By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
Anthony turned and struck the farmers knee.
Youve got a jewel in that gal, brother William John.
Eh! shes a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too much of a thinker, I reckon. Shes got a temper of her own too. Im a bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if she dont alter. Its flightiness; thats all. You mustnt think ill of poor Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they act up to it: she was her mothers favourite.
Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord.
She was, said the farmer, bowing his head.
And a good wife, Anthony interjected.
None betternever a better; and I wish she was living to look after her girls.
I came through the churchyard, hard by, said Anthony; and I read that writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and, thinks I to myself, you might ask me, Id do anything for yethat I could, of course.
The farmers eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the characteristic reservation.
Nobodyd ask you to do more than you could, he remarked, rather coldly.
Itll never be much, sighed Anthony.
Well, the worlds nothing, if you come to look at it close, the farmer adopted a similar tone.
Whats money! said Anthony.
The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
Well, its fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that, he said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
What do you call having money? observed the latter, clearly in the trap. Fifty thousand?
Whew! went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
Ten thousand?
Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still kindly.
Come, quoth Anthony, ten thousands not so mean, you know. Youre a gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. Ill tell ye, many a gentlemand be glad to own it. Lor bless you! But, you know nothing of the world, brother William John. Some of em havent oneaint so rich as you!
Or you, brother Tony? The farmer made a grasp at his will-o-the-wisp.
Oh! me! Anthony sniggered. Im a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews aint such fools, though a curse is on em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No; Im not to be compared to gentlemen. My propertys my respectability. I said that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, Ill tell you what, brother William John, its an emotion when youve got bags of thousands of pounds in your arms.
Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the riches possessed by his wifes brother, that a very little tempted him to childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony himself furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth. He had, besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever accustomed to take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him that Anthony was really about to be seduced into a particular statement of the extent of the property which formed his respectability (as Anthony had chosen to put it), he got up a little game in his head by guessing how much the amount might positively be, so that he could subsequently compare his shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed his wild ideas as much as possible; thought over what his wife used to say of Anthonys saving ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of the Funds, of many bold strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of Anthonys close style of living, and of the lives of celebrated misers; this done, he resolved to make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below the mark.
Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred poundsoutlying debts, or so, excludedas what Anthonys will, in all likelihood, would be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand. Bequeathedhow? To him and to his children. But to the children in reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning no more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot across him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and died to enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could not refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering his age. The farmer thought of his own health, and it was with a pang that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants from out the muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not have to pay a higher rate of interest than he.
Are you insured, brother Tony? the question escaped him.
No, I aint, brother William John; Anthony went on nodding like an automaton set in motion. Theres two sides to that. Im a long-lived man. Long-lived men dont insure; that is, unless theyre fools. Thats how the Offices thrive.
Case of accident? the farmer suggested.
Oh! nothing happens to me, replied Anthony.
The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?
With all my heart, brother William John.
The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that the farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly a generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came back to the women, and tea, the farmers mind was cooler, and all his reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea.
What is the matter, father? said Rhoda.
Ill tell you, my dear, Anthony replied for him. Hes envying me some one I want to ask me that question when Im at my tea in London.
CHAPTER IV
Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughters good-night kiss until the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily, he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses on a visit to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path had opened to his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think nothing of it; to dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessedand what that might amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to give advice to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened to good and wise things.
Your sister, he saidbut we wont speak of her. If I could part with you, my lass, Id rather she was the one to come back.
Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now, said Rhoda.
Ay, the farmer mused. If shed got to pay six men every Saturday night, she wouldnt complain o the quiet. But, thereyou neither of you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be proud to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And if, youve been dull, my dear, whats the good o society? Tea-cakes maynt seem to cost money, nor a glass o grog to neighbours; but once open the door to that sort o thing and your reckoning goes. And what I said to your poor mothers true. I said: Our girls, theyre mayhap not equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about hereno; theyre not equals, because the others are not equals o them, maybe.
The yeomans pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society of girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.
Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy of her sisters embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had become.
Depend you on it, my dear, said Mrs. Sumfit, my Dahlys grown above him. Thats nettles to your uncle, my dear. He cant abide it. Dont you see he cant? Some mens like that. Others d see you dressed like a princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin creatures! But one and all, whether they likes it or not, owns a womans the better for bein dressed in the fashion. What do grieve me to my insidest heart, it is your bonnet. What a bonnet that was lying beside her dear round arm in the potrait, and her finger up making a dimple in her cheek, as if she was thinking of us in a sorrowful way. Thats the arts o being lady-likelook sad-like. How could we get a bonnet for you?
My own must do, said Rhoda.
Yes, and you to look like lady and servant-gal a-goin out for an airin; and she to feel it! Pretty, thatd be!
She wont be ashamed of me, Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little tune, and said firmlyIts no use my trying to look like what Im not.
No, truly; Mrs. Sumfit assented. But its your bein behind the fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me, for any pleasant looks youll git. Now, the countryyoure like in a coalhole for the matter o that. While London, my dear, its pavement and gutter, and omnibus traffic; and if youre not in the fashion, the little wicked boys of the streets themselves ll let you know it; theyve got such eyes for fashions, they have. And I dont want my Dahlys sister to be laughed at, and called coal-scuttle, as happened to me, my dear, believe it or notand shoved aside, and said toWho are you? For she reely is nice-looking. Your uncle Anthony and Mr. Robert agreed upon that.
Rhoda coloured, and said, after a time, It would please me if people didnt speak about my looks.
The looking-glass probably told her no more than that she was nice to the eye, but a young man who sees anything should not see like a mirror, and a girls instinct whispers to her, that her image has not been taken to heart when she is accurately and impartially described by him.
The key to Rhoda at this period was a desire to be made warm with praise of her person. She beheld her face at times, and shivered. The face was so strange with its dark thick eyebrows, and peculiarly straight-gazing brown eyes; the level long red under-lip and curved upper; and the chin and nose, so unlike Dahlias, whose nose was, after a little dip from the forehead, one soft line to its extremity, and whose chin seemed shaped to a cup. Rhodas outlines were harder. There was a suspicion of a heavenward turn to her nose, and of squareness to her chin. Her face, when studied, inspired in its owners mind a doubt of her being even nice to the eye, though she knew that in exercise, and when smitten by a blush, brightness and colour aided her claims. She knew also that her head was easily poised on her neck; and that her figure was reasonably good; but all this was unconfirmed knowledge, quickly shadowed by the doubt. As the sun is wanted to glorify the right features of a landscape, this girl thirsted for a dose of golden flattery. She felt, without envy of her sister, that Dahlia eclipsed her: and all she prayed for was that she might not be quite so much in the background and obscure.
But great, powerful Londonthe new universe to her spiritwas opening its arms to her. In her half sleep that night she heard the mighty thunder of the city, crashing, tumults of disordered harmonies, and the splendour of the lamp-lighted city appeared to hang up under a dark-blue heaven, removed from earth, like a fresh planet to which she was being beckoned.
At breakfast on the Sunday morning, her departure was necessarily spoken of in public. Robert talked to her exactly as he had talked to Dahlia, on the like occasion. He mentioned, as she remembered in one or two instances, the names of the same streets, and professed a similar anxiety as regarded driving her to the station and catching the train. Thats a thing which makes a man feel his strengths nothing, he said. You cant stop it. I fancy I could stop a four-in-hand at full gallop. Mind, I only fancy I could; but when you come to do with iron and steam, I feel like a baby. You cant stop trains.
You can trip em, said Anthony, a remark that called forth general laughter, and increased the impression that he was a man of resources.
Rhoda was vexed by Roberts devotion to his strength. She was going, and wished to go, but she wished to be regretted as well; and she looked at him more. He, on the contrary, scarcely looked at her at all. He threw verbal turnips, oats, oxen, poultry, and every possible melancholy matter-of-fact thing, about the table, described the farm and his fondness for it and the neighbourhood; said a farmers life was best, and gave Rhoda a week in which to be tired of London.
She sneered in her soul, thinking how little he knows of the constancy in the nature of women! adding, when they form attachments.
Anthony was shown at church, in spite of a feeble intimation he expressed, that it would be agreeable to him to walk about in the March sunshine, and see the grounds and the wild flowers, which never gave trouble, nor cost a penny, and were always pretty, and worth twenty of your artificial contrivances.
Same as I say to Miss Dahly, he took occasion to remark; but no!no good. I dont believe women hear ye, when you talk sense of that kind. Look, says I, at a violet. Look, says she, at a rose. Well, what can ye say after that? She swears the rose looks best. You swear the violet costs least. Then there you have a battle between what it costs and how it looks.
Robert pronounced a conventional affirmative, when called on for it by a look from Anthony. Whereupon Rhoda cried out,
Dahlia was rightshe was right, uncle.
She was right, my dear, if she was a ten-thousander. She wasnt right as a farmers daughter with poor expectations.Id say humble, if humble she were. As a farmers daughter, she should choose the violet side. Thats clear as day. One things good, I admit; she tells me she makes her own bonnets, and theyre as good as milliners, and thats a proud matter to say of your own niece. And to buy dresses for herself, I suppose, shes sat down and she made dresses for fine ladies. Ive found her at it. Save the money for the work, says I. What does she replyshe always has a reply: Uncle, I know the value of money better. You mean, you spend it, I says to her. I buy more than its worth, says she. And Ill tell you what, Mr. Robert Armstrong, as I find your name to be, sir; if you beat women at talking, my lord! youre a clever chap.