The Landleaguers Part 21

"I told you not to come. I told you especially that you were not to come."

"Why did you tell him so?" said Mr. O'Mahony; "and why has he come?"

"Not one kiss, Rachel?" said the lover.

"Oh, kisses, yes! If I didn't kiss you father would think that we had already quarrelled. But it may be that we must do so. When I had told you everything, that you should rush up to London to look after me--as though you suspected me!"

"What is there to suspect?" said the father.

"Nothing--I suspect nothing," said Frank. "But there were things which made it impossible that I should not wish to be nearer. She was insulted."

"Who insulted her?"

"The devil in the shape of a woman," said Rachel. "He takes that shape as often as the other."

"Rachel should not be left in such hands," said Frank.

"My dear Mr. Jones, you have no right to say in what hands I shall be left. My father and I have got to look after that between us. I have told you over and over again what are my intentions in the matter.

They have been made in utter disregard of myself, and with the most perfect confidence in you. You tell me that you cannot marry me."

"Not quite at present."

"Very well; I have been satisfied to remain as engaged to you; but I am not satisfied to be subject to your interference."

"Interference!" he said.

"Well now; I'm going." This came from Mr. O'Mahony. "I've got to see if I can earn a few shillings, and tell a few truths. I will leave you to fight out your battles among you."

"There will be no battles," said Frank.

"I hope not, but I feel that I can do no good. I have such absolute trust in Rachel, that you may be quite sure that I shall back her up in whatever she says. Now, good-night," and with that he took his leave.

"I am glad he has gone, because he would do us no good," said Rachel.

"You were angry with me just now because I spoke of interference. I meant it. I will not admit of any interference from you." Then she sat with her two hands on her knees, looking him full in the face.

"I love you with all my heart, and am ready to tell everyone that I am to become your wife. They have a joke about it in the theatre calling me Mrs. Jones; and because n.o.body believes what anybody says they think you're a myth. I suppose it is queer that a singing girl should marry Mr. Jones. I'm to go in the autumn to Covent Garden, and get ever so much more money, and I shall still talk about Mr.

Jones,--unless you and I agree to break it off."

"Certainly not that," said he.

"But it is by no means certain. Will you go back to Ireland to-morrow morning, and undertake not to see me again, until you come prepared to marry me? If not we must break it off."

"I can hardly do that"

"Then," said she, rising from her chair, "it is broken off, and I will not call myself Mrs. Jones any more." He too rose from his chair, and frowned at her by way of an answer. "I have one other suggestion to make," she said. "I shall receive next October what will be quite sufficient for both of us, and for father too. Come and bear the rough and the smooth together with us."

"And live upon you?"

"I should live upon you without scruple if you had got it. And then I shall bear your interference without a word of complaint. Nay, I shall thank you for it. I shall come to you for advice in everything.

What you say will be my law. You shall knock down all the Mosses for me;--or lock them up, which would be so much better. But you must be my husband."

"Not yet. You should not ask me as yet. Think of my father's position. Let this one sad year pa.s.s by."

"Two--three, if there are to be two or three sad years! I will wait for you till you are as grey as old Peter, and I have not a note left in my throat. I will stick to you like beeswax. But I will not have you here hanging about me. Do you think that it would not be pleasant for me to have a lover to congratulate me every day on my little triumphs? Do you think that I should not be proud to be seen leaning always on your arm, with the consciousness that Mr. Moss would be annihilated at his very first word? But when a year had pa.s.sed by, where should I be? No, Frank, it will not do. If you were at Morony Castle things would go on very well. As you choose to a.s.sume to yourself the right of interference, we must part."

"When you tell me of such a proposition as that made to you by the woman, am I to say nothing?"

"Not a word;--unless it be by letter from Morony Castle, and then only to me. I will not have you here meddling with my affairs. I told you, though I didn't tell my father, because I would tell you everything."

"And I am to leave you,--without another word?"

"Yes, without another word. And remember that from this moment I am free to marry any man that may come the way."

"Rachel!"

"I am free to marry any man that may come the way. I don't say I shall do so. It may take me some little time to forget you. But I am free. When that has been understood between us I am sure you will interfere no longer; you will not be so unkind as to force upon me the necessity of telling the truth to all the people about the theatre. Let us understand each other."

"I understand," said he, with the air of a much injured man.

"I quite know your position. Trusting to your own prospects, you cannot marry me at present, and you do not choose to accept such income as I can give you. I respect and even approve your motives.

I am living a life before the public as a singer, in which it is necessary that I should encounter certain dangers. I can do so without fear, if I be left alone. You won't leave me alone. You won't marry me, and yet you won't leave me to my own devices;--therefore, we had better part." He took her by the hand sorrowfully, as though preparing to embrace her. "No, Mr. Jones," she said, "that is all done. I kissed you when my father was here, because I was then engaged to be your wife. That is over now, and I can only say good-bye." So saying, she retired, leaving him standing there in her sitting-room.

He remained for awhile meditating on his position, till he began to think that it would be useless for him to remain there. She certainly would not come down; and he, though he were to wait for her father's return, would get no more favourable reply from him. He, as he had promised, would certainly "back up" his daughter in all that she had said. As he went down out of the room with that feeling of insult which clings to a man when he has been forced to quit a house without any farewell ceremony, he certainly did feel that he had been ill-used. But he could not but acknowledge that she was justified.

There was a certain imperiousness about her which wounded his feelings as a man. He ought to have been allowed to be dominant. But then he knew that he could not live upon her income. His father would not speak to him had he gone back to Morony Castle expressing his intention of doing so.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FRANK JONES HAS CEASED TO EXIST.

To tell the truth, Rachel had a thorough good cry before she went to bed that night. Though there was something hard, fixed, imperious, almost manlike about her manner, still she was as soft-hearted as any other girl. We may best describe her by saying that she was an American and an actress. It was impossible to doubt her. No one who had once known her could believe her to be other than she had declared herself. She was loyal, affectionate, and dutiful. But there was missing to her a feminine weakness, which of all her gifts is the most valuable to an English woman, till she makes the mistake of bartering it away for women's rights. We can imagine, however, that the stanchest woman's-right lady should cry for her lost lover. And Rachel O'Mahony cried bitterly for hers. "It had to be done," she said, jumping up at last in her bedroom, and clenching her fist as she walked about the chamber. "It had to be done. A girl situated as I am cannot look too close after herself. Father is more like my son than my father; he has no idea that I want anything done for me. Nor do I want much," she said, as she went on rapidly taking the short course of the room. "No one could say a word about me till I brought my lover forward and showed him to the theatre. I think they did believe him to be a myth; but a myth in that direction does no harm till he appears in the flesh. They think that I have made an empty boast about my Mr. Jones. The ugliest girl that ever came out may do the same thing, and n.o.body ever thinks anything of it. A lover in the clouds never does any harm, and now my lover is in the clouds. I know that he has gone, and will never come to earth again. How much better I love him because he would not take my offer. Then there would have been a little contempt. And how could I expect him to yield to me in everything, with this brute Moss insulting me at every turn? I do not think he had the courage to send me that message, but still! What could I do but tell Frank? And then what could Frank do but come? I would have come, let any girl have bade me to stay away!" Here she had imagined herself to be the lover, and not the girl who was loved.

"But it only shows that we are better apart. He cannot marry me, and I cannot marry him. The Squire is at his wits' end with grief." By "the Squire" Mr. Jones had been signified. "It is better as it is.

Father and the Squire ought never to have been brought together,--nor ought I and Frank. I suppose I must tell them all at the theatre that Mr. Jones belongs to me no longer. Only if I did so, they would think that I was holding out a lure to Mahomet M. There's papa. I'll go down and tell him all that need be told about it." So saying she ascended to their sitting-room.

"Well, my dear, what did you do with Frank?"

"He has gone back to Ireland under the name of Mr. Jones."

"Then there was a quarrel?"

"Oh dear yes! there was safe to be a quarrel."

"Does it suit your book upon the whole?"

"Not in the least. You see before you the most wretched heroine that ever appeared on the boards of any theatre. You may laugh, but it's true. I don't know what I've got to say to Mr. Moss now. If he comes forward in a proper manner, and can prove to me that Madame Socani is not Madame Mahomet M. Moss, I don't know what I can do but accept him. The Adriatic is free to wed another." Then she walked about the room, laughing to prevent her tears.

"Did you hear anything about Castle Morony?"