Rhoda Fleming, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, Complete

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34

It was clear that Providence cared "not a rap," whether he won or
lost--was good or bad. One might just as well be a heathen; why not?

He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil, but
"all of a piece," as he said), and made his way to the Ring. The
bee-swarm was thick as ever on the golden bough. Algernon heard no
curses, and began to nourish hope again, as he advanced. He began to hope
wildly that this rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there was no
commotion, no one declaiming.

He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an
entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot the
gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the acuter
twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity. And then the cabman
made himself heard: a civil cabman, but without directions, and uncertain
of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading a crowd
after a deaf gentleman. His half-injured look restored to Algernon his
self-possession.

"Ah! there you are:--scurry away and fetch my purse out of the bottom of
the cab. I've dropped it."

On this errand, the confiding cabman retired. Holding to a gentleman's
purse is even securer than holding to a gentleman.

While Algernon was working his forefinger in his waistcoat-pocket
reflectively, a man at his elbow said, with a show of familiar
deference,--

"If it's any convenience to you, sir," and showed the rim of a gold piece
'twixt finger and thumb.

"All right," Algernon replied readily, and felt that he was known, but
tried to keep his eyes from looking at the man's face; which was a vain
effort. He took the money, nodded curtly, and passed in.

Once through the barrier, he had no time to be ashamed. He was in the
atmosphere of challenges. He heard voices, and saw men whom not to
challenge, or try a result with, was to acknowledge oneself mean, and to
abandon the manliness of life. Algernon's betting-book was soon out and
in operation. While thus engaged, he beheld faces passing and repassing
that were the promise of luncheon and a loan; and so comfortable was the
assurance thereof to him, that he laid the thought of it aside, quite in
the background, and went on betting with an easy mind.

Small, senseless bets, they merely occupied him; and winning them was
really less satisfactory than losing, which, at all events, had the merit
of adding to the bulk of his accusation against the ruling Powers unseen.

Algernon was too savage for betting when the great race was run. He
refused both at taunts and cajoleries; but Lord Suckling coming by, said
"Name your horse," and, caught unawares, Algernon named Little John, one
of the ruck, at a hazard. Lord Suckling gave him fair odds, asking: "In
tens?--fifties?"

"Silver," shrugged Algernon, implacable toward Fortune; and the kindly
young nobleman nodded, and made allowance for his ill-temper and want of
spirit, knowing the stake he had laid on the favourite.

Little John startled the field by coming in first at a canter.

"Men have committed suicide for less than this" said Algernon within his
lips, and a modest expression of submission to fate settled on his
countenance. He stuck to the Ring till he was haggard with fatigue. His
whole nature cried out for Champagne, and now he burst away from that
devilish circle, looking about for Lord Suckling and a hamper. Food and a
frothing drink were all that he asked from Fortune. It seemed to him that
the concourse on the downs shifted in a restless way.

"What's doing, I wonder?" he thought aloud.

"Why, sir, the last race ain't generally fashionable," said his cabman,
appearing from behind his shoulder. "Don't you happen to be peckish,
sir?--'cause, luck or no luck, that's my case. I couldn't see, your
purse, nowheres."

"Confound you! how you hang about me! What do you want?" Algernon cried;
and answered his own question, by speeding the cabman to a booth with
what money remained to him, and appointing a place of meeting for the
return. After which he glanced round furtively to make sure that he was
not in view of the man who had lent him the sovereign. It became evident
that the Downs were flowing back to London.

He hurried along the lines of carriages, all getting into motion. The
ghastly conviction overtook him that he was left friendless, to starve.
Wherever he turned, he saw strangers and empty hampers, bottles, straw,
waste paper--the ruins of the feast: Fate's irony meantime besetting him
with beggars, who swallowed his imprecations as the earnest of coming
charity in such places.

At last, he was brought almost to sigh that he might see the man who had
lent him the sovereign, and his wish was hardly formed, when Nicodemus
Sedgett approached, waving a hat encircled by preposterous wooden
figures, a trifle less lightly attired than the ladies of the ballet, and
as bold in the matter of leg as the female fashion of the period.

Algernon eyed the lumpy-headed, heavy-browed rascal with what disgust he
had left in him, for one who came as an instrument of the Fates to help
him to some poor refreshment. Sedgett informed him that he had never had
such fun in his life.

"Just 'fore matrimony," he communicated in a dull whisper, "a fellow
ought to see a bit o' the world, I says--don't you, sir? and this has
been rare sport, that it has! Did ye find your purse, sir? Never mind
'bout that ther' pound. I'll lend you another, if ye like. How sh'll it
be? Say the word."

Algernon was meditating, apparently on a remote subject. He nodded
sharply.

"Yes. Call at my chambers to-morrow."

Another sovereign was transferred to him: but Sedgett would not be shaken
off.

"I just wanted t' have a bit of a talk with you," he spoke low.

"Hang it! I haven't eaten all day," snapped the irritable young
gentleman, fearful now of being seen in the rascal's company.

"You come along to the jolliest booth--I'll show it to you," said
Sedgett, and lifted one leg in dancing attitude. "Come along, sir: the
jolliest booth I ever was in, dang me if it ain't! Ale and music--them's
my darlings!" the wretch vented his slang. "And I must have a talk with
you. I'll stick to you. I'm social when I'm jolly, that I be: and I don't
know a chap on these here downs. Here's the pint: Is all square? Am I t'
have the cash in cash counted down, I asks? And is it to be before, or is
it to be after, the ceremony? There! bang out! say, yes or no."

Algernon sent him to perdition with infinite heartiness, but he was dry,
dispirited, and weak, and he walked on, Sedgett accompanying him. He
entered a booth, and partook of ale and ham, feeling that he was in the
dregs of calamity. Though the ale did some service in reviving, it did
not cheer him, and he had a fit of moral objection to Sedgett's
discourse.

Sedgett took his bluntness as a matter to be endured for the honour of
hob-a-nobbing with a gentleman. Several times he recurred to the theme
which he wanted, as he said, to have a talk upon.

He related how he had courted the young woman, "bashful-like," and had
been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as she
used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had pulled
her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the fever,
which had taken her pride clean out of her; and when he had put the
question to her on the evening of last Sunday, she had gone into a sort
of faint, and he walked away with her affirmative locked up in his
breast-pocket, and was resolved always to treat her well--which he swore
to.

"Married, and got the money, and the lease o' my farm disposed of, I'm
off to Australia and leave old England behind me, and thank ye, mother,
thank ye! and we shan't meet again in a hurry. And what sort o' song I'm
to sing for 'England is my nation, ain't come across me yet. Australia's
such a precious big world; but that'll come easy in time. And there'll I
farm, and damn all you gentlemen, if you come anigh me."

The eyes of the fellow were fierce as he uttered this; they were rendered
fierce by a peculiar blackish flush that came on his brows and
cheek-bones; otherwise, the yellow about the little brown dot in the
centre of the eyeball had not changed; but the look was unmistakably
savage, animal, and bad. He closed the lids on them, and gave a sort of
churlish smile immediately afterward.

"Harmony's the game. You act fair, I act fair. I've kept to the
condition. She don't know anything of my whereabouts--res'dence, I mean;
and thinks I met you in her room for the first time. That's the truth,
Mr. Blancove. And thinks me a sheepish chap, and I'm that, when I'm along
wi' her. She can't make out how I come to call at her house and know her
first. Gives up guessing, I suppose, for she's quiet about it; and I
pitch her tales about Australia, and life out there. I've got her to
smile, once or twice. She'll turn her hand to making cheeses, never you
fear. Only, this I say. I must have the money. It's a thousand and a
bargain. No thousand, and no wife for me. Not that I don't stand by the
agreement. I'm solid."

Algernon had no power of encountering a human eye steadily, or he would
have shown the man with a look how repulsive he was to a gentleman. His
sensations grew remorseful, as if he were guilty of handing a victim to
the wretch.

But the woman followed her own inclination, did she not? There was no
compulsion: she accepted this man. And if she could do that, pity was
wasted on her!

So thought he: and so the world would think of the poor forlorn soul
striving to expiate her fault, that her father and sister might be at
peace, without shame.

Algernon signified to Sedgett that the agreement was fixed and
irrevocable on his part.

Sedgett gulped some ale.

"Hands on it," he said, and laid his huge hand open across the table.

This was too much.

"My word must satisfy you," said Algernon, rising.

"So it shall. So it do," returned Sedgett, rising with him. "Will you
give it in writing?"

"I won't."

"That's blunt. Will you come and have a look at a sparring-match in yond'
brown booth, sir?"

"I am going back to London."

"London and the theayter that's the fun, now, ain't it!" Sedgett laughed.

Algernon discerned his cabman and the conveyance ready, and beckoned him.

"Perhaps, sir," said Sedgett, "if I might make so bold--I don't want to
speak o' them sovereigns--but I've got to get back too, and cash is run
low. D' ye mind, sir? Are you kind-hearted?"

A constitutional habit of servility to his creditor when present before
him signalized Algernon. He detested the man, but his feebleness was
seized by the latter question, and he fancied he might, on the road to
London, convey to Sedgett's mind that it would be well to split that
thousand, as he had previously devised.

"Jump in," he said.

When Sedgett was seated, Algernon would have been glad to walk the
distance to London to escape from the unwholesome proximity. He took the
vacant place, in horror of it. The man had hitherto appeared respectful;
and in Dahlia's presence he had seemed a gentle big fellow with a
reverent, affectionate heart. Sedgett rallied him.

"You've had bad luck--that's wrote on your hatband. Now, if you was a
woman, I'd say, tak' and go and have a peroose o' your Bible. That's what
my young woman does; and by George! it's just like medicine to her--that
'tis! I've read out to her till I could ha' swallowed two quart o' beer
at a gulp--I was that mortal thirsty. It don't somehow seem to improve
men. It didn't do me no good. There was I, cursin' at the bother, down in
my boots, like, and she with her hands in a knot, staring the fire out o'
count'nance. They're weak, poor sort o' things."

The intolerable talk of the ruffian prompted Algernon to cry out, for
relief,--

"A scoundrel like you must be past any good to be got from reading his
Bible."

Sedgett turned his dull brown eyes on him, the thick and hateful flush of
evil blood informing them with detestable malignity.

"Come; you be civil, if you're going to be my companion," he said. "I
don't like bad words; they don't go down my windpipe. 'Scoundrel 's a
name I've got a retort for, and if it hadn't been you, and you a
gentleman, you'd have had it spanking hot from the end o' my fist.
Perhaps you don't know what sort of a arm I've got? Just you feel that
ther' muscle."

He doubled his arm, the knuckles of the fist toward Algernon's face.

"Down with it, you dog!" cried Algernon, crushing his hat as he started
up.

"It'll come on your nose, if I downs with it, my lord," said Sedgett.
"You've what they Londoners calls 'bonneted yourself.'"

He pulled Algernon by the coat-tail into his seat.

"Stop!" Algernon shouted to the cabman.

"Drive ahead!" roared Sedgett.

This signal of a dissension was heard along the main street of Epsom, and
re-awakened the flagging hilarity of the road.

Algernon shrieked his commands; Sedgett thundered his. They tussled, and
each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came apart
by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows. Overhead, the
cabman--not merely a cabman, but an individual--flicked the flanks of his
horse, and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from
shop-doors and pavement.

"Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial," he remarked; and having lifted his
little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below, he shut
away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along benignly.

Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking
his pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife rushing
on like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with an
authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the case
to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon wheels,
and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little donkey in
such a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.

The combatants jumped into the road.

"That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport," said the donkey's
man. "O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit."

"There's sunset on their faces," said the cabman. "Would you try a
by-lane, gentlemen?"

But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
couple.

"Taint fair play," he said to Sedgett. "You leave that gentleman alone,
you, sir?"

The man with the pipe came up.

"No fighting," he observed. "We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
getting drunk and disorderly. You drop your fists."

The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
was up.

A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles
of every description.

A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, "Sedgett!" burst
from his lips involuntarily.

The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time) turned
their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.

"Will you come on?" Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one of
the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding, he
shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to his
seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the cab-horse to start
and antic.

Greatly to the amazement of the spectators, the manifest gentleman (by
comparison) who had recently been at a pummelling match with him, and
bore the stains of it, hung his head, stepped on the cab, and suffered
himself to be driven away.

"Sort of a 'man-and-wife' quarrel," was the donkey's man's comment.
"There's something as corks 'em up, and something uncorks 'em; but what
that something is, I ain't, nor you ain't, man enough to inform the
company."

He rubbed his little donkey's nose affectionately.

"Any gentleman open to a bet I don't overtake that ere Hansom within
three miles o' Ewell?" he asked, as he took the rein.

But his little donkey's quality was famous in the neighbourhood.

"Come on, then," he said; "and show what you can do, without emilation,
Master Tom."

Away the little donkey trotted.

CHAPTER XXX

Those two in the open carriage, one of whom had called out Sedgett's
name, were Robert and Major Waring. When the cab had flown by, they fell
back into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day
having been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall.

True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent
enjoyment. Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory of
the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly
counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in
company with Algernon Blancove.

It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled and
come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative necessity for
fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and the fair
division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon terms
sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come about?
How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly with such a
fellow? He decided that it meant something, and something ominous--but
what? Whom could it affect? Was Algernon Blancove such a poor creature
that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with Sedgett to keep
him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his coat-tail? It
seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so weak, but it
might be the case; and "if so," thought Robert, "and I let him know I
bear him no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be doing him a
service."

He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward,
just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered that
he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by apologizing,
as if he himself had no complaint to make.

He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come. Meantime, what on
earth brought them together?

"How white the hedges are!" he said.

"There's a good deal of dust," Major Waring replied.

"I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races."

"They do, you see."

Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach of
the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange
alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was
compelled to say, "I can't get to the bottom of that."

"That squabble in the road?" said Percy. "We shall see two or three more
before we reach home."

"No. What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?"
Robert persisted.

"One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose," Percy gave
answer. "That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom. Those who jump
into the same pond generally come out the same colour."

Robert spoke low.

"Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?"

"I told you I declined to think till we were home again. Confound it,
man, have you no idea of a holiday?"

Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke.

"Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell," he said.

"That's not a holiday for me," Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too
preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,--

"Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?"

"Come," said Percy, "we haven't betted to-day. I'll bet you she will, if
you like. Will you bet against it?"

"I won't. I can't nibble at anything. Betting's like drinking."

"But you can take a glass of wine. This sort of bet is much the same.
However, don't; for you would lose."

"There," said Robert; "I've heard of being angry with women for
fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things. She's a lady I
couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the reason--it
ain't a matter of reason at all--she fascinates me. I do, I declare,
clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs. Lovell at a
distance. How's that? I'm not a fool, with nonsensical fancies of any
kind. I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my position might be
ass enough to--all sorts of things. It isn't that; it's fascination. I'm
afraid of her. If she talks to me, I feel something like having gulped a
bottle of wine. Some women you have a respect for; some you like or you
love; some you despise: with her, I just feel I'm intoxicated."

Major Waring eyed him steadily. He said: "I'll unriddle it, if I can, to
your comprehension. She admires you for what you are, and she lets you
see it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it. She has a
worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her."

Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him. "Then why, if
she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against
me?"

"Ah! now you go deeper. She is giving you what assistance she can; at
present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings.
Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by. Now we enter London,
and our day is over. How did you like it?"

Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs.

"The race was glorious. I wish we could go at that pace in life; I should
have a certainty of winning. How miserably dull the streets look; and the
people creep along--they creep, and seem to like it. Horseback's my
element."

They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been
living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his two
homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia--a
pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading
misery to a man of his composition. Often had he thought of enlisting
again, and getting drafted to a foreign station. Nothing but the
consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have kept
him from his vice. As it was, he had lived through the months between
Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the tortuous
lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming upon absurd
mishaps in his effort to reach it. His adventures in London partook
somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the victim; for
whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been taken. These
misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no mention of in
his letters to Percy.

But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer, in
a lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table. Robert
opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain
on fire, and said:

"It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.' This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'"

"She could hardly do less," Percy remarked.

"I know: but there is a change in her. There's a summer in her writing
now. She has kept her word, Percy. She's the dearest lady in the world. I
don't ask why she didn't help me before."

"You acknowledge the policy of mild measures," said Major Waring.

"She's the dearest lady in the world," Robert repeated. He checked his
enthusiasm. "Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have."

The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb.

As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, "I will be here at
twelve. Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say
nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of
it. Good-bye."

Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence. His thoughts were
on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister of
his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth! With him, pity for
a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and as he
walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to avenge
her at Warbeach. She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking off from
one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant from his own
lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony. He could not
discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky little
strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors. A faint smell of lilac
recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began ringing.
The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven. He was at
the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the garden
beside him.

A man said, "Then I have your answer?"

A woman said, "Yes; yes."

"You will not trust to my pledged honour?"

"Pardon me; not that. I will not live in disgrace."

"When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you
right before the world?"

"Oh! pardon me."

"You will?"

"No; no! I cannot."

"You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you, and
for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be fenced
from gossip, and nothing more. I thought you were a woman above that kind
of meanness. And this is a common countryman. How will you endure that
kind of life? You were made for elegance and happiness: you shall have
it. I met you before your illness, when you would not listen to me: I met
you after. I knew you at once. Am I changed? I swear to you I have
dreamed of you ever since, and love you. Be as faded as you like; be
hideous, if you like; but come with me. You know my name, and what I am.
Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I have
written to you, and made the same proposal. And you won't trust to my
honour? When I tell you I love you tenderly? When I give you my solemn
assurance that you shall not regret it? You have been deceived by one
man: why punish me? I know--I feel you are innocent and good. This is the
third time that you have permitted me to speak to you: let it be final.
Say you will trust yourself to me--trust in my honour. Say it shall be
to-morrow. Yes; say the word. To-morrow. My sweet creature--do!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34