The two were together, and all preliminary difficulties had been cleared
for Robert to say what he had to say, in a manner to make the saying of
it well-nigh impossible. And yet silence might be misinterpreted by her.
He would have drawn her to his heart at one sign of tenderness. There
came none. The girl was frightfully torn with a great wound of shame.
She was the first to speak.
“Do you believe what father says of my sister?”
“That she--?” Robert swallowed the words. “No!” and he made a thunder
with his fist.
“No!” She drank up the word. “You do not? No! You know that Dahlia is
innocent?”
Rhoda was trembling with a look for the asseveration; her pale face
eager as a cry for life; but the answer did not come at once hotly as
her passion for it demanded. She grew rigid, murmuring faintly: “speak!
Do speak!”
His eyes fell away from hers. Sweet love would have wrought in him to
think as she thought, but she kept her heart closed from him, and he
stood sadly judicial, with a conscience of his own, that would not
permit him to declare Dahlia innocent, for he had long been imagining
the reverse.
Rhoda pressed her hands convulsively, moaning, “Oh!” down a short deep
breath.
“Tell me what has happened?” said Robert, made mad by that reproachful
agony of her voice. “I'm in the dark. I'm not equal to you all. If
Dahlia's sister wants one to stand up for her, and defend her, whatever
she has done or not done, ask me. Ask me, and I'll revenge her. Here am
I, and I know nothing, and you despise me because--don't think me rude
or unkind. This hand is yours, if you will. Come, Rhoda. Or, let me hear
the case, and I'll satisfy you as best I can. Feel for her? I feel for
her as you do. You don't want me to stand a liar to your question? How
can I speak?”
A woman's instinct at red heat pierces the partial disingenuousness
which Robert could only have avoided by declaring the doubts he
entertained. Rhoda desired simply to be supported by his conviction
of her sister's innocence, and she had scorn of one who would not
chivalrously advance upon the risks of right and wrong, and rank himself
prime champion of a woman belied, absent, and so helpless. Besides,
there was but one virtue possible in Rhoda's ideas, as regarded Dahlia:
to oppose facts, if necessary, and have her innocent perforce, and fight
to the death them that dared cast slander on the beloved head.
Her keen instinct served her so far.
His was alive when she refused to tell him what had taken place during
their visit to London.
She felt that a man would judge evil of the circumstances. Her father
and her uncle had done so: she felt that Robert would. Love for him
would have prompted her to confide in him absolutely. She was not
softened by love; there was no fire on her side to melt and make them
run in one stream, and they could not meet.
“Then, if you will not tell me,” said Robert, “say what you think of
your father's proposal? He meant that I may ask you to be my wife.
He used to fancy I cared for your sister. That's false. I care for
her--yes; as my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her,
but I love you, and I've loved you for some time. I'd be proud to marry
you and help on with the old farm. You don't love me yet--which is a
pretty hard thing for me to see to be certain of. But I love you, and I
trust you. I like the stuff you're made of--and nice stuff I'm talking
to a young woman,” he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair
and flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.
As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk. Her
brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed.
She had no understanding for Robert's sentimentality, or her father's
requisition. Some answer had to be given, and she said,--
“I'm not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon.”
“I don't suppose it,” cried Robert.
“You heard what father said.”
“I heard what he said, but I don't think the same. What has Dahlia to do
with you?”
He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence. All her covert
hostility burst out on it.
“My sister?--what has my sister to do with me?--you mean!--you mean--you
can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as two people;
and we are one, and will be till we die. I feel my sister's hand in
mine, though she's away and lost. She is my darling for ever and ever.
We're one!”
A spasm of anguish checked the girl.
“I mean,” Robert resumed steadily, “that her conduct, good or bad,
doesn't touch you. If it did, it'd be the same to me. I ask you to take
me for your husband. Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda.”
The horrible utterance her father's lips had been guilty of flashed
through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had
a victim.
“Yes! I'm to take a husband to remind me of what he said.”
Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister
had excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward
earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck,
and the confident poise of her figure.
“Ha! well!” he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that
she could make nothing of his look. It seemed half maniacal, it was so
ridged with bright eagerness.
“By heaven! the task of taming you--that's the blessing I'd beg for in
my prayers! Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!
I'd rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of
quiet”--he checked himself--“companions.”
Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the
astounding lead he had taken, and stared.
“You're the beauty to my taste, and devil is what I want in a woman!
I can make something out of a girl with a temper like yours. You don't
know me, Miss Rhoda. I'm what you reckon a good young man. Isn't that
it?”
Robert drew up with a very hard smile.
“I would to God I were! Mind, I feel for you about your sister. I
like you the better for holding to her through thick and thin. But my
sheepishness has gone, and I tell you I'll have you whether you will or
no. I can help you and you can help me. I've lived here as if I had no
more fire in me than old Gammon snoring on his pillow up aloft; and who
kept me to it? Did you see I never touched liquor? What did you guess
from that?--that I was a mild sort of fellow? So I am: but I haven't got
that reputation in other parts. Your father 'd like me to marry you, and
I'm ready. Who kept me to work, so that I might learn to farm, and be a
man, and be able to take a wife? I came here--I'll tell you how. I was
a useless dog. I ran from home and served as a trooper. An old aunt of
mine left me a little money, which just woke me up and gave me a lift of
what conscience I had, and I bought myself out.
“I chanced to see your father's advertisement--came, looked at you all,
and liked you--brought my traps and settled among you, and lived like a
good young man. I like peace and orderliness, I find. I always thought
I did, when I was dancing like mad to hell. I know I do now, and you're
the girl to keep me to it. I've learnt that much by degrees. With any
other, I should have been playing the fool, and going my old ways, long
ago. I should have wrecked her, and drunk to forget. You're my match.
By-and-by you'll know, me yours! You never gave me, or anybody else that
I've seen, sly sidelooks.
“Come! I'll speak out now I'm at work. I thought you at some girl's
games in the Summer. You went out one day to meet a young gentleman.
Offence or no offence, I speak and you listen. You did go out. I was in
love with you then, too. I saw London had been doing its mischief. I was
down about it. I felt that he would make nothing of you, but I chose to
take the care of you, and you've hated me ever since.
“That Mr. Algernon Blancove's a rascal. Stop! You'll say as much as you
like presently. I give you a warning--the man's a rascal. I didn't play
spy on your acts, but your looks. I can read a face like yours, and it's
my home, my home!--by heaven, it is. Now, Rhoda, you know a little more
of me. Perhaps I'm more of a man than you thought. Marry another, if you
will; but I'm the man for you, and I know it, and you'll go wrong if you
don't too. Come! let your father sleep well. Give me your hand.”
All through this surprising speech of Robert's, which was a revelation
of one who had been previously dark to her, she had steeled her
spirit as she felt herself being borne upon unexpected rapids, and she
marvelled when she found her hand in his.
Dismayed, as if caught in a trap, she said,--
“You know I've no love for you at all.”
“None--no doubt,” he answered.
The fit of verbal energy was expended, and he had become listless,
though he looked frankly at her and assumed the cheerfulness which was
failing within him.
“I wish to remain as I am,” she faltered, surprised again by the equally
astonishing recurrence of humility, and more spiritually subdued by it.
“I've no heart for a change. Father will understand. I am safe.”
She ended with a cry: “Oh! my dear, my own sister! I wish you were safe.
Get her here to me and I'll do what I can, if you're not hard on her.
She's so beautiful, she can't do wrong. My Dahlia's in some trouble. Mr.
Robert, you might really be her friend?”
“Drop the Mister,” said Robert.
“Father will listen to you,” she pleaded. “You won't leave us? Tell
him you know I am safe. But I haven't a feeling of any kind while my
sister's away. I will call you Robert, if you like.” She reached her
hand forth.
“That's right,” he said, taking it with a show of heartiness: “that's a
beginning, I suppose.”
She shrank a little in his sensitive touch, and he added: “Oh never
fear. I've spoken out, and don't do the thing too often. Now you know
me, that's enough. I trust you, so trust me. I'll talk to your father.
I've got a dad of my own, who isn't so easily managed. You and I,
Rhoda--we're about the right size for a couple. There--don't be
frightened! I was only thinking--I'll let go your hand in a minute. If
Dahlia's to be found, I'll find her. Thank you for that squeeze. You'd
wake a dead man to life, if you wanted to. To-morrow I set about the
business. That's settled. Now your hand's loose. Are you going to say
good night? You must give me your hand again for that. What a rough
fellow I must seem to you! Different from the man you thought I was? I'm
just what you choose to make me, Rhoda; remember that. By heaven! go at
once, for you're an armful--”
She took a candle and started for the door.
“Aha! you can look fearful as a doe. Out! make haste!”
In her hurry at his speeding gestures, the candle dropped; she was going
to pick it up, but as he approached, she stood away frightened.
“One kiss, my girl,” he said. “Don't keep me jealous as fire. One! and
I'm a plighted man. One!--or I shall swear you know what kisses are. Why
did you go out to meet that fellow? Do you think there's no danger in
it? Doesn't he go about boasting of it now, and saying--that girl! But
kiss me and I'll forget it; I'll forgive you. Kiss me only once, and I
shall be certain you don't care for him. That's the thought maddens me
outright. I can't bear it now I've seen you look soft. I'm stronger than
you, mind.” He caught her by the waist.
“Yes,” Rhoda gasped, “you are. You are only a brute.”
“A brute's a lucky dog, then, for I've got you!”
“Will you touch me?”
“You're in my power.”
“It's a miserable thing, Robert.”
“Why don't you struggle, my girl? I shall kiss you in a minute.”
“You're never my friend again.”
“I'm not a gentleman, I suppose!”
“Never! after this.”
“It isn't done. And first you're like a white rose, and next you're like
a red. Will you submit?”
“Oh! shame!” Rhoda uttered.
“Because I'm not a gentleman?”
“You are not.”
“So, if I could make you a lady--eh? the lips 'd be ready in a trice.
You think of being made a lady--a lady!”
His arm relaxed in the clutch of her figure.
She got herself free, and said: “We saw Mr. Blancove at the theatre with
Dahlia.”
It was her way of meeting his accusation that she had cherished an
ambitious feminine dream.
He, to hide a confusion that had come upon him, was righting the fallen
candle.
“Now I know you can be relied on; you can defend yourself,” he said, and
handed it to her, lighted. “You keep your kisses for this or that young
gentleman. Quite right. You really can defend yourself. That's all I was
up to. So let us hear that you forgive me. The door's open. You won't be
bothered by me any more; and don't hate me overmuch.”
“You might have learned to trust me without insulting me, Robert,” she
said.
“Do you fancy I'd take such a world of trouble for a kiss of your lips,
sweet as they are?”
His blusterous beginning ended in a speculating glance at her mouth.
She saw it would be wise to accept him in his present mood, and go; and
with a gentle “Good night,” that might sound like pardon, she passed
through the doorway.