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When the cab had flown by, they fell +back into their seats, and smoked; the original stipulation for the day +having been that no harassing matter should be spoken of till nightfall. + +True to this, Robert tried to think hard on the scene of his recent +enjoyment. Horses were to him what music is to a poet, and the glory of +the Races he had witnessed was still quick in heart, and partly +counteracted his astonishment at the sight of his old village enemy in +company with Algernon Blancove. + +It was not astonishing at all to him that they should have quarrelled and +come to blows; for he knew Sedgett well, and the imperative necessity for +fighting him, if only to preserve a man's self-respect and the fair +division of peace, when once he had been allowed to get upon terms +sufficiently close to assert his black nature; but how had it come about? +How was it that a gentleman could consent to appear publicly with such a +fellow? He decided that it meant something, and something ominous--but +what? Whom could it affect? Was Algernon Blancove such a poor creature +that, feeling himself bound by certain dark dealings with Sedgett to keep +him quiet, he permitted the bullying dog to hang to his coat-tail? It +seemed improbable that any young gentleman should be so weak, but it +might be the case; and "if so," thought Robert, "and I let him know I +bear him no ill-will for setting Sedgett upon me, I may be doing him a +service." + +He remembered with pain Algernon's glance of savage humiliation upward, +just before he turned to follow Sedgett into the cab; and considered that +he ought in kindness to see him and make him comfortable by apologizing, +as if he himself had no complaint to make. + +He resolved to do it when the opportunity should come. Meantime, what on +earth brought them together? + +"How white the hedges are!" he said. + +"There's a good deal of dust," Major Waring replied. + +"I wasn't aware that cabs came to the races." + +"They do, you see." + +Robert perceived that Percy meant to fool him if he attempted a breach of +the bond; but he longed so much for Percy's opinion of the strange +alliance between Sedgett and Algernon Blancove, that at any cost he was +compelled to say, "I can't get to the bottom of that." + +"That squabble in the road?" said Percy. "We shall see two or three more +before we reach home." + +"No. What's the meaning of a gentleman consorting with a blackguard?" +Robert persisted. + +"One or the other has discovered an assimilation, I suppose," Percy gave +answer. "That's an odd remark on returning from Epsom. Those who jump +into the same pond generally come out the same colour." + +Robert spoke low. + +"Has it anything to do with the poor girl, do you think?" + +"I told you I declined to think till we were home again. Confound it, +man, have you no idea of a holiday?" + +Robert puffed his tobacco-smoke. + +"Let's talk of Mrs. Lovell," he said. + +"That's not a holiday for me," Percy murmured but Robert's mind was too +preoccupied to observe the tone, and he asked,-- + +"Is she to be trusted to keep her word faithfully this time?" + +"Come," said Percy, "we haven't betted to-day. I'll bet you she will, if +you like. Will you bet against it?" + +"I won't. I can't nibble at anything. Betting's like drinking." + +"But you can take a glass of wine. This sort of bet is much the same. +However, don't; for you would lose." + +"There," said Robert; "I've heard of being angry with women for +fickleness, changeableness, and all sorts of other things. She's a lady +I couldn't understand being downright angry with, and here's the reason-- +it ain't a matter of reason at all--she fascinates me. I do, I declare, +clean forget Rhoda; I forget the girl, if only I see Mrs. Lovell at a +distance. How's that? I'm not a fool, with nonsensical fancies of any +kind. I know what loving a woman is; and a man in my position might be +ass enough to--all sorts of things. It isn't that; it's fascination. +I'm afraid of her. If she talks to me, I feel something like having +gulped a bottle of wine. Some women you have a respect for; some you +like or you love; some you despise: with her, I just feel I'm +intoxicated." + +Major Waring eyed him steadily. He said: "I'll unriddle it, if I can, to +your comprehension. She admires you for what you are, and she lets you +see it; I dare say she's not unwilling that you should see it. She has a +worship for bravery: it's a deadly passion with her." + +Robert put up a protesting blush of modesty, as became him. "Then why, +if she does me the honour to think anything of me, does she turn against +me?" + +"Ah! now you go deeper. She is giving you what assistance she can; at +present: be thankful, if you can be satisfied with her present doings. +Perhaps I'll answer the other question by-and-by. Now we enter London, +and our day is over. How did you like it?" + +Robert's imagination rushed back to the downs. + +"The race was glorious. I wish we could go at that pace in life; I +should have a certainty of winning. How miserably dull the streets look; +and the people creep along--they creep, and seem to like it. Horseback's +my element." + +They drove up to Robert's lodgings, where, since the Winter, he had been +living austerely and recklessly; exiled by his sensitiveness from his two +homes, Warbeach and Wrexby; and seeking over London for Dahlia--a +pensioner on his friend's bounty; and therein had lain the degrading +misery to a man of his composition. Often had he thought of enlisting +again, and getting drafted to a foreign station. Nothing but the +consciousness that he was subsisting on money not his own would have kept +him from his vice. As it was, he had lived through the months between +Winter and Spring, like one threading his way through the tortuous +lengths of a cavern; never coming to the light, but coming upon absurd +mishaps in his effort to reach it. His adventures in London partook +somewhat of the character of those in Warbeach, minus the victim; for +whom two or three gentlemen in public thoroughfares had been taken. +These misdemeanours, in the face of civil society, Robert made no mention +of in his letters to Percy. + +But there was light now, though at first it gave but a faint glimmer, in +a lady's coloured envelope, lying on the sitting-room table. Robert +opened it hurriedly, and read it; seized Dahlia's address, with a brain +on fire, and said: + +"It's signed 'Margaret Lovell.' This time she calls me 'Dear Sir.'" + +"She could hardly do less," Percy remarked. + +"I know: but there is a change in her. There's a summer in her writing +now. She has kept her word, Percy. She's the dearest lady in the world. +I don't ask why she didn't help me before." + +"You acknowledge the policy of mild measures," said Major Waring. + +"She's the dearest lady in the world," Robert repeated. He checked his +enthusiasm. "Lord in heaven! what an evening I shall have." + +The thought of his approaching interview with Dahlia kept him dumb. + +As they were parting in the street, Major Waring said, "I will be here at +twelve. Let me tell you this, Robert: she is going to be married; say +nothing to dissuade her; it's the best she can do; take a manly view of +it. Good-bye." + +Robert was but slightly affected by the intelligence. His thoughts were +on Dahlia as he had first seen her, when in her bloom, and the sister of +his darling; now miserable; a thing trampled to earth! With him, pity +for a victim soon became lost in rage at the author of the wrong, and as +he walked along he reflected contemptuously on his feeble efforts to +avenge her at Warbeach. She lived in a poor row of cottages, striking +off from one of the main South-western suburb roads, not very distant +from his own lodgings, at which he marvelled, as at a cruel irony. He +could not discern the numbers, and had to turn up several of the dusky +little strips of garden to read the numbers on the doors. A faint smell +of lilac recalled the country and old days, and some church bells began +ringing. The number of the house where he was to find Dahlia was seven. +He was at the door of the house next to it, when he heard voices in the +garden beside him. + +A man said, "Then I have your answer?" + +A woman said, "Yes; yes." + +"You will not trust to my pledged honour?" + +"Pardon me; not that. I will not live in disgrace." + +"When I promise, on my soul, that the moment I am free I will set you +right before the world?" + +"Oh! pardon me." + +"You will?" + +"No; no! I cannot." + +"You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog, who'll ill-treat you, and +for whom you don't care a pin's-head; and why? that you may be fenced +from gossip, and nothing more. I thought you were a woman above that +kind of meanness. And this is a common countryman. How will you endure +that kind of life? You were made for elegance and happiness: you shall +have it. I met you before your illness, when you would not listen to me: +I met you after. I knew you at once. Am I changed? I swear to you I +have dreamed of you ever since, and love you. Be as faded as you like; +be hideous, if you like; but come with me. You know my name, and what I +am. Twice I have followed you, and found your name and address; twice I +have written to you, and made the same proposal. And you won't trust to +my honour? When I tell you I love you tenderly? When I give you my +solemn assurance that you shall not regret it? You have been deceived by +one man: why punish me? I know--I feel you are innocent and good. This +is the third time that you have permitted me to speak to you: let it be +final. Say you will trust yourself to me--trust in my honour. Say it +shall be to-morrow. Yes; say the word. To-morrow. My sweet creature-- +do!" + +The man spoke earnestly, but a third person and extraneous hearer could +hardly avoid being struck by the bathetic conclusion. At least, in tone +it bordered on a fall; but the woman did not feel it so. + +She replied: "You mean kindly to me, sir. I thank you indeed, for I am +very friendless. Oh! pardon me: I am quite--quite determined. Go--pray, +forget me." + +This was Dahlia's voice. + +Robert was unconscious of having previously suspected it. Heartily +ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk, he went from the +garden and crossed the street. + +He knew this to be one of the temptations of young women in London. + +Shortly after, the man came through the iron gateway of the garden. He +passed under lamplight, and Robert perceived him to be a gentleman in +garb. + +A light appeared in the windows of the house. Now that he had heard her +voice, the terrors of his interview were dispersed, and he had only plain +sadness to encounter. He knocked at the door quietly. There was a long +delay after he had sent in his name; but finally admission was given. + +"If I had loved her!" groaned Robert, before he looked on her; but when +he did look on her, affectionate pity washed the selfish man out of him. +All these false sensations, peculiar to men, concerning the soiled purity +of woman, the lost innocence; the brand of shame upon her, which are +commonly the foul sentimentalism of such as can be too eager in the chase +of corruption when occasion suits, and are another side of pruriency, not +absolutely foreign to the best of us in our youth--all passed away from +him in Dahlia's presence. + +The young man who can look on them we call fallen women with a noble eye, +is to my mind he that is most nobly begotten of the race, and likeliest +to be the sire of a noble line. Robert was less than he; but Dahlia's +aspect helped him to his rightful manliness. He saw that her worth +survived. + +The creature's soul had put no gloss upon her sin. She had sinned, and +her suffering was manifest. + +She had chosen to stand up and take the scourge of God; after which the +stones cast by men are not painful. + +By this I mean that she had voluntarily stripped her spirit bare of +evasion, and seen herself for what she was; pleading no excuse. His +scourge is the Truth, and she had faced it. + +Innumerable fanciful thoughts, few of them definite, beset the mind at +interviews such as these; but Robert was distinctly impressed by her +look. It was as that of one upon the yonder shore. Though they stood +close together, he had the thought of their being separate--a gulf +between. + +The colourlessness of her features helped to it, and the odd little +close-fitting white linen cap which she wore to conceal the +stubborn-twisting clipped curls of her shorn head, made her unlike women +of our world. She was dressed in black up to the throat. Her eyes were +still luminously blue, and she let them dwell on Robert one gentle +instant, giving him her hand humbly. + +"Dahlia!--my dear sister, I wish I could say; but the luck's against me," +Robert began. + +She sat, with her fingers locked together in her lap, gazing forward on +the floor, her head a little sideways bent. + +"I believe," he went on--"I haven't heard, but I believe Rhoda is well." + +"She and father are well, I know," said Dahlia. + +Robert started: "Are you in communication with them?" + +She shook her head. "At the end of some days I shall see them." + +"And then perhaps you'll plead my cause, and make me thankful to you for +life, Dahlia?" + +"Rhoda does not love you." + +"That's the fact, if a young woman's to be trusted to know her own mind, +in the first place, and to speak it, in the second." + +Dahlia, closed her lips. The long-lined underlip was no more very red. +Her heart knew that it was not to speak of himself that he had come; but +she was poor-witted, through weakness of her blood, and out of her own +immediate line of thought could think neither far nor deep. He +entertained her with talk of his notions of Rhoda, finishing: + +"But at the end of a week you will see her, and I dare say she'll give +you her notions of me. Dahlia! how happy this'll make them. I do say +thank God! from my soul, for this." + +She pressed her hands in her lap, trembling. "If you will, please, not +speak of it, Mr. Robert." + +"Say only you do mean it, Dahlia. You mean to let them see you?" + +She shivered out a "Yes." + +"That's right. Because, a father and a sister--haven't they a claim? +Think a while. They've had a terrible time. And it's true that you've +consented to a husband, Dahlia? I'm glad, if it is; and he's good and +kind. Right soul-glad I am." + +While he was speaking, her eyelids lifted and her eyes became fixed on +him in a stony light of terror, like a creature in anguish before her +executioner. Then again her eyelids dropped. She had not moved from her +still posture. + +"You love him?" he asked, in some wonderment. + +She gave no answer. + +"Don't you care for him?" + +There was no reply. + +"Because, Dahlia, if you do not I know I have no right to fancy you do +not. How is it? Tell me. Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no +love. And this man, whoever he is--is he in good circumstances? I +wouldn't speak of him; but, you see, I must, as your friend--and I'm +that. Come: he loves you? Of course he does. He has said so. I +believe it. And he's a man you can honour and esteem? You wouldn't +consent without, I'm sure. What makes me anxious--I look on you as my +sister, whether Rhoda will have it so or not; I'm anxious because--I'm +anxious it should be over, for then Rhoda will be proud of the faith she +had in you, and it will lighten the old man's heart." + +Once more the inexplicable frozen look struck over him from her opened +eyes, as if one of the minutes of Time had yawned to show him its deep, +mute, tragic abyss, and was extinguished. + +"When does it take place, Dahlia?" + +Her long underlip, white almost as the row of teeth it revealed, hung +loose. + +"When?" he asked, leaning forward to hear, and the word was "Saturday," +uttered with a feeble harshness, not like the gentle voice of Dahlia. + +"This coming Saturday?" + +"No." + +"Saturday week?" + +She fell into a visible trembling. + +"You named the day?" + +He pushed for an indication of cheerful consent to the act she was about +to commit, or of reluctance. + +Possibly she saw this, for now she answered, "I did." The sound was deep +in her throat. + +"Saturday week," said Robert. "I feel to the man as a brother, already. +Do you live--you'll live in the country?" + +"Abroad." + +"Not in Old England? I'm sorry for that. But--well! Things must be as +they're ordered. Heigho! I've got to learn it." + +Dahlia smiled kindly. + +"Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves." + +"When she loves. Where's the consolation to me?" + +"Do you think she loves me as much--as much" + +"As much as ever? She loves her sister with all her heart--all, for I +haven't a bit of it." + +"It is because," said Dahlia slowly, "it is because she thinks I am--" + +Here the poor creature's bosom heaved piteously. + +"What has she said of me? I wish her to have blamed me--it is less +pain." + +"Listen," said Robert. "She does not, and couldn't blame you, for it's a +sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you. And the reason why +she hates me is, that I, knowing something more of the world, suspected, +and chose to let her know it--I said it, in fact--that you had been +deceived by a--But this isn't the time to abuse others. She would have +had me, if I had thought proper to think as she thinks, or play +hypocrite, and pretend to. I'll tell you openly, Dahlia; your father +thinks the worst. Ah! you look the ghost again. It's hard for you to +hear, but you give me a notion of having got strength to hear it. It's +your father's way to think the worst. Now, when you can show him your +husband, my dear, he'll lift his head. He's old English. He won't dream +of asking questions. He'll see a brave and honest young man who must +love you, or--he does love you, that's settled. Your father'll shake his +hand, and as for Rhoda, she'll triumph. The only person to speak out to, +is the man who marries you, and that you've done." + +Robert looked the interrogation he did not utter. + +"I have," said Dahlia. + +"Good: if I may call him brother, some day, all the better for me. Now, +you won't leave England the day you're married." + +"Soon. I pray that it may be soon." + +"Yes; well, on that morning, I'll have your father and Rhoda at my +lodgings, not wide from here: if I'd only known it earlier!--and you and +your husband shall come there and join us. It'll be a happy meeting at +last." + +Dahlia stopped her breathing. + +"Will you see Rhoda?" + +"I'll go to her to-morrow, if you like." + +"If I might see her, just as I am leaving England! not before." + +"That's not generous," said Robert. + +"Isn't it?" she asked like a child. + +"Fancy!--to see you she's been longing for, and the ship that takes you +off, perhaps everlastingly, as far as this world's concerned!" + +"Mr. Robert, I do not wish to deceive my sister. Father need not be +distressed. Rhoda shall know. I will not be guilty of falsehoods any +more--no more! Will you go to her? Tell her--tell Rhoda what I am. Say +I have been ill. It will save her from a great shock." + +She covered her eyes. + +"I said in all my letters that my husband was a gentleman." + +It was her first openly penitential utterance in his presence, and her +cheeks were faintly reddened. It may have been this motion of her blood +which aroused the sunken humanity within her; her heart leaped, and she +cried "I can see her as I am, I can. I thought it impossible. Oh! I +can. Will she come to me? My sister is a Christian and forgives. Oh! +let me see her. And go to her, dear Mr. Robert, and ask her--tell her +all, and ask her if I may be spared, and may work at something--anything, +for my livelihood near my sister. It is difficult for women to earn +money, but I think I can. I have done so since my illness. I have been +in the hospital with brain fever. He was lodging in the house with me +before. He found me at the hospital. When I came out, he walked with me +to support me: I was very weak. He read to me, and then asked me to +marry him. He asked again. I lay in bed one night, and with my eyes +open, I saw the dangers of women, and the trouble of my father and +sister; and pits of wickedness. I saw like places full of snakes. I had +such a yearning for protection. I gave him my word I would be his wife, +if he was not ashamed of a wife like me. I wished to look once in +father's face. I had fancied that Rhoda would spurn me, when she +discovered my falsehood. She--sweet dear! would she ever? Go to her. +Say, I do not love any man. I am heart-dead. I have no heart except for +her. I cannot love a husband. He is good, and it is kind: but, oh! let +me be spared. His face!--" + +She pressed her hands tight into the hollow of her eyes. + +"No; it can't be meant. Am I very ungrateful? This does not seem to be +what God orders. Only if this must be! only if it must be! If my sister +cannot look on me without! He is good, and it is unselfish to take a +moneyless, disgraced creature: but, my misery!--If my sister will see me, +without my doing this!--Go to her, Mr. Robert. Say, Dahlia was false, +and repents, and has worked with her needle to subsist, and can, and +will, for her soul strives to be clean. Try to make her understand. +If Rhoda could love you, she would know. She is locked up--she is only +ideas. My sweet is so proud. I love her for her pride, if she will only +let me creep to her feet, kiss her feet. Dear Mr. Robert, help me! help +me! I will do anything she says. If she says I am to marry him, I will. +Don't mind my tears--they mean nothing now. Tell my dear, I will obey +her. I will not be false any more to her. I wish to be quite stripped. +And Rhoda may know me, and forgive me, if she can. And--Oh! if she +thinks, for father's sake, I ought, I will submit and speak the words; +I will; I am ready. I pray for mercy." + +Robert sat with his fist at his temples, in a frowning meditation. + +Had she declared her reluctance to take the step, in the first moments of +their interview, he might have been ready to support her: but a project +fairly launched becomes a reality in the brain--a thing once spoken of +attracts like a living creature, and does not die voluntarily. Robert +now beheld all that was in its favour, and saw nothing but flighty flimsy +objections to it. He was hardly moved by her unexpected outburst. + +Besides, there was his own position in the case. Rhoda would smile on +him, if he brought Dahlia to her, and brought her happy in the world's +eye. It will act as a sort of signal for general happiness. But if he +had to go and explain matters base and mournful to her, there would be no +smile on her face, and not much gratitude in her breast. There would be +none for a time, certainly. Proximity to her faded sister made him +conceive her attainable, and thrice precious by contrast. + +He fixed his gaze on Dahlia, and the perfect refinement of her simplicity +caused him to think that she might be aware of an inappropriateness in +the contemplated union. + +"Is he a clumsy fellow? I mean, do you read straight off that he has no +pretension to any manners of a gentleman--nothing near it?" + +To this question, put with hesitation by Robert, Dahlia made answer, "I +respect him." + +She would not strengthen her prayer by drawing the man's portrait. +Speedily she forgot how the doing so would in any way have strengthened +her prayer. The excitement had left her brain dull. She did little more +than stare mildly, and absently bend her head, while Robert said that he +would go to Rhoda on the morrow, and speak seriously with her. + +"But I think I can reckon her ideas will side with mine, that it is to +your interest, my dear, to make your feelings come round warm to a man +you can respect, and who offers you a clear path," he said. + +Whereat Dahlia quietly blinked her eyes. + +When he stood up, she rose likewise. + +"Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?" he said, and seeing her answer, bent his +forehead, to which she put her lips. + +"And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring it. +Good-bye, Dahlia. You shall hear from your sister the morning after +to-morrow. Good-bye!" + +He pressed her hand, and went to the door. + +"There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?" + +"Not anything." + +"God bless you, my dear!" + +Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again +in the street. Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so +easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life, +and the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at +them with your eyes. + +But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet. + +"It's the best she can do; she can do no better," he said; and said it +more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction. +Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes, +natural as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct, +solid, and grave impressions. Something of what our human tragedy may +show before high heaven possessed him. He saw it bare of any sentiment, +in the person of the girl Dahlia. He could neither put a halo of +imagination about her, nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the +creature. She stood a naked sorrow, haunting his brain. + +And still he continued saying, "It's the best she can do: it's best for +all. She can do nothing better." + +He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence. + +The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the +farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his +escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain the +cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun was +extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a +hundred severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the +mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum! + +It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is +once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have +worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find it +there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the +typical child of a wealthy country) exult marvellously, and soar above +the conditions of earth. + +He knew the very features of the notes. That gallant old Five Hundred, +who might have been a Thousand, but that he had nobly split himself into +centurions and skirmishers, stood in his imaginative contemplation like a +grand white-headed warrior, clean from the slaughter and in +court-ruffles--say, Blucher at the court of the Waterloo Regent. The +Hundreds were his Generals; the Fifties his captains; and each one was +possessed of unlimited power of splitting himself into serviceable +regiments, at the call of his lord, Algernon. + +He scarcely liked to make the secret confession that it was the largest +sum he had ever as yet carried about; but, as it heightened his pleasure, +he did confess it for half an instant. Five Hundred in the bulk he had +never attained to. He felt it as a fortification against every mishap in +life. + +To a young man commonly in difficulties with regard to the paying of his +cabman, and latterly the getting of his dinner, the sense of elevation +imparted by the sum was intoxicating. But, thinking too much of the Five +Hundred waxed dangerous for the fifties; it dwarfed them to such +insignificance that it made them lose their self-respect. So, Algernon, +pursuing excellent tactics, set his mind upon some stray shillings that +he had a remainder of five pounds borrowed from old Anthony, when he +endeavoured to obtain repayment of the one pound and interest dating from +the night at the theatre. Algernon had stopped his mouth on that point, +as well as concerning his acquaintance with Dahlia, by immediately +attempting to borrow further, whenever Anthony led the way for a word in +private. A one-pound creditor had no particular terrors for him, and he +manoeuvred the old man neatly, saying, as previously, "Really, I don't +know the young person you allude to: I happened to meet her, or some one +like her, casually," and dropping his voice, "I'm rather short--what do +you think? Could you?--a trifling accommodation?" from which Anthony +fled. + +But on the day closing the Epsom week he beckoned Anthony secretly to +follow him out of the office, and volunteered to give news that he had +just heard of Dahlia. + +"Oh," said Anthony, "I've seen her." + +"I haven't," said Algernon, "upon my honour." + +"Yes, I've seen her, sir, and sorry to hear her husband's fallen a bit +low." Anthony touched his pocket. "What they calls 'nip' tides, ain't +it?" + +Algernon sprang a compliment under him, which sent the vain old fellow +up, whether he would or not, to the effect that Anthony's tides were not +subject to lunar influence. + +"Now, Mr. Blancove, you must change them notions o' me. I don't say I +shouldn't be richer if I'd got what's owing to me." + +"You'd have to be protected; you'd be Bullion on two legs," said +Algernon, always shrewd in detecting a weakness. "You'd have to go about +with sentries on each side, and sleep in an iron safe!" + +The end of the interview was a visit to the public-house, and the +transferring of another legal instrument from Algernon to Anthony. The +latter departed moaning over his five pounds ten shillings in paper; the +former rejoicing at his five pounds in gold. That day was Saturday. On +Monday, only a few shillings of the five pounds remained; but they were +sufficient to command a cab, and, if modesty in dining was among the +prescriptions for the day, a dinner. Algernon was driven to the West. + +He remembered when he had plunged in the midst of the fashionable +whirlpool, having felt reckless there formerly, but he had become +remarkably sedate when he stepped along the walks. A certain equipage, +or horse, was to his taste, and once he would have said: "That's the +thing for me;" being penniless. Now, on the contrary, he reckoned the +possible cost, grudgingly, saying "Eh?" to himself, and responding "No," +faintly, and then more positively, "Won't do." + +He was by no means acting as one on a footing of equality with the people +he beholds. A man who is ready to wager a thousand pounds that no other +man present has that amount in his pocket, can hardly feel unequal to his +company. + +Charming ladies on horseback cantered past. "Let them go," he thought. +Yesterday, the sight of one would have set him dreaming on grand +alliances. When you can afford to be a bachelor, the case is otherwise. +Presently, who should ride by but Mrs. Lovell! She was talking more +earnestly than was becoming, to that easy-mannered dark-eyed fellow; the +man who had made him savage by entering the opera-box. + +"Poor old Ned!" said Algernon; "I must put him on his guard." But, even +the lifting of a finger--a hint on paper--would bring Edward over from +Paris, as he knew; and that was not in his scheme; so he only determined +to write to his cousin. + +A flood of evening gold lay over the Western park. + +"The glory of this place," Algernon said to himself, "is, that you're +sure of meeting none but gentlemen here;" and he contrasted it with Epsom +Downs. + +A superstitious horror seized him when, casting his eyes ahead, he +perceived Sedgett among the tasteful groups--as discordant a figure as +could well be seen, and clumsily aware of it, for he could neither step +nor look like a man at ease. Algernon swung round and retraced his way; +but Sedgett had long sight. + +"I'd heard of London"--Algernon soon had the hated voice in his ears,-- +"and I've bin up to London b'fore; I came here to have a wink at the +fash'nables--hang me, if ever I see such a scrumptious lot. It's worth a +walk up and down for a hour or more. D' you come heer often, sir?" + +"Eh? Who are you? Oh!" said Algernon, half mad with rage. "Excuse me;" +and he walked faster. + +"Fifty times over," Sedgett responded cheerfully. "I'd pace you for a +match up and down this place if you liked. Ain't the horses a spectacle? +I'd rather be heer than there at they Races. As for the ladies, I'll +tell you what: ladies or no ladies, give my young woman time for her hair +to grow; and her colour to come, by George! if she wouldn't shine against +e'er a one--smite me stone blind, if she wouldn't! So she shall! +Australia'll see. I owe you my thanks for interdoocin' me, and never +fear my not remembering." + +Where there was a crowd, Algernon could elude his persecutor by threading +his way rapidly; but the open spaces condemned him to merciless exposure, +and he flew before eyes that his imagination exaggerated to a stretch of +supernatural astonishment. The tips of his fingers, the roots of his +hair, pricked with vexation, and still, manoeuvre as he might, Sedgett +followed him. + +"Call at my chambers," he said sternly. + +"You're never at home, sir." + +"Call to-morrow morning, at ten." + +"And see a great big black door, and kick at it till my toe comes through +my boot. Thank ye." + +"I tell you, I won't have you annoying me in public; once for all." + +"Why, sir; I thought we parted friends, last time. Didn't you shake my +hand, now, didn't you shake my hand, sir? I ask you, whether you shook +my hand, or whether you didn't? A plain answer. We had a bit of a +scrimmage, coming home. I admit we had; but shaking hands, means +'friends again we are.' I know you're a gentleman, and a man like me +shouldn't be so bold as fur to strike his betters. Only, don't you see, +sir, Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap, and up in a minute; and he's sorry for +it after." + +Algernon conceived a brilliant notion. Drawing five shillings from his +pocket, he held them over to Sedgett, and told him to drive down to his +chambers, and await his coming. Sedgett took the money; but it was five +shillings lost. He made no exhibition of receiving orders, and it was +impossible to address him imperiously without provoking observations of +an animated kind from the elegant groups parading and sitting. + +Young Harry Latters caught Algernon's eye; never was youth more joyfully +greeted. Harry spoke of the Friday's race, and the defection of the +horse Tenpenny Nail. A man passed with a nod and "How d' ye do?" for +which he received in reply a cool stare. + +"Who's that?" Algernon asked. + +"The son of a high dignitary," said Harry. + +"You cut him." + +"I can do the thing, you see, when it's a public duty." + +"What's the matter with him?" + +"Merely a black-leg, a grec, a cheat, swindler, or whatever name you +like," said Harry. "We none of us nod to the professionals in this line; +and I won't exchange salutes with an amateur. I'm peculiar. He chose to +be absent on the right day last year; so from that date; I consider him +absent in toto; "none of your rrrrr--m reckonings, let's have the rrrrr-- +m toto;"--you remember Suckling's story of the Yankee fellow? Bye-bye; +shall see you the day after to-morrow. You dine with me and Suckling at +the club." + +Latters was hailed by other friends. Algernon was forced to let him go. +He dipped under the iron rail, and crossed the row at a run; an +indecorous proceeding; he could not help it. The hope was that Sedgett +would not have the like audacity, or might be stopped, and Algernon's +reward for so just a calculation was, that on looking round, he found +himself free. He slipped with all haste out of the Park. Sedgett's +presence had the deadening power of the torpedo on the thousand pounds. + +For the last quarter of an hour, Algernon had not felt a motion of it. A +cab, to make his escape certain, was suggested to his mind; and he would +have called a cab, had not the novel apparition of economy, which now +haunted him, suggested that he had recently tossed five shillings into +the gutter. A man might dine on four shillings and sixpence, enjoying a +modest half-pint of wine, and he possessed that sum. To pinch himself +and deserve well of Providence, he resolved not to drink wine, but beer, +that day. He named the beverage; a pint-bottle of ale; and laughed, as a +royal economist may, who punishes himself to please himself. + +"Mighty jolly, ain't it, sir?" said Sedgett, at his elbow. + +Algernon faced about, and swore an oath from his boots upward; so +vehement was his disgust, and all-pervading his amazement. + +"I'll wallop you at that game," said Sedgett. + +"You infernal scoundrel!" + +"If you begin swearing," Sedgett warned him. + +"What do you want with me?" + +"I'll tell you, sir. I don't want to go to ne'er a cock-fight, nor +betting hole." + +"Here, come up this street," said Algernon, leading the way into a dusky +defile from a main parade of fashion. "Now, what's your business, +confound you!" + +"Well, sir, I ain't goin' to be confounded: that, I'll--I'll swear to. +The long and the short is, I must have some money 'fore the week's out." + +"You won't have a penny from me." + +"That's blunt, though it ain't in my pocket," said Sedgett, grinning. "I +say, sir, respectful as you like, I must. I've got to pay for +passengerin' over the sea, self and wife; and quick it must be. There's +things to buy on both sides. A small advance and you won't be bothered. +Say, fifty. Fifty, and you don't see me till Saturday, when, accordin' +to agreement, you hand to me the cash, outside the church door; and then +we parts to meet no more. Oh! let us be joyful--I'll sing." + +Algernon's loathing of the coarseness and profanity of villany increased +almost to the depth of a sentiment as he listened to Sedgett. + +"I do nothing of the sort," he said. "You shall not have a farthing. Be +off. If you follow me, I give you into custody of a policeman." + +"You durst n't." Sedgett eyed him warily. + +He could spy a physical weakness, by affinity of cowardice, as quickly as +Algernon a moral weakness, by the same sort of relationship to it. + +"You don't dare," Sedgett pursued. "And why should you, sir? there's +ne'er a reason why. I'm civil. I asks for my own: no more 'n my own, it +ain't. I call the bargain good: why sh'd I want fur to break it? I want +the money bad. I'm sick o' this country. I'd like to be off in the +first ship that sails. Can't you let me have ten till to-morrow? then +t' other forty. I've got a mortal need for it, that I have. Come, it's +no use your walking at that rate; my legs are's good as yours." + +Algernon had turned back to the great thoroughfare. He was afraid that +ten pounds must be forfeited to this worrying demon in the flesh, and +sought the countenance of his well-dressed fellows to encourage him in +resisting. He could think of no subterfuge; menace was clearly useless: +and yet the idea of changeing one of the notes and for so infamous a +creature, caused pangs that helped him further to endure his dogging feet +and filthy tongue. This continued until he saw a woman's hand waving +from a cab. Presuming that such a signal, objectionable as it was, must +be addressed to himself, he considered whether he should lift his hat, or +simply smile as a favoured, but not too deeply flattered, man. The cab +drew up, and the woman said, "Sedgett." She was a well-looking woman, +strongly coloured, brown-eyed, and hearty in appearance. + +"What a brute you are, Sedgett, not to be at home when you brought me up +to London with all the boxes and bedding--my goodness! It's a Providence +I caught you in my eye, or I should have been driving down to the docks, +and seeing about the ship. You are a brute. Come in, at once." + +"If you're up to calling names, I've got one or two for you," Sedgett +growled. + +Algernon had heard enough. Sure that he had left Sedgett in hands not +likely to relinquish him, he passed on with elastic step. Wine was +greatly desired, after his torments. Where was credit to be had? True, +he looked contemptuously on the blooming land of credit now, but an entry +to it by one of the back doors would have been convenient, so that he +might be nourished and restored by a benevolent dinner, while he kept his +Thousand intact. However, he dismissed the contemplation of credit and +its transient charms. "I won't dine at all," he said. + +A beggar woman stretched out her hand--he dropped a shilling in it. + +"Hang me, if I shall be able to," was his next reflection; and with the +remaining three and sixpence, he crossed the threshold of a tobacconist's +shop and bought cigars, to save himself from excesses in charity. After +gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars, +he came into the air, feeling extraordinarily empty. Of this he soon +understood the cause, and it amused him. Accustomed to the smell of +tobacco always when he came from his dinner, it seemed, as the fumes of +the shop took his nostril, that demands were being made within him by an +inquisitive spirit, and dissatisfaction expressed at the vacancy there. + +"What's the use? I can't dine," he uttered argumentatively. "I'm not +going to change a note, and I won't dine. I've no Club. There's not a +fellow I can see who'll ask me to dine. I'll lounge along home. There +is some Sherry there." + +But Algernon bore vividly in mind that he did not approve of that Sherry. + +"I've heard of fellows frying sausages at home, and living on something +like two shillings a day," he remarked in meditation; and then it struck +him that Mrs. Lovell's parcel of returned jewels lay in one of his +drawers at home--that is, if the laundress had left the parcel untouched. + +In an agony of alarm, he called a cab, and drove hotly to the Temple. +Finding the packet safe, he put a couple of rings and the necklace with +the opal in his waistcoat pocket. The cabman must be paid, of course; so +a jewel must be pawned. Which shall it be? diamond or opal? Change a +dozen times and let it be the trinket in the right hand--the opal; let it +be the opal. How much would the opal fetch? The pawnbroker can best +inform us upon that point. So he drove to the pawnbroker; one whom he +knew. The pawnbroker offered him five-and-twenty pounds on the security +of the opal. + +"What on earth is it that people think disgraceful in your entering a +pawnbroker's shop?" Algernon asked himself when, taking his ticket and +the five-and-twenty pounds, he repelled the stare of a man behind a +neighbouring partition. + +"There are not many of that sort in the kingdom," he said to the +pawnbroker, who was loftily fondling the unlucky opal. + +"Well--h'm; perhaps there's not;" the pawnbroker was ready to admit it, +now that the arrangement had been settled. + +"I shan't be able to let you keep it long." + +"As quick back as you like, sir." + +Algernon noticed as he turned away that the man behind the partition, who +had more the look of a dapper young shopman than of a needy petitioner +for loans or securities, stretched over the counter to look at the opal; +and he certainly heard his name pronounced. It enraged him; but policy +counselled a quiet behaviour in this place, and no quarrelling with his +pawnbroker. Besides, his whole nature cried out for dinner. He dined +and had his wine; as good, he ventured to assert, as any man could get +for the money; for he knew the hotels with the venerable cellars. + +"I should have made a first-rate courier to a millionaire," he said, with +scornful candour, but without abusing the disposition of things which had +ordered his being a gentleman. Subsequently, from his having sat so long +over his wine without moving a leg, he indulged in the belief that he had +reflected profoundly; out of which depths he started, very much like a +man who has dozed, and felt a discomfort in his limbs and head. + +"I must forget myself," he said. Nor was any grave mentor by, to assure +him that his tragic state was the issue of an evil digestion of his +dinner and wine. "I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it +now. Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was born +under a bad star. My fate's written." Following his youthful wisdom, +this wounded hart dragged his slow limbs toward the halls of brandy and +song. + +One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them: and the fool, +though Nature is wise, is next door to Nature. He is naked in his +simplicity; he can tell us much, and suggest more. My excuse for +dwelling upon him is, that he holds the link of my story. Where fools +are numerous, one of them must be prominent now and then in a veracious +narration. There comes an hour when the veil drops on him, he not being +always clean to the discreeter touch. + +Algernon was late at the Bank next day, and not cheerful, though he +received his customary reprimand with submission. This day was after the +pattern of the day preceding, except that he did not visit the Park; the +night likewise. + +On Wednesday morning, he arose with the conviction that England was no +place for him to dwell in. What if Rhoda were to accompany him to one of +the colonies? The idea had been gradually taking shape in his mind from +the moment that he had possessed the Thousand. Could she not make butter +and cheeses capitally, while he rode on horseback through space? She was +a strong girl, a loyal girl, and would be a grateful wife. + +"I'll marry her," he said; and hesitated. "Yes, I'll marry her." But it +must be done immediately. + +He resolved to run down to Wrexby, rejoice her with a declaration of +love, astound her with a proposal of marriage, bewilder her little brain +with hurrying adjectives, whisk her up to London, and in little more than +a week be sailing on the high seas, new born; nothing of civilization +about him, save a few last very first-rate cigars which he projected to +smoke on the poop of the vessel, and so dream of the world he left +behind. + +He went down to the Bank in better spirits, and there wrote off a +straightforward demand of an interview, to Rhoda, hinting at the purpose +of it. While at his work, he thought of Harry Latters and Lord Suckling, +and the folly of his dining with men in his present position. +Settling-day, it or yesterday might be, but a colonist is not supposed to +know anything of those arrangements. One of his fellow-clerks reminded +him of a loan he had contracted, and showed him his name written under +obligatory initials. He paid it, ostentatiously drawing out one of his +fifties. Up came another, with a similar strip of paper. "You don't +want me to change this, do you?" said Algernon; and heard a tale of +domestic needs--and a grappling landlady. He groaned inwardly: "Odd that +I must pay for his landlady being a vixen!" The note was changed; the +debt liquidated. On the door-step, as he was going to lunch, old Anthony +waylaid him, and was almost noisily persistent in demanding his one pound +three and his five pound ten. Algernon paid the sums, ready to believe +that there was a suspicion abroad of his intention to become a colonist. + +He employed the luncheon hour in a visit to a colonial shipping office, +and nearly ran straight upon Sedgett at the office-door. The woman who +had hailed him from the cab, was in Sedgett's company, but Sedgett saw no +one. His head hung and his sullen brows were drawn moodily. Algernon +escaped from observation. His first inquiry at the office was as to the +business of the preceding couple, and he was satisfied by hearing that +Sedgett wanted berths for himself and wife. + +"Who's the woman, I wonder!" Algernon thought, and forgot her. + +He obtained some particular information, and returning to the Bank, was +called before his uncle, who curtly reckoned up his merits in a +contemptuous rebuke, and confirmed him in his resolution to incur this +sort of thing no longer. In consequence, he promised Sir William that he +would amend his ways, and these were the first hopeful words that Sir +William had ever heard from him. + +Algernon's design was to dress, that evening, in the uniform of society, +so that, in the event of his meeting Harry Latters, he might assure him +he was coming to his Club, and had been compelled to dine elsewhere with +his uncle, or anybody. When he reached the door of his chambers, a man +was standing there, who said,-- + +"Mr. Algernon Blancove?" + +"Yes," Algernon prolonged an affirmative, to diminish the confidence it +might inspire, if possible. + +"May I speak with you, sir?" + +Algernon told him to follow in. The man was tall and large-featured, +with an immense blank expression of face. + +"I've come from Mr. Samuels, sir," he said, deferentially. + +Mr. Samuels was Algernon's chief jeweller. + +"Oh," Algernon remarked. "Well, I don't want anything; and let me say, I +don't approve of this touting for custom. I thought Mr. Samuels was +above it." + +The man bowed. "My business is not that, sir. Ahem! I dare say you +remember an opal you had from our house. It was set in a necklace." + +"All right; I remember it, perfectly," said Algernon; cool, but not of +the collected colour. + +"The cost of it was fifty-five pounds, sir." + +"Was it? Well, I've forgotten." + +"We find that it has been pawned for five-and-twenty." + +"A little less than half," said Algernon. "Pawnbrokers are simply +cheats." + +"They mayn't be worse than others," the man observed. + +Algernon was exactly in the position where righteous anger is the proper +weapon, if not the sole resource. He flushed, but was not sure of his +opportunity for the explosion. The man read the flush. + +"May I ask you, did you pawn it, sir? I'm obliged to ask the question." + +"I?--I really don't--I don't choose to answer impudent questions. What +do you mean by coming here?" + +"I may as well be open with you, sir, to prevent misunderstandings. One +of the young men was present when you pawned it. He saw the thing done." + +"Suppose he did?" + +"He would be a witness." + +"Against me? I've dealt with Samuels for three-four years." + +"Yes, sir; but you have never yet paid any account; and I believe I am +right in saying that this opal is not the first thing coming from our +house that has been pledged--I can't say you did it on the other +occasions." + +"You had better not," rejoined Algernon. + +He broke an unpleasant silence by asking, "What further?" + +"My master has sent you his bill." + +Algernon glanced at the prodigious figures. + +"Five hun--!" he gasped, recoiling; and added, "Well, I can't pay it on +the spot." + +"Let me tell you, you're liable to proceedings you'd better avoid, sir, +for the sake of your relations." + +"You dare to threaten to expose me to my relatives?" Algernon said +haughtily, and immediately perceived that indignation at this point was a +clever stroke; for the man, while deprecating the idea of doing so, +showed his more established belief in the possible virtue of such a +threat. + +"Not at all, sir; but you know that pledging things not paid for is +illegal, and subject to penalties. No tradesman likes it; they can't +allow it. I may as well let you know that Mr. Samuels--" + +"There, stop!" cried Algernon, laughing, as he thought, heartily. "Mr. +Samuels is a very tolerable Jew; but he doesn't seem to understand +dealing with gentlemen. Pressure comes;" he waved his hand swimmingly; +"one wants money, and gets it how one can. Mr. Samuels shall not go to +bed thinking he has been defrauded. I will teach Mr. Samuels to think +better of us Gentiles. Write me a receipt." + +"For what amount, sir?" said the man, briskly. + +"For the value of the opal--that is to say, for the value put upon it by +Mr. Samuels. Con! hang! never mind. Write the receipt." + +He cast a fluttering fifty and a fluttering five on the table, and pushed +paper to the man for a receipt. + +The man reflected, and refused to take them. + +"I don't think, sir," he said, "that less than two-thirds of the bill +will make Mr. Samuels easy. You see, this opal was in a necklace. It +wasn't like a ring you might have taken off your finger. It's a lady's +ornament; and soon after you obtain it from us; you make use of it by +turning it into cash. It's a case for a criminal prosecution, which, for +the sake of your relations, Mr. Samuels wouldn't willingly bring on. The +criminal box is no place for you, sir; but Mr. Samuels must have his own. +His mind is not easy. I shouldn't like, sir, to call a policeman." + +"Hey!" shouted Algernon; "you'd have to get a warrant." + +"It's out, sir." + +Though inclined toward small villanies, he had not studied law, and +judging from his own affrighted sensations, and the man's impassive face, +Algernon supposed that warrants were as lightly granted as writs of +summons. + +He tightened his muscles. In his time he had talked glibly of Perdition; +but this was hot experience. He and the man measured the force of their +eyes. Algernon let his chest fall. + +"Do you mean?" he murmured. + +"Why, sir, it's no use doing things by halves. When a tradesman says he +must have his money, he takes his precautions." + +"Are you in Mr. Samuels' shop?" + +"Not exactly, sir." + +"You're a detective?" + +"I have been in the service, sir." + +"Ah! now I understand." Algernon raised his head with a strain at +haughtiness. "If Mr. Samuels had accompanied you, I would have +discharged the debt: It's only fair that I should insist upon having a +receipt from him personally, and for the whole amount." + +With this, he drew forth his purse and displayed the notable Five +hundred. + +His glow of victory was short. The impassive man likewise had something +to exhibit. + +"I assure you, sir," he said, "Mr. Samuels does know how to deal with +gentlemen. If you will do me the honour, sir, to run up with me to Mr. +Samuels' shop? Or, very well, sir; to save you that annoyance here is +his receipt to the bill." + +Algernon mechanically crumpled up his note. + +"Samuels?" ejaculated the unhappy fellow. "Why, my mother dealt with +Samuels. My aunt dealt with Samuels. All my family have dealt with him +for years; and he talks of proceeding against me, because--upon my soul, +it's too absurd! Sending a policeman, too! I'll tell you what--the +exposure would damage Mister Samuels most materially. Of course, my +father would have to settle the matter; but Mister--Mister Samuels would +not recover so easily. He'd be glad to refund the five hundred--what is +it?--and twenty-five--why not, 'and sixpence three farthings?' I tell +you, I shall let my father pay. Mr. Samuels had better serve me with a +common writ. I tell you, I'm not going to denude myself of money +altogether. I haven't examined the bill. Leave it here. You can tear +off the receipt. Leave it here." + +The man indulged in a slight demonstration of dissent. + +"No, sir, that won't do." + +"Half the bill," roared Algernon; "half the bill, I wouldn't mind +paying." + +"About two-thirds, sir, is what Mr. Samuels asked for, and he'll stop, +and go on as before." + +"He'll stop and he'll go on, will he? Mr. Samuels is amazingly like one +of his own watches," Algernon sneered vehemently. "Well," he pursued, in +fancied security, "I'll pay two-thirds." + +"Three hundred, sir." + +"Ay, three hundred. Tell him to send a receipt for the three hundred, +and he shall have it. As to my entering his shop again, that I shall +have to think over." + +"That's what gentlemen in Mr. Samuels' position have to run risk of, +sir," said the man. + +Algernon, more in astonishment than trepidation, observed him feeling at +his breast-pocket. The action resulted in an exhibition of a second +bill, with a legal receipt attached to it, for three hundred pounds. + +"Mr. Samuels is anxious to accommodate you in every way, sir. It isn't +the full sum he wants; it's a portion. He thought you might prefer to +discharge a portion." + +After this exhibition of foresight on the part of the jeweller, there was +no more fight in Algernon beyond a strenuous "Faugh!" of uttermost +disgust. + +He examined the bill and receipt in the man's hand with great apparent +scrupulousness; not, in reality, seeing a clear syllable. + +"Take it and change it," he threw his Five hundred down, but recovered it +from the enemy's grasp; and with a "one, two, three," banged his hundreds +on the table: for which he had the loathsome receipt handed to him. + +"How," he asked, chokingly, "did Mr. Samuels know I could--I had money?" + +"Why, sir, you see," the man, as one who throws off a mask, smiled +cordially, after buttoning up the notes; "credit 'd soon give up the +ghost, if it hadn't its own dodges,' as I may say. This is only a feeler +on Mr. Samuels' part. He heard of his things going to pledge. Halloa! +he sings out. And tradesmen are human, sir. Between us, I side with +gentlemen, in most cases. Hows'-ever, I'm, so to speak, in Mr. Samuels' +pay. A young gentleman in debt, give him a good fright, out comes his +money, if he's got any. Sending of a bill receipted's a good trying +touch. It's a compliment to him to suppose he can pay. Mr. Samuels, +sir, wouldn't go issuing a warrant: if he could, he wouldn't. You named +a warrant; that set me up to it. I shouldn't have dreamed of a gentleman +supposing it otherwise. Didn't you notice me show a wall of a face? I +shouldn't ha' dared to have tried that on an old hand--begging your +pardon; I mean a real--a scoundrel. The regular ones must see features: +we mustn't be too cunning with them, else they grow suspicious: they're +keen as animals; they are. Good afternoon to you, sir." + +Algernon heard the door shut. He reeled into a chair, and muffling his +head in his two arms on the table, sobbed desperately; seeing himself +very distinctly reflected in one of the many facets of folly. Daylight +became undesireable to him. He went to bed. + +A man who can, in such extremities of despair, go premeditatingly to his +pillow, obeys an animal instinct in pursuit of oblivion, that will +befriend his nerves. Algernon awoke in deep darkness, with a delicious +sensation of hunger. He jumped up. Six hundred and fifty pounds of the +money remained intact; and he was joyful. He struck a light to look at +his watch: the watch had stopped;--that was a bad sign. He could not +forget it. Why had his watch stopped? A chilling thought as to whether +predestination did not govern the world, allayed all tumult in his mind. +He dressed carefully, and soon heard a great City bell, with horrid gulfs +between the strokes, tell him that the hour was eleven toward midnight. +"Not late," he said. + +"Who'd have thought it?" cried a voice on the landing of the stairs, as +he went forth. + +It was Sedgett. + +Algernon had one inclination to strangle, and another to mollify the +wretch. + +"Why, sir, I've been lurking heer for your return from your larks. Never +guessed you was in." + +"It's no use," Algernon began. + +"Ay; but it is, though," said Sedgett, and forced his way into the room. +"Now, just listen. I've got a young woman I want to pack out o' the +country. I must do it, while I'm a--a bachelor boy. She must go, or we +shall be having shindies. You saw how she caught me out of a cab. She's +sure to be in the place where she ain't wanted. She goes to America. +I've got to pay her passage, and mine too. Here's the truth: she thinks +I'm off with her. She knows I'm bankrup' at home. So I am. All the +more reason for her thinking me her companion. I get her away by train +to the vessel, and on board, and there I give her the slip. + +"Ship's steaming away by this time t'morrow night. I've paid for her-- +and myself too, she thinks. Leave it to me. I'll manage all that neatly +enough. But heer's the truth: I'm stumped. I must, and I will have +fifty; I don't want to utter ne'er a threat. I want the money, and if +you don't give it, I break off; and you mind this, Mr. Blancove: you +don't come off s' easy, if I do break off, mind. I know all about your +relations, and by--! I'll let 'em know all about you. Why, you're as +quiet heer, sir, as if you was miles away, in a wood cottage, and ne'er a +dog near." + +So Algernon was thinking; and without a light, save the gas lamp in the +square, moreover. + +They wrangled for an hour. When Algernon went forth a second time, he +was by fifty pounds poorer. He consoled himself by thinking that the +money had only anticipated its destination as arranged, and it became a +partial gratification to him to reflect that he had, at any rate, paid so +much of the sum, according to his bond in assuming possession of it. + +And what were to be his proceedings? They were so manifestly in the +hands of fate, that he declined to be troubled on that head. + +Next morning came the usual short impatient scrawl on thin blue paper +from Edward, scarce worthy of a passing thought. In a postscript, he +asked: "Are there, on your oath, no letters for me? If there are, send +them immediately--every one, bills as well. Don't fail. I must have +them." + +Algernon was at last persuaded to pack up Dahlia's letters, saying: "I +suppose they can't do any harm now." The expense of the postage +afflicted him; but "women always cost a dozen to our one," he remarked. +On his way to the City, he had to decide whether he would go to the Bank, +or take the train leading to Wrexby. He chose the latter course, until, +feeling that he was about to embark in a serious undertaking, he said to +himself, "No! duty first;" and postponed the expedition for the day +following. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Squire Blancove, having business in town, called on his brother at the +Bank, asking whether Sir William was at home, with sarcastic emphasis on +the title, which smelt to him of commerce. Sir William invited him to +dine and sleep at his house that night. + +"You will meet Mrs. Lovell, and a Major Waring, a friend of hers, who +knew her and her husband in India," said the baronet. + +"The deuce I shall," said the squire, and accepted maliciously. + +Where the squire dined, he drank, defying ladies and the new-fangled +subserviency to those flustering teabodies. This was understood; so, +when the Claret and Port had made a few rounds, Major Waring was +permitted to follow Mrs. Lovell, and the squire and his brother settled +to conversation; beginning upon gout. Sir William had recently had a +touch of the family complaint, and spoke of it in terms which gave the +squire some fraternal sentiment. From that, they fell to talking +politics, and differed. The breach was healed by a divergence to their +sons. The squire knew his own to be a scamp. + +"You'll never do anything with him," he said. + +"I don't think I shall," Sir William admitted. + +"Didn't I tell you so?" + +"You did. But, the point is, what will you do with him?" + +"Send him to Jericho to ride wild jackasses. That's all he's fit for." + +The superior complacency of Sir William's smile caught the squire's +attention. + +"What do you mean to do with Ned?" he asked. + +"I hope," was the answer, "to have him married before the year is out." + +"To the widow?" + +"The widow?" Sir William raised his eyebrows. + +"Mrs. Lovell, I mean." + +"What gives you that idea?" + +"Why, Ned has made her an offer. Don't you know that?" + +"I know nothing of the sort." + +"And don't believe it? He has. He's only waiting now, over there in +Paris, to get comfortably out of a scrape--you remember what I told you +at Fairly--and then Mrs. Lovell's going to have him--as he thinks; but, +by George, it strikes me this major you've got here, knows how to follow +petticoats and get in his harvest in the enemy's absence." + +"I think you're quite under a delusion, in both respects," observed Sir +William. + +"What makes you think that?" + +"I have Edward's word." + +"He lies as naturally as an infant sucks." + +"Pardon me; this is my son you are speaking of." + +"And this is your Port I'm drinking; so I'll say no more." + +The squire emptied his glass, and Sir William thrummed on the table. + +"Now, my dog has got his name," the squire resumed. "I'm not ambitious +about him. You are, about yours; and you ought to know him. He spends +or he don't spend. It's not the question whether he gets into debt, but +whether he does mischief with what he spends. If Algy's a bad fish, +Ned's a bit of a serpent; damned clever, no doubt. I suppose, you +wouldn't let him marry old Fleming's daughter, now, if he wanted to?" + +"Who is Fleming?" Sir William thundered out. + +"Fleming's the father of the girl. I'm sorry for him. He sells his +farm-land which I've been looking at for years; so I profit by it; but I +don't like to see a man like that broken up. Algy, I said before, 's a +bad fish. Hang me, if I think he'd have behaved like Ned. If he had, +I'd have compelled him to marry her, and shipped them both off, clean out +of the country, to try their luck elsewhere. + +"You're proud; I'm practical. I don't expect you to do the same. I'm up +in London now to raise money to buy the farm--Queen's Anne's Farm; it's +advertized for sale, I see. Fleeting won't sell it to me privately, +because my name's Blancove, and I'm the father of my son, and he fancies +Algy's the man. Why? he saw Algy at the theatre in London with this girl +of his;--we were all young fellows once!--and the rascal took Ned's +burden on his shoulders. So, I shall have to compete with other buyers, +and pay, I dare say, a couple of hundred extra for the property. Do you +believe what I tell you now?" + +"Not a word of it," said Sir William blandly. + +The squire seized the decanter and drank in a fury. + +"I had it from Algy." + +"That would all the less induce me to believe it." + +"H'm!" the squire frowned. "Let me tell you--he's a dog--but it's a +damned hard thing to hear one's own flesh and blood abused. Look here: +there's a couple. One of them has made a fool of a girl. It can't be my +rascal--stop a minute--he isn't the man, because she'd have been sure to +have made a fool of him, that's certain. He's a soft-hearted dog. He'd +aim at a cock-sparrow, and be glad if he missed. There you have him. He +was one of your good boys. I used to tell his poor mother, 'When you +leave off thinking for him, he'll go to the first handy villain--and +that's the devil.' And he's done it. But, here's the difference. He +goes himself; he don't send another. I'll tell you what: if you don't +know about Mr. Ned's tricks, you ought. And you ought to make him marry +the girl, and be off to New Zealand, or any of the upside-down places, +where he might begin by farming, and soon, with his abilities, be cock o' +the walk. He would, perhaps, be sending us a letter to say that he +preferred to break away from the mother country and establish a republic. +He's got the same political opinions as you. Oh! he'll do well enough +over here; of course he will. He's the very fellow to do well. Knock at +him, he's hard as nails, and 'll stick anywhere. You wouldn't listen to +me, when I told you about this at Fairly, where some old sweetheart of +the girl mistook that poor devil of a scapegoat, Algy, for him, and went +pegging at him like a madman." + +"No," said Sir William; "No, I would not. Nor do I now. At least," he +struck out his right hand deprecatingly, "I listen." + +"Can you tell me what he was doing when he went to Italy?" + +"He went partly at my suggestion." + +"Turns you round his little finger! He went off with this girl: wanted +to educate her, or some nonsense of the sort. That was Mr. Ned's +business. Upon my soul, I'm sorry for old Fleming. I'm told he takes it +to heart. It's done him up. Now, if it should turn out to be Ned, would +you let him right the girl by marrying her? You wouldn't!" + +"The principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide +by it, is probably unknown to you," Sir William observed, after bestowing +a considerate smile on his brother, who muffled himself up from the +chilling sententiousness, and drank. + +Sir William, in the pride of superior intellect, had heard as good as +nothing of the charge against his son. + +"Well," said the squire, "think as you like, act as you like; all's one +to me. You're satisfied; that's clear; and I'm some hundred of pounds +out of pocket. This major's paying court to the widow, is he?" + +"I can't say that he is." + +"It would be a good thing for her to get married." + +"I should be glad." + +"A good thing for her, I say." + +"A good thing for him, let us hope." + +"If he can pay her debts." + +Sir William was silent, and sipped his wine. + +"And if he can keep a tight hand on the reins. That's wanted," said the +squire. + +The gentleman whose road to happiness was thus prescribed stood by Mrs. +Lovell's chair, in the drawing-room. He held a letter in his hand, for +which her own was pleadingly extended. + +"I know you to be the soul of truth, Percy," she was saying. + +"The question is not that; but whether you can bear the truth." + +"Can I not? Who would live without it?" + +"Pardon me; there's more. You say, you admire this friend of mine; no +doubt you do. Mind, I am going to give you the letter. I wish you +simply to ask yourself now, whether you are satisfied at my making a +confidant of a man in Robert Eccles's position, and think it natural and +just--you do?" + +"Quite just," said Mrs. Lovell; "and natural? Yes, natural; though not +common. Eccentric; which only means, hors du commun; and can be natural. +It is natural. I was convinced he was a noble fellow, before I knew that +you had made a friend of him. I am sure of it now. And did he not save +your life, Percy?" + +"I have warned you that you are partly the subject of the letter." + +"Do you forget that I am a woman, and want it all the more impatiently?" + +Major Waring suffered the letter to be snatched from his hand, and stood +like one who is submitting to a test, or watching the effect of a potent +drug. + +"It is his second letter to you," Mrs. Lovell murmured. "I see; it is a +reply to yours." + +She read a few lines, and glanced up, blushing. "Am I not made to bear +more than I deserve?" + +"If you can do such mischief, without meaning any, to a man who is in +love with another woman--," said Percy. + +"Yes," she nodded, "I perceive the deduction; but inferences are like +shadows on the wall--they are thrown from an object, and are monstrous +distortions of it. That is why you misjudge women. You infer one thing +from another, and are ruled by the inference." + +He simply bowed. Edward would have answered her in a bright strain, and +led her on to say brilliant things, and then have shown her, as by a +sudden light, that she had lost herself, and reduced her to feel the +strength and safety of his hard intellect. That was the idea in her +brain. The next moment her heart ejected it. + +"Petty, when I asked permission to look at this letter, I was not aware +how great a compliment it would be to me if I was permitted to see it. +It betrays your friend." + +"It betrays something more," said he. + +Mrs. Lovell cast down her eyes and read, without further comment. + +These were the contents:-- + + "My Dear Percy,--Now that I see her every day again, I am worse than + ever; and I remember thinking once or twice that Mrs. L. had cured + me. I am a sort of man who would jump to reach the top of a + mountain. I understand how superior Mrs. L. is to every woman in + the world I have seen; but Rhoda cures me on that head. Mrs. Lovell + makes men mad and happy, and Rhoda makes them sensible and + miserable. I have had the talk with Rhoda. It is all over. I have + felt like being in a big room with one candle alight ever since. + She has not looked at me, and does nothing but get by her father + whenever she can, and takes his hand and holds it. I see where the + blow has struck her: it has killed her pride; and Rhoda is almost + all pride. I suppose she thinks our plan is the best. She has not + said she does, and does not mention her sister. She is going to + die, or she turns nun, or marries a gentleman. I shall never get + her. She will not forgive me for bringing this news to her. I told + you how she coloured, the first day I came; which has all gone now. + She just opens her lips to me. You remember Corporal Thwaites--you + caught his horse, when he had his foot near wrenched off, going + through the gate--and his way of breathing through the under-row of + his teeth--the poor creature was in such pain--that's just how she + takes her breath. It makes her look sometimes like that woman's + head with the snakes for her hair. This bothers me--how is it you + and Mrs. Lovell manage to talk together of such things? Why, two + men rather hang their heads a bit. My notion is, that women-- + ladies, in especial, ought never to hear of sad things of this sort. + Of course, I mean, if they do, it cannot harm them. It only upsets + me. Why are ladies less particular than girls in Rhoda's place?" + + ("Shame being a virtue," was Mrs. Lovell's running comment.) + + "She comes up to town with her father to-morrow. The farm is + ruined. The poor old man had to ask me for a loan to pay the + journey. Luckily, Rhoda has saved enough with her pennies and two- + pences. Ever since I left the farm, it has been in the hands of an + old donkey here, who has worked it his own way. What is in the + ground will stop there, and may as well. + + "I leave off writing, I write such stuff; and if I go on + writing to you, I shall be putting these things ' -!--!--!' The way + you write about Mrs. Lovell, convinces me you are not in my scrape, + or else gentlemen are just as different from their inferiors as + ladies are from theirs. That's the question. What is the meaning + of your 'not being able to leave her for a day, for fear she should + fall under other influences'? Then, I copy your words, you say, + 'She is all things to everybody, and cannot help it.' In that case, + I would seize my opportunity and her waist, and tell her she was + locked up from anybody else. Friendship with men--but I cannot + understand friendship with women, and watching them to keep them + right, which must mean that you do not think much of them." + +Mrs. Lovell, at this point, raised her eyes abruptly from the letter and +returned it. + +"You discuss me very freely with your friend," she said. + +Percy drooped to her. "I warned you when you wished to read it." + +"But, you see, you have bewildered him. It was scarcely wise to write +other than plain facts. Men of that class." She stopped. + +"Of that class?" said he. + +"Men of any class, then: you yourself: if any one wrote to you such +things, what would you think? It is very unfair. I have the honour of +seeing you daily, because you cannot trust me out of your sight? What is +there inexplicable about me? Do you wonder that I talk openly of women +who are betrayed, and do my best to help them?". + +"On the contrary; you command my esteem," said Percy. + +"But you think me a puppet?" + +"Fond of them, perhaps?" his tone of voice queried in a manner that made +her smile. + +"I hate them," she said, and her face expressed it. + +"But you make them." + +"How? You torment me." + +"How can I explain the magic? Are you not making one of me now, where I +stand?" + +"Then, sit." + +"Or kneel?" + +"Oh, Percy! do nothing ridiculous." + +Inveterate insight was a characteristic of Major Waring; but he was not +the less in Mrs. Lovell's net. He knew it to be a charm that she +exercised almost unknowingly. She was simply a sweet instrument for +those who could play on it, and therein lay her mighty fascination. +Robert's blunt advice that he should seize the chance, take her and make +her his own, was powerful with him. He checked the particular +appropriating action suggested by Robert. + +"I owe you an explanation," he said. "Margaret, my friend." + +"You can think of me as a friend, Percy?" + +"If I can call you my friend, what would I not call you besides? I did +you a great and shameful wrong when you were younger. Hush! you did not +deserve that. Judge of yourself as you will; but I know now what my +feelings were then. The sublime executioner was no more than a spiteful +man. You give me your pardon, do you not? Your hand?" + +She had reached her hand to him, but withdrew it quickly. + +"Not your hand, Margaret? But, you must give it to some one. You will +be ruined, if you do not." + +She looked at him with full eyes. "You know it then?" she said slowly; +but the gaze diminished as he went on. + +"I know, by what I know of you, that you of all women should owe a direct +allegiance. Come; I will assume privileges. Are you free?" + +"Would you talk to me so, if you thought otherwise?" she asked. + +"I think I would," said Percy. "A little depends upon the person. Are +you pledged at all to Mr. Edward Blancove?" + +"Do you suppose me one to pledge myself?" + +"He is doing a base thing." + +"Then, Percy, let an assurance of my knowledge of that be my answer." + +"You do not love the man?" + +Despise him, say!" + +"Is he aware of it?" + +"If clear writing can make him." + +"You have told him as much?" + +"To his apprehension, certainly." + +"Further, Margaret, I must speak:--did he act with your concurrence, or +knowledge of it at all, in acting as he has done?" + +"Heavens! Percy, you question me like a husband." + +"It is what I mean to be, if I may." + +The frame of the fair lady quivered as from a blow, and then her eyes +rose tenderly. + +"I thought you knew me. This is not possible." + +"You will not be mine? Why is it not possible?" + +"I think I could say, because I respect you too much." + +"Because you find you have not the courage?" + +"For what?" + +"To confess that you were under bad influence, and were not the Margaret +I can make of you. Put that aside. If you remain as you are, think of +the snares. If you marry one you despise, look at the pit. Yes; you +will be mine! Half my love of my country and my profession is love of +you. Margaret is fire in my blood. I used to pray for opportunities, +that Margaret might hear of me. I knew that gallant actions touched her; +I would have fallen gladly; I was sure her heart would leap when she +heard of me. Let it beat against mine. Speak!" + +"I will," said Mrs. Lovell, and she suppressed the throbs of her bosom. +Her voice was harsh and her face bloodless. "How much money have you, +Percy?" + +This sudden sluicing of cold water on his heat of passion petrified him. + +"Money," he said, with a strange frigid scrutiny of her features. As in +the flash of a mirror, he beheld her bony, worn, sordid, unacceptable. +But he was fain to admit it to be an eminently proper demand for +enlightenment. + +He said deliberately, "I possess an income of five hundred a year, +extraneous, and in addition to my pay as major in Her Majesty's service." + +Then he paused, and the silence was like a growing chasm between them. + +She broke it by saying, "Have you any expectations?" + +This was crueller still, though no longer astonishing. He complained in +his heart merely that her voice had become so unpleasant. + +With emotionless precision, he replied, "At my mother's death--" + +She interposed a soft exclamation. + +"At my mother's death there will come to me by reversion, five or six +thousand pounds. When my father dies, he may possibly bequeath his +property to me. On that I cannot count." + +Veritable tears were in her eyes. Was she affecting to weep +sympathetically in view of these remote contingencies? + +"You will not pretend that you know me now, Percy," she said, trying to +smile; and she had recovered the natural feminine key of her voice. "I +am mercenary, you see; not a mercenary friend. So, keep me as a friend-- +say you will be my friend." + +"Nay, you had a right to know," he protested. + +"It was disgraceful--horrible; but it was necessary for me to know." + +"And now that you do know?" + +"Now that I know, I have only to say--be as merciful in your idea of me +as you can." + +She dropped her hand in his, and it was with a thrill of dismay that he +felt the rush of passion reanimating his frozen veins. + +"Be mercenary, but be mine! I will give you something better to live for +than this absurd life of fashion. You reckon on what our expenditure +will be by that standard. It's comparative poverty; but--but you can +have some luxuries. You can have a carriage, a horse to ride. Active +service may come: I may rise. Give yourself to me, and you must love me, +and regret nothing." + +"Nothing! I should regret nothing. I don't want carriages, or horses, +or luxuries. I could live with you on a subaltern's pay. I can't marry +you, Percy, and for the very reason which would make me wish to marry +you." + +"Charade?" said he; and the contempt of the utterance brought her head +close under his. + +"Dearest friend, you have not to learn how to punish me." + +The little reproach, added to the wound to his pride, required a healing +medicament; she put her lips to his fingers. + +Assuredly the comedy would not have ended there, but it was stopped by an +intrusion of the squire, followed by Sir William, who, while the squire-- +full of wine and vindictive humours--went on humming, "Ah! h'm--m--m! +Soh!" said in the doorway to some one behind him: "And if you have lost +your key, and Algernon is away, of what use is it to drive down to the +Temple for a bed? I make it an especial request that you sleep here +tonight. I wish it. I have to speak with you." + +Mrs. Lovell was informed that the baronet had been addressing his son, +who was fresh from Paris, and not, in his own modest opinion, presentable +before a lady. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +Once more Farmer Fleming and Rhoda prepared for their melancholy journey +up to London. A light cart was at the gateway, near which Robert stood +with the farmer, who, in his stiff brown overcoat, that reached to his +ankles, and broad country-hat, kept his posture of dumb expectation like +a stalled ox, and nodded to Robert's remarks on the care which the garden +had been receiving latterly, the many roses clean in bud, and the trim +blue and white and red garden beds. Every word was a blow to him; but he +took it, as well as Rhoda's apparent dilatoriness, among the things to be +submitted to by a man cut away by the roots from the home of his labour +and old associations. Above his bowed head there was a board proclaiming +that Queen Anne's Farm, and all belonging thereunto, was for sale. His +prospect in the vague wilderness of the future, was to seek for +acceptance as a common labourer on some kind gentleman's property. The +phrase "kind gentleman" was adopted by his deliberate irony of the fate +which cast him out. Robert was stamping fretfully for Rhoda to come. At +times, Mrs. Sumfit showed her head from the window of her bed-room, +crying, "D'rectly!" and disappearing. + +The still aspect of the house on the shining May afternoon was otherwise +undisturbed. Besides Rhoda, Master Gammon was being waited for; on whom +would devolve the driving of the cart back from the station. Robert +heaped his vexed exclamations upon this old man. The farmer restrained +his voice in Master Gammon's defence, thinking of the comparison he could +make between him and Robert: for Master Gammon had never run away from +the farm and kept absent, leaving it to take care of itself. Gammon, +slow as he might be, was faithful, and it was not he who had made it +necessary for the farm to be sold. Gammon was obstinate, but it was not +he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead, +had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment. Such +reflections passed through the farmer's mind. + +Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now +had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an immediate +departure. + +"The horse 'll bring himself home quite as well and as fast as Gammon +will," he said. + +"But for the shakin' and the joltin', which tells o' sovereigns and +silver," Mrs. Sumfit was observing to Rhoda, "you might carry the box-- +and who would have guessed how stout it was, and me to hit it with a +poker and not break it, I couldn't, nor get a single one through the +slit;--the sight I was, with a poker in my hand! I do declare I felt +azactly like a housebreaker;--and no soul to notice what you carries. +Where you hear the gold, my dear, go so"--Mrs. Sumfit performed a +methodical "Ahem!" and noised the sole of her shoe on the gravel +"so, and folks 'll think it's a mistake they made." + +"What's that?"--the farmer pointed at a projection under Rhoda's shawl. + +"It is a present, father, for my sister," said Rhoda. + +"What is it?" the farmer questioned again. + +Mrs. Sumfit fawned before him penitently--"Ah! William, she's poor, and +she do want a little to spend, or she will be so nipped and like a +frost-bitten body, she will. And, perhaps, dear, haven't money in her +sight for next day's dinner, which is--oh, such a panic for a young wife! +for it ain't her hunger, dear William--her husband, she thinks of. And +her cookery at a stand-still! Thinks she, 'he will charge it on the +kitchen;' so unreasonable's men. Yes," she added, in answer to the rigid +dejection of his look, "I said true to you. I know I said, 'Not a penny +can I get, William,' when you asked me for loans; and how could I get it? +I can't get it now. See here, dear!" + +She took the box from under Rhoda's shawl, and rattled it with a down +turn and an up turn. + +"You didn't ask me, dear William, whether I had a money-box. I'd ha' +told you so at once, had ye but asked me. And had you said, "Gi' me your +money-box," it was yours, only for your asking. You do see, you can't +get any of it out. So, when you asked for money I was right to say, I'd +got none." + +The farmer bore with her dreary rattling of the box in demonstration of +its retentive capacities. The mere force of the show stopped him from +retorting; but when, to excuse Master Gammon for his tardiness, she +related that he also had a money-box, and was in search of it, the farmer +threw up his head with the vigour of a young man, and thundered for +Master Gammon, by name, vehemently wrathful at the combined hypocrisy of +the pair. He called twice, and his face was purple and red as he turned +toward the cart, saying,-- + +"We'll go without the old man." + +Mrs. Sumfit then intertwisted her fingers, and related how that she and +Master Gammon had one day, six years distant, talked on a lonely evening +over the mischances which befel poor people when they grew infirm, or met +with accident, and what "useless clays" they were; and yet they had their +feelings. It was a long and confidential talk on a summer evening; and, +at the end of it, Master Gammon walked into Wrexby, and paid a visit to +Mr. Hammond, the carpenter, who produced two strong saving-boxes +excellently manufactured by his own hand, without a lid to them, or lock +and key: so that there would be no getting at the contents until the +boxes were full, or a pressing occasion counselled the destruction of the +boxes. A constant subject of jest between Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon +was, as to which first of them would be overpowered by curiosity to know +the amount of their respective savings; and their confessions of mutual +weakness and futile endeavours to extract one piece of gold from the +hoard. + +"And now, think it or not," said Mrs. Sumfit, "I got that power over him, +from doctorin' him, and cookin' for him, I persuaded him to help my poor +Dahly in my blessed's need. I'd like him to do it by halves, but he +can't." + +Master Gammon appeared round a corner of the house, his box, draped by +his handkerchief, under his arm. The farmer and Robert knew, when he was +in sight, that gestures and shouts expressing extremities of the need for +haste, would fail to accelerate his steps, so they allowed him to come on +at his own equal pace, steady as Time, with the peculiar lopping bend of +knees which jerked the moveless trunk regularly upward, and the ancient +round eyes fixed contemplatively forward. There was an affectingness in +this view of the mechanical old man bearing his poor hoard to bestow it. + +Robert said out, unawares, "He mustn't be let to part with h' old +pennies." + +"No; the farmer took him up; "nor I won't let him." + +"Yes, father!" Rhoda intercepted his address to Master Gammon. "Yes, +father!" she hardened her accent. "It is for my sister. He does a good +thing. Let him do it." + +"Mas' Gammon, what ha' ye got there?" the farmer sung out. + +But Master Gammon knew that he was about his own business. He was a +difficult old man when he served the farmer; he was quite unmanageable in +his private affairs. + +Without replying, he said to Mrs. Sumfit,-- + +"I'd gummed it." + +The side of the box showed that it had been made adhesive, for the sake +of security, to another substance. + +"That's what's caused ye to be so long, Mas' Gammon?" + +The veteran of the fields responded with a grin, designed to show a +lively cunning. + +"Deary me, Mas' Gammon, I'd give a fortnight's work to know how much +you'm saved, now, I would. And, there! Your comfort's in your heart. +And it shall be paid to you. I do pray heaven in mercy to forgive me," +she whimpered, "if ever knowin'ly I hasted you at a meal, or did deceive +you when you looked for the pickings of fresh-killed pig. But if you +only knew how--to cookit spoils the temper of a woman! I'd a aunt was +cook in a gentleman's fam'ly, and daily he dirtied his thirteen plates-- +never more nor never less; and one day--was ever a woman punished so! her +best black silk dress she greased from the top to the bottom, and he sent +down nine clean plates, and no word vouchsafed of explanation. For +gentlefolks, they won't teach themselves how it do hang together with +cooks in a kitchen--" + +"Jump up, Mas' Gammon," cried the farmer, wrathful at having been +deceived by two members of his household, who had sworn to him, both, +that they had no money, and had disregarded his necessity. Such being +human nature! + +Mrs. Sumfit confided the termination of her story to Rhoda; or suggested +rather, at what distant point it might end; and then, giving Master +Gammon's box to her custody, with directions for Dahlia to take the boxes +to a carpenter's shop--not attempting the power of pokers upon them--and +count and make a mental note of the amount of the rival hoards, she sent +Dahlia all her messages of smirking reproof, and delighted love, and +hoped that they would soon meet and know happiness. + +Rhoda, as usual, had no emotion to spare. She took possession of the +second box, and thus laden, suffered Robert to lift her into the cart. +They drove across the green, past the mill and its flashing waters, and +into the road, where the waving of Mrs. Sumfit's desolate handkerchief +was latest seen. + +A horseman rode by, whom Rhoda recognized, and she blushed and had a +boding shiver. Robert marked him, and the blush as well. + +It was Algernon, upon a livery-stable hack. His countenance expressed a +mighty disappointment. + +The farmer saw no one. The ingratitude and treachery of Robert, and of +Mrs. Sumfit and Master Gammon, kept him brooding in sombre disgust of +life. He remarked that the cart jolted a good deal. + +"If you goes in a cart, wi' company o' four, you expects to be jolted," +said Master Gammon. + +"You seem to like it," Robert observed to the latter. + +"It don't disturb my in'ards," quoth the serenest of mankind. + +"Gammon," the farmer addressed him from the front seat, without turning +his head: "you'll take and look about for a new place." + +Master Gammon digested the recommendation in silence. On its being +repeated, with, "D' ye hear?" he replied that he heard well enough. + +"Well, then, look about ye sharp, or maybe, you'll be out in the cold," +said the farmer. + +"Na," returned Master Gammon, "ah never frets till I'm pinched." + +"I've given ye notice," said the farmer. + +"No, you ha'n't," said Master Gammon. + +"I give ye notice now." + +"No, you don't." + +"How d' ye mean?" + +"Cause I don't take ne'er a notice." + +"Then you'll be kicked out, old man." + +"Hey! there y' have me," said Master Gammon. "I growed at the farm, and +you don't go and tell ne'er a tree t' walk." + +Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran's palm. + +"You're a long-lived family, aren't you, Master Gammon?" said Robert, +eyeing Rhoda's action enviously. + +Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and inspect +a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were written. +They were more like the ages of oaks than of men. + +"It's the heart kills," said Robert. + +"It's damned misfortune," murmured the farmer. + +"It is the wickedness in the world," thought Rhoda. + +"It's a poor stomach, I reckon," Master Gammon ruminated. + +They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a +notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for his +return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew, if +they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind to +change it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never +ridden by railway: "nor ever means to, if I can help it," he would say. +He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the +secret of human life. + +Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin: +arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the +cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were +going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had +not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon's hand, together +with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal +to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of +his intelligence, left him stranded. + +He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman. +In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he +entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to +his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His +trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any +rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and +respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of +the consolations of virtue. + +Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding +him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in +reason that he should endure these hardships? "I really love the girl," +he said, fidgeting for cushions. + +He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers +assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his +morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they +assented. "By Jove! I must love the girl," ejaculated Algernon inwardly, +as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical +sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was +unaccustomed to bare boards. + +"We're a rich country," said a man to his neighbour; "but, if you don't +pay for it, you must take your luck, and they'll make you as +uncomfortable as they can." + +"Ay," said the other. "I've travelled on the Continent. The +second-class carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is +what comes of the worship of money--the individual is not respected. +Pounds alone!" + +"These," thought Algernon, "are beastly democrats." + +Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had +probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly +foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should +be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon +stopped him. + +"Pardon me, sir," said the man; "it's a lady wants it done;" and he did +it. + +A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should +hate for life. "Go among them and then see what they are," he addressed +an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set +in the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred +of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he +surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda. + +The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a +carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the +platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop of +passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry +sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the case; +but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily proved +superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if Robert +perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter into +another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson. + +He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony's dwelling- +place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found +a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since +the morning. + +"Stop It," were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one +preferred to think so, enigmatic. + +"What on earth does he mean?" cried Algernon, and affected again and +again to see what Edward meant, without success. "Stop it?--stop what?-- +Stop the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is rank +humbug." He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in his +possession. The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that he +should depart from his country. + +Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would +visit her sister this night. "I can't stop that," he said: and hearing a +clock strike, "nor that" a knock sounded on the door; "nor that." The +reflection inspired him with fatalistic views. + +Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of +his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated +that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that +had to be done. + +"And it's more than many'd reckon," he said, and rubbed his hands, and +laughed. "I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was. That +ere young woman's woke up from her dream", (he lengthened the word +inexpressibly) "by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage, +though;" at which recollection he swore. "That's money gone. Never +mind: there's worse gone with it. Ain't it nasty--don't you think, sir-- +to get tired of a young woman you've been keepin' company with, and have +to be her companion, whether you will, or whether you won't? She's sick +enough now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go +to her bed; and, says I, I'll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself +down into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good'n. Hanged if I +didn't catch myself singin'. And haven't touched a drop o' drink, nor +will, till tomorrow's over. Don't you think "Daehli"'s a very pretty +name, sir? I run back to her as hard as rail 'd carry me. She's had a +letter from her sister, recommending o' her to marry me: 'a noble man,' +she calls me--ha, ha! that's good. 'And what do you think, my dear?' +says I; and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out +of her. She's got fine lady airs of her own. But I'm fond of her, that +I am. Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our +business, honour bright--that's it, en't it?" + +Algernon nodded. Sedgett's talk always produced discomfort in his +ingenuous bosom. + +"By the way, what politics are you?" he asked. + +Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again, +but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the same +political persuasion as himself. + +"Eh?" cried Sedgett; "I don't want any of your hustings pledges, though. +You'll be at the door tomorrow, or I'll have a row--mind that. A +bargain's a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money. +Why not hand it over now?" + +"Not till the deed's done," said Algernon, very reasonably. + +Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: "You put me up to +this: I'll do it, and trust you so far, but if I'm played on, I throw the +young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean honourable?" + +"I do," Algernon said of his meaning. + +Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir +William's livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the +telegram + + "Dear Algy, Stop it. I'm back, and have to see + my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four, + in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see + you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did + you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall + come to you the moment my father has finished his + lecture. + "Yours, + "E.B." + +Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and +gave him a cigar to smoke. + +He wrote:-- + + "Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there's only one thing, + and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a + changeable old fellow you are!--Off, to see what I can do. After + eleven o'clock to-morrow, you'll feel comfortable.--If the Governor + is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a + cab, if you can. There's no encouragement to keep at home in this + place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him + it's a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to + hotels, and I spend twice--ten times the money. And say, we intend + to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old + B. an inducement. + + "Yours aff. + "A.B." + +This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that if, +perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all +probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime +vintage. He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia's poor +lodgings in the West. On the way, an idea struck him: + +Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward? If +he obeyed Edward's direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand back +a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he had +advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to +say: "If you won't hand the money now, I must have it when I've married +her. Swear you'll be in the vestry when we're signing. I know all about +marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I'm cheated, I will throw +the young woman over slap." + +Algernon nodded: "I shall be there," he said, and thought that he +certainly would not. The thought cleared an oppression in his head, +though it obscured the pretty prospect of a colonial but and horse, with +Rhoda cooking for him, far from cares. He did his best to resolve that +he would stop the business, if he could. But, if it is permitted to the +fool to create entanglements and set calamity in motion, to arrest its +course is the last thing the Gods allow of his doing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +In the shadowy library light, when there was dawn out of doors, Edward +sat with his father, and both were silent, for Edward had opened his +heart, and his father had breathed some of the dry stock of wisdom on it. +Many times Edward rose to go; and Sir William signalled with his finger +that he should stay: an impassive motion, not succeeded by speech. And, +in truth, the baronet was revolving such a problem as a long career of +profitable banking refreshed by classical exercitations does not help us +to solve. There sat the son of his trust and his pride, whose sound and +equal temperament, whose precocious worldly wit, whose precise and broad +intelligence, had been the visionary comfort of his paternal days to +come; and his son had told him, reiterating it in language special and +exact as that of a Chancery barrister unfolding his case to the presiding +judge, that he had deceived and wronged an under-bred girl of the humbler +classes; and that, after a term of absence from her, he had discovered +her to be a part of his existence, and designed "You would marry her?" +Sir William asked, though less forcibly than if he could have put on a +moral amazement. + +"That is my intention, sir, with your permission," Edward replied firmly, +and his father understood that he had never known this young man, and +dealt virtually with a stranger in his son--as shrewd a blow as the +vanity which is in paternal nature may have to endure. + +He could not fashion the words, "Cerritus fuit," though he thought the +thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in order: +and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential maxims +to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the rocks? He +did remark, in an undertone,-- + +"The 'misce stultitiam' seems to be a piece of advice you have adopted +too literally. I quote what you have observed of some one else." + +"It is possible, sir," said Edward. "I was not particularly sparing when +I sat in the high seat. 'Non eadem est aetas, non mens." I now think +differently." + +"I must take your present conduct as the fruit of your premature +sagacity, I suppose. By the same rule, your cousin Algernon may prove to +be some comfort to his father, in the end." + +"Let us hope he will, sir. His father will not have deserved it so well +as mine." + +"The time is morning," said Sir William, looking at his watch, and +bestowing, in the bitterness of his reflections, a hue of triumph on the +sleep of his brother upstairs. "You are your own master, Edward. I will +detain you no more." + +Edward shook his limbs, rejoicing. + +"You prepare for a life of hard work," Sir William resumed, not without +some instigation to sternness from this display of alacrity. "I counsel +you to try the Colonial Bar." + +Edward read in the first sentence, that his income would be restricted; +and in the second, that his father's social sphere was no longer to be +his. + +"Exactly, sir; I have entertained that notion myself," he said; and his +breast narrowed and his features grew sharp. + +"And, if I may suggest such matters to you, I would advise you to see +very little company for some years to come." + +"There, sir, you only anticipate my previously formed resolution. With +a knavery on my conscience, and a giddy-pated girl on my hands, and the +doors of the London world open to me, I should scarcely have been capable +of serious work. The precious metal, which is Knowledge, sir, is only to +be obtained by mining for it; and that excellent occupation necessarily +sends a man out of sight for a number of years. In the meantime, 'mea +virtute me involvo.'" + +"You need not stop short," said his father, with a sardonic look for the +concluding lines. + +"The continuation is becoming in the mouth of a hero; but humbler persons +must content themselves not to boast the patent fact, I think." Edward +warmed as he spoke. "I am ready to bear it. I dislike poverty; but, as +I say, I am ready to bear it. Come, sir; you did me the honour once to +let me talk to you as a friend, with the limits which I have never +consciously overstepped; let me explain myself plainly and simply." + +Sir William signified, "Pray speak," from the arms of his chair! and +Edward, standing, went on: "After all, a woman's devotion is worth +having, when one is not asked for the small change every ten minutes. +I am aware of the philosophic truth, that we get nothing in life for which +we don't pay. The point is, to appreciate what we desire; and so we +reach a level that makes the payment less--" He laughed. Sir William +could hardly keep back the lines of an ironical smile from his lips. + +"This," pursued the orator, "is not the language for the Colonial Bar. +I wish to show you that I shall understand the character of my vocation +there. No, sir; my deeper wish is that you may accept my view of the +sole course left to a man whose sense of honour is of accord with the +inclination of his heart, and not in hostility to his clearer judgement." + +"Extremely forensic," said Sir William, not displeased by the promise of +the periods. + +"Well, sir, I need not remark to you that rhetoric, though it should fail +to convey, does not extinguish, or imply the absence of emotion in the +speaker; but rather that his imagination is excited by his theme, and +that he addresses more presences than such as are visible. It is, like +the Roman mask, fashioned for large assemblages." + +"By a parity of reasoning, then,"--Sir William was seduced into +colloquy,--"an eternal broad grin is not, in the instance of a dualogue, +good comedy." + +"It may hide profound grief." Edward made his eyes flash. "I find I can +laugh; it would be difficult for me to smile. Sir, I pray that you will +listen to me seriously, though my language is not of a kind to make you +think me absolutely earnest in what I say, unless you know me." + +"Which, I must protest, I certainly do not," interposed Sir William. + +"I will do my best to instruct you, sir. Until recently, I have not +known myself. I met this girl. She trusted herself to me. You are +aware that I know a little of men and of women; and when I tell you that +I respect her now even more than I did at first--much more--so +thoroughly, that I would now put my honour in her hands, by the counsel +of my experience, as she, prompted by her instinct and her faith in me, +confided hers to mine,--perhaps, even if you persist in accusing me of +rashness, you will allow that she must be in the possession of singularly +feminine and estimable qualities. I deceived her. My object in doing so +was to spare you. Those consequences followed which can hardly fail to +ensue, when, of two living together, the woman is at a disadvantage, and +eats her heart without complaining. I could have borne a shrewish tongue +better, possibly because I could have answered it better. It is worse to +see a pale sad face with a smile of unalterable tenderness. The very +sweetness becomes repugnant." + +"As little boys requiring much medicine have anticipated you by noting in +this world," observed Sir William. + +"I thank you for the illustration." Edward bowed, but he smarted. "A +man so situated lives with the ghost of his conscience." + +"A doubtful figure of speech," Sir William broke in. "I think you should +establish the personality before you attempt to give a feature to the +essence. But, continue." + +Edward saw that by forfeiting simplicity, in order to catch his father's +peculiar cast of mind, he had left him cold and in doubt as to the +existence of the powerful impulse by which he was animated. It is a +prime error in the orator not to seize the emotions and subdue the +humanity of his hearers first. Edward perceived his mistake. He had, +however, done well in making a show of the unabated vigour of his wits. +Contempt did not dwell in the baronet's tone. On the contrary, they +talked and fenced, and tripped one another as of old; and, considering +the breach he had been compelled to explode between his father and +himself, Edward understood that this was a real gain. + +He resumed: "All figures of speech must be inadequate--" + +"Ah, pardon me," said Sir William, pertinaciously; "the figure I alluded +to was not inadequate. A soap-bubble is not inadequate." + +"Plainly, sir, in God's name, hear me out," cried Edward. "She--what +shall I call her? my mistress, my sweetheart, if you like--let the name +be anything 'wife' it should have been, and shall be--I left her, and +have left her and have not looked on her for many months. I thought I +was tired of her--I was under odd influences--witchcraft, it seems. I +could believe in witchcraft now. Brutal selfishness is the phrase for my +conduct. I have found out my villany. I have not done a day's sensible +work, or had a single clear thought, since I parted from her. She has +had brain-fever. She has been in the hospital. She is now prostrate +with misery. While she suffered, I--I can't look back on myself. If I +had to plead before you for more than manly consideration, I could touch +you. I am my own master, and am ready to subsist by my own efforts; +there is no necessity for me to do more than say I abide by the choice I +make, and my own actions. In deciding to marry her, I do a good thing--I +do a just thing. I will prove to you that I have done a wise thing. + +"Let me call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of +my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every +other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work. +If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an +offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they +don't makes wives to working barristers. No, nor to working Members. + +"They are very ornamental and excellent, and, as I think you would call +them, accomplished. All England would leap to arms to defend their +incontestible superiority to their mothers and their duties. I have not +the wish to stand opposed to my countrymen on any question, although I go +to other shores, and may be called upon to make capital out of +opposition. They are admirable young persons, no doubt. I do not offer +you a drab for your daughter-in-law, sir. If I rise, she will be equal +to my station. She has the manners of a lady; a lady, I say; not of the +modern young lady; with whom, I am happy to think, she does not come into +competition. She has not been sedulously trained to pull her way, when +she is to go into harness with a yokefellow. + +"But I am laying myself open to the charge of feeling my position weak, +seeing that I abuse the contrary one. Think what you will of me, sir, +you will know that I have obeyed my best instinct and my soundest +judgement in this matter; I need not be taught, that if it is my destiny +to leave England I lose the association with him who must ever be my +dearest friend. And few young men can say as much of one standing in the +relation of father." + +With this, Edward finished; not entirely to his satisfaction; for he had +spoken with too distinct a sincerity to please his own critical taste, +which had been educated to delight in acute antithesis and culminating +sentences--the grand Biscayan billows of rhetorical utterance, in +comparison wherewith his talk was like the little chopping waves of a +wind-blown lake. But he had, as he could see, produced an impression. +His father stood up. + +"We shall be always friends; I hope," Sir William said. "As regards a +provision for you, suitable to your estate, that will be arranged. You +must have what comforts you have been taught to look to. At the same +time, I claim a personal freedom for my own actions." + +"Certainly, sir," said Edward, not conceiving any new development in +these. + +"You have an esteem for Mrs. Lovell, have you not?" + +Edward flushed. "I should have a very perfect esteem for her, if--" he +laughed slightly--"you will think I want everybody to be married and in +the traces now; she will never be manageable till she is married." + +"I am also of that opinion," said Sir William. "I will detain you no +longer. It is a quarter to five in the morning. You will sleep here, of +course." + +"No, I must go to the Temple. By the way, Algy prefers a petition for +Sherry. He is beginning to discern good wine from bad, which may be a +hopeful augury." + +"I will order Holmes to send some down to him when he has done a week's +real duty at the Bank." + +"Sooner or later, then. Good morning, sir." + +"Good morning." Sir William shook his son's hand. + +A minute after, Edward had quitted the house. "That's over!" he said, +sniffing the morning air gratefully, and eyeing certain tinted wisps of +cloud that were in a line of the fresh blue sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +A shy and humble entreaty had been sent by Dahlia through Robert to +Rhoda, saying that she wished not to be seen until the ceremony was at an +end; but Rhoda had become mentally stern toward her sister, and as much +to uphold her in the cleansing step she was about to take, as in the +desire to have the dear lost head upon her bosom, she disregarded +Dahlia's foolish prayer, and found it was well that she had done so; for, +to her great amazement, Dahlia, worn, shorn, sickened, and reduced to be +a mark for the scorn of the cowardice which is in the world, through the +selfishness of a lying man, loved the man still, and wavered, or rather +shrank with a pitiful fleshly terror from the noble husband who would +wipe the spot of shame from her forehead. + +When, after their long separation, the sisters met, Dahlia was mistress +of herself, and pronounced Rhoda's name softly, as she moved up to kiss +her. Rhoda could not speak. Oppressed by the strangeness of the white +face which had passed through fire, she gave a mute kiss and a single +groan, while Dahlia gently caressed her on the shoulder. The frail touch +of her hand was harder to bear than the dreary vision had been, and +seemed not so real as many a dream of it. Rhoda sat by her, overcome by +the awfulness of an actual sorrow, never imagined closely, though she had +conjured up vague pictures of Dahlia's face. She had imagined agony, +tears, despair, but not the spectral change, the burnt-out look. It was +a face like a crystal lamp in which the flame has died. The ghastly +little skull-cap showed forth its wanness rigidly. Rhoda wondered to +hear her talk simply of home and the old life. At each question, the +then and the now struck her spirit with a lightning flash of opposing +scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their +tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia +faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent; +Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who +had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion +and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called it love. +Dahlia submitted gladly to the torture of interrogation; "Do you, can you +care for him still?" and sighed in shame and fear of her sister, not +daring to say she thought her harsh, not daring to plead for escape, as +she had done with Robert. + +"Why is there no place for the unhappy, who do not wish to live, and +cannot die?" she moaned. + +And Rhoda cruelly fixed her to the marriage, making it seem irrevocable, +and barring all the faint lights to the free outer world, by praise of +her--passionate praise of her--when she confessed, that half inanimate +after her recovery from the fever, and in the hope that she might thereby +show herself to her father, she had consented to devote her life to the +only creature who was then near her to be kind to her. Rhoda made her +relate how this man had seen her first, and how, by untiring diligence, +he had followed her up and found her. "He--he must love you," said +Rhoda; and in proportion as she grew more conscious of her sister's +weakness, and with every access of tenderness toward her, she felt that +Dahlia must be thought for very much as if she were a child. + +Dahlia tried to float out some fretting words for mercy, on one or other +of her heavy breathings; but her brain was under lead. She had a thirst +for Rhoda's praise in her desolation; it was sweet, though the price of +it was her doing an abhorred thing. Abhorred? She did not realize the +consequences of the act, or strength would have come to her to wrestle +with the coil: a stir of her blood would have endued her with womanly +counsel and womanly frenzy; nor could Rhoda have opposed any real +vehemence of distaste to the union on Dahlia's part. But Dahlia's blood +was frozen, her brain was under lead. She clung to the poor delight in +her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the +minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts went +to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough, +would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She expected a +sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to herself +that misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we +are penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if +she refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her +body to be borne along, God would be the more merciful. With the small +cunning of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and +deceived herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a +lessened horror and alarm. + +This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near. +Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either +side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his +ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that +her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she +could not have submitted. + +Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little +which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time, +gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she dropped her +head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she +renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and +to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia's +frenzy left no courage behind it. + +Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, "I am still subject to nervous +attacks." + +"They will soon leave you," said Rhoda, nursing her hand. + +Dahlia contracted her lips. "Is father very unforgiving to women?" + +"Poor father!" Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was taken +with a convulsion. + +"Where shall I see him to-morrow?" she asked; and, glancing from the +beamless candle to the window-blinds "Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep! +It's day! where am I to see him?" + +"At Robert's lodgings. We all go there." + +"We all go?--he goes?" + +"Your husband will lead you there." + +"My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little--just +a little." + +"I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right," said Rhoda. + +"If you had only had an affection, dear! Oh I how ungrateful I am to +you." + +"It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you," said Rhoda. + +"You think I must do this? Must? Why?" + +"Why?" Rhoda pressed her fingers. "Why, when you were ill, did you not +write to me, that I might have come to you?" + +"I was ashamed," said Dahlia. + +"You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister." + +Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked +out on the day. As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face, +giving dry sobs. + +"Oh! I wish--I wish you had known what this is. Must I do it? His +face! Dear, I am very sorry to distress you. Must I do it? The doctor +says I am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, +if I am not killed. But, if I might only be a servant in father's house- +-I would give all my love to a little bed of flowers." + +"Father has no home now," said Rhoda. + +"I know--I know. I am ready. I will submit, and then father will not be +ashamed to remain at the Farm. I am ready. Dear, I am ready. Rhoda, I +am ready. It is not much." She blew the candle out. "See. No one will +do that for me. We are not to live for ourselves. I have done wrong, +and I am going to be humble; yes, I am. I never was when I was happy, +and that proves I had no right to be happy. All I ask is for another +night with you. Why did we not lie down together and sleep? We can't +sleep now--it's day." + +"Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling," said Rhoda. + +While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out +once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then +her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk's sighting quarry; +she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion. + +"He is there." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +At once Rhoda perceived that it was time for her to act. The name of him +who stood in the street below was written on her sister's face. She +started to her side, got possession of her hands, murmuring,-- + +"Come with me. You are to come with me. Don't speak. I know. I will +go down. Yes; you are to obey, and do what I tell you." + +Dahlia's mouth opened, but like a child when it is warned not to cry, she +uttered a faint inward wailing, lost her ideas, and was passive in a +shuddering fit. + +"What am I to do?" she said supplicatingly, as Rhoda led her to her +bedroom. + +"Rest here. Be perfectly quiet. Trust everything to me. I am your +sister." + +Leaving her under the spell of coldly-spoken words, Rhoda locked the door +on her. She was herself in great agitation, but nerved by deeper anger +there was no faltering in her movements. She went to the glass a minute, +as she tied her bonnet-strings under her chin, and pinned her shawl. A +night's vigil had not chased the bloom from her cheek, or the swimming +lustre from her dark eyes. Content that her aspect should be seemly, she +ran down the stairs, unfastened the bolts, and without hesitation closed +the door behind her. At the same instant, a gentleman crossed the road. +He asked whether Mrs. Ayrton lived in that house? Rhoda's vision danced +across his features, but she knew him unerringly to be the cruel enemy. + +"My sister, Dahlia Fleming, lives there," she said. + +"Then, you are Rhoda?" + +"My name is Rhoda." + +"Mine--I fear it will not give you pleasure to hear it--is Edward +Blancove. I returned late last night from abroad." + +She walked to a distance, out of hearing and out of sight of the house, +and he silently followed. The streets were empty, save for the solitary +footing of an early workman going to his labour. + +She stopped, and he said, "I hope your sister is well." + +"She is quite well." + +"Thank heaven for that! I heard of some illness." + +"She has quite recovered." + +"Did she--tell me the truth--did she get a letter that I sent two days +ago, to her? It was addressed to 'Miss Fleming, Wrexby, Kent, England.' +Did it reach her?" + +"I have not seen it." + +"I wrote," said Edward. + +His scrutiny of her features was not reassuring to him. But he had a +side-thought, prompted by admiration of her perfect build of figure, her +succinct expression of countenance, and her equable manner of speech: to +the effect, that the true English yeomanry can breed consummate women. +Perhaps--who knows? even resolute human nature is the stronger for an +added knot--it approved the resolution he had formed, or stamped with a +justification the series of wild impulses, the remorse, and the returned +tenderness and manliness which had brought him to that spot. + +"You know me, do you not?" he said. + +"Yes," she answered shortly. + +"I wish to see Dahlia." + +"You cannot." + +"Not immediately, of course. But when she has risen later in the +morning. If she has received my letter, she will, she must see me." + +"No, not later; not at all," said Rhoda. + +"Not at all? Why not?" + +Rhoda controlled the surging of her blood for a vehement reply; saying +simply, "You will not see her." + +"My child, I must." + +"I am not a child, and I say what I mean." + +"But why am I not to see her? Do you pretend that it is her wish not to +see me? You can't. I know her perfectly. She is gentleness itself." + +"Yes; you know that," said Rhoda, with a level flash of her eyes, and +confronting him in a way so rarely distinguishing girls of her class, +that he began to wonder and to ache with an apprehension. + +"She has not changed? Rhoda--for we used to talk of you so often! You +will think better of me, by-and-by. + +"Naturally enough, you detest me at present. I have been a brute. I +can't explain it, and I don't excuse myself. I state the fact to you-- +her sister. My desire is to make up for the past. Will you take a +message to her from me?" + +"I will not." + +"You are particularly positive." + +Remarks touching herself Rhoda passed by. + +"Why are you so decided?" he said more urgently. "I know I have deeply +offended and hurt you. I wish, and intend to repair the wrong to the +utmost of my power. Surely it's mere silly vindictiveness on your part +to seek to thwart me. Go to her; say I am here. At all events, let it +be her choice not to see me, if I am to be rejected at the door. She +can't have had my letter. Will you do that much?" + +"She knows that you are here; she has seen you." + +"Has seen me?" Edward drew in his breath sharply. "Well? and she sends +you out to me?" + +Rhoda did not answer. She was strongly tempted to belie Dahlia's frame +of mind. + +"She does send you to speak to me," Edward insisted. + +"She knows that I have come." + +"And you will not take one message in?" + +"I will take no message from you." + +"You hate me, do you not?" + +Again she controlled the violent shock of her heart to give him hard +speech. He went on:-- + +"Whether you hate me or not is beside the matter. It lies between Dahlia +and me. I will see her. When I determine, I allow of no obstacles, not +even of wrong-headed girls. First, let me ask, is your father in +London?" + +Rhoda threw a masculine meaning into her eyes. + +"Do not come before him, I advise you." + +"If," said Edward, with almost womanly softness, "you could know what I +have passed through in the last eight-and-forty hours, you would +understand that I am equal to any meeting; though, to speak truth, I +would rather not see him until I have done what I mean to do. Will you +be persuaded? Do you suppose that I have ceased to love your sister?" + +This, her execrated word, coming from his mouth, vanquished her +self-possession. + +"Are you cold?" he said, seeing the ripple of a trembling run over her. + +"I am not cold. I cannot remain here." Rhoda tightened her +intertwisting fingers across under her bosom. "Don't try to kill my +sister outright. She's the ghost of what she was. Be so good as to go. +She will soon be out of your reach. You will have to kill me first, if +you get near her. Never! you never shall. You have lied to herbrought +disgrace on her poor head. We poor people read our Bibles, and find +nothing that excuses you. You are not punished, because there is no +young man in our family. Go." + +Edward gazed at her for some time. "Well, I've deserved worse," he said, +not sorry, now that he saw an opponent in her, that she should waste her +concentrated antagonism in this fashion, and rejoiced by the testimony it +gave him that he was certainly not too late. + +"You know, Rhoda, she loves me." + +"If she does, let her pray to God on her knees." + +"My good creature, be reasonable. Why am I here? To harm her? You take +me for a kind of monster. You look at me very much, let me say, like a +bristling cat. Here are the streets getting full of people, and you +ought not to be seen. Go to Dahlia. Tell her I am here. Tell her I am +come to claim her for good, and that her troubles are over. This is a +moment to use your reason. Will you do what I ask?" + +"I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service," said Rhoda. + +"Citoyenne Corday," thought Edward, and observed: "Then I will dispense +with your assistance." + +He moved in the direction of the house. Rhoda swiftly outstripped him. +They reached the gates together. She threw herself in the gateway. He +attempted to parley, but she was dumb to it. + +"I allow nothing to stand between her and me," he said, and seized her +arm. She glanced hurriedly to right and left. At that moment Robert +appeared round a corner of the street. He made his voice heard, and, +coming up at double quick, caught Edward Blancove by the collar, swinging +him off. Rhoda, with a sign, tempered him to muteness, and the three +eyed one another. + +"It's you," said Robert, and, understanding immediately the tactics +desired by Rhoda, requested Edward to move a step or two away in his +company. + +Edward settled the disposition of his coat-collar, as a formula wherewith +to regain composure of mind, and passed along beside Robert, Rhoda +following. + +"What does this mean?" said Robert sternly. + +Edward's darker nature struggled for ascendancy within him. It was this +man's violence at Fairly which had sickened him, and irritated him +against Dahlia, and instigated him, as he remembered well, more than Mrs. +Lovell's witcheries, to the abhorrent scheme to be quit of her, and rid +of all botheration, at any cost. + +"You're in some conspiracy to do her mischief, all of you," he cried. + +"If you mean Dahlia Fleming," said Robert, "it'd be a base creature that +would think of doing harm to her now." + +He had a man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in +Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was +a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to the more +generous view. + +"I think your name is Eccles," said Edward. "Mr. Eccles, my position +here is a very sad one. But first, let me acknowledge that I have done +you personally a wrong. I am ready to bear the burden of your +reproaches, or what you will. All that I beg is, that you will do me the +favour to grant me five minutes in private. It is imperative." + +Rhoda burst in--"No, Robert!" But Robert said, "It is a reasonable +request;" and, in spite of her angry eyes, he waved her back, and walked +apart with Edward. + +She stood watching them, striving to divine their speech by their +gestures, and letting her savage mood interpret the possible utterances. +It went ill with Robert in her heart that he did not suddenly grapple and +trample the man, and so break away from him. She was outraged to see +Robert's listening posture. "Lies! lies!" she said to herself, "and he +doesn't know them to be lies." The window-blinds in Dahlia's +sitting-room continued undisturbed; but she feared the agency of the +servant of the house in helping to release her sister. Time was flowing +to dangerous strands. At last Robert turned back singly. Rhoda +fortified her soul to resist. + +"He has fooled you," she murmured, inaudibly, before he spoke. + +"Perhaps, Rhoda, we ought not to stand in his way. He wishes to do what +a man can do in his case. So he tells me, and I'm bound not to +disbelieve him. He says he repents--says the word; and gentlemen seem to +mean it when they use it. I respect the word, and them when they're up +to that word. He wrote to her that he could not marry her, and it did +the mischief, and may well be repented of; but he wishes to be forgiven +and make amends--well, such as he can. He's been abroad, and only +received Dahlia's letters within the last two or three days. He seems to +love her, and to be heartily wretched. Just hear me out; you'll decide; +but pray, pray don't be rash. He wishes to marry her; says he has spoken +to his father this very night; came straight over from France, after he +had read her letters. He says--and it seems fair--he only asks to see +Dahlia for two minutes. If she bids him go, he goes. He's not a friend +of mine, as I could prove to you; but I do think he ought to see her. He +says he looks on her as his wife; always meant her to be his wife, but +things were against him when he wrote that letter. Well, he says so; and +it's true that gentlemen are situated--they can't always, or think they +can't, behave quite like honest men. They've got a hundred things to +consider for our one. That's my experience, and I know something of the +best among 'em. The question is about this poor young fellow who's to +marry her to-day. Mr. Blancove talks of giving him a handsome sum--a +thousand pounds--and making him comfortable--" + +"There!" Rhoda exclaimed, with a lightning face. "You don't see what he +is, after that? Oh!--" She paused, revolted. + +"Will you let me run off to the young man, wherever he's to be found, and +put the case to him--that is, from Dahlia? And you know she doesn't like +the marriage overmuch, Rhoda. Perhaps he may think differently when he +comes to hear of things. As to Mr. Blancove, men change and change when +they're young. I mean, gentlemen. We must learn to forgive. Either +he's as clever as the devil, or he's a man in earnest, and deserves pity. +If you'd heard him!" + +"My poor sister!" sighed Rhoda. The mentioning of money to be paid had +sickened and weakened her, as with the very physical taste of +degradation. + +Hearing the sigh, Robert thought she had become subdued. Then Rhoda +said: "We are bound to this young man who loves my sister--bound to him +in honour: and Dahlia must esteem him, to have consented. As for the +other..." She waved the thought of his claim on her sister aside with a +quick shake of her head. "I rely on you to do this:--I will speak to Mr. +Blancove myself. He shall not see her there." She indicated the house. +"Go to my sister; and lose no time in taking her to your lodgings. +Father will not arrive till twelve. Wait and comfort her till I come, +and answer no questions. Robert," she gave him her hand gently, and, +looking sweetly, "if you will do this!" + +"If I will!" cried Robert, transported by the hopeful tenderness. The +servant girl of the house had just opened the front door, intent on +scrubbing, and he passed in. Rhoda walked on to Edward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +A profound belief in the efficacy of his eloquence, when he chose to +expend it, was one of the principal supports of Edward's sense of +mastery; a secret sense belonging to certain men in every station of +life, and which is the staff of many an otherwise impressible and +fluctuating intellect. With this gift, if he trifled, or slid downward +in any direction, he could right himself easily, as he satisfactorily +conceived. It is a gift that may now and then be the ruin of promising +youths, though as a rule they find it helpful enough. Edward had exerted +it upon his father, and upon Robert. Seeing Rhoda's approach, he thought +of it as a victorious swordsman thinks of his weapon, and aimed his +observation over her possible weak and strong points, studying her +curiously even when she was close up to him. With Robert, the +representative of force, to aid her, she could no longer be regarded in +the light of a despicable hindrance to his wishes. Though inclined +strongly to detest, he respected her. She had decision, and a worthy +bearing, and a marvellously blooming aspect, and a brain that worked +withal. When she spoke, desiring him to walk on by her side, he was +pleased by her voice, and recognition of the laws of propriety, and +thought it a thousand pities that she likewise should not become the wife +of a gentleman. By degrees, after tentative beginnings, he put his spell +upon her ears, for she was attentive, and walked with a demure forward +look upon the pavement; in reality taking small note of what things he +said, until he quoted, as against himself, sentences from Dahlia's +letters; and then she fixed her eyes on him, astonished that he should +thus heap condemnation on his own head. They were most pathetic scraps +quoted by him, showing the wrestle of love with a petrifying conviction +of its hopelessness, and with the stealing on of a malady of the blood. +They gave such a picture of Dahlia's reverent love for this man, her long +torture, her chastity of soul and simple innocence, and her gathering +delirium of anguish, as Rhoda had never taken at all distinctly to her +mind. She tried to look out on him from a mist of tears. + +"How could you bear to read the letters?" she sobbed. + +"Could any human being read them and not break his heart for her?" said +he. + +"How could you bear to read them and leave her to perish!" + +His voice deepened to an impressive hollow: "I read them for the first +time yesterday morning, in France, and I am here!" + +It was undeniably, in its effect on Rhoda, a fine piece of pleading +artifice. It partially excused or accounted for his behaviour, while it +filled her with emotions which she felt to be his likewise, and therefore +she could not remain as an unsympathetic stranger by his side. + +With this, he flung all artifice away. He told her the whole story, +saving the one black episode of it--the one incomprehensible act of a +desperate baseness that, blindly to get free, he had deliberately +permitted, blinked at, and had so been guilty of. He made a mental pause +as he was speaking, to consider in amazement how and by what agency he +had been reduced to shame his manhood, and he left it a marvel. +Otherwise, he in no degree exonerated himself. He dwelt sharply on his +vice of ambition, and scorned it as a misleading light. "Yet I have done +little since I have been without her!" And then, with a persuasive +sincerity, he assured her that he could neither study nor live apart from +Dahlia. "She is the dearest soul to me on earth; she is the purest +woman. I have lived with her, I have lived apart from her, and I cannot +live without her. I love her with a husband's love. Now, do you suppose +I will consent to be separated from her? I know that while her heart +beats, it's mine. Try to keep her from me--you kill her." + +"She did not die," said Rhoda. It confounded his menaces. + +"This time she might," he could not refrain from murmuring. + +"Ah!" Rhoda drew off from him. + +"But I say," cried he, "that I will see her." + +"We say, that she shall do what is for her good." + +"You have a project? Let me hear it. You are mad, if you have." + +"It is not our doing, Mr. Blancove. It was--it was by her own choice. +She will not always be ashamed to look her father in the face. She dare +not see him before she is made worthy to see him. I believe her to have +been directed right." + +"And what is her choice?" + +"She has chosen for herself to marry a good and worthy man." + +Edward called out, "Have you seen him--the man?" + +Rhoda, thinking he wished to have the certainty of the stated fact +established, replied, "I have." + +"A good and worthy man," muttered Edward. "Illness, weakness, misery, +have bewildered her senses. She thinks him a good and worthy man?" + +"I think him so." + +"And you have seen him?" + +"I have." + +"Why, what monstrous delusion is this? It can't be! My good creature, +you're oddly deceived, I imagine. What is the man's name? I can +understand that she has lost her will and distinct sight; but you are +clear-sighted, and can estimate. What is the man's name?" + +"I can tell you," said Rhoda; "his name is Mr. Sedgett." + +"Mister--!" Edward gave one hollow stave of laughter. "And you have seen +him, and think him--" + +"I know he is not a gentleman," said Rhoda. "He has been deeply good to +my sister, and I thank him, and do respect him." + +"Deeply!" Edward echoed. He was prompted to betray and confess himself: +courage failed. + +They looked around simultaneously on hearing an advancing footstep. + +The very man appeared--in holiday attire, flushed, smiling, and with a +nosegay of roses in his hand. He studied the art of pleasing women. His +eye struck on Edward, and his smile vanished. Rhoda gave him no word of +recognition. As he passed on, he was led to speculate from his having +seen Mr. Edward instead of Mr. Algernon, and from the look of the former, +that changes were in the air, possibly chicanery, and the proclaiming of +himself as neatly diddled by the pair whom, with another, he heartily +hoped to dupe. + +After he had gone by, Edward and Rhoda changed looks. Both knew the +destination of that lovely nosegay. The common knowledge almost kindled +an illuminating spark in her brain; but she was left in the dark, and +thought him strangely divining, or only strange. For him, a horror +cramped his limbs. He felt that he had raised a devil in that abominable +smirking ruffian. It may not, perhaps, be said that he had distinctly +known Sedgett to be the man. He had certainly suspected the possibility +of his being the man. It is out of the power of most wilful and selfish +natures to imagine, so as to see accurately, the deeds they prompt or +permit to be done. They do not comprehend them until these black +realities stand up before their eyes. + +Ejaculating "Great heaven!" Edward strode some steps away, and returned. + +"It's folly, Rhoda!--the uttermost madness ever conceived! I do not +believe--I know that Dahlia would never consent--first, to marry any man +but myself; secondly, to marry a man who is not a perfect gentleman. Her +delicacy distinguishes her among women." + +"Mr. Blancove, my sister is nearly dead, only that she is so strong. The +disgrace has overwhelmed her, it has. When she is married, she will +thank and honour him, and see nothing but his love and kindness. I will +leave you now." + +"I am going to her," said Edward. + +"Do not." + +"There's an end of talking. I trust no one will come in my path. Where +am I?" + +He looked up at the name of the street, and shot away from her. Rhoda +departed in another direction, firm, since she had seen Sedgett pass, +that his nobleness should not meet with an ill reward. She endowed him +with fair moral qualities, which she contrasted against Edward Blancove's +evil ones; and it was with a democratic fervour of contempt that she +dismissed the superior dutward attractions of the gentleman. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +This neighbourhood was unknown to Edward, and, after plunging about in +one direction and another, he found that he had missed his way. Down +innumerable dusky streets of dwarfed houses, showing soiled silent +window-blinds, he hurried and chafed; at one moment in sharp joy that he +had got a resolution, and the next dismayed by the singular petty +impediments which were tripping him. "My dearest!" his heart cried to +Dahlia, "did I wrong you so? I will make all well. It was the work of a +fiend." Now he turned to right, now to left, and the minutes flew. They +flew; and in the gathering heat of his brain he magnified things until +the sacrifice of herself Dahlia was preparing for smote his imagination +as with a blaze of the upper light, and stood sublime before him in the +grandeur of old tragedy. "She has blinded her eyes, stifled her senses, +eaten her heart. Oh! my beloved! my wife! my poor girl! and all to be +free from shame in her father's sight!" Who could have believed that a +girl of Dahlia's class would at once have felt the shame so keenly, and +risen to such pure heights of heroism? The sacrifice flouted conception; +it mocked the steady morning. He refused to believe in it, but the short +throbs of his blood were wiser. + +A whistling urchin became his guide. The little lad was carelessly +giving note to a popular opera tune, with happy disregard of concord. It +chanced that the tune was one which had taken Dahlia's ear, and, +remembering it and her pretty humming of it in the old days, Edward's +wrestling unbelief with the fatality of the hour sank, so entirely was he +under the sovereignty of his sensations. He gave the boy a big fee, +desiring superstitiously to feel that one human creature could bless the +hour. The house was in view. He knocked, and there came a strange +murmur of some denial. "She is here," he said, menacingly. + +"She was taken away, sir, ten minutes gone, by a gentleman," the servant +tied to assure him. + +The landlady of the house, coming up the kitchen stairs, confirmed the +statement. In pity for his torpid incredulity she begged him to examine +her house from top to bottom, and herself conducted him to Dahlia's room. + +"That bed has not been slept in," said the lawyer, pointing his finger to +it. + +"No, sir; poor thing! she didn't sleep last night. She's been wearying +for weeks; and last night her sister came, and they hadn't met for very +long. Two whole candles they burnt out, or near upon it." + +"Where?--" Edward's articulation choked. + +"Where they're gone to, sir? That I do not know. Of course she will +come back." + +The landlady begged him to wait; but to sit and see the minutes--the +black emissaries of perdition--fly upon their business, was torture as +big as to endure the tearing off of his flesh till the skeleton stood +out. Up to this point he had blamed himself; now he accused the just +heavens. Yea! is not a sinner their lawful quarry? and do they not slip +the hounds with savage glee, and hunt him down from wrong to evil, from +evil to infamy, from infamy to death, from death to woe everlasting? And +is this their righteousness?--He caught at the rusty garden rails to +steady his feet. + +Algernon was employed in the comfortable degustation of his breakfast, +meditating whether he should transfer a further slice of ham or of +Yorkshire pie to his plate, or else have done with feeding and light a +cigar, when Edward appeared before him. + +"Do you know where that man lives?" + +Algernon had a prompting to respond, "Now, really! what man?" But +passion stops the breath of fools. He answered, "Yes." + +"Have you the thousand in your pocket?" + +Algernon nodded with a sickly grin. + +"Jump up! Go to him. Give it up to him! Say, that if he leaves London +on the instant, and lets you see him off--say, it shall be doubled. +Stay, I'll write the promise, and put my signature. Tell him he shall, +on my word of honour, have another--another thousand pounds--as soon as I +can possibly obtain it, if he holds his tongue, and goes with you; and +see that he goes. Don't talk to me on any other subject, or lose one +minute." + +Algernon got his limbs slackly together, trying to think of the +particular pocket in which he had left his cigar-case. Edward wrote a +line on a slip of note-paper, and signed his name beneath. With this and +an unsatisfied longing for tobacco Algernon departed, agreeing to meet +his cousin in the street where Dahlia dwelt. + +"By Jove! two thousand! It's an expensive thing not to know your own +mind," he thought. + +"How am I to get out of this scrape? That girl Rhoda doesn't care a +button for me. No colonies for me. I should feel like a convict if I +went alone. What on earth am I to do?" + +It seemed preposterous to him that he should take a cab, when he had not +settled upon a scheme. The sight of a tobacconist's shop charmed one of +his more immediate difficulties to sleep. He was soon enabled to puff +consoling smoke. + +"Ned's mad," he pursued his soliloquy. "He's a weather-cock. Do I ever +act as he does? And I'm the dog that gets the bad name. The idea of +giving this fellow two thousand--two thousand pounds! Why, he might live +like a gentleman." + +And that when your friend proves himself to be distraught, the proper +friendly thing to do is to think for him, became eminently clear in +Algernon's mind. + +"Of course, it's Ned's money. I'd give it if I had it, but I haven't; +and the fellow won't take a farthing less; I know him. However, it's my +duty to try." + +He summoned a vehicle. It was a boast of his proud youth that never in +his life had he ridden in a close cab. Flinging his shoulders back, he +surveyed the world on foot. "Odd faces one sees," he meditated. "I +suppose they've got feelings, like the rest; but a fellow can't help +asking--what's the use of them? If I inherit all right, as I ought to-- +why shouldn't I?--I'll squat down at old Wrexby, garden and farm, and +drink my Port. I hate London. The squire's not so far wrong, I fancy." + +It struck him that his chance of inheriting was not so very obscure, +after all. Why had he ever considered it obscure? It was decidedly next +to certain, he being an only son. And the squire's health was bad! + +While speculating in this wise he saw advancing, arm-in-arm, Lord +Suckling and Harry Latters. They looked at him, and evidently spoke +together, but gave neither nod, nor smile, nor a word, in answer to his +flying wave of the hand. Furious, and aghast at this signal of exclusion +from the world, just at the moment when he was returning to it almost +cheerfully in spirit, he stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after the +pair. + +"I suppose I must say Mr. Latters," Algernon commenced. + +Harry deliberated a quiet second or two. "Well, according to our laws of +primogeniture, I don't come first, and therefore miss a better title," he +said. + +"How are you?" Algernon nodded to Lord Suckling, who replied, "Very well, +I thank you." + +Their legs were swinging forward concordantly. Algernon plucked out his +purse. "I have to beg you to excuse me," he said, hurriedly; "my cousin +Ned's in a mess, and I've been helping him as well as I can--bothered-- +not an hour my own. Fifty, I think?" That amount he tendered to Harry +Latters, who took it most coolly. + +"A thousand?" he queried of Lord Suckling. + +"Divided by two," replied the young nobleman, and the Blucher of +bank-notes was proffered to him. He smiled queerly, hesitating to take +it. + +"I was looking for you at all the Clubs last night," said Algernon. + +Lord Suckling and Latters had been at theirs, playing whist till past +midnight; yet is money, even when paid over in this egregious public +manner by a nervous hand, such testimony to the sincerity of a man, that +they shouted a simultaneous invitation for him to breakfast with them, in +an hour, at the Club, or dine with them there that evening. Algernon +affected the nod of haste and acquiescence, and ran, lest they should +hear him groan. He told the cabman to drive Northward, instead of to the +South-west. The question of the thousand pounds had been decided for +him--"by fate," he chose to affirm. The consideration that one is +pursued by fate, will not fail to impart a sense of dignity even to the +meanest. "After all, if I stop in England," said he, "I can't afford to +lose my position in society; anything's better than that an unmitigated +low scoundrel like Sedgett should bag the game." Besides, is it not +somewhat sceptical to suppose that when Fate decides, she has not weighed +the scales, and decided for the best? Meantime, the whole energy of his +intellect was set reflecting on the sort of lie which Edward would, by +nature and the occasion, be disposed to swallow. He quitted the cab, and +walked in the Park, and au diable to him there! the fool has done his +work. + +It was now half-past ten. Robert, with a most heavy heart, had +accomplished Rhoda's commands upon him. He had taken Dahlia to his +lodgings, whither, when free from Edward, Rhoda proceeded in a mood of +extreme sternness. She neither thanked Robert, nor smiled upon her +sister. Dahlia sent one quivering look up at her, and cowered lower in +her chair near the window. + +"Father comes at twelve?" Rhoda said. + +Robert replied: "He does." + +After which a silence too irritating for masculine nerves filled the +room. + +"You will find, I hope, everything here that you may want," said Robert. +"My landlady will attend to the bell. She is very civil." + +"Thank you; we shall not want anything," said Rhoda. "There is my +sister's Bible at her lodgings." + +Robert gladly offered to fetch it, and left them with a sense of relief +that was almost joy. He waited a minute in the doorway, to hear whether +Dahlia addressed him. He waited on the threshold of the house, that he +might be sure Dahlia did not call for his assistance. Her cry of appeal +would have fortified him to stand against Rhoda; but no cry was heard. +He kept expecting it, pausing for it, hoping it would come to solve his +intense perplexity. The prolonged stillness terrified him; for, away +from the sisters, he had power to read the anguish of Dahlia's heart, her +frozen incapacity, and the great and remorseless mastery which lay in +Rhoda's inexorable will. + +A few doors down the street he met Major blaring, on his way to him. +"Here's five minutes' work going to be done, which we may all of us +regret till the day of our deaths," Robert said, and related what had +passed during the morning hours. + +Percy approved Rhoda, saying, "She must rescue her sister at all hazards. +The case is too serious for her to listen to feelings, and regrets, and +objections. The world against one poor woman is unfair odds, Robert. I +come to tell you I leave England in a day or two. Will you join me?" + +"How do I know what I shall or can do?" said Robert, mournfully: and they +parted. + +Rhoda's unflickering determination to carry out, and to an end, this +tragic struggle of duty against inclination; on her own sole +responsibility forcing it on; acting like a Fate, in contempt of mere +emotions,--seemed barely real to his mind: each moment that he conceived +it vividly, he became more certain that she must break down. Was it in +her power to drag Dahlia to the steps of the altar? And would not her +heart melt when at last Dahlia did get her voice? "This marriage can +never take place!" he said, and was convinced of its being impossible. +He forgot that while he was wasting energy at Fairly, Rhoda had sat +hiving bitter strength in the loneliness of the Farm; with one vile +epithet clapping on her ears, and nothing but unavailing wounded love for +her absent unhappy sister to make music of her pulses. + +He found his way to Dahlia's room; he put her Bible under his arm, and +looked about him sadly. Time stood at a few minutes past eleven. +Flinging himself into a chair, he thought of waiting in that place; but a +crowd of undefinable sensations immediately beset him. Seeing Edward +Blancove in the street below, he threw up the window compassionately, and +Edward, casting a glance to right and left, crossed the road. Robert +went down to him. + +"I am waiting for my cousin." Edward had his watch in his hand. "I think +I am fast. Can you tell me the time exactly?" + +"Why, I'm rather slow," said Robert, comparing time with his own watch. +"I make it four minutes past the hour." + +"I am at fourteen," said Edward. "I fancy I must be fast." + +"About ten minutes past, is the time, I think." + +"So much as that!" + +"It may be a minute or so less." + +"I should like," said Edward, "to ascertain positively." + +"There's a clock down in the kitchen here, I suppose," said Robert. +"Safer, there's a clock at the church, just in sight from here." + +"Thank you; I will go and look at that." + +Robert bethought himself suddenly that Edward had better not. "I can +tell you the time to a second," he said. "It's now twelve minutes past +eleven." + +Edward held his watch balancing. "Twelve," he repeated; and, behind this +mask of common-place dialogue, they watched one another--warily, and +still with pity, on Robert's side. + +"You can't place any reliance on watches," said Edward. + +"None, I believe," Robert remarked. + +"If you could see the sun every day in this climate!" Edward looked up. + +"Ah, the sun's the best timepiece, when visible," Robert acquiesced. +"Backwoodsmen in America don't need watches." + +"Unless it is to astonish the Indians with them." + +"Ah! yes!" hummed Robert. + +"Twelve--fifteen--it must be a quarter past. Or, a three quarters to the +next hour, as the Germans say." + +"Odd!" Robert ejaculated. "Foreigners have the queerest ways in the +world. They mean no harm, but they make you laugh." + +"They think the same of us, and perhaps do the laughing more loudly." + +"Ah! let them," said Robert, not without contemptuous indignation, though +his mind was far from the talk. + +The sweat was on Edward's forehead. "In a few minutes it will be +half-past--half-past eleven! I expect a friend; that makes me impatient. +Mr. Eccles"--Edward showed his singular, smallish, hard-cut and flashing +features, clear as if he had blown off a mist--"you are too much of a man +to bear malice. Where is Dahlia? Tell me at once. Some one seems to be +cruelly driving her. Has she lost her senses? She has:--or else she is +coerced in an inexplicable and shameful manner." + +"Mr. Blancove," said Robert, "I bear you not a bit of malice--couldn't if +I would. I'm not sure I could have said guilty to the same sort of +things, in order to tell an enemy of mine I was sorry for what I had +done, and I respect you for your courage. Dahlia was taken from here by +me." + +Edward nodded, as if briefly assenting, while his features sharpened. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"It was her sister's wish." + +"Has she no will of her own?" + +"Very little, I'm afraid, just now, sir." + +"A remarkable sister! Are they of Puritan origin?" + +"Not that I am aware of." + +"And this father?" + +"Mr. Blancove, he is one of those sort--he can't lift up his head if he +so much as suspects a reproach to his children." + +Edward brooded. "I desire--as I told you, as I told her sister, as I +told my father last night--I desire to make her my wife. What can I do +more? Are they mad with some absurd country pride? Half-past eleven!--it +will be murder if they force her to it! Where is she? To such a man as +that! Poor soul! I can hardly fear it, for I can't imagine it. Here-- +the time is going. You know the man yourself." + +"I know the man?" said Robert. "I've never set eyes on him--I've never +set eyes on him, and never liked to ask much about him. I had a sort of +feeling. Her sister says he is a good, and kind, honourable young +fellow, and he must be." + +"Before it's too late," Edward muttered hurriedly--"you know him--his +name is Sedgett." + +Robert hung swaying over him with a big voiceless chest. + +"That Sedgett?" he breathed huskily, and his look was hard to meet. + +Edward frowned, unable to raise his head. + +"Lord in heaven! some one has something to answer for!" cried Robert. +"Come on; come to the church. That foul dog?--Or you, stay where you +are. I'll go. He to be Dahlia's husband! They've seen him, and can't +see what he is!--cunning with women as that? How did they meet? Do you +know?--can't you guess?" + +He flung a lightning at Edward and ran off. Bursting into the aisle, he +saw the minister closing the Book at the altar, and three persons moving +toward the vestry, of whom the last, and the one he discerned, was Rhoda. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ashamed of letting his ears be filled with secret talk +Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap +Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for the growing costliness of cigars +He lies as naturally as an infant sucks +I would cut my tongue out, if it did you a service +Inferences are like shadows on the wall +Marriage is an awful thing, where there's no love +One learns to have compassion for fools, by studying them +Principle of examining your hypothesis before you proceed to decide by it +Rhoda will love you. She is firm when she loves +Sort of religion with her to believe no wrong of you +The unhappy, who do not wish to live, and cannot die +You choose to give yourself to an obscure dog + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v4 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4424.zip b/4424.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e0a077 --- /dev/null +++ b/4424.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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