The Landleaguers Part 50

"It is in G.o.d's hands," said the doctor. There came not another word from Rachel, either by her tablet or by any struggle at speech. The doctor, having made what attempts at comfort he could, went his way.

Then her father, who had been in and out constantly, came to his daughter. He had not been present when she threw the tablet away, but he knew what the doctor had said to her.

"My pet," he said. But she made no attempt to answer him. A year! At her time of life a year is an eternity. And then this doctor had only told her that her voice was in G.o.d's hands. She could talk to herself without any effort. "When they say that they always condemn you.

When the doctor tells you that you are in G.o.d's hands he means the Devil's."

She had been so near the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, and now she was no more than any other poor woman. She might be less, as her face had begun to wither with her voice. She had all but succeeded; as for her face, as for the mere look of her, let it go. She told herself that she cared nothing for her appearance. What was Lord Castlewell to her,--what even was Frank's love? To stand on the boards of the theatre and become conscious of the intense silence of the crowd before her,--so intense because the tone of her voice was the one thing desired by all the world. And then to open her mouth and to let the music go forth and to see the ears all erect, as she fancied she could, so that not a sound should be lost,--should not be harvested by the hungry hearers! That was to be a very G.o.d! As she told herself of all her regrets, there was not a pa.s.sing sorrow given to Lord Castlewell. And what of the other man? "Oh, Frank, dear Frank, you will know it all now. There need be no more taking money." But she did take some comfort at last in that promise of G.o.d's hands. When she had come, as it were, to the bitterest moment of her grief, she told herself that, though it might be even at the end of a whole year, there was something to be hoped.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

LORD CASTLEWELL IS MUCH TROUBLED.

When her father had been with her half-an-hour, and was beginning to think that he could escape and go down to the House,--and he had a rod in pickle for the Speaker's back, such a rod that the Speaker's back should be sore for the rest of the session--Rachel began her lengthened conversation with him. In the last half-hour she had made up her mind as to what she would say. But the conversation was so long and intricate, being necessarily carried on by means of her tablet, that poor O'Mahony's rod was losing all its pickle. "Father, you must go and see Lord Castlewell at once."

"I think, my dear, he understood me altogether when I saw him before, and he seemed to agree with me. I told him I didn't mind being called an a.s.s, but that you were so absurd as to dislike it. In fact, I gave him to understand that we were three a.s.ses; but I don't think he'll say it again."

"It isn't about that at all," said the tablet.

"What else do you want?"

Then Rachel went to work and wrote her demand with what deliberation she could a.s.sume.

"You must go and tell him that I don't want to marry him at all. He has been very kind, and you mustn't tell him that he's an a.s.s any more. But it won't do. He has proposed to marry me because he has wanted a singing girl; and I think I should have done for him,--only I can't sing."

Then the father replied, having put himself into such a position on the bed as to read the tablet while Rachel was filling it: "But that'll all come right in a very short time."

"It can't, and it won't. The doctor says a year; but he knows nothing about it, and says it's in G.o.d's hands. He means by that it's as bad as it can be."

"But, my dear--"

"I tell you it must be so."

"But you are engaged. He would never be so base a man as to take your word at such a moment as this. Of course he couldn't do it. If you had had small-pox, or anything horrible like that, he would not have been justified."

"I'm as ugly as ever I can be," said the tablet, "and as poor a creature." Then she stopped her pencil for a moment.

"Of course he's engaged to you. Why, my dear, I'd have to cowhide him if he said a word of the kind."

"Oh, no!" said the tablet with frantic energy.

"But you see if I wouldn't! You see if I don't! I suppose they think a lord isn't to be cowhided in this country. I guess I'll let 'em know the difference."

"But I don't love him," said the tablet.

"Goodness gracious me!"

"I don't. When he spoke of you in that way I began to think of it, and I found I hated him. I do hate him like poison, and I want you to tell him so."

"That will be very disagreeable," said the father.

"Never mind the disagreeables. You tell him so. I tell you he won't be the worst pleased of the lot of us. He wanted a singer, and not a Landleaguer's daughter; now he hasn't got the singer, but has got the Landleaguer's daughter. And I'll tell you something else I want--"

"What do you want?" asked the father, when her hand for a moment ceased to scrawl.

"I want," she said, "Frank Jones. Now you know all about it."

Then she hid her face beneath the bedclothes, and refused to write another word.

He went on talking to her till he had forgotten the Speaker and the rod in pickle. He besought her to think better of it; and if not that, just at present to postpone any action in the matter. He explained to her how very disagreeable it would be to him to have to go to the lord with such a message as she now proposed. But she only enhanced the vehemence of her order by shaking her head as her face lay buried in the pillow.

"Let it wait for one fortnight," said the father.

"No!" said the girl, using her own voice for the effort.

Then the father slowly took himself off, and making his way to the House of Commons, renewed his pa.s.sion as he went, and had himself again turned out before he had been half-an-hour in the House.

The earl was sitting alone after breakfast two or three days subsequently, thinking in truth of his difficulty with Rachel. It had come to be manifest to him that he must marry the girl unless something terrible should occur to her. "She might die," he said to himself very sadly, trying to think of cases in which singers had died from neglected throats. And it did make him very sad. He could not think of the perishing of that magnificent treble without great grief; and, after his fashion, he did love her personally. He did not know that he could ever love anyone very much better. He had certainly thought that it would be a good thing that his father and mother and sister should go and live in foreign lands,--in order, in short, that they might never more be heard of to trouble him,--but he did not even contemplate their deaths, so sweet-minded was he. But in the first fury of his love he had thought how nice it would be to be left with his singing girl, and no one to trouble him. Now there came across him an idea that something was due to the Marquis of Beaulieu,--something, that is, to his own future position; and what could he do with a singing girl for his wife who could not sing?

He was unhappy as he thought of it all, and would ever and again, as he meditated, be stirred up to mild anger when he remembered that he had been told that "the truth would suffer." He had intended, at any rate, that his singing girl should be submissive and obedient while in his hands. But here had been an outbreak of pa.s.sion! And here was this confounded O'Mahony ready to make a fool of himself at a moment's notice before all the world. At that moment the door was opened and Mr. O'Mahony was shown into the room.

"Oh! dear," exclaimed the lord, "how do you do, Mr. O'Mahony? I hope I see you well."

"Pretty well. But upon my word, I don't know how to tell you what I've got to say."

"Has anything gone wrong with Rachel?"

"Not with her illness,--which, however, does not seem to improve. The poor girl! But you'll say she's gone mad."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I really hardly know how I ought to break it. You must have learned by this time that Rachel is a girl determined to have her own way."

"Well; well; well!"

"And, upon my word, when I think of myself, I feel that I have nothing to do but what she bids me."

"It's more than you do for the Speaker, Mr. O'Mahony."

"Yes, it is; I admit that. But Rachel, though she is inclined to be tyrannical, is not such a downright positive old blue-bottle nincomp.o.o.p as that white-wigged king of kings. Rachel is bad; but even you can't say that she is bad enough to be Speaker of the House of Commons. My belief is, that he'll come to be locked up yet."

"We have all the highest opinion of him."

"It's because you like to be sat upon. You don't want to be allowed to say bo to a goose. I have often heard in my own country--"

"But you call yourself an Irishman, Mr. O'Mahony."