Chapter X Third Time of Asking
The circumstances and necessities of Bartley Crocker’s wooing were peculiar, because one-sided. Rhoda naturally never assisted him; indeed, many carefully laid plans for meeting were consciously frustrated by her when she chanced to learn them. At last, however, thanks to Margaret’s aid, opportunity fell for a final proposal, and Bartley used it to the best of his power. A day came when David drove Madge over to Tavistock to look at certain houses, and Rhoda stopped at home.
Her own plans began to be very doubtful now, and choice lay before her of returning to her father or continuing to live with David. Her love had made light even of Tavistock; but, in a town, Rhoda’s occupation would be gone: at such a place she must cease to justify existence. Her greatest sorrow was reached at thought of living away from David; and a second emotion, only less disturbing, made decision doubly difficult. The apparent complications and secrets of her sister-in-law’s life had first alarmed Rhoda, and now they angered her. She read the facts in the light of her own wisdom, and her wisdom led her wide of the mark. She believed that Crocker was using alleged love of her as a pretence and excuse for very different affection. Some such dim thought had long haunted her, and it remained for Dorcas and her brutal speeches to convince Rhoda that she did Margaret no wrong by the suspicion. In sober truth Rhoda had felt shame upon herself when first the fear arose; but then came her hidden watches, the spectacle of familiar meetings and the vigorous word of Mrs. Screech. She knew that Dorcas loved Madge and had not spoken to injure David’s wife. Her sister, indeed, evidently approved; and the circumstance convinced Rhoda that her opinion of Dorcas was correct.
And now, upon restless loneliness, came Crocker knowing that he would find her alone. He sneered at himself for a fool as he knocked at the door of ‘Meavy Cot’; but he had sworn to ask her thrice and would not go from his word, though the vanity of troubling her a third time was very clear to him.
After noon on a late autumn day did Bartley call, and Rhoda, not guessing who it was that knocked, but thinking it to be one of her brothers, who was due from Ditsworthy, cried out, “Come in!”
She was eating her dinner of a baked potato, bread, cold mutton, and a glass of water; and she leapt up as Mr. Crocker appeared.
“Go on,” he said. “Please go on—or I’ll walk about outside till you’ve finished, if you’d rather I did.”
“I thought ’twas my brother,” she said. “I’ve done my food. David’s not at home, if you want him.”
“I know,” he answered. “I’ve come to see the only one who was at home; and that’s yourself.”
She stood by the table. Her mind moved swiftly. She sought to find some advantage in this meeting; but she could not think what to say. David was her sole thought, and how best to serve him she knew not.
“It’s a long time since I had a chance to speak to you,” said the visitor, “and I’m afraid, from your looks, you wouldn’t have given me the chance even now if you hadn’t been caught and cornered. But there’s no need for you to grudge ten minutes of talk. ’Twill be the last time—unless there’s a glimmer of another sort of feeling in you.”
Her way of escape seemed to lie through this man’s departure alone. She hated every tone of his voice and wished that he was dead.
“If you’re going out of it, ’twill be by the blessing of God for all in this house,” she answered.
He started and his colour changed to pale.
“A glimmer of another sort of feeling with a vengeance!” he said. “But not the sort I was still fond fool enough to hope for. You shall talk, since you’re so fired to do it, and I’ll listen. Yes, I’m going. And you won’t come?”
Her silence spoke scornfully.
“Well,” he continued, “I’m paid what I deserve, I suppose: I’ve made you loathe me instead of love me. It’s bad luck, for I’ve felt for three years—however, such queer things often happen.”
“You never loved a woman like a decent man, for ’tisn’t in you to do it,” she said. “You think you hide yourself; but you don’t. You’re evil all through, and the touch of you is evil.”
“Why do you say these harsh things? What have I done but court you like an honest man and a patient one?”
“Ask yourself—not me. Ask yourself what you’ve been doing, and plotting, and amusing yourself about of late. Ask yourself who ’tis you meet in this place and that!”
“Well, I never! So you’ve been interested in me all the time! Interested enough to care what I was doing and thinking about. By all right understanding that ought to mean you cared a bit for me. Women don’t spy on a man, save for love or hate. And hate me you can’t without a cause, though you speak and look as if you did. If I thought you were jealous—but that’s too good to be true. Who is it? Out with it.’ At least I’ve a right to know who ’tis that I meet so secret while you peep at us.”
He bantered her and cared little that she grew rosy and furious; for he knew it was all over now and that they would probably never speak together again.
“You ask that and pretend—and pretend!” she burst out. “As if it might be a score of women! But I know, and ’twasn’t for love nor yet hate that I watched you—not for love of you or her anyway.”
“Come now—no puzzles! Then I’m after another man’s sweetheart on the quiet. Is that it? Well, who is she? I’ve a right to know in the face of such a charge.”
“You’re after another man’s wife,” she said, and faced him without flinching. But still he laughed.
“You maidens! What hen dragons of virtue you are, to be sure. ‘Another man’s wife’—eh? Then no wonder you look a thought awry at me. Poor fellow! He’s terribly wronged, to be sure. Have you told him what I’m doing? Or are you in love with this other chap?”
“Go,” she said furiously. “You know the truth in your wicked heart, and I know it, and it’s devilish in you to take it like this. I’ll suffer no more of you; I’ll never breathe the same air with you no more;—and them I care about shan’t, if I can help it. You ought to be torn in a thousand pieces by honest men and women—vile thing that you are!”
He sat down calmly and patted a dog that rose from the hearth and growled at him in some uneasiness before Rhoda’s fury.
“Can’t leave you like this—must understand what you’re driving at,” he declared.
“Then I’ll go,” she said. “What do you take me for? Have you sunk so low that you don’t know a clean-minded creature when you meet one? I’m not a fool, and I am not blind; and I’ve seen too well what’s been doing of late; therefore I warn you to be gone afore the storm is let loose on you.”
“No fear of missing the storm while you’re about. And off I shall be ere long now. There’s nothing more to keep me, since you’ve gone out of your wits. All the same, I believe you’ve thrust yourself under the law for such talk as this. To tell me I’m going wrong with a married woman! Damn it all, Rhoda, what nasty thoughts have crept into your head? Why don’t you name her and have done with it? ’Tis bad enough to know you hate me; but hear this: May the Almighty find and finish me where I sit if—”
“Don’t!” she cried out. “Don’t take His name here and belike leave your stricken dust rooted in that chair for me to watch till others come! I’ll hear no oath and I’ll name no names. I know you—I’ve seen it—I’ve heard it—heard it from another as quick to do evil as ever you was.”
“By God, this is too bad!” he cried, leaping up. “You—you to accuse me of loose conduct and wrong-doing! Look to your eyes that have seen what never happened; and your ears that have listened to lies; and your tongue too—your tongue that can talk thus to a man who loved you truly and uprightly and has kept as straight as yourself from the day he loved you and longed for you! You can’t love me and I don’t blame you there. You can’t love me; but is that a just reason why you should lie about me? See to yourself, Rhoda, and you’ll find a bitter weed in your own heart that’s better out and away. And threaten no more neither. You may drag me as deep as you please through the dirt that’s got into your mind—God help you; but don’t drag some innocent woman through it. Anyway, you’ll never see my face again—spy as you may—for I shall be gone for good in a month or two.”
She did not answer and he abruptly left her. He was very angry, very startled, and very shocked that she could believe and repeat such a monstrous error. He cast about for some ground in reason, and examined his life. He could only think of the meetings with Margaret Bowden; but that these were actually what Rhoda referred to did not even occur to him. He had, as a matter of fact, travelled recently as far as Plymouth with a woman, but she was Rhoda’s own widowed sister from Ditsworthy, and it seemed impossible that she could refer to her.
He puzzled to know what this assault might mean; but apart from these unexpected circumstances attending her refusal, the final negative was all that mattered. That she believed him a libertine soon ceased to trouble Hartley. His anger swiftly vanished before the immediate interest of the future. Nothing remained but to follow his previous plans and depart. He had only waited for Rhoda and now the coast was clear. Before he reached home, he had finally determined to leave England early in the new year.