Kelly Rhoda of the Underground

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-98826-103-8
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 253 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Rhoda of the Underground by Florence Finch Kelly is a novel set in England during the 19th century. It follows the story of Rhoda, a young woman who lives in poverty and is forced to work in the London Underground. Despite the harsh conditions and struggles she faces, Rhoda remains optimistic and determined to improve her life. Through her journey, she faces challenges, makes new friends, and learns important life lessons that shape her character and help her grow. Ultimately, Rhoda finds a way out of poverty and achieves success, offering inspiration to readers facing their own struggles.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kelly, Florence Finch

Leseproben

CHAPTER II
“Father! Can these things be true? Oh, how terrible it is! Do such things really happen now, in this country?” Rhoda Ware rushed into her father’s office, her cheeks wet with recent tears, her voice vibrating on the verge of sobs. Dr. Ware looked up from the medical work he was reading in some surprise. For it was unusual for her to give way, at least in his presence, to so much agitation. His professional eye took quick note of her excited nerves. In the same glance he saw that she held a book tightly grasped in her trembling hands and read its title. But he did not betray in either words or manner the fact that he had noticed it or the satisfaction that it gave him. “Sit down, Rhoda, and calm yourself,” he said quietly. “What is it you want to know about? Something you’ve been reading?” “Yes. It’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Father, isn’t it exaggerated? Can it be true?” Appeal sounded in her tones, the longing of a sensitive nature to be assured that what it has suffered in imagination no human being has been called upon to suffer in the thousandfold of reality. He noted her hurried breathing, with the catch of a half-sob in it now and then, and as he looked into her appealing eyes the man and the father in him drew back from saying what he wished to say lest he add to her hurt and the physician counseled not to increase her excitement. But the believer in a cause urged him to strike while the iron was hot. And it was the believer that won, after a mere moment of hesitation. “You heard what they said at Levi Coffin’s, about many of the incidents of the book being based on fact. But what you have read there is only a drop in the bucket!” As he leaned toward her across his desk and she, seated at the other side, bent her face toward him, even a casual observer might have seen their relationship. For her countenance was a copy of his, a young, soft, feminine copy, but yet formed clearly upon the same plan, even in the details of feature and coloring. His eyes, large and gray like hers, were calm and cool and judicial in expression, even when, as now, they were alight with earnestness. His shaven upper lip, also, was short, but it pressed upon the lower in a firm line, while all his countenance expressed a sort of austerity that seemed to bespeak a mind informed with intense moral conviction rather than hardness or coldness of nature. But looking at the two faces thus, one could see in hers the kindling fires of an emotionalism which would be forever foreign to him, an incipient power of emotional exaltation which would never be within his possibilities. But if there was less of warmth in his eyes and of spirituality in his brow, poise and cool judgment were written there, and far-sightedness, their inevitable offspring. Of the intellectual, judicial type Dr. Ware’s countenance showed him to be, and however much or little of such qualities his daughter had inherited from him, along with her remarkable physical resemblance, from elsewhere had come the emotional forces which now were trembling in the sensitive curves of her mouth and glowing in her tear-wet eyes. “There’s nothing in that book that couldn’t be duplicated right now in the South, every day in the week,” Dr. Ware was saying in low, even tones that nevertheless held such intensity of conviction that she felt her nerves thrilling with it. “And even then, Rhoda, it’s only a beginning! There are such horrors perpetrated under slavery as a young girl like you can’t begin to realize!” She shuddered, and he watched her silently as she pressed her lips together and deliberately held her breath for a moment in the effort to master her emotion. “I don’t think I’ve ever quite realized anything about it before,” she said in calmer voice, “although I’ve always believed, ever since I’ve known anything about it, that it is wrong. But I’ve never felt, all through me”—and she shivered again—“just how wrong it is, until this book has made it seem all real and alive.” She hesitated, leaning her arms upon the desk, and a puzzled expression crossed her face. “But, father,” she presently went on, “why doesn’t mother feel as you do about it? Her father owned slaves, and until she married you she had always lived on the plantation with slaves all around her. And she still thinks that slavery is right and that the negroes are happier and better off in it than they would be if they were free. She’s so kind and gentle, how can she feel as she does if this book is true?” “Your mother and I, Rhoda, have never discussed the question. Her father was a kindly man and treated his slaves well, and so the only conditions that she knew anything about were of slavery at its best. She had such a happy girlhood on her father’s plantation, where the slaves were all eager to do anything for her, that her memories of it are very pleasant. I’ve never wanted to disturb them, because it wouldn’t do any good and it might spoil the pleasure she takes in thinking about those days; and so I’ve never talked about it with her, although she knows, of course, what I think.” Rhoda threw him an admiring glance, which he, with his eyes averted in semi-embarrassment at having revealed a glimpse of his inner self to his offspring, did not see. “Mother has told us, Charlotte and me,” Rhoda went on thoughtfully, “so many things about her girlhood and her father’s plantation, and she has always been so pleased in recalling those days, that I couldn’t help wondering sometimes if anything could be wrong that made everybody as happy as they seemed to have been in her home. And Charlotte, you know, is quite convinced that slavery is all right.” “Oh, Charlotte!” Dr. Ware exclaimed in an amused tone. “She’s just a little fire-eater! But she doesn’t mean half she says.” “Sometimes she doesn’t, but she seems to be getting quite in earnest about it lately.” “Like all the rest of us, on both sides,” her father appended. “Mother says her father never sold a negro,” Rhoda went on, “and that his slaves were always contented and happy and that the same things were true on the other plantations where she visited.” Dr. Ware’s face darkened. “He didn’t, while he lived. But he left his affairs in such a tangle when he died that most of his slaves were sold to satisfy his debts. Your mother was ill then—it was about the time you were born—and I did not tell her, and as we were living in the North nobody else did, anything about that part of it. To this day she doesn’t know”—he was clipping off his words in a tone of impersonal resentment—“that her old mammy, of whom she was so fond, was sold to a trader who was buying for a cotton plantation in the South. When I found out about it I tried to have her traced, so as to buy her myself, bring her North and free her. But I finally found that she was dead and that her fate, though different, had been no better than Uncle Tom’s.” The girl drew back with an exclamation of horror, and her eyes filled. “Oh, father! That good, kind creature, who loved mother so much!” “Don’t ever tell your mother,” he cautioned. “It would do no good and it would make her unhappy. You see, Rhoda, how impossible it is for one man, no matter how good his intentions may be, to keep back the evil that is inherent in slavery. He can’t make his own affairs better than the system very long.” Rhoda was looking out through the open door, her brow puckered in a thoughtful frown, the pain in her heart evidenced by the droop and the quiver of her sensitive lips. Dr. Ware’s office was on the eastern side of the house and faced a gate, opening from the cross street, through which a young man was now striding hastily. “There’s Horace Hardaker!” she exclaimed. “How excited he looks! Oh, do you suppose he’s had bad news from Julia?” They sprang to their feet and rushed out upon the veranda. “Very likely,” her father answered. “The border ruffians are overrunning eastern Kansas. What is it, Horace? What has happened?” he went on, grasping the young man’s hand as he mounted the steps. They pressed close to him, expectant, their faces anxious. “Julia—have you had bad news?” Rhoda threw in breathlessly. Hardaker’s face was working with suppressed excitement and it was a moment before he could speak. “You haven’t heard?” he broke out. “Oh, it’s frightful! Senator Sumner was attacked yesterday in the senate chamber and beaten almost to death!” “My God, Horace! Who did it?” cried Dr. Ware, gripping the other’s hand, his face paling. “Preston Brooks—” “Of South Carolina—yes, go on!” “Senator Butler’s nephew—that speech of Sumner’s the other day—” “Yes, yes! The crimes of the South! Brooks has killed him?” “No, but he may not live. Brooks came upon him from behind, as he sat at his desk, and while he was penned there pounded him over the head with a heavy cane.” “Will the North stand this insult?” Dr. Ware exclaimed, dropping the other’s hand, which unconsciously he had been gripping and shaking during their colloquy. With quick steps and short turns he marched this way and that as they went on talking, running his fingers through his hair until it stood upright. Rhoda shared in their excitement, her nerves still tingling from her recent emotion, mind and heart alike ready to be deeply impressed by the news. With brief, sharp sentences they broke across one...