When his visitor had gone Goldsmith seated himself in his chair and
gave way to the bitter reflections of the hour.
He knew that the end of his dream had come. The straightforward words
which Johnson had spoken had put an end to his self-deception--to his
hoping against his better judgment that by some miracle his devotion
might be rewarded. If any man was calculated to be a disperser of
vain dreams that man was Johnson. In the very brutality of his
straightforwardness there was, however, a suspicion of kindliness that
made any appeal from his judgment hopeless. There was no timidity in
the utterances of his phrases when forcing his contentions upon any
audience; but Goldsmith knew that he only spoke strongly because he felt
strongly.
Times without number he had said to himself precisely what Dr. Johnson
had said to him. If Mary Horneck herself ever went so far as to mistake
the sympathy which she had for him for that affection which alone would
content him, how could he approach her family? Her sister had married
Bunbury, a man of position and wealth, with a country house and a town
house--a man of her own age, and with the possibility of inheriting his
father's baronetcy. Her brother was about to marry a daughter of Lord
Albemarle's. What would these people say if he, Oliver Goldsmith, were
to present himself as a suitor for the hand of Mary Horneck?
It did not require Dr. Johnson to speak such forcible words in his
hearing to enable him to perceive how ridiculous were his pretensions.
The tragedy of the poet's life among men and women eager to better their
prospects in the world was fully appreciated by him. It was surely, he
felt, the most cruel of all the cruelties of destiny, that the men who
make music of the passions of men--who have surrounded the passion
of love with a glorifying halo--should be doomed to spend their lives
looking on at the success of ordinary men in their loves by the aid of
the music which the poets have created. That is the poet's tragedy
of life, and Goldsmith had often found himself face to face with it,
feeling himself to be one of those with whom destiny is only on jesting
terms.
Because he was a poet he could not love any less beautiful creature than
Mary Hor-neck, any less gracious, less sweet, less pure, and yet he knew
that if he were to go to her with those poems in his hand which he only
of all living men could write, telling her that they might plead his
cause, he would be regarded--and rightly, too--as both presumptuous and
ridiculous.
He thought of the loneliness of his life. Was it the lot of the man of
letters to remain in loneliness while the people around him were taking
to themselves wives and begetting sons and daughters? Had he nothing to
look forward to but the laurel wreath? Was it taken for granted that a
contemplation of its shrivelling leaves would more than compensate the
poet for the loss of home--the grateful companionship of a wife--the
babble of children--all that his fellow-men associated with the gladness
and glory of life?
He knew that he had reached a position in the world of letters that was
surpassed by no living man in England. He had often dreamed of reaching
such a place, and to reach it he had undergone privation--he had
sacrificed the best years of his life. And what did his consciousness
of having attained his end bring with it? It brought to him the snarl of
envy, the howl of hatred, the mock of malice. The air was full of these
sounds; they dinned in his ears and overcame the sounds of the approval
of his friends.
And it was for this he had sacrificed so much? So much? Everything. He
had sacrificed his life. The one joy that had consoled him for all his
ills during the past few years had departed from him. He would never
see Mary Horneck again. To see her again would only be to increase the
burden of his humiliation. His resolution was formed and he would abide
by it.
He rose to his feet and picked up the roll of poems. In sign of his
resolution he would burn them. He would, with them, reduce to ashes the
one consolation of his life.
In the small grate the remains of a fire were still glowing. He knelt
down and blew the spark into a blaze. He was about to thrust the
manuscript into it between the bars when the light that it made fell
upon one of the lines. He had not the heart to burn the leaf until he
had read the remaining lines of the couplet; and when at last, with a
sigh, he hastily thrust the roll of papers between the bars, the little
blaze had fallen again to a mere smouldering spark. Before he could
raise it by a breath or two, his servant entered the room. He started to
his feet.
“A letter for you, sir,” said John Eyles. “It came by a messenger lad.”
“Fetch a candle, John,” said Goldsmith, taking the letter. It was too
dark for him to see the handwriting, but he put the tip of his finger on
the seal and became aware that it was Mary Horneck's.
By the light of the candle he broke the seal, and read the few lines
that the letter contained--
_Come to me, my dear friend, without delay, for heaven's sake. Your ear
only can hear what I have to tell. You may be able to help me, but if
not, then. . . . Oh, come to me to-night. Your unhappy Jessamy Bride._
He did not delay an instant. He caught up his hat and left his chambers.
He did not even think of the resolution to which he had just come, never
to see Mary Horneck again. All his thoughts were lost in the one thought
that he was about to stand face to face with her.
He stood face to face with her in less than half an hour. She was in the
small drawing-room where he had seen her on the day after the production
of “She Stoops to Conquer.” Only a few wax candles were lighted in the
cut-glass sconces that were placed in the centre of the panels of the
walls. Their light was, however, sufficient to make visible the contrast
between the laughing face of the girl in Reynolds's picture of her and
her sister which hung on the wall, and the sad face of the girl who put
her hand into his as he was shown in by the servant.
“I knew you would come,” she said. “I knew that I could trust you.”
“You may trust me, indeed,” he said. He held her hand in his own,
looking into her pale face and sunken eyes. “I knew the time would come
when you would tell me all that there is to be told,” he continued.
“Whether I can help you or not, you will find yourself better for having
told me.”
She seated herself on the sofa, and he took his place beside her. There
was a silence of a minute or two, before she suddenly started up,
and, after walking up and down the room nervously, stopped at the
mantelpiece, leaning her head against the high slab, and looking into
the smouldering fire in the grate.
He watched her, but did not attempt to express the pity that filled his
heart.
“What am I to tell you--what am I to tell you?” she cried at last,
resuming her pacing of the floor.
He made no reply, but sat there following her movements with his eyes.
She went beside him, and stood, with nervously clasped hands, looking
with vacant eyes at the group of wax candles that burned in one of the
sconces. Once again she turned away with a little cry, but then with a
great effort she controlled herself, and her voice was almost tranquil
when she spoke, seating herself.
“You were with me at the Pantheon, and saw me when I caught sight of
that man,” she said. “You alone were observant. Did you also see him
call me to his side in the green room at the playhouse?”
“I saw you in the act of speaking to him there--he calls himself
Jackson--Captain Jackson,” said Goldsmith.
“You saved me from him once!” she cried. “You saved me from becoming
his--body and soul.”
“No,” he said; “I have not yet saved you, but God is good; He may enable
me to do so.”
“I tell you if it had not been for you--for the book which you wrote, I
should be to-day a miserable castaway.”
He looked puzzled.
“I cannot quite understand,” said he. “I gave you a copy of 'The Vicar
of Wakefield' when you were going to Devonshire a year ago. You were
complaining that your sister had taken away with her the copy which
I had presented to your mother, so that you had not an opportunity of
reading it.”
“It was that which saved me,” she cried. “Oh, what fools girls are! They
are carried away by such devices as should not impose upon the merest
child! Why are we not taught from our childhood of the baseness of
men--some men--so that we can be on our guard when we are on the verge
of womanhood? If we are to live in the world why should we not be told
all that we should guard against?”
She laid her head down on the arm of the sofa, sobbing.
He put his hand gently upon her hair, saying--
“I cannot believe anything but what is good regarding you, my sweet
Jessamy Bride.”
She raised her head quickly and looked at him through her tears.
“Then you will err,” she said. “You will have to think ill of me. Thank
God you saved me from the worst, but it was not in your power to save me
from all--to save me from myself. Listen to me, my best friend. When
I was in Devonshire last year I met that man. He was staying in the
village, pretending that he was recovering from a wound which he had
received in our colonies in America. He was looked on as a hero and
feted in all directions. Every girl for miles around was in love
with him, and I--innocent fool that I was--considered myself the most
favoured creature in the world because he made love to me. Any day we
failed to meet I wrote him a letter--a foolish letter such as a
school miss might write--full of protestations of undying affection.
I sometimes wrote two of these letters in the day. More than a month
passed in this foolishness, and then it came to my uncle's ears that we
had meetings. He forbade my continuing to see a man of whom no one knew
anything definite, but about whom he was having strict inquiries made. I
wrote to the man to this effect, and I received a reply persuading me
to have one more meeting with him. I was so infatuated that I met him
secretly, and then in impassioned strains he implored me to make
a runaway match with him. He said he had enemies. When he had been
fighting the King's battles against the rebels these enemies had been
active, and he feared that their malice would come between us, and he
should lose me. I was so carried away by his pleading that I consented
to leave my uncle's house by his side.”
“But you cannot have done so.”
“You saved me,” she cried. “I had been reading your book, and, by God's
mercy, on the very day before that on which I had promised to go to him
I came to the story of poor Olivia's flight and its consequences. With
the suddenness of a revelation from heaven I perceived the truth. The
scales fell from my eyes as they fell from St. Paul's on the way to
Damascus, only where he perceived the heaven I saw the hell that awaited
me. I knew that that man was endeavouring to encompass my ruin, and in a
single hour--thanks to the genius that wrote that book--my love for that
man, or what I fancied was love, was turned to loathing. I did not meet
him. I returned to him, without a word of comment, a letter he wrote
to me reproaching me for disappointing him; and the very next day my
uncle's suspicions regarding him were confirmed. His inquiries resulted
in proof positive of the ruffianism of the fellow who called himself
Captain Jackson, He had left the army in America with a stain on his
character, and it was known that since his return to England at least
two young women had been led into the trap which he laid for me.”
“Thank God you were saved, my child,” said Goldsmith, as she paused,
overcome with emotion. “But being saved, my dear, you have no further
reason to fear that man.”
“That was my belief, too,” said she. “But alas! it was a delusion. So
soon as he found out that I had escaped from him, he showed himself in
his true colours. He wrote threatening to send the letters which I
had been foolish enough to write to him, to my friends--he was even
scoundrel enough to point out that I had in my innocence written certain
passages which were susceptible of being interpreted as evidence of
guilt--nay, his letter in which he did so took it for granted that I had
been guilty, so that I could not show it as evidence of his falsehood.
What was left for me to do? I wrote to him imploring him to return to
me those letters. I asked him how he could think it consistent with his
honour to retain them and to hold such an infamous threat over my head.
Alas! he soon gave me to understand that I had but placed myself more
deeply in his power.”
“The scoundrel!”
“Oh! scoundrel! I made an excuse for coming back to London, though I had
meant to stay in Devonshire until the end of the year.”
“And 'twas then you thanked me for the book.”
“I had good reason to do so. For some months I was happy, believing
that I had escaped from my persecutor. How happy we were when in France
together! But then--ah! you know the rest. My distress is killing me--I
cannot sleep at night. I start a dozen times a day; every time the bell
rings I am in trepidation.”
“Great Heaven! Is 't possible that you are miserable solely on this
account?” cried Goldsmith.
“Is there not sufficient reason for my misery?” she asked. “What did he
say to me that night in the green room? He told me that he would give me
a fortnight to accede to his demands; if I failed he swore to print my
letters in full, introducing my name so that every one should know who
had written them.”
“And his terms?” asked Goldsmith in a whisper.
“His terms? I cannot tell you--I cannot tell you. The very thought that
I placed myself in such a position as made it possible for me to have
such an insult offered to me makes me long for death.”
“By God! 'tis he who need to prepare for death!” cried Goldsmith, “for I
shall kill him, even though the act be called murder.”
“No--no!” she said, laying a hand upon his arm. “No friend of mine must
suffer for my folly. I dare not speak a word of this to my brother for
fear of the consequences. That wretch boasted to me of having laid his
plans so carefully that, if any harm were to come to him, the letters
would still be printed. He said he had heard of my friends, and declared
that if he were approached by any of them nothing should save me from
being made the talk of the town. I was terrified by the threat, but I
determined to-day to tell you my pitiful story in the hope--the forlorn
hope--that you might be able to help me. Tell me--tell me, my dear
friend, if you can see any chance of escape for me except that of which
poor Olivia sang: 'The only way her guilt to cover.'”
“Guilt? Who talks of guilt?” said he. “Oh, my poor innocent child, I
knew that whatever your grief might be there was nothing to be thought
of you except what was good. I am not one to say even that you acted
foolishly; you only acted innocently. You, in the guilelessness of your
own pure heart could not believe that a man could be worse than any
monster. Dear child, I pray of you to bear up for a short time against
this stroke of fate, and I promise you that I shall discover a way of
escape for you.”
“Ah, it is easy to say those words 'bear up.' I have said them to
myself a score of times within the week. You cannot now perceive in what
direction lies my hope of escape?”
He shook his head, but not without a smile on his face, as he said--
“'Tis easy enough for one who has composed so much fiction as I have to
invent a plan for the rescue of a tortured heroine; but, unhappily, it
is the case that in real life one cannot control circumstances as one
can in a work of the imagination. That is one of the weaknesses of real
life, my dear; things will go on happening in defiance of all the arts
of fiction. But of this I feel certain: Providence does not do things by
halves. He will not make me the means of averting a great disaster from
you and then permit me to stand idly by while you suffer such a calamity
as that which you apprehend just now. Nay, my dear, I feel that as
Heaven directed my pen to write that book in order that you might be
saved from the fate of my poor Livy, I shall be permitted to help you
out of your present difficulty.”
“You give me hope,” she said. “Yes--a little hope. But you must promise
me that you will not be tempted to do anything that is rash. I know how
brave you are--my brother told me what prompt action you took yesterday
when that vile slander appeared. But were you not foolish to place
yourself in jeopardy? To strike at a serpent that hisses may only cause
it to spring.”
“I feel now that I was foolish,” said he humbly; “I ran the chance of
forfeiting your friendship.”
“Oh, no, it was not so bad as that,” she said. “But in this matter of
mine I perceive clearly that craft and not bravery will prevail to save
me, if I am to be saved. I saw that you provoked a quarrel with that man
on the night when we were leaving the Pantheon; think of it, think what
my feelings would have been if he had killed you! And think also that
if you had killed him I should certainly be lost, for he had made his
arrangements to print the letters by which I should be judged.”
“You have spoken truly,” said he. “You are wiser than I have ever been.
But for your sake, my sweet Jessamy Bride, I promise to do nothing
that shall jeopardise your safety. Have no fear, dear one, you shall be
saved, whatever may happen.”
He took her hand and kissed it fondly. “You shall be saved,” he
repeated.
“If not----” said she in a low tone, looking beyond him.
“No--no,” he whispered. “I have given you my promise. You must give me
yours. You will do nothing impious.”
She gave a wan smile.
“I am a girl,” she said. “My courage is as water. I promise you I will
trust you, with all my heart--all my heart.”
“I shall not fail you--Heaven shall not fail you,” said he, going to the
door.
He looked back at her. What a lovely picture she made, standing in her
white loose gown with its lace collar that seemed to make her face the
more pallid!
He bowed at the door.