Rhoda Fleming. Complete

CHAPTER XII

Edward’s engagement at his Club had been with his unfortunate cousin Algernon; who not only wanted a dinner but ‘five pounds or so’ (the hazy margin which may extend illimitably, or miserably contract, at the lender’s pleasure, and the necessity for which shows the borrower to be dancing on Fortune’s tight-rope above the old abyss).

“Over claret,” was to have been the time for the asking; and Algernon waited dinnerless until the healthy-going minutes distended and swelled monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior, Time, became of unhealthy hue. For this was the first dinner which, during the whole course of the young man’s career, had ever been failing to him. Reflect upon the mournful gap! He could scarcely believe in his ill-luck. He suggested it to himself with an inane grin, as one of the far-away freaks of circumstances that had struck him—and was it not comical?

He waited from the hour of six till the hour of seven. He compared clocks in the hall and the room. He changed the posture of his legs fifty times. For a while he wrestled right gallantly with the apparent menace of the Fates that he was to get no dinner at all that day; it seemed incredibly derisive, for, as I must repeat, it had never happened to him by any accident before. “You are born—you dine.” Such appeared to him to be the positive regulation of affairs, and a most proper one,—of the matters of course following the birth of a young being.

By what frightful mischance, then, does he miss his dinner? By placing the smallest confidence in the gentlemanly feeling of another man! Algernon deduced this reply accurately from his own experience, and whether it can be said by other “undined” mortals, does not matter in the least. But we have nothing to do with the constitutionally luckless: the calamitous history of a simple empty stomach is enough. Here the tragedy is palpable. Indeed, too sadly so, and I dare apply but a flash of the microscope to the rageing dilemmas of this animalcule. Five and twenty minutes had signalled their departure from the hour of seven, when Algernon pronounced his final verdict upon Edward’s conduct by leaving the Club. He returned to it a quarter of an hour later, and lingered on in desperate mood till eight.

He had neither watch in his pocket, nor ring on his finger, nor disposable stud in his shirt. The sum of twenty-one pence was in his possession, and, I ask you, as he asked himself, how is a gentleman to dine upon that? He laughed at the notion. The irony of Providence sent him by a cook’s shop, where the mingled steam of meats and puddings rushed out upon the wayfarer like ambushed bandits, and seized him and dragged him in, or sent him qualmish and humbled on his way.

Two little boys had flattened their noses to the whiteness of winkles against the jealously misty windows. Algernon knew himself to be accounted a generous fellow, and remembering his reputation, he, as to hint at what Fortune might do in his case, tossed some coppers to the urchins, who ducked to the pavement and slid before the counter, in a flash, with never a “thank ye” or the thought of it.

Algernon was incapable of appreciating this childish faith in the beneficence of the unseen Powers who feed us, which, I must say for him, he had shared in a very similar manner only two hours ago. He laughed scornfully: “The little beggars!” considering in his soul that of such is humanity composed: as many a dinnerless man has said before, and will again, to point the speech of fools. He continued strolling on, comparing the cramped misty London aspect of things with his visionary free dream of the glorious prairies, where his other life was: the forests, the mountains, the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the slipshod ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out there! Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable things of him, as civilization did. This he thought in the vengefulness of his outraged mind.

Not only had Algernon never failed to dine every day of his life: he had no recollection of having ever dined without drinking wine. His conception did not embrace the idea of a dinner lacking wine. Possibly he had some embodied understanding that wine did not fall to the lot of every fellow upon earth: he had heard of gullets unrefreshed even by beer: but at any rate he himself was accustomed to better things, and he did not choose to excavate facts from the mass of his knowledge in order to reconcile himself to the miserable chop he saw for his dinner in the distance—a spot of meat in the arctic circle of a plate, not shone upon by any rosy-warming sun of a decanter!

But metaphorical language, though nothing other will convey the extremity of his misery, or the form of his thoughts, must be put aside.

“Egad, and every friend I have is out of town!” he exclaimed, quite willing to think it part of the plot.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, and felt vagabond-like and reckless. The streets were revelling in their winter muck. The carriages rolling by insulted him with their display of wealth.

He had democratic sentiments regarding them. Oh for a horse upon the boundless plains! he sighed to his heart. He remembered bitterly how he had that day ridden his stool at the bank, dreaming of his wilds, where bailiff never ran, nor duns obscured the firmament.

And then there were theatres here—huge extravagant places! Algernon went over to an entrance of one, to amuse his mind, cynically criticizing the bill. A play was going forward within, that enjoyed great popular esteem, “The Holly Berries.” Seeing that the pit was crammed, Algernon made application to learn the state of the boxes, but hearing that one box was empty, he lost his interest in the performance.

As he was strolling forth, his attention was taken by a noise at the pit-doors, which swung open, and out tumbled a tough little old man with a younger one grasping his coat-collar, who proclaimed that he would sicken him of pushing past him at the end of every act.

“You’re precious fond of plays,” sneered the junior.

“I’m fond of everything I pay for, young fellow,” replied the shaken senior; “and that’s a bit of enjoyment you’ve got to learn—ain’t it?”

“Well, don’t you knock by me again, that’s all,” cried the choleric youth.

“You don’t think I’m likely to stop in your company, do you?”

“Whose expense have you been drinking at?”

“My country’s, young fellow; and mind you don’t soon feed at the table. Let me go.”

Algernon’s hunger was appeased by the prospect of some excitement, and seeing a vicious shake administered to the old man by the young one, he cried, “Hands off!” and undertook policeman’s duty; but as he was not in blue, his authoritative mandate obtained no respect until he had interposed his fist.

When he had done so, he recognized the porter at Boyne’s Bank, whose enemy retired upon the threat that there should be no more pushing past him to get back to seats for the next act.

“I paid,” said Anthony; “and you’re a ticketer, and you ticketers sha’ n’t stop me. I’m worth a thousand of you. Holloa, sir,” he cried to Algernon; “I didn’t know you. I’m much obliged. These chaps get tickets given ‘m, and grow as cocky in a theatre as men who pay. He never had such wine in him as I’ve got. That I’d swear. Ha! ha! I come out for an airing after every act, and there’s a whole pitfall of ticketers yelling and tearing, and I chaff my way through and back clean as a red-hot poker.”

Anthony laughed, and rolled somewhat as he laughed.

“Come along, sir, into the street,” he said, boring on to the pavement. “It’s after office hours. And, ha! ha! what do you think? There’s old farmer in there, afraid to move off his seat, and the girl with him, sticking to him tight, and a good girl too. She thinks we’ve had too much. We been to the Docks, wine-tasting: Port—Sherry: Sherry—Port! and, ha! ha! ‘what a lot of wine!’ says farmer, never thinking how much he’s taking on board. ‘I guessed it was night,’ says farmer, as we got into the air, and to see him go on blinking, and stumbling, and saying to me, ‘You stand wine, brother Tony!’ I’m blest if I ain’t bottled laughter. So, says I, ‘come and see “The Holly Berries,” brother William John; it’s the best play in London, and a suitable winter piece.’ ‘Is there a rascal hanged in the piece?’ says he. ‘Oh, yes!’ I let him fancy there was, and he—ha! ha! old farmer’s sticking to his seat, solemn as a judge, waiting for the gallows to come on the stage.”

A thought quickened Algernon’s spirit. It was a notorious secret among the young gentlemen who assisted in maintaining the prosperity of Boyne’s Bank, that the old porter—the “Old Ant,” as he was called—possessed money, and had no objection to put out small sums for a certain interest. Algernon mentioned casually that he had left his purse at home; and “by the way,” said he, “have you got a few sovereigns in your pocket?”

“What! and come through that crush, sir?” Anthony negatived the question decisively with a reference to his general knowingness.

Algernon pressed him; saying at last, “Well, have you got one?”

“I don’t think I’ve been such a fool,” said Anthony, feeling slowly about his person, and muttering as to the changes that might possibly have been produced in him by the Docks.

“Confound it, I haven’t dined!” exclaimed Algernon, to hasten his proceedings; but at this, Anthony eyed him queerly. “What have you been about then, sir?”

“Don’t you see I’m in evening dress? I had an appointment to dine with a friend. He didn’t keep it. I find I’ve left my purse in my other clothes.”

“That’s a bad habit, sir,” was Anthony’s comment. “You don’t care much for your purse.”

“Much for my purse, be hanged!” interjected Algernon.

“You’d have felt it, or you’d have heard it, if there ‘d been any weight in it,” Anthony remarked.

“How can you hear paper?”

“Oh, paper’s another thing. You keep paper in your mind, don’t you—eh? Forget pound notes? Leave pound notes in a purse? And you Sir William’s nephew, sir, who’d let you bank with him and put down everything in a book, so that you couldn’t forget, or if you did, he’d remember for you; and you might change your clothes as often as not, and no fear of your losing a penny.”

Algernon shrugged disgustedly, and was giving the old man up as a bad business, when Anthony altered his manner. “Oh! well, sir, I don’t mind letting you have what I’ve got. I’m out for fun. Bother affairs!”

The sum of twenty shillings was handed to Algernon, after he had submitted to the indignity of going into a public-house, and writing his I.O.U. for twenty-three to Anthony Hackbut, which included interest. Algernon remonstrated against so needless a formality; but Anthony put the startling supposition to him, that he might die that night. He signed the document, and was soon feeding and drinking his wine. This being accomplished, he took some hasty puffs of tobacco, and returned to the theatre, in the hope that the dark girl Rhoda was to be seen there; for now that he had dined, Anthony’s communication with regard to the farmer and his daughter became his uppermost thought, and a young man’s uppermost thought is usually the propelling engine to his actions.

By good chance, and the aid of a fee, he obtained a front seat, commanding an excellent side-view of the pit, which sat wrapt in contemplation of a Christmas scene snow, ice, bare twigs, a desolate house, and a woman shivering—one of man’s victims.

It is a good public, that of Britain, and will bear anything, so long as villany is punished, of which there was ripe promise in the oracular utterances of a rolling, stout, stage-sailor, whose nose, to say nothing of his frankness on the subject, proclaimed him his own worst enemy, and whose joke, by dint of repetition, had almost become the joke of the audience too; for whenever he appeared, there was agitation in pit and gallery, which subsided only on his jovial thundering of the familiar sentence; whereupon laughter ensued, and a quieting hum of satisfaction.

It was a play that had been favoured with a great run. Critics had once objected to it, that it was made to subsist on scenery, a song, and a stupid piece of cockneyism pretending to be a jest, that was really no more than a form of slapping the public on the back. But the public likes to have its back slapped, and critics, frozen by the Medusa-head of Success, were soon taught manners. The office of critic is now, in fact, virtually extinct; the taste for tickling and slapping is universal and imperative; classic appeals to the intellect, and passions not purely domestic, have grown obsolete. There are captains of the legions, but no critics. The mass is lord.

And behold our friend the sailor of the boards, whose walk is even as two meeting billows, appears upon the lonely moor, and salts that uninhabited region with nautical interjections. Loose are his hose in one part, tight in another, and he smacks them. It is cold; so let that be his excuse for showing the bottom of his bottle to the glittering spheres. He takes perhaps a sturdier pull at the liquor than becomes a manifest instrument of Providence, whose services may be immediately required; but he informs us that his ship was never known not to right itself when called upon.

He is alone in the world, he tells us likewise. If his one friend, the uplifted flask, is his enemy, why then he feels bound to treat his enemy as his friend. This, with a pathetic allusion to his interior economy, which was applauded, and the remark “Ain’t that Christian?” which was just a trifle risky; so he secured pit and gallery at a stroke by a surpassingly shrewd blow at the bishops of our Church, who are, it can barely be contested, in foul esteem with the multitude—none can say exactly, for what reason—and must submit to be occasionally offered up as propitiatory sacrifices.

This good sailor was not always alone in the world. A sweet girl, whom he describes as reaching to his kneecap, and pathetically believes still to be of the same height, once called him brother Jack. To hear that name again from her lips, and a particular song!—he attempts it ludicrously, yet touchingly withal.

Hark! Is it an echo from a spirit in the frigid air?

The song trembled with a silver ring to the remotest corners of the house.

At that moment the breathless hush of the audience was flurried by hearing “Dahlia” called from the pit.

Algernon had been spying among the close-packed faces for a sight of Rhoda. Rhoda was now standing up amid gathering hisses and outcries. Her eyes were bent on a particular box, across which a curtain was hastily being drawn. “My sister!” she sent out a voice of anguish, and remained with clasped hands and twisted eyebrows, looking toward that one spot, as if she would have flown to it. She was wedged in the mass, and could not move.

The exclamation heard had belonged to brother Jack, on the stage, whose burst of fraternal surprise and rapture fell flat after it, to the disgust of numbers keenly awakened for the sentiment of this scene.

Roaring accusations that she was drunk; that she had just escaped from Bedlam for an evening; that she should be gagged and turned headlong out, surrounded her; but she stood like a sculptured figure, vital in her eyes alone. The farmer put his arm about his girl’s waist. The instant, however, that Anthony’s head uprose on the other side of her, the evil reputation he had been gaining for himself all through the evening produced a general clamour, over which the gallery played, miauling, and yelping like dogs that are never to be divorced from a noise. Algernon feared mischief. He quitted his seat, and ran out into the lobby.

Half-a-dozen steps, and he came in contact with some one, and they were mutually drenched with water by the shock. It was his cousin Edward, bearing a glass in his hand.

Algernon’s wrath at the sight of this offender was stimulated by the cold bath; but Edward cut him short.

“Go in there;” he pointed to a box-door. “A lady has fainted. Hold her up till I come.”

No time was allowed for explanation. Algernon passed into the box, and was alone with an inanimate shape in blue bournous. The uproar in the theatre raged; the whole pit was on its legs and shouting. He lifted the pallid head over one arm, miserably helpless and perplexed, but his anxiety concerning Rhoda’s personal safety in that sea of strife prompted him to draw back the curtain a little, and he stood exposed. Rhoda perceived him. She motioned with both her hands in dumb supplication. In a moment the curtain closed between them. Edward’s sharp white face cursed him mutely for his folly, while he turned and put the water to Dahlia’s lips, and touched her forehead with it.

“What’s the matter?” whispered Algernon.

“We must get her out as quick as we can. This is the way with women! Come! she’s recovering.” Edward nursed her sternly as he spoke.

“If she doesn’t, pretty soon, we shall have the pit in upon us,” said Algernon. “Is she that girl’s sister?”

“Don’t ask damned questions.”

Dahlia opened her eyes, staring placidly.

“Now you can stand up, my dear. Dahlia! all’s well. Try,” said Edward.

She sighed, murmuring, “What is the time?” and again, “What noise is it?”

Edward coughed in a vexed attempt at tenderness, using all his force to be gentle with her as he brought her to her feet. The task was difficult amid the threatening storm in the theatre, and cries of “Show the young woman her sister!” for Rhoda had won a party in the humane public.

“Dahlia, in God’s name give me your help!” Edward called in her ear.

The fair girl’s eyelids blinked wretchedly in protestation of her weakness. She had no will either way, and suffered herself to be led out of the box, supported by the two young men.

“Run for a cab,” said Edward; and Algernon went ahead.

He had one waiting for them as they came out. They placed Dahlia on a seat with care, and Edward, jumping in, drew an arm tightly about her. “I can’t cry,” she moaned.

The cab was driving off as a crowd of people burst from the pit-doors, and Algernon heard the voice of Farmer Fleming, very hoarse. He had discretion enough to retire.

CHAPTER XIII

Robert was to drive to the station to meet Rhoda and her father returning from London, on a specified day. He was eager to be asking cheerful questions of Dahlia’s health and happiness, so that he might dispel the absurd general belief that he had ever loved the girl, and was now regretting her absence; but one look at Rhoda’s face when she stepped from the railway carriage kept him from uttering a word on that subject, and the farmer’s heavier droop and acceptance of a helping hand into the cart, were signs of bad import.

Mr. Fleming made no show of grief, like one who nursed it. He took it to all appearance as patiently as an old worn horse would do, although such an outward submissiveness will not always indicate a placid spirit in men. He talked at stale intervals of the weather and the state of the ground along the line of rail down home, and pointed in contempt or approval to a field here and there; but it was as one who no longer had any professional interest in the tilling of the land.

Doubtless he was trained to have no understanding of a good to be derived by his communicating what he felt and getting sympathy. Once, when he was uncertain, and a secret pride in Dahlia’s beauty and accomplishments had whispered to him that her flight was possibly the opening of her road to a higher fortune, he made a noise for comfort, believing in his heart that she was still to be forgiven. He knew better now. By holding his peace he locked out the sense of shame which speech would have stirred within him.

“Got on pretty smooth with old Mas’ Gammon?” he expressed his hope; and Robert said, “Capitally. We shall make something out of the old man yet, never fear.”