Rhoda Fleming – Volume 5
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