it
wouldn't have stopped short of murder--opportunity given. Why? Because I
pressed on the right spring. I'm like a woman in seeing some things. He
shall repent. By--! Slap me on the face, Percy. I've taken to brandy and
to swearing. Damn the girl who made me forget good lessons! Bless her
heart, I mean. She saw you, did she? Did she colour when she heard your
name?"

"Very much," said Major Waring.

"Was dressed in--?"

"Black, with a crimson ribbon round the collar."

Robert waved the image from his eyes.

"I'm not going to dream of her. Peace, and babies, and farming, and pride
in myself with a woman by my side--there! You've seen her--all that's
gone. I might as well ask the East wind to blow West. Her face is set the
other way. Of course, the nature and value of a man is shown by how he
takes this sort of pain; and hark at me! I'm yelling. I thought
I was cured. I looked up into the eyes of a lady ten times
sweeter--when?--somewhen! I've lost dates. But here's the girl at me
again. She cuddles into me--slips her hand into my breast and tugs at
strings there. I can't help talking to you about her, now we've got over
the first step. I'll soon give it up.

"She wore a red ribbon? If it had been Spring, you'd have seen roses. Oh!
what a stanch heart that girl has. Where she sets it, mind! Her life
where that creature sets her heart! But, for me, not a penny of comfort!
Now for a whole week of her, day and night, in that black dress with the
coloured ribbon. On she goes: walking to church; sitting at table;
looking out of the window!

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