Rhoda Fleming. Complete

“I’ve given ye notice,” said the farmer.

“No, you ha’n’t,” said Master Gammon.

“I give ye notice now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“How d’ ye mean?”

“Cause I don’t take ne’er a notice.”

“Then you’ll be kicked out, old man.”

“Hey! there y’ have me,” said Master Gammon. “I growed at the farm, and you don’t go and tell ne’er a tree t’ walk.”

Rhoda laid her fingers in the veteran’s palm.

“You’re a long-lived family, aren’t you, Master Gammon?” said Robert, eyeing Rhoda’s action enviously.

Master Gammon bade him go to a certain churchyard in Sussex, and inspect a particular tombstone, upon which the ages of his ancestry were written. They were more like the ages of oaks than of men.

“It’s the heart kills,” said Robert.

“It’s damned misfortune,” murmured the farmer.

“It is the wickedness in the world,” thought Rhoda.

“It’s a poor stomach, I reckon,” Master Gammon ruminated.

They took leave of him at the station, from which eminence it was a notable thing to see him in the road beneath, making preparations for his return, like a conqueror of the hours. Others might run, and stew, if they liked: Master Gammon had chosen his pace, and was not of a mind to change it for anybody or anything. It was his boast that he had never ridden by railway: “nor ever means to, if I can help it,” he would say. He was very much in harmony with universal nature, if to be that is the secret of human life.

Meantime, Algernon retraced his way to the station in profound chagrin: arriving there just as the train was visible. He caught sight of the cart with Master Gammon in it, and asked him whether all his people were going up to London; but the reply was evidently a mile distant, and had not started; so putting a sovereign in Master Gammon’s hand, together with the reins of his horse, Algernon bade the old man conduct the animal to the White Bear Inn, and thus violently pushing him off the tramways of his intelligence, left him stranded.

He had taken a first-class return-ticket, of course, being a gentleman. In the desperate hope that he might jump into a carriage with Rhoda, he entered one of the second-class compartments; a fact not only foreign to his tastes and his habits, but somewhat disgraceful, as he thought. His trust was, that the ignoble of this earth alone had beheld him: at any rate, his ticket was first class, as the guard would instantly and respectfully perceive, and if he had the discomforts, he had also some of the consolations of virtue.

Once on his way, the hard seat and the contemptible society surrounding him, assured his reflective spirit that he loved: otherwise, was it in reason that he should endure these hardships? “I really love the girl,” he said, fidgeting for cushions.

He was hot, and wanted the window up, to which his fellow-travellers assented. Then, the atmosphere becoming loaded with offence to his morbid sense of smell, he wanted the windows down; and again they assented. “By Jove! I must love the girl,” ejaculated Algernon inwardly, as cramp, cold, and afflicted nostrils combined to astonish his physical sensations. Nor was it displeasing to him to evince that he was unaccustomed to bare boards.

“We’re a rich country,” said a man to his neighbour; “but, if you don’t pay for it, you must take your luck, and they’ll make you as uncomfortable as they can.”

“Ay,” said the other. “I’ve travelled on the Continent. The second-class carriages there are fit for anybody to travel in. This is what comes of the worship of money—the individual is not respected. Pounds alone!”

“These,” thought Algernon, “are beastly democrats.”

Their remarks had been sympathetic with his manifestations, which had probably suggested them. He glowered out of the window in an exceedingly foreign manner. A plainly dressed woman requested that the window should be closed. One of the men immediately proceeded to close it. Algernon stopped him.

“Pardon me, sir,” said the man; “it’s a lady wants it done;” and he did it.

A lady! Algernon determined that these were the sort of people he should hate for life. “Go among them and then see what they are,” he addressed an imaginary assembly of anti-democrats, as from a senatorial chair set in the after days. Cramp, cold, ill-ordered smells, and eternal hatred of his fellow-passengers, convinced him, in their aggregation, that he surmounted not a little for love of Rhoda.

The train arrived in London at dusk. Algernon saw Rhoda step from a carriage near the engine, assisted by Robert; and old Anthony was on the platform to welcome her; and Anthony seized her bag, and the troop of passengers moved away. It may be supposed that Algernon had angry sensations at sight of Robert; and to a certain extent this was the case; but he was a mercurial youth, and one who had satisfactorily proved superior strength enjoyed a portion of his respect. Besides, if Robert perchance should be courting Rhoda, he and Robert would enter into another field of controversy; and Robert might be taught a lesson.

He followed the party on foot until they reached Anthony’s dwelling-place, noted the house, and sped to the Temple. There, he found a telegraphic message from Edward, that had been awaiting him since the morning.

“Stop It,” were the sole words of the communication brief, and if one preferred to think so, enigmatic.

“What on earth does he mean?” cried Algernon, and affected again and again to see what Edward meant, without success. “Stop it?—stop what?—Stop the train? Stop my watch? Stop the universe? Oh! this is rank humbug.” He flung the paper down, and fell to counting the money in his possession. The more it dwindled, the more imperative it became that he should depart from his country.

Behind the figures, he calculated that, in all probability, Rhoda would visit her sister this night. “I can’t stop that,” he said: and hearing a clock strike, “nor that” a knock sounded on the door; “nor that.” The reflection inspired him with fatalistic views.

Sedgett appeared, and was welcome. Algernon had to check the impulse of his hand to stretch out to the fellow, so welcome was he: Sedgett stated that everything stood ready for the morrow. He had accomplished all that had to be done.

“And it’s more than many’d reckon,” he said, and rubbed his hands, and laughed. “I was aboard ship in Liverpool this morning, that I was. That ere young woman’s woke up from her dream”, (he lengthened the word inexpressibly) “by this time, that she is. I had to pay for my passage, though;” at which recollection he swore. “That’s money gone. Never mind: there’s worse gone with it. Ain’t it nasty—don’t you think, sir—to get tired of a young woman you’ve been keepin’ company with, and have to be her companion, whether you will, or whether you won’t? She’s sick enough now. We travelled all night. I got her on board; got her to go to her bed; and, says I, I’ll arrange about the luggage. I packs myself down into a boat, and saw the ship steam away a good’n. Hanged if I didn’t catch myself singin’. And haven’t touched a drop o’ drink, nor will, till tomorrow’s over. Don’t you think ‘Daehli’s’ a very pretty name, sir? I run back to her as hard as rail ‘d carry me. She’s had a letter from her sister, recommending o’ her to marry me: ‘a noble man,’ she calls me—ha, ha! that’s good. ‘And what do you think, my dear?’ says I; and, bother me, if I can screw either a compliment or a kiss out of her. She’s got fine lady airs of her own. But I’m fond of her, that I am. Well, sir, at the church door, after the ceremony, you settle our business, honour bright—that’s it, en’t it?”

Algernon nodded. Sedgett’s talk always produced discomfort in his ingenuous bosom.

“By the way, what politics are you?” he asked.

Sedgett replied, staring, that he was a Tory, and Algernon nodded again, but with brows perturbed at the thought of this ruffian being of the same political persuasion as himself.

“Eh?” cried Sedgett; “I don’t want any of your hustings pledges, though. You’ll be at the door tomorrow, or I’ll have a row—mind that. A bargain’s a bargain. I like the young woman, but I must have the money. Why not hand it over now?”

“Not till the deed’s done,” said Algernon, very reasonably.

Sedgett studied his features, and as a result remarked: “You put me up to this: I’ll do it, and trust you so far, but if I’m played on, I throw the young woman over and expose you out and out. But you mean honourable?”

“I do,” Algernon said of his meaning.

Another knock sounded on the door. It proved to be a footman in Sir William’s livery, bearing a letter from Edward; an amplification of the telegram:

“Dear Algy, Stop it. I’m back, and have to see my father. I may be down about two, or three, or four, in the morning. No key; so, keep in. I want to see you. My whole life is changed. I must see her. Did you get my telegram? Answer, by messenger; I shall come to you the moment my father has finished his lecture.

    “Yours,
    “E.B.”

Algernon told Sedgett to wait while he dressed in evening uniform, and gave him a cigar to smoke.

He wrote:—

“Dear Ned, Stop what? Of course, I suppose there’s only one thing, and how can I stop it? What for? You ridiculous old boy! What a changeable old fellow you are!—Off, to see what I can do. After eleven o’clock to-morrow, you’ll feel comfortable.—If the Governor is sweet, speak a word for the Old Brown; and bring two dozen in a cab, if you can. There’s no encouragement to keep at home in this place. Put that to him. I, in your place, could do it. Tell him it’s a matter of markets. If I get better wine at hotels, I go to hotels, and I spend twice—ten times the money. And say, we intend to make the laundress cook our dinners in chambers, as a rule. Old B. an inducement.

    “Yours aff.
    “A.B.”

This epistle he dispatched by the footman, and groaned to think that if, perchance, the Old Brown Sherry should come, he would, in all probability, barely drink more than half-a-dozen bottles of that prime vintage. He and Sedgett, soon after, were driving down to Dahlia’s poor lodgings in the West. On the way, an idea struck him:

Would not Sedgett be a noisier claimant for the thousand than Edward? If he obeyed Edward’s direction and stopped the marriage, he could hand back a goodly number of hundreds, and leave it to be supposed that he had advanced the remainder to Sedgett. How to do it? Sedgett happened to say: “If you won’t hand the money now, I must have it when I’ve married her. Swear you’ll be in the vestry when we’re signing. I know all about marriages. You swear, or I tell you, if I find I’m cheated, I will throw the young woman over slap.”