The spring and early summer had worn themselves away in London, and Rachel O\'Mahony was still singing at the Embankment Theatre. She and her father were still living in Cecil Street. The glorious day of October, which had been fixed at last for the 24th, on which Rachel was to appear on the Covent Garden boards, was yet still distant, and she was performing under Mr. Moss\'s behests at a weekly stipend of ￡15, to which there would be some addition when the last weeks of the season had come about, the end of July and beginning of August. But, alas! Rachel hardly knew what she would do to support herself during the dead months from August to October. "Fashionable people always go out of town, father," she said.
"Then let us be fashionable."
"Fashionable people go to Scotland, but they won\'t take one in there without money. We shan\'t have ￡50 left when our debts are paid. And ￡50 would do nothing for us."
"They\'ve stopped me altogether," said Mr. O\'Mahony. "At any rate they have stopped the money-making part of the business. They have threatened to take the man\'s license away, and therefore that place is shut up."
"Isn\'t that unjust, father?"
"Unjust! Everything done in England as to Ireland is unjust. They carried an Act of Parliament the other day, when in accordance with the ancient privileges of members it was within the power of a dozen stalwart Irishmen to stop it. The dozen stalwart Irishmen were there, but they were silenced by a brutal majority. The dozen Irishmen were turned out of the House, one after the other, in direct opposition to the ancient privileges; and so a Bill was passed robbing five million Irishmen of their liberties. So gross an injustice was never before perpetrated—not even when the bribed members sold their country and effected the accursed union."
"I know that was very bad, father, but the bribes were taken by Irishmen. Be that as it may, what are we to do with ourselves next autumn?"
"The only thing for us is to seek for assistance in the United States."
"They won\'t lend us ￡100."
"We must overrun this country by the force of true liberal opinion. The people themselves will rise when they have the Americans to lead them. What is wanted now are the voices of true patriots loud enough to reach the people."
"And ￡100," said she, speaking into his ear, "to keep us alive from the middle of August to the end of October."
"For myself, I have been invited to come into Parliament. The County of Cavan will be vacant."
"Is there a salary attached?"
"One or two leading Irish members are speaking of it," said Mr. O\'Mahony, carried away by the grandeur of the idea, "but the amount has not been fixed yet. And they seem to think that it is wanted chiefly for the parliamentary session. I have not promised because I do not quite see my way. And to tell the truth, I am not sure that it is in Parliament that an honest Irishman will shine the best. What\'s the good when you can be silenced at a moment\'s notice by the word of some mock Speaker, who upsets all the rules of his office to put a gag upon a dozen men. When America has come to understand what it is that the lawless tyrant did on that night when the Irishmen were turned out of the House, will she not rise in her wrath, and declare that such things shall no longer be?" All this occurred in Cecil Street, and Rachel, who well understood her father\'s wrath, allowed him to expend in words the anger which would last hardly longer than the sound of them.
"But you won\'t be in Parliament for County Cavan before next August?" she asked.
"I suppose not."
"Nor will the United States have risen in their wrath so as to have settled the entire question before that time?"
"Perhaps not," said Mr. O\'Mahony.
"And if they did I don\'t see what good it would do to us as to finding for us the money that we want."
"I am so full of Ireland\'s wrongs at this moment, and with the manner in which these policemen interfered with me, that I can hardly bring myself to think of your autumn plans."
"What are yours?" she asked.
"I suppose we should always have money enough to go to America. In America a man can at any rate open his mouth."
"Or a woman either. But according to what M. Le Gros says, in England they pay better at the present moment. Mr. Moss has offered to lend me the money; but for myself I would sooner go into an English workhouse than accept money from Mr. Moss which I had not earned."
In truth, Rachel had been very foolish with her money, spending it as though there were no end to the source from which it had come, and her father had not been more prudent. He was utterly reckless in regard to such considerations, and would simply declare that he was altogether indifferent to his dinner, or to the new hat he had proposed to buy for himself when the subject was brought under his notice. He had latterly become more eager than ever as to politics, and was supremely happy as long as he was at liberty to speak before any audience those angry words which had however been, unfortunately for him, declared to be treasonable. He had, till lately, been taught to understand that the House of Commons was the only arena on which such permission would be freely granted,—and could be granted of course only to Members of the House. Therefore the idea had entered his head that it would suit him to become a member,—more especially as there had arisen a grand scheme of a salary for certain Irish members of which he would be one. But even here the brutality of England had at last interfered, and men were not to be allowed to say what they pleased any longer even in the House of Commons. Therefore Mr. O\'Mahony was much disturbed; and although he was anxious to quarrel with no one individually, not even the policemen who arrested him, he was full of indignant wrath against the tyranny of England generally.
Rachel, when she could get no good advice from her father with regard to her future funds, went back again to her singing. It was necessary, at any rate, that she should carry out her present arrangement with Mr. Moss, and she was sure at least of receiving from him the money which she earned. But, alas! she could not practise the economy which she knew to be necessary. The people at the theatre had talked her into hiring a one-horse open carriage in which she delighted to drive about, and in which, to tell the truth, her father delighted to accompany her. She had thought that she could allow herself this indulgence out of her ￡15 a week. And though she paid for the indulgence monthly, that and their joint living nearly consumed the stipend. And now, as her father\'s advice did not get beyond the very doubtful salary which might accrue to him as the future member for the County Cavan, her mind naturally turned itself to other sources. From M. Le Gros, or from M. Le Gros\' employers, she was to receive ￡300 for singing in the two months before Christmas, with an assurance of a greatly increased though hitherto unfixed stipend afterwards. Personally she as yet knew no one connected with her future theatrical home but M. Le Gros. Of M. Le Gros all her thoughts had been favourable. Should she ask M. Le Gros to lend her some small sum of money in advance for the uses of the autumn? Mr. Moss had made to her a fixed proposition on the subject which she had altogether declined. She had declined it with scorn as she was wont to do all favours proffered by Mr. Moss. Mr. Moss had still been gracious, and had smiled, and had ventured to express "a renewed hope," as he called it, that Miss O\'Mahony would even yet condescend to look with regard on the sincere affection of her most humble servant. And then he had again expatiated on the immense success in theatrical life which would attend a partnership entered into between the skill and beauty and power of voice of Miss O\'Mahony on the one side, and the energy, devotion, and capital of Mr. Moss on the other. "Psha!" had been Rachel\'s only reply; and so that interview had been brought to an end. But Rachel, when she came to think of M. Le Gros, and the money she was desirous of borrowing, was afflicted by certain qualms. That she should have borrowed from Mr. Moss, considering the length of their acquaintance might not have been unnatural; but of M. Le Gros she knew nothing but his civility. Nor had she any reason for supposing that M. Le Gros had money of his own at his disposal; nor did she know where M. Le Gros lived. She could go to Covent Garden and ask for him there; but that was all.
So she dressed herself prettily—neatly, as she called it—and had herself driven to the theatre. There, as chance would have it, she found M. Le Gros standing under the portico with a gentleman whom she represented to herself as an elderly old buck. M. Le Gros saw her and came down into the street at once with his hat in his hand.
"M. Le Gros," said she, "I want you to do me a great favour, but I have hardly the impudence to ask it. Can you lend me some money this autumn—say ￡100?" Thereupon M. Le Gros\' face fell, and his cheeks were elongated, and his eyes were very sorrowful. "Ah, then, I see you can\'t," she said. "I will not put you to the pain of saying so. I ought not to have suggested it. My dealings with you have seemed to be so pleasant, and they have not been quite of the same nature down at \'The Embankment.\'"
"My dear young lady—"
"Not another word; and I beg your pardon most heartily for having given you this moment\'s annoyance."
"There is one of the lessees there," said M. Le Gros, pointing back to the gentleman on the top of the steps, "who has been to hear you and to look at you this two times—this three times at \'The Embankment.\' He do think you will become the grand singer of the age."
"Who is the judicious gentleman?" asked Rachel, whispering to M. Le Gros out of the carriage.
"He is Lord Castlewell. He is the eldest son of the Marquis of Beaulieu. He have—oh!—lots of money. He was saying—ah! I must not tell you what his lordship was saying of you because it will make you vain."
"Nothing that any lord can say of me will make me vain," said Rachel, chucking up her head. Then his lordship, thinking that he had been kept long enough standing on the top of the theatre steps, lifted his hat and came down to the carriage, the occupant of which he had recognised.
"May I have the extreme honour of introducing Mademoiselle O\'Mahony to Lord Castlewell?" and M. Le Gros again pulled off his hat as he made the introduction. Miss O\'Mahony found that she had become Mademoiselle as soon as she had drawn up her carriage at the front door of the genuine Italian Opera.
"This is a pleasure indeed," said Lord Castlewell. "I am delighted—more than delighted, to find that my friend Le Gros has engaged the services of Mademoiselle O\'Mahony for our theatre."
"But our engagement does not commence quite yet, I am sor............