What did it all mean?
That was the question which was on his mind when he awoke. It did not
refer to the reception given to “She Stoops to Conquer,” which had
placed him in the position he had longed for; it had reference solely to
the strange incident which had occurred in the green room.
The way Mrs. Abington had referred to the man with whom Mary had
been speaking was sufficient to let him know that he was not a man of
reputation--he certainly had not seemed to Goldsmith to be a man of
reputation either when he had seen him at the Pantheon or in the green
room. He had worn an impudent and forward manner which, in spite of his
glaring good looks that might possibly make him acceptable in the
eyes of such generous ladies as Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Bulkley or Mrs.
Woffington, showed that he was a person of no position in society. This
conclusion to which Goldsmith had come was confirmed by the fact that no
persons of any distinction who had been present at the Pantheon or the
playhouse had shown that they were acquainted with him--no one person
save only Mary Horneck.
Mary Horneck had by her act bracketed herself with Mrs. Abington and
Mrs. Bulk-ley.
This he felt to be a very terrible thing. A month ago it would have
been incredible to him that such a thing could be. Mary Horneck had
invariably shunned in society those persons--women as well as men--who
had shown themselves to be wanting in modesty. She had always detested
the man--he was popular enough at that period--who had allowed
innuendoes to do duty for wit; and she had also detested the woman--she
is popular enough now--who had laughed at and made light of the
innuendoes, bordering upon impropriety, of such a man.
And yet she had by her own act placed herself on a level with the least
fastidious of the persons for whom she had always professed a contempt.
The Duchess of Argyll and Lady Ancaster had, to be sure, shaken hands
with the two actresses; but the first named at least had done so for
her own ends, and had got pretty well sneered at in consequence. Mary
Horneck stood in a very different position from that occupied by the
Duchess. While not deficient in charity, she had declined to follow the
lead of any leader of fashion in this matter, and had held aloof from
the actresses.
And yet he had seen her in secret conversation with a man at whom one
of these same actresses had not hesitated to sneer as an impostor--a man
who was clearly unacquainted with any other member of her family.
What could this curious incident mean?
The letters which had come from various friends congratulating him upon
the success of the comedy lay unheeded by him by the side of those which
had arrived--not a post had been missed--from persons who professed the
most disinterested friendship for him, and were anxious to borrow from
him a trifle until they also had made their success. Men whom he had
rescued from starvation, from despair, from suicide, and who had,
consequently, been living on him ever since, begged that he would
continue his contributions on a more liberal scale now that he had in so
marked a way improved his own position. But, for the first time, their
letters lay unread and unanswered. (Three days actually passed before he
sent his guineas flying to the deserving and the undeserving alike. That
was how he contrived to get rid of the thousands of pounds which he had
earned since leaving his garret.)
His man servant had never before seen him so depressed as he was when he
left his chambers.
He had made up his mind to go to Mary and tell her that he had seen what
no one else either in the Pantheon or in the green room had seemed
to notice in regard to that man whose name he had learned was Captain
Jackson--he would tell her and leave it to her to explain what appeared
to him more than mysterious. If any one had told him in respect to
another girl all that he had noticed, he would have said that such a
matter required no explanation; he had heard of the intrigues of young
girls with men of the stamp of that Captain Jackson. With Mary Horneck,
however, the matter was not so easily explained. The shrug and
the raising of the eyebrows were singularly inappropriate to any
consideration of an incident in which she was concerned.
He found before he had gone far from his chambers that the news of the
success of the comedy had reached his neighbours. He was met by several
of the students of the Temple, with whom he had placed himself on
terms of the pleasantest familiarity, and they all greeted him with a
cordiality, the sincerity of which was apparent on their beaming faces.
Among them was one youth named Grattan, who, being an Irishman, had
early found a friend in Goldsmith. He talked years afterward of this
early friendship of his.
Then the head porter, Ginger, for whom Goldsmith had always a pleasant
word, and whose wife was his laundress--not wholly above suspicion as
regards her honesty--stammered his congratulations, and received the
crown which he knew was certain; and Goldsmith began to feel what he
had always suspected--that there was a great deal of friendliness in the
world for men who have become successful.
Long before he had arrived at the house of the Hornecks he was feeling
that he would be the happiest man in London or the most miserable before
another hour would pass.
He was fortunate enough to find, on arriving at the house, that Mary was
alone. Mrs. Horneck and her son had gone out together in the coach some
time before, the servant said, admitting him, for he was on terms of
such intimacy with the family the man did not think it necessary to
inquire if Miss Horneck would see him. The man was grinning from ear to
ear as he admitted the visitor.
“I hope, Doctor, that I know my business better than Diggory,” he said,
his grin expanding genially.
“Ah! so you were one of the gentlemen in the gallery?” said Goldsmith.
“You had my destiny in your keeping for two hours?”
“I thought I'd ha' dropped, sir, when it came to Diggory at the
table--and Mr. Marlow's man, sir--as drunk as a lord. 'I don't know what
more you want unless you'd have had him soused in a beer barrel,' says
he quite cool-like and satisfied--and it's the gentleman's own private
house, after all. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Didn't Sir Joshua's Ralph laugh
till he thought our neighbours would think it undignified-like, and then
sent us off worse than ever by trying to look solemn. Only some
fools about us said the drunk servant was ungenteel; but young Mr.
Northcote--Sir Joshua's young man, sir--he up and says that nature isn't
always genteel, and that nature was above gentility, and so forth--I beg
your pardon, Doctor, what was I thinking of? Why, sir, Diggory himself
couldn't ha' done worse than me--talking so familiar-like, instead of
showing you up.”
“Nay, sir,” said Goldsmith, “the patron has the privilege of addressing
his humble servant at what length he please. You are one of my patrons,
George; but strike me dumb, sir, I'll be patronised by you no longer;
and, to put a stop to your airs, I'll give you half a dozen tickets for
my benefit, and that will turn the tables on you, my fine fellow.”
“Oh, Doctor, you are too kind, sir,” whispered the man, for he had led
the way to the drawingroom door. “I hope I've not been too bold, sir. If
I told them in the kitchen about forgetting myself they'd dub me Diggory
without more ado. There'll be Diggorys enough in the servants' halls
this year, sir.”
In another moment Goldsmith was in the presence of Mary Horneck.
She was seated on a low chair at the window. He could not fail to notice
that she looked ill, though it was not until she had risen, trying to
smile, that he saw how very ill she was. Her face, which he had scarcely
ever seen otherwise than bright, had a worn appearance, her eyes were
sunken through much weeping, and there was a frightened look in them
that touched him deeply.
“You will believe me when I say how sorry I was not to be able to do
honour last night to the one whom I honour most of all men,” she said,
giving him her hand. “But it was impossible--oh, quite impossible, for
me to sup even with my sister and you. Ah, it was pitiful! considering
how I had been looking forward to your night of triumph, my dear
friend.”
“It was pitiful, indeed, dear child,” said he. “I was looking forward to
that night also--I don't know for how many years--all my life, it seems
to me.”
“Never mind!” she cried, with a feeble attempt at brightness. “Never
mind! your night of triumph came, and no one can take it away from you
now; every one in the town is talking of your comedy and its success.”
“There is no one to whom success is sweeter than it is to me,” said
Goldsmith. “But you know me too well, my Jessamy Bride, to think for a
single moment that I could enjoy my success when my dearest friend was
miserable.”
“I know it,” she said, giving him her hand once more. “I know it, and
knowing it last night only made me feel more miserable.”
“What is the matter, Mary?” he asked her after a pause. “Once before I
begged of you to tell me if you could. I say again that perhaps I may be
able to help you out of your trouble, though I know that I am not a man
of many resources.”
“I cannot tell you,” she said slowly, but with great emphasis. “There
are some sorrows that a woman must bear alone. It is Heaven's decree
that a woman's sorrow is only doubled when she tries to share it with
another--either with a sister or with a brother--even so good a friend
as Oliver Goldsmith.”
“That such should be your thought shows how deep is your misery,” said
he. “I cannot believe that it could be increased by your confiding its
origin to me.”
“Ah, I see everything but too plainly,” she cried, throwing herself down
on her chair once more and burying her face in her hands. “Why, all my
misery arises from the possibility of some one knowing whence it arises.
Oh, I have said too much,” she cried piteously. She had sprung to her
feet and was standing looking with eager eyes into his. “Pray forget
what I have said, my friend. The truth is that I do not know what I say;
oh, pray go away--go away and leave me alone with my sorrow--it is my
own--no one has a right to it but myself.”
There was actually a note of jealousy in her voice, and there came a
little flash from her eyes as she spoke.
“No, I will not go away from you, my poor child,” said he. “You shall
tell me first what that man to whom I saw you speak in the green room
last night has to do with your sorrow.”
She did not give any visible start when he had spoken. There was a
curious look of cunning in her eyes--a look that made him shudder, so
foreign was it to her nature, which was ingenuous to a fault.
“A man? Did I speak to a man?” she said slowly, affecting an endeavour
to recall a half-forgotten incident of no importance. “Oh, yes, I
suppose I spoke to quite a number of men in the green room. How crowded
it was! And it became so heated! Ah, how terrible the actresses looked
in their paint!--almost as terrible as a lady of quality!”
“Poor child!” said he. “My heart bleeds for you. In striving to hide
everything from me you have told me all--all except--listen to me, Mary.
Nothing that I can hear--nothing that you can tell me--will cause me to
think the least that is ill of you; but I have seen enough to make me
aware that that man--Captain Jackson, he calls himself----”
“How did you find out his name?” she said in a whisper. “I did not tell
you his name even at the Pantheon.”
“No, you did not; but yet I had no difficulty in finding it out. Tell me
why it is that you should be afraid of that man. Do you not know as well
as I do that he is a rascal? Good heavens! Mary, could you fail to see
rascal written on his countenance for all men and women to read?”
“He is worse than you or any one can imagine, and yet----”
“How has he got you in his power--that is what you are going to tell
me.”
“No, no; that is impossible. You do not know what you ask. You do not
know me, or you would not ask me to tell you.”
“What would you have me think, child?”
“Think the worst--the worst that your kind heart can think--only leave
me--leave me. God may prove less unkind than He seems to me. I may soon
die. 'The only way her guilt to cover.'”
“I cannot leave you, and I say again that I refuse to believe anything
ill of you. Do you really think that it is possible for me to have
written so much as I have written about men and women without being able
to know when a woman is altogether good--a man altogether bad? I know
you, my dear, and I have seen him. Why should you be afraid of him?
Think of the friends you have.”
“It is the thought of them that frightens me. I have friends now, but
if they knew all that that man can tell, they would fly from me with
loathing. Oh! when I think of it all, I abhor myself. Oh, fool, fool,
fool! Was ever woman such a fool before?”
“For God's sake, child, don't talk in that strain.”
“It is the only strain in which I can talk. It is the cry of a wretch
who stands on the brink of a precipice and knows that hands are being
thrust out behind to push her over.”
She tottered forward with wild eyes, under the influence of her own
thought. He caught her and supported her in his arms.
“That shows you, my poor girl, that if there are unkind hands behind
you, there are still some hands that are ready to keep your feet from
slipping. There are hands that will hold you back from that precipice,
or else those who hold them out to you will go over the brink with
you. Ah, my dear, dear girl, nothing can happen to make you despair. In
another year--perhaps in another month--you will wonder how you could
ever have taken so gloomy a view of the present hour.”
A gleam of hope came into her eyes. Only for an instant it remained
there, however. Then she shook her head, saying--
“Alas! Alas!”
She seated herself once more, but he retained her hand in one of his
own, laying his other caressingly on her head.
“You are surely the sweetest girl that ever lived,” said he. “You fill
with your sweetness the world through which I walk. I do not say that
it would be a happiness for me to die for you, for you know that if my
dying could save you from your trouble I would not shrink from it. What
I do say is that I should like to live for you--to live to see happiness
once again brought to you. And yet you will tell me nothing--you will
not give me a chance of helping you.”
She shook her head sadly.
“I dare not--I dare not,” she said. “I dare not run the chance of
forfeiting your regard forever.”
“Good-bye,” he said after a pause.
He felt her fingers press his own for a moment; then he dropped her hand
and walked toward the door. Suddenly, however, he returned to her.
“Mary,” he said, “I will seek no more to learn your secret; I will only
beg of you to promise me that you will not meet that man again--that
you will hold no communication with him. If you were to be seen in the
company of such a man--talking to him as I saw you last night--what
would people think? The world is always ready to put the worst possible
construction upon anything unusual that it sees. You will promise me, my
dear?”
“Alas! alas!” she cried piteously. “I cannot make you such a promise.
You will not do me the injustice to believe that I spoke to him of my
own free will?”
“What, you would have me believe that he possesses sufficient power over
you to make you do his bidding? Great God! that can never be!”
“That is what I have said to myself day by day; he cannot possess that
power over me--he cannot be such a monster as to. . . oh, I cannot speak
to you more! Leave me--leave me! I have been a fool and I must pay the
penalty of my folly.” Before he could make a reply, the door was opened
and Mrs. Bunbury danced into the room, her mother following more
sedately and with a word of remonstrance.
“Nonsense, dear Mamma,” cried Little Comedy. “What Mary needs is some
one who will raise her spirits--Dr. Goldsmith, for instance. He has, I
am sure, laughed her out of her whimsies. Have you succeeded, Doctor?
Nay, you don't look like it, nor does she, poor thing! I felt certain
that you would be in the act of reading a new comedy to her, but
I protest it would seem as if it was a tragedy that engrossed your
attention. He doesn't look particularly like our agreeable Rattle at
the present moment, does he, Mamma? And it was the same at supper
last night. It might have been fancied that he was celebrating a great
failure instead of a huge success.”
For the next quarter of an hour the lively girl chatted away, imitating
the various actors who had taken part in the comedy, and giving the
author some account of what the friends whom she had met that day
said of the piece. He had never before felt the wearisomeness of a
perpetually sparkling nature. Her laughter grated upon his ears; her
gaiety was out of tune with his mood. He took leave of the family at the
first breathing space that the girl permitted him.