Rhoda of the Underground

by Florence Finch Kelly

Nor was there in their correspondence any mention of love, or of possible or impossible marriage. But toward the end of summer, when a little band of men was warily gathering in a Maryland farmhouse, one of Jeff’s letters set Rhoda’s heart to fluttering. There was in it, save for some terms of endearment which seemed to have flowed unconsciously from his pen, no putting into words of a lover’s hopes. But she felt through every line the burning of the lover’s heart. And a few weeks later there came a brief note saying, “I shall be in Hillside soon and shall count on seeing you.”

For a day Rhoda’s heart sang with joy, “He is coming, he is coming! I shall see him, have him here beside me!” and would listen to no warnings of her mind.

Then she wrote, “Don’t come! I beg of you, Jeff, don’t come! What is the use!” And lest her courage might fail her, she quickly sealed and posted her missive.

But when the October woods were bright with flaming color, and the little band of men in the Maryland farmhouse were waiting for the order to march, and Rhoda and her father were saying to each other every morning, “There may be news to-day,” Jefferson Delavan appeared at her door.

“I told you not to come!” she said, and gave him her hand, while face and eyes belied the meaning of her words. His heart gladdened at their sweet shining as he held her hand in both of his and answered, “And I disobeyed—because I couldn’t help it.” Then, for a moment, their starving, delighted gaze fed upon each other’s eyes, until Rhoda suddenly felt that he was about to break into lover’s speech. Impulsively she laid a finger across his lips. He seized and held it there while she exclaimed:

“Don’t speak, Jeff, don’t say anything. It’s such a lovely day—the hills are so beautiful—let’s have a ride together!”

He agreed, glad of anything that would insure her presence near him, and they were soon galloping over country roads and across the wooded hills, brilliant in the gala robes with which Nature celebrates her thanksgiving for another year of sun and life and growth.

As they rode, the motion and the wine-like air and the joy in her heart lifted Rhoda into exultant mood, deepened the wild rose-bloom in her cheeks and kindled her serious eyes into sparkling gaiety. “Let me have this little time!” her heart pleaded. “It may be the last. After that has happened he may never come again!”

And so, with thrilling nerves and singing heart, the Cavalier in her breast dominated the Puritan and sent to the four winds warnings of conscience and thought of to-morrow. Forgotten was the safety of the three fugitive slaves, at that moment hiding in her cellar, forgotten the fateful Thing for whose birth in the Virginia mountains she had been waiting, cast away from her mind was all thought of the anti-slavery contest, nor was there room in her heart for zeal in its cause. She was mere woman, loving and beloved, and glorying inwardly in her power over her lover. Her Cavalier inheritance took possession of her and bade her snatch the pleasure of the hour. Her father’s offspring dwindled away into the smallest recesses of her nature and it was her mother’s daughter who sat in the saddle, slender and graceful, and with starry eye and alluring smile kindled fresh fires in her lover’s breast.

With pride and pleasure she saw them burning in his face and eyes as he drew beside her and murmured, “Rhoda, you are so beautiful!” Her mirror had told her many times, and she had agreed in its verdict, that she was not beautiful. And so all the more precious to her was this tribute of love, and more than once did she win it, as they rode and rode, during the long afternoon.