Rhoda Fleming, v2

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, v2

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"Selling eggs, mother. Why shouldn't he? We mustn't complain of his
getting an honest livelihood."

"He's black-blooded, Robert; and I never can understand why the Lord did
not make him a beast in face. I'm told that creature's found pleasing by
the girls."

"Ugh, mother, I'm not."

"She won't have you, Robert?"

He laughed. "We shall see to-day."

"You deceiving boy!" cried the widow; "and me not know it's Mrs. Lovell
you're going to meet! and would to heaven she'd see the worth of ye, for
it's a born lady you ought to marry."

"Just feel in my pockets, mother, and you won't be so ready with your
talk of my marrying. And now I'll get up. I feel as if my legs had to
learn over again how to bear me. The old dad, bless his heart! gave me
sound wind and limb to begin upon, so I'm not easily stumped, you see,
though I've been near on it once or twice in my life."

Mrs. Boulby murmured, "Ah! are you still going to be at war with those
gentlemen, Robert?"

He looked at her steadily, while a shrewd smile wrought over his face,
and then taking her hand, he said, "I'll tell you a little; you deserve
it, and won't tattle. My curse is, I'm ashamed to talk about my
feelings; but there's no shame in being fond of a girl, even if she
refuses to have anything to say to you, is there? No, there isn't. I
went with my dear old aunt's money to a farmer in Kent, and learnt
farming; clear of the army first, by--But I must stop that burst of
swearing. Half the time I've been away, I was there. The farmer's a
good, sober, downhearted man--a sort of beaten Englishman, who don't know
it, tough, and always backing. He has two daughters: one went to London,
and came to harm, of a kind. The other I'd prick this vein for and bleed
to death, singing; and she hates me! I wish she did. She thought me
such a good young man! I never drank; went to bed early, was up at work
with the birds. Mr. Robert Armstrong! That changeing of my name was
like a lead cap on my head. I was never myself with it, felt hang-dog--
it was impossible a girl could care for such a fellow as I was. Mother,
just listen: she's dark as a gipsy. She's the faithfullest,
stoutest-hearted creature in the world. She has black hair, large brown
eyes; see her once! She's my mate. I could say to her, 'Stand there;
take guard of a thing;' and I could be dead certain of her--she'd perish
at her post. Is the door locked? Lock the door; I won't be seen when I
speak of her. Well, never mind whether she's handsome or not. She isn't
a lady; but she's my lady; she's the woman I could be proud of. She
sends me to the devil! I believe a woman 'd fall in love with her
cheeks, they are so round and soft and kindly coloured. Think me a fool;
I am. And here am I, away from her, and I feel that any day harm may
come to her, and she 'll melt, and be as if the devils of hell were
mocking me. Who's to keep harm from her when I'm away? What can I do
but drink and forget? Only now, when I wake up from it, I'm a crawling
wretch at her feet. If I had her feet to kiss! I've never kissed her-
-never! And no man has kissed her. Damn my head! here's the ache coming
on. That's my last oath, mother. I wish there was a Bible handy, but
I'll try and stick to it without. My God! when I think of her, I fancy
everything on earth hangs still and doubts what's to happen. I'm like a
wheel, and go on spinning. Feel my pulse now. Why is it I can't stop
it? But there she is, and I could crack up this old world to know what's
coming. I was mild as milk all those days I was near her. My comfort
is, she don't know me. And that's my curse too! If she did, she'd know
as clear as day I'm her mate, her match, the man for her. I am, by
heaven!--that's an oath permitted. To see the very soul I want, and to
miss her! I'm down here, mother; she loves her sister, and I must learn
where her sister's to be found. One of those gentlemen up at Fairly's
the guilty man. I don't say which; perhaps I don't know. But oh, what a
lot of lightnings I see in the back of my head!"

Robert fell back on the pillow. Mrs. Boulby wiped her eyes. Her
feelings were overwhelmed with mournful devotion to the passionate young
man; and she expressed them practically: "A rump-steak would never digest
in his poor stomach!"

He seemed to be of that opinion too, for when, after lying till eleven,
he rose and appeared at the breakfast-table, he ate nothing but crumbs of
dry bread. It was curious to see his precise attention to the neatness
of his hat and coat, and the nervous eye he cast upon the clock, while
brushing and accurately fixing these garments. The hat would not sit as
he was accustomed to have it, owing to the bruise on his head, and he
stood like a woman petulant with her milliner before the glass; now
pressing the hat down till the pain was insufferable, and again trying
whether it presented him acceptably in the enforced style of his wearing
it. He persisted in this, till Mrs. Boulby's exclamation of wonder
admonished him of the ideas received by other eyes than his own. When we
appear most incongruous, we are often exposing the key to our characters;
and how much his vanity, wounded by Rhoda, had to do with his proceedings
down at Warbeach, it were unfair to measure just yet, lest his finer
qualities be cast into shade, but to what degree it affected him will be
seen.

Mrs. Boulby's persuasions induced him to take a stout silver-topped
walking-stick of her husband's, a relic shaped from the wood of the Royal
George; leaning upon which rather more like a Naval pensioner than he
would have cared to know, he went forth to his appointment with the lady.

CHAPTER XX

The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to
the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a
gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous blossom--
like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on horseback here,
and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist, charmingly habited in
tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier, and did not perceive
the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly when Robert lifted his
hat.

"They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you."

"I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam."

"Are you ill?"

"I had a fall last night, madam."

The lady patted her horse's neck.

"I haven't time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give
you more than a minute."

She glanced at her watch.

"Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of the
business which brings you down here. I won't pretend to lecture you
about the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that
the gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner, has
done no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully
unjust to single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I
speak plainly."

"Yes, madam," said Robert. "I'll answer plainly. He can't fight a man
like me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he's innocent
enough in this matter, as far as acts go."

"That makes your behaviour to him worse!"

Robert looked up into her eyes.

"You are a lady. You won't be shocked at what I tell you."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: "I have learnt--I am aware of the
tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don't accuse you of
madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed,
sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone
altogether the wrong way to work."

"Not if I have got your help by it, madam."

"Gallantly spoken."

She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.

"Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be
our stipulation"

She lowered her voice.

"You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her
myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir,
favour me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any
further. Will you do that? You may trust me."

"I do, madam, with all my soul!" said Robert.

"That's sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning."

Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the
tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit
this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle
mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in
blessing her as something quite divine.

He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune
which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so
adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;
repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against
the snow on the shores.

He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing
so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace his
steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound
contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the
masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to
throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking up
suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen
walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head,
letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the
younger gentlemen stared mockingly.

Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side. His eyes fixed upon Robert
with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though
not knowing why. It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling
childish, as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen,
with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of his
moustache, said, half challengingly,--

"You are dismounted to-day?"

"I have only one horse," Robert simply replied.

Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy,
but warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces
distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,
shouting.

"Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this," Robert thought, and
resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for
he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see
Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful
face.

"My dear," she said, in apology for her presence, "I shouldn't ha'
interfered, if there was fair play. I'm Englishwoman enough for that.
I'd have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair
play before a woman. That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha'
proved a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive
me?"

"I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother," said Robert, pressing her hand.

"That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?"

"Follow your own game, mother."

"I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard
say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's ears.
They made a bet of you, dear, they did."

"I hope the lady won," said Robert, scarce hearing.

"And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give
up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;
gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for
they has the best of it. But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had
burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my
boy made a bet of."

"Oh, tush, mother," said Robert impatiently.

"I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they
passed me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly
won't. I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is
lowering, to be made a bet of. I've that spirit, that if you was well
and sound, I'd rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough lady
to look at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair."

Robert asked which way they had gone.

"Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman
said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and
the snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before my
lord saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed;
and they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her name,
graved on it. But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not my
Robert's friends. And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat, if
you'd only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim. You're
best in appearance--and I always said it--when stripped for boxing. Hats
are gentlemen's things, and becomes them like as if a title to their
heads; though you'd bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and for that
matter, your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run of our
Sunday hats; only you don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's a yard
too long. It's the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It's because
you never will act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day
in the field behind our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet,
the waterman; and you was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on
you; and that's what made me think of comparisons of you out of your hat
and you in it."

Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a
little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left her
and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the
grooms at the horses' heads.

"Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!" he summed up his
sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might
never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the
suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in women
led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would
certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him.
The throbbing of his head stopped all further thought. It had become
violent. He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of
a light dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows
close up, devouring all that is said and done. In despair, he thought
with kindness of Mrs. Boulby's brandy.

"Mother," he said, rejoining her, "I've got a notion brandy can't hurt a
man when he's in bed. I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and
you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank
paper and scribble, mind that."

The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun
to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of a
Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a
gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not
being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and
reproaching himself for not having written to him.

"Two to one, and in the dark!" he kept moaning "and I one to twenty,
Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?"

Robert's outcries became anything but "blank paper and scribble" to the
widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: "Look over his
right temple he's got my mark a second time."

Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the
history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy
bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice
of one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not discover,
and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.

By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company
with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus was
reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was confirmation
sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands, unconscious
of Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement. His father and his aunt were
informed of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to bow their heads
to the close of an ungodly career. It was known over Warbeach, that
Robert lay in danger, and believed that he was dying.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A fleet of South-westerly rainclouds had been met in mid-sky
Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's tight-rope above the old abyss
Childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us
Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite brothers
He had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine
He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light dreamer
Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things
My first girl--she's brought disgrace on this house
Then, if you will not tell me
To be a really popular hero anywhere in Britain (must be a drinker)
You're a rank, right-down widow, and no mistake

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