Rhoda Fleming, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, Complete

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"Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of
my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every
other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work.
If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an
offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they don't
makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members.

"They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call
them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their
incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not
the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go
to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of
opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer
you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal to
my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the
modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into
competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when
she is to go into harness with a yokefellow.

"But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak,
seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir, you
will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest judgement
in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny to leave
England I lose the association with him who must ever be my dearest
friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the relation
of father."

With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had
spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste,
which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating
sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in
comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a
wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression. His
father stood up.

"We shall be always friends; I hope," Sir William said. "As regards a
provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You
must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same
time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions."

"Certainly, sir," said Edward, not conceiving any new development in
these.

"You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?"

Edward flushed. "I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if--" he
laughed slightly--"you will think I want everybody to be married and in
the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married."

"I am also of that opinion," said Sir William. "I will detain you no
longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of
course."

"No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for
Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a
hopeful augury."

"I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's
real duty at the Bank."

"Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir."

"Good morning." Sir William shook his son's hand.

A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. "That's over!" he said,
sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of
cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky.

CHAPTER XXXV

A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to
Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an
end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as much
to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in the
desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded
Dahlia's foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so; for,
to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced to be
a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world, through the
selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and wavered, or rather
shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble husband who would
wipe the spot of shame from her forehead.

When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress
of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss
her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white
face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single
groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch
of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and
seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by
the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she had
conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia's face. She had imagined agony,
tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It was a
face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died. The ghastly little
skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to hear her
talk simply of home and the old life. At each question, the then and the
now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing scenes. But the
talk deepened. Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their tongues were
hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia faltered and
huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent; Rhoda learnt
that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who had deceived
her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion and forgiveness;
but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it love. Dahlia submitted
gladly to the torture of interrogation; "Do you, can you care for him
still?" and sighed in shame and fear of her sister, not daring to say she
thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape, as she had done with
Robert.

"Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and
cannot die?" she moaned.

And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable,
and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of
her--passionate praise of her--when she confessed, that half inanimate
after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might thereby
show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life to the
only creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda made her
relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring diligence,
he had followed her up and found her. "He--he must love you," said Rhoda;
and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's weakness,
and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that Dahlia must
be thought for very much as if she were a child.

Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other
of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst
for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of
it was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the
consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle
with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly
counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real
vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part. But Dahlia's blood
was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight in
her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the
minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts went
to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough,
would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She expected a
sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to herself that
misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we are
penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if she
refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her body
to be borne along, God would be the more merciful. With the small cunning
of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and deceived
herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a lessened horror
and alarm.

This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near.
Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his
ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
could not have submitted.

Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little
which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time,
gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she dropped her
head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she
renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and
to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia's
frenzy left no courage behind it.

Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, "I am still subject to nervous
attacks."

"They will soon leave you," said Rhoda, nursing her hand.

Dahlia contracted her lips. "Is father very unforgiving to women?"

"Poor father!" Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was taken
with a convulsion.

"Where shall I see him to-morrow?" she asked; and, glancing from the
beamless candle to the window-blinds "Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep!
It's day! where am I to see him?"

"At Robert's lodgings. We all go there."

"We all go?--he goes?"

"Your husband will lead you there."

"My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little--just
a little."

"I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right," said Rhoda.

"If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to
you."

"It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you," said Rhoda.

"You think I must do this? Must? Why?"

"Why?" Rhoda pressed her fingers. "Why, when you were ill, did you not
write to me, that I might have come to you?"

"I was ashamed," said Dahlia.

"You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister."

Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked
out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face,
giving dry sobs.

"Oh! I wish--I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His face!
Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor says I am
so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I am
not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father's house--I would
give all my love to a little bed of flowers."

"Father has no home now," said Rhoda.

"I know--I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not be
ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I am
ready. It is not much." She blew the candle out. "See. No one will do
that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, and I
am going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, and that
proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another night with
you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can't sleep now--it's
day."

"Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling," said Rhoda.

While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out
once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then
her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry;
she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.

"He is there."

CHAPTER XXXVI

At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of him
who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She
started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,--

"Come with me. You are to come with me. Don't speak. I know. I will go
down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you."

Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry, she
uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a
shuddering fit.

"What am I to do?" she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her
bedroom.

"Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your
sister."

Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the door
on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper anger
there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a minute,
as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her shawl. A
night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the swimming
lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should be seemly, she
ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without hesitation closed
the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman crossed the road.
He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house? Rhoda's vision danced
across his features, but she knew him unerringly to be the cruel enemy.

"My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there," she said.

"Then, you are Rhoda?"

"My name is Rhoda."

"Mine--I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it--is Edward
Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad."

She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house,
and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary
footing of an early workman going to his labour.

She stopped, and he said, "I hope your sister is well."

"She is quite well."

"Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness."

"She has quite recovered."

"Did she--tell me the truth--did she get a letter that I sent two days
ago, to her? It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.'
Did it reach her?"

"I have not seen it."

"I wrote," said Edward.

His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a
side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her
succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to
the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women.
Perhaps--who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an
added knot--it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a
justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned
tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot.

"You know me, do you not?" he said.

"Yes," she answered shortly.

"I wish to see Dahlia."

"You cannot."

"Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the morning.
If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me."

"No, not later; not at all," said Rhoda.

"Not at all? Why not?"

Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying
simply, "You will not see her."

"My child, I must."

"I am not a child, and I say what I mean."

"But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to
see me? You can't. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself."

"Yes; you know that," said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and
confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class,
that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension.

"She has not changed? Rhoda--for we used to talk of you so often! You
will think better of me, by-and-by.

"Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute. I can't
explain it, and I don't excuse myself. I state the fact to you--her
sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a message to
her from me?"

"I will not."

"You are particularly positive."

Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by.

"Why are you so decided?" he said more urgently. "I know I have deeply
offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the
utmost of my power. Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part to
seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it be her
choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She can't have
had my letter. Will you do that much?"

"She knows that you are here; she has seen you."

"Has seen me?" Edward drew in his breath sharply. "Well? and she sends
you out to me?"

Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame of
mind.

"She does send you to speak to me," Edward insisted.

"She knows that I have come."

"And you will not take one message in?"

"I will take no message from you."

"You hate me, do you not?"

Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard
speech. He went on:--

"Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia
and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles, not
even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in London?"

Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes.

"Do not come before him, I advise you."

"If," said Edward, with almost womanly softness, "you could know what I
have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would
understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I
would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you be
persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?"

This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her
self-possession.

"Are you cold?" he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her.

"I am not cold. I cannot remain here." Rhoda tightened her intertwisting
fingers across under her bosom. "Don't try to kill my sister outright.
She's the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. She will soon be
out of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if you get near her.
Never! you never shall. You have lied to her--brought disgrace on her poor
head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find nothing that excuses you.
You are not punished, because there is no young man in our family. Go."

Edward gazed at her for some time. "Well, I've deserved worse," he said,
not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her
concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony it
gave him that he was certainly not too late.

"You know, Rhoda, she loves me."

"If she does, let her pray to God on her knees."

"My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take me
for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like a
bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you ought
not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am come to
claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a moment to
use your reason. Will you do what I ask?"

"I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service," said Rhoda.

"Citoyenne Corday," thought Edward, and observed: "Then I will dispense
with your assistance."

He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him.
They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He
attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it.

"I allow nothing to stand between her and me," he said, and seized her
arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert
appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and,
coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar, swinging
him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the three eyed
one another.

"It's you," said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics
desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his
company.

Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula wherewith
to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert, Rhoda
following.

"What does this mean?" said Robert sternly.

Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was this
man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him
against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than Mrs.
Lovell's witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and rid
of all botheration, at any cost.

"You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you," he cried.

"If you mean Dahlia Fleming," said Robert, "it'd be a base creature that
would think of doing harm to her now."

He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in
Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was
a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more
generous view.

"I think your name is Eccles," said Edward. "Mr. Eccles, my position here
is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have done you
personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your reproaches, or
what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the favour to grant
me five minutes in private. It is imperative."

Rhoda burst in--"No, Robert!" But Robert said, "It is a reasonable
request;" and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked
apart with Edward.

She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their
gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances.
It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple and
trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see
Robert's listening posture. "Lies! lies!" she said to herself, "and he
doesn't know them to be lies." The window-blinds in Dahlia's sitting-room
continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the servant of the
house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing to dangerous
strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda fortified her soul to
resist.

"He has fooled you," she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke.

"Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do what a
man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I'm bound not to disbelieve
him. He says he repents--says the word; and gentlemen seem to mean it
when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they're up to that
word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did the
mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven and
make amends--well, such as he can. He's been abroad, and only received
Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days. He seems to love her,
and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you'll decide; but pray,
pray don't be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken to his
father this very night; came straight over from France, after he had read
her letters. He says--and it seems fair--he only asks to see Dahlia for
two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He's not a friend of mine, as I
could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her. He says he looks
on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but things were
against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so; and it's true
that gentlemen are situated--they can't always, or think they can't,
behave quite like honest men. They've got a hundred things to consider
for our one. That's my experience, and I know something of the best among
'em. The question is about this poor young fellow who's to marry her
to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum--a thousand
pounds--and making him comfortable--"

"There!" Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. "You don't see what he
is, after that? Oh!--" She paused, revolted.

"Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found, and
put the case to him--that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn't like
the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when he
comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change when
they're young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either he's
as clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves pity. If
you'd heard him!"

"My poor sister!" sighed Rhoda. The mentioning of money to be paid had
sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of
degradation.

Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued. Then Rhoda said:
"We are bound to this young man who loves my sister--bound to him in
honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented. As for the
other..." She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a
quick shake of her head. "I rely on you to do this:--I will speak to Mr.
Blancove myself. He shall not see her there." She indicated the house.
"Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings. Father
will not arrive till twelve. Wait and comfort her till I come, and answer
no questions. Robert," she gave him her hand gently, and, looking
sweetly, "if you will do this!"

"If I will!" cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness. The
servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on
scrubbing, and he passed in. Rhoda walked on to Edward.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose to
expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of
mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station of
life, and which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and
fluctuating intellect. With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward in
any direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily
conceived. It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising
youths, though as a rule they find it helpful enough. Edward had exerted
it upon his father, and upon Robert. Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought
of it as a victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his
observation over her possible weak and strong points, studying her
curiously even when she was close up to him. With Robert, the
representative of force, to aid her, she could no longer be regarded in
the light of a despicable hindrance to his wishes. Though inclined
strongly to detest, he respected her. She had decision, and a worthy
bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a brain that worked
withal. When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her side, he was
pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of propriety, and
thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not become the wife
of a gentleman. By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he put his spell
upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a demure forward
look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of what things he
said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from Dahlia's
letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he should
thus heap condemnation on his own head. They were most pathetic scraps
quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying conviction
of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of the blood.
They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this man, her long
torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and her gathering
delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all distinctly to her
mind. She tried to look out on him from a mist of tears.

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