Kitabı oku: «The Landleaguers», sayfa 4
And there had come up another cause which had created further objections to the marriage in Mr. Jones's mind. Mr. O'Mahony had declared that as his lecturing was brought to an end by the police, he must throw himself upon Rachel's capabilities for earning some money. Rachel's capabilities had been often discussed at the Castle, but with various feelings on the three sides into which the party had formed themselves. All the Jones's were on one side, and declared that the capability had better not be exercised. In this they were probably wrong; – but it was their opinion. They had lived for many years away from London. The children had so lived all their lives; and they conceived that prejudices still existed which had now been banished or nearly banished from the world. Mr. O'Mahony, who formed another party, thought that the matter was one of supreme indifference. As long as he could earn money by lecturing it was well that he should earn it. It was always better that the men of a family should work than the women; but, if the man's talent was of no use, then it might be well to fall back upon the woman. He only laughed at the existence of a prejudice in the matter. He himself had no prejudices. He regarded all prejudices as the triumph of folly over education.
But Rachel, who was the third party in the discussion, had a very strong feeling of her own. She was of opinion that if the capability in question existed, it ought to be exercised. On that subject, – her possession of the capability, – she entertained, she said, strong doubts. But if the capability existed it certainly ought to be used. That was Rachel's opinion, expressed with all the vigour which she knew how to throw into the subject.
This capability had already been exercised in New York, where it had been efficacious, though the effect had not been great. She had been brought up to sing, and great things had been promised of her voice. An American manager had thought much of her performance, though she had hitherto, he said, been young, and had not come to the strength of her throat. But he had himself seen to her education, almost as a child, and had been sure that sooner or later she would do great things in the musical world. Mr. Mahomet M. Moss was the gentleman in question, and he at present was in London. That such a voice as Rachel O'Mahony's should be lost to the world, was to his thinking a profanity, an indecency, an iniquity, a wasting of God's choicest gifts, and an abomination not to be thought of; for Mr. Mahomet M. Moss was in the affairs of his own profession a most energetic gentleman. Rachel rather turned up her nose at Mr. Mahomet M. Moss; but she was very anxious to go to London and to take her chance, and to do something, as she said, laughing, just to keep her father's pot a little on the boil; – but for Mr. Mahomet M. Moss she did not care one straw. Mr. O'Mahony was therefore ready to start on the journey, and had now come to Morony Castle to say farewell to his friend Mr. Jones. "Are you sure about that fellow Moss?" said Mr. Jones.
"What do you call sure about him? He's as big a swindler, I guess, as you shall find from here to himself."
"And are you going to put Rachel into his hands?"
"Well, I think so; – after a sort of fashion. He'll swindle her out of three parts of what she earns; – but she'll get the fourth part. It's always the way with a young girl when she's first brought out."
"I don't mean about money. Will you leave her conduct in his hands?"
"He'll be a clever chap who'll undertake to look after Rachel's conduct. I guess she'll conduct herself mostly."
"You'll be there to be sure," said Mr. Jones.
"Yes, I shall be there; and she'll conduct me too. Very likely."
"But, Mr. O'Mahony, – as a father!"
"I know pretty well what you would be saying. Our young folk grow old quicker a long sight than yours do. Now your girls here are as sweet as primroses out of the wood. But Rachel is like a rose that has been brought up to stand firm on its own bush. I'm not a bit afraid of her. Nor yet is your son. She looks as though you might blow her away with the breath from your mouth. You try her, and you'll find that she'll want a deal of blowing."
"Does not a young girl lose something of the aroma of her youth by seeing too much of the world too soon?"
"How old do you expect her to be when she's to die?"
"Rachel! How can I tell? She is only as yet entering upon life, and her health seems to be quite confirmed."
"The best confirmed I ever knew in my life. She never has a day's illness. Taking all the chances one way and another, shall we say sixty?"
"More than that, I should think," said Mr. Jones.
"Say sixty. She may fall down a trap in the theatre, or be drowned in one of your Cunarders."
"The Cunard steamers never drown anybody," said Mr. Jones.
"Well, then, a White Star – or any cockle-shell you may please to name. We'll put her down for sixty as an average."
"I don't know what you are driving at," said Mr. Jones.
"She has lived a third of her life already, and you expect her to know nothing, so that the aroma may still cling to her. Aroma does very well for earls' daughters and young marchionesses, though as far as I can learn, it's going out of fashion with them. What has an American girl to do with aroma, who's got her bread to earn? She's got to look to her conduct, and to be sharp at the same time. Mr. Mahomet M. Moss will rob her of seventy-five cents out of every dollar for the next twelve months. In three years' time he'll rob her of nothing. Only that she knows what conduct means, he'd have to look very sharp to keep his own."
"It is not natural," said Mr. Jones.
"But it's American. Marvels are not natural, and we are marvellous people. I don't know much about aroma, but I think you'll find Rachel will come out of the washing without losing much colour in the process."
Then the two friends parted, and Mr. O'Mahony went back to Galway, preparatory to his journey to London.
CHAPTER VI.
RACHEL AND HER LOVERS
On the day following that of O'Mahony's return to Galway, he, and his daughter, and Frank Jones were together at the Galway Station preparatory to the departure of the O'Mahonys for Dublin and London. "I guess you two have got something to say to each other, so I'll leave you to yourselves," said the father.
"I guess we have," said Rachel, "so if you'll wait here we'll come to you when the cars are fixed." So saying, Rachel put her hand on her lover's arm and walked off with him along the platform. Rachel O'Mahony had not been badly described when her father said of her that she looked as though she might be blown away. She was very fair, and small and frail to look at. Her father had also said of her that her health was remarkably good, – "the best confirmed that he had ever known in his life." But though this too, was true, she hardly looked it. No one could have pointed out any sign of malady about her; only one would have said that there was nothing of her. And the colour on her face was so evanescent that he who watched her was inclined to think that she herself was like her colour. And she moved as though she was always on the vanishing point. "I'm very fond of eating," she had been heard to say. "I know it's vulgar; but it's true." No doubt she was fond of eating, but so is a sparrow. There was nothing she would not attempt to do in the way of taking exercise. She would undertake very long walks, and would then fail, and declare that she must be carried home; but she would finally get through the day's work better than another woman who appeared to have double her strength. Her feet and hands were the tiniest little adjuncts to a grown human body that could be seen anywhere. They looked at least to be so. But they were in perfect symmetry with her legs and arms. "I wish I were bigger," she had once been heard to say, "because I could hit a man." The man to whom she alluded was Mr. Mahomet M. Moss. "I sometimes want to hit a woman, but that would be such a small triumph." And yet she had a pride in her little female fineries. "Now, Frank," she had once said, "I guess you won't get another woman in all Galway to put her foot into that boot; nor yet in New York either."
"I don't think I could," said the enraptured Frank.
"You'd better take it to New York and try, and if you find the lady you can bring her back with you."
Frank refused the commission, saying something of course very pretty as to his mistress's foot. "Ten buttons! These only have eight," she said, objecting to a present which her lover had just brought her. "If I had ten buttons, and the gloves to fit me, I'd cut my arm off and put it under a glass case. Lovers are sent out to do all possible and impossible things in order to deserve their lady-loves. You shall go and wander about till you find a glove with ten buttons to fit me, then I'll consent to be Mrs. – Jones." By all of which little manœuvres Frank was charmed and oppressed to the last degree. When she would call herself the "future Mrs. – Jones," he would almost feel inclined to abandon both the name and the property. "Why not be Mrs. Morony," Rachel would say, "or Mrs. Ballintubber? The Ballintubber, of Ballintubber, would sound exquisitely, and then I should always be called 'Madam.'"
Her beauty was all but perfect, as far as symmetry was concerned, only that there was not enough of it; and for the perfection of female beauty a tone of colour is, methinks, needed somewhat darker than that which prevailed with Rachel O'Mahony. Her hair was so light that one felt it rather than saw it, as one feels the sunlight. It was soft and feathery, as is the under plumage on the wings of some small tropical birds. "A lock of my hair!" she had once said to Frank; "but it will all go into nothing. You should have paid your vows to some girl who could give you a good lump of hair fit to stuff a pillow with. If you have mine you will think in a few weeks that the spiders have been there and have left their dust behind." But she gave him the lock of hair, and laid it on his lips with her own little hands.
There was not enough of her beauty. Even in touching her a lover could not but feel that he had to deal with a little child. In looking at her he could only look down upon her. It was not till she spoke, and that her words came to his assistance, that he found that he had to deal with one who was not altogether a child. "Mr. Mahomet M. Moss declares his opinion that I shall be seen above the gaslights. It was very civil and complimentary of Mahomet M. M. But I mean to make myself heard. Mahomet M. M. did not seem to think of this." Since Frank had known her she had taken every opportunity in her power of belittling Mahomet M. M., as she was wont to call Mr. Moss.
Frank Jones was, in truth, a handsome stalwart young man, clever enough for the world, who thought a good deal of himself, and who thought very much more of the girl whom he loved. It was chiefly because he was absolutely unlike an American that Rachel O'Mahony had come to love him. Who does not know the "got up" look of the gentleman from the other side of the water, who seems to know himself to be much better than his father, and infinitely superior to his grandfather; who is always ready to make a speech on every occasion, and who feels himself to be fit company for a Prime Minister as soon as he has left school. Probably he is. Young Jones was not so; and it was on account of this deficiency that Rachel prized him. "I'm not like a young girl myself," she had said to her father, "but I do love a jolly nice boy. With us at sixteen, they are all but decrepit old men, and yet they are such little monkeys."
"For a little monkey, what do you think of yourself?" her father had replied. But the conversation then had not gone any further.
"I know you'll be after me before long," Rachel said to Frank, as they walked up and down the platform together.
"If I do, I shall ask you to marry me at once," he replied.
"I shall never do that without your father's leave."
"Is that the way they manage things in America?"
"It's the way I shall manage them here," said Rachel. "I'm in the unfortunate position of having three papas to whom I must attend. There is papa O'Mahony – "
"You will never be incommoded much by him," he replied.
"He is the least potent of the three, no doubt. Then there is papa Jones. He is absolutely omnipotent in this matter. He would not let me come down to Castle Morony for fear I should contaminate you all. I obeyed without even daring to feel the slightest snub, and if I were married to-morrow, I should kiss his toe in token of respect, and with a great deal more affection than I should kiss your half-bearded lips, sir." Here Frank got a hold of her hand beneath his arm, and gave it a squeeze. "He is the real old-fashioned father in the play, who is expected to come out at last with a hundred thousand dollars and his blessing."
"And who is the third papa?"
"Don't you know? Mahomet M. Moss. He is the third papa – if only he would consent to remain in that comparatively humble position." Here Frank listened to her words with sharp ears, but he said nothing at the moment. "Mahomet M. Moss is at any rate my lord and master for the present."
"Not whilst I am alive," said Frank.
"But he is. There is no use in rebelling. You are not my lord and master until you have gone through a certain ceremony. I wish you were. Will that satisfy you?"
"There is something in the name of lord and master which a girl shouldn't apply to anyone but to him who is to be her husband."
"Fiddlestick! Mr. Lord and Master that is to be, but is not as yet. But he is, in many respects. I don't think, Frank, you can imagine the horror I feel in reference to that vilest of human beings. I shall carry a dagger with me, in order to have it ready for any occasion."
"What does he do? You shall not go to be subjected to such danger and such annoyance."
She turned round, and looked up into his face as with derision. "The annoyance no doubt will be mine, Frank, and must be endured; the danger will be his, I think. Nor shall I use the dagger that I spoke of. I can look at him, and I can make him hear my voice, in spite of the smallness of my stature. But there is no one in this world whom I detest as I do that greasy Jew. It is not for what he does, but that I simply detest him. He makes love to me."
"What!"
"Oh! he does. You needn't look like that. You needn't be a bit jealous."
"I shall come over at once."
"And knock him on the head! You had better not do that, because we want to make some money by his means. As a lover I can keep him at a distance. I wish I could do so to you, Mr. Jones."
"Why do you wish to keep me at a distance?"
"Because you know how to be troublesome. It is much harder to keep a lover at a distance when you really love him with all your heart" – here she looked up into his face and squeezed his arm, and nearly made him mad for the moment – "than a beast like that, who is no better than a toad to you. There, do you see that ugly old man there?" She pointed to a cross-looking old gentleman of sixty, who was scolding a porter violently. "Why aren't you jealous of that man?"
"You never saw him before."
"That's just the reason. He may be worth my affection, but I know that that Mahomet M. M. is not. You begin with the most bitter hatred on my part. I don't hate that old gentleman. I rather like him on the whole, though he was so cross. At any rate he's not a greasy Jew. Papa says that hating Jews is a prejudice. Loving you is a prejudice, I suppose."
"My darling!"
"You can't suppose you are the best man I ever saw, can you?"
"It's a sort of thing we are not to reason about."
"Then it's a prejudice. I'm prejudiced against Mahomet M. M. I'm equally prejudiced in favour of Mr. Jones, junior, of Ballintubber. It's horrible to be troubled by the one."
"Well!"
"Well! There's nothing more coming, Mr. Jones. Only don't you come over in any of your fits of jealousy, or you'll have to be sent back again. You're not my lord and master – yet."
"I wish I were."
"So do I. What more do you want than that? I don't believe there's another girl in New York would say as much to you, – nor yet in County Galway."
"But what does he say to you?"
"Well; just the kind of things that you never say. And he certainly never does the kind of things which you do; and that, Mr. Jones, is an improvement. But papa is in a hurry, and I shouldn't wonder if the train didn't go on in a quarter of an hour. I'll write to you about Mahomet M. M.; and if I behave very badly, such as prodding him with the dagger, or something of that sort, then I will let you know the details. You can't do it here, so you may as well go." So saying, she jumped into the carriage, and the train had started before Frank Jones had begun to think whether he could do it there or no.
"He's a good fellow, take him all round," said Mr. O'Mahony, when the carriages had left the station.
"As good as the rest of them."
"I think he is better."
"Of course we all think so of our own. Why should he be better than any other young lady's Mr. Jones? I don't suppose he is better; but we'll endeavour to believe that he is up to the average."
"Is that all that you've got to say for him, Rachel?"
"What! To you? Not exactly – if I am to speak the solid truth; which I don't see why I should have to do, even to my own father. I do think him above the average. I think him so much above the average as to be the best of all. But why? Simply because I believe him when he says he wants to marry me, and make me his companion for life. And then there's an affinity between us which God certainly manages. Why should I trust him in every detail of life with a perfect faith, and not trust Mr. Mahomet M. Moss to the extent of half-a-crown? If he were to ask me for everything I have in the world, I should give it to him, without a thought except of his goodness in taking care of it for me. I wouldn't let Mahomet M. Moss have a dollar of mine without giving me his bond. Papa, there will be a row between me and Mr. Mahomet M. Moss, and so it's well to put you on your guard."
"What sort of a row, my dear?"
"A very rowy row. I don't mean about dollars, for you'll have to manage that just at first. When we have got into the running, I think I shall have something to say on that subject too."
"What row do you mean?"
"He'll misbehave himself. He always does, more or less."
"The poor fellow can't open his mouth without your saying that he misbehaves himself."
"That's quite true; he can't. He can't brush his hair, or tie his cravat, or settle his pantaloons, without misbehaving himself. He certainly can't look out of his eye without gross misbehaviour."
"What is he to do then?" said Mr. O'Mahony. "Nature has imbued him with all these peculiarities, and you are fantastic to find fault with him."
"Perhaps so – but then I am fantastic. When you've got a dirty coat on, or Frank, I don't find fault with it; but when he's got a clean coat, I writhe at him in my disgust. Yet, upon the whole, I like men to have clean coats."
"But you haven't said how the row is to come."
"Because I don't know; but it will come. It won't be about his coat, nor yet his hat, unless he puts it close down under my nose. My time, as I understand, is to be at his disposal."
"There will be an agreement made as to all that."
"An agreement as to my performances. I quite understand that I must be present at fixed times at the theatre, and that he must fix them. That will not worry me; particularly if you will go to the theatre with me."
"Of course I will do that when you want it."
"But he is to come to me with his beastly lessons. Am I to have no relief from that?"
"The hours can be fixed."
"But they won't be fixed. There's no doubt that he understands his trade. He can make me open my mouth and keep it open. And he can tell me when I sing false or flat. Providence when she gave him that horrid head of hair, did give him also the peculiarity of a fine ear. I think it is the meanest thing out for a man to be proud of that. If you can run a straight furrow with a plough it is quite as great a gift."
"That is nonsense, my dear. Such an ear as Mr. Moss's is very rare."
"A man who can see exactly across an entire field is just as rare. I don't see the difference. Nor when a woman sings do I respect her especially because of her voice. When a man can write a poem like Homer, or rule a country like Washington, there is something to say for him. I shall tell him that I will devote one hour a day to practising, and no more."
"That will settle the difficulty; if it be enough."
"But during that hour, there is to be no word spoken except what has to do with the lessons. You'll bear me out in that?"
"There must be some give and take in regard to ordinary conversation."
"You don't know what a beast he is, papa. What am I to do if he tells me to my face that I'm a beautiful young woman?"
"Tell him that you are quite aware of the fact, but that it is a matter you do not care to talk about."
"And then he'll simper. You do not know what a vile creature he can be. I can take care of myself. You needn't be a bit afraid about that. I fancy I could give him a slap on the face which would startle him a little. And if we came to blows, I do believe that he would not have a leg to stand upon. He is nearly fifty."
"My dear!"
"Say forty. But I do believe a good shove would knock him off his nasty little legs. I used to think he wore a wig; but no hairdresser could be such a disgrace to his profession to let such a wig as that go out of his shop."
"I always regarded him as a good-looking young man," said Mr. O'Mahony. Here Rachel shook her head, and made a terrible grimace. "It's all fancy you know," continued he.
"I suppose it is. But if you hear that I have told him that I regard him as a disgusting monkey, you must not be surprised." This was the last conversation which Mr. O'Mahony and his daughter had respecting Mahomet M. Moss, till they reached London.
