Rhoda Fleming, v5

G >> George Meredith >> Rhoda Fleming, v5

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

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.

"Has he--can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?" she
thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of
splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have
done this. Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to
despise him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it
might be a true love for her sister animating him. From the height of a
possible vengeance it was perceptible.

She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her, "Safe,
safe!" but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she had a
fear that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere earthly
love would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find himself
forgiven only too instantly and heartily.

In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving Mrs.
Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous
discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped for
from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and the
heroism and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for a
space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside
the kitchen she found all voices silent within.

It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change
his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances
themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward,
and to see him in the place of Sedgett.

He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his house;
and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone that he
ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman against
whom anger was due. He had listened to Edward without one particle of
comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was extraordinary.
He understood that every admission made by Edward with such grave and
strange directness, would justly have condemned him to punishment which
the culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned self-denunciation rendered
it impossible to think of inflicting. He knew likewise that a whole
history was being narrated to him, and that, although the other two
listeners manifestly did not approve it, they expected him to show some
tolerance to the speaker.

He said once, "Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t'
other." Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time.

The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently.

"Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?" cried Robert.
"Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in a
hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him
again. What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him."

"He righted my daughter when there was shame on her," the farmer replied.

That was the idea printed simply on his understanding.

For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods. He bore it,
telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself
with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand
of his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same
air with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently
with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling
them open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers;
the dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her
limbs as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss.

It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been so
imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a
gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had
been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in its
suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all
shadows, approached.

Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and
wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
Edward.

"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said. "Perhaps when
I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
might."

Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the suggestion;
for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near him, it was
absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his wish to break
from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented to, had sprung
from his own unassisted temporary baseness.

Then Robert spoke to the farmer.

Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear
them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. "Yet why should I
always think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that
excuse for changeing, partially thawed.

She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
farmer called into the darkness,--

"Dahlia down here!"

Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
crying out: "He is here--Edward."

But there came no answer.

"Edward is here. Come, come and see him."

Still not one faint reply.

"Dahlia! Dahlia!"

The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt,
and putting her mouth to the door, said,--

"My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me
now. Listen. You are to come down to happiness."

The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her
soul.

"Father!" rang her outcry.

The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.

She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
death.

But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no
fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.

CHAPTER XLVII

Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day.
It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived, and
her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at times burying
its members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a prolonged
farewell than a gladsome restoration.

She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design
to save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught.
As far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings
from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often
clung, always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if it
had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last
quickening verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one
grasped the broken phial with its hideous label.

It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly
legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had no
dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation,
articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if there
is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would
necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all
human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has
lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a
slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a
calamity having changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when
dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: "Goin'
on better--eh, marm?"

"Oh! Mas' Gammon," Mrs. Sumfit burst out; "if I was only certain you said
your prayers faithful every night!" The observation was apparently taken
by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her bosom,
for he did not reply to it.

She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back,
and slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight,
exclaimed,--

"We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon! I feel I know everything
that's in me. I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but
think of our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at you
to think that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of us
mourned and rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and that
made me refuse them to you. It was cruel of me, and well may you shake
your head. If I was only sure you said your prayers!"

The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master
Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them, as she
was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew everything
that was within him, she would then, in admiration of his profound
equanimity, acknowledge him to be a superior Christian.

Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass,
regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while
Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things
implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence in
kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior
Christian.

Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine
to all who were in the house. He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm
and blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer
held to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and
tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between
an example and a warning, and was a study. The grand primaeval quality
of unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them
singularly in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours
gone by; so much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea
that it was a manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth
undisturbed while they were feeling their life shaken in them to the
depths. I have never had the opportunity of examining the
idol-worshipping mind of a savage; but it seems possible that the
immutability of aspect of his little wooden God may sometimes touch him
with a similar astounded awe;--even when, and indeed especially after, he
has thrashed it. Had the old man betrayed his mortality in a sign of
curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had arisen, and who was to
blame, and what was the story, the effect on them would have been
diminished. He really seemed granite among the turbulent waves. "Give
me Gammon's life!" was Farmer Fleming's prayerful interjection; seeing
him come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake in season, all
through those tragic hours of suspense, without a question to anybody.
Once or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master Gammon appeared
to meditate. He observed that the doctor had never been called in to one
of his family, and it was evident that he did not understand the
complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit necessary.

"You'll never live so long as that old man," the farmer said to Robert.

"No; but when he goes, all of him's gone," Robert answered.

"But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no one
to blame for his wrinkles."

"Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on," said Robert.
"He's safe--safe enough. An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to
founder in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life."

"Let that be how 't will," returned the farmer; "I've had days o' mortal
envy of that old man."

"Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case,"
quoth Robert.

Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy. In him, though he was as
passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old man,
and not a steady machine. He knew that some queer misfortune had
befallen Anthony.

"He'll find I'm brotherly," said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened
his golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to his
vision.

Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower, came
down among them. She told her sister that it was her wish to see Edward.
Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to keep them
asunder. She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at once went for
his hat, and said: "Dress yourself neat, my lass." She knew what was
meant by that remark. Messages daily had been coming down from the Hall,
but the rule of a discerning lady was then established there, and Rhoda
had been spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon, though she knew
them to be at hand. During Dahlia's convalescence, the farmer had not
spoken to Rhoda of her engagement to the young squire. The great misery
intervening, seemed in her mind to have cancelled all earthly
engagements; and when he said that she must use care in her attire he
suddenly revived a dread within her bosom, as if he had plucked her to
the verge of a chasm.

But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he
and Dahlia were left apart.

There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes. They joined
hands. She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble. Passion
was extinguished. He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling
sure that they were united. It required that he should see her to know
fully the sinner he had been. Wasted though she was, he was ready to
make her his own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear fair
soul, whose picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a response to
the world wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next, by degrees, as
an absolute visible fleshly fact. She had come out of her martyrdom
stamped with the heavenly sign-mark.

"Those are the old trees I used to speak of," she said, pointing to the
two pines in the miller's grounds. "They always look like Adam and Eve
turning away."

"They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?"

"I hope to see them till I am gone."

Edward pressed her fingers. He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow
into her.

"The neighbours are kind?" he asked.

"Very kind. They, inquire after me daily."

His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that Dahlia
should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so
sensitive.

"The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart," she added.

"The clergyman is a comfort to women," said Edward.

Dahlia looked at him gently. The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him.
She wished. She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery
in words forbade her poor speechlessness. But God would hear her prayers
for him.

Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,--

"Come."

He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation.

When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing
epithets in her speech, and missed them. Having himself suffered, he
required them. For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not
to fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness? In
fact he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of his
misdeeds. He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done, and
his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there.
Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not one
of a penitential grey--not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life were to
be under cloistral arches. And he wanted a rose of womanhood in his hand
like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had endured every
earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement. The frail bent lily
seemed a stranger to him.

Can a man go farther than his nature? Never, when he takes passion on
board. By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion
will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray
him at that point. Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to
her as many times. There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased
to charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion
that beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and
esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had
slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly
and to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person.
Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing
of a capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to a
mind not soft for receiving such impressions.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He
came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by
telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his love.

"She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation. But, more than
that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the
squire. It's an intricate story relating to money. She does not care
for Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him. He
has served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers.
Algy has got him the office of village postman for this district, I
believe; if it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her. At
all events, she seems to consider that her hand is pledged. You know the
kind of girl your friend fancies. Besides, her father insists she is to
marry "the squire," which is certainly the most natural thing of all.
So, don't you think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the
Continent for some weeks? I never, I confess, exactly understood the
intimacy existing between you, but it must be sincere."

"Are you?" said Percy.

"Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way. Why do you ask me in
this instance?"

"Because you could stop this silly business in a day."

"I know I could."

"Then, why do you not?"

"Because of a wish to be sincere. Percy, I have been that throughout, if
you could read me. I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I
thought was a wretched entanglement. His selfish falseness offended me,
and I let him know that I despised him. When I found that he was a man
who had courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and I
served him as far as I could--happily, as it chanced. I tell you all
this, because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I
may want it in the days to come. I believe I am the best friend in the
world--and bad anything else. No one perfectly pleases me, not even you:
you are too studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of
perfection in one or two points. But now hear what I have done, and
approve it if you think fit. I have flirted--abominable word!--I am
compelled to use the language of the Misses--yes, I have flirted with my
cousin Algy. I do it too well, I know--by nature! and I hate it. He has
this morning sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he believes
he has failed in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all
pretensions, etc., subject to her wishes, etc. The courting, I imagine,
can scarcely have been pleasant to him. My delightful manner with him
during the last fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter. So, your
friend Robert may be made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda
is not too like her sex."

"You're an enchantress," exclaimed Percy.

"Stop," said she, and drifted into seriousness. "Before you praise me
you must know more. Percy, that duel in India--"

He put out his hand to her.

"Yes, I forgive," she resumed. "You were cruel then. Remember that, and
try to be just now. The poor boy would go to his doom. I could have
arrested it. I partly caused it. I thought the honour of the army at
stake. I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel
that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge. No, I am
not; I am execrable; but forgive me."

Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell
unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red handkerchief.

"It was the bond between us," she pursued, "that I was to return this to
you when I no longer remained my own mistress. Count me a miserably
heartless woman. I do my best. You brought this handkerchief to me
dipped in the blood of the poor boy who was slain. I have worn it. It
was a safeguard. Did you mean it to serve as such? Oh, Percy! I felt
continually that blood was on my bosom. I felt it fighting with me. It
has saved me from much. And now I return it to you."

He could barely articulate "Why?"

"Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know. I asked you
when I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me. You said,
"Till you marry." Do not be vehement, Percy. This is a thing that could
not have been averted."

"Is it possible," Percy cried, "that you carried the play out so far as
to promise him to marry him?"

"Your forehead is thunder, Percy. I know that look."

"Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat
rather than you should be contemptible."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7