Kenrick's article in theLondon Packetremains to this day as the vilest example of scurrility published under the form of criticism. All the venom that can be engendered by envy and malice appears in every line of it. It contains no suggestion of literary criticism; it contains no clever phrase. It is the shriek of a vulgar wretch dominated by the demon of jealousy. The note of the Gadarene herd sounds through it, strident and strenuous. It exists as the worst outcome of the period when every garret scribbler emulated “Junius,” both as regards style and method, but only succeeded in producing the shriek of a wildcat, instead of the thunder of the unknown master of vituperation.
Goldsmith read the first part of the scurrility without feeling hurt; but when he came to that vile passage—“For hours thegreatGoldsmith will stand arranging his grotesque orangoutang figure before a pier-glass. Was but the lovely H———k as much enamoured, you would not sigh, my gentle swain”—his hands tore the paper in fury.
He had received abuse in the past without being affected by it. He did not know much about natural history, but he knew enough to make him aware of the fact that the skunk tribe cannot change their nature. He did not mind any attack that might be made upon himself; but to have the name that he most cherished of all names associated with his in an insult that seemed to him diabolical in the manner of its delivery, was more than he could bear. He felt as if a foul creature had crept behind him and had struck from thence the one who had been kindest to him of all the people in the world.
There was the horrible thing printed for all eyes in the town to read. There was the thing that had in a moment raised a barrier between him and the girl who was all in all to him. How could he look Mary Horneck in the face again? How could he ever meet any member of the family to whom he had been the means of causing so much pain as the Hornecks would undoubtedly feel when they read that vile thing? He felt that he himself was to blame for the appearance of that insult upon the girl. He felt that if the attack had not been made upon him she would certainly have escaped. Yes, that blow had been struck by a hand that stretched over him to her.
His first impulse had sent his hand to his sword. He had shown himself upon several occasions to be a brave man; but instead of drawing his sword he had taken it off and had placed it out of the reach of his hands.
And this was the man who, a few hours earlier in the day, had been assuming that if a certain man were in his power he would not shrink from running him through the body with his sword.
On leaving the Mitre he did not seek any one with whom he might take counsel as to what course it would be wise for him to pursue. He knew that he had adopted a wise course when he had placed his sword in a corner; he felt he did not require any further counsel. His mind was made up as to what he should do, and all that he now feared was that some circumstance might prevent his realising his intention.
He grasped his cane firmly, and walked excitedly to the shop of Evans, the publisher of theLondon Packet. He arrived almost breathless at the place—it was in Little Queen street—and entered the shop demanding to see Kenrick, who, he knew was employed on the premises. Evans, the publisher, being in a room the door of which was open, and hearing a stranger's voice speaking in a high tone, came out to the shop. Goldsmith met him, asking to see Kenrick; and Evans denied that he was in the house.
“I require you to tell me if Kenrick is the writer of that article upon me which appeared in thePacketof to-day. My name is Goldsmith!” said the visitor.
The shopkeeper smiled.
“Does anything appear about you in thePacket, sir?” he said, over-emphasising the tone of complete ignorance and inquiry.
“You are the publisher of the foul thing, you rascal!” cried Goldsmith, stung by the supercilious smile of the man; “you are the publisher of this gross outrage upon an innocent lady, and, as the ruffian who wrote it struck at her through me, so I strike at him through you.”
He rushed at the man, seized him by the throat, and struck at him with his cane. The bookseller shouted for help while he struggled with his opponent, and Kenrick himself, who had been within the shelter of a small wooden-partitioned office from the moment of Goldsmith's entrance, and had, consequently, overheard every word of the recrimination and all the noise of the scuffle that followed, ran to the help of his paymaster. It was quite in keeping with his cowardly nature to hold back from the cane of Evans's assailant. He did so, and, looking round for a missile to fling at Goldsmith, he caught up a heavy lamp that stood on a table and hurled it at his enemy's head. Missing this mark, however, it struck Evans on the chest and knocked him down, Goldsmith falling over him. This Kenrick perceived to be his chance. He lifted one of the small shop chairs and rushed forward to brain the man whom he had libelled; but, before he could carry out his purpose, a man ran into the shop from the street, and, flinging him and the chair into a corner, caught Goldsmith, who had risen, by the shoulder and hurried him into a hackney-coach, which drove away.
The man was Captain Higgins. When Goldsmith had failed to return to the room in the Mitre where he had left his sword, his friends became uneasy regarding him, and Higgins, suspecting his purpose in leaving the tavern, had hastened to Evans's, hoping to be in time to prevent the assault which he felt certain Goldsmith intended to commit upon the person of Kenrick.
He ordered the coachman to drive to the Temple, and took advantage of the occasion to lecture the excited man upon the impropriety of his conduct. A lecture on the disgrace attached to a public fight, when delivered in a broad Irish brogue, can rarely be effective, and Captain Higgins's counsel of peace only called for Goldsmith's ridicule.
“Don't tell me what I ought to have done or what I ought to have abstained from doing,” cried the still breathless man. “I did what my manhood prompted me to do, and that is just what you would have done yourself, my friend. God knows I didn't mean to harm Evans—it was that reptile Kenrick whom I meant to flail; but when Evans undertook to shelter him, what was left to me, I ask you, sir?”
“You were a fool, Oliver,” said his countryman; “you made a great mistake. Can't you see that you should never go about such things single-handed? You should have brought with you a full-sized friend who would not hesitate to use his fists in the interests of fair play. Why the devil, sir, didn't you give me a hint of what was on your mind when you left the tavern?”
“Because I didn't know myself what was on my mind,” replied Goldsmith. “And, besides,” he added, “I'm not the man to carry bruisers about with me to engage in my quarrels. I don't regret what I have done to-day. I have taught the reptiles a lesson, even though I have to pay for it. Kenrick won't attack me again so long as I am alive.”
He was right. It was when he was lying in his coffin, yet unburied, that Kenrick made his next attack upon him in that scurrility of phrase of which he was a master.
When this curious exponent of the advantages of peace had left him at Brick Court, and his few incidental bruises were attended to by John Eyles, poor Oliver's despondency returned to him. He did not feel very like one who has got the better of another in a quarrel, though he knew that he had done all that he said he had done: he had taught his enemies a lesson.
But then he began to think about Mary Horneck, who had been so grossly insulted simply because of her kindness to him. He felt that if she had been less gracious to him—if she had treated him as Mrs. Thrale, for example, had been accustomed to treat him—regarding him and his defects merely as excuses for displaying her own wit, she would have escaped all mention by Kenrick. Yes, he still felt that he was the cause of her being insulted, and he would never forgive himself for it.
But what did it matter whether he forgave himself or not? It was the forgiveness of Mary Horneck and her friends that he had good reason to think about.
The longer he considered this point the more convinced he became that he had forfeited forever the friendship which he had enjoyed for several years, and which had been a dear consolation to him in his hours of despondency. A barrier had been raised between himself and the Hornecks that could not be surmounted.
He sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to Mary, asking her forgiveness for the insult for which he said he felt himself to be responsible. He could not, he added, expect that in the future it would be allowed to him to remain on the same terms of intimacy with her and her family as had been permitted to him in the past.
Suddenly he recollected the unknown trouble which had been upon the girl when he had last seen her. She was not yet free from that secret sorrow which he had hoped it might be in his power to dispel. He and he only had seen Captain Jackson speaking to her in the green room at Covent Garden, and he only had good reason to believe that her sorrow had originated with that man. Under these circumstances he asked himself if he was justified in leaving her to fight her battle alone. She had not asked him to be her champion, and he felt that if she had done so, it was a very poor champion that he would have made; but still he knew more of her grief than any one else, and he believed he might be able to help her.
He tore up the letter which he had written to her.
“I will not leave her,” he cried. “Whatever may happen—whatever blame people who do not understand may say I have earned, I will not leave her until she has been freed from whatever distress she is in.”
He had scarcely seated himself when his servant announced Captain Horneck.
For an instant Goldsmith was in trepidation. Mary Horneck's brother had no reason to visit him except as he himself had visited Evans and Kenrick. But with the sound of Captain Horneck's voice his trepidation passed away.
“Ha, my little hero!” Horneck cried before he had quite crossed the threshold. “What is this that is the talk of the town? Good Lord! what are things coming to when the men of letters have taken to beating the booksellers?”
“You have heard of it?” said Oliver. “You have heard of the quarrel, but you cannot have heard of the reason for it!”
“What, there is something behind theLondon Packet, after all?” cried Captain Horneck.
“Something behind it—something behind that slander—the mention of your sister's name, sir? What should be behind it, sir?”
“My dear old Nolly, do you fancy that the friendship which exists between my family and you is too weak to withstand such a strain as this—a strain put upon it by a vulgar scoundrel, whose malice so far as you are concerned is as well known as his envy of your success?”
Goldsmith stared at him for some moments and then at the hand which he was holding out. He seemed to be making an effort to speak, but the words never came. Suddenly he caught Captain Horneck's hand in both of his own, and held it for a moment; but then, quite overcome, he dropped it, and burying his face in his hands he burst into tears.
Horneck watched him for some time, and was himself almost equally affected.
“Come, come, old friend,” he said at last, placing his hand affectionately on Goldsmith's shoulder. “Come, come; this will not do. There is nothing to be so concerned about. What, man! are you so little aware of your own position in the world as to fancy that the Horneck family regard your friendship for them otherwise than an honour? Good heavens, Dr. Goldsmith, don't you perceive that we are making a bold bid for immortality through our names being associated with yours? Who in a hundred years—in fifty years—would know anything of the Horneck family if it were not for their association with you? The name of Oliver Goldsmith will live so long as there is life in English letters, and when your name is spoken the name of your friends the Hornecks will not be forgotten.”
He tried to comfort his unhappy friend, but though he remained at his chambers for half an hour, he got no word from Oliver Goldsmith.
The next day the news of the prompt and vigorous action taken by Goldsmith in respect of the scurrility of Kenrick had spread round the literary circle of which Johnson was the centre, and the general feeling was one of regret that Kenrick had not received the beating instead of Evans. Of course, Johnson, who had threatened two writers with an oak stick, shook his head—and his body as well—in grave disapproval of Goldsmith's use of his cane; but Reynolds, Garrick and the two Burkes were of the opinion that a cane had never been more appropriately used.
What Colman's attitude was in regard to the man who had put thousands of pounds into his pocket may be gathered from the fact that, shortly afterwards, he accepted and produced a play of Kenrick's at his theatre, which was more decisively damned than any play ever produced under Colman's management.
Of course, the act of an author in resenting the scurrility of a man who had delivered his stab under the cloak of criticism, called for a howl of indignation from the scores of hacks who existed at that period—some in the pay of the government others of the opposition—solely by stabbing men of reputation; for the literary cut-throat, in the person of the professional libeller-critic, and the literary cut-purse, in the form of the professional blackmailer, followed as well as preceded Junius.
The howl went up that the liberty of the press was in danger, and the public, who took then, as they do now, but the most languid interest in the quarrels of literature, were forced to become the unwilling audience. When, however, Goldsmith published his letter in theDaily Advertiser—surely the manliest manifesto ever printed—the howls became attenuated, and shortly afterwards died away. It was admitted, even by Dr. Johnson—and so emphatically, too, that his biographer could not avoid recording his judgment—that Goldsmith had increased his reputation by the incident.
(Boswell paid Goldsmith the highest compliment in his power on account of this letter, for he fancied that it had been written by Johnson, and received another rebuke from the latter to gloat over.)
For some days Goldsmith had many visitors at his chambers, including Baretti, who remarked that he took it for granted that he need not now search for the fencingmaster, as his quarrel was over. Goldsmith allowed him to go away under the impression that he had foreseen the quarrel when he had consulted him regarding the fencingmaster.
But at the end of a week, when Evans had been conciliated by the friends of his assailant, Goldsmith, on returning to his chambers one afternoon, found Johnson gravely awaiting his arrival. His hearty welcome was not responded to quite so heartily by his visitor.
“Dr. Goldsmith,” said Johnson, after he had made some of those grotesque movements with which his judicial utterances were invariably accompanied—“Dr. Goldsmith, we have been friends for a good many years, sir.”
“That fact constitutes one of my pleasantest reflections, sir,” said Goldsmith. He spoke with some measure of hesitancy, for he had a feeling that his friend had come to him with a reproof. He had expected him to come rather sooner.
“If our friendship was not such as it is, I would not have come to you to-day, sir, to tell you that you have been a fool,” said Johnson.
“Yes, sir,” said Goldsmith, “you were right in assuming that you could say nothing to me that would offend me; I know that I have been a fool—at many times—in many ways.”
“I suspected that you were a fool before I set out to come hither, sir, and since I entered this room I have convinced myself of the accuracy of my suspicion.”
“If a man suspects that I am a fool before seeing me, sir, what will he do after having seen me?” said Goldsmith.
“Dr. Goldsmith,” resumed Johnson, “it was, believe me, sir, a great pain to me to find, as I did in this room—on that desk—such evidence of your folly as left no doubt on my mind in this matter.”
“What do you mean, sir? My folly—evidence—on that desk? Ah, I know now what you mean. Yes, poor Filby's bill for my last coats and I suppose for a few others that have long ago been worn threadbare. Alas, sir, who could resist Filby's flatteries?”
“Sir,” said Johnson, “you gave me permission several years ago to read any manuscript of yours in prose or verse at which you were engaged.”
“And the result of your so honouring me, Dr. Johnson, has invariably been advantageous to my work. What, sir, have I ever failed in respect for your criticisms? Have I ever failed to make a change that you suggested?”
“It was in consideration of that permission, Dr. Goldsmith, that while waiting for you here to-day, I read several pages in your handwriting,” said Johnson sternly.
Goldsmith glanced at his desk.
“I forget now what work was last under my hand,” said he; “but whatever it was, sir——”
“I have it here, sir,” said Johnson, and Goldsmith for the first time noticed that he held in one of his hands a roll of manuscript. Johnson laid it solemnly on the table, and in a moment Goldsmith perceived that it consisted of a number of the poems which he had written to the Jessamy Bride, but which he had not dared to send to her. He had had them before him on the desk that day while he asked himself what would be the result of sending them to her.
He was considerably disturbed when he discovered what it was that his friend had been reading in his absence, and his attempt to treat the matter lightly only made his confusion appear the greater.
“Oh, those verses, sir,” he stammered; “they are poor things. You will, I fear, find them too obviously defective to merit criticism; they resemble my oldest coat, sir, which I designed to have repaired for my man, but Filby returned it with the remark that it was not worth the cost of repairing. If you were to become a critic of those trifles——”
“They are trifles, Goldsmith, for they represent the trifling of a man of determination with his own future—with his own happiness and the happiness of others.”
“I protest, sir, I scarcely understand——”
“Your confusion, sir, shows that you do understand.”
“Nay, sir, you do not suppose that the lines which a poet writes in the character of a lover should be accepted as damning evidence that his own heart speaks.”
“Goldsmith, I am not the man to be deceived by any literary work that may come under my notice. I have read those verses of yours; sir, your heart throbs in every line.”
“Nay, sir, you would make me believe that my poor attempts to realise the feelings of one who has experienced the tender passion are more happy than I fancied.”
“Sir, this dissimulation is unworthy of you.”
“Sir, I protest that I—that is—no, I shall protest nothing. You have spoken the truth, sir; any dissimulation is unworthy of me. I wrote those verses out of my own heart—God knows if they are the first that came from my heart—I own it, sir. Why should I be ashamed to own it?”
“My poor friend, you have been Fortune's plaything all your life; but I did not think that she was reserving such a blow as this for you.”
“A blow, sir? Nay, I cannot regard as a blow that which has been the sweetest—the only consolation of a life that has known but few consolations.”
“Sir, this will not do. A man has the right to make himself as miserable as he pleases, but he has no right to make others miserable. Dr. Goldsmith, you have ill-repaid the friendship which Miss Horneck and her family have extended to you.”
“I have done nothing for which my conscience reproaches me, Dr. Johnson. What, sir, if I have ventured to love that lady whose name had better remain unspoken by either of us—what if I do love her? Where is the indignity that I do either to her or to the sentiment of friendship? Does one offer an indignity to friendship by loving?”
“My poor friend, you are laying up a future of misery for yourself—yes, and for her too; for she has a kind heart, and if she should come to know—and, indeed, I think she must—that she has been the cause, even though the unwilling cause, of suffering on the part of another, she will not be free from unhappiness.”
“She need not know, she need not know. I have been a bearer of burdens all my life. I will assume without repining this new burden.”
“Nay, sir, if I know your character—and I believe I have known it for some years—you will cast that burden away from you. Life, my dear friend, you and I have found to be not a meadow wherein to sport, but a battle field. We have been in the struggle, you and I, and we have not come out of it unscathed. Come, sir, face boldly this new enemy, and put it to flight before it prove your ruin.”
“Enemy, you call it, sir? You call that which gives everything there is of beauty—everything there is of sweetness—in the life of man—you call it our enemy?”
“I call ityourenemy, Goldsmith.”
“Why mine only? What is there about me that makes me different from other men? Why should a poet be looked upon as one who is shut out for evermore from all the tenderness, all the grace of life, when he has proved to the world that he is most capable of all mankind of appreciating tenderness and grace? What trick of nature is this? What paradox for men to vex their souls over? Is the poet to stand aloof from men, evermore looking on happiness through another man's eyes? If you answer 'yes,' then I say that men who are not poets should go down on their knees and thank Heaven that they are not poets. Happy it is for mankind that Heaven has laid on few men the curse of being poets. For myself, I feel that I would rather be a man for an hour than a poet for all time.”
“Come, sir, let us not waste our time railing against Heaven. Let us look at this matter as it stands at present. You have been unfortunate enough to conceive a passion for a lady whose family could never be brought to think of you seriously as a lover. You have been foolish enough to regard their kindness to you—their acceptance of you as a friend—as encouragement in your mad aspirations.”
“You have no right to speak so authoritatively, sir.”
“I have the right as your oldest friend, Goldsmith; and you know I speak only what is true. Does your own conscience, your own intelligence, sir, not tell you that the lady's family would regard her acceptance of you as a lover in the light of the greatest misfortune possible to happen to her? Answer me that question, sir.”
But Goldsmith made no attempt to speak. He only buried his face in his hands, resting his elbows on the table at which he sat.
“You cannot deny what you know to be a fact, sir,” resumed Johnson. “I will not humiliate you by suggesting that the young lady herself would only be moved to laughter were you to make serious advances to her; but I ask you if you think her family would not regard such an attitude on your side as ridiculous—nay, worse—a gross affront.”
Still Goldsmith remained silent, and after a short pause his visitor resumed his discourse.
“The question that remains for you to answer is this, sir: Are you desirous of humiliating yourself in the eyes of your best friends, and of forfeiting their friendship for you, by persisting in your infatuation?”
Goldsmith started up.
“Say no more, sir; for God's sake, say no more,” he cried almost piteously. “Am I, do you fancy, as great a fool as Pope, who did not hesitate to declare himself to Lady Mary? Sir, I have done nothing that the most honourable of men would shrink from doing. There are the verses which I wrote—I could not help writing them—but she does not know that they were ever written. Dr. Johnson, she shall never hear it from me. My history, sir, shall be that of the hopeless lover—a blank—a blank.”
“My poor friend,” said Johnson after a pause—he had laid his hand upon the shoulder of his friend as he seated himself once more at the table—“My poor friend, Providence puts into our hands many cups which are bitter to the taste, but cannot be turned away from. You and I have drank of bitter cups before now, and perhaps we may have to drink of others before we die. To be a man is to suffer; to be a poet means to have double the capacity of men to suffer. You have shown yourself before now worthy of the admiration of all good men by the way you have faced life, by your independence of the patronage of the great. You dedicated 'The Traveller' to your brother, and your last comedy to me. You did not hesitate to turn away from your door the man who came to offer you money for the prostitution of the talents which God has given you. Dr. Goldsmith, you have my respect—you have the respect of every good man. I came to you to-day that you may disappoint those of your detractors who are waiting for you to be guilty of an act that would give them an opportunity of pointing a finger of malice at you. You will not do anything but that which will reflect honour upon yourself, and show all those who are your friends that their friendship for you is well founded. I am assured that I can trust you, sir.”
Goldsmith took the hand that he offered, but said no word.
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.