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The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




Vizard, however, was not pleased.

"You go with her, Ned," said he. "Miss Dover prefers to stay and smoke a
cigar with me."

Miss Dover's face reddened, but she never budged. And it ended in Zoe
taking Severne with her to call on Rhoda Gale.

Rhoda Gale stayed in the garden till sunset, and then went to her
lodgings slowly, for they had no attraction--a dark room; no supper; a
hard landlady, half disposed to turn her out.

Dr. Rhoda Gale never reflected much in the streets; they were to her a
field of minute observation; but, when she got home she sat down and
thought over what she had been saying and doing, and puzzled over the
character of the man who had relieved her hunger and elicited her
autobiography. She passed him in review; settled in her mind that he was
a strong character; a manly man, who did not waste words; wondered a
little at the way he had made her do whatever he pleased; blushed a
little at the thought of having been so communicative; yet admired the
man for having drawn her out so; and wondered whether she should see him
again. She hoped she should. But she did not feel sure.

She sat half an hour thus--with one knee raised a little, and her hands
interlaced--by a fire-place with a burned-out coal in it; and by-and-by
she felt hungry again. But she had no food, and no money.

She looked hard at her ring, and profited a little by contact with the
sturdy good sense of Vizard.

She said to herself, "Men understand one another. I believe father would
be angry with me for not."

Then she looked tenderly and wistfully at the ring, and kissed it, and
murmured, "Not to-night." You see she hoped she might have a letter in
the morning, and so respite her ring.

Then she made light of it, and said to herself, "No matter; 'qui dort,
dine.' "

But as it was early for bed, and she could not be long idle, sipping no
knowledge, she took up the last good German work that she had bought when
she had money, and proceeded to read. She had no candle, but she had a
lucifer-match or two, and an old newspaper. With this she made long
spills, and lighted one, and read two pages by that paper torch, and
lighted another before it was out, and then another, and so on in
succession, fighting for knowledge against poverty, as she had fought for
it against perfidy.

While she was thus absorbed, a carriage drew up at the door. She took no
notice of that; but presently there was a rustling of silk on the stairs,
and two voices, and then a tap at the door. "Come in," said she; and Zoe
entered just as the last spill burned out.

Rhoda Gale rose in a dark room; but a gas-light over the way just showed
her figure. "Miss Gale?" said Zoe, timidly.

"I am Miss Gale," said Rhoda, quietly, but firmly.

"I am Miss Vizard--the gentleman's sister that you met in Leicester
Square to-day;" and she took a cautious step toward her.

Rhoda's cheeks burned.

"Miss Vizard," she said, "excuse my receiving you so; but you may have
heard I am very poor. My last candle is gone. But perhaps the landlady
would lend me one. I don't know. She is very disobliging, and very
cruel."

"Then she shall not have the honor of lending you a candle," said Zoe,
with one of her gushes. "Now, to tell the truth," said she, altering to
the cheerful, "I'm rather glad. I would rather talk to you in the dark
for a little, just at first. May I?" By this time she had gradually crept
up to Rhoda.

"I am afraid you _must,"_ said Rhoda. "But at least I can offer you a
seat."

Zoe sat down, and there was an awkward silence.

"Oh, dear," said Zoe; "I don't know how to begin. I wish you would give
me your hand, as I can't see your face."

"With all my heart: there."

(Almost in a whisper) "He has told me."

Rhoda put the other hand to her face, though it was so dark.

"Oh, Miss Gale, how _could_ you? Only think! Suppose you had killed
yourself, or made yourself very ill. Your mother would have come directly
and found you so; and only think how unhappy you would have made her."

"Can I have forgotten my mother?" asked Rhoda of herself, but aloud.

"Not willfully, I am sure. But you know geniuses are not always wise in
these little things. They want some good humdrum soul to advise them in
the common affairs of life. That want is supplied you now; for _I_ am
here--ha-ha!"

"You are no more commonplace than I am; much less now, I'll be bound."

"We will put that to the test," said Zoe, adroitly enough. _"My_ view of
all this is--that here is a young lady in want of money _for a time,_ as
everybody is now and then, and that the sensible course is to borrow some
till your mother comes over with her apronful of dollars. Now, I have
twenty pounds to lend, and, if you are so mighty sensible as you say, you
won't refuse to borrow it."

"Oh, Miss Vizard, you are very good; but I am afraid and ashamed to
borrow. I never did such a thing."

"Time you began, then. _I_ have--often. But it is no use arguing. You
_must--_or you will get poor me finely scolded. Perhaps he was on his
good behavior with you, being a stranger; but at home they expect to be
obeyed. He will be sure to say it was my stupidity, and that _he_ would
have made you directly."

"Do tell!" cried Rhoda, surprised into an idiom; "as if I'd have taken
money from _him!"_

"Why, of course not; but between _us_ it is nothing at all. There:" and
she put the money into Rhoda's hand, and then held both hand and money
rather tightly imprisoned in her larger palm, and began to chatter, so as
to leave the other no opening. "Oh, blessed darkness! how easy it makes
things! does it not? I am glad there was no candle; we should have been
fencing and blushing ever so long, and made such a fuss about
nothing--and--"

This prattle was interrupted by Rhoda Gale putting her right wrist round
Zoe's neck, and laying her forehead on her shoulder with a little sob. So
then they both distilled the inevitable dew-drops.

But as Rhoda was not much given that way, she started up, and said,
"Darkness? No; I must see the face that has come here to help me, and not
humiliate me. That is the first use I'll make of the money. I am afraid
you are rather plain, or you couldn't be so good as all this."

"No," said Zoe. "I'm not reckoned plain; only as black as a coal."

"All the more to my taste," said Rhoda, and flew out of the room, and
nearly stumbled over a figure seated on a step of the staircase. "Who are
you?" said she, sharply.

"My name is Severne."

"And what are you doing there?"

"Waiting for Miss Vizard."

"Come in, then."

"She told me not."

"Then I tell you _to._ The idea! Miss Vizard!"

"Yes!"

"Please have Mr. Severne in. Here he is sitting--like Grief--on the
steps. I will soon be back."

She flew to the landlady. "Mrs. Grip, I want a candle."

"Well, the shops are open," said the woman, rudely.

"Oh, I have no time. Here is a sovereign. Please give me two candles
directly, candlesticks and all."

The woman's manner changed directly.

"You shall have them this moment, miss, and my own candlesticks, which
they are plated."

She brought them, and advised her only to light one. "They don't carry
well, miss," said she. "They are wax--or summat."

"Then they are summat," said Miss Gale, after a single glance at their
composition.

"I'll make you a nice hot supper, miss, in half an hour," said the woman,
maternally, as if she were going to _give_ it her.

"No, thank you. Bring me a two-penny loaf, and a scuttle of coals."

"La, miss, no more than that--out of a sov'?"

"Yes--THE CHANGE."

Having shown Mrs. Grip her father was a Yankee, she darted upstairs, with
her candles. Zoe came to meet her, and literally dazzled her.

Rhoda stared at her with amazement and growing rapture. "Oh, you beauty!"
she cried, and drank her in from head to foot.

"Well," said she, drawing a long breath, "Nature, you have turned out a
_com-_plete article this time, I reckon." Then, as Severne laughed
merrily at this, she turned her candle and her eyes full on him very
briskly. She looked at him for a moment, with a gratified eye at his
comeliness; then she started. "Oh!" she cried.

He received the inspection merrily, till she uttered that ejaculation,
then he started a little, and stared at her.

"We have met before," said she, almost tenderly.

"Have we?" said he, putting on a mystified air.

She fixed him, and looked him through and through.
"You--don't--remember--me?" asked she. Then, after giving him plenty of
time to answer, "Well, then, I must be mistaken;" and her words seemed to
freeze themselves and her as they fell.

She turned her back on him, and said to Zoe, with a good deal of
sweetness and weight, "I have lived to see goodness and beauty united. I
will never despair of human nature."

This was too pointblank for Zoe; she blushed crimson, and said archly, "I
think it is time for me to run. Oh, but I forgot; here is my card. We are
all at that hotel. If I am so very attractive, you will come and see
me--we leave town very soon--will you?"

"I will," said Rhoda.

"And since you took me for an old acquaintance, I hope you will treat me
as one," said Severne, with consummate grace and assurance.

"I will, _sir,"_ said she, icily, and with a marvelous curl of the lip
that did not escape him.

She lighted them down the stairs, gazed after Zoe, and ignored Severne
altogether.



CHAPTER XV.

GOING home in the carriage, Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen
to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from
dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of
small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics
were, that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for
his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her
true line was governess--for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon
that favorite butt, a friend.

"Who but a _soi-disant_ woman-hater would pick up a strange virago and
send his sister to her with twenty pounds? I'll tell you what it is, Miss
Vizard--"

Here Miss Vizard, who had sat dead silent under a flow of words, which is
merely indicated above, laid her hand on his arm to stop the flux for a
moment, and said, quietly, _"Do_ you know her? tell me."

"Know her! How should I?"

"I thought you might have met her--abroad."

"Well, it is possible, of course, but very unlikely. If I did, I never
spoke to her, or I should have remembered her. _Don't you think so?"_

"She seemed very positive; and I think she is an accurate person. She
seemed quite surprised and mortified when you said 'No.'"

"Well, you know, of course it is a mortifying thing when a lady claims a
gentleman's acquaintance, and the gentleman doesn't admit it. But what
could I do? I couldn't tell a lie about it--could I?"

"Of course not."

"I was off my guard, and rudish; but you were not. What tact! what
delicacy! what high breeding and angelic benevolence! And so clever,
too!"

"Oh, fie! you listened!"

"You left the door ajar, and I could not bear to lose a word that dropped
from those lips so near me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as
only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly
art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. 'We
are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe
Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! you'll never see a shilling
of it again! No matter. What do angels want of money?"

"Oh, pray," said Zoe, "you make me blush!"

"Then I wish there was more light to see it--yes, an angel. Do you think
I can't see you have done all this for a lady you do not really approve?
Fancy--a she doctor!"

"My dear friend," said Zoe, with a little juvenile pomposity, "one ought
not to judge one's intellectual superiors hastily, and this lady is
ours"--then, gliding back to herself, "and it is my nature to approve
what those I love approve--when it is not downright wrong, you know."

"Oh, of course it is not wrong; but is it wise?"

Zoe did not answer: the question puzzled her.

"Come," said he, "I'll be frank, and speak out in time. I don't think you
know your brother Harrington. He is very inflammable."

"Inflammable! What! Harrington? Well, yes; for I've seen smoke issue from
his mouth--ha! ha!"

"Ha! ha! I'll pass that off for mine, some day when you are not by. But,
seriously, your brother is the very man to make a fool of himself with a
certain kind of woman. He despises the whole sex--in theory, and he is
very hard upon ordinary women, and does not appreciate their good
qualities. But, when he meets a remarkable woman, he catches fire like
tow. He fell in love with Mademoiselle Klosking."

"Oh, not in love!"

"I beg your pardon. Now, this is between you and me--he was in love with
her, madly in love. He was only saved by our coming away. If those two
had met and made acquaintance, he would have been at her mercy. I don't
say any harm would have come of it; but I do say that would have depended
on the woman, and not on the man."

Zoe looked very serious, and said nothing. But her long silence showed
him his words had told.

"And now," said he, after a judicious pause, "here is another remarkable
woman; the last in the world I should fancy, or Vizard either, perhaps,
if he met her in society. But the whole thing occurs in the way to catch
him. He finds a lady fainting with hunger; he feeds her; and that softens
his heart to her. Then she tells him the old story--victim of the world's
injustice--and he is deeply interested in her. She can see that; she is
as keen as a razor. If those two meet a few more times, he will be at her
mercy; and then won't she throw physic to the dogs, and jump at a husband
six feet high, and twelve thousand acres! I don't study women with a
microscope, as our woman-hater does, but I notice a few things about
them; and one is, that their eccentricities all give way at the first
offer of marriage. I believe they are only adopted in desperation, to get
married. What beautiful woman is ever eccentric? catch her! she can get a
husband without. That doctress will prescribe Harrington a wedding-ring;
and, if he swallows it, it will be her last prescription. She will send
out for the family doctor after that, like other wives."

"You alarm me," said Zoe. "Pray do not make me unjust. This is a lady
with a fine mind, and, not a designing woman."

"Oh, I don't say she has laid any plans; but these things are always
extemporized the moment the chance comes. You can count beforehand on the
instinct of every woman who is clever and needy, and on Vizard's peculiar
weakness for women out of the common. He is hard upon the whole sex; but
he is no match for individuals. He owned as much himself to me one day.
You are not angry with me!"

"No, no. Angry with _you?"_

"It is you I think of in all this. He is a fine fellow, and you are proud
of him. I wouldn't have him marry to mortify you. For myself, while the
sister honors me with her regard, I really don't much care who has the
brother and the acres. I have the best of the bargain."

Zoe disputed this--in order to make him say it several times.

He did, and proved it in terms that made her cheeks red with modesty and
gratified pride; and by the time they had got home, he had flattered
everything but pride, love, and happiness out of her heart, poor girl.

The world is like the Law, full of implied contracts: we give and take,
without openly agreeing to. Subtle Severne counted on this, and was not
disappointed. Zoe rewarded him for his praises, and her happiness, by
falling into his views about Rhoda Gale. Only she did it in her own
lady-like way, and not plump.

She came up to Harrington and kissed him, and said, "Thank you, dear, for
sending me on a good errand. I found her in a very mean apartment,
without fire or candle."

"I thought as much," said Vizard.

"Did she take the money?"

"Yes--as a loan."

"Make any difficulties?"

"A little, dear."

Severne put in his word. "Now, if you want to know all the tact and
delicacy with which it was done, you must come to me; for Miss Vizard is
not going to give you any idea of it."

"Be quiet, sir, or I shall be very angry. I lent her the money, dear, and
her troubles are at an end; for her mother will certainly join her before
she has spent your twenty pounds. Oh! and she had not parted with her
ring; that is a comfort, is it not?"

"You are a good-hearted girl, Zoe," said Vizard, approvingly; then,
recovering himself, "But don't you be blinded by sentiment. She deserves
a good hiding for not parting with her ring. Where is the sense of
starving, with thirty pounds on your finger?"

Zoe smiled, and said his words were harder than his deeds.

"Because he doesn't mean a word he says," put in Fanny Dover, uneasy at
the long cessation of her tongue, for all conversation with Don Cigar had
proved impracticable.

"Are you there still, my Lady Disdain?" said Vizard. "I thought you were
gone to bed."

"You might well think that. I had nothing to keep me up."

Said Zoe, rather smartly, "Oh, yes, you had--Curiosity;" then, turning to
her brother, "In short, you make your mind quite easy. You have lent your
money, or given it, to a worthy person, but a little wrong-headed.
However"--with a telegraphic glance at Severne--"she is very
accomplished; a linguist: she need never be in want; and she will soon
have her mother to help her and advise her. Perhaps Mrs. Gale has an
income; if not, Miss Gale, with her abilities, will easily find a place
in some house of business, or else take to teaching. If I was them, I
would set up a school."

Unanimity is rare in this world; but Zoe's good sense carried every vote.
Her prompter, Severne, nodded approval. Fanny said, "Why, of course;" and
Vizard, who it was feared might prove refractory, assented even more
warmly than the others. "Yes," said he, "that will be the end of it. You
relieve me of a weight. Really, when she told me that fable of learning
maltreated, honorable ambition punished, justice baffled by trickery, and
virtue vilified, and did not cry like the rest of you, except at her
father dying in New York the day she won her diploma at Montpelier, I
forgave the poor girl her petticoats; indeed, I lost sight of them. She
seemed to me a very brave little fellow, damnably ill used, and I said,
'This is not to be borne. Here is a fight, and justice down under dirty
feet.' What, ho!" (roaring at the top of his voice).

_Zoe and Fanny_ (screaming, and pinching Ned Severne right and left).
"Ah! ah!"

"Vizard to the rescue!"

"But, with the evening, cool reflection came. A sister, youthful, but
suddenly sagacious (with a gleam of suspicion), very suddenly has stilled
the waves of romance, and the lips of beauty have uttered common sense.
Shall they utter it in vain? Never! It may be years before they do it
again. We must not slight rare phenomena. Zoe _locuta est--_Eccentricity
must be suppressed. Doctresses, warned by a little starvation, must take
the world as it is, and teach little girls and boys languages, and physic
them with arithmetic and the globes: these be drugs that do not kill;
they only make life a burden. I don't think we have laid out our twenty
pounds badly, Zoe, and there is an end of it. The incident is emptied, as
the French say, and (lighting bed-candles) the ladies retire with the
honors of war. Zoe has uttered good sense, and Miss Dover has done the
next best thing; she has said very little--"

Miss Dover shot in contemptuously, "I had no companion--"

--"For want of a fool to speak her mind to."



CHAPTER XVI.

INGENIOUS Mr. Severne having done his best to detach the poor doctress
from Vizard and his family, in which the reader probably discerns his
true motive, now bent his mind on slipping back to Homburg and looking
after his money. Not that he liked the job. To get hold of it, he knew he
must condense rascality; he must play the penitent, the lover, and the
scoundrel over again, all in three days.

Now, though his egotism was brutal, he was human in this, that he had
plenty of good nature skin-deep, and superficial sensibilities, which
made him shrink a little from this hot-pressed rascality and barbarity.
On the other hand, he was urged by poverty, and, laughable as it may
appear, by jealousy. He had observed that the best of women, if they are
not only abandoned by him they love, but also flattered and adored by
scores, will some times yield to the joint attacks of desolation, pique,
vanity, etc.

In this state of fluctuation he made up his mind so far as this: he would
manage so as to be able to go.

Even this demanded caution. So he began by throwing out, in a seeming
careless way, that he ought to go down into Huntingdonshire.

"Of course you ought," said Vizard.

No objection was taken, and they rather thought he would go next day. But
that was not his game. It would never do to go while they were in London.
So he kept postponing, and saying he would not tear himself away; and at
last, the day before they were to go down to Barfordshire, he affected to
yield to a remonstrance of Vizard, and said he would see them off, and
then run down to Huntingdonshire, look into his affairs, and cross the
country to Barfordshire.

"You might take Homburg on the way," said Fanny, out of fun--_her_
fun--not really meaning it.

Severne cast a piteous look at Zoe. "For shame, Fanny!" said she. "And
why put Homburg into his head?"

"When I had forgotten there was such a place," said Mr. Severne, taking
his cue dexterously from Zoe, and feigning innocent amazement. Zoe
colored with pleasure. This was at breakfast. At afternoon tea something
happened. The ladies were upstairs packing, an operation on which they
can bestow as many hours as the thing needs minutes. One servant brought
in the tea; another came in soon after with a card, and said it was for
Miss Vizard; but he brought it to Harrington. He read it:

"MISS RHODA GALE, M.D."

"Send it up to Miss Vizard," said he. The man was going out: he stopped
him, and said, "You can show the lady in here, all the same."

Rhoda Gale was ushered in. She had a new gown and bonnet, not showy, but
very nice. She colored faintly at sight of the two gentlemen; but Vizard
soon put her at her ease. He shook hands with her, and said, "Sit down,
Miss Gale; my sister will soon be here. I have sent your card up to her."

"Shall I tell her?" said Severne, with the manner of one eager to be
agreeable to the visitor.

"If you please, sir," said Miss Gale.

Severne went out zealously, darted up to Zoe's room, knocked, and said,
"Pray come down: here is that doctress."

Meantime, Jack was giving Gill the card, and Gill was giving it Mary to
give to the lady. It got to Zoe's room in a quarter of an hour.





"Any news from mamma?" asked Vizard, in his blunt way.

"Yes, sir."

"Good news?"

"No. My mother writes me that I must not expect her. She has to fight
with a dishonest executor. Oh, money, money!"

At that moment Zoe entered the room, but Severne paced the landing. He
did not care to face Miss Gale; and even in that short interval of time
he had persuaded Zoe to protect her brother against this formidable young
lady, and shorten the interview if she could.

So Zoe entered the room bristling with defense of her brother. At sight
of her, Miss Gale rose, and her features literally shone with pleasure.
This was rather disarming to one so amiable as Zoe, and she was surprised
into smiling sweetly in return; but still her quick, defensive eye drank
Miss Gale on the spot, and saw, with alarm, the improvement in her
appearance. She was very healthy, as indeed she deserved to be; for she
was singularly temperate, drank nothing but water and weak tea without
sugar, and never eat nor drank except at honest meals. Her youth and pure
constitution had shaken off all that pallor, and the pleasure of seeing
Zoe lent her a lovely color. Zoe microscoped her in one moment: not one
beautiful feature in her whole face; eyes full of intellect, but not in
the least love-darting; nose, an aquiline steadily reversed; mouth,
vastly expressive, but large; teeth, even and white, but ivory, not
pearl; chin, ordinary; head symmetrical, and set on with grace. I may
add, to complete the picture, that she had a way of turning this head,
clean, swift, and birdlike, without turning her body. That familiar
action of hers was fine--so full of fire and intelligence.

Zoe settled in one moment that she was downright plain, but might
probably be that mysterious and incomprehensible and dangerous creature,
"a gentleman's beauty," which, to women, means no beauty at all, but a
witch-like creature, that goes and hits foul, and eclipses real
beauty--dolls, to wit--by some mysterious magic.

"Pray sit down," said Zoe, formally. Rhoda sat down, and hesitated a
moment. She felt a frost.

Vizard helped her, "Miss Gale has heard from her mother."

"Yes, Miss Vizard," said Rhoda, timidly; "and very bad news. She cannot
come at present; and I am so distressed at what I have done in borrowing
that money of you; and see, I have spent nearly three pounds of it in
dress; but I have brought the rest back."

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