Rachel, before the end of March, received the following letter from her friend, but she received it in bed. The whole world of Covent Garden Theatre had been thrown into panic-stricken dismay by the fact that Miss O'Mahony had something the matter with her throat. This was the second attack, the first having been so short as to have caused no trepidations in the world of music; but this was supposed to be sterner in its nature, and to have caused already great alarm. Before March was over it was published to the world at large that Miss O'Mahony would not be able to sing during the forthcoming week.
In this catastrophe her lordly lover was of course the most sedulous of attendants. In truth he was so, though when we last met him and his bride together he had made himself very disagreeable. Rachel had then answered him in such language as to make her think it impossible that he should not quarrel with her; but still here he was, constant at her chamber door. Whether his constancy was due to his position about the theatre or to his ardour as a lover, she did not know; but in either case it troubled her somewhat, and interfered with her renewed dreams about Frank. Then came the following letter from Frank's sister:
Dear Rachel,I am not very much surprised, though I was a little, that you should have accepted Lord Castlewell; but I had not quite known the ins and outs of it, not having been there to see. Frank says that the separation had certainly come from him, because he could not bring himself to burden your prosperity with the heavy load of his misfortunes. Poor fellow! They are very heavy. They would have made you both miserable for awhile, unless you could have agreed to postpone your marriage. Why should it not have been postponed?But Lord Castlewell came in the way, and I supposed him naturally to be as beautiful and gracious as he is gorgeous and rich. But though you say nothing about him there does creep out from your letter some kind of idea that he is not quite so beautiful in your eyes as was poor Frank. Remember that poor Frank has to wear two blue shirts a week and no more, in order to save the washing! How many does Lord Castlewell wear? How many will he wear when he is a marquis?But at any rate it does seem to be the case that you and the earl are not as happy together as your best friends could wish. We had understood that the earl was ready to expire for love at the sound of every note. Has he slackened in his admiration so as to postpone his expiring to the close of every song? Or why is it that Frank should be allowed again to come up and trouble your dreams?You are so fond of joking that it is almost impossible for a poor steady-going, boycotted young woman to follow you to the end. Of course I understand that what you say about Mr. Moss is altogether a joke. But then what you say about Frank is, I am sure, not a joke. If you love him the best, as I am sure you do—so very much the best as to disregard the marble halls—I advise you, in the gentlest manner possible, to tell the marble halls that they are not wanted. It cannot be right to marry one man when you say that you love another as you do Frank. Of course he will wait if you like to wait. All I can say is, that no man loves a girl better than he loves you.We are very much down in the world at the present. We have literally no money. Papa's relatives have given their money to him to invest, and he has laid it out on the property here. Nobody was thought to have done so well as he till lately; but now they cannot get their interest, and, of course, they are impatient. Commissioners have sat in the neighbourhood, and have reduced the rents all round. But they can't reduce what doesn't exist. There are tenants who I suppose will pay. Pat Carroll could certainly have done so. But then papa's share in the property will be reduced almost to nothing. He will not get above five shillings out of every twenty shillings of rent, such as it was supposed to be when he bought it. I don't understand all this, and I am sure I cannot make you do so.I have nothing to tell about my young man, as you call him, except that he cannot be mine. I fancy that girls are not fond of writing about their young men when they don't belong to them. Frank, at any rate, is yours, if you will take him; and you can write about him with an open heart. I cannot do so. Think of poor Florian and his horrid death. Is this a time for marriage,—if it were otherwise possible,—which it is not?God bless you, dear Rachel. Let me hear from you again soon. I have said nothing to Frank as yet. I attempted it this morning, but was stopped. You can imagine that he, poor fellow, is not very happy.—Yours very affectionately,Edith Jones.
Dear Rachel,
I am not very much surprised, though I was a little, that you should have accepted Lord Castlewell; but I had not quite known the ins and outs of it, not having been there to see. Frank says that the separation had certainly come from him, because he could not bring himself to burden your prosperity with the heavy load of his misfortunes. Poor fellow! They are very heavy. They would have made you both miserable for awhile, unless you could have agreed to postpone your marriage. Why should it not have been postponed?
But Lord Castlewell came in the way, and I supposed him naturally to be as beautiful and gracious as he is gorgeous and rich. But though you say nothing about him there does creep out from your letter some kind of idea that he is not quite so beautiful in your eyes as was poor Frank. Remember that poor Frank has to wear two blue shirts a week and no more, in order to save the washing! How many does Lord Castlewell wear? How many will he wear when he is a marquis?
But at any rate it does seem to be the case that you and the earl are not as happy together as your best friends could wish. We had understood that the earl was ready to expire for love at the sound of every note. Has he slackened in his admiration so as to postpone his expiring to the close of every song? Or why is it that Frank should be allowed again to come up and trouble your dreams?
You are so fond of joking that it is almost impossible for a poor steady-going, boycotted young woman to follow you to the end. Of course I understand that what you say about Mr. Moss is altogether a joke. But then what you say about Frank is, I am sure, not a joke. If you love him the best, as I am sure you do—so very much the best as to disregard the marble halls—I advise you, in the gentlest manner possible, to tell the marble halls that they are not wanted. It cannot be right to marry one man when you say that you love another as you do Frank. Of course he will wait if you like to wait. All I can say is, that no man loves a girl better than he loves you.
We are very much down in the world at the present. We have literally no money. Papa's relatives have given their money to him to invest, and he has laid it out on the property here. Nobody was thought to have done so well as he till lately; but now they cannot get their interest, and, of course, they are impatient. Commissioners have sat in the neighbourhood, and have reduced the rents all round. But they can't reduce what doesn't exist. There are tenants who I suppose will pay. Pat Carroll could certainly have done so. But then papa's share in the property will be reduced almost to nothing. He will not get above five shillings out of every twenty shillings of rent, such as it was supposed to be when he bought it. I don't understand all this, and I am sure I cannot make you do so.
I have nothing to tell about my young man, as you call him, except that he cannot be mine. I fancy that girls are not fond of writing about their young men when they don't belong to them. Frank, at any rate, is yours, if you will take him; and you can write about him with an open heart. I cannot do so. Think of poor Florian and his horrid death. Is this a time for marriage,—if it were otherwise possible,—which it is not?
God bless you, dear Rachel. Let me hear from you again soon. I have said nothing to Frank as yet. I attempted it this morning, but was stopped. You can imagine that he, poor fellow, is not very happy.—Yours very affectionately,
Edith Jones.
Rachel read the letter on her sick bed, and as soon as it was read Lord Castlewell came to her. There was always a nurse there, but Lord Castlewell was supposed to be able to see the patient, and on one occasion had been accompanied by his sister. It was all done in the most proper form imaginable, much to Rachel's disgust. Incapable as she was in her present state of carrying on any argument, she was desirous of explaining to Lord Castlewell that he was not to hold himself as bound to marry her. "If you think that father is an ass, you had better say so outright, and let there be an end of it." She wished to speak to him after this fashion. But she could not say it in the presence of the nurse and of Lady Augusta. But Lord Castlewell's conduct to herself made her more anxious than ever to say something of the kind. He was very civil, even tender, in his inquiries, but he was awfully frigid. She could tell from his manner that that last speech of hers was rankling in his bosom as the frigid words fell from his lips. He was waiting for some recovery,—a partial recovery would be better than a whole one,—and then he would speak his mind. She wanted to speak her mind first, but she could hardly do so with her throat in its present condition.
She had no other friend than her father, no other friend to take her part with her lovers. And she had, too, fallen into such a state that she could not say much to him. According to the orders of the physician, she was not to interest herself at all about anything.
"I wonder whether the man was ever engaged to two or three lovers at once," she said to herself, alluding to the doctor. "He knows at any rate of Lord Castlewell, and does he think that I am not to trouble myself about him?"
She had a tablet under her pillow, which she took out and wrote on it certain instructions. "Dear father, C. and I quarrelled before I was ill at all, and now he comes here just as though nothing had happened. He said you made an ass of yourself in the House of Commons. I won't have it, and mean to tell him so; but I can't talk. Won't you tell him from me that I shall expect him to beg my pardon, and that I shall never hear anything of the kind again. It must come to this. Your own R." This was handed to Mr. O'Mahony by Rachel that very day before he went down to the House of Commons.
"But, my dear!" he said. Rachel only shook her head. "I can hardly say all this about myself. I don't care twopence whether he thinks me an ass or not."
"But I do," said Rachel on the tablet.
"He is an earl, and has wonderful privileges, as well as a great deal of money."
"Marble halls and impudence," said Rachel on the tablet. Then Mr. O'Mahony, feeling that he ought to leave her in peace, made her a promise, and went his way. At Covent Garden that evening he met the noble lord, having searched for him in vain at Westminster. He was much more likely to find Lord Castlewell among the singers of the day, than with the peers; but of these things Mr. O'Mahony hardly understood all the particulars.
"Well, O'Mahony, how is your charming daughter?"
"My daughter is not inclined to be charming at all. I do hope she may be getting better, but at present she is bothering her head about you."
"It is natural that she should think of me a little sometimes," said the flattered lord.
"She has written me a message which she says that I am to deliver. Now mind, I don't care about it the least in the world." Here the lord looked very grave. "She says that you called me an ass. Well, I am to you, and you're an ass to me. I am sure you won't take it as any insult, neither do I. She wants you to promise that you won't call me an ass any more. Of course it would follow that I shouldn't be able to call you one. We should both be hampered, and the truth would suffer. But as she is ill, perhaps it would be better that you should say that you didn't mean it."
But this was not at all Lord Castlewell's view of the matter. Though he had been very glib with his tongue in calling O'Mahony an ass, he did not at all like the compliment as paid back to him by his father-in-law. And there was something which he did not quite understand in the assertion that the truth would suffer. All the world was certain that Mr. O'Mahony was an ass. He had been turned out of the House of Commons only yesterday for saying that the Speaker was quite wrong, and sticking to it. There was not the slightest doubt in the world about it. But his lordship knew his gamut, which was all that he pretended to know, and never interfered with matters of which he was ignorant. He was treated with the greatest respect at Covent Garden, and nobody ever suspected him of being an ass. And then he had it in his mind to speak very seriously to Rachel as soon as she might be well enough to hear him. "You have spoken to me in a manner, my dear, which I am sure you did not intend." He had all the words ready prepared on a bit of paper in his pocket-book. And he was by no means sure but that the little quarrel might even yet become permanent. He had discussed it frequently with Lady Augusta, and Lady Augusta rather wished that it might become permanent. And Lord Castlewell was not quite sure that he did not wish it also. The young lady had a way of speaking about her own people which was not to be borne. And now she had been guilty of the gross indecency of sending a message to him by her own father,—the very man whom he called an ass. And the man in return only laughed and called him an ass.
But Lord Castlewell knew the proprieties of life. Here was this—girl whom he had proposed to marry, a sad invalid at the moment. The doctor had, in fact, given him but a sad account of the case. "She has strained her voice continually till it threatens to leave her," said the doctor; "I do not say that it will be so, but it may. Her best chance will be to abandon all professional exertions till next year." Then the doctor told him that he had not as yet taken upon himself to hint anything of all this to Miss O'Mahony.
Lord Castlewell was puzzled in the extreme. If the lady lost her voice and so became penniless and without a profession; and if he in such case were to throw her over, and leave her unmarried, what would the world say of him? Would it be possible then to make the world understand that he had deserted her, not on account of her illness, but because she had not liked to hear her father called an ass. And had not Rachel already begun the battle in a manner intended to show that she meant to be the victor? Could it be possible that she herself was desirous of backing out. There was no knowing the extent of the impudence to which these Americans would not go! No doubt she had, by the use of intemperate language on the occasion when she would not be driven out in the carriage, given him ample cause for a breach. To tell the truth, he had thought then that a breach would be expedient. But she had fallen ill, and it was incumbent on him to be tender and gentle. Then, from her very sick bed, she had sent him this impudent message.
And it had been delivered so impudently! "The truth would suffer!" He was sure that there was a meaning in the words intended to signify that he, Lord Castlewell, was and must be an ass at all times. Then he asked himself whether he was an ass because he did not quite understand O'Mahony's argument. Why did the truth suffer? As to his being an ass,—O'Mahony being an ass,—he was sure that there was no doubt about that. All the world said so. The House of Commons knew it,—and the newspapers. He had been turned out of the House for saying the Speaker was wrong, and not apologising for having uttered such words. And he, Lord Castlewell, had so expressed himself only to the woman who was about to be his wife. Then she had had the incredible folly to tell her father, and the father had told him that under certain circumstances the "truth must suffer." He did not quite understand it, but was sure that Mr. O'Mahony had meant to say that they were two fools together.
He was not at all ashamed of marrying a singing girl. It was the thing he would be sure to do. And he thought of some singing girls before his time, and of his time also, whom it would be an honour for such as him to marry. But he would degrade himself—so he felt—by the connection with an advanced Landleaguing Member of Parliament. He looked round the lot of them, and he assured himself that there was not one from whose loins an English nobleman could choose a wife without disgrace. It was most unfortunate,—so he told himself. The man had not become Member of Parliament till quite the other day. He had not even opened his mouth in Parliament till the engagement had been made. And now, among them all, this O'Mahony was the biggest ass. And yet Lord Castlewell found himself quite unable to hold his own with the Irish member when the Irish member was brought to attack him. He certainly would have made Rachel's conduct a fair excuse for breaking with her,—only that she was ill.
If he could have known the state of Rachel's mind there might have been an end to his troubles. She had now, at length, been made thoroughly wretched by hearing the truth from the doctor,—or what the doctor believed to be the truth. "Miss O'Mahony, I had better tell you, your voice has gone, at any rate for a year."
"For a year!" The hoarse, angry, rusty whisper came forth from her, and in spite of its hoarseness and rustiness was audible enough.
"I fear so. For heaven's sake don't talk; use your tablet." Rachel drew the tablet from under her pillow and dashed it across the room. The doctor picked it up, and, with a kind smile and a little caressing motion of his hand, put it again back under the pillow. Rachel buried her head amidst the bedclothes and sobbed bitterly. "Try to make yourself happy in remembering how you have succeeded," said the doctor.
"It won't be back just the same," she wrote on her tablet.
"It is in God'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 God'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 God's hands he means the Devil's."
She had been so near the gods and goddesses, 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 god! As she told herself of all her regrets, there was not a passing 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 God'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.
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 ass, but that you were so absurd as to dislike it. In fact, I gave him to understand that we were three asses; 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 assume.
"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 ass 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 God'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 Iwant—"
"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 passion 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 passion! 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 nincompoop 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 owncountry—"
"But you call yourself an Irishman, Mr. O'Mahony."
"Never did so in my life. They called me so over there when they wanted to return me to hold my tongue in that House of Torment; but I guess it will puzzle the best Englishman going to find out whether I'm an American or an Irishman. They did something over there to make me an American; but they did nothing to unmake me as an Irishman. And there I am, member for Cavan; and it will go hard with me if I don't break that Speaker's heart before I've done with him. What! I ain't to say that he goes wrong when he never goes right by any chance?"
"Have you come here this morning, Mr. O'Mahony, to abuse the Speaker?"
"By no means. It was you who threw the Speaker in my teeth."
Lord Castlewell did acknowledge to himself his own imprudence.
"I came here to tell you about my daughter, and upon my word I shall find it more difficult than anything I may have to say to the Speaker. I have the most profound contempt for the Speaker."
"Perhaps he returns it."
"I don't believe he does, or he wouldn't make so much of me as to turn me out of the House. When a man finds it necessary to remove an enemy, let the cause be what it may, he cannot be said to despise that enemy. Now, I wouldn't give a puff of breath to turn him out of the House. In truth, I despise him too much."
"He is to be pitied," said the lord, with a gentle touch of irony.
"I'll tell you what, Lord Castlewell—"
"Don't go on about the Speaker, Mr. O'Mahony,—pray don't."
"You always begin,—but I won't. I didn't come here to speak about him at all. And the Chairman of Committees is positively worse. You know there's a creature called Chairman of Committees?"
"Now, Mr. O'Mahony, I really must beg that you will fight your political battles anywhere but here. I'm not a politician. How is your charming daughter this morning?"
"She is anything but charming. I hardly know what to make of her, but I find that I am always obliged to do what she tells me." There was another allusion to the Speaker on the lord's tongue, but he restrained himself. "She has sent me here to say that she wants the marriage to be broken off."
"Good Heavens!"
"She does. She says that you intend to marry her because she's a singing girl;—and now she can't sing."
"Not exactly that," said the lord.
"And she thinks she oughtn't to have accepted you at all,—that's the truth." The lord's face became very long. "I think myself that it was a little too hurried. I don't suppose you quite knew your own minds."
"If Miss O'Mahony repents—"
"Well, Miss O'Mahony does repent. She has got something into her head that I can't quite explain. She thought that she'd do for a countess very well as long as she was on the boards of a theatre. But now that she's to be relegated to private life she begins to feel that she ought to look after someone about her own age."
"Oh, indeed! Is this her message?"
"Well; yes. It is her message. I shouldn't in such a matter invent it all if she hadn't sent me. I don't know, now I think of it, that she did say anything about her own age. But yet she did," remarked Mr. O'Mahony, calling to mind the assertion made by Rachel that she wanted Frank Jones. Frank Jones was about her own age, whereas the lord was as old as her father.
"Upon my word, I am much obliged to Miss O'Mahony."
"She certainly has meant to be as courteous as she knows how," said Mr. O'Mahony.
"Perhaps on your side of the water they have different ideas of courtesy. The young lady sends me word that now she means to retire from the stage she finds I am too old for her."
"Not that at all," said Mr. O'Mahony. But he said it in an apologetic tone, as though admitting the truth.
Lord Castlewell, as he sat there for a few moments, acknowledged to himself that Rachel possessed certain traits of character which had something fine about them, from whatever side of the water she had come. He was a reasonable man, and he considered that there was a way made for him to escape from this trouble which was not to have been expected. Had Rachel been an English girl, or an Italian, or a Norwegian, he would hardly have been let off so easily. As he was an earl, and about to be a marquis, and as he was a rich man, such suitors are not generally given up in a hurry. This young lady had sent word to him that she had lost her voice permanently and was therefore obliged to surrender that high title, that noble name, and those golden hopes which had glistened before her eyes. No doubt he had offered to marry her because of her singing;—that is, he would not have so offered had she not have been a singer. But he could not have departed from his engagement simply because she had become dumb. He quite understood that Mr. O'Mahony would have been there with his cowhide, and though he was by no means a coward be did not wish to encounter the American Member of the House of Commons in all his rage. In fact, he had been governed in his previous ideas by a feeling of propriety; but propriety certainly did not demand him to marry a young lady who had sent to tell him that he was too old. And this irate member of the House of Commons had come to bring him the message!
"What am I expected to suggest now?" said Lord Castlewell, after awhile.
"Just your affectionate blessing, and you're very sorry," said Mr. O'Mahony, with a shrug. "That's the kind of thing, I should say."
He couldn't send her his affectionate blessing, and he couldn't say he was very sorry. Had the young lady been about to marry his son,—had there been such a son,—he could have blessed her; and he felt that his own personal dignity did not admit of an expression of sorrow.
Was he to let the young lady off altogether? There was something nearly akin,—very nearly akin,—to true love in his bosom as he thought of this. The girl was ill, and no doubt weak, and had been made miserable by the loss of her voice. The doctor had told him that her voice, for all singing purposes, had probably gone for ever. But her beauty remained;—had not so faded, at least, as to have given any token of permanent decay. And that peculiarly bright eye was there; and the wit of the words which had captivated him. The very smallness of her stature, with its perfect symmetry, had also gone far to enrapture him.
No doubt, he was forty. He did not openly pretend even to be less. And where was the young lady, singer or no singer, who if disengaged, would reject the heir to a marquisate because he was forty? And he did not believe that Rachel had sent him any message in which allusion was made to his age. That had been added by the stupid father, who was, without doubt, the biggest fool that either America or Ireland had ever produced. Now that the matter had been brought before him in such bald terms, he was by no means sure that he was desirous of accepting the girl's offer to release him. And the father evidently had no desire to catch him. He must acknowledge that Mr. O'Mahony was an honest fool.
"It's very hard to know what I'm to say." Here Mr. O'Mahony shook his head. "I think that, perhaps, I had better come and call upon her."
"You mustn't speak a word! And, if you're to be considered as no longer engaged, perhaps there might be—you know—something—well, something of delicacy in the matter!"
Mr. O'Mahony felt at the moment that he ought to protect the interests of Frank Jones.
"I understand. At any rate I am not disposed to send her my blessing at present as a final step. An engagement to be married is a very serious step in life."
But her father remembered that she had told him that she wanted Frank Jones. Should he tell the lord the exact truth, and explain all about Frank Jones? It would be the honest thing to do. And yet he felt that his girl should have another chance. This lord was not much to his taste; but still, for a lord, he had his good points.
"I think we had better leave it for the present," said the lord. "I feel that in the midst of all your eloquence I do not quite catch Miss O'Mahony's meaning."
O'Mahony felt that this lord was as bad a lord as any of them. He would like to force the lord to meet him at some debating club where there was no wretched Speaker and there force him to give an answer on any of the burning questions which now excited the two countries.
"Very well. I will explain to Rachel as soon as I can that the matter is still left in abeyance. Of course we feel the honour done us by your lordship in not desiring to accept at once her decision. Her condition is no doubt sad. But I suppose she may expect to hear once more from yourself in a short time."
So Mr. O'Mahony took his leave, and as he went to Cecil Street endeavoured in his own mind to investigate the character of Lord Castlewell. That he was a fool there could be no doubt, a fool with whom he would not be forced to live in the constant intercourse of married life for any money that could be offered to him. He was a man who, without singing himself, cared for nothing but the second-hand life of a theatre. But then he, Mr. O'Mahony, was not a young woman, and was not expected to marry Lord Castlewell. But he had told himself over and over again that Lord Castlewell had been "caught." He was a great lord rolling in money, and Rachel had "caught" him. He had not quite approved of Rachel's conduct, but the lord had been fair game for a woman. What the deuce was he to think now of the lord who would not be let off?
"I wonder whether it can be love for her," said he to himself; "such love as I used to feel."
Then he sighed heavily as he went home.
It was now April, and this April was a sad month in Ireland. I do not know why the deaths of two such men as were then murdered should touch the heart with a deeper sorrow than is felt for the fate of others whose lot is lower in life; why the poor widow, who has lost her husband while doing his duty amidst outrages and unmanly revenges, is not to be so much thought of as the sweet lady who has been robbed of her all in the same fashion. But so it is with human nature. We know how a people will weep for their Sovereign, and it was with such tears as that, with tears as sincere as those shed for the best of kings, that Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were lamented. In April these two men had fallen, hacked to death in front of the Viceregal Lodge. By whom they were killed, as I write now, no one knows, and as regards Lord Frederick one can hardly guess the reason. He had come over to Ireland on that very day, to take the place which his luckier predecessor had just vacated, and had as yet done no service, and excited no vengeance in Ireland. He had only attended an opening pageant;—because with him had come a new Lord Lieutenant,—not new indeed to the office, but new in his return. An accident had brought the two together on the day, but Lord Frederick was altogether a stranger, and yet he had been selected. Such had been his fate, and such also the fate of Mr. Burke, who, next to him in official rank, may possibly have been in truth the doomed one. They were both dealt with horribly on that April morning,—and all Ireland was grieving. All Ireland was repudiating the crime, and saying that this horror had surely been done by American hands. Even the murderers native to Ireland seemed to be thoroughly ashamed of this deed.
It would be needless here to tell,—or to attempt to tell,—how one Lord-Lieutenant had made way for another, and one Chief Secretary for another Chief Secretary. It would be trying to do too much. In the pages of a novel the novelist can hardly do more than indicate the sources of the troubles which have fallen upon the country, and can hardly venture to deal with the names and characters of those who have been concerned. For myself, I do most cordially agree with the policy of him in whose place Lord Frederick had this day suffered,—as far as his conduct in Ireland can be read from that which he did and from that which he spoke. As far as he had agreed with the Government in their measure for interfering with the price paid for land in the country,—for putting up a new law devised by themselves in lieu of that time-honoured law by which property has ever been protected in England,—I disagree. Of my disagreement no one will take notice;—but my story cannot be written without expressing it.
But down at Morony Castle, mingled with their sorrows, there was a joy and a triumph; not loud indeed, not sounded with trumpets, not as yet perfect, not quite assured even in the mind of one man; but yet assuring in the mind of that man,—and indeed of one other,—almost to conviction. That man was Captain Yorke Clayton, and that other man was only poor Hunter, the wounded policeman. For such triumph as was theirs a victim is needed; and in this case the victim, the hoped-for victim, was Mr. Lax.
Nothing had ever been made out in regard to the murder of Terry Carroll in the Court House at Galway. Irish mysteries are coming to be unriddled now, but there will be no unriddling of that. Yorke Clayton, together with Hunter and all the police of County Galway, could do nothing in regard to that mystery. They had struggled their very best, and, from the nature of the crime, had found themselves almost obliged to discover the perpetrator. The press of the two countries, the newspapers in other respects so hostile to each other, had united in declaring that the police were bound to know all about it. The police had determined to know nothing about it, because the Government did not dare to bring forward such evidence. This was the Irish Landleague view; and though it contained an accusation against the Government for having contrived the murder itself, it was all the better on that account. The English papers simply said that the Galway police must be fast asleep. This man had been murdered when in the very hands of the officers of justice. The judge had seen the shots fired. The victim fell into the hands of four policemen. The pistol was found at his feet. It was done in daylight, and all Galway was looking on. The kind of things that were said by one set of newspapers and another drove Yorke Clayton almost out of his wits. He had to maintain a show of good humour, and he did maintain it gallantly. "My hero is a hero still," whispered Edith to her own pillow. But, in truth, nothing could be done as to that Galway case. Mr. Lax was still in custody, and was advised by counsel not to give any account of himself at that time. It was indecent on the part of the prosecution that he should be asked to do so. So said the lawyers on his side, but it was clear that nobody in the court and nobody in Galway could be got to say that he or she had seen him do it. And yet Yorke Clayton had himself seen the hip of the stooping man. "I suppose I couldn't swear to it," he said to himself; and it would be hard to see how he could swear to the man without forswearing himself.
But while this lamentable failure was going on, success reached him from another side. He didn't care a straw what the newspapers said of him, so long as he could hang Mr. Lax. His triumph in that respect would drown all other failures. Mr. Lax was still in custody, and many insolent petitions had been made on his behalf in order that he might be set free. "Did the Crown intend to pretend that they had any shadow of evidence against him as to the shooting of Terry Carroll?"
"No;—but there was another murder committed a day or two before. Poor young Florian Jones had been murdered. Even presuming that Lax's hand cannot be seen visible in the matter of Terry Carroll, there is, we think, something to connect him with the other murder. The two, no doubt, were committed in the same interest. The Crown is not prepared to allow Lax to escape from its hands quite yet." Then there were many words on the subject going on just at the time at which Lax especially wanted his freedom, and at which, to tell the truth, Yorke Clayton was near the end of his tether in regard to poor Florian.
In the beginning of his inquiry as to the Ballyglunin murder, he entertained an idea that Lax, after firing the shot, had been seen by that wicked car-driver, who had boycotted Mr. Jones in his great need. The reader will probably have forgotten that Mr. Jones had required to be driven home to Morony Castle from Ballyglunin station, and had been refused the accommodation by a wicked old Landleaguer, who had joined the conspiracy formed in the neighbourhood against Mr. Jones. He had done so, either in fear of his neighbours, or else in a true patriot spirit—because he had gone without any supper, as had also his horses, on the occasion. The man's name was Teddy Mooney, the father of Kit Mooney who stopped the hunting at Moytubber. And he certainly was patriotic. From day to day he went on refusing fares,—for the boycotted personages were after all more capable of paying fares than the boycotting hero of doing without them,—suffering much himself from want of victuals, and more on behalf of his poor animal. He saw his son Kit more than once or twice in those days, and Kit appeared to be the stancher patriot of the two. Kit was a baker, and did earn wages; but he utterly refused to subsidise the patriotism of his father. "If ye can't do that for the ould counthry," said Kit, "ye ain't half the man I took ye for." But he refused him a gallon of oats for his horse.
It was not at once that the old man gave way. He went on boycotting individuals till he hadn't a pair of breeches left to sit upon, and the non-boycotted tradesmen of the little towns around declined to sit upon his car, because the poor horse, fed upon roadside grasses, refused to be urged into a trot. "Tare and ages, man, what's the good of it? Ain't we a-cutting the noses off our own faces, and that with the money so scarce that I haven't seen the sight of a half-crown this two weeks." It was thus that he declared his purpose of going back to the common unpatriotic ways of mankind, to an old pal, whom he had known all his days. He did do so, but found, alas! that his trade had perished in the meanwhile or forced itself into other channels.
The result was that Teddy Mooney became very bitter in spirit, and was for a while an Orangeman, and almost a Protestant. The evil things that had been done to him were terrible to his spirit. He had been threatened with eviction from ten acres of ground because he couldn't pay his rent; or, as he said, because he had declined to drive a maid-servant to the house of another gentleman who was also boycotted. This had not been true, but it had served to embitter Teddy Mooney. And now, at last, he had determined to belong to the other side.
When an Irishman does make up his mind to serve the other side he is very much determined. There is but the meditation of two minutes between Landleaguing and Orangeism, between boycotting landlords and thorough devotion to the dear old landlord. When Kit Mooney had first laid down the law to his father, how he ought to assist in boycotting all the enemies of the Landleague, no one saw his way clearer than did Teddy Mooney. "I wouldn't mind doing without a bit or a sup," he said, when his son explained to him that he might have to suffer a little for the cause. "Not a bit or a sup when the ould counthry wants it." He had since had a few words with his son Kit, and was now quite on the other side of the question. He was told that somebody had threatened to cut off his old mare's tail because he had driven Phil D'Arcy. Since that he had become a martyr as well as an Orangeman, and was disposed to go any length "for the gintl'men." This had come all about by degrees—had been coming about since poor Florian's murder; and at last he wrote a letter to Yorke Clayton, or got someone else to write it:
"Yer Honour,—It was Lax as dropped Master Flory. Divil a doubt about it. There's one as can tell more about it as is on the road from Ballyglunin all round. This comes from a well-wisher to the ould cause. For Muster Clayton."
When Captain Clayton received this he at once knew from whom it had come. The Landleaguing car-driver, who had turned gentlemen's friend, was sufficiently well known to history to have been talked about. Clayton, therefore, did not lose much time in going down to Ballyglunin station and requiring to be driven yet once again from thence to Carnlough. "And now, Mr. Teddy Mooney," he said, after they had travelled together a mile or two from Ballyglunin, and had come almost to the spot at which the poor boy had been shot, "tell me what you know about Mr. Lax's movements in this part of the world." He had never come there before since the fatal day without having three policemen with him, but now he was alone. Such a man as Teddy Mooney would be most unwilling to open his mouth in the presence of two or more persons.
"O Lord, Captain, how you come on a poor fellow all unawares!"
"Stop a moment, Mr. Mooney," and the car stopped. "Whereabouts was it the young gentleman perished?"
"Them's the very shot-holes," said Teddy, pointing up to the temporary embrasure, which had indeed been knocked down half a score of times since the murder, and had been as often replaced by the diligent care of Mr. Blake and Captain Clayton.
"Just so. They are the shot-holes. And which way did the murderer run?" Teddy pointed with his whip away to the east, over the ground on which the man had made his escape. "And where did you first see him?"
"See him!" ejaculated Teddy. It became horrible to his imagination as he thought that he was about to tell of such a deed.
"Of course, we know you did see him; but I want to know the exact spot."
"It was over there, nigh to widow Dolan's cottage."
"It wasn't the widow who saw him, I think?"
"Faix, it was the widow thin, with her own eyes. I hardly know'd him. And yet I did know him, for I'd seen him once travelling from Ballinasloe with Pat Carroll. And Lax is a man as when you've once seen him you've seen him for allays. But she knowed him well. Her husband was one of the boys when the Fenians were up. If he didn't go into the widow Dolan's cabin my name's not Teddy Mooney."
"And who else was there?"
"There was no one else; but only her darter, a slip of a girl o' fifteen, come up while Lax was there. I know she come up, because I saw her coming jist as I passed the door."
Captain Clayton entered into very friendly relations with Teddy Mooney on that occasion, trying to make him understand, without any absolute promises, that all the luck and all the rewards,—in fact, all the bacon and oats,—lay on the dish to which Mr. Lax did not belong. Under these influences Teddy did become communicative—though he lied most awfully. That did not in the least shock Captain Clayton, who certainly would have believed nothing had the truth been told him without hesitation. At last it came out that the car-driver was sure as to the personality of Lax,—had seen him again and again since he had first made his acquaintance in Carroll's company, and could swear to having seen him in the widow's cabin. He knew also that the widow and her daughter were intimate with Lax. He had not seen the shot fired. This he said in an assured tone, but Captain Clayton had known that before. He did not expect to find anyone who had seen the shot fired, except Mr. Jones and Peter. As to Peter he had his suspicions. Mr. Jones was certain that Peter had told the truth in declaring that he had seen no one; but the Captain had argued the matter out with him. "A fellow of that kind is in a very hard position. You must remember that for the truth itself he cares nothing. He finds a charm rather in the romantic beauty of a lie. Lax is to him a lovely object, even though he be aware that he and Lax be on different sides. And then he thoroughly believes in Lax; thinks that Lax possesses some mysterious power of knowing what is in his mind, and of punishing him for his enmity. All the want of evidence in this country comes from belief in the marvellous. The people think that their very thoughts are known to men who make their name conspicuous, and dare not say a word which they suppose that it is desired they shall withhold. In this case Peter no doubt is on our side, and would gladly hang Lax with his own hand if he were sure he would be safe. But Lax is a mysterious tyrant, who in his imagination can slaughter him any day; whereas he knows that he shall encounter no harm from you. He and poor Florian were sitting on the car with their backs turned to the embrasure; and Peter's attention was given to the driving of the car,—so that there was no ground for thinking that he had seen the murderer. All the circumstances of the moment ran the other way. But still it was possible."
And Captain Clayton was of opinion that Peter was beginning to be moved from the determined know-nothingness of his primary evidence. He had seen the flash. And then, as his master had run up the bank, he didn't know whether he hadn't caught the flying figure of a man.
"I had the poor boy's head on my knees, Captain Clayton; and how is a poor man to look much about him then?"
In this condition stood Captain Clayton's mind in regard to Peter, when he heard, for the first time, a word about the widow Dolan and the widow Dolan's daughter.
The woman swore by all her gods that she knew nothing of Lax. But then she had already fallen into the difficulty of having been selected as capable of giving evidence. It generally happens that no one first person will be found even to indicate others, so that there is no finding a beginning to the case. But when a witness has been indicated, the witness must speak.
"The big blackguard!" exclaimed Mrs. Dolan, when she heard of the evil that had been brought her; "to have the imperence to mention my name!"
It was felt, all the country through, to be an impertinence,—for anybody to drag anybody else into the mess of troubles which was sure to arise from an enforced connection with a law court. Most unwillingly the circumstances were drawn from Mrs. Dolan, and with extreme difficulty also from that ingenious young lady her daughter. But, still, it was made to appear that Lax had taken refuge in their cottage, and had gone down from thence to a little brook, where he effected the cleansing of his pistol. The young lady had done all in her power to keep her mother silent, but the mother had at last been tempted to speak of the weapon which Lax had used.
Now there was no further question of letting Lax go loose from prison! That very irate barrister, Mr. O'Donnell, who was accustomed to speak of all the Landleague criminals as patriotic lambs,—whose lamb-like qualities were exceeded only by their patriotism,—did not dare to intimate such a wish any further. But he did urge, with all that benevolence for which he was conspicuous, that the trial should come on at that immediate spring assizes. A rumour had, however, already reached the ears of Captain Clayton, and others in his position, that a great alteration was to be effected in the law. This, together with Mrs. Dolan's evidence, might enable him to hang Mr. Lax. Therefore the trial was postponed;—not, indeed, with outspoken reference as to the new measure, but with much confidence in its resources.
It would be useless here to refer to that Bill which was to have been passed for trying certain prisoners in Ireland without the intervention of a jury, and of the alteration which took place in it empowering the Government to alter the venue, and to submit such cases to a selected judge, to selected juries, to selected counties. The Irish judges had remonstrated against the first measure, and the second was to be first tried, so that should it fail the judges might yet be called upon to act.
Such was the law under which criminals were tried in 1882, and the first capital convictions were made under which the country began to breathe freely. But the tidings of the law had got abroad beforehand, and gave a hope of triumph to such men as Captain Clayton. Let a man undertake what duty he will in life, if he be a good man he will desire success; and if he be a brave man he will long for victory. The presence of such a man as Lax in the country was an eyesore to Captain Clayton, which it was his primary duty to remove. And it was a triumph to him now that the time had come in which he might remove him. Three times had Mr. Lax fired at the Captain's head, and three times had the Captain escaped. "I think he has done with his guns and his pistols now," said Captain Clayton, in his triumph.
"I am not quite sure about Peter yet," said Clayton to Mr. Jones. "But if we could look into his very soul I am afraid he could not do much for us."
"I never believed in Peter as a witness," replied Mr. Jones.
"I should like to know exactly what he did see;—whether it was a limb or a bit of his coat. But I think that young lady crept out and saw him cleaning his pistol. And I think that the old lady had a glimpse of the mask. I think that they can be made to say so."
"I saw the mask myself, and the muzzle of the rifle;—and I saw the man running as plainly as I see you."
"That will all be wanted, Mr. Jones. But I trust that we may have to summon you to Dublin. As things are at present, if Lax had been seen in broad daylight firing at the poor boy by a dozen farmers it would do no good in County Galway. There is Miss Edith out there. She is awfully anxious about this wretch who destroyed her brother. I will go and tell her." So Captain Clayton rushed out, anxious for another cause for triumph.
Mr. Jones had heard of his suit, and had heard also that the suit was made to Edith and not to Ada. "There is not one in a dozen who would have taken Edith," said he to himself,—"unless it be one who saw her with my eyes." But yet he did not approve of the marriage. "They were poverty stricken," he said, and Clayton went about from day to day with his life in his hand. "A brave man," he said to himself; "but singularly foolhardy,—unless it be that he wants to die." He had not been called upon for his consent, for Edith had never yielded. She, too, had said that it was impossible. "If Ada would have suited, it might have been possible, but not between Yorke and me." They had both come now to call him by his Christian name; and they to him were Ada and Edith; but with their father he had never quite reached the familiarity of a Christian name.
Mr. Jones had, in truth, been so saddened by the circumstances of the last two years that he could not endure the idea of marriages in his family. "Of course, if you choose, my dear, you can do as you like," he used to say to Edith.
"But I don't choose."
"What there are left of us should, I think, remain together. I suppose they cannot turn me out of this house. The Prime Minister will hardly bring in a Bill that the estates bought this last hundred years shall belong to the owners of the next century. He can do so, of course, as things go now. There are no longer any lords to stop him, and the House of Commons, who want their seats, will do anything he bids them. It's the First Lieutenant who looks after Ireland, who has ideas of justice with which the angels of light have certainly not filled his mind. That we should get nothing from our purchased property this century, and give it up in the course of the next, is in strict accordance with his thinking. We can depend upon nothing. My brother-in-law can, of course, sell me out any day, and would not stop for a moment. Everybody has to get his own, except an Irish landlord. But I think we should fare ill all together. Your brother is behaving nobly, and I don't think we ought to desert him. Of course you can do as you please."
Then the squire pottered on, wretched in heart; or, rather, down in the mouth, as we say, and gave his advice to his younger daughter, not, in truth, knowing how her heart stood. But a man, when he undertakes to advise another, should not be down in the mouth himself.Equam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem, non secus ac bonis. If not, your thoughts will be too strongly coloured by your own misfortunes to allow of your advising others.
All this Edith knew,—except the Latin. The meaning of it had been brought home to her by her own light. "Poor papa is so hipped," she said to herself, "that he thinks that nobody will ever be happy again." But still she resolved that she would not marry Yorke Clayton. There had been a mistake, and she had made it,—a miserable blunder for which she was responsible. She did not quite analyse the matter in her own mind, or look into the thoughts of Ada, or of Yorke himself,—the hero of her pillow; but she continued to tell herself that the proper order of things would not admit it. Ada, she knew, wished it. Yorke longed for her, more strongly even than for Lax, the murderer. For herself, when she would allow her thoughts to stray for a moment in that direction, all the bright azure tints of heaven were open to her. But she had made a mistake, and she did not deserve it. She had been a blind fool, and blind fools deserved no azure tints of heaven.
If she could have had her own way she would still have married Ada to Yorke Clayton. When Ada told her that she had got over her foolish love, it was the mere babble of unselfishness. Feel a passion for such a man as Yorke Clayton, look into the depth of his blue eyes, and fancy for herself a partnership with the spirit hidden away within, and then get over it! Edith was guilty here of the folly of judging of her sister as herself. And as for Yorke himself;—a man, she said, always satisfies himself with that which is lovely and beautiful. And with Ada he would have such other gifts as so strong a man as Yorke always desires in his wife. In temper she was perfect; in unselfishness she was excellent. In all those ways of giving aid, which some women possess and some not at all,—but which, when possessed, go so far to make the comfort of a house,—she was supreme. If a bedroom were untidy, her eye saw it at once. If a thing had to be done at the stroke of noon, she would remember that other things could not be done at the same time. If a man liked his egg half-boiled, she would bear it in her mind for ever. She would know the proper day for making this marmalade and that preserve; and she would never lose her good looks for a moment when she was doing these things. With her little dusting-brush at her girdle, no eyes that knew anything would ever take her for aught but a lady. She was just the wife for Yorke Clayton.
So Edith argued it in her own bosom, adding other wondrous mistakes to that first mistake she had made. In thinking of it all she counted herself for nothing, and made believe that she was ugly in all eyes. She would not allow the man to see as his fancy led him; and could not bring herself to think that if now the man should change his mind and offer his hand to Ada, it would be impossible that Ada should accept it. Nor did she perceive that Ada had not suffered as she had suffered.
"I wanted to catch you just for one moment," said Yorke Clayton, running out so as to catch his prey. She had half wished to fly from him, and had half told herself that any such flight was foolish.
"What is it, Yorke?" she said.
"I think,—I do think that I have at last got Lax upon the hip."
"You are so bloody-minded about Lax."
"What! Are you going to turn round and be merciful?" He was her hero, and she certainly felt no mercy towards the murderer of her brother; no mercy towards him who she now thought had planned all the injury done to her father; no mercy towards him who had thrice fired at her beloved. This wretched man had struggled to get the blood of him who was all the world to her; and had been urged on to his black deeds by no thought, by no feeling, that was not in itself as vile as hell! Lax was to her a viper so noxious as to be beyond the pale of all mercy. To crush him beneath the heel of her boot, so as to make an end of him, as of any other poisonous animal, was the best mercy to all other human beings. But she had said the word at the spur of the moment, because she had been instigated by her feelings to gainsay her hero, and to contradict him, so that he might think that he was no hero of hers. She looked at him for the moment, and said nothing, though he held her by the arm. "If you say I am to spare him, I will spare him."
"No," she answered, "because of your duty."
"Have I followed this man simply as a duty? Have I lain awake thinking of it till I have given to the pursuit such an amount of energy as no duty can require? Thrice he has endeavoured to kill me, firing at me in the dark, getting at me from behind hedges, as no one who has anything of the spirit of man in his bosom will do when he strives to destroy his enemy. All that has been nothing. I am a policeman in search of him, and am the natural enemy of a murderer. Of course in the ordinary way I would not have spared him; but the ordinary way would have sufficed. Had he escaped me I could have laughed at all that. But he took that poor lad's life!" Here he looked sadly into her face, and she could see that there was a tear within his eye. "That was much, but that was not all. That lad was your brother, him whom you so dearly loved. He shot down the poor child before his father's face, simply because he had said that he would tell the truth. When you wept, when you tore your hair, when you flung yourself in sorrow upon the body, I told myself that either he or I must die. And now you bid me be merciful." Then the big tears dropped down his cheeks, and he began to wail himself,—hardly like a man.
And what did Edith do? She stood and looked at him for a few moments; then extricated herself from the hold he still had of her, and flung herself into his arms. He put down his face and kissed her forehead and her cheeks; but she put up her mouth and kissed his lips. Not once or twice was that kiss given; but there they stood closely pressed to each other in a long embrace. "My hero," she said; "my hero." It had all come at last,—the double triumph; and there was, he felt, no happier man in all Ireland than he. He thought, at least, that the double battle had been now won. But even yet it was not so. "Captain Clayton," she began.
"Why Captain? Why Clayton?"
"My brother Yorke," and she pressed both his hands in hers. "You can understand that I have been carried away by my feelings, to thank you as a sister may thank a brother."
"I will not have it," he exclaimed fiercely. "You are no sister, nor can I ever be your brother. You are my very own now, and for ever." And he rushed at her again as though to envelop her in his arms, and to crush her against his bosom.
"No!" she exclaimed, avoiding him with the activity of a young fawn; "not again. I had to beg your pardon, and it was so I did it."
"Twenty times you have offended me, and twenty times you must repeat your forgiveness."
"No, no, it must not be so. I was wrong to say that you were bloody-minded. I cannot tell why I said so. I would not for worlds have you altered in anything;—except," she said, "in your love for me."
"But have you told me nothing?"
"I have called you my hero,—and so you are."
"Nay, Edith, it is more than that. It is not for me to remind you, but it is more than that."
She stood there blushing before him, over her cheeks and up to her forehead; but yet did not turn away her face.
"How am I to tell you why it is more than that? You cannot tell me," she replied.
"But, Edith—"
"You cannot tell me. There are moments for some of us the feelings of which can never be whispered. You shall be my hero and my brother if you will; or my hero and my friend; or, if not that, my hero and my enemy."
"Never!"
"No, my enemy you cannot be; for him who is about to revenge my brother's death no name less sweet than dearest friend will suffice. My hero and my dearest friend!"
Then she took him by the hand, and turned away from the walk, and, escaping by a narrow path, was seen no more till she met him at dinner with her father and her brother and her sister.
"By God! she shall be mine!" said Clayton. "She must be mine!"
And then he went within, and, finding Hunter, read the details of the evidence for the trial of Mr. Lax in Dublin, as prepared by the proper officers in Galway city.
It will be well that they who are interested only in the sensational incidents of our story to skip this chapter and go on to other parts of our tale which may be more in accordance with their taste. It is necessary that this one chapter shall be written in which the accidents that occurred in the lives of our three heroines shall be made subordinate to the political circumstances of the day. This chapter should have been introductory and initiative; but the facts as stated will suit better to the telling of my story if they be told here. There can be no doubt that Ireland has been and still is in a most precarious condition, that life has been altogether unsafe there, and that property has been jeopardised in a degree unknown for many years in the British Islands. It is, I think, the general opinion that these evils have been occasioned by the influx into Ireland of a feeling which I will not call American, but which has been engendered in America by Irish jealousy, and warmed into hatred by distance from English rule. As far as politics are regarded, Ireland has been the vassal of England as Poland has been of those masters under which she has been made to serve. She was subjected to much ill-usage, and though she has readily accepted the language, the civilisation, and the customs of England, and has in fact grown rich by adopting them, the memories of former hardships have clung to her, and have made her ready to receive willingly the teachings of those whose only object it has been to undermine the prestige of the British Empire. In no respect has she more readily taken to her bosom English practices than in that of the letting and the hiring of land. In various countries, such as Italy, Russia, France, and the United States, systems have grown up different from that which has prevailed in England. Whether the English system or any other may be the best is not now the question. But in answering that question it is material to know that Ireland has accepted and, at any rate for two centuries, has followed that system. The landlord has been to his tenants a beneficent or, occasionally, a hard master, and the tenants have acknowledged themselves as dependent, generally with much affection, though not unfrequently with loud complaint. It has been the same in England. Questions of tenant-right, of leases, and of the cruelty of evictions have from time to time cropped up in Ireland. But rents were readily paid up to 1878 and 1879; though abatements were asked for,—as was the case also in England; and there were men ready to tell the Irish from time to time, since the days of O'Connell downwards, that they were ill-treated in being kept out of their "ould" properties by the rightful owners.
Then the American revolt, growing out of Smith O'Brien's logic and physical force, gave birth to Fenianism. The true Fenian I take to be one desirous of opposing British power, by using a fulcrum placed on American soil. Smith O'Brien's logic consisted in his assertion that if his country wished to hammer the British Crown, they could only do it by using hammers. Smith O'Brien achieved little beyond his own exile;—but his words, acting upon his followers, produced Fenianism. That died away, but the spirit remained in America; and when English tenants began to clamour for temporary abatements in their rent, the clamours were heard on the other side of the water, and assisted the views of those American-Irish who had revivified Ribandism and had given birth to the cry of Home Rule.
During the time that this was going on, a long unflagging series of beneficial Acts of Parliament, and of consequently ameliorated circumstances, had befallen the country. I was told the other day by an Irish Judge, whose name stands conspicuous among those who are known for their wisdom and their patriotism, by a Roman Catholic Judge too, that in studying the latter laws of the two countries, the laws affecting England and Ireland in reference to each other, he knew no law by which England was specially favoured, though he knew various laws redounding to the benefit of Ireland. When the cry for some relief to suffering Ireland came up, at the time of the Duchess of Marlborough's Fund, it was alleged in proof of Ireland's poor condition that there was not work by which the labourers could earn wages. I have known Ireland for more than forty years,—say from 1842 to 1882. In 1842 we paid five shillings a week for the entire work of a man. As far as I can learn, we now pay, on an average, nine shillings for the same. The question is not whether five shillings was sufficient, or whether nine be insufficient, but that the normal increase through the country has been and can be proved to be such as is here declared.
I will refer to the banks, which can now be found established in any little town, almost in any village, through the country. Fifty years ago they were very much rarer. Banks do not spring up without money to support them. The increase of wages,—and the banks also in an indirect manner,—have come from that decrease in the population which followed the potato famine of 1846. The famine and its results were terrible while they lasted; but they left behind them an amended state of things. When man has failed to rule the world rightly, God will step in, and will cause famines, and plagues, and pestilence—even poverty itself—with His own Right Arm. But the cure was effected, and the country was on its road to a fair amount of prosperity, when the tocsin was sounded in America, and Home Rule became the cry.
Ireland has lain as it were between two rich countries. England, her near neighbour, abounds in coal and iron, and has by means of these possessions become rich among the nations. America, very much the more distant, has by her unexampled agricultural resources put herself in the way to equal England. It is necessary,—necessary at any rate for England's safety,—that Ireland should belong to her. This is here stated as a fact, and I add my own opinion that it is equally necessary for Ireland's welfare. But on this subject there has arisen a feud which is now being fought out by all the weapons of rebellion on one side, and on the other by the force of a dominating Government, restrained, as it is found to be, by the self-imposed bonds of a democratic legislature. But there is the feud, and the battle, and the roaring of the cannons is heard afar off.
I now purpose to describe in a very few words the nature of the warfare. It may be said that the existence of Ireland as a province of England depends on the tenure of the land. If the land were to be taken altogether from the present owners, and divided in perpetuity among any possible number of tenants, so as to be the property of each tenant, without payment of any rent, all England's sense of justice would be outraged, the English power of governing would be destroyed, and all that could then be done by England would be to give a refuge to the present owners till the time should come for righting themselves, and they should be enabled to make some further attempt for the recovery of their possessions. This would probably arrive, if not sooner, from the annihilation of the new proprietors under the hands of their fellow-countrymen to whom none of the spoil had been awarded. But English statesmen,—a small portion, that is, of English statesmen,—have wished in their philanthropy to devise some measure which might satisfy the present tenants of the land, giving them a portion of the spoil; and might leave the landlords contented,—not indeed with their lot, which they would feel to be one of cruel deprivation, but with the feeling that something had at any rate been left to them. A compromise would be thus effected between the two classes whose interests have always been opposed to each other since the world began,—between the owners of property and those who have owned none.
The statesmen in question have now come into power by means of their philanthropy, their undoubted genius, and great gifts of eloquence. They have almost talked the world out of its power of sober judgment. I hold that they have so succeeded in talking to the present House of Commons. And when the House of Commons has been so talked into any wise or foolish decision, the House of Lords and the whole legislating machinery of the country is bound to follow.