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

Master Gammon met them in the garden.

Pointing aloft, over the gateway, "That's down," he remarked, and the
three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the
impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one
another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth.

"Tell father," Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her
eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to
detain her; but Dahlia repeated, "Tell father," and in strength and in
will had become more than a match for her sister.

CHAPTER XLV

Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock
of the door.

At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by
saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young
squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young
squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself. "I
don't deny it's honour to us, and it's a comfort," said the farmer. "This
is the first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years. I'm sorry
about Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at something
higher, I suppose."

Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and
again she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no
excitement of any kind. On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of
his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating
some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within. He said:
"Ah! well, it's very sad;--that is, if 'tis so," and no more, for a time.

She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning
whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain some
doubts. "Or else," said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead, "he's
going here. It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call it,
his despised brother-in-law--and I say it in all kindness--should turn
out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle."

The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.

Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what
interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him.
She related it, and he was roused. Then, for the third time, she told him
of Dahlia.

Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with
light. He looked on her with quite a strange face. Wrath, and a revived
apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he catechized
her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed from him,
she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal sensations toward
her father, but it was at the expense of her love.

When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, "Send the girl down to
me."

But Rhoda pleaded, "She is too worn, she is tottering. She cannot endure
a word on this; not even of kindness and help."

"Then, you," said the farmer, "you tell her she's got a duty's her first
duty now. Obedience to her husband! Do you hear? Then, let her hear it.
Obedience to her husband! And welcome's the man when he calls on me. He's
welcome. My doors are open to him. I thank him. I honour him. I bless his
name. It's to him I owe--You go up to her and say, her father owes it to
the young man who's married her that he can lift up his head. Go aloft.
Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this. I tell ye, girl, I
don't understand about church doors and castin' of her off--he's come for
her, hasn't he? Then, he shall have her. I tell ye, I don't understand
about money: he's married her. Well, then, she's his wife; and how can he
bargain not to see her?"

"The base wretch!" cried Rhoda.

"Hasn't he married her?" the farmer retorted. "Hasn't he given the poor
creature a name? I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say,
when he calls, here's my hand for him. Here, it's out and waiting for
him."

"Father, if you let me see it--" Rhoda checked the intemperate outburst.
"Father, this is a bad--a bad man. He is a very wicked man. We were all
deceived by him. Robert knows him. He has known him for years, and knows
that he is very wicked. This man married our Dahlia to get--" Rhoda
gasped, and could not speak it. "He flung her off with horrible words at
the church door. After this, how can he claim her? I paid him all he had
to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred oath never,
never to disturb or come near my sister. After that he can't, can't claim
her. If he does--"

"He's her husband," interrupted the farmer; "when he comes here, he's
welcome. I say he's welcome. My hand's out to him:--If it's alone that
he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace! I thank him, and my
daughter belongs to him. Where is he now? You talk of a scuffle with
Robert. I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour. Go you up
to your sister, and say from me--All's forgotten and forgiven; say, It's
all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day. And,
if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll her
father be pleased;--say that. I want to see the man. It'll gratify me to
feel her husband's flesh and blood. His being out of sight so long's been
a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him, and so must all
in my house."

This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's
unhappy plight.

Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too
shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the
partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at the
moment not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the
stipulation of the forgiveness.

She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware
of all the circumstances.

Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing.

So the day passed. Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared. The night came:
all doors were locked. The sisters that night slept together, feeling the
very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly,
although in a great anguish.

Rhoda was dressed by daylight. The old familiar country about the house
lay still as if it knew no expectation. She observed Master Gammon
tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below. All
the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that
Robert and Anthony continued to be absent. A thought struck her that
Robert had killed the man. It came with a flash of joy that was speedily
terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely. Dahlia lay
exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she
sat up, saying, "There is one for me; get it."

There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's
hand and open.

"Come out," said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him. When they were in
the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it. The
letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming.

"It's for my sister," Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear.

She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,--

Dahlia,--There is mercy for us. You are not lost to me.

"Edward."

After this, was appended in a feminine hand:--

"There is really hope. A few hours will tell us. But keep firm.
If he comes near you, keep from him. You are not his. Run, hide,
go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near. I dare not
write what it is we expect. Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I
can say, believe that you will be saved. You are not lost.
Everything depends on your firmness.

"Margaret L."

Rhoda lifted up her eyes.

The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first signature.

"Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?"

He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the
breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to
betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key of
the door, and secured her. Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at all
these strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her
lamentations. The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony. He
sat in his chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without
occupation for eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing.

The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions. A messenger ran up
to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said that
he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance by force
of arm, and that there was no fear. Rhoda kissed the words, hurrying away
to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and dream of him who
had said that there was no fear. She knew that Dahlia was unconscious of
her imprisonment, and had less compunction in counting the minutes of her
absence. The sun spread in yellow and fell in red before she thought of
returning, so sweet it had become to her to let her mind dwell with
Robert; and she was half a stranger to the mournfulness of the house when
she set her steps homeward. But when she lifted the latch of the gate, a
sensation, prompted by some unwitting self-accusal, struck her with
alarm. She passed into the room, and beheld her father, and Mrs. Sumfit,
who was sitting rolling, with her apron over her head.

The man Sedgett was between them.

CHAPTER XLVI

No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's
bed-room, and said, "Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her
husband."

Mechanically Rhoda took the key.

"And leave our door open," he added.

She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to
Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by
Dahlia's aspect.

"He is in the house," Dahlia said; and asked, "Was there no letter--no
letter; none, this morning?"

Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her
trembling.

"No letter! no letter! none? not any? Oh! no letter for me!"

The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were
pitiful to hear.

"Did you look for a letter?" said Rhoda, despising herself for so
speaking.

"He is in the house! Where is my letter?"

"What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?"

Dahlia moaned: "I don't know. I'm blind. I was told to hope. Yesterday I
had my letter, and it told me to hope. He is in the house!"

"Oh, my dear, my love!" cried Rhoda; "come down a minute. See him. It is
father's wish. Come only for a minute. Come, to gain time, if there is
hope."

"But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda. I can't hope. I am
lost. He is in the house!"

"Dearest, there was a letter," said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in
revealing it.

Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter.

"Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it," said Rhoda, clinging tight
to the stricken form.

"Then, he is against me? Oh, my letter!" Dahlia wrung her hands.

While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling
for Dahlia to descend. He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and
shouted for her.

The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom
in shrieks.

Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, "Come up to her, father."

After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs.

"Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband," he
remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone. "What's the harm, then?
Come and see him; that's all; come and see him."

Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the
doorway. "Say," she communicated to Rhoda, "say, I want my letter."

"Come!" William Fleming grew impatient.

"Let her have her letter, father," said Rhoda. "You have no right to
withhold it."

"That letter, my girl" (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy her
that he was not angry), "that letter's where it ought to be. I've puzzled
out the meaning of it. That letter's in her husband's possession."

Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard
this. Passing round the door, she fronted her father.

"My letter gone to him!" she cried. "Shameful old man! Can you look on
me? Father, could you give it? I'm a dead woman."

She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm.

"You have been a wicked girl," the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted.
"Your husband has come for you, and you go with him. Know that, and let
me hear no threats. He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer
like myself, and needn't be better than he is. Come you down to him at
once. I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the
gate. To the gate you go with him. When next I see you--you visiting me
or I visiting you--I shall see a respected creature, and not what you
have been and want to be. You have racked the household with fear and
shame for years. Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the
contrary direction. You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live
woman. Rhoda, take one elbow of your sister. Your aunt's coming up to
pack her box. I say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that.
Come out, Dahlia, and let our parting be like between parent and child.
Here's the dark falling, and your husband's anxious to be away. He has
business, and 'll hardly get you to the station for the last train to
town. Hark at him below! He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're
trying his temper, as you'd try any man's. He wants to be off. Come, and
when next we meet I shall see you a happy wife."

He might as well have spoken to a corpse.

"Speak to her still, father," said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which
she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and
loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her, it
was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away. No
argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of a
dogged phrase. "I've come for my wife," Sedgett said to all her
instances. His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded,
Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron.

"Then, how could you have married him?"

They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft.

"Yes--how! how!" cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had
played in the marriage.

"It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl."

Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs.

"Mr. Fleming--she's my wife. I'll teach her about hating and loving. I'll
behave well to her, I swear. I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say I do
love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will. Now, in two
minutes' time. Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got business,
and she's my wife."

The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and
the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom. All the house was silent.
Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: "Does God totally abandon us?"

She let her father hear: "Father, you know that you are killing your
child."

"I hear ye, my lass," said he.

"She will die, father."

"I hear ye, I hear ye."

"She will die, father."

He stamped furiously, exclaiming: "Who's got the law of her better and
above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your
sister. She goes!"

"Father!" Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to
see them helpless.

There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when the
man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a
blessed sound--the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face.

"So," said Robert, as she neared him, "you needn't tell me what's
happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound wants
practice; the fox is born with his cunning."

Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in
the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.

But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain
his views of his duty and his daughter's duty. By the kitchen firelight
he and Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances.

"He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert," said the farmer. "He's
righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of
me he must have her, and he shall."

"All right, sir," replied Robert, "and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff
as log-wood."

"Oh! Robert, Robert!" Rhoda cried in great joy.

"Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?" said Mr. Fleming.

"I won't let you nod at downright murder--that's all," said Robert.
"She--Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!"

"Why did she marry me?" thundered Sedgett.

"There's one o' the wonders!" Robert rejoined. "Except that you're an
amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and had
no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down. I tell you,
Mr. Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as put
her in this fellow's hands."

"She's his wife, man."

"May be," Robert assented.

"You, Robert Eccles!" said Sedgett hoarsely; "I've come for my wife--do
you hear?"

"You have, I dare say," returned Robert. "You dodged me cleverly, that
you did. I'd like to know how it was done. I see you've got a cart
outside and a boy at the horse's head. The horse steps well, does he? I'm
about three hours behind him, I reckon:--not too late, though!"

He let fall a great breath of weariness.

Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of
spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to
him, said, "Drink." He smiled kindly and drank it off.

"The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming," he said.

"And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that," said the
farmer.

"And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off--mark
that," Sedgett struck in. "Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your
word to me."

"I'll do no less," said the farmer. He went into the passage shouting for
Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box.

"She begs," Mrs. Sumfit answered to him--"She begs, William, on'y a short
five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her, dear, you
will. Lord! what's come upon us?"

"Quick, and down with the box, then, mother," he rejoined.

The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have
her last minutes alone.

Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were
Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said: "Dearest,
think of God:" and Dahlia replied: "I do."

"He will not forsake you," Rhoda said.

Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth.

"And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises," said
the farmer. "Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the
husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and lifts
his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father. Place
there! I'm going to open the door. Rhoda, see to your sister's bonnet and
things. Robert, stand out of my way. There's no refreshment of any sort
you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett? None at all! That's no
fault of my hospitality. Stand out of my way, Robert."

He was obeyed. Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of
despair.

The farmer threw the door wide open.

There were people in the garden--strangers. His name was inquired for out
of the dusk. Then whisperings were heard passing among the ill-discerned
forms, and the farmer went out to them. Robert listened keenly, but the
touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his hearing. "Yet it must
be!" he said. "Why does she come here?"

Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the
ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited
wretchedness. Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old woman
exclaim: "Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own at
home; a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more
cunning than devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to
stress of weather, to defeat the man's wickedness! Can't I prove it to
you, sir, he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till
the poor tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;--and there she
is now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will
listen; and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on.
It's all such a tale for you to hear by-and-by."

Robert burst into a glorious laugh.

"Why, mother! Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?"

"My blessedest Robert!" the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss
him. "Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly." She whispered: "The
Major and the good gentleman--they're behind. I travelled down with them.
Dear,--you'd like to know:--Mrs. Lovell sent her little cunning groom
down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about that
villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when the
poor creature--his true wife--crawled home, and we knew of her at
Three-Tree Farm and knew her story. I wrote word at once, I did, to Mrs.
Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to you to
make things clear here. You shall understand them soon. It's Providence
at work. I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing the wicked
ones."

The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch,
and by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the house,
and Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate.

At the same time a sound of wheels was heard.

Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty,
stamped with vexation. His prey had escaped.

But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the
house. It had passed. Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr. Fleming,
who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact that it was
a gentleman imparting to him strange matters. By degrees all were beneath
the farmer's roof--all, save one, who stood with bowed head by the
threshold.

There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are
but instruments. Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward,
who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he
had injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had
just reason to spurn him. He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had seen
her plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept pure for
him, and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his. The grief
for which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him to meet
her embrace. The great agony he had passed through of late had killed his
meaner pride. He stood there ready to come forward and ask forgiveness
from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's eyes
once--that he might see her once.

He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though not
a common, nature. Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the
selfishness had fallen away from his love. It was not the highest form of
love, but the love was his highest development. He had heard that Dahlia,
lost to him, was free. Something like the mortal yearning to look upon
the dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain absent and
in doubt. He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he might see
the rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties. Believing,
too, that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would throb for
him to be near her, and he had come.

The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs.
Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in
another part of the house.

The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room, when,
after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, "Come in, sir," and Edward
stepped in among them.

Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard
her father utter that welcome. It froze her limbs, for still she hated
the evil-doer. Her hatred of him was a passion. She crouched over the
stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling what
seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in the room
where the men were. Words were indistinguishable. Thrice, after calling
to Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe took her
soul at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was felt: she
comprehended something of that earnestness which made the offender speak
of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse, before his
fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been plunged up to
the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter insensible to
meaner pains. The voice ended. She was then aware that it had put a charm
upon her ears. The other voices following it sounded dull.

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