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, good 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.