Rhoda Fleming, v5

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She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very bare.

"Must I consent, then?"

"If you can, I suppose."

Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as
babes. He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a
question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave
nothing for his hands and heart to do. Stiff endurance seemed to him to
be his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it.

"Were you going out, Robert?"

"I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe."

His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of
looking at her window. Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame
for thinking that it had been so.

"I must decide to-morrow morning."

"They say, the pillow's the best counsellor."

A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly
unfriendly.

"Did father wish it?"

"Not by what he spoke."

"You suppose he does wish it?"

"Where's the father who wouldn't? Of course, he wishes it. He's kind
enough, but you may be certain he wishes it."

"Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!" Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations,
unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking
shamelessly out.

"Ah! poor soul!" added Robert.

"My darling must be brave: she must have great courage. Dahlia cannot be
a coward. I begin to see."

Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old
matters by a fresh light.

"I can't think," she said, with a start. "Have I been dreadfully cruel?
Was I unsisterly? I have such a horror of some things--disgrace. And
men are so hard on women; and father--I felt for him. And I hated that
base man. It's his cousin and his name! I could almost fancy this trial
is brought round to me for punishment."

An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, "You can't let harm come to your
uncle."

The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible
duty.

"Are you of that opinion?" Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered
nothing.

Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone. She should have noted
that. And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving
such counsel to her whom he loved? It smote him with horror and anger;
but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and
continued to dissemble. You see, he had not forgiven her for her
indifference to him.

"You are no longer your own mistress," he said, meaning exactly the
reverse.

This--that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself--was what
Rhoda feared. There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst
through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a woman,
not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that she
might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal of
betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself loved no
more by Robert. She was weary of thinking and acting on her own
responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her
judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she
was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her
other resolute steps. Pride whispered, "You could compel your sister to
do that which she abhorred;" and Pity pleaded for her poor old uncle
Anthony. She looked back in imagination at that scene with him in
London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that
contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness.

"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."

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