RACHEL WRITES ABOUT HER LOVERS.
What a dear fellow is Frank Jones. That was Rachel's first idea when
Lord Castlewell left her. It was an idea she had driven from out of
her mind with all the strength of which she was capable from the
moment in which his lordship had been accepted. "He never shall be
dear to me again," she had said, thinking of what would be due to
her husband; and she had disturbed herself, not without some success,
in expelling Frank Jones from her heart. It was not right that the
future Lady Castlewell should be in love with Frank Jones. But now
she could think about Frank Jones as she pleased. What a dear fellow
is Frank Jones! Now, it certainly was the case that Lord Castlewell
was not a dear fellow at all. He was many degrees better than Mr.
Moss, but for a dear fellow!--She only knew one. And she did tell
herself now that the world could hardly be a happy world to her
without one dear fellow,--at any rate, to think of.
But he had positively refused to marry her! But yet she did not in
the least doubt his love. "I'm a little bit of a thing," she said to
herself; "but then he likes little bits of things. At any rate, he
likes one."
And then she had thought ever so often over the cause which had
induced Frank to leave her. "Why shouldn't he take my money, since it
is here to be taken? It is all a man's beastly pride!" But then again
she contradicted the assertion to herself. It was a man's pride, but
by no means beastly. "If I were a man," she went on saying, "I don't
think I should like to pay for my coat and waistcoat with money which
a woman had earned; and I should like it the less, because things at
home, in my own house, were out of order." And then again she thought
of it all. "I should be an idiot to do that. Everybody would say so.
What! to give up my whole career for a young man's love,--merely that
I might have his arm round my waist? I to do it, who am the greatest
singer of my day, and who can, if I please, be Countess of Castlewell
to-morrow! That were losing the world for love, indeed! Can any man's
love be worth it? And I am going on to become such a singer as the
world does not possess another like me. I know it. I feel it daily in
the increasing sweetness of the music made. I see it in the wakeful
eagerness of men's ears, waiting for some charm of sound,--some
wonderful charm,--which they hardly dare to expect, but which always
comes at last. I see it in the eyes of the women, who are hardly
satisfied that another should be so great. It comes in the worship
of the people about the theatre, who have to tell me that I am their
god, and keep the strings of the sack from which money shall be
poured forth upon them. I know it is coming, and yet I am to marry
the stupid earl because I have promised him. And he thinks, too, that
his reflected honours will be more to me than all the fame that I can
earn for myself. To go down to his castle, and to be dumb for ever,
and perhaps to be mother of some hideous little imp who shall be the
coming marquis. Everything to be abandoned for that,--even Frank
Jones. But Frank Jones is not to be had! Oh, Frank Jones, Frank
Jones! If you could come and live in such a marble hall as I could
provide for you! It should have all that we want, but nothing more.
But it could not have that self-respect which it is a man's first
duty in life to achieve." But the thought that she had arrived at was
this,--that with all her best courtesy she would tell the Earl of
Castlewell to look for a bride elsewhere.
But she would do nothing in a hurry. The lord had been very civil
to her, and she, on her part, would be as civil to the lord as
circumstances admitted. And she had an idea in her mind that she
could not at a moment's notice dismiss this lord and be as she was
before. Her engagement with the lord was known to all the musical
world. The Mosses and Socanis spent their mornings, noons, and nights
in talking about it,--as she well knew. And she was not quite sure
that the lord had given her such a palpable cause for quarrelling as
to justify her in throwing him over. And when she had as it were
thrown him over in her mind, she began to think of other causes for
regret. After all, it was something to be Countess of Castlewell.
She felt that she could play the part well, in spite of all Lady
Augusta's coldness. She would soon live the Lady Augusta down into a
terrible mediocrity. And then again, there would be dreams of Frank
Jones. Frank Jones had been utterly banished. But if an elderly
gentleman is desirous that his future wife shall think of no Frank
Jones, he had better not begin by calling the father of that young
lady a ridiculous ass.
She was much disturbed in mind, and resolved that she would seek
counsel from her old correspondent, Frank's sister.
"Dearest Edith," she began,
I know you will let me write to you in my troubles. I am
in such a twitter of mind in consequence of my various
lovers that I do not know where to turn; nor do I quite
know whom I am to call lover number one. Therefore, I
write to you to ask advice. Dear old Frank used to be
lover number one. Of course I ought to call him now Mr.
Francis Jones, because another lover is really lover
number one. I am engaged to marry, as you are well aware,
no less a person than the Earl of Castlewell; and, if
all things were to go prosperously with me, I should in
a short time be the Marchioness of Beaulieu. Did you
ever think of the glory of being an absolutely live
marchioness? It is so overwhelming as to be almost too
much for me. I think that I should not cower before my
position, but that I should, on the other hand, endeavour
to soar so high that I should be consumed by my own
flames. Then there is lover number three--Mr. Moss--who,
I do believe, loves me with the truest affection of them
all. I have found him out at last. He wishes to be the
legal owner of all the salaries which the singer of La
Beata may possibly earn; and he feels that, in spite of
all that has come and gone, it is yet possible. Of all the
men who ever forgave, Mr. Moss is the most forgiving.
Now, which am I to take of these three? Of course, if
you are the honest girl I take you to be, you will write
back word that one, at any rate, is not in the running.
Mr. Francis Jones has no longer the honour. But what
if I am sure that he loves me; and what, again, if I
am sure that he is the only one I love? Let this be
quite--quite--between ourselves. I am beginning to think
that because of Frank Jones I cannot marry that gorgeous
earl. What if Frank Jones has spoiled me altogether? Would
you wish to see me on this account delivered over to Mr.
Mahomet Moss as a donkey between two bundles of hay?
Tell me what you think of it. He won't take my money. But
suppose I earn my money for another season or two? Would
not your Irish brutalities be then over; and my father's
eloquence, and the eccentricities of the other gentlemen?
And would not your brother and your father have in some
way settled their affairs? Surely a little money won't
then be amiss, though it may have come from the industry
of a hard-worked young woman.
Of course I am asking for mercy, because I am absolutely
devoted to a certain young man. You need not tell him that
in so many words; but I do not see why I am to be ashamed
of my devotion,--seeing that I was not ashamed of my
engagement, and boasted of it to all the world. And I have
done nothing since to be ashamed of.
You have never told me a word of your young man; but the
birds of the air are more communicative than some friends.
A bird of the air has told me of you, and of Ada also, and
had made me understand that from Ada has come all that
sweetness which was to be expected from her. But from you
has not come that compliance with your fate in life which
circumstances have demanded.
Your affectionate friend,
RACHEL O'MAHONY.
It could not but be the case that Edith should be gratified by the
receipt of such a letter as this. Frank was now at home, and was
terribly down in the mouth. Boycotting had lost all its novelty at
Morony Castle. His sisters had begun to feel that it was a pleasant
thing to have their butter made for them, and pleasant also not to
be introduced to a leg of mutton till it appeared upon the table.
Frank, too, had become very tired of the work which fell to his lot,
though he had been relieved in the heaviest labours of the farm by
"Emergency" men, who had been sent to him from various parts of
Ireland. But he was thoroughly depressed in heart, as also was his
father. Months had passed by since Pat Carroll had stood in the dock
at Galway ready for his trial. He was now, in March, still kept in
Galway jail under remand from the magistrates. A great clamour was
made in the county upon the subject. Florian's murder had stirred all
those who were against the League to feel that the Government should
be supported. But there had been a mystery attached to that other
murder, perpetrated in the court, which had acted strongly on the
other side,--on behalf of the League. The murder of Terry Carroll at
the moment in which he was about to give evidence,--false evidence,
as the Leaguers said,--against his brother was a great triumph to
them. It was used as an argument why Pat Carroll should be no longer
confined, while Florian's death had been a reason why he never should
be released at all. All this kept the memory of Florian's death,
and the constant thought of it, still fresh in the minds of them all
at Morony Castle, together with the poverty which had fallen upon
them, had made the two men weary of their misfortunes. Under such
misfortunes, when continued, men do become more weary than women.
But Edith thought there would be something in the constancy of
Rachel's love to cheer her brother, and therefore the letter made
her contented if not happy.
For herself, she said to herself no love could cheer her. Captain
Clayton still hung about Tuam and Headford, but his presence in the
neighbourhood was always to be attributed to the evidence of which he
was in search as to Florian's death. It seemed now with him that the
one great object of his heart was the unravelling of that murder. "It
was no mystery," as he said over and over again in Edith's hearing.
He knew very well who had fired the rifle. He could see, in his
mind's eye, the slight form of the crouching wretch as he too surely
took his aim from the temporary barricade. The passion had become so
strong with him of bringing the man to justice that he almost felt,
that between him and his God he could swear to having seen it. And
yet he knew that it was not so. To have the hanging of that man would
be to him a privilege only next to that of possessing Edith Jones.
And he was a sanguine man, and did believe that in process of time
both privileges would be vouchsafed to him.
But Edith was less sanguine. She could not admit to herself the
possibility that there should be successful love between her and
her hero. His presence there in the neighbourhood of her home was
stained by constant references to her brother's blood. And then,
though there was no chance for Ada, Ada's former hopes militated
altogether against Edith. "He had better go away and just leave us to
ourselves," she said to herself. But yet neither was she nor was Ada
sunk so low in heart as her father and her brother.
"Frank," she said to her brother, "whom do you think this letter is
from?" and she held up in her hand Rachel's epistle.
"I care not at all, unless it be from that most improbable of all
creatures, a tenant coming to pay his rent."
"Nothing quite so beautiful as that."
"Or from someone who has evidence to give about some of these murders
that are going on?"--A Mr. Morris from the other side of the lake,
in County Mayo, had just been killed, and the minds of men were now
disturbed with this new horror.--"Anybody can kill anybody who has a
taste in that direction. What a country for a man with his family to
pitch upon and live in! And that all this should have been kept under
so long by policemen and right-thinking individuals, and then burst
out like a subterranean fire all over the country, because the hope
has been given them of getting their land for nothing! In order to
indulge in wholesale robbery they are willing at a moment's notice to
undertake wholesale murder."
After listening to words such as these, Edith found it impossible to
introduce Rachel's letter on the spur of the moment.