LORD CASTLEWELL'S FAREWELL.
Poor Mr. O'Mahony had enemies on every side. There had come up lately
a state of things which must be very common in political life. The
hatreds which sound so real when you read the mere words, which look
so true when you see their scornful attitudes, on which for the time
you are inclined to pin your faith so implicitly, amount to nothing.
The Right Honourable A. has to do business with the Honourable B.,
and can best carry it on by loud expressions and strong arguments
such as will be palatable to readers of newspapers; but they do not
hate each other as the readers of the papers hate them, and are ready
enough to come to terms, if coming to terms is required. Each of them
respects the other, though each of them is very careful to hide his
respect. We can fancy that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable
B. in their moments of confidential intercourse laugh in their joint
sleeves at the antipathies of the public. In the present instance it
was alleged that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. had
come to some truce together, and had ceased for a while to hit each
other hard knocks. Such a truce was supposed to be a feather in the
cap of the Honourable B., as he was leader of a poor party of no
more than twenty; and the Right Honourable A. had in this matter the
whole House at his back. But for the nonce each had come off his high
horse, and for the moment there was peace between them.
But Mr. O'Mahony would have no peace. He understood nothing of
compromises. He really believed that the Right Honourable gentleman
was the fiend which the others had only called him. To him it was a
compact with the very devil. Now the leader of his party, knowing
better what he was about, and understanding somewhat of the manner in
which politics are at present carried on, felt himself embarrassed by
the honesty of such a follower as Mr. O'Mahony. Mr. O'Mahony, when he
was asked whether he wished to lead or was willing to serve, declared
that he would neither lead nor serve. What he wanted was the "good
of Ireland." And he was sure that that was not to be obtained by
friendship with Her Majesty's Government. This was in itself very
well, but he was soon informed that it was not as a free-lance that
he had been elected member for Cavan. "That is between me and my
constituency," said Mr. O'Mahony, standing up with his head thrown
back, and his right hand on his heart. But the constituency soon gave
him to understand that he was not the man they had taken him to be.
He, too, had begun to find that to spend his daughter's money in
acting patriotism in the House of Commons was not a fine _role_
in life. He earned nothing and he did nothing. Unless he could
bind himself hand and foot to his party he had not even a spark of
delegated power. He was not allowed to speak when he desired, and
was called upon to sit upon those weary benches hour after hour, and
night after night, only pretending to effect those things which he
and his brother members knew could not be done. He was not allowed
to be wrathful with true indignation, not for a moment; but he was
expected to be there from question time through the long watches of
the night--taking, indeed, his turn for rest and food--always ready
with some mock indignation by which his very soul was fretted; and
no one paid him the slightest respect, though he was, indeed, by no
means the least respectable of his party. He would have done true
work had it been given him to do. But at the present moment his
own party did not believe in him. There was no need at present for
independent wrathful eloquence. There seldom is need in the House of
Commons for independent eloquence. The few men who have acquired for
themselves at last the power of expressing it, not to empty benches,
not amidst coughings and hootings, and loud conversation, have had
to make their way to that point either by long efficient service or
by great gifts of pachydermatousness. Mr. O'Mahony had never served
anyone for an hour, and was as thin-skinned as a young girl; and,
though his daughter had handed him all her money, so that he might
draw upon it as he pleased, he told himself, and told her also, that
his doing so was mean. "You're welcome to every dollar, father, only
it doesn't seem to make you happy."
"I should be happy to starve for the country, if starving would do
anything."
"I don't see that one ever does any good by starving as long as there
is bread to eat. This isn't a romantic sort of thing, this payment of
rents; but we ought to try and find out what a man really owes."
"No man owes a cent to any landlord on behalf of rent."
"But how is a man to get the land?" she said. "Over in our country a
rough pioneering fellow goes and buys it, and then he sells it, and
of course the man who buys it hasn't to pay rent. But I cannot see
how any fellow here can have a right to the land for nothing." Then
Mr. O'Mahony reminded his daughter that she was ill and should not
exert herself.
It was now far advanced in May, and Mr. O'Mahony had resolved to
make one crushing eloquent speech in the House of Commons and then
to retire to the United States. But he had already learned that
even this could not be effected without the overcoming of many
difficulties. In himself, in his eloquence, in the supply of words,
he trusted altogether; but there was the opportunity to be bought,
and the Speaker's eye to be found,--he regarded this Speaker's eye
as the most false of all luminaries,--and the empty benches to be
encountered, and then drowsy reporters to be stirred up; and then
on the next morning,--if any next morning should come for such a
report,--there would not be a tithe of what he had spoken to be read
by any man, and, in truth, very little of what he could speak would
be worthy of reading. His words would be honest and indignant and
fine-sounding, but the hearer would be sure to say, "What a fool is
that Mr. O'Mahony!" At any rate, he understood so much of all this
that he was determined to accept the Chiltern Hundreds and flee away
as soon as his speech should be made.
It was far advanced in May, and poor Rachel was still very ill.
She was so ill that all hope had abandoned her either as to her
profession or as to either of her lovers. But there was some spirit
in her still, as when she would discuss with her father her future
projects. "Let me go back," she said, "and sing little songs for
children in that milder climate. The climate is mild down in the
South, and there I may, perhaps, find some fragment of my voice."
But he who was becoming so despondent both for himself and for his
country, still had hopes as to his daughter. Her engagement with Lord
Castlewell was not even yet broken. Lord Castlewell had gone out of
town at a most unusual period,--at a time when the theatres always
knew him, and had been away on the exact day which had been fixed for
their marriage. Rachel had done all that lay in herself to disturb
the marriage, but Lord Castlewell had held to it, urged by feelings
which he had found it difficult to analyse. Rachel had in her
sickness determined to have done with him altogether, but latterly
she had had no communication with him. She had spoken of him to her
father as though he were a being simply to be forgotten. "He has
gone away, and, as far as he is concerned, there is an end of me.
It could not have finished better." But her mind still referred to
Frank Jones, and from him she had received hardly a word of love.
Further words of love she could not send him. During her illness many
letters, or little notes rather, had been written to Castle Morony on
her behalf by her father, and to these there had come replies. Frank
was so anxious to hear of her well-doing. Frank had not cared so much
for her voice as for her general health. Frank was so sorry to hear
of her weakness. It had all been read to her, but as it had been read
she had only shaken her head; and her father had not carried the
dream on any further. To his thinking she was still engaged to the
lord, and it would be better for her that she should marry the lord.
The lord no doubt was a fool, and filled the most foolish place in
the world,--that of a silly faineant earl. But he would do no harm to
his daughter, and the girl would learn to like the kind of life which
would be hers. At present she was very, very ill, but still there was
hope for recovery.
By the treasury of the theatre she had been treated munificently. Her
engagement had been almost up to the day fixed for her marriage, and
the money which would have become due to her under it had been paid
in full. She had sent back the latter payments, but they had been
returned to her with the affectionate respects of the managers. Since
she had put her foot upon these boards she had found herself to be
popular with all around her. That, she had told herself, had been due
to the lord who was to become her husband. But Rachel had become, and
was likely to become, the means of earning money for them, and they
were grateful. To tell the truth, Lord Castlewell had had nothing to
do with it.
But gradually there came upon them the conviction that her voice was
gone, and then the payment of the money ceased. She, and the doctor,
and her father, had discussed it together, and they had agreed to
settle that it must be so.
"Yes," said the girl, smiling, "it is bitter. All my hopes! And such
hopes! It is as though I were dead, and yet were left alive. If it
had been small-pox, or anything in that way, I could have borne it.
But this thing, this terrible misfortune!"
Then she laughed, and then burst out sobbing with loud tears, and hid
her face.
"You will be married, and still be happy," said the doctor.
"Married! Rubbish! So much you know about it. Am I ever to get strong
in my limbs again, so as to be able to cross the water and go back to
my own country?"
Here the doctor assured her that she would be able to go back to her
own country, if it were needed.
"Father," she said, as soon as the doctor had left her, "let there be
an end to all this about Lord Castlewell. I will not marry him."
"But, my dear!"
"I will not marry him. There are two reasons why I should not. I do
not love him, and he does not love me. There are two other reasons. I
do not want to marry him, and he does not want to marry me."
"But he says he does."
"That is his goodness. He is very good. I do not know why a man
should be so good who has had so bad a bringing up. Think of me,--how
good I ought to be, as compared with him. I haven't done anything
naughty in all my life worse than tear my frock, or scold poor Frank;
and yet I find it harder to give him up, merely because of the
grandeur, than he does to marry me, the poor singing girl, who can
never sing again. No! My good looks are gone, such as they were. I
can feel it, even with my fingers. You had better take me back to the
States at once."
"Good-bye, Rachel," said the lord, coming into her room the day but
one after this. Her father was not with her, as she had elected to be
alone when she would bid her adieu to her intended husband.
"This is very good of you to come to me."
"Of course I came."
"Because you were good. You need not have come unless you had wished
it. I had so spoken to you as to justify you in staying away. My
voice is gone, and I can only squeak at you in this broken treble."
"Your voice would not have mattered at all."
"Ah, but it has mattered to me. What made you want to marry me?"
"Your beauty quite as much as your voice," said the lord.
"And that has gone too. Everything I had has gone. It is melancholy!
No, my lord," she said, interrupting him when he attempted to
contradict her, "there is not a word more to be said about it. Voice
and beauty, such as it was, and the little wit, are all gone. I did
believe in my voice myself, and therefore I felt myself fitting
to marry you. I could have left a name behind me if my voice had
remained. But, in truth, my lord, it was not fitting. I did not love
you."
"That, indeed!"
"As far as I know myself, I did not love you. You have heard me speak
of Frank Jones,--a man who can only wear two clean shirts a week
because he has been so boycotted by those wretched Irish as to be
able to afford no more. I would take him with one shirt to-morrow, if
I could get him. One does not know why one loves a person. Of course
he's handsome, and strong, and brave. I don't think that has done it,
but I just got the fancy into my head, and there it is still. And he
with his two shirts, working every day himself with his own hands to
earn something for his father, would not marry me because I was a
singing girl and took wages. He would not have another shirt to be
washed with my money. Oh, that the chance were given to me to go and
wash it for him with my own hands!"
Lord Castlewell sat through the interview somewhat distraught, as
well he might be; but when it was over, and he had taken his leave
and kissed her forehead, as he went home in his cab, he told himself
that he had got through that little adventure very well.