WHAT WAS NOT DONE WITH THE FUNDS.
"She has taken his money all the same." This was said some weeks
after the transaction as described in the last chapter, and was
spoken by Madame Socani to Mr. Moss.
"How do you know?"
"I know very well. You are so infatuated by that young woman that you
will believe nothing against her."
"I am infatuated with her voice; I know what she is going to do in
the world. Old Barytone told me that he had never heard such a voice
from a woman's mouth since the days of Malibran; and if there is a
man who knows one voice from another, it is Barytone. He can taste
the richness of the instrument down to its lowest tinkling sound."
"And you would marry such a one as she for her voice."
"And she can act. Ah! if you could have acted as she does, it might
have been different."
"She has got a husband just the same as me."
"I don't believe it; but never mind, I would risk all that. And I
will do it yet. If you will only keep your toe in your pump, we will
have such a company as nothing that Le Gros can do will be able to
cut us down."
"And she is taking money from that lord."
"They all take money from lords," he replied. "What does it matter?
And she is as stout a piece of goods as ever you came across. She has
given me more impudence in the last eight months than ever I took
from any of them. And by Jupiter I never so much as got a kiss from
her."
"A kiss!" said Madame Socani with great contempt.
"And she has hit me a box on the cheek which I have had to put up
with. She has always got a dagger about her somewhere, to give a
fellow a prod in her passion." Here Mr. Moss laughed or affected to
laugh at the idea of the dagger. "I tell you that she would have it
into a fellow in no time."
"Then why don't you leave her alone? A little wizened monkey like
that!" It was thus that Madame Socani expressed her opinion of her
rival. "A creature without an ounce of flesh on her bones. Her voice
won't last long. It never does with those little mean made apes.
There was Grisi and Tietjens,--they had something of a body for a
voice to come out of. And here is this girl that you think so much
of, taking money hand over hand from the very first lord she comes
across."
"I don't believe a word of it," said the faithful Moss.
"You'll find that it is true. She will go away to some watering-place
in the autumn, and he'll be after her. Did you ever know him spare
one of them? or one of them, poor little creatures, that wouldn't
rise to his bait?"
"She has got her father with her."
"Her father! What is the good of fathers? He'll take some of the
money, that's all. I'll tell you what it is, Moss, if you don't drop
her you and I will be two."
"With all my heart, Madame Socani," said Moss. "I have not the
slightest intention of dropping her. And as for you and me, we can
get on very well apart."
But Madame Socani, though she would be roused by jealousy to make
this threat once a month, knew very well that she could not afford
to sever herself from Mr. Moss; and she knew also that Mr. Moss
was bound to show her some observance, or, at any rate, to find
employment for her as long as she could sing.
But Mr. Moss was anxious to find out whether any money arrangements
did or did not exist between Miss O'Mahony and the lord, and was
resolved to ask the question in a straightforward manner. He had
already found out that his old pupil had no power of keeping a secret
to herself when thus asked. She would sternly refuse to give any
reply; but she would make her refusal in such a manner as to tell the
whole truth. In fact, Rachel, among her accomplishments, had not the
power of telling a lie in such language as to make herself believed.
It was not that she would scruple in the least to declare to Mr.
Moss the very opposite to the truth in a matter in which he had, she
thought, no business to be inquisitive; but when she did so she had
no power to look the lie. You might say of her frequently that she
was a downright liar. But of all human beings whom you could meet she
was the least sly. "My dear child," the father used to say to her,
"words to you are worth nothing, unless it be to sing them. You can
make no impression with them in any other way." Therefore it was that
Mr. Moss felt that he could learn the truth from simply questioning
his pupil.
"Miss O'Mahony, may I say a few words to you?" So said Mr. Moss,
having knocked at the door of Rachel's sitting-room. He had some
months ago fallen into the habit of announcing himself, when he had
come to give her lessons, and would inform the servant that he would
take up his own name. Rachel had done what she could do to put an end
to the practice, but it still prevailed.
"Certainly, Mr. Moss. Was not the girl there to show you up?"
"No doubt she was. But such ceremony between us is hardly necessary."
"I should prefer to be warned of the coming of my master. I will see
to that in future. Such little ceremonies do have their uses."
"Shall I go down and make her say that I am here, and then come up
again?"
"It shall not be necessary, but you take a chair and begin!" Then Mr.
Moss considered how he had better do so. He knew well that the girl
would not answer kindly to such a question as he was desirous of
asking. And it might be that she would be very uncivil. He was by no
means a coward, but he had a vivid recollection of the gleam of her
dagger. He smiled, and she looked at him more suspiciously because of
his smile. He was sitting on a sofa opposite to her as she sat on a
music-stool which she had turned round, so as to face him, and he
fancied that he could see her right hand hide itself among the folds
of her dress. "Is it about the theatre?"
"Well, it is;--and yet it isn't."
"I wish it were something about the theatre. It always seems to come
more natural between you and me."
"I want you to tell me what you did at last about Lord Castlewell's
money."
"Why am I to tell you what I did?"
"For friendship."
"I do not feel any."
"That's an uncivil word to say, mademoiselle."
"But it's true. You have no business to ask me about the lord's
money, and I won't be questioned."
"It will be so deleterious to you if you accept it."
"I can take care of myself," she said, jumping off the chair. "I
shall have left this place now in another month, and shall utterly
disregard the words which anyone at your theatre may say of me. I
shall not tell you whether the lord has lent me money or not."
"I know he has."
"Very well. Then leave the room. Knowing as you do that I am living
here with my own father, your interference is grossly impertinent."
"Your father is not going with you, I am afraid." She rushed at the
bell and pulled it till the bell rope came down from the wire, but
nobody answered the bell. "Can it be possible that you should not be
anxious to begin your new career under respectable auspices?"
"I will not stand this. Leave the room, sir. This apartment is my
own."
"Miss O'Mahony, you see my hand; with this I am ready to offer at
once to place you in a position in which the world would look up to
you."
"You have done so before, Mr. Moss, and your doing so again is an
insult. It would not be done to any young lady unless she were on the
stage, and were thought on that account to be open to any man about
the theatre to say what he pleased to her."
"Any gentleman is at liberty to make any lady an offer."
"I have answered it. Now leave the room."
"I cannot do so until I have heard that you have not taken money from
this reprobate."
At the moment the door opened, and the reprobate entered the room.
"Your servant told me that Mr. Moss was here, and therefore I walked
up at once," said the reprobate.
"I am so much obliged to you," said Rachel. "Oh Lord Castlewell! I am
so much obliged to you. He tells me in the first place that you are a
reprobate."
"Never mind me," said the lord.
"I don't mind what he says of you. He declares that my character will
be gone for ever because you have lent my father some money."
"So it will," said Moss, who was not afraid to stand up to his guns.
"And how if she had accepted your offer?"
"No one would have thought of it. Come, my lord, you know the
difference. I am anxious only to save her."
"It is to her father I have lent the money, who explained to me the
somewhat cruel treatment he had received at the hands of the police.
I think you are making an ass of yourself, Mr. Moss."
"Very well, my lord; very well," said Mr. Moss. "All the world no
doubt will know that you have lent the money to the Irish Landleaguer
because of your political sympathy with him, and will not think for a
minute that you have been attracted by our pretty young friend here.
It will not suspect that it is she who has paid for the loan!"
"Mr. Moss, you are a brute," said the lord.
"Can't he be turned out of the room?" asked Rachel.
"Well, yes; it is possible," said the lord, who slowly prepared to
walk up and take some steps towards expelling Mr. Moss.
"It shall not be necessary," said Mahomet M. M. "You could not get me
out, but there would be a terrible row in the house, which could not
fail to be disagreeable to Miss O'Mahony. I leave her in your hands,
and I do not think I could possibly leave her in worse. I have wished
to make her an honest woman; what you want of her you can explain
to herself." In saying this Mr. Moss walked downstairs and left the
house, feeling, as he went, that he had got the better both of the
lord and of the lady.
With Mr. Moss there was a double motive, neither of which was very
bright, but both of which he followed with considerable energy. He
had at first been attracted by her good looks, which he had desired
to make his own--at the cheapest price at which they might be had
in the market. If marriage were necessary, so be it, but it might
be that the young lady would not be so exigeant. It was probably
the expression of some such feelings in the early days of their
acquaintance which had made him so odious to her. Then Frank Jones
had come forward; and like any good honest girl, in a position so
public, she had at once let the fact of Mr. Jones be made known, so
as to protect her. But it had not protected her, and Mr. Moss had
been doubly odious. Then, by degrees, he had become aware of the
value of her voice, and he perceived the charms that there were in
what he pictured to himself as a professional partnership as well as
a marriage. Various ideas floated through his mind, down even to the
creation of fresh names, grand married names, for his wife. And if
she could be got to see it in the light he saw it, what a stroke of
business they might do! He was aware that she expressed personal
dislike to him; but he did not think much of that. He did not in
the least understand the nature of such dislike as she exhibited.
He thought himself to be a very good-looking man. He was one of a
profession to which she also belonged. He had no idea that he was not
a gentleman but that she was a lady. He did not know that there were
such things. Madame Socani told him that this young woman was already
married to Mr. Jones, but had left that gentleman because he had no
money. He did not believe this; but in any case he would be willing
to risk it. The peril would be hers and not his. It was his object
to establish the partnership, and he did not even yet see any fatal
impediment to it.
This lord who had been trapped by her beauty, by that and by her
theatrical standing, was an impediment, but could be removed. He had
known Lord Castlewell to be in love with a dozen singers, partly
because he thought himself to be a judge of music, and partly simply
because he had liked their looks. The lord had now taken a fancy to
Miss O'Mahony, and had begun by lending her money. That the father
should take the money instead of the daughter, was quite natural
to his thinking. But he might still succeed in looking after Miss
O'Mahony, and rescuing the singer from the lord. By keeping a close
watch on her he must make it impossible for the lord to hold her.
Therefore, when he went away, leaving the lord and the singer
together, he thought that for the present he had got the better of
both.
"Why did he tell you that I was a reprobate?" said the lord, when he
found himself alone with the lady.
"Well, perhaps it was because you are one, my lord," said Rachel,
laughing. She would constantly remember herself, and tell herself
that as long as she called him by his title, she was protecting
herself from that familiarity which would be dangerous.
"I hope you don't think so."
"Gentlemen generally are reprobates, I believe. It is not disgraceful
for a gentleman to be a reprobate, but it is pleasant. The young
women I daresay find it pleasant, but then it is disgraceful. I do
not mean to disgrace myself, Lord Castlewell."
"I am sure you will not."
"I want you to be sure of it, quite sure. I am a singing girl; but I
don't mean to be any man's mistress." He stared at her as she said
this. "And I don't mean to be any man's wife, unless I downright love
him. Now you may keep out of my way, if you please. I daresay you
are a reprobate, my lord; but with that I have got nothing to do.
Touching this money, I suppose father has not got it yet?"
"I have sent it."
"You are to get nothing for it, but simply to have it returned,
without interest, as soon as I have earned it. You have only to say
the word and I will take care that father shall send it you back
again."
Lord Castlewell felt that the girl was very unlike others whom he
had known, and who had either rejected his offers with scorn or
had accepted them with delight. This young lady did neither. She
apparently accepted the proffered friendship, and simply desired him
to carry his reprobate qualities elsewhere. There was a frankness
about her which pleased him much, though it hardly tended to make him
in love with her. One thing he did resolve on the spur of the moment,
that he would never say a word to her which her father might not
hear. It was quite a new sensation to him, this of simple friendship
with a singer, with a singer whom he had met in the doubtful custody
of Mr. Moss; but he did believe her to be a good girl,--a good girl
who could speak out her mind freely; and as such he both respected
and liked her. "Of course I shan't take back the money till it
becomes due. You'll have to work hard for it before I get it."
"I shall be quite contented to do that, my lord." Then the interview
was over and his lordship left the room.
But Lord Castlewell felt as he went home that this girl was worth
more than other girls. She laughed at him for being a lord, but she
could accept a favour from him, and then tell him to his face that
he should do her no harm because she had accepted it. He had met
some terrible rebuffs in his career, the memory of which had been
unpleasant to him; and he had been greeted with many smiles, all of
which had been insipid. What should he do with this girl, so as to
make the best of her? The only thing that occurred to him was to
marry her! And yet such a marriage would be altogether out of his
line of life.