Old Anthony was expecting them in London. It was now winter, and the
season for theatres; so, to show his brother-in-law the fun of a theatre
was one part of his projected hospitality, if Mr. Fleming should haply
take the hint that he must pay for himself.
Anthony had laid out money to welcome the farmer, and was shy and
fidgety as a girl who anticipates the visit of a promising youth, over
his fat goose for next day's dinner, and his shrimps for this day's tea,
and his red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless
butter-man, for supper.
He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he
was not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
would behold.
During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the
buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. “If ever you
come up to London, brother William John,” said Anthony, “you mind you go
about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says
you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner
fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands
to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be
topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a
shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody
that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats
off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming
into the city, but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off
his hat to me. It's a fact, I have.”
In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased
the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he
employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants'
placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And
he would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have
stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to
make it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals
of the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his
lucky mental illuminations, recollected that it was within his power to
procure an order to taste wine at the Docks, where you may get as much
wine as you like out of big sixpenny glasses, and try cask after cask,
walking down gas-lit paths between the huge bellies of wine which groan
to be tapped and tried, that men may know them. The idea of paying
two shillings and sixpence for one miserable bottle vanished at the
richly-coloured prospect. “That'll show him something of what London
is,” thought Anthony; and a companion thought told him in addition
that the farmer, with a skinful of wine, would emerge into the open
air imagining no small things of the man who could gain admittance into
those marvellous caverns. “By George! it's like a boy's story-book,”
cried Anthony, in his soul, and he chuckled over the vision of the
farmer's amazement--acted it with his arms extended, and his hat
unseated, and plunged into wheezy fits of laughter.
He met his guests at the station. Mr. Fleming was soberly attired in
what, to Anthony's London eye, was a curiosity costume; but the broad
brim of the hat, the square cut of the brown coat, and the leggings,
struck him as being very respectable, and worthy of a presentation at
any Bank in London.
“You stick to a leather purse, brother William John?” he inquired, with
an artistic sentiment for things in keeping.
“I do,” said the farmer, feeling seriously at the button over it.
“All right; I shan't ask ye to show it in the street,” Anthony rejoined,
and smote Rhoda's hand as it hung.
“Glad to see your old uncle--are ye?”
Rhoda replied quietly that she was, but had come with the principal
object of seeing her sister.
“There!” cried Anthony, “you never get a compliment out of this gal.
She gives ye the nut, and you're to crack it, and there maybe, or there
mayn't be, a kernel inside--she don't care.”
“But there ain't much in it!” the farmer ejaculated, withdrawing
his fingers from the button they had been teasing for security since
Anthony's question about the purse.
“Not much--eh! brother William John?” Anthony threw up a puzzled look.
“Not much baggage--I see that--” he exclaimed; “and, Lord be thanked! no
trunks. Aha, my dear”--he turned to Rhoda--“you remember your lesson,
do ye? Now, mark me--I'll remember you for it. Do you know, my dear,” he
said to Rhoda confidentially, “that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made
the cabman pay for--there was the cream of it!--that was better than
Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as a sniff of
sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to feel
young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat--cabmen? Ah! I've
stood up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair.
Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling
cabmen--they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and
they've done. But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy
myself. I've got devil in me--never you fear--but it's all on the side
of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which
won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous.”
Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place
between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but
it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and
Anthony had his way.
“I rather astonished you, brother William John,” he said, when they were
in the street.
The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
“Don't you judge by appearances, that's all,” Anthony remarked,
setting down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for
impressiveness.
“Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to
the left, and quiet parts.” He seized the bag anew. “Just listen. That's
the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. It's a
good notion, ain't it? Hark!--I got that notion from one of your penny
papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days--poetry up in a
corner, stories, tales o' temptation--one fellow cut his lucky with
his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be
a lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their
hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of
a policeman--a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his
dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often,
they called him--'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and
turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his
having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had
him out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy.
And found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle
young scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for
a penny. I tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always
profitable. The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the
rest.”
Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional
efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances
were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn
over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's
house. Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the omnibuses
running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann Wicklow,
who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside
shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to
accompany them. Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post
outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
“My love to Dahly,” he said. “She was always a head and shoulders over
my size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I
got my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at
Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my
money.” He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside
to her: “You heard what he said.” Rhoda was frozen with her heart's
expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered
the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every
one she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after
long separation.
She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets
so lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she
felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she
hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign
country. Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. It
was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.
“Not for worlds would she enter the house,” she said, in a general tone;
she knowing better than to present herself where downright entreaty did
not invite her.
Rhoda left her to count the numbers along the terrace-walk, and stood
out in the road that her heart might select Dahlia's habitation from the
other hueless residences. She fixed upon one, but she was wrong, and
her heart sank. The fair Mary Ann fought her and beat her by means of a
careful reckoning, as she remarked,--
“I keep my eyes open; Number 15 is the corner house, the bow-window, to
a certainty.”
Gardens were in front of the houses; or, to speak more correctly, strips
of garden walks. A cab was drawn up close by the shrub-covered iron
gate leading up to No. 15. Mary Ann hurried them on, declaring that they
might be too late even now at a couple of dozen paces distant, seeing
that London cabs, crawlers as they usually were, could, when required,
and paid for it, do their business like lightning. Her observation
was illustrated the moment after they had left her in the rear; for a
gentleman suddenly sprang across the pavement, jumped into a cab, and
was whirled away, with as much apparent magic to provincial eyes, as if
a pantomimic trick had been performed. Rhoda pressed forward a step in
advance of her father.
“It may have been her husband,” she thought, and trembled. The curtains
up in the drawing-room were moved as by a hand; but where was Dahlia's
face? Dahlia knew that they were coming, and she was not on the look-out
for them!--a strange conflict of facts, over which Rhoda knitted her
black brows, so that she looked menacing to the maid opening the
door, whose “Oh, if you please, Miss,” came in contact with “My
sister--Mrs.--, she expects me. I mean, Mrs.--” but no other name than
“Dahlia” would fit itself to Rhoda's mouth.
“Ayrton,” said the maid, and recommenced, “Oh, if you please, Miss, and
you are the young lady, Mrs. Ayrton is very sorry, and have left word,
would you call again to-morrow, as she have made a pressing appointment,
and was sure you would excuse her, but her husband was very anxious for
her to go, and could not put it off, and was very sorry, but would you
call again to-morrow at twelve o'clock? and punctually she would be
here.”
The maid smiled as one who had fairly accomplished the recital of her
lesson. Rhoda was stunned.
“Is Mrs. Ayrton at home?--Not at home?” she said.
“No: don't ye hear?” quoth the farmer, sternly.
“She had my letter--do you know?” Rhoda appealed to the maid.
“Oh, yes, Miss. A letter from the country.”
“This morning?”
“Yes, Miss; this morning.”
“And she has gone out? What time did she go out? When will she be in?”
Her father plucked at her dress. “Best not go making the young woman
repeat herself. She says, nobody's at home to ask us in. There's no
more, then, to trouble her for.”
“At twelve o'clock to-morrow?” Rhoda faltered.
“Would you, if you please, call again at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and
punctually she would be here,” said the maid.
The farmer hung his head and turned. Rhoda followed him from the garden.
She was immediately plied with queries and interjections of wonderment
by Miss Wicklow, and it was not until she said: “You saw him go out,
didn't you?--into the cab?” that Rhoda awakened to a meaning in her
gabble.
Was it Dahlia's husband whom they had seen? And if so, why was Dahlia
away from her husband? She questioned in her heart, but not for an
answer, for she allowed no suspicions to live. The farmer led on with
his plodding country step, burdened shoulders, and ruddy-fowled, serious
face, not speaking to Rhoda, who had no desire to hear a word from him,
and let him be. Mary Ann steered him and called from behind the turnings
he was to take, while she speculated aloud to Rhoda upon the nature of
the business that had torn Dahlia from the house so inopportunely.
At last she announced that she knew what it was, but Rhoda failed
to express curiosity. Mary Ann was driven to whisper something about
strange things in the way of purchases. At that moment the farmer threw
up his umbrella, shouting for a cab, and Rhoda ran up to him,--
“Oh, father, why do we want to ride?”
“Yes, I tell ye!” said the farmer, chafing against his coat-collar.
“It is an expense, when we can walk, father.”
“What do I care for th' expense? I shall ride.” He roared again for a
cab, and one came that took them in; after which, the farmer, not
being spoken to, became gravely placid as before. They were put down at
Boyne's Bank. Anthony was on the look-out, and signalled them to stand
away some paces from the door. They were kept about a quarter of an hour
waiting between two tides of wayfarers, which hustled them one way
and another, when out, at last, came the old, broad, bent figure, with
little finicking steps, and hurried past them head foremost, his arms
narrowed across a bulgy breast. He stopped to make sure that they were
following, beckoned with his chin, and proceeded at a mighty rate.
Marvellous was his rounding of corners, his threading of obstructions,
his skilful diplomacy with passengers. Presently they lost sight of him,
and stood bewildered; but while they were deliberating they heard his
voice. He was above them, having issued from two swinging bright doors;
and he laughed and nodded, as he ran down the steps, and made signs, by
which they were to understand that he was relieved of a weight.
“I've done that twenty year of my life, brother William John,” he said.
“Eh? Perhaps you didn't guess I was worth some thousands when I got away
from you just now? Let any chap try to stop me! They may just as well
try to stop a railway train. Steam's up, and I'm off.”
He laughed and wiped his forehead. Slightly vexed at the small amount of
discoverable astonishment on the farmer's face, he continued,--
“You don't think much of it. Why, there ain't another man but myself
Boyne's Bank would trust. They've trusted me thirty year:--why shouldn't
they go on trusting me another thirty year? A good character, brother
William John, goes on compound-interesting, just like good coin. Didn't
you feel a sort of heat as I brushed by you--eh? That was a matter of
one-two-three-four” Anthony watched the farmer as his voice swelled
up on the heightening numbers: “five-six-six thousand pounds, brother
William John. People must think something of a man to trust him with
that sum pretty near every day of their lives, Sundays excepted--eh?
don't you think so?”
He dwelt upon the immense confidence reposed in him, and the terrible
temptation it would be to some men, and how they ought to thank their
stars that they were never thrown in the way of such a temptation, of
which he really thought nothing at all--nothing! until the farmer's
countenance was lightened of its air of oppression, for a puzzle was
dissolved in his brain. It was now manifest to him that Anthony was
trusted in this extraordinary manner because the heads and managers
of Boyne's Bank knew the old man to be possessed of a certain very
respectable sum: in all probability they held it in their coffers for
safety and credited him with the amount. Nay, more; it was fair to
imagine that the guileless old fellow, who conceived himself to be so
deep, had let them get it all into their hands without any suspicion of
their prominent object in doing so.
Mr. Fleming said, “Ah, yes, surely.”
He almost looked shrewd as he smiled over Anthony's hat. The healthy
exercise of his wits relieved his apprehensive paternal heart; and when
he mentioned that Dahlia had not been at home when he called, he at the
same time sounded his hearer for excuses to be raised on her behalf,
himself clumsily suggesting one or two, as to show that he was willing
to swallow a very little for comfort.
“Oh, of course!” said Anthony, jeeringly. “Out? If you catch her in,
these next three or four days, you'll be lucky. Ah, brother William
John!”
The farmer, half frightened by Anthony's dolorous shake of his head,
exclaimed: “What's the matter, man?”
“How proud I should be if only you was in a way to bank at Boyne's!”
“Ah!” went the farmer in his turn, and he plunged his chin deep in his
neckerchief.
“Perhaps some of your family will, some day, brother William John.”
“Happen, some of my family do, brother Anthony!”
“Will is what I said, brother William John; if good gals, and civil, and
marry decently--eh?” and he faced about to Rhoda who was walking with
Miss Wicklow. “What does she look so down about, my dear? Never be down.
I don't mind you telling your young man, whoever he is; and I'd like him
to be a strapping young six-footer I've got in my eye, who farms. What
does he farm with to make farming answer now-a-days? Why, he farms with
brains. You'll find that in my last week's Journal, brother William
John, and thinks I, as I conned it--the farmer ought to read that! You
may tell any young man you like, my dear, that your old uncle's fond of
ye.”
On their arrival home, Mrs. Wicklow met them with a letter in her hand.
It was for Rhoda from Dahlia, saying that Dahlia was grieved to the
heart to have missed her dear father and her darling sister. But her
husband had insisted upon her going out to make particular purchases,
and do a dozen things; and he was extremely sorry to have been obliged
to take her away, but she hoped to see her dear sister and her father
very, very soon. She wished she were her own mistress that she might run
to them, but men when they are husbands require so much waiting on that
she could never call five minutes her own. She would entreat them to
call tomorrow, only she would then be moving to her new lodgings. “But,
oh! my dear, my blessed Rhoda!” the letter concluded, “do keep fast in
your heart that I do love you so, and pray that we may meet soon, as I
pray it every night and all day long. Beg father to stop till we meet.
Things will soon be arranged. They must. Oh! oh, my Rhoda, love! how
handsome you have grown. It is very well to be fair for a time, but the
brunettes have the happiest lot. They last, and when we blonde ones cry
or grow thin, oh! what objects we become!”
There were some final affectionate words, but no further explanations.
The wrinkles again settled on the farmer's mild, uncomplaining forehead.
Rhoda said: “Let us wait, father.”
When alone, she locked the letter against her heart, as to suck the
secret meaning out of it. Thinking over it was useless; except for
this one thought: how did her sister know she had grown very handsome?
Perhaps the housemaid had prattled.