Red as a Rose is She: A Novel

by Rhoda Broughton

The rough winds and the spiteful rains have wellnigh stripped all their red-and-yellow clothing off the trees: upon the oaks alone some leaves still hang persistent, though withered and crackly. The apples and pears are all gathered and stored for the winter; even the dark-blue Orleans plums, that require the crisping frost to ripen them, are eaten and gone.

The sale at Glan-yr-Afon is over; it is enrolled among that countless array of unrecallable events, great and little, that is past. The new tenant, an ordinary Welsh farmer, with an overfull quiver of sprouting Welshmen and Welshwomen, has entered into possession. No one has taken the trouble to "redd up" the garden for the winter; flowers do not help to pay the rent—they give back nothing but their beauty and perfume; and so, over Esther's trim flower-beds, sheep-dogs gallop, and children, boisterous with health and spirits, run races. The rustic seat under the old cherry-tree—the seat that Jack fashioned in the summer evenings—has been broken up for firewood; and in Jack's chair in the dining-room, the father of the family reposes his plethoric bulk of an evening, when he does not happen to be getting drunk at the "Punch Bowl," and snores euphoniously.

And Bob, pursued by blessings, prayers, lamentations, and strong wishes for his safe back-coming, is gone—gone away in a smoky steamer, over the mist-mantled grey sea. Not a few of the tears that fell for him came from Esther's eyes—not love-tears, shed privily, secretly, dashed away with hasty care at the sound of any approaching footsteps, but poured out openly, publicly, in the presence of his mother and sisters—mingled with theirs, indeed, as of no different quality. Not more openly, not more publicly, had she wept for old Luath, when, on the day before the sale, the old dog, who had ailed and moped ever since his master's (to him) unaccountable disappearance, crawled weakly to her feet, and, looking up dimly wistful into her face for the last time, died licking her tender hand. On the day before his departure, Brandon came to say "Good-bye" to her.

"I have told mother nothing," he says, with some embarrassment, in allusion to their late engagement—"nothing, except that I was sure that I could not make you happy. I have given her no reason, Esther—give her none either! She will not ask you point-blank, and it is always easy to evade indirect questions; there are some things that it is of no use being confidential about."

"I see," she answers, with a faint smile. "I understand, neatly as you have gilded the pill, you are afraid that she would turn me out-of-doors if she knew what a treacherous, black-hearted wretch I have been; that I should have to take refuge even sooner than I must otherwise do in the workhouse, to which I always look forward as my final destination."

Then, bidding God bless her, he wrings her hand, strongly, and so takes his last farewell of her, nor ever sees her fair face and great gentle stag eyes again.

And now he is gone—gone with a difficult smile on his face, and very little money in his pocket. He never has much, but he has less than usual now; having spent his few last sovereigns on the erecting a plain white cross at the head of Jack's low grave, that, when this generation has passed, his place of sleeping may not be quite undistinguished from that of his neighbour dust. He has gone, with his heart's strongest longing balked, his prime hope death-smitten; but yet not despairing—not cursing his day, nor arraigning High God, saying, "Why do I, undeserving, thus suffer?" He carries away with him no heavy seething load of revenge, no man-slaying ardour of hatred against the woman that has wronged him, and the man for whose sake she did it. Life is full, interesting, complex—not all on one string, whatever morbid women and moody rhymers may say; not all sexual love—all of it, that is, that is not devoted to drinking, as Anacreon, Catullus, and Moore have dulcetly told us. And therefore, though poor, disappointed, and heart-wrung, Brandon is not all unhappy. He has been greatly sinned against, and has forgiven, thus exercising the function that raises us nearest to a level with the Godhead.

And meanwhile Esther, left behind in wintry Wales, takes his emptied place at triste Plas Berwyn. Despite all her resolves, despite her high talk that a morsel of Mrs. Brandon's bread would choke her—that it would be better to starve than to be under any obligation to the family of the man she has betrayed—she is now eating that suffocating bread, now lying under those annihilating obligations.

Want makes us swallow our dignity—makes us do many mean things. One must live; one must keep in that breath that perhaps is only spent in sighs: and Mr. James Greenwood has made us all out of love with the workhouse. So she sits down three times a day at Mrs. Brandon's table, the unwillingest guest that ever sat at any board, and eats the bread of charity, and the roast mutton and apple-tart of charity, when the conclusion of the long Puritan grace gives her permission to do so.

There is plenty of time for thinking at Plas Berwyn, for in that still household talk is not rife. When people never leave their own little one earth-nook, rarely see any one beyond their immediate family circle, and rarelier still read any reviews, papers, books, that treat of any subject but one, they have not much to talk about. There are few minds original enough, copious enough, to suffice to themselves—to be able to do without supplies derived from external objects. Our thoughts are generally our own, merely by right of immediate possession; mostly they are the thoughts of others, more or less digested, more or less amalgamated with thought-matter of our own.