Rhoda Fleming. Complete

“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!”