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CONCLUSION + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Late into the afternoon, Farmer Fleming was occupying a chair in Robert's +lodgings, where he had sat since the hour of twelve, without a movement +of his limbs or of his mind, and alone. He showed no sign that he +expected the approach of any one. As mute and unremonstrant as a fallen +tree, nearly as insensible, his eyes half closed, and his hands lying +open, the great figure of the old man kept this attitude as of stiff +decay through long sunny hours, and the noise of the London suburb. +Although the wedding people were strangely late, it was unnoticed by him. +When the door opened and Rhoda stepped into the room, he was unaware that +he had been waiting, and only knew that the hours had somehow accumulated +to a heavy burden upon him. + +"She is coming, father; Robert is bringing her up," Rhoda said. + +"Let her come," he answered. + +Robert's hold was tight under Dahlia's arm as they passed the doorway, +and then the farmer stood. Robert closed the door. + +For some few painful moments the farmer could not speak, and his hand was +raised rejectingly. The return of human animation to his heart made him +look more sternly than he felt; but he had to rid himself of one terrible +question before he satisfied his gradual desire to take his daughter to +his breast. It came at last like a short roll of drums, the words were +heard,-- + +"Is she an honest woman?" + +"She is," said Rhoda. + +The farmer was looking on Robert. + +Robert said it likewise in a murmur, but with steadfast look. + +Bending his eyes now upon Dahlia, a mist of affection grew in them. He +threw up his head, and with a choking, infantine cry, uttered, "Come." + +Robert placed her against her father's bosom. + +He moved to the window beside Rhoda, and whispered, and she answered, and +they knew not what they said. The joint moans of father and daughter-- +the unutterable communion of such a meeting--filled their ears. Grief +held aloof as much as joy. Neither joy nor grief were in those two hearts +of parent and child; but the senseless contentment of hard, of infinite +hard human craving. + +The old man released her, and Rhoda undid her hands from him, and led the +pale Sacrifice to another room. + +"Where's...?" Mr. Fleming asked. + +Robert understood him. + +"Her husband will not come." + +It was interpreted by the farmer as her husband's pride. Or, may be, the +man who was her husband now had righted her at last, and then flung her +off in spite for what he had been made to do. + +"I'm not being deceived, Robert?" + +"No, sir; upon my soul!" + +"I've got that here," the farmer struck his ribs. + +Rhoda came back. "Sister is tired," she said. "Dahlia is going down +home with you, for...I hope, for a long stay." + +"All the better, while home we've got. We mayn't lose time, my girl. +Gammon's on 's way to the station now. He'll wait. He'll wait till +midnight. You may always reckon on a slow man like Gammon for waitin'. +Robert comes too?" + +"Father, we have business to do. Robert gives me his rooms here for a +little time; his landlady is a kind woman, and will take care of me. You +will trust me to Robert." + +"I'll bring Rhoda down on Monday evening," Robert said to the farmer. +"You may trust me, Mr. Fleming." + +"That I know. That I'm sure of. That's a certainty," said the farmer. +"I'd do it for good, if for good was in the girl's heart, Robert. There +seems," he hesitated; "eh, Robert, there seems a something upon us all. +There's a something to be done, is there? But if I've got my flesh and +blood, and none can spit on her, why should I be asking 'whats' and +'whys'? I bow my head; and God forgive me, if ever I complained. And +you will bring Rhoda to us on Monday?" + +"Yes; and try and help to make the farm look up again, if Gammon'll do +the ordering about." + +"Poor old Mas' Gammon! He's a rare old man. Is he changed by adversity, +Robert? Though he's awful secret, that old man! Do you consider a bit +Gammon's faithfulness, Robert!" + +"Ay, he's above most men in that," Robert agreed. + +"On with Dahlia's bonnet--sharp!" the farmer gave command. He felt, now +that he was growing accustomed to the common observation of things, that +the faces and voices around him were different from such as the day +brings in its usual course. "We're all as slow as Mas' Gammon, I +reckon." + +"Father," said Rhoda, "she is weak. She has been very unwell. Do not +trouble her with any questions. Do not let any questions be asked of her +at hone. Any talking fatigues; it may be dangerous to her." + +The farmer stared. "Ay, and about her hair....I'm beginning to remember. +She wears a cap, and her hair's cut off like an oakum-picker's. That's +more gossip for neighbours!" + +"Mad people! will they listen to truth?" Rhoda flamed out in her dark +fashion. "We speak truth, nothing but truth. She has had a brain fever. +That makes her very weak, and every one must be silent at home. Father, +stop the sale of the farm, for Robert will work it into order. He has +promised to be our friend, and Dahlia will get her health there, and be +near mother's grave." + +The farmer replied, as from a far thought, "There's money in my pocket to +take down two." + +He continued: "But there's not money there to feed our family a week on; +I leave it to the Lord. I sow; I dig, and I sow, and when bread fails to +us the land must go; and let it go, and no crying about it. I'm +astonishing easy at heart, though if I must sell, and do sell, I shan't +help thinking of my father, and his father, and the father before him-- +mayhap, and in most likelihood, artfuller men 'n me--for what they was +born to they made to flourish. They'll cry in their graves. A man's +heart sticks to land, Robert; that you'll find, some day. I thought I +cared none but about land till that poor, weak, white thing put her arms +on my neck." + +Rhoda had slipped away from them again. + +The farmer stooped to Robert's ear. "Had a bit of a disagreement with +her husband, is it?" + +Robert cleared his throat. "Ay, that's it," he said. + +"Serious, at all?" + +"One can't tell, you know." + +"And not her fault--not my girl's fault, Robert?" + +"No; I can swear to that." + +"She's come to the right home, then. She'll be near her mother and me. +Let her pray at night, and she'll know she's always near her blessed +mother. Perhaps the women 'll want to take refreshment, if we may so far +make free with your hospitality; but it must be quick, Robert--or will +they? They can't eat, and I can't eat." + +Soon afterward Mr. Fleming took his daughter Dahlia from the house and +out of London. The deeply-afflicted creature was, as the doctors had +said of her, too strong for the ordinary modes of killing. She could +walk and still support herself, though the ordeal she had gone through +this day was such as few women could have traversed. The terror to +follow the deed she had done was yet unseen by her; and for the hour she +tasted, if not peace, the pause to suffering which is given by an act +accomplished. + +Robert and Rhoda sat in different rooms till it was dusk. When she +appeared before him in the half light, the ravage of a past storm was +visible on her face. She sat down to make tea, and talked with singular +self command. + +"Mr. Fleming mentioned the gossips down at Wrexby," said Robert: "are +they very bad down there?" + +"Not worse than in other villages," said Rhoda. "They have not been +unkind. They have spoken about us, but not unkindly--I mean, not +spitefully." + +"And you forgive them?" + +"I do: they cannot hurt us now." + +Robert was but striving to master some comprehension of her character. + +"What are we to resolve, Rhoda?" + +"I must get the money promised to this man." + +"When he has flung off his wife at the church door?" + +"He married my sister for the money. He said it. Oh! he said it. He +shall not say that we have deceived him. I told him he should have it. +He married her for money!" + +"You should not have told him so, Rhoda." + +"I did, and I will not let my word be broken." + +"Pardon me if I ask you where you will get the money? It's a large sum." + +"I will get it," Rhoda said firmly. + +"By the sale of the farm?" + +"No, not to hurt father." + +"But this man's a scoundrel. I know him. I've known him for years. My +fear is that he will be coming to claim his wife. How was it I never +insisted on seeing the man before--! I did think of asking, but fancied- +-a lot of things; that you didn't wish it and he was shy. Ah, Lord! what +miseries happen from our not looking straight at facts! We can't deny +she's his wife now." + +"Not if we give him the money." + +Rhoda spoke of "the money" as if she had taken heated metal into her +mouth. + +"All the more likely," said Robert. "Let him rest. Had you your eyes on +him when he saw me in the vestry? For years that man has considered me +his deadly enemy, because I punished him once. What a scene! I'd have +given a limb, I'd have given my life, to have saved you from that scene, +Rhoda." + +She replied: "If my sister could have been spared! I ought to know what +wickedness there is in the world. It's ignorance that leads to the +unhappiness of girls." + +"Do you know that I'm a drunkard?" + +"No." + +"He called me something like it; and he said something like the truth. +There's the sting. Set me adrift, and I drink hard. He spoke a fact, +and I couldn't answer him." + +"Yes, it's the truth that gives such pain," said Rhoda, shivering. "How +can girls know what men are? I could not guess that you had any fault. +This man was so respectful; he sat modestly in the room when I saw him +last night--last night, was it? I thought, 'he has been brought up with +sisters and a mother.' And he has been kind to my dear--and all we +thought love for her, was--shameful! shameful!" + +She pressed her eyelids, continuing: "He shall have the money--he shall +have it. We will not be in debt to such a man. He has saved my sister +from one as bad--who offered it to be rid of her. Oh, men!--you heard +that?--and now pretends to love her. I think I dream. How could she +ever have looked happily on that hateful face?" + +"He would be thought handsome," said Robert, marvelling how it was that +Rhoda could have looked on Sedgett for an instant without reading his +villanous nature. "I don't wish you to regret anything you have done or +you may do, Rhoda. But this is what made me cry out when I looked on +that man, and knew it was he who had come to be Dahlia's husband. He'll +be torture to her. The man's temper, his habits--but you may well say +you are ignorant of us men. Keep so. What I do with all my soul entreat +of you is--to get a hiding-place for your sister. Never let him take her +off. There's such a thing as hell upon earth. If she goes away with him +she'll know it. His black temper won't last. He will come for her, and +claim her." + +"He shall have money." Rhoda said no more. + +On a side-table in the room stood a remarkable pile, under cover of a +shawl. Robert lifted the shawl, and beheld the wooden boxes, one upon +the other, containing Master Gammon's and Mrs. Sumfit's rival savings, +which they had presented to Dahlia, in the belief that her husband was +under a cloud of monetary misfortune that had kept her proud heart from +her old friends. The farmer had brought the boxes and left them there, +forgetting them. + +"I fancy," said Robert, "we might open these." + +"It may be a little help," said Rhoda. + +"A very little," Robert thought; but, to relieve the oppression of the +subject they had been discussing, he forthwith set about procuring tools, +with which he split first the box which proved to be Mrs. Sumfit's, for +it contained, amid six gold sovereigns and much silver and pence, a slip +of paper, whereon was inscribed, in a handwriting identified by Rhoda as +peculiar to the loving woman,-- + + "And sweetest love to her ever dear." + +Altogether the sum amounted to nine pounds, three shillings, and a +farthing. + +"Now for Master Gammon--he's heavy," said Robert; and he made the savings +of that unpretentious veteran bare. Master Gammon had likewise written +his word. It was discovered on the blank space of a bit of newspaper, +and looked much as if a fat lobworm had plunged himself into a bowl of +ink, and in his literary delirium had twisted uneasily to the verge of +the paper. With difficulty they deciphered,-- + + "Complemens." + +Robert sang, "Bravo, Gammon!" and counted the hoard. All was in copper +coinage, Lycurgan and severe, and reached the sum of one pound, seventeen +shillings. There were a number of farthings of Queen Anne's reign, and +Robert supposed them to be of value. "So that, as yet, we can't say +who's the winner," he observed. + +Rhoda was in tears. + +"Be kind to him, please, when you see him," she whispered. The smaller +gift had touched her heart more tenderly. + +"Kind to the old man!" Robert laughed gently, and tied the two hoards in +separate papers, which he stowed into one box, and fixed under string. +"This amount, put all in one, doesn't go far, Rhoda." + +"No," said she: "I hope we may not need it." She broke out: "Dear, good, +humble friends! The poor are God's own people. Christ has said so. +This is good, this is blessed money!" Rhoda's cheeks flushed to their +orange-rounded swarthy red, and her dark eyes had the fervour of an +exalted earnestness. "They are my friends for ever. They save me from +impiety. They help me, as if God had answered my prayer. Poor pennies! +and the old man not knowing where his days may end! He gives all--he +must have true faith in Providence. May it come back to him multiplied a +thousand fold! While I have strength to work, the bread I earn shall be +shared with him. Old man, old man, I love you--how I love you! You drag +me out of deep ditches. Oh, good and dear old man, if God takes me +first, may I have some power to intercede for you, if you have ever +sinned! Everybody in the world is not wicked. There are some who go the +ways directed by the Bible. I owe you more than I can ever pay." + +She sobbed, but told Robert it was not for sorrow. He, longing to catch +her in his arms, and punctilious not to overstep the duties of his post +of guardian, could merely sit by listening, and reflecting on her as a +strange Biblical girl, with Hebrew hardness of resolution, and Hebrew +exaltation of soul; beautiful, too, as the dark women of the East. He +admitted to himself that he never could have taken it on his conscience +to subdue a human creature's struggling will, as Rhoda had not hesitated +to do with Dahlia, and to command her actions, and accept all imminent +responsibilities; not quailing with any outcry, or abandonment of +strength, when the shock of that revelation in the vestry came violently +on her. Rhoda, seeing there that it was a brute, and not a man, into +whose hand she had perilously forced her sister's, stood steadying her +nerves to act promptly with advantage; less like a woman, Robert thought, +than a creature born for battle. And she appeared to be still undaunted, +full of her scheme, and could cry without fear of floods. Something of +the chivalrous restraint he put upon the motions of his heart, sprang +from the shadowy awe which overhung that impressible organ. This feeling +likewise led him to place a blind reliance on her sagacity and sense of +what was just, and what should be performed. + +"You promised this money to him," he said, half thinking it incredible. + +"On Monday," said Rhoda. + +"You must get a promise from him in return." + +She answered: "Why? when he could break it the instant he cared to, and a +promise would tempt him to it. He does not love her." + +"No; he does not love her," said Robert, meditating whether he could +possibly convey an idea of the character of men to her innocent mind. + +"He flung her off. Thank heaven for it! I should have been punished too +much--too much. He has saved her from the perils of temptation. He +shall be paid for it. To see her taken away by such a man! Ah!" She +shuddered as at sight of a hideous pit. + +But Robert said: "I know him, Rhoda. That was his temper. It'll last +just four-and-twenty hours, and then we shall need all our strength and +cunning. My dear, it would be the death of Dahlia. You've seen the man +as he is. Take it for a warning. She belongs to him. That's the law, +human and divine." + +"Not when he has flung her off, Robert?" Rhoda cried piteously. + +"Let us take advantage of that. He did fling her off, spat at us all, +and showed the blackest hellish plot I ever in my life heard of. He's +not the worst sinner, scoundrel as he is. Poor girl! poor soul! a hard +lot for women in this world! Rhoda, I suppose I may breakfast with you +in the morning? I hear Major Waring's knock below. I want a man to talk +to." + +"Do come, Robert," Rhoda said, and gave him her hand. He strove to +comprehend why it was that her hand was merely a hand, and no more to him +just then; squeezed the cold fingers, and left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat, we +may walk upon the narrowest of planks between precipices with perfect +security; but when we suffer our minds to eye the chasm underneath, we +begin to be in danger, and we are in very great fear of losing our equal +balance the moment we admit the insidious reflection that other men, +placed as we are, would probably topple headlong over. Anthony Hackbut, +of Boyne's Bank, had been giving himself up latterly to this fatal +comparison. The hour when gold was entrusted to his charge found him +feverish and irritable. He asked himself whether he was a mere machine to +transfer money from spot to spot, and he spurned at the pittance bestowed +upon honesty in this life. Where could Boyne's Bank discover again such +an honest man as he? And because he was honest he was poor! The +consideration that we alone are capable of doing the unparalleled thing +may sometimes inspire us with fortitude; but this will depend largely +upon the antecedent moral trials of a man. It is a temptation when we +look on what we accomplish at all in that light. The temptation being +inbred, is commonly a proof of internal corruption. "If I take a step, +suppose now, to the right, or to the left," Anthony had got into the +habit of saying, while he made his course, and after he had deposited his +charge he would wipe his moist forehead, in a state of wretched +exultation over his renowned trustworthiness. + +He had done the thing for years. And what did the people in the streets +know about him? Formerly, he had used to regard the people in the +streets, and their opinions, with a voluptuous contempt; but he was no +longer wrapped in sweet calculations of his savings, and his chances, and +his connection with a mighty Bank. The virtue had gone out of him. Yet +he had not the slightest appetite for other men's money; no hunger, nor +any definite notion of enjoyment to be derived from money not his own. +Imagination misled the old man. There have been spotless reputations +gained in the service of virtue before now; and chaste and beautiful +persons have walked the narrow plank, envied and admired; and they have +ultimately tottered and all but fallen; or they have quite fallen, from +no worse an incitement than curiosity. Cold curiosity, as the directors +of our human constitution tell us, is, in the colder condition of our +blood, a betraying vice, leading to sin at a period when the fruits of +sin afford the smallest satisfaction. It is, in fact, our last +probation, and one of our latest delusions. If that is passed +successfully, we may really be pronounced as of some worth. Anthony +wished to give a light indulgence to his curiosity; say, by running away +and over London Bridge on one side, and back on the other, hugging the +money. For two weeks, he thought of this absurd performance as a comical +and agreeable diversion. How would he feel when going in the direction +of the Surrey hills? And how, when returning, and when there was a +prospect of the Bank, where the money was to be paid in, being shut? +Supposing that he was a minute behind his time, would the Bank-doors +remain open, in expectation of him? And if the money was not paid in, +what would be thought? What would be thought at Boyne's, if, the next +day, he was late in making his appearance? + +"Holloa! Hackbut, how's this?"--"I'm a bit late, sir, morning."--"Late! +you were late yesterday evening, weren't you?"--"Why, sir, the way the +clerks at that Bank of Mortimer and Pennycuick's rush away from business +and close the doors after 'em, as if their day began at four p.m., and +business was botheration: it's a disgrace to the City o' London. And I +beg pardon for being late, but never sleeping a wink all night for fear +about this money, I am late this morning, I humbly confess. When I got +to the Bank, the doors were shut. Our clock's correct; that I know. My +belief, sir, is, the clerks at Mortimer and Pennycuick's put on the +time."--"Oh! we must have this inquired into." + +Anthony dramatized the farcical scene which he imagined between himself +and Mr. Sequin, the head clerk at Boyne's, with immense relish; and +terminated it by establishing his reputation for honesty higher than ever +at the Bank, after which violent exercise of his fancy, the old man sank +into a dulness during several days. The farmer slept at his lodgings for +one night, and talked of money, and of selling his farm; and half hinted +that it would be a brotherly proceeding on Anthony's part to buy it, and +hold it, so as to keep it in the family. The farmer's deep belief in the +existence of his hoards always did Anthony peculiar mischief. Anthony +grew conscious of a giddiness, and all the next day he was scarcely fit +for his work. But the day following that he was calm and attentive. Two +bags of gold were placed in his hands, and he walked with caution down +the steps of the Bank, turned the corner, and went straight on to the +West, never once hesitating, or casting a thought behind upon Mortimer +and Pennycuick's. He had not, in truth, one that was loose to be cast. +All his thoughts were boiling in his head, obfuscating him with a +prodigious steam, through which he beheld the city surging, and the +streets curving like lines in water, and the people mixing and passing +into and out of one another in an astonishing manner--no face +distinguishable; the whole thick multitude appearing to be stirred like +glue in a gallipot. The only distinct thought which he had sprang from a +fear that the dishonest ruffians would try to steal his gold, and he +hugged it, and groaned to see that villany was abroad. Marvellous, too, +that the clocks on the churches, all the way along the Westward +thoroughfare, stuck at the hour when Banks are closed to business! It +was some time, or a pretence at some time, before the minute-hands +surmounted that difficulty. Having done so, they rushed ahead to the +ensuing hour with the mad precipitation of pantomimic machinery. The +sight of them presently standing on the hour, like a sentinel presenting +arms, was startling--laughable. Anthony could not have flipped with his +fingers fifty times in the interval; he was sure of it, "or not much +more," he said. So the City was shut to him behind iron bars. + +Up in the West there is not so much to be dreaded from the rapacity of +men. You do not hear of such alarming burglaries there every day; every +hand is not at another's throat there, or in another's pocket; at least, +not until after nightfall; and when the dark should come on, Anthony had +determined to make for his own quarter with all speed. Darkness is +horrible in foreign places, but foreign places are not so accusing to you +by daylight. + +The Park was vastly pleasant to the old man. + +"Ah!" he sniffed, "country air," and betook himself to a seat. +"Extraordinary," he thought, "what little people they look on their +horses and in their carriages! That's the aristocracy, is it!" The +aristocracy appeared oddly diminutive to him. He sneered at the +aristocracy, but, beholding a policeman, became stolid of aspect. The +policeman was a connecting link with his City life, the true lord of his +fearful soul. Though the moneybags were under his arm, beneath his +buttoned coat, it required a deep pause before he understood what he had +done; and then the Park began to dance and curve like the streets, and +there was a singular curtseying between the heavens and the earth. He +had to hold his money-bags tight, to keep them from plunging into +monstrous gulfs. "I don't remember that I've taken a drink of any sort," +he said, "since I and the old farmer took our turn down in the Docks. +How's this?" He seemed to rock. He was near upon indulging in a fit of +terror; but the impolicy of it withheld him from any demonstration, save +an involuntary spasmodic ague. When this had passed, his eyesight and +sensations grew clearer, and he sat in a mental doze, looking at things +with quiet animal observation. His recollection of the state, after a +lapse of minutes, was pleasurable. The necessity for motion, however, +set him on his feet, and off he went, still Westward, out of the Park, +and into streets. He trotted at a good pace. Suddenly came a call of +his name in his ear, and he threw up one arm in self-defence. + +"Uncle Anthony, don't you know me?" + +"Eh? I do; to be sure I do," he answered, peering dimly upon Rhoda: "I'm +always meeting one of you." + +"I've been down in the City, trying to find you all day, uncle. I meet +you--I might have missed! It is direction from heaven, for I prayed." + +Anthony muttered, "I'm out for a holiday." + +"This"--Rhoda pointed to a house--"is where I am lodging." + +"Oh!" said Anthony; "and how's your family?" + +Rhoda perceived that he was rather distraught. After great persuasion, +she got him to go upstairs with her. + +"Only for two seconds," he stipulated. "I can't sit." + +"You will have a cup of tea with me, uncle?" + +"No; I don't think I'm equal to tea." + +"Not with Rhoda?" + +"It's a name in Scripture," said Anthony, and he drew nearer to her. +"You're comfortable and dark here, my dear. How did you come here? +What's happened? You won't surprise me." + +"I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle." + +"Ah! a wicked place; that it is. No wickeder than other places, I'll be +bound. Well; I must be trotting. I can't sit, I tell you. You're as +dark here as a gaol." + +"Let me ring for candles, uncle." + +"No; I'm going." + +She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man +bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he +would consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made +tea, and filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of the +room. But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his +bosom. Fretting--on his chair, he cried: "Well! well! what's to talk +about? We can't drink tea and not talk!" + +Rhoda deliberated, and then said: "Uncle, I think you have always loved +me." + +It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the +idea. + +"So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do." + +"You do love me, dear uncle!" + +"Now I come to think of it, Rhoda--my Dody, I don't think ever I've loved +anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a young +man." + +"Tell me, uncle; are you not very rich?" + +"No, I ain't; not 'very'; not at all." + +"You must not tell untruths, uncle." + +"I don't," said Anthony; only, too doggedly to instil conviction. + +"I have always felt, uncle, that you love money too much. What is the +value of money, except to give comfort, and help you to be a blessing to +others in their trouble? Does not God lend it you for that purpose? It +is most true! And if you make a store of it, it will only be unhappiness +to yourself. Uncle, you love me. +I am in great trouble for money." + +Anthony made a long arm over the projection of his coat, and clasped it +securely; sullenly refusing to answer. "Dear uncle; hear me out. I come +to you, because I know you are rich. I was on my way to your lodgings +when we met; we were thrown together. You have more money than you know +what to do with. I am a beggar to you for money. I have never asked +before; I never shall ask again. Now I pray for your help. My life, and +the life dearer to me than any other, depend on you. Will you help me, +Uncle Anthony? Yes!" + +"No!" Anthony shouted. + +"Yes! yes!" + +"Yes, if I can. No, if I can't. And 'can't' it is. So, it's 'No.'" + +Rhoda's bosom sank, but only as a wave in the sea-like energy of her +spirit. + +"Uncle, you must." + +Anthony was restrained from jumping up and running away forthwith by the +peace which was in the room, and the dread of being solitary after he had +tasted of companionship. + +"You have money, uncle. You are rich. You must help me. Don't you ever +think what it is to be an old man, and no one to love you and be grateful +to you? Why do you cross your arms so close?" + +Anthony denied that he crossed his arms closely. + +Rhoda pointed to his arms in evidence; and he snarled out: "There, now; +'cause I'm supposed to have saved a trifle, I ain't to sit as I like. +It's downright too bad! It's shocking!" + +But, seeing that he did not uncross his arms, and remained bunched up +defiantly, Rhoda silently observed him. She felt that money was in the +room. + +"Don't let it be a curse to you," she said. And her voice was hoarse +with agitation. + +"What?" Anthony asked. "What's a curse?" + +"That." + +Did she know? Had she guessed? Her finger was laid in a line at the +bags. Had she smelt the gold? + +"It will be a curse to you, uncle. Death is coming. What's money then? +Uncle, uncross your arms. You are afraid; you dare not. You carry it +about; you have no confidence anywhere. It eats your heart. Look at me. +I have nothing to conceal. Can you imitate me, and throw your hands out +--so? Why, uncle, will you let me be ashamed of you? You have the money +there. + +"You cannot deny it. Me crying to you for help! What have we talked +together?--that we would sit in a country house, and I was to look to the +flower-beds, and always have dishes of green peas for you-plenty, in +June; and you were to let the village boys know what a tongue you have, +if they made a clatter of their sticks along the garden-rails; and you +were to drink your tea, looking on a green and the sunset. Uncle! Poor +old, good old soul! You mean kindly. You must be kind. A day will make +it too late. You have the money there. You get older and older every +minute with trying to refuse me. You know that I can make you happy. I +have the power, and I have the will. Help me, I say, in my great +trouble. That money is a burden. You are forced to carry it about, for +fear. You look guilty as you go running in the streets, because you fear +everybody. Do good with it. Let it be money with a blessing on it! It +will save us from horrid misery! from death! from torture and death! +Think, uncle! look, uncle! You with the money--me wanting it. I pray +to heaven, and I meet you, and you have it. Will you say that you refuse +to give it, when I see--when I show you, you are led to meet me and help +me? Open;--put down that arm." + +Against this storm of mingled supplication and shadowy menace, Anthony +held out with all outward firmness until, when bidding him to put down +his arm, she touched the arm commandingly, and it fell paralyzed. + +Rhoda's eyes were not beautiful as they fixed on the object of her quest. +In this they were of the character of her mission. She was dealing with +an evil thing, and had chosen to act according to her light, and by the +counsel of her combative and forceful temper. At each step new +difficulties had to be encountered by fresh contrivances; and money now-- +money alone had become the specific for present use. There was a +limitation of her spiritual vision to aught save to money; and the money +being bared to her eyes, a frightful gleam of eagerness shot from them. +Her hands met Anthony's in a common grasp of the money-bags. + +"It's not mine!" Anthony cried, in desperation. + +"Whose money is it?" said Rhoda, and caught up her hands as from fire. + +"My Lord!" Anthony moaned, "if you don't speak like a Court o' Justice. +Hear yourself!" + +"Is the money yours, uncle?" + +"It--is," and "isn't" hung in the balance. + +"It is not?" Rhoda dressed the question for him in the terror of +contemptuous horror. + +"It is. I--of course it is; how could it help being mine? My money? +Yes. What sort o' thing's that to ask--whether what I've got's mine or +yours, or somebody else's? Ha!" + +"And you say you are not rich, uncle?" + +A charming congratulatory smile was addressed to him, and a shake of the +head of tender reproach irresistible to his vanity. + +"Rich! with a lot o' calls on me; everybody wantin' to borrow--I'm rich! +And now you coming to me! You women can't bring a guess to bear upon the +right nature o' money." + +"Uncle, you will decide to help me, I know." + +She said it with a staggering assurance of manner. + +"How do you know?" cried Anthony. + +"Why do you carry so much money about with you in bags, uncle?" + +"Hear it, my dear." He simulated miser's joy. + +"Ain't that music? Talk of operas! Hear that; don't it talk? don't it +chink? don't it sing?" He groaned "Oh, Lord!" and fell back. + +This transition from a state of intensest rapture to the depths of pain +alarmed her. + +"Nothing; it's nothing." Anthony anticipated her inquiries. "They bags +is so heavy." + +"Then why do you carry them about?" + +"Perhaps it's heart disease," said Anthony, and grinned, for he knew the +soundness of his health. + +"You are very pale, uncle." + +"Eh? you don't say that?" + +"You are awfully white, dear uncle." + +"I'll look in the glass," said Anthony. "No, I won't." He sank back in +his chair. "Rhoda, we're all sinners, ain't we? All--every man and +woman of us, and baby, too. That's a comfort; yes, it is a comfort. +It's a tremendous comfort--shuts mouths. I know what you're going to +say--some bigger sinners than others. If they're sorry for it, though, +what then? They can repent, can't they?" + +"They must undo any harm they may have done. Sinners are not to repent +only in words, uncle." + +"I've been feeling lately," he murmured. + +Rhoda expected a miser's confession. + +"I've been feeling, the last two or three days," he resumed. + +"What, uncle?" + +"Sort of taste of a tremendous nice lemon in my mouth, my dear, and liked +it, till all of a sudden I swallowed it whole--such a gulp! I felt it +just now. I'm all right." + +"No, uncle," said Rhoda: "you are not all right: this money makes you +miserable. It does; I can see that it does. Now, put those bags in my +hands. For a minute, try; it will do you good. Attend to me; it will. +Or, let me have them. They are poison to you. You don't want them." + +"I don't," cried Anthony. "Upon my soul, I don't. I don't want 'em. +I'd give--it is true, my dear, I don't want 'em. They're poison." + +"They're poison to you," said Rhoda; "they're health, they're life to me. +I said, 'My uncle Anthony will help me. He is not--I know his heart--he +is not a miser.' Are you a miser, uncle?" + +Her hand was on one of his bags. It was strenuously withheld: but while +she continued speaking, reiterating the word "miser," the hold relaxed. +She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight. + +He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; "Aha! and I've been +carrying two of 'em--two!" + +Rhoda panted in her excitement. + +"Now, give it up," said he. She returned it. He got it against his +breast joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two. She +did try them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face. + +"Uncle, see what riches do! You fear everybody--you think there is no +secure place--you have more? Do you carry about all your money?" + +"No," he chuckled at her astonishment. "I've...Yes. I've got more of my +own." Her widened eyes intoxicated him. "More. I've saved. I've put +by. Say, I'm an old sinner. What'd th' old farmer say now? Do you love +your uncle Tony? 'Old Ant,' they call me down at--" "The Bank," he was +on the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in his +recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away. The +unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and +minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the +present touch of a mighty arm thrown out. "I'm honest," he cried. "I +always have been honest. I'm known to be honest. I want no man's money. +I've got money of my own. I hate sin. I hate sinners. I'm an honest +man. Ask them, down at--Rhoda, my dear! I say, don't you hear me? +Rhoda, you think I've a turn for misering. It's a beastly mistake: poor +savings, and such a trouble to keep honest when you're poor; and I've +done it for years, spite o' temptation 't 'd send lots o' men to the +hulks. Safe into my hand, safe out o' my hands! Slip once, and there +ain't mercy in men. And you say, 'I had a whirl of my head, and went +round, and didn't know where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I'd +to go to, and come away to think in a quiet part.'..." He stopped +abruptly in his ravings. "You give me the money, Rhoda!" + +She handed him the money-bags. + +He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness. +Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and +held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to +the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears for +long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and +sprang out of the room. + +She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +On the Monday evening, Master Gammon was at the station with the cart. +Robert and Rhoda were a train later, but the old man seemed to be unaware +of any delay, and mildly staring, received their apologies, and nodded. +They asked him more than once whether all was well at the Farm; to which +he replied that all was quite well, and that he was never otherwise. +About half-an-hour after, on the road, a gradual dumb chuckle overcame +his lower features. He flicked the horse dubitatively, and turned his +head, first to Robert, next to Rhoda; and then he chuckled aloud: + +"The last o' they mel'ns rotted yest'day afternoon!" + +"Did they?" said Robert. "You'll have to get fresh seed, that's all." + +Master Gammon merely showed his spirit to be negative. + +"You've been playing the fool with the sheep," Robert accused him. + +It hit the old man in a very tender part. + +"I play the fool wi' ne'er a sheep alive, Mr. Robert. Animals likes +their 'customed food, and don't like no other. I never changes my food, +nor'd e'er a sheep, nor'd a cow, nor'd a bullock, if animals was masters. +I'd as lief give a sheep beer, as offer him, free-handed--of my own will, +that's to say--a mel'n. They rots." + +Robert smiled, though he was angry. The delicious unvexed country-talk +soothed Rhoda, and she looked fondly on the old man, believing that he +could not talk on in his sedate way, if all were not well at home. + +The hills of the beacon-ridge beyond her home, and the line of stunted +firs, which she had named "the old bent beggarmen," were visible in the +twilight. Her eyes flew thoughtfully far over them, with the feeling +that they had long known what would come to her and to those dear to her, +and the intense hope that they knew no more, inasmuch as they bounded her +sight. + +"If the sheep thrive," she ventured to remark, so that the comforting old +themes might be kept up. + +"That's the particular 'if!'" said Robert, signifying something that had +to be leaped over. + +Master Gammon performed the feat with agility. + +"Sheep never was heartier," he pronounced emphatically. + +"Lots of applications for melon-seed, Gammon?" + +To this the veteran's tardy answer was: "More fools 'n one about, I +reckon"; and Robert allowed him the victory implied by silence. + +"And there's no news in Wrexby? none at all?" said Rhoda. + +A direct question inevitably plunged Master Gammon so deep amid the +soundings of his reflectiveness, that it was the surest way of precluding +a response from him; but on this occasion his honest deliberation bore +fruit. + +"Squire Blancove, he's dead." + +The name caused Rhoda to shudder. + +"Found dead in 's bed, Sat'day morning," Master Gammon added, and, warmed +upon the subject, went on: "He's that stiff, folks say, that stiff he is, +he'll have to get into a rounded coffin: he's just like half a hoop. He +was all of a heap, like. Had a fight with 's bolster, and got th' wust +of it. But, be 't the seizure, or be 't gout in 's belly, he's gone +clean dead. And he wunt buy th' Farm, nether. Shutters is all shut up +at the Hall. He'll go burying about Wednesday. Men that drinks don't +keep." + +Rhoda struck at her brain to think in what way this death could work and +show like a punishment of the heavens upon that one wrong-doer; but it +was not manifest as a flame of wrath, and she laid herself open to the +peace of the fields and the hedgeways stepping by. The farm-house came +in sight, and friendly old Adam and Eve turning from the moon. She heard +the sound of water. Every sign of peace was around the farm. The cows +had been milked long since; the geese were quiet. There was nothing but +the white board above the garden-gate to speak of the history lying in +her heart. + +They found the farmer sitting alone, shading his forehead. Rhoda kissed +his cheeks and whispered for tidings of Dahlia. + +"Go up to her," the farmer said. + +Rhoda grew very chill. She went upstairs with apprehensive feet, and +recognizing Mrs. Sumfit outside the door of Dahlia's room, embraced her, +and heard her say that Dahlia had turned the key, and had been crying +from mornings to nights. "It can't last," Mrs. Sumfit sobbed: "lonesome +hysterics, they's death to come. She's falling into the trance. I'll +go, for the sight o' me shocks her." + +Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her +name gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the +broken Dahlia from whom she had parted. Dahlia was hard to her caress, +and crying, "Has he come?" stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a +thing strung with wires. + +"No, dearest; he will not trouble you. Have no fear." + +"Are you full of deceit?" said Dahlia, stamping her foot. + +"I hope not, my sister." + +Dahlia let fall a long quivering breath. She went to her bed, upon which +her mother's Bible was lying, and taking it in her two hands, held it +under Rhoda's lips. + +"Swear upon that?" + +"What am I to swear to, dearest?" + +"Swear that he is not in the house." + +"He is not, my own sister; believe me. It is no deceit. He is not. +He will not trouble you. See; I kiss the Book, and swear to you, my +beloved! I speak truth. Come to me, dear." Rhoda put her arms up +entreatingly, but Dahlia stepped back. + +"You are not deceitful? You are not cold? You are not inhuman? +Inhuman! You are not? You are not? Oh, my God! Look at her!" + +The toneless voice was as bitter for Rhoda to hear as the accusations. +She replied, with a poor smile: "I am only not deceitful. Come, and see. +You will not be disturbed." + +"What am I tied to?" Dahlia struggled feebly as against a weight of +chains. "Oh! what am I tied to? It's on me, tight like teeth. I can't +escape. I can't breathe for it. I was like a stone when he asked me-- +marry him!--loved me! Some one preached--my duty! I am lost, I am lost! +Why? you girl!--why?--What did you do? Why did you take my hand when I +was asleep and hurry me so fast? What have I done to you? Why did you +push me along?--I couldn't see where. I heard the Church babble. For +you--inhuman! inhuman! What have I done to you? What have you to do +with punishing sin? It's not sin. Let me be sinful, then. I am. I am +sinful. Hear me. I love him; I love my lover, and," she screamed out, +"he loves me!" + +Rhoda now thought her mad. + +She looked once at the rigid figure of her transformed sister, and +sitting down, covered her eyes and wept. + +To Dahlia, the tears were at first an acrid joy; but being weak, she fell +to the bed, and leaned against it, forgetting her frenzy for a time. + +"You deceived me," she murmured; and again, "You deceived me." Rhoda did +not answer. In trying to understand why her sister should imagine it, +she began to know that she had in truth deceived Dahlia. The temptation +to drive a frail human creature to do the thing which was right, had led +her to speak falsely for a good purpose. Was it not righteously +executed? Away from the tragic figure in the room, she might have +thought so, but the horror in the eyes and voice of this awakened +Sacrifice, struck away the support of theoretic justification. Great +pity for the poor enmeshed life, helpless there, and in a woman's worst +peril,--looking either to madness, or to death, for an escape--drowned +her reason in a heavy cloud of tears. Long on toward the stroke of the +hour, Dahlia heard her weep, and she murmured on, "You deceived me;" but +it was no more to reproach; rather, it was an exculpation of her +reproaches. "You did deceive me, Rhoda." Rhoda half lifted her head; +the slight tone of a change to tenderness swelled the gulfs of pity, and +she wept aloud. Dahlia untwisted her feet, and staggered up to her, fell +upon her shoulder, and called her, "My love!--good sister!" For a great +mute space they clung together. Their lips met and they kissed +convulsively. But when Dahlia had close view of Rhoda's face, she drew +back, saying in an under-breath,-- + +"Don't cry. I see my misery when you cry." + +Rhoda promised that she would check her tears, and they sat quietly, side +by side, hand in hand. Mrs. Sumfit, outside, had to be dismissed twice +with her fresh brews of supplicating tea and toast, and the cakes which, +when eaten warm with good country butter and a sprinkle of salt, +reanimate (as she did her utmost to assure the sisters through the closed +door) humanity's distressed spirit. At times their hands interchanged a +fervent pressure, their eyes were drawn to an equal gaze. + +In the middle of the night Dahlia said: "I found a letter from Edward +when I came here." + +"Written--Oh, base man that he is!" Rhoda could not control the impulse +to cry it out. + +"Written before," said Dahlia, divining her at once. "I read it; did not +cry. I have no tears. Will you see it? It is very short-enough; it +said enough, and written before--" She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda's; +Rhoda, to please her, saying "Yes," she went to the pillow of the bed, +and drew the letter from underneath. + +"I know every word," she said; "I should die if I repeated it. 'My wife +before heaven,' it begins. So, I was his wife. I must have broken his +heart--broken my husband's." Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her +eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow. Hardening her mouth to +utter defiant spite: "My lover's," she cried. "He is. If he loves me +and I love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover! Nothing shall stop +me from saying it--lover! and there is none to claim me but he. Oh, +loathsome! What a serpent it is I've got round me! And you tell me God +put it. Do you? Answer that; for I want to know, and I don't know where +I am. I am lost! I am lost! I want to get to my lover. Tell me, +Rhoda, you would curse me if I did. And listen to me. Let him open his +arms to me, I go; I follow him as far as my feet will bear me. I would +go if it lightened from heaven. If I saw up there the warning, 'You +shall not!' I would go. But, look on me!" she smote contempt upon her +bosom. "He would not call to such a thing as me. Me, now? My skin is +like a toad's to him. I've become like something in the dust. I could +hiss like adders. I am quite impenitent. I pray by my bedside, my head +on my Bible, but I only say, 'Yes, yes; that's done; that's deserved, if +there's no mercy.' Oh, if there is no mercy, that's deserved! I say so +now. But this is what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I +pray), and I say, 'Permit no worse!' I say, 'Permit no worse, or take the +consequences.' He calls me his wife. I am his wife. And if--" Dahlia +fell to speechless panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her +hands; horror, as of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb, +but the prompting passion was indomitable.... "Read it," said her +struggling voice; and Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing +thought of each sentence as it passed. To Dahlia, the vital words were +visible like evanescent blue gravelights. She saw them rolling through +her sister's mind; and just upon the conclusion, she gave out, as in a +chaunt: "And I who have sinned against my innocent darling, will ask her +to pray with me that our future may be one, so that may make good to her +what she has suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the offence I have +committed." + +Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes. + +"Read. Have you read to the last?" said Dahlia. "Speak it. Let me hear +you. He writes it.... Yes? you will not? 'Husband,' he says," and then +she took up the sentences of the letter backwards to the beginning, +pausing upon each one with a short moan, and smiting her bosom. "I found +it here, Rhoda. I found his letter here when I came.. I came a dead +thing, and it made me spring up alive. Oh, what bliss to be dead! I've +felt nothing...nothing, for months." She flung herself on the bed, +thrusting her handkerchief to her mouth to deaden the outcry. "I'm +punished. I'm punished, because I did not trust to my darling. No, not +for one year! Is it that since we parted? I am an impatient creature, +and he does not reproach me. I tormented my own, my love, my dear, and +he thought I--I was tired of our life together. No; he does not accuse +me," Dahlia replied to her sister's unspoken feeling, with the shrewd +divination which is passion's breathing space. "He accuses himself. He +says it--utters it--speaks it 'I sold my beloved.' There is no guile in +him. Oh, be just to us, Rhoda! Dearest," she came to Rhoda's side, "you +did deceive me, did you not? You are a deceiver, my love?" + +Rhoda trembled, and raising her eyelids, answered, "Yes." + +"You saw him in the street that morning?" + +Dahlia smiled a glittering tenderness too evidently deceitful in part, +but quite subduing. + +"You saw him, my Rhoda, and he said he was true to me, and sorrowful; and +you told him, dear one, that I had no heart for him, and wished to go to +hell--did you not, gbod Rhoda? Forgive me; I mean 'good;' my true, good +Rhoda. Yes, you hate sin; it is dreadful; but you should never speak +falsely to sinners, for that does not teach them to repent. Mind you +never lie again. Look at me. I am chained, and I have no repentance in +me. See me. I am nearer it...the other--sin, I mean. If that man +comes...will he?" + +"No--no!" Rhoda cried. + +"If that man comes--" + +"He will not come!" + +"He cast me off at the church door, and said he had been cheated. Money! +Oh, Edward!" + +Dahlia drooped her head. + +"He will keep away. You are safe," said Rhoda. + +"Because, if no help comes, I am lost--I am lost for ever!" + +"But help will come. I mean peace will come. We will read; we will work +in the garden. You have lifted poor father up, my dear." + +"Ah! that old man!" Dahlia sighed. + +"He is our father." + +"Yes, poor old man!" and Dahlia whispered: "I have no pity for him. If I +am dragged away, I'm afraid I shall curse him. He seems a stony old man. +I don't understand fathers. He would make me go away. He talks the +Scriptures when he is excited. I'm afraid he would shut my Bible for me. +Those old men know nothing of the hearts of women. Now, darling, go to +your room." + +Rhoda begged earnestly for permission to stay with her, but Dahlia said: +"My nights are fevers. I can't have arms about me." + +They shook hands when they separated, not kissing. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down +to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the +mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure. No questions were +asked. The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home +was peaceful. On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master +Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which +he would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of +hours, that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a +sort of vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to +the chief gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on +his respect. A burial had great interest for the old man. + +"I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite," Master Gammon said +solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful coat, +blither than usual. + +After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and +burials, the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the +deaths were. The burials were not so certain. Consequently, we might +take the burials, as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in the +event of persons being buried alive. She tried to make her hearers +understand that the idea of this calamity had always seemed intolerable +to her, and told of numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened, +showed by the convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon +the shroud, that the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, "and not a +kick allowed to him, my dears." + +"It happens to women, too, does it not, mother?" said Dahlia. + +"They're most subject to trances, my sweet. From always imitatin' they +imitates their deaths at last; and, oh!" Mrs. Sumfit was taken with +nervous chokings of alarm at the thought. "Alone--all dark! and hard +wood upon your chest, your elbows, your nose, your toes, and you under +heaps o' gravel! Not a breath for you, though you snap and catch for +one--worse than a fish on land." + +"It's over very soon, mother," said Dahlia. + +"The coldness of you young women! Yes; but it's the time--you feeling, +trying for air; it's the horrid 'Oh, dear me!' You set your mind on it!" + +"I do," said Dahlia. "You see coffin-nails instead of stars. You'd give +the world to turn upon one side. You can't think. You can only hate +those who put you there. You see them taking tea, saying prayers, +sleeping in bed, putting on bonnets, walking to church, kneading dough, +eating--all at once, like the firing of a gun. They're in one world; +you're in another." + +"Why, my goodness, one'd say she'd gone through it herself," ejaculated +Mrs. Sumfit, terrified. + +Dahlia sent her eyes at Rhoda. + +"I must go and see that poor man covered." Mrs. Sumfit succumbed to a +fit of resolution much under the pretence that it had long been forming. + +"Well, and mother," said Dahlia, checking her, "promise me. Put a +feather on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry me +out. Will you? Rhoda promises. I have asked her." + +"Oh! the ideas of this girl!" Mrs. Sumfit burst out. "And looking so, as +she says it. My love, you didn't mean to die?" + +Dahlia soothed her, and sent her off. + +"I am buried alive!" she said. "I feel it all--the stifling! the +hopeless cramp! Let us go and garden. Rhoda, have you got laudanum in +the house?" + +Rhoda shook her head, too sick at heart to speak. They went into the +garden, which was Dahlia's healthfullest place. It seemed to her that +her dead mother talked to her there. That was not a figure of speech, +when she said she felt buried alive. She was in the state of sensational +delusion. There were times when she watched her own power of motion +curiously: curiously stretched out her hands, and touched things, and +moved them. The sight was convincing, but the shudder came again. In a +frame less robust the brain would have given way. It was the very +soundness of the brain which, when her blood was a simple tide of life in +her veins, and no vital force, had condemned her to see the wisdom and +the righteousness of the act of sacrifice committed by her, and had urged +her even up to the altar. Then the sudden throwing off of the mask by +that man to whom she had bound herself, and the reading of Edward's +letter of penitence and love, thwarted reason, but without blinding or +unsettling it. Passion grew dominant; yet against such deadly matters on +all sides had passion to strive, that, under a darkened sky, visibly +chained, bound down, and hopeless, she felt between-whiles veritably that +she was a living body buried. Her senses had become semi-lunatic. + +She talked reasonably; and Rhoda, hearing her question and answer at +meal-times like a sane woman, was in doubt whether her sister wilfully +simulated a partial insanity when they were alone together. Now, in the +garden, Dahlia said: "All those flowers, my dear, have roots in mother +and me. She can't feel them, for her soul's in heaven. But mine is down +there. The pain is the trying to get your soul loose. It's the edge of +a knife that won't cut through. Do you know that?" + +Rhoda said, as acquiescingly as she could, "Yes." + +"Do you?" Dahlia whispered. "It's what they call the 'agony.' Only, to +go through it in the dark, when you are all alone! boarded round! you +will never know that. And there's an angel brings me one of mother's +roses, and I smell it. I see fields of snow; and it's warm there, and no +labour for breath. I see great beds of flowers; I pass them like a +breeze. I'm shot, and knock on the ground, and they bury me for dead +again. Indeed, dearest, it's true." + +She meant, true as regarded her sensations. Rhoda could barely give a +smile for response; and Dahlia's intelligence being supernaturally +active, she read her sister's doubt, and cried out,-- + +"Then let me talk of him!" + +It was the fiery sequence to her foregone speech, signifying that if her +passion had liberty to express itself, she could clear understandings. +But even a moment's free wing to passion renewed the blinding terror +within her. Rhoda steadied her along the walks, praying for the time to +come when her friends, the rector and his wife, might help in the task of +comforting this poor sister. Detestation of the idea of love made her +sympathy almost deficient, and when there was no active work to do in +aid, she was nearly valueless, knowing that she also stood guilty of a +wrong. + +The day was very soft and still. The flowers gave light for light. They +heard through the noise of the mill-water the funeral bell sound. It +sank in Rhoda like the preaching of an end that was promise of a +beginning, and girdled a distancing land of trouble. The breeze that +blew seemed mercy. To live here in forgetfulness with Dahlia was the +limit of her desires. Perhaps, if Robert worked among them, she would +gratefully give him her hand. That is, if he said not a word of love. + +Master Gammon and Mrs. Sumfit were punctual in their return near the +dinnerhour; and the business of releasing the dumplings and potatoes, and +spreading out the cold meat and lettuces, restrained for some period the +narrative of proceedings at the funeral. Chief among the incidents was, +that Mrs. Sumfit had really seen, and only wanted, by corroboration of +Master Gammon, to be sure she had positively seen, Anthony Hackbut on the +skirts of the funeral procession. Master Gammon, however, was no +supporter of conjecture. What he had thought he had thought; but that +was neither here nor there. He would swear to nothing that he had not +touched;--eyes deceived;--he was never a guesser. He left Mrs. Sumfit to +pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had +seen Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the +funeral service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching +in a corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had +disappeared together. Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied +both by Robert and the farmer. "Tony at a funeral! and train expenses!" +the farmer interjected. "D'ye think, mother, Tony'd come to Wrexby +churchyard 'fore he come Queen Anne's Farm? And where's he now, mayhap?" + +Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a +ready dumpling. + +"There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't +believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you did +declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this +morning. Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that +alone! For, 'boots,' I says to myself--he thinks by 'boots,' there being +a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself told to +me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a bad +horse." + +"Hey! does Gammon jib?" said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter +twinkling in his eyes. + +"He told me this tale," Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive +enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze. "He told me this tale, +he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner--there to +be laughed at! Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you +did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had +a brother, and what he was to you--that brother--" Mrs. Sumfit smote her +hands--"Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas' +Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight days in the +sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back. +And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get, +and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot. +Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you said, +poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your own +words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a +cord'er--bootmaker, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched +out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come +to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know +him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots, +and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be laughed at +through arts of any sly old man!" + +The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was +heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling; +but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The +mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom +the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of +his visit to the neighbourhood. And wherefore had he journeyed down? +Had he come to haunt her on account of the money he had poured into her +lap? Rhoda knew in a moment that she was near a great trial of her +strength and truth. She had more than once, I cannot tell you how +distantly, conceived that the money had been money upon which the mildest +word for "stolen" should be put to express the feeling she had got about +it, after she had parted with the bulk of it to the man Sedgett. Not +"stolen," not "appropriated," but money that had perhaps been entrusted, +and of which Anthony had forgotten the rightful ownership. This idea of +hers had burned with no intolerable fire; but, under a weight of all +discountenancing appearances, feeble though it was, it had distressed +her. The dealing with money, and the necessity for it, had given Rhoda a +better comprehension of its nature and value. She had taught herself to +think that her suspicion sprang from her uncle's wild demeanour, and the +scene of the gold pieces scattered on the floor, as if a heart had burst +at her feet. + +No sooner did she hear that Anthony had been, by supposition, seen, than +the little light of secret dread flamed a panic through her veins. She +left the table before Master Gammon had finished, and went out of the +house to look about for her uncle. He was nowhere in the fields, nor in +the graveyard. She walked over the neighbourhood desolately, until her +quickened apprehension was extinguished, and she returned home relieved, +thinking it folly to have imagined her uncle was other than a man of +hoarded wealth, and that he was here. But, in the interval, she had +experienced emotions which warned her of a struggle to come. Who would +be friendly to her, and an arm of might? The thought of the storm she +had sown upon all sides made her tremble foolishly. When she placed her +hand in Robert's, she gave his fingers a confiding pressure, and all but +dropped her head upon his bosom, so sick she was with weakness. It would +have been a deceit toward him, and that restrained her; perhaps, yet +more, she was restrained by the gloomy prospect of having to reply to any +words of love, without an idea of what to say, and with a loathing of +caresses. She saw herself condemned to stand alone, and at a season when +she was not strengthened by pure self-support. + +Rhoda had not surrendered the stern belief that she had done well by +forcing Dahlia's hand to the marriage, though it had resulted evilly. In +reflecting on it, she had still a feeling of the harsh joy peculiar to +those who have exercised command with a conscious righteousness upon +wilful, sinful, and erring spirits, and have thwarted the wrongdoer. She +could only admit that there was sadness in the issue; hitherto, at least, +nothing worse than sad disappointment. The man who was her sister's +husband could no longer complain that he had been the victim of an +imposition. She had bought his promise that he would leave the country, +and she had rescued the honour of the family by paying him. At what +cost? She asked herself that now, and then her self-support became +uneven. Could her uncle have parted with the great sum--have shed it +upon her, merely beneficently, and because he loved her? Was it possible +that he had the habit of carrying his own riches through the streets of +London? She had to silence all questions imperiously, recalling exactly +her ideas of him, and the value of money in the moment when money was an +object of hunger--when she had seized it like a wolf, and its value was +quite unknown, unguessed at. + +Rhoda threw up her window before she slept, that she might breathe the +cool night air; and, as she leaned out, she heard steps moving away, and +knew them to be Robert's, in whom that pressure of her hand had cruelly +resuscitated his longing for her. She drew back, wondering at the +idleness of men--slaves while they want a woman's love, savages when they +have won it. She tried to pity him, but she had not an emotion to spare, +save perhaps one of dull exultation, that she, alone of women, was free +from that wretched mess called love; and upon it she slept. + +It was between the breakfast and dinner hours, at the farm, next day, +when the young squire, accompanied by Anthony Hackbut, met farmer Fleming +in the lane bordering one of the outermost fields of wheat. Anthony gave +little more than a blunt nod to his relative, and slouched on, leaving +the farmer in amazement, while the young squire stopped him to speak with +him. Anthony made his way on to the house. Shortly after, he was seen +passing through the gates of the garden, accompanied by Rhoda. At the +dinner-hour, Robert was taken aside by the farmer. Neither Rhoda nor +Anthony presented themselves. They did not appear till nightfall. When +Anthony came into the room, he took no greetings and gave none. He sat +down on the first chair by the door, shaking his head, with vacant eyes. +Rhoda took off her bonnet, and sat as strangely silent. In vain Mrs. +Sumfit asked her; "Shall it be tea, dear, and a little cold meat?" The +two dumb figures were separately interrogated, but they had no answer. + +"Come! brother Tony?" the farmer tried to rally him. + +Dahlia was knitting some article of feminine gear. Robert stood by the +musk-pots at the window, looking at Rhoda fixedly. Of this gaze she +became conscious, and glanced from him to the clock. + +"It's late," she said, rising. + +"But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a +dinner, or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you +do," said Mrs. Sumfit. + +The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony +promised to be particularly prayerless. + +"You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother +Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If +you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways +mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man, +now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor." + +"I was right," murmured Mrs. Sumfit. "At the funeral, he was; and Lord +be thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost +no character by sidin' wi' me." + +"Here's Dahlia, too," said the farmer. "Brother Tony, don't you see her? +She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster. +She's...well, there she is." + +A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye do--how +d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony did not +cast eye on Dahlia. + +"Will you eat, man?--will you smoke a pipe?--won't you talk a word?--will +you go to bed?" + +These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from the +staring oldman. + +"Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?" the farmer called out, and Anthony +jumped in a heap. + +"Eh?" persisted the farmer. + +Rhoda interposed: "Uncle is tired; he is unwell. Tomorrow he will talk +to you." + +"No, but is there anything wrong up there, though?" the farmer asked with +eager curiosity, and a fresh smile at the thought that those Banks and +city folk were mortal, and could upset, notwithstanding their crashing +wheels. "Brother Tony, you speak out; has anybody been and broke? Never +mind a blow, so long, o' course, as they haven't swallowed your money. +How is it? Why, I never saw such a sight as you. You come down from +London; you play hide and seek about your relation's house; and here, +when you do condescend to step in--eh? how is it? You ain't, I hope, +ruined, Tony, are ye?" + +Rhoda stood over her uncle to conceal him. + +"He shall not speak till he has had some rest. And yes, mother, he shall +have some warm tea upstairs in bed. Boil some water. Now, uncle, come +with me." + +"Anybody broke?" Anthony rolled the words over, as Rhoda raised his arm. +"I'm asked such a lot, my dear, I ain't equal to it. You said here 'd be +a quiet place. I don't know about money. Try my pockets. Yes, mum, if +you was forty policemen, I'm empty; you'd find it. And no objection to +nod to prayers; but never was taught one of my own. Where am I going, my +dear?" + +"Upstairs with me, uncle." + +Rhoda had succeeded in getting him on his feet. + +The farmer tapped at his forehead, as a signification to the others that +Anthony had gone wrong in the head, which reminded him that he had +prophesied as much. He stiffened out his legs, and gave a manful spring, +crying, "Hulloa, brother Tony! why, man, eh? Look here. What, goin' to +bed? What, you, Tony? I say--I say--dear me!" And during these +exclamations intricate visions of tripping by means of gold wires danced +before him. + +Rhoda hurried Anthony out. + +After the door had shut, the farmer said: "That comes of it; sooner or +later, there it is! You give your heart to money--you insure in a ship, +and as much as say, here's a ship, and, blow and lighten, I defy you. +Whereas we day-by-day people, if it do blow and if it do lighten, and the +waves are avilanches, we've nothing to lose. Poor old Tony--a smash, to +a certainty. There's been a smash, and he's gone under the harrow. Any +o' you here might ha' heard me say, things can't last for ever. Ha'n't +you, now?" + +The persons present meekly acquiesced in his prophetic spirit to this +extent. Mrs. Sumfit dolorously said, "Often, William dear," and accepted +the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind. + +"Save," the farmer continued, "save and store, only don't put your heart +in the box." + +"It's true, William;" Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon. + +Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her. + +"Is it love for the old woman?" Mrs. Sumfit murmured fondly; and Dahlia +kissed her again. + +The farmer had by this time rounded to the thought of how he personally +might be affected by Anthony's ill-luck, supposing; perchance, that +Anthony was suffering from something more than a sentimental attachment +to the Bank of his predilection: and such a reflection instantly diverted +his tendency to moralize. + +"We shall hear to-morrow," he observed in conclusion; which, as it caused +a desire for the morrow to spring within his bosom, sent his eyes at +Master Gammon, who was half an hour behind his time for bed, and had +dropped asleep in his chair. This unusual display of public somnolence +on Master Gammon's part, together with the veteran's reputation for +slowness, made the farmer fret at him as being in some way an obstruction +to the lively progress of the hours. + +"Hoy, Gammon!" he sang out, awakeningly to ordinary ears; but Master +Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep, +and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him--to administer at +once earthquake and thunder--before his lizard eyelids would lift over +the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing to +be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and +to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate. +Brought at last to a condition of stale consciousness, he looked at his +master long, and uttered surprisingly "Farmer, there's queer things going +on in this house," and then relapsed to a combat with Mrs. Sumfit, +regarding the candle; she saying that it was not to be entrusted to him, +and he sullenly contending that it was. + +"Here, we'll all go to bed," said the farmer. "What with one person +queer, and another person queer, I shall be in for a headache, if I take +to thinking. Gammon's a man sees in 's sleep what he misses awake. Did +you ever know," he addressed anybody, "such a thing as Tony Hackbut +coming into a relation's house, and sitting there, and not a word for any +of us? It's, I call it, dumbfoundering. And that's me: why didn't I go +up and shake his hand, you ask. Well, why not? If he don't know he's +welcome, without ceremony, he's no good. Why, I've got matters t' occupy +my mind, too, haven't I? Every man has, and some more'n others, let +alone crosses. There's something wrong with my brother-in-law, Tony, +that's settled. Odd that we country people, who bide, and take the +Lord's gifts--" The farmer did not follow out this reflection, but +raising his arms, shepherd-wise, he puffed as if blowing the two women +before him to their beds, and then gave a shy look at Robert, and nodded +good-night to him. Robert nodded in reply. He knew the cause of the +farmer's uncommon blitheness. Algernon Blancove, the young squire, had +proposed for Rhoda's hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +Anthony had robbed the Bank. The young squire was aware of the fact, and +had offered to interpose for him, and to make good the money to the Bank, +upon one condition. So much, Rhoda had gathered from her uncle's +babbling interjections throughout the day. The farmer knew only of the +young squire's proposal, which had been made direct to him; and he had +left it to Robert to state the case to Rhoda, and plead for himself. She +believed fully, when she came downstairs into the room where Robert was +awaiting her, that she had but to speak and a mine would be sprung; and +shrinking from it, hoping for it, she entered, and tried to fasten her +eyes upon Robert distinctly, telling him the tale. Robert listened with +a calculating seriousness of manner that quieted her physical dread of +his passion. She finished; and he said "It will, perhaps, save your +uncle: I'm sure it will please your father." + +She sat down, feeling that a warmth had gone, and that she was very bare. + +"Must I consent, then?" + +"If you can, I suppose." + +Both being spirits formed for action, a perplexity found them weak as +babes. He, moreover, was stung to see her debating at all upon such a +question; and he was in despair before complicated events which gave +nothing for his hands and heart to do. Stiff endurance seemed to him to +be his lesson; and he made a show of having learnt it. + +"Were you going out, Robert?" + +"I usually make the rounds of the house, to be sure all's safe." + +His walking about the garden at night was not, then, for the purpose of +looking at her window. Rhoda coloured in all her dark crimson with shame +for thinking that it had been so. + +"I must decide to-morrow morning." + +"They say, the pillow's the best counsellor." + +A reply that presumed she would sleep appeared to her as bitterly +unfriendly. + +"Did father wish it?" + +"Not by what he spoke." + +"You suppose he does wish it?" + +"Where's the father who wouldn't? Of course, he wishes it. He's kind +enough, but you may be certain he wishes it." + +"Oh! Dahlia, Dahlia!" Rhoda moaned, under a rush of new sensations, +unfilial, akin to those which her sister had distressed her by speaking +shamelessly out. + +"Ah! poor soul!" added Robert. + +"My darling must be brave: she must have great courage. Dahlia cannot be +a coward. I begin to see." + +Rhoda threw up her face, and sat awhile as one who was reading old +matters by a fresh light. + +"I can't think," she said, with a start. "Have I been dreadfully cruel? +Was I unsisterly? I have such a horror of some things--disgrace. And +men are so hard on women; and father--I felt for him. And I hated that +base man. It's his cousin and his name! I could almost fancy this trial +is brought round to me for punishment." + +An ironic devil prompted Robert to say, "You can't let harm come to your +uncle." + +The thing implied was the farthest in his idea of any woman's possible +duty. + +"Are you of that opinion?" Rhoda questioned with her eyes, but uttered +nothing. + +Now, he had spoken almost in the ironical tone. She should have noted +that. And how could a true-hearted girl suppose him capable of giving +such counsel to her whom he loved? It smote him with horror and anger; +but he was much too manly to betray these actual sentiments, and +continued to dissemble. You see, he had not forgiven her for her +indifference to him. + +"You are no longer your own mistress," he said, meaning exactly the +reverse. + +This--that she was bound in generosity to sacrifice herself--was what +Rhoda feared. There was no forceful passion in her bosom to burst +through the crowd of weak reasonings and vanities, to bid her be a woman, +not a puppet; and the passion in him, for which she craved, that she +might be taken up by it and whirled into forgetfulness, with a seal of +betrothal upon her lips, was absent so that she thought herself loved no +more by Robert. She was weary of thinking and acting on her own +responsibility, and would gladly have abandoned her will; yet her +judgement, if she was still to exercise it, told her that the step she +was bidden to take was one, the direct consequence and the fruit of her +other resolute steps. Pride whispered, "You could compel your sister to +do that which she abhorred;" and Pity pleaded for her poor old uncle +Anthony. She looked back in imagination at that scene with him in +London, amazed at her frenzy of power, and again, from that +contemplation, amazed at her present nervelessness. + +"I am not fit to be my own mistress," she said. + +"Then, the sooner you decide the better," observed Robert, and the room +became hot and narrow to him. + +"Very little time is given me," she murmured. The sound was like a +whimper; exasperating to one who had witnessed her remorseless energy. + +"I dare say you won't find the hardship so great," said he. + +"Because," she looked up quickly, "I went out one day to meet him? Do +you mean that, Robert? I went to hear news of my sister. I had received +no letters from her. And he wrote to say that he could tell me about +her. My uncle took me once to the Bank. I saw him there first. He +spoke of Wrexby, and of my sister. It is pleasant to inexperienced girls +to hear themselves praised. Since the day when you told me to turn back +I have always respected you." + +Her eyelids lowered softly. + +Could she have humbled herself more? But she had, at the same time, +touched his old wound: and his rival then was the wooer now, rich, and a +gentleman. And this room, Robert thought as he looked about it, was the +room in which she had refused him, when he first asked her to be his. + +"I think," he said, "I've never begged your pardon for the last occasion +of our being alone here together. I've had my arm round you. Don't be +frightened. That's my marriage, and there was my wife. And there's an +end of my likings and my misconduct. Forgive me for calling it to mind." + +"No, no, Robert," Rhoda lifted her hands, and, startled by the impulse, +dropped them, saying: "What forgiveness? Was I ever angry with you?" + +A look of tenderness accompanied the words, and grew into a dusky crimson +rose under his eyes. + +"When you went into the wood, I saw you going: I knew it was for some +good object," he said, and flushed equally. + +But, by the recurrence to that scene, he had checked her sensitive +developing emotion. She hung a moment in languor, and that oriental +warmth of colour ebbed away from her cheeks. + +"You are very kind," said she. + +Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to +ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time. +Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not +to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully +and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born to be a lady." +(You had that ambition, young madam.) + +She answered: "That's what I don't understand." (Your saying it, O my +friend!) + +"You will soon take to your new duties." (You have small objection to +them even now.) + +"Yes, or my life won't be worth much." (Know, that you are driving me to +it.) + +"And I wish you happiness, Rhoda." (You are madly +imperilling the prospect thereof.) + +To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances. +And further,-- + +"Thank you, Robert." (I shall have to thank you for the issue.) + +"Now it's time to part." (Do you not see that there's a danger for me +in remaining?) + +"Good night." (Behold, I am submissive.) + +"Good night, Rhoda." (You were the first to give the signal of +parting.) + +"Good night." (I am simply submissive.) + +"Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?" + +Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her, +permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words. + +Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes. + +But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it. + +"What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda." + +"Nothing." The flower had closed. + +He determined to believe that she was gladdened at heart by the prospect +of a fine marriage, and now began to discourse of Anthony's delinquency, +saying,-- + +"It was not money taken for money's sake: any one can see that. It was +half clear to me, when you told me about it, that the money was not his +to give, but I've got the habit of trusting you to be always correct." + +"And I never am," said Rhoda, vexed at him and at herself. + +"Women can't judge so well about money matters. Has your uncle no +account of his own at the Bank? He was thought to be a bit of a miser." + +"What he is, or what he was, I can't guess. He has not been near the +Bank since that day; nor to his home. He has wandered down on his way +here, sleeping in cottages. His heart seems broken. I have still a +great deal of the money. I kept it, thinking it might be a protection +for Dahlia. Oh! my thoughts and what I have done! Of course, I imagined +him to be rich. A thousand pounds seemed a great deal to me, and very +little for one who was rich. If I had reflected at all, I must have seen +that Uncle Anthony would never have carried so much through the streets. +I was like a fiend for money. I must have been acting wrongly. Such a +craving as that is a sign of evil." + +"What evil there is, you're going to mend, Rhoda." + +"I sell myself, then." + +"Hardly so bad as that. The money will come from you instead of from +your uncle." + +Rhoda bent forward in her chair, with her elbows on her knees, like a man +brooding. Perhaps, it was right that the money should come from her. +And how could she have hoped to get the money by any other means? Here +at least was a positive escape from perplexity. It came at the right +moment; was it a help divine? What cowardice had been prompting her to +evade it? After all, could it be a dreadful step that she was required +to take? + +Her eyes met Robert's, and he said startlingly: "Just like a woman!" + +"Why?" but she had caught the significance, and blushed with spite. + +"He was the first to praise you." + +"You are brutal to me, Robert." + +"My name at last! You accused me of that sort of thing before, in this +room." + +Rhoda stood up. "I will wish you good night." + +"And now you take my hand." + +"Good night," they uttered simultaneously; but Robert did not give up the +hand he had got in his own. His eyes grew sharp, and he squeezed the +fingers. + +"I'm bound," she cried. + +"Once!" Robert drew her nearer to him. + +"Let me go." + +"Once!" he reiterated. "Rhoda, as I've never kissed you--once!" + +"No: don't anger me." + +"No one has ever kissed you?" + +"Never." + +"Then, I--" His force was compelling the straightened figure. + +Had he said, "Be mine!" she might have softened to his embrace; but there +was no fire of divining love in her bosom to perceive her lover's +meaning. She read all his words as a placard on a board, and revolted +from the outrage of submitting her lips to one who was not to be her +husband. His jealousy demanded that gratification foremost. The "Be +mine!" was ready enough to follow. + +"Let me go, Robert." + +She was released. The cause for it was the opening of the door. Anthony +stood there. + +A more astounding resemblance to the phantasm of a dream was never +presented. He was clad in a manner to show forth the condition of his +wits, in partial night and day attire: one of the farmer's nightcaps was +on his head, surmounted by his hat. A confused recollection of the +necessity for trousers, had made him draw on those garments sufficiently +to permit of the movement of his short legs, at which point their +subserviency to the uses ended. Wrinkled with incongruous clothing from +head to foot, and dazed by the light, he peered on them, like a mouse +magnified and petrified. + +"Dearest uncle!" Rhoda went to him. + +Anthony nodded, pointing to the door leading out of the house. + +"I just want to go off--go off. Never you mind me. I'm only going off." + +"You must go to your bed, uncle." + +"Oh, Lord! no. I'm going off, my dear. I've had sleep enough for forty. +I--" he turned his mouth to Rhoda's ear, "I don't want t' see th' old +farmer." And, as if he had given a conclusive reason for his departure, +he bored towards the door, repeating it, and bawling additionally, "in +the morning." + +"You have seen him, uncle. You have seen him. It's over," said Rhoda. + +Anthony whispered: "I don't want t' see th' old farmer." + +"But, you have seen him, uncle." + +"In the morning, my dear. Not in the morning. He'll be looking and +asking, 'Where away, brother Tony?' 'Where's your banker's book, brother +Tony?' 'How's money-market, brother Tony?' I can't see th' old farmer." + +It was impossible to avoid smiling: his imitation of the farmer's country +style was exact. + +She took his hands, and used every persuasion she could think of to +induce him to return to his bed; nor was he insensible to argument, or +superior to explanation. + +"Th' old farmer thinks I've got millions, my dear. You can't satisfy +him. He... I don't want t' see him in the morning. He thinks I've got +millions. His mouth'll go down. I don't want... You don't want him to +look... And I can't count now; I can't count a bit. And every post I +see 's a policeman. I ain't hiding. Let 'em take the old man. And he +was a faithful servant, till one day he got up on a regular whirly-go- +round, and ever since...such a little boy! I'm frightened o' you, +Rhoda." + +"I will do everything for you," said Rhoda, crying wretchedly. + +"Because, the young squire says," Anthony made his voice mysterious. + +"Yes, yes," Rhoda stopped him; "and I consent:" she gave a hurried +half-glance behind her. "Come, uncle. Oh! pity! don't let me think your +reason's gone. I can get you the money, but if you go foolish, I cannot +help you." + +Her energy had returned to her with the sense of sacrifice. Anthony eyed +her tears. "We've sat on a bank and cried together, haven't we?" he +said. "And counted ants, we have. Shall we sit in the sun together +to-morrow? Say, we shall. Shall we? A good long day in the sun and +nobody looking at me 's my pleasure." + +Rhoda gave him the assurance, and he turned and went upstairs with her, +docile at the prospect of hours to be passed in the sunlight. + +Yet, when morning came, he had disappeared. Robert also was absent from +the breakfast-table. The farmer made no remarks, save that he reckoned +Master Gammon was right--in allusion to the veteran's somnolent +observation overnight; and strange things were acted before his eyes. + +There came by the morning delivery of letters one addressed to "Miss +Fleming." He beheld his daughters rise, put their hands out, and claim +it, in a breath; and they gazed upon one another like the two women +demanding the babe from the justice of the Wise King. The letter was +placed in Rhoda's hand; Dahlia laid hers on it. Their mouths were shut; +any one not looking at them would have been unaware that a supreme +conflict was going on in the room. It was a strenuous wrestle of their +eyeballs, like the "give way" of athletes pausing. But the delirious +beat down the constitutional strength. A hard bright smile ridged the +hollow of Dahlia's cheeks. Rhoda's dark eyes shut; she let go her hold, +and Dahlia thrust the letter in against her bosom, snatched it out again, +and dipped her face to roses in a jug, and kissing Mrs. Sumfit, ran from +the room for a single minute; after which she came back smiling with +gravely joyful eyes and showing a sedate readiness to eat and conclude +the morning meal. + +What did this mean? The farmer could have made allowance for Rhoda's +behaving so, seeing that she notoriously possessed intellect; and he had +the habit of charging all freaks and vagaries of manner upon intellect. + +But Dahlia was a soft creature, without this apology for extravagance, +and what right had she to letters addressed to "Miss Fleming?" The +farmer prepared to ask a question, and was further instigated to it by +seeing Mrs. Sumfit's eyes roll sympathetic under a burden of overpowering +curiosity and bewilderment. On the point of speaking, he remembered that +he had pledged his word to ask no questions; he feared to--that was the +secret; he had put his trust in Rhoda's assurance, and shrank from a +spoken suspicion. So, checking himself, he broke out upon Mrs. Sumfit: +"Now, then, mother!" which caused her to fluster guiltily, she having +likewise given her oath to be totally unquestioning, even as was Master +Gammon, whom she watched with a deep envy. Mrs. Sumfit excused the +anxious expression of her face by saying that she was thinking of her +dairy, whither, followed by the veteran, she retired. + +Rhoda stood eyeing Dahlia, nerved to battle against the contents of that +letter, though in the first conflict she had been beaten. "Oh, this +curse of love!" she thought in her heart; and as Dahlia left the room, +flushed, stupefied, and conscienceless, Rhoda the more readily told her +father the determination which was the result of her interview with +Robert. + +No sooner had she done so, than a strange fluttering desire to look on +Robert awoke within her bosom. She left the house, believing that she +went abroad to seek her uncle, and walked up a small grass-knoll, a +little beyond the farm-yard, from which she could see green corn-tracts +and the pastures by the river, the river flowing oily under summer light, +and the slow-footed cows, with their heads bent to the herbage; far-away +sheep, and white hawthorn bushes, and deep hedge-ways bursting out of the +trimness of the earlier season; and a nightingale sang among the hazels +near by. + +This scene of unthrobbing peacefulness was beheld by Rhoda with her first +conscious delight in it. She gazed round on the farm, under a quick new +impulse of affection for her old home. And whose hand was it that could +alone sustain the working of the farm, and had done so, without reward? +Her eyes travelled up to Wrexby Hall, perfectly barren of any feeling +that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was full of pain for +her. She accused herself, but could not accept the charge of her having +ever hoped for transforming events that should twist and throw the dear +old farm-life long back into the fields of memory. Nor could she +understand the reason of her continued coolness to Robert. Enough of +accurate reflection was given her to perceive that discontent with her +station was the original cause of her discontent now. What she had sown +she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are these harvests of our +dream! The sun has not shone on them. They may have a tragic blood-hue, +as with Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and +nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a single blade of grass. + +A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell +it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the +dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He +was dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he +asked if she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative, +and longed more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the +homely creamy air under the dairy-shed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane. +Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different +points, more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her +breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in +sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a +burdened sleeper: her thought being, "How can you act so cruelly to +Robert!" He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where +the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side of +the Hall. + +When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled +soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery to +her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room +and darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and was +about systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of beholding +Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less the creature +of her sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and she went very +fast. The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as when she was +gazing after her father; but her hand stretched out instinctively for her +bonnet when Dahlia had crossed the green and the mill-bridge, and was no +more visible. Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and caught her black silk mantle +in her hand, and without strength to throw it across her shoulders, +dropped before her bed, and uttered a strange prayer. "Let her die +rather than go back to disgrace, my God! my God!" + +She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed +her prayer. "Send death to her rather!"--and Rhoda's vision under her +shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in +conflagration. + +There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency +to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures. The strain +of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had distempered the +fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were becoming remoter +exponents of her character. + +She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As +swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister. + +That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major +Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also an +enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was an +advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert Eccles +that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him, to be +paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing madly at +the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and never +enough, save just to keep him swimming. + +The letter from Major Waring said:-- + +"I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your +opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and +deal summarily with." + +"Ay!--ay!" Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting +excitement and eager for it as a hound. + +More was written, which he read subsequently + + "I wrong," Percy's letter continued, "the best of women. She was + driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will + find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't + leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries + down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She + nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out. Truth, courage, and + suffering touch Margaret's heart. + + "Yours, + + "Percy." + +Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing +at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate. + +"Here you are," said Robert, and took his arm. + +Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was led +along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles beyond +Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine. + +"You want spirit: you want life," said Robert. + +Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet +the tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank, +saying, "Just one glass, then." + +Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having +ordered up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil +was in him. He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself, +alternately frightening and cajoling the old man. + +"Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!" + +"I haven't, I haven't," Anthony whined. + +"Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by +heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever +dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell +you." + +Anthony wept into his glass. + +"That's a trick I could never do," said Robert, eyeing the drip of the +trembling old tear pitilessly. "Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed +me of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of +us flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. +You're not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you +cheerful." + +By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as +one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened +to his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly +replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia +stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite to the +inn. "This is my medicine," said Robert; "and yours too," he addressed +Anthony. + +The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again. +Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm; +performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty arm +checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to +Wrexby. Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening to +join them. The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her +hands, and darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow, +deep with grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup, like +rust upon the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the +moment knew the man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised +Dahlia and Rhoda, and he found himself face to face with Sedgett. + +"It's you!" + +"Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another time." + +Robert said: "I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me." + +"Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett, +drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. "I've come for my +wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon. I'm +come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her things-- +boxes packed, and we go." + +Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen +against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with +philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand. + +"Stop," cried Sedgett. "Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you +know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, +I tell ye." + +"You've no claim on her," Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and +turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy +fright. + +"You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had," said Robert, +spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and +keep him off. + +"That don't hold in law," Sedgett nodded. "A man may get in a passion, +when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?" + +"I have your word of honour," said Rhoda; muttering, "Oh! devil come to +wrong us!" + +"Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country. +You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get +at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been +trying to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come +for my wife. I'll have her." + +"None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house," said Rhoda, +vehemently. "You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more. +I don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go." + +"No one has been down into your part of the country," said Robert, with +perfect mildness. + +To which Sedgett answered bluffly, "There ye lie, Bob Eccles;" and he was +immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him, and +taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in +motion. "Off!" he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze +of his face. + +It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked +swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. "Oh! don't touch my arm," +Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together, +speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile +of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped, +panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who was +her lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the +morning, and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short. +Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features +had some of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket, +and Rhoda presently asked,-- + +"What have you there?" + +"You are my enemy, dear, in some things," Dahlia replied, a muscular +shiver passing over her. + +"I think," said Rhoda, "I could get a little money to send you away. +Will you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me." + +"Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk," said Dahlia. + +Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a wound +to her. Yet she was the first to resume: "I think I shall be saved. I +can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that." + +Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable +comfort of words. + +As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived +that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been +removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to Wrexby +Hall. "He would sell me to save the farm." She reproached herself for +the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her father +plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as conceived by +her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be just, though +still she knew that her own indecision was to blame. + +Master Gammon met them in the garden. + +Pointing aloft, over the gateway, "That's down," he remarked, and the +three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the +impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one +another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth. + +"Tell father," Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her +eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to +detain her; but Dahlia repeated, "Tell father," and in strength and in +will had become more than a match for her sister. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock +of the door. + +At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by +saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young +squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young +squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself. "I +don't deny it's honour to us, and it's a comfort," said the farmer. +"This is the first morning I've thought easily in my chair for years. +I'm sorry about Robert, who's a twice unlucky 'un; but you aimed at +something higher, I suppose." + +Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and +again she told Dahlia's story, wondering that her father showed no +excitement of any kind. On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of +his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating +some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within. He said: +"Ah! well, it's very sad;--that is, if 'tis so," and no more, for a time. + +She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning +whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain some +doubts. "Or else," said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead, "he's +going here. It 'd be odd after all, if commercially, as he 'd call it, +his despised brother-in-law--and I say it in all kindness--should turn +out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle." + +The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction. + +Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what +interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him. +She related it, and he was roused. Then, for the third time, she told +him of Dahlia. + +Rhoda saw her father's chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with +light. He looked on her with quite a strange face. Wrath, and a revived +apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he catechized +her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed from him, +she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal sensations toward +her father, but it was at the expense of her love. + +When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, "Send the girl down to +me." + +But Rhoda pleaded, "She is too worn, she is tottering. She cannot endure +a word on this; not even of kindness and help." + +"Then, you," said the farmer, "you tell her she's got a duty's her first +duty now. Obedience to her husband! Do you hear? Then, let her hear +it. Obedience to her husband! And welcome's the man when he calls on +me. He's welcome. My doors are open to him. I thank him. I honour +him. I bless his name. It's to him I owe--You go up to her and say, her +father owes it to the young man who's married her that he can lift up his +head. Go aloft. Ay! for years I've been suspecting something of this. +I tell ye, girl, I don't understand about church doors and castin' of her +off--he's come for her, hasn't he? Then, he shall have her. I tell ye, +I don't understand about money: he's married her. Well, then, she's his +wife; and how can he bargain not to see her?" + +"The base wretch!" cried Rhoda. + +"Hasn't he married her?" the farmer retorted. "Hasn't he given the poor +creature a name? I'm not for abusing her, but him I do thank, and I say, +when he calls, here's my hand for him. Here, it's out and waiting for +him." + +"Father, if you let me see it--" Rhoda checked the intemperate outburst. +"Father, this is a bad--a bad man. He is a very wicked man. We were all +deceived by him. Robert knows him. He has known him for years, and +knows that he is very wicked. This man married our Dahlia to get--" +Rhoda gasped, and could not speak it. "He flung her off with horrible +words at the church door. After this, how can he claim her? I paid him +all he had to expect with uncle's money, for his promise by his sacred +oath never, never to disturb or come near my sister. After that he +can't, can't claim her. If he does--" + +"He's her husband," interrupted the farmer; "when he comes here, he's +welcome. I say he's welcome. My hand's out to him:--If it's alone that +he's saved the name of Fleming from disgrace! I thank him, and my +daughter belongs to him. Where is he now? You talk of a scuffle with +Robert. I do hope Robert will not forget his proper behaviour. Go you +up to your sister, and say from me--All's forgotten and forgiven; say, +It's all underfoot; but she must learn to be a good girl from this day. +And, if she's at the gate to welcome her husband, so much the better 'll +her father be pleased;--say that. I want to see the man. It'll gratify +me to feel her husband's flesh and blood. His being out of sight so +long's been a sore at my heart; and when I see him I'll welcome him, and +so must all in my house." + +This was how William Fleming received the confession of his daughter's +unhappy plight. + +Rhoda might have pleaded Dahlia's case better, but that she was too +shocked and outraged by the selfishness she saw in her father, and the +partial desire to scourge which she was too intuitively keen at the +moment not to perceive in the paternal forgiveness, and in the +stipulation of the forgiveness. + +She went upstairs to Dahlia, simply stating that their father was aware +of all the circumstances. + +Dahlia looked at her, but dared ask nothing. + +So the day passed. Neither Robert nor Anthony appeared. The night came: +all doors were locked. The sisters that night slept together, feeling +the very pulses of the hours; yet neither of them absolutely hopelessly, +although in a great anguish. + +Rhoda was dressed by daylight. The old familiar country about the house +lay still as if it knew no expectation. She observed Master Gammon +tramping forth afield, and presently heard her father's voice below. All +the machinery of the daily life got into motion; but it was evident that +Robert and Anthony continued to be absent. A thought struck her that +Robert had killed the man. It came with a flash of joy that was speedily +terror, and she fell to praying vehemently and vaguely. Dahlia lay +exhausted on the bed, but nigh the hour when letters were delivered, she +sat up, saying, "There is one for me; get it." + +There was in truth a letter for her below, and it was in her father's +hand and open. + +"Come out," said the farmer, as Rhoda entered to him. When they were in +the garden, he commanded her to read and tell him the meaning of it. The +letter was addressed to Dahlia Fleming. + +"It's for my sister," Rhoda murmured, in anger, but more in fear. + +She was sternly bidden to read, and she read,-- + + Dahlia,--There is mercy for us. You are not lost to me. + + "Edward." + + +After this, was appended in a feminine hand:-- + + "There is really hope. A few hours will tell us. But keep firm. + If he comes near you, keep from him. You are not his. Run, hide, + go anywhere, if you have reason to think he is near. I dare not + write what it is we expect. Yesterday I told you to hope; to-day I + can say, believe that you will be saved. You are not lost. + Everything depends on your firmness. + + "Margaret L." + +Rhoda lifted up her eyes. + +The farmer seized the letter, and laid his finger on the first signature. + +"Is that the christian name of my girl's seducer?" + +He did not wait for an answer, but turned and went into the +breakfast-table, when he ordered a tray with breakfast for Dahlia to +betaken up to her bed-room; and that done, he himself turned the key of +the door, and secured her. Mute woe was on Mrs. Sumfit's face at all +these strange doings, but none heeded her, and she smothered her +lamentations. The farmer spoke nothing either of Robert or of Anthony. +He sat in his chair till the dinner hour, without book or pipe, without +occupation for eyes or hands; silent, but acute in his hearing. + +The afternoon brought relief to Rhoda's apprehensions. A messenger ran +up to the farm bearing a pencilled note to her from Robert, which said +that he, in company with her uncle, was holding Sedgett at a distance by +force of arm, and that there was no fear. Rhoda kissed the words, +hurrying away to the fields for a few minutes to thank and bless and +dream of him who had said that there was no fear. She knew that Dahlia +was unconscious of her imprisonment, and had less compunction in counting +the minutes of her absence. The sun spread in yellow and fell in red +before she thought of returning, so sweet it had become to her to let her +mind dwell with Robert; and she was half a stranger to the mournfulness +of the house when she set her steps homeward. But when she lifted the +latch of the gate, a sensation, prompted by some unwitting self-accusal, +struck her with alarm. She passed into the room, and beheld her father, +and Mrs. Sumfit, who was sitting rolling, with her apron over her head. + +The man Sedgett was between them. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +No sooner had Rhoda appeared than her father held up the key of Dahlia's +bed-room, and said, "Unlock your sister, and fetch her down to her +husband." + +Mechanically Rhoda took the key. + +"And leave our door open," he added. + +She went up to Dahlia, sick with a sudden fright lest evil had come to +Robert, seeing that his enemy was here; but that was swept from her by +Dahlia's aspect. + +"He is in the house," Dahlia said; and asked, "Was there no letter--no +letter; none, this morning?" + +Rhoda clasped her in her arms, seeking to check the convulsions of her +trembling. + +"No letter! no letter! none? not any? Oh! no letter for me!" + +The strange varying tones of musical interjection and interrogation were +pitiful to hear. + +"Did you look for a letter?" said Rhoda, despising herself for so +speaking. + +"He is in the house! Where is my letter?" + +"What was it you hoped? what was it you expected, darling?" + +Dahlia moaned: "I don't know. I'm blind. I was told to hope. Yesterday +I had my letter, and it told me to hope. He is in the house!" + +"Oh, my dear, my love!" cried Rhoda; "come down a minute. See him. It +is father's wish. Come only for a minute. Come, to gain time, if there +is hope." + +"But there was no letter for me this morning, Rhoda. I can't hope. I am +lost. He is in the house!" + +"Dearest, there was a letter," said Rhoda, doubting that she did well in +revealing it. + +Dahlia put out her hands dumb for the letter. + +"Father opened it, and read it, and keeps it," said Rhoda, clinging tight +to the stricken form. + +"Then, he is against me? Oh, my letter!" Dahlia wrung her hands. + +While they were speaking, their father's voice was heard below calling +for Dahlia to descend. He came thrice to the foot of the stairs, and +shouted for her. + +The third time he uttered a threat that sprang an answer from her bosom +in shrieks. + +Rhoda went out on the landing and said softly, "Come up to her, father." + +After a little hesitation, he ascended the stairs. + +"Why, girl, I only ask you to come down and see your husband," he +remarked with an attempt at kindliness of tone. "What's the harm, then? +Come and see him; that's all; come and see him." + +Dahlia was shrinking out of her father's sight as he stood in the +doorway. "Say," she communicated to Rhoda, "say, I want my letter." + +"Come!" William Fleming grew impatient. + +"Let her have her letter, father," said Rhoda. "You have no right to +withhold it." + +"That letter, my girl" (he touched Rhoda's shoulder as to satisfy her +that he was not angry), "that letter's where it ought to be. I've +puzzled out the meaning of it. That letter's in her husband's +possession." + +Dahlia, with her ears stretching for all that might be uttered, heard +this. Passing round the door, she fronted her father. + +"My letter gone to him!" she cried. "Shameful old man! Can you look on +me? Father, could you give it? I'm a dead woman." + +She smote her bosom, stumbling backward upon Rhoda's arm. + +"You have been a wicked girl," the ordinarily unmoved old man retorted. +"Your husband has come for you, and you go with him. Know that, and let +me hear no threats. He's a modest-minded, quiet young man, and a farmer +like myself, and needn't be better than he is. Come you down to him at +once. I'll tell you: he comes to take you away, and his cart's at the +gate. To the gate you go with him. When next I see you--you visiting me +or I visiting you--I shall see a respected creature, and not what you +have been and want to be. You have racked the household with fear and +shame for years. Now come, and carry out what you've begun in the +contrary direction. You've got my word o' command, dead woman or live +woman. Rhoda, take one elbow of your sister. Your aunt's coming up to +pack her box. I say I'm determined, and no one stops me when I say that. +Come out, Dahlia, and let our parting be like between parent and child. +Here's the dark falling, and your husband's anxious to be away. He has +business, and 'll hardly get you to the station for the last train to +town. Hark at him below! He's naturally astonished, he is, and you're +trying his temper, as you'd try any man's. He wants to be off. Come, +and when next we meet I shall see you a happy wife." + +He might as well have spoken to a corpse. + +"Speak to her still, father," said Rhoda, as she drew a chair upon which +she leaned her sister's body, and ran down full of the power of hate and +loathing to confront Sedgett; but great as was that power within her, it +was overmatched by his brutal resolution to take his wife away. No +argument, no irony, no appeals, can long withstand the iteration of a +dogged phrase. "I've come for my wife," Sedgett said to all her +instances. His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded, +Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron. + +"Then, how could you have married him?" + +They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft. + +"Yes--how! how!" cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had +played in the marriage. + +"It's too late to hate a man when you've married him, my girl." + +Sedgett went out to the foot of the stairs. + +"Mr. Fleming--she's my wife. I'll teach her about hating and loving. +I'll behave well to her, I swear. I'm in the midst of enemies; but I say +I do love my wife, and I've come for her, and have her I will. Now, in +two minutes' time. Mr. Fleming, my cart's at the gate, and I've got +business, and she's my wife." + +The farmer called for Mrs. Sumfit to come up and pack Dahlia's box, and +the forlorn woman made her way to the bedroom. All the house was silent. +Rhoda closed her sight, and she thought: "Does God totally abandon us?" + +She let her father hear: "Father, you know that you are killing your +child." + +"I hear ye, my lass," said he. + +"She will die, father." + +"I hear ye, I hear ye." + +"She will die, father." + +He stamped furiously, exclaiming: "Who's got the law of her better and +above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your +sister. She goes!" + +"Father!" Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to +see them helpless. + +There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when the +man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a +blessed sound--the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face. + +"So," said Robert, as she neared him, "you needn't tell me what's +happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound +wants practice; the fox is born with his cunning." + +Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in +the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing. + +But the farmer respected Robert enough to come down to him and explain +his views of his duty and his daughter's duty. By the kitchen firelight +he and Robert and Sedgett read one another's countenances. + +"He has a proper claim to take his wife, Robert," said the farmer. "He's +righted her before the world, and I thank him; and if he asks for her of +me he must have her, and he shall." + +"All right, sir," replied Robert, "and I say too, shall, when I'm stiff +as log-wood." + +"Oh! Robert, Robert!" Rhoda cried in great joy. + +"Do you mean that you step 'twixt me and my own?" said Mr. Fleming. + +"I won't let you nod at downright murder--that's all," said Robert. +"She--Dahlia, take the hand of that creature!" + +"Why did she marry me?" thundered Sedgett. + +"There's one o' the wonders!" Robert rejoined. "Except that you're an +amazingly clever hypocrite with women; and she was just half dead and had +no will of her own; and some one set you to hunt her down. I tell you, +Mr. Fleming, you might as well send your daughter to the hangman as put +her in this fellow's hands." + +"She's his wife, man." + +"May be," Robert assented. + +"You, Robert Eccles!" said Sedgett hoarsely; "I've come for my wife--do +you hear?" + +"You have, I dare say," returned Robert. "You dodged me cleverly, that +you did. I'd like to know how it was done. I see you've got a cart +outside and a boy at the horse's head. The horse steps well, does he? +I'm about three hours behind him, I reckon:--not too late, though!" + +He let fall a great breath of weariness. + +Rhoda went to the cupboard and drew forth a rarely touched bottle of +spirits, with which she filled a small glass, and handing the glass to +him, said, "Drink." He smiled kindly and drank it off. + +"The man's in your house, Mr. Fleming," he said. + +"And he's my guest, and my daughter's husband, remember that," said the +farmer. + +"And mean to wait not half a minute longer till I've taken her off--mark +that," Sedgett struck in. "Now, Mr. Fleming, you see you keep good your +word to me." + +"I'll do no less," said the farmer. He went into the passage shouting +for Mrs. Sumfit to bring down the box. + +"She begs," Mrs. Sumfit answered to him--"She begs, William, on'y a short +five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her, dear, you +will. Lord! what's come upon us?" + +"Quick, and down with the box, then, mother," he rejoined. + +The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have +her last minutes alone. + +Rhoda kissed her sister before leaving her alone: and so cold were +Dahlia's lips, so tight the clutch of her hands, that she said: "Dearest, +think of God:" and Dahlia replied: "I do." + +"He will not forsake you," Rhoda said. + +Dahlia nodded, with shut eyes, and Rhoda went forth. + +"And now, Robert, you and I'll see who's master on these premises," said +the farmer. "Hear, all! I'm bounders under a sacred obligation to the +husband of my child, and the Lord's wrath on him who interferes and lifts +his hand against me when I perform my sacred duty as a father. Place +there! I'm going to open the door. Rhoda, see to your sister's bonnet +and things. Robert, stand out of my way. There's no refreshment of any +sort you'll accept of before starting, Mr. Sedgett? None at all! +That's no fault of my hospitality. Stand out of my way, Robert." + +He was obeyed. Robert looked at Rhoda, but had no reply for her gaze of +despair. + +The farmer threw the door wide open. + +There were people in the garden--strangers. His name was inquired for +out of the dusk. Then whisperings were heard passing among the +ill-discerned forms, and the farmer went out to them. Robert listened +keenly, but the touch of Rhoda's hand upon his own distracted his +hearing. "Yet it must be!" he said. "Why does she come here?" + +Both he and Rhoda followed the farmer's steps, drawn forth by the +ever-credulous eagerness which arises from an interruption to excited +wretchedness. Near and nearer to the group, they heard a quaint old +woman exclaim: "Come here to you for a wife, when he has one of his own +at home; a poor thing he shipped off to America, thinking himself more +cunning than devils or angels: and she got put out at a port, owing to +stress of weather, to defeat the man's wickedness! Can't I prove it to +you, sir, he's a married man, which none of us in our village knew till +the poor tricked thing crawled back penniless to find him;--and there she +is now with such a story of his cunning to tell to anybody as will +listen; and why he kept it secret to get her pension paid him still on. +It's all such a tale for you to hear by-and-by." + +Robert burst into a glorious laugh. + +"Why, mother! Mrs. Boulby! haven't you got a word for me?" + +"My blessedest Robert!" the good woman cried, as she rushed up to kiss +him. "Though it wasn't to see you I came exactly." She whispered: "The +Major and the good gentleman--they're behind. I travelled down with +them. Dear,--you'd like to know:--Mrs. Lovell sent her little cunning +groom down to Warbeach just two weeks back to make inquiries about that +villain; and the groom left me her address, in case, my dear, when the +poor creature--his true wife--crawled home, and we knew of her at Three- +Tree Farm and knew her story. I wrote word at once, I did, to Mrs. +Lovell, and the sweet good lady sent down her groom to fetch me to you to +make things clear here. You shall understand them soon. It's Providence +at work. I do believe that now there's a chance o' punishing the wicked +ones." + +The figure of Rhoda with two lights in her hand was seen in the porch, +and by the shadowy rays she beheld old Anthony leaning against the house, +and Major Waring with a gentleman beside him close upon the gate. + +At the same time a sound of wheels was heard. + +Robert rushed back into the great parlour-kitchen, and finding it empty, +stamped with vexation. His prey had escaped. + +But there was no relapse to give spare thoughts to that pollution of the +house. It had passed. Major Waring was talking earnestly to Mr. +Fleming, who held his head low, stupefied, and aware only of the fact +that it was a gentleman imparting to him strange matters. By degrees all +were beneath the farmer's roof--all, save one, who stood with bowed head +by the threshold. + +There is a sort of hero, and a sort of villain, to this story: they are +but instruments. Hero and villain are combined in the person of Edward, +who was now here to abase himself before the old man and the family he +had injured, and to kneel penitently at the feet of the woman who had +just reason to spurn him. He had sold her as a slave is sold; he had +seen her plunged into the blackest pit; yet was she miraculously kept +pure for him, and if she could give him her pardon, might still be his. +The grief for which he could ask no compassion had at least purified him +to meet her embrace. The great agony he had passed through of late had +killed his meaner pride. He stood there ready to come forward and ask +forgiveness from unfriendly faces, and beg that he might be in Dahlia's +eyes once--that he might see her once. + +He had grown to love her with the fullest force of a selfish, though not +a common, nature. Or rather he had always loved her, and much of the +selfishness had fallen away from his love. It was not the highest form +of love, but the love was his highest development. He had heard that +Dahlia, lost to him, was free. Something like the mortal yearning to +look upon the dead risen to life, made it impossible for him to remain +absent and in doubt. He was ready to submit to every humiliation that he +might see the rescued features; he was willing to pay all his penalties. +Believing, too, that he was forgiven, he knew that Dahlia's heart would +throb for him to be near her, and he had come. + +The miraculous agencies which had brought him and Major Waring and Mrs. +Boulby to the farm, that exalted woman was relating to Mrs. Sumfit in +another part of the house. + +The farmer, and Percy, and Robert were in the family sitting-room, when, +after an interval, William Fleming said aloud, "Come in, sir," and Edward +stepped in among them. + +Rhoda was above, seeking admittance to her sisters door, and she heard +her father utter that welcome. It froze her limbs, for still she hated +the evil-doer. Her hatred of him was a passion. She crouched over the +stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling what +seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in the room +where the men were. Words were indistinguishable. Thrice, after calling +to Dahlia and getting no response, she listened again, and awe took her +soul at last, for, abhorred as he was by her, his power was felt: she +comprehended something of that earnestness which made the offender speak +of his wrongful deeds, and his shame, and his remorse, before his +fellow-men, straight out and calmly, like one who has been plunged up to +the middle in the fires of the abyss, and is thereafter insensible to +meaner pains. The voice ended. She was then aware that it had put a +charm upon her ears. The other voices following it sounded dull. + +"Has he--can he have confessed in words all his wicked baseness?" she +thought, and in her soul the magnitude of his crime threw a gleam of +splendour on his courage, even at the bare thought that he might have +done this. Feeling that Dahlia was saved, and thenceforth at liberty to +despise him and torture him, Rhoda the more readily acknowledged that it +might be a true love for her sister animating him. From the height of a +possible vengeance it was perceptible. + +She turned to her sister's door and knocked at it, calling to her, "Safe, +safe!" but there came no answer; and she was half glad, for she had a +fear that in the quick revulsion of her sister's feelings, mere earthly +love would act like heavenly charity, and Edward would find himself +forgiven only too instantly and heartily. + +In the small musk-scented guest's parlour, Mrs. Boulby was giving Mrs. +Sumfit and poor old sleepy Anthony the account of the miraculous +discovery of Sedgett's wickedness, which had vindicated all one hoped for +from Above; as also the narration of the stabbing of her boy, and the +heroism and great-heartedness of Robert. Rhoda listened to her for a +space, and went to her sister's door again; but when she stood outside +the kitchen she found all voices silent within. + +It was, in truth, not only very difficult for William Fleming to change +his view of the complexion of circumstances as rapidly as circumstances +themselves changed, but it was very bitter for him to look upon Edward, +and to see him in the place of Sedgett. + +He had been struck dumb by the sudden revolution of affairs in his house; +and he had been deferentially convinced by Major Waring's tone that he +ought rightly to give his hearing to an unknown young gentleman against +whom anger was due. He had listened to Edward without one particle of +comprehension, except of the fact that his behaviour was extraordinary. +He understood that every admission made by Edward with such grave and +strange directness, would justly have condemned him to punishment which +the culprit's odd, and upright, and even-toned self-denunciation rendered +it impossible to think of inflicting. He knew likewise that a whole +history was being narrated to him, and that, although the other two +listeners manifestly did not approve it, they expected him to show some +tolerance to the speaker. + +He said once, "Robert, do me the favour to look about outside for t' +other." Robert answered him, that the man was far away by this time. + +The farmer suggested that he might be waiting to say his word presently. + +"Don't you know you've been dealing with a villain, sir?" cried Robert. +"Throw ever so little light upon one of that breed, and they skulk in a +hurry. Mr. Fleming, for the sake of your honour, don't mention him +again. What you're asked to do now, is to bury the thoughts of him." + +"He righted my daughter when there was shame on her," the farmer replied. + +That was the idea printed simply on his understanding. + +For Edward to hear it was worse than a scourging with rods. He bore it, +telling the last vitality of his pride to sleep, and comforting himself +with the drowsy sensuous expectation that he was soon to press the hand +of his lost one, his beloved, who was in the house, breathing the same +air with him; was perhaps in the room above, perhaps sitting impatiently +with clasped fingers, waiting for the signal to unlock them and fling +them open. He could imagine the damp touch of very expectant fingers; +the dying look of life-drinking eyes; and, oh! the helplessness of her +limbs as she sat buoying a heart drowned in bliss. + +It was unknown to him that the peril of her uttermost misery had been so +imminent, and the picture conjured of her in his mind was that of a +gentle but troubled face--a soul afflicted, yet hoping because it had +been told to hope, and half conscious that a rescue, almost divine in its +suddenness and unexpectedness, and its perfect clearing away of all +shadows, approached. + +Manifestly, by the pallid cast of his visage, he had tasted shrewd and +wasting grief of late. Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in +Edward. + +"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said. "Perhaps when +I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and +it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it +might." + +Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the suggestion; +for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near him, it was +absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his wish to break +from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented to, had sprung +from his own unassisted temporary baseness. + +Then Robert spoke to the farmer. + +Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear +them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. "Yet why should I +always think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that +excuse for changeing, partially thawed. + +She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming. +She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the +farmer called into the darkness,-- + +"Dahlia down here!" + +Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the +command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself +crying out: "He is here--Edward." + +But there came no answer. + +"Edward is here. Come, come and see him." + +Still not one faint reply. + +"Dahlia! Dahlia!" + +The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt, +and putting her mouth to the door, said,-- + +"My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me +now. Listen. You are to come down to happiness." + +The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her +soul. + +"Father!" rang her outcry. + +The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to +lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice. + +She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of +death. + +But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no +fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a +night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day. +It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived, and +her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at times burying +its members in dusk, to shine on them again more like a prolonged +farewell than a gladsome restoration. + +She was saved by what we call chance; for it had not been in her design +to save herself. The hand was firm to help her to the deadly draught. +As far as could be conjectured, she had drunk it between hurried readings +from her mother's Bible; the one true companion to which she had often +clung, always half-availingly. The Bible was found by her side, as if it +had fallen from the chair before which she knelt to read her last +quickening verses, and had fallen with her. One arm was about it; one +grasped the broken phial with its hideous label. + +It was uncomplainingly registered among the few facts very distinctly +legible in Master Gammon's memory, that for three entire weeks he had no +dumplings for dinner at the farm; and although, upon a computation, +articles of that description, amounting probably to sixty-three (if there +is any need for our being precise), were due to him, and would +necessarily be for evermore due to him, seeing that it is beyond all +human and even spiritual agency to make good unto man the dinner he has +lost, Master Gammon uttered no word to show that he was sensible of a +slight, which was the only indication given by him of his knowledge of a +calamity having changed the order of things at the farm. On the day when +dumplings reappeared, he remarked, with a glance at the ceiling: "Goin' +on better--eh, marm?" + +"Oh! Mas' Gammon," Mrs. Sumfit burst out; "if I was only certain you said +your prayers faithful every night!" The observation was apparently taken +by Master Gammon to express one of the mere emotions within her bosom, +for he did not reply to it. + +She watched him feeding in his steady way, with the patient bent back, +and slowly chopping old grey jaws, and struck by a pathos in the sight, +exclaimed,-- + +"We've all been searched so, Mas' Gammon! I feel I know everything +that's in me. I'd say, I couldn't ha' given you dumplin's and tears; but +think of our wickedness, when I confess to you I did feel spiteful at you +to think that you were wiltin' to eat the dumplin's while all of us +mourned and rocked as in a quake, expecting the worst to befall; and that +made me refuse them to you. It was cruel of me, and well may you shake +your head. If I was only sure you said your prayers!" + +The meaning in her aroused heart was, that if she could be sure Master +Gammon said his prayers, so as to be searched all through by them, as she +was herself, and to feel thereby, as she did, that he knew everything +that was within him, she would then, in admiration of his profound +equanimity, acknowledge him to be a superior Christian. + +Naturally enough, Master Gammon allowed the interjection to pass, +regarding it as simply a vagrant action of the engine of speech; while +Mrs. Sumfit, with an interjector's consciousness of prodigious things +implied which were not in any degree comprehended, left his presence in +kindness, and with a shade less of the sense that he was a superior +Christian. + +Nevertheless, the sight of Master Gammon was like a comforting medicine +to all who were in the house. He was Mrs. Sumfit's clock; he was balm +and blessedness in Rhoda's eyes; Anthony was jealous of him; the farmer +held to him as to a stake in the ground: even Robert, who rallied and +tormented, and was vexed by him, admitted that he stood some way between +an example and a warning, and was a study. The grand primaeval quality +of unchangeableness, as exhibited by this old man, affected them +singularly in their recovery from the storm and the wreck of the hours +gone by; so much so that they could not divest themselves of the idea +that it was a manifestation of power in Master Gammon to show forth +undisturbed while they were feeling their life shaken in them to the +depths. I have never had the opportunity of examining the +idol-worshipping mind of a savage; but it seems possible that the +immutability of aspect of his little wooden God may sometimes touch him +with a similar astounded awe;--even when, and indeed especially after, he +has thrashed it. Had the old man betrayed his mortality in a sign of +curiosity to know why the hubbub of trouble had arisen, and who was to +blame, and what was the story, the effect on them would have been +diminished. He really seemed granite among the turbulent waves. "Give +me Gammon's life!" was Farmer Fleming's prayerful interjection; seeing +him come and go, sit at his meals, and sleep and wake in season, all +through those tragic hours of suspense, without a question to anybody. +Once or twice, when his eye fell upon the doctor, Master Gammon appeared +to meditate. He observed that the doctor had never been called in to one +of his family, and it was evident that he did not understand the +complication of things which rendered the doctor's visit necessary. + +"You'll never live so long as that old man," the farmer said to Robert. + +"No; but when he goes, all of him's gone," Robert answered. + +"But Gammon's got the wisdom to keep himself safe, Robert; there's no one +to blame for his wrinkles." + +"Gammon's a sheepskin old Time writes his nothings on," said Robert. +"He's safe--safe enough. An old hulk doesn't very easily manage to +founder in the mud, and Gammon's been lying on the mud all his life." + +"Let that be how 't will," returned the farmer; "I've had days o' mortal +envy of that old man." + +"Well, it's whether you prefer being the fiddle or the fiddle-case," +quoth Robert. + +Of Anthony the farmer no longer had any envy. In him, though he was as +passive as Master Gammon, the farmer beheld merely a stupefied old man, +and not a steady machine. He knew that some queer misfortune had +befallen Anthony. + +"He'll find I'm brotherly," said Mr. Fleming; but Anthony had darkened +his golden horizon for him, and was no longer an attractive object to his +vision. + +Upon an Autumn afternoon; Dahlia, looking like a pale Spring flower, came +down among them. She told her sister that it was her wish to see Edward. +Rhoda had lost all power of will, even if she had desired to keep them +asunder. She mentioned Dahlia's wish to her father, who at once went for +his hat, and said: "Dress yourself neat, my lass." She knew what was +meant by that remark. Messages daily had been coming down from the Hall, +but the rule of a discerning lady was then established there, and Rhoda +had been spared a visit from either Edward or Algernon, though she knew +them to be at hand. During Dahlia's convalescence, the farmer had not +spoken to Rhoda of her engagement to the young squire. The great misery +intervening, seemed in her mind to have cancelled all earthly +engagements; and when he said that she must use care in her attire he +suddenly revived a dread within her bosom, as if he had plucked her to +the verge of a chasm. + +But Mrs. Lovell's delicacy was still manifest: Edward came alone, and he +and Dahlia were left apart. + +There was no need to ask for pardon from those gentle eyes. They joined +hands. She was wasted and very weak, but she did not tremble. Passion +was extinguished. He refrained from speaking of their union, feeling +sure that they were united. It required that he should see her to know +fully the sinner he had been. Wasted though she was, he was ready to +make her his own, if only for the sake of making amends to this dear fair +soul, whose picture of Saint was impressed on him, first as a response to +the world wondering at his sacrifice of himself, and next, by degrees, as +an absolute visible fleshly fact. She had come out of her martyrdom +stamped with the heavenly sign-mark. + +"Those are the old trees I used to speak of," she said, pointing to the +two pines in the miller's grounds. "They always look like Adam and Eve +turning away." + +"They do not make you unhappy to see them, Dahlia?" + +"I hope to see them till I am gone." + +Edward pressed her fingers. He thought that warmer hopes would soon flow +into her. + +"The neighbours are kind?" he asked. + +"Very kind. They, inquire after me daily." + +His cheeks reddened; he had spoken at random, and he wondered that Dahlia +should feel it pleasurable to be inquired after, she who was so +sensitive. + +"The clergyman sits with me every day, and knows my heart," she added. + +"The clergyman is a comfort to women," said Edward. + +Dahlia looked at him gently. The round of her thin eyelids dwelt on him. +She wished. She dared not speak her wish to one whose remembered mastery +in words forbade her poor speechlessness. But God would hear her prayers +for him. + +Edward begged that he might come to her often, and she said,-- + +"Come." + +He misinterpreted the readiness of the invitation. + +When he had left her, he reflected on the absence of all endearing +epithets in her speech, and missed them. Having himself suffered, he +required them. For what had she wrestled so sharply with death, if not +to fall upon his bosom and be his in a great outpouring of gladness? In +fact he craved the immediate reward for his public acknowledgement of his +misdeeds. He walked in this neighbourhood known by what he had done, and +his desire was to take his wife away, never more to be seen there. +Following so deep a darkness, he wanted at least a cheerful dawn: not one +of a penitential grey--not a hooded dawn, as if the paths of life were to +be under cloistral arches. And he wanted a rose of womanhood in his hand +like that he had parted with, and to recover which he had endured every +earthly mortification, even to absolute abasement. The frail bent lily +seemed a stranger to him. + +Can a man go farther than his nature? Never, when he takes passion on +board. By other means his nature may be enlarged and nerved, but passion +will find his weakness, and, while urging him on, will constantly betray +him at that point. Edward had three interviews with Dahlia; he wrote to +her as many times. There was but one answer for him; and when he ceased +to charge her with unforgivingness, he came to the strange conclusion +that beyond our calling of a woman a Saint for rhetorical purposes, and +esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had +slightly discerned in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly +and to have the sentiments inspired by the overearthly in her person. +Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing +of a capacity to suffer evil, and pardon it, conveyed that character to a +mind not soft for receiving such impressions. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +Major Waring came to Wrexby Hall at the close of the October month. He +came to plead his own cause with Mrs. Lovell; but she stopped him by +telling him that his friend Robert was in some danger of losing his love. + +"She is a woman, Percy; I anticipate your observation. But, more than +that, she believes she is obliged to give her hand to my cousin, the +squire. It's an intricate story relating to money. She does not care +for Algy a bit, which is not a matter that greatly influences him. He +has served her in some mysterious way; by relieving an old uncle of hers. +Algy has got him the office of village postman for this district, I +believe; if it's that; but I think it should be more, to justify her. At +all events, she seems to consider that her hand is pledged. You know the +kind of girl your friend fancies. Besides, her father insists she is to +marry "the squire," which is certainly the most natural thing of all. +So, don't you think, dear Percy, you had better take your friend on the +Continent for some weeks? I never, I confess, exactly understood the +intimacy existing between you, but it must be sincere." + +"Are you?" said Percy. + +"Yes, perfectly; but always in a roundabout way. Why do you ask me in +this instance?" + +"Because you could stop this silly business in a day." + +"I know I could." + +"Then, why do you not?" + +"Because of a wish to be sincere. Percy, I have been that throughout, if +you could read me. I tried to deliver my cousin Edward from what I +thought was a wretched entanglement. His selfish falseness offended me, +and I let him know that I despised him. When I found that he was a man +who had courage, and some heart, he gained my friendship once more, and I +served him as far as I could--happily, as it chanced. I tell you all +this, because I don't care to forfeit your esteem, and heaven knows, I +may want it in the days to come. I believe I am the best friend in the +world--and bad anything else. No one perfectly pleases me, not even you: +you are too studious of character, and, like myself, exacting of +perfection in one or two points. But now hear what I have done, and +approve it if you think fit. I have flirted--abominable word!--I am +compelled to use the language of the Misses--yes, I have flirted with my +cousin Algy. I do it too well, I know--by nature! and I hate it. He has +this morning sent a letter down to the farm saying, that, as he believes +he has failed in securing Rhoda's affections, he renounces all +pretensions, etc., subject to her wishes, etc. The courting, I imagine, +can scarcely have been pleasant to him. My delightful manner with him +during the last fortnight has been infinitely pleasanter. So, your +friend Robert may be made happy by-and-by; that is to say, if his Rhoda +is not too like her sex." + +"You're an enchantress," exclaimed Percy. + +"Stop," said she, and drifted into seriousness. "Before you praise me +you must know more. Percy, that duel in India--" + +He put out his hand to her. + +"Yes, I forgive," she resumed. "You were cruel then. Remember that, and +try to be just now. The poor boy would go to his doom. I could have +arrested it. I partly caused it. I thought the honour of the army at +stake. I was to blame on that day, and I am to blame again, but I feel +that I am almost excuseable, if you are not too harsh a judge. No, I am +not; I am execrable; but forgive me." + +Percy's face lighted up in horrified amazement as Margaret Lovell +unfastened the brooch at her neck and took out the dull-red handkerchief. + +"It was the bond between us," she pursued, "that I was to return this to +you when I no longer remained my own mistress. Count me a miserably +heartless woman. I do my best. You brought this handkerchief to me +dipped in the blood of the poor boy who was slain. I have worn it. It +was a safeguard. Did you mean it to serve as such? Oh, Percy! I felt +continually that blood was on my bosom. I felt it fighting with me. It +has saved me from much. And now I return it to you." + +He could barely articulate "Why?" + +"Dear friend, by the reading of the bond you should know. I asked you +when I was leaving India, how long I was to keep it by me. You said, +"Till you marry." Do not be vehement, Percy. This is a thing that could +not have been averted." + +"Is it possible," Percy cried, "that you carried the play out so far as +to promise him to marry him?" + +"Your forehead is thunder, Percy. I know that look." + +"Margaret, I think I could bear to see our army suffer another defeat +rather than you should be contemptible." + +"Your chastisement is not given in half measures, Percy." + +"Speak on," said he; "there is more to come. You are engaged to marry +him?" + +"I engaged that I would take the name of Blancove." + +"If he would cease to persecute Rhoda Fleming!" + +"The stipulation was exactly in those words." + +"You mean to carry it out?" + +"To be sincere? I do, Percy! + +"You mean to marry Algernon Blancove?" + +"I should be contemptible indeed if I did, Percy! + +"You do not?" + +"I do not." + +"And you are sincere? By all the powers of earth and heaven, there's no +madness like dealing with an animated enigma! What is it you do mean?" + +"As I said--to be sincere. But I was also bound to be of service to your +friend. It is easy to be sincere and passive." + +Percy struck his brows. "Can you mean that Edward Blancove is the man?" + +"Oh! no. Edward will never marry any one. I do him the justice to say +that his vice is not that of unfaithfulness. He had but one love, and +her heart is quite dead. There is no marriage for him--she refuses. You +may not understand the why of that, but women will. She would marry him +if she could bring herself to it;--the truth is, he killed her pride. +Her taste for life has gone. She is bent on her sister's marrying your +friend. She has no other thought of marriage, and never will have. I +know the state. It is not much unlike mine." + +Waring fixed her eyes. "There is a man?" + +"Yes," she answered bluntly. + +"It is somebody, then, whose banker's account is, I hope, satisfactory." + +"Yes, Percy;" she looked eagerly forward, as thanking him for releasing +her from a difficulty. "You still can use the whip, but I do not feel +the sting. I marry a banker's account. Do you bear in mind the day I +sent after you in the park? I had just heard that I was ruined. You +know my mania for betting. I heard it, and knew when I let my heart warm +to you that I could never marry you. That is one reason, perhaps, why I +have been an enigma. I am sincere in telling Algy I shall take the name +of Blancove. I marry the banker. Now take this old gift of yours." + +Percy grasped the handkerchief, and quitted her presence forthwith, +feeling that he had swallowed a dose of the sex to serve him for a +lifetime. Yet he lived to reflect on her having decided practically, +perhaps wisely for all parties. Her debts expunged, she became an old +gentleman's demure young wife, a sweet hostess, and, as ever, a true +friend: something of a miracle to one who had inclined to make a heroine +of her while imagining himself to accurately estimate her deficiencies. +Honourably by this marriage the lady paid for such wild oats as she had +sown in youth. + +There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia and +Edward. + +Dahlia lived seven years her sister's housemate, nurse of the growing +swarm. She had gone through fire, as few women have done in like manner, +to leave their hearts among the ashes; but with that human heart she left +regrets behind her. The soul of this young creature filled its place. +It shone in her eyes and in her work, a lamp to her little neighbourhood; +and not less a lamp of cheerful beams for one day being as another to +her. In truth, she sat above the clouds. When she died she relinquished +nothing. Others knew the loss. Between her and Robert there was deeper +community on one subject than she let Rhoda share. Almost her last words +to him, spoken calmly, but with the quaver of breath resembling sobs, +were: "Help poor girls." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +You who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have no fear +Can a man go farther than his nature? +Cold curiosity +Found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of death +Sinners are not to repent only in words +So long as we do not know that we are performing any remarkable feat +There were joy-bells for Robert and Rhoda, but none for Dahlia + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhoda Fleming, v5 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4425.zip b/4425.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc03875 --- /dev/null +++ b/4425.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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