Rhoda Fleming, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, Complete

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"I am not fit to be my own mistress," she said.

"Then, the sooner you decide the better," observed Robert, and the room
became hot and narrow to him.

"Very little time is given me," she murmured. The sound was like a
whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy.

"I dare say you won't find the hardship so great," said he.

"Because," she looked up quickly, "I went out one day to meet him? Do you
mean that, Robert? I went to hear news of my sister. I had received no
letters from her. And he wrote to say that he could tell me about her. My
uncle took me once to the Bank. I saw him there first. He spoke of
Wrexby, and of my sister. It is pleasant to inexperienced girls to hear
themselves praised. Since the day when you told me to turn back I have
always respected you."

Her eyelids lowered softly.

Could she have humbled herself more? But she had, at the same time,
touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a
gentleman. And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the
room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his.

"I think," he said, "I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion
of our being alone here together. I've had my arm round you. Don't be
frightened. That's my marriage, and there was my wife. And there's an end
of my likings and my misconduct. Forgive me for calling it to mind."

"No, no, Robert," Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse,
dropped them, saying: "What forgiveness? Was I ever angry with you?"

A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky crimson
rose under his eyes.

"When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some
good object," he said, and flushed equally.

But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive
developing emotion. She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental
warmth of colour ebbed away from her cheeks.

"You are very kind," said she.

Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to
ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time.
Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not
to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully
and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born to be a lady."
(You had that ambition, young madam.)

She answered: "That's what I don't understand." (Your saying it, O my
friend!)

"You will soon take to your new duties." (You have small objection to
them even now.)

"Yes, or my life won't be worth much." (Know, that you are driving me to
it.)

"And I wish you happiness, Rhoda." (You are madly imperilling the
prospect thereof.)

To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances.
And further,--

"Thank you, Robert." (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)

"Now it's time to part." (Do you not see that there's a danger for me in
remaining?)

"Good night." (Behold, I am submissive.)

"Good night, Rhoda." (You were the first to give the signal of parting.)

"Good night." (I am simply submissive.)

"Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?"

Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her,
permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.

Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.

But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.

"What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda."

"Nothing." The flower had closed.

He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect
of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency,
saying,--

"It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that. It was
half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his
to give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct."

"And I never am," said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself.

"Women can't judge so well about money matters. Has your uncle no account
of his own at the Bank? He was thought to be a bit of a miser."

"What he is, or what he was, I can't guess. He has not been near the Bank
since that day; nor to his home. He has wandered down on his way here,
sleeping in cottages. His heart seems broken. I have still a great deal
of the money. I kept it, thinking it might be a protection for Dahlia.
Oh! my thoughts and what I have done! Of course, I imagined him to be
rich. A thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very little for
one who was rich. If I had reflected at all, I must have seen that Uncle
Anthony would never have carried so much through the streets. I was like
a fiend for money. I must have been acting wrongly. Such a craving as
that is a sign of evil."

"What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda."

"I sell myself, then."

"Hardly so bad as that. The money will come from you instead of from your
uncle."

Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a man
brooding. Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her. And
how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means? Here at
least was a positive escape from perplexity. It came at the right moment;
was it a help divine? What cowardice had been prompting her to evade it?
After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required to take?

Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: "Just like a woman!"

"Why?" but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite.

"He was the first to praise you."

"You are brutal to me, Robert."

"My name at last! You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this
room."

Rhoda stood up. "I will wish you good night."

"And now you take my hand."

"Good night," they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up the
hand he had got in his own. His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the
fingers.

"I'm bound," she cried.

"Once!" Robert drew her nearer to him.

"Let me go."

"Once!" he reiterated. "Rhoda, as I've never kissed you--once!"

"No: don't anger me."

"No one has ever kissed you?"

"Never."

"Then, I--" His force was compelling the straightened figure.

Had he said, "Be mine!" she might have softened to his embrace; but there
was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's
meaning. She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted
from the outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her
husband. His jealousy demanded that gratification foremost. The "Be
mine!" was ready enough to follow.

"Let me go, Robert."

She was released. The cause for it was the opening of the door. Anthony
stood there.

A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never
presented. He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his
wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps was
on his head, surmounted by his hat. A confused recollection of the
necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently
to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their
subserviency to the uses ended. Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from
head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse
magnified and petrified.

"Dearest uncle!" Rhoda went to him.

Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house.

"I just want to go off--go off. Never you mind me. I'm only going off."

"You must go to your bed, uncle."

"Oh, Lord! no. I'm going off, my dear. I've had sleep enough for forty.
I--" he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, "I don't want t' see th' old
farmer." And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure,
he bored towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, "in
the morning."

"You have seen him, uncle. You have seen him. It's over," said Rhoda.

Anthony whispered: "I don't want t' see th' old farmer."

"But, you have seen him, uncle."

"In the morning, my dear. Not in the morning. He'll be looking and
asking, 'Where away, brother Tony?' 'Where's your banker's book, brother
Tony?' 'How's money-market, brother Tony?' I can't see th' old farmer."

It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's country
style was exact.

She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to
induce him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or
superior to explanation.

"Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear. You can't satisfy him.
He... I don't want t' see him in the morning. He thinks I've got
millions. His mouth'll go down. I don't want... You don't want him to
look... And I can't count now; I can't count a bit. And every post I see
's a policeman. I ain't hiding. Let 'em take the old man. And he was a
faithful servant, till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go-round,
and ever since...such a little boy! I'm frightened o' you, Rhoda."

"I will do everything for you," said Rhoda, crying wretchedly.

"Because, the young squire says," Anthony made his voice mysterious.

"Yes, yes," Rhoda stopped him; "and I consent:" she gave a hurried
half-glance behind her. "Come, uncle. Oh! pity! don't let me think your
reason's gone. I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot
help you."

Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice. Anthony eyed
her tears. "We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?" he said.
"And counted ants, we have. Shall we sit in the sun together to-morrow?
Say, we shall. Shall we? A good long day in the sun and nobody looking at
me 's my pleasure."

Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her,
docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight.

Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared. Robert also was absent from
the breakfast-table. The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned
Master Gammon was right--in allusion to the veteran's somnolent
observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes.

There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to "Miss
Fleming." He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim
it, in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women
demanding the babe from the justice of the Wise King. The letter was
placed in Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it. Their mouths were shut;
any one not looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme
conflict was going on in the room. It was a strenuous wrestle of their
eyeballs, like the "give way" of athletes pausing. But the delirious beat
down the constitutional strength. A hard bright smile ridged the hollow
of Dahlia's cheeks. Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold, and
Dahlia thrust the letter in against her bosom, snatched it out again, and
dipped her face to roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit, ran from the
room for a single minute; after which she came back smiling with gravely
joyful eyes and showing a sedate readiness to eat and conclude the
morning meal.

What did this mean? The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's
behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had
the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect.

But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance,
and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?" The farmer
prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by seeing
Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering
curiosity and bewilderment. On the point of speaking, he remembered that
he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared to--that was the
secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and shrank from a
spoken suspicion. So, checking himself, he broke out upon Mrs. Sumfit:
"Now, then, mother!" which caused her to fluster guiltily, she having
likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even as was Master
Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy. Mrs. Sumfit excused the
anxious expression of her face by saying that she was thinking of her
dairy, whither, followed by the veteran, she retired.

Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of that
letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten. "Oh, this curse
of love!" she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room, flushed,
stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told her father the
determination which was the result of her interview with Robert.

No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on
Robert awoke within her bosom. She left the house, believing that she
went abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a
little beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts
and the pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer light,
and the slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage; far-away
sheep, and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting out of the
trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among the hazels
near by.

This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her first
conscious delight in it. She gazed round on the farm, under a quick new
impulse of affection for her old home. And whose hand was it that could
alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so, without reward?
Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren of any feeling
that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was full of pain for
her. She accused herself, but could not accept the charge of her having
ever hoped for transforming events that should twist and throw the dear
old farm-life long back into the fields of memory. Nor could she
understand the reason of her continued coolness to Robert. Enough of
accurate reflection was given her to perceive that discontent with her
station was the original cause of her discontent now. What she had sown
she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are these harvests of our
dream! The sun has not shone on them. They may have a tragic blood-hue,
as with Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and
nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a single blade of grass.

A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell it
as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He was
dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he asked if
she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative, and longed
more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the homely creamy
air under the dairy-shed.

CHAPTER XLIV

She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane. Her
breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different points,
more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her
breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in
sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a
burdened sleeper: her thought being, "How can you act so cruelly to
Robert!" He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where
the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side of
the Hall.

When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled
soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery to
her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room and
darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and was about
systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of beholding
Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less the creature
of her sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and she went very
fast. The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as when she was gazing
after her father; but her hand stretched out instinctively for her bonnet
when Dahlia had crossed the green and the mill-bridge, and was no more
visible. Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and caught her black silk mantle in
her hand, and without strength to throw it across her shoulders, dropped
before her bed, and uttered a strange prayer. "Let her die rather than go
back to disgrace, my God! my God!"

She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed
her prayer. "Send death to her rather!"--and Rhoda's vision under her
shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in
conflagration.

There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency
to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures. The strain
of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had distempered the
fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were becoming remoter
exponents of her character.

She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As
swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.

That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major
Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also an
enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was an
advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert Eccles
that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him, to be
paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing madly at
the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and never
enough, save just to keep him swimming.

The letter from Major Waring said:--

"I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your
opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and
deal summarily with."

"Ay!--ay!" Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting
excitement and eager for it as a hound.

More was written, which he read subsequently

"I wrong," Percy's letter continued, "the best of women. She was
driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will
find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't
leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries
down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She
nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out. Truth, courage, and
suffering touch Margaret's heart.

"Yours,

"Percy."

Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing
at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.

"Here you are," said Robert, and took his arm.

Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was led
along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles beyond
Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.

"You want spirit: you want life," said Robert.

Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet the
tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank, saying,
"Just one glass, then."

Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having ordered
up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil was in him.
He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself, alternately
frightening and cajoling the old man.

"Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!"

"I haven't, I haven't," Anthony whined.

"Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by
heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever
dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell
you."

Anthony wept into his glass.

"That's a trick I could never do," said Robert, eyeing the drip of the
trembling old tear pitilessly. "Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed
me of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of us
flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. You're
not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you cheerful."

By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as
one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened to
his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly
replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia
stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite to the
inn. "This is my medicine," said Robert; "and yours too," he addressed
Anthony.

The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.
Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;
performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty arm
checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to Wrexby.
Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening to join
them. The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her hands, and
darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow, deep with
grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup, like rust upon
the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the moment knew the
man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised Dahlia and Rhoda, and
he found himself face to face with Sedgett.

"It's you!"

"Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another time."

Robert said: "I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me."

"Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett,
drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. "I've come for my
wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon. I'm
come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her
things--boxes packed, and we go."

Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen
against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with
philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.

"Stop," cried Sedgett. "Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you
know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, I
tell ye."

"You've no claim on her," Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and
turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy
fright.

"You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had," said Robert,
spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and
keep him off.

"That don't hold in law," Sedgett nodded. "A man may get in a passion,
when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?"

"I have your word of honour," said Rhoda; muttering, "Oh! devil come to
wrong us!"

"Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.
You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get
at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been trying
to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come for my
wife. I'll have her."

"None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house," said Rhoda,
vehemently. "You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more.
I don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go."

"No one has been down into your part of the country," said Robert, with
perfect mildness.

To which Sedgett answered bluffly, "There ye lie, Bob Eccles;" and he was
immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him, and
taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in
motion. "Off!" he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze
of his face.

It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked
swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. "Oh! don't touch my arm,"
Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together,
speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile
of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped,
panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who was
her lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the
morning, and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short.
Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features
had some of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket, and
Rhoda presently asked,--

"What have you there?"

"You are my enemy, dear, in some things," Dahlia replied, a muscular
shiver passing over her.

"I think," said Rhoda, "I could get a little money to send you away. Will
you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me."

"Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk," said Dahlia.

Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a wound
to her. Yet she was the first to resume: "I think I shall be saved. I
can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that."

Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable
comfort of words.

As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived
that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been
removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to Wrexby
Hall. "He would sell me to save the farm." She reproached herself for
the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her father
plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as conceived by
her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be just, though
still she knew that her own indecision was to blame.

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