Rhoda Fleming. Complete. George Meredith

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      “My sister sends you her love,” she said brightly to the old man. Master Gammon responded with no remarkable flash of his eyes, and merely opened his mouth and shut it, as when a duck divides its bill, but fails to emit the customary quack.

      “And to you, little pigs; and to you, Mulberry; and you, Dapple; and you, and you, and you.”

      Rhoda nodded round to all the citizens of the farmyard; and so eased her heart of its laughing bubbles. After which, she fell to a meditative walk of demurer joy, and had a regret. It was simply that Dahlia’s hurry in signing the letter, had robbed her of the delight of seeing “Dahlia Ayrton” written proudly out, with its wonderful signification of the change in her life.

      That was a trifling matter; yet Rhoda felt the letter was not complete in the absence of the bridal name. She fancied Dahlia to have meant, perhaps, that she was Dahlia to her as of old, and not a stranger. “Dahlia ever; Dahlia nothing else for you,” she heard her sister say. But how delicious and mournful, how terrible and sweet with meaning would “Dahlia Ayrton,” the new name in the dear handwriting, have looked! “And I have a brother-in-law,” she thought, and her cheeks tingled. The banks of fern and foxglove, and the green young oaks fringing the copse, grew rich in colour, as she reflected that this beloved unknown husband of her sister embraced her and her father as well; even the old bent beggarman on the sandy ridge, though he had a starved frame and carried pitiless faggots, stood illumined in a soft warmth. Rhoda could not go back to the house.

      It chanced that the farmer that morning had been smitten with the virtue of his wife’s opinion of Robert, and her parting recommendation concerning him.

      “Have you a mind to either one of my two girls?” he put the question bluntly, finding himself alone with Robert.

      Robert took a quick breath, and replied, “I have.”

      “Then make your choice,” said the farmer, and tried to go about his business, but hung near Robert in the fields till he had asked: “Which one is it, my boy?”

      Robert turned a blade of wheat in his mouth.

      “I think I shall leave her to tell that,” was his answer.

      “Why, don’t ye know which one you prefer to choose, man?” quoth Mr. Fleming.

      “I mayn’t know whether she prefers to choose me,” said Robert.

      The farmer smiled.

      “You never can exactly reckon about them; that’s true.”

      He was led to think: “Dahlia’s the lass;” seeing that Robert had not had many opportunities of speaking with her.

      “When my girls are wives, they’ll do their work in the house,” he pursued. “They may have a little bit o’ property in land, ye know, and they may have a share in—in gold. That’s not to be reckoned on. We’re an old family, Robert, and I suppose we’ve our pride somewhere down. Anyhow, you can’t look on my girls and not own they’re superior girls. I’ve no notion of forcing them to clean, and dish up, and do dairying, if it’s not to their turn. They’re handy with th’ needle. They dress conformably, and do the millinery themselves. And I know they say their prayers of a night. That I know, if that’s a comfort to ye, and it should be, Robert. For pray, and you can’t go far wrong; and it’s particularly good for girls. I’ll say no more.”

      At the dinner-table, Rhoda was not present. Mr. Fleming fidgeted, blamed her and excused her, but as Robert appeared indifferent about her absence, he was confirmed in his idea that Dahlia attracted his fancy.

      They had finished dinner, and Master Gammon had risen, when a voice immediately recognized as the voice of Anthony Hackbut was heard in the front part of the house. Mr. Fleming went round to him with a dismayed face.

      “Lord!” said Mrs. Sumfit, “how I tremble!”

      Robert, too, looked grave, and got away from the house. The dread of evil news of Dahlia was common to them all; yet none had mentioned it, Robert conceiving that it would be impertinence on his part to do so; the farmer, that the policy of permitting Dahlia’s continued residence in London concealed the peril; while Mrs. Sumfit flatly defied the threatening of a mischance to one so sweet and fair, and her favourite. It is the insincerity of persons of their class; but one need not lay stress on the wilfulness of uneducated minds. Robert walked across the fields, walking like a man with an object in view. As he dropped into one of the close lanes which led up to Wrexby Hall, he saw Rhoda standing under an oak, her white morning-dress covered with sun-spots. His impulse was to turn back, the problem, how to speak to her, not being settled within him. But the next moment his blood chilled; for he had perceived, though he had not felt simultaneously, that two gentlemen were standing near her, addressing her. And it was likewise manifest that she listened to them. These presently raised their hats and disappeared. Rhoda came on toward Robert.

      “You have forgotten your dinner,” he said, with a queer sense of shame at dragging in the mention of that meal.

      “I have been too happy to eat,” Rhoda replied.

      Robert glanced up the lane, but she gave no heed to this indication, and asked: “Has uncle come?”

      “Did you expect him?”

      “I thought he would come.”

      “What has made you happy?”

      “You will hear from uncle.”

      “Shall I go and hear what those—”

      Robert checked himself, but it would have been better had he spoken out. Rhoda’s face, from a light of interrogation, lowered its look to contempt.

      She did not affect the feminine simplicity which can so prettily misunderstand and put by an implied accusation of that nature. Doubtless her sharp instinct served her by telling her that her contempt would hurt him shrewdly now. The foolishness of a man having much to say to a woman, and not knowing how or where the beginning of it might be, was perceptible about him. A shout from her father at the open garden-gate, hurried on Rhoda to meet him. Old Anthony was at Mr. Fleming’s elbow.

      “You know it? You have her letter, father?” said Rhoda, gaily, beneath the shadow of his forehead.

      “And a Queen of the Egyptians is what you might have been,” said Anthony, with a speculating eye upon Rhoda’s dark bright face.

      Rhoda put out her hand to him, but kept her gaze on her father.

      William Fleeting relaxed the knot of his brows and lifted the letter.

      “Listen all! This is from a daughter to her father.”

      And he read, oddly accentuating the first syllables of the sentences:—

      Dear Father,—

      “My husband will bring me to see you when I return to dear England.

      I ought to have concealed nothing, I know. Try to forgive me. I

      hope you will. I shall always think of you. God bless you!

      “I am,

      “Ever with respect,

      “Your dearly loving Daughter,

      “Dahlia.”

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