When young minds are set upon a distant object, they scarcely live
for anything about them. The drive to the station and the parting
with Robert, the journey to London, which had latterly seemed to her
secretly-distressed anticipation like a sunken city--a place of wonder
with the waters over it--all passed by smoothly; and then it became
necessary to call a cabman, for whom, as he did her the service to lift
her box, Rhoda felt a gracious respect, until a quarrel ensued between
him and her uncle concerning sixpence;--a poor sum, as she thought; but
representing, as Anthony impressed upon her understanding during the
conflict of hard words, a principle. Those who can persuade themselves
that they are fighting for a principle, fight strenuously, and maybe
reckoned upon to overmatch combatants on behalf of a miserable small
coin; so the cabman went away discomfited. He used such bad language
that Rhoda had no pity for him, and hearing her uncle style it “the
London tongue,” she thought dispiritedly of Dahlia's having had to
listen to it through so long a season. Dahlia was not at home; but Mrs.
Wicklow, Anthony's landlady, undertook to make Rhoda comfortable, which
operation she began by praising dark young ladies over fair ones, at
the same time shaking Rhoda's arm that she might not fail to see a
compliment was intended. “This is our London way,” she said. But Rhoda
was most disconcerted when she heard Mrs. Wicklow relate that her
daughter and Dahlia were out together, and say, that she had no doubt
they had found some pleasant and attentive gentleman for a companion, if
they had not gone purposely to meet one. Her thoughts of her sister were
perplexed, and London seemed a gigantic net around them both.
“Yes, that's the habit with the girls up here,” said Anthony; “that's
what fine bonnets mean.”
Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her
virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to
suppose that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She
half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false
Zion, and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's
daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia
had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the
singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no
willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, “Her Bible!” with
a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from
her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in
the ear of one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs.
Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an
extreme gravity.
“Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I
call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had
said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!”
“It was mother's Bible,” interposed Rhoda.
Mrs. Wicklow replied: “And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
young woman. I'm never deceived in character.”
Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
talking till the cock crowed hoarse.
“There's a poultry-yard close to us?” said Rhoda; feeling less at home
when she heard that there was not.
The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window,
and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of
stars was pleasant as the faces of friends. “People are kind here,”
she reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a
young gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice
voice. He was fair. “I am dark,” came a spontaneous reflection. She
undressed, and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the
street door open, and leaped to think that her sister approached,
jumping up in her bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that
were conducting her joy to her: but she quickly recomposed herself,
and feigned sleep, for the delight of revelling in her sister's first
wonderment. The door was flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called
by Dahlia's voice, and then there was a delicious silence, and she felt
that Dahlia was coming up to her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to
be stooped near, that she might fling out her arms, and draw the dear
head to her bosom. But Dahlia came only to the bedside, without leaning
over, and spoke of her looks, which held the girl quiet.
“How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!” Dahlia murmured. “She's changed,
but it's all for the better. She's quite a woman; she's a perfect
brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and those
black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet! Oh, why is she here? What's meant
by it? I knew nothing of her coming. Is she sent on purpose?”
Rhoda did not stir. The tone of Dahlia's speaking, low and almost awful
to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.
“I came for my Bible,” she heard Dahlia say. “I promised mother--oh, my
poor darling mother! And Dody lying in my bed! Who would have thought of
such things? Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere. What will
become of me? Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep! I lie for hours,
and can't sleep. She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just as she
used to in the old farm days!”
Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost
frigid, and could not move.
Dahlia went to the looking-glass. “How flushed I am!” she murmured. “No;
I'm pale, quite white. I've lost my strength. What can I do? How could
I take mother's Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, and
dreams she'll wake with me beside her in the morning! I can't--I can't
If you love me, Edward, you won't wish it.”
She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs. Rhoda's
eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless
sympathy held her still frost-bound. All at once she heard the window
open. Some one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia's
name. A deep bell swung a note of midnight.
“Go!” cried Dahlia.
The window was instantly shut.
The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy
shaking of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and
hum. It was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into
the bed, and they were locked together.