Rhoda Fleming, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, Complete

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Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a
young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing
Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant
soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and
reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and
indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two
imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In reality,
Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better stuff.
Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being an
effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit, and
one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe to be
correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it, when he
sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self. Algernon might
mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if they continued
their courses together, there was danger that Algernon would degenerate
into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and be tempted
unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than perdition
to this sort of creature.

But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the
romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and
fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position
attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views. Civilization had
tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it. Moreover, sitting
now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No wonder, then,
that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and Australian
wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new made over
there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath that would
cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean for the
present.

The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know
how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was
laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do more
for us than a dark disguise.

Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden and
white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned streaks
in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of a
nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a
most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, let me
impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours with a
sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off her
shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and
ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon
rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at
your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.

Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of which
no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully one of
the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but when
lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes are indeed
unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of Edward: "He is
sure to rise; he has such good principles." Edward said of Margaret: "She
only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand." These sentences
scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the speakers; but
outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have broken apart.
It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one another as sharp
a sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once betrothed them, but
was now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and lived partly with
her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her aunt's husband,
and a little by herself, which was when she counted money in her purse,
and chose to assert her independence. She had a name in the world. There
is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy downward, that blood
is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a woman is a reputation to
her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very young, can they be
attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her overpowering beauty.
It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under the light of the two
duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of black flame. Boys
adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the birds of air, nay,
grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered experience)
thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour. Was it her
fault that she had a name in the world?

Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a
photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith,
dark with a serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured
photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to
choose between them. Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the plump
rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant
cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or
prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of
artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is
blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the
faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were
thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not
yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the fair
widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful
intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips
came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained,
were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose
mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a line,
and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.

It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,
arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the
sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through
certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and
tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a
tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a
little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of the
two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips and
falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for the
wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout
muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to
knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship
under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always
do look.

"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
groaning."

"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
motion of the gloves.

"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and
learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg and
knock a fellow's hat off with the other."

"Stick to your fists."

"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so."

"You talk too much."

"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you."

"I want country air."

"You said you were going out, old Ned."

"I changed my mind."

Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings
to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt
with a funereal coffee-tinge.

"What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know," Algernon
remarked as he rose. "Anything connected with the country disagreeable to
you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these
beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen. Did
you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again, are
you?"

And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of
blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily
became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he
prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the
room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration
for the distracted occupant of the chambers below. Algernon accepted the
truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.

"There! that's a pleasant morning breather," he said, and sauntered to
the window to look at the river. "I always feel the want of it when I
don't get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the gloves
to begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go down to the
city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way. My
father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by
jingo!"

He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.

"I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club. It's
sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?
There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he
missed a day. And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits. I believe
he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They say that
old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the office now.
Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten pounds a
year extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I could earn a
reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my salary.
I've got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred and fifty
per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags, as they do
that old fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty pounds at a
pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?"

"The chops are coming," said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and
plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.

"Here's little Peggy Lovell." Algernon faced this portrait. "It don't do
her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. She's
starting for town, I hear."

"She is starting for town," said Edward.

"How do you know that?" Algernon swung about to ask.

Edward looked round to him. "By the fact of your not having fished for a
holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I
hope."

The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.

"Oh, she was well," he said. "Ha! I see there can be some attraction in
your dark women."

"You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion." Edward gave a
two-edged response. "What train did you come up by last night?"

"The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I
got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old
Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's
always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to
have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face."

Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.

"What have they done to you-what have they done?" said Algernon.

"My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If
they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They can't
help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with
anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at
all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair;
so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports."

"By jingo!" cried Algernon, "my stomach reports that if provision doesn't
soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned? Let's give
up the women, and take to a French cook."

Edward yawned horribly. "All in good time. It's what we come to. It's
philosophy--your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a
fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!"

"By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!" Algernon
exclaimed. "It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and
muzzled--a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave the service. It
was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all tradesmen! I sit on
a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a nigger in the office.
That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going to the office in a
rage."

"Will you try on the gloves again?" was Edward's mild suggestion.

Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when
he was empty.

They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element
of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.
Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put the
ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking
little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of
Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared
at a blank wall as regarded Edward's.

"Going out after breakfast, Ned?" said Algernon. "We'll walk to the city
together, if you like."

Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. "You're not going
to the city to-day?"

"The deuce, I'm not!"

"You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your pleasure
to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing."

Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the
portraits, and said, "Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name.
Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?"

"If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.
Lovell." Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. "Listen to me:
you'll get into a mess there."

"If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect
to the lady."

"Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know that
I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry out.
She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. Do you
know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to believe
that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that means. I
declined to be a chief party in a scandal."

"Declined to fight the fellow?" interposed Algernon. "More shame to you!"

"I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege of
speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as she
played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I don't
bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose much by
the privation to which I subject myself."

"I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So," said Algernon, "I should lose
tremendously."

"You will lose, mark my words."

"Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?" said Algernon.

"Yes; I've done," Edward answered.

"Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you
assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will."

"That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she
detests," said Edward, relentless in his insight; "and, consequently,
gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at
present."

Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire. "I'm
hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose she
sets me as a spy upon you!"

A smile ran along Edward's lips. "I don't think you'd know it, if she
did."

"Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty," bawled Algernon, in an
extremity of disgust. "Don't I know what game you're following up? Isn't
it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?"

"It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in
my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So
much is perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a
clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst.
Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little dog
to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's charming
while it lasts. Will you shake it?"

"Your tail, man?" Algernon roared in pretended amazement.

Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. "No; my hand."

They shook hands.

"All right," said Algernon. "You mean well. It's very well for you to
preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in
love."

"Virtue! by heaven!" Edward cried; "I wish I were entitled to preach it
to any man on earth."

His face flushed. "There, good-bye, old fellow," he added.

"Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine
with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged."

Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,
dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his
acceptance, and left him.

Edward set his brain upon a book of law.

It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian
stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.
Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that
brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said.

These were the contents:--

"I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself
when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold
street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how I
love you! I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears all
night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am thankful
you did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been guidance,
for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her, I love her
so. I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her there; and I
had to say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I call you
Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write kindly to
me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life seems quite
behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch. I declare to
you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was surprised when
I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on the bed;
suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was thinking. I
never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see they are, and I
only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh, so wretched and
stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. Oh, if, you are
angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make you pity me. I know
I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not trust you, Edward. My
mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I trust my heart and
everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish and wait to see you
to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such a streaked thing to
look at. If I had rubbed my face with a scrubbing-brush, I could not look
worse, and I cannot risk your seeing me. It would excuse you for hating
me. Do you? Does he hate her? She loves you. She would die for you, dear
Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was told to-day that I should die for you
to-morrow, it would be happiness. I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear
from you.

"Believe me,

"Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,

"Dahlia."

There was a postscript:--

"May I still go to lessons?"

Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced
triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used.

"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he
said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to
lessons, by all means."

Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing
the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will
find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits
contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal,
or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had been
admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness
without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on
the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.

CHAPTER VII

Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her. All
through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia's sobs, and
tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when the
morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one. The
confession was made; but his name was reserved. Dahlia spoke of him with
such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a
creature kissing his feet. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with
moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving: of knowing
one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how
beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister,
Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily
believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman: for she was of
an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the
weakness of mortality. She thought that one who could so transform her
sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must
be what Dahlia said he was. She asked shyly for his Christian name; but
even so little Dahlia withheld. It was his wish that Dahlia should keep
silence concerning him.

"Have you sworn an oath?" said Rhoda, wonderingly.

"No, dear love," Dahlia replied; "he only mentioned what he desired."

Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered
her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.

As regarded her uncle, Dahlia admitted that she had behaved forgetfully
and unkindly, and promised amendment. She talked of the Farm as of an old
ruin, with nothing but a thin shade of memory threading its walls, and
appeared to marvel vaguely that it stood yet. "Father shall not always
want money," she said. She was particular in prescribing books for Rhoda
to read; good authors, she emphasized, and named books of history, and
poets, and quoted their verses. "For my darling will some day have a dear
husband, and he must not look down on her." Rhoda shook her head, full
sure that she could never be brought to utter such musical words
naturally. "Yes, dearest, when you know what love is," said Dahlia, in an
underbreath.

Could Robert inspire her with the power? Rhoda looked upon that poor
homely young man half-curiously when she returned, and quite dismissed
the notion. Besides she had no feeling for herself. Her passion was fixed
upon her sister, whose record of emotions in the letters from London
placed her beyond dull days and nights. The letters struck many chords. A
less subservient reader would have set them down as variations of the
language of infatuation; but Rhoda was responsive to every word and
change of mood, from the, "I am unworthy, degraded, wretched," to "I am
blest above the angels." If one letter said, "We met yesterday," Rhoda's
heart beat on to the question, "Shall I see him again to-morrow?" And
will she see him?--has she seen him?--agitated her and absorbed her
thoughts.

So humbly did she follow her sister, without daring to forecast a
prospect for her, or dream of an issue, that when on a summer morning a
letter was brought in at the breakfast-table, marked "urgent and
private," she opened it, and the first line dazzled her eyes--the
surprise was a shock to her brain. She rose from her unfinished meal, and
walked out into the wide air, feeling as if she walked on thunder.

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