Rhoda Fleming. Complete. George Meredith
the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.
But Dahlia’s sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She felt the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, “Good-bye, Edward.”
He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, “Good-bye, darling,” he said. “But I must see her sit to table first. Such a wretched dinner for her!” and he mumbled, “By Jove, I suppose I shan’t get any at all myself!” His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.
“Never mind,” he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully, thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.
For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold, the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and made no pretensions to allure it.
The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell, and said,—
“Dahlia, there—I’m going to dine with you, my love. I’ve rung the bell for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you don’t take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine out. The champagne, at all events, won’t be flat.”
He commenced humming the song of complacent resignation. Dahlia was still inanimate, but as the door was about to open, she rose quickly and sat in a tremble on the sofa, concealing her face.
An order was given for additional candles, coals, and wood. When the maid had disappeared Dahlia got on her feet, and steadied herself by the wall, tottering away to her chamber.
“Ah, poor thing!” ejaculated the young man, not without an idea that the demonstration was unnecessary. For what is decidedly disagreeable is, in a young man’s calculation concerning women, not necessary at all,—quite the reverse. Are not women the flowers which decorate sublunary life? It is really irritating to discover them to be pieces of machinery, that for want of proper oiling, creak, stick, threaten convulsions, and are tragic and stir us the wrong way. However, champagne does them good: an admirable wine—a sure specific for the sex!
He searched around for the keys to get at a bottle and uncork it forthwith. The keys were on the mantelpiece a bad comment on Dahlia’s housekeeping qualities; but in the hurry of action let it pass. He welcomed the candles gladly, and soon had all the cupboards in the room royally open.
Bustle is instinctively adopted by the human race as the substitute of comfort. He called for more lights, more plates, more knives and forks. He sent for ice the maid observed that it was not to be had save at a distant street: “Jump into a cab—champagne’s nothing without ice, even in Winter,” he said, and rang for her as she was leaving the house, to name a famous fishmonger who was sure to supply the ice.
The establishment soon understood that Mr. Ayrton intended dining within those walls. Fresh potatoes were put on to boil. The landlady came up herself to arouse the fire. The maid was for a quarter of an hour hovering between the order to get ice and the execution of immediate commands. One was that she should take a glass of champagne to Mrs. Ayrton in her room. He drank off one himself. Mrs. Ayrton’s glass being brought back untouched, he drank that off likewise, and as he became more exhilarated, was more considerate for her, to such a degree, that when she appeared he seized her hands and only jestingly scolded her for her contempt of sound medicine, declaring, in spite of her protestations, that she was looking lovely, and so they sat down to their dinner, she with an anguished glance at the looking-glass as she sank in her chair.
“It’s not bad, after all,” said he, drenching his tasteless mouthful of half-cold meat with champagne. “The truth is, that Clubs spoil us. This is Spartan fare. Come, drink with me, my dearest. One sip.”
She was coaxed by degrees to empty a glass. She had a gentle heart, and could not hold out long against a visible lively kindliness. It pleased him that she should bow to him over fresh bubbles; and they went formally through the ceremony, and she smiled. He joked and laughed and talked, and she eyed him a faint sweetness. He perceived now that she required nothing more than the restoration of her personal pride, and setting bright eyes on her, hazarded a bold compliment.
Dahlia drooped like a yacht with idle sails struck by a sudden blast, that dips them in the salt; but she raised her face with the full bloom of a blush: and all was plain sailing afterward.
“Has my darling seen her sister?” he asked softly.
Dahlia answered, “No,” in the same tone.
Both looked away.
“She won’t leave town without seeing you?”
“I hope—I don’t know. She—she has called at our last lodgings twice.”
“Alone?”
“Yes; I think so.”
Dahlia kept her head down, replying; and his observation of her wavered uneasily.
“Why not write to her, then?”
“She will bring father.”
The sob thickened in her throat; but, alas for him who had at first, while she was on the sofa, affected to try all measures to revive her, that I must declare him to know well how certain was his mastery over her, when his manner was thoroughly kind. He had not much fear of her relapsing at present.
“You can’t see your father?”
“No.”
“But, do. It’s best.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Not—” she hesitated, and clasped her hands in her lap.
“Yes, yes; I know,” said he; “but still! You could surely see him. You rouse suspicions that need not exist. Try another glass, my dear.”
“No more.”
“Well; as I was saying, you force him to think—and there is no necessity for it. He maybe as hard on this point as you say; but now and then a little innocent deception maybe practised. We only require to gain time. You place me in a very hard position. I have a father too. He has his own idea of things. He’s a proud man, as I’ve told you; tremendously ambitious, and he wants to push me, not only at the bar, but in the money market matrimonial. All these notions I have to contend against. Things can’t be done at once. If I give him a shock—well, we’ll drop any consideration of the consequences. Write to your sister to tell her to bring your father. If they make particular inquiries—very unlikely I think—but, if they do, put them at their ease.”
She sighed.
“Why was my poor darling so upset, when I came in?” said he.
There was a difficulty in her speaking. He waited with much patient twiddling of bread crumbs; and at last she said:
“My sister called twice at my—our old lodgings. The second time, she burst into tears. The girl told me so.”
“But women cry so often, and for almost anything, Dahlia.”
“Rhoda cries with her hands closed hard, and her eyelids