After a very restless night he hastened to Johnson, but found that Johnson had already gone to Garrick's house, and at Garrick's house Goldsmith learned that Johnson and Garrick had driven to Edmund Burke's; so it was plain that Baretti's friends were losing no time in setting about helping him. They all met in the Bow Street Police Court, and Goldsmith found that Burke had already instructed a lawyer on behalf of Baretti. His tender heart was greatly moved at the sight of Baretti when the latter was brought into court, and placed in the dock, with a constable on each side. But the prisoner himself appeared to be quite collected, and seemed proud of the group of notable persons who had come to show their friendship for him. He smiled at Reynolds and Goldsmith, and, when the witnesses were being examined, polished the glasses of his spectacles with the greatest composure. He appeared to be confident that Sir John Fielding would allow him to go free when evidence was given that Jackson had been a man of notoriously bad character, and he seemed greatly surprised when the magistrate announced that he was returning him for trial at the next sessions.
Goldsmith asked Sir John Fielding for permission to accompany the prisoner in the coach that was taking him to Newgate, and his request was granted.
He clasped Baretti's hand with tears in his eyes when they set out on this melancholy drive, saying—
“My dear friend, I shall never forgive myself for having brought you to this.”
“Psha, sir!” said Baretti. “'Tis not you, but the foolish laws of this country that must be held accountable for the situation of the moment. In what country except this could a thing so ridiculous occur? A gross ruffian attacks me, and in the absence of any civil force for the protection of the people, I am compelled to protect myself from his violence. It so happens that instead of the fellow killing me, I by accident kill him, and lo! a pigheaded magistrate sends me to be tried for my life! Mother of God! that is what is called the course of justice in this country! The course of idiocy it had much better be called!”
“Do not be alarmed,” said Goldsmith. “When you appear before a judge and jury you will most certainly be acquitted. But can you forgive me for being the cause of this great inconvenience to you?”
“I can easily forgive you, having no reason to hold you in any way responsible for thiscontretemps,” said Baretti. “But I cannot forgive that very foolish person who sat on the Bench at Bow street and failed to perceive that my act had saved his constables and his hangman a considerable amount of trouble! Heavens! that such carrion as the fellow whom I killed should be regarded sacred—as sacred as though he were an Archbishop! Body of Bacchus! was there ever a contention so ridiculous?”
“You will only be inconvenienced for a week or two, my dear friend,” said Goldsmith. “It is quite impossible that you could be convicted—oh, quite impossible. You shall have the best counsel available, and Reynolds and Johnson and Beauclerk will speak for you.”
But Baretti declined to be pacified by such assurances. He continued railing against England and English laws until the coach arrived at Newgate.
It was with a very sad heart that Goldsmith, when he was left alone in the coach, gave directions to be driven to the Hor-necks' house in Westminster. On leaving his chambers in the morning, he had been uncertain whether it was right for him to go at once to Bow street or to see Mary Horneck. He felt that he should relieve Mary from the distress of mind from which she had suffered for so long, but he came to the conclusion that he should let nothing come between him and his duty in respect of the man who was suffering by reason of his friendship for him, Goldsmith. Now, however, that he had discharged his duty so far as he could in regard to Baretti, he lost no time in going to the Jessamy Bride.
Mrs. Horneck again met him in the hall. Her face was very grave, and the signs of recent tears were visible on it.
“Dear Dr. Goldsmith,” she said, “I am in deep distress about Mary.”
“How so, madam?” he gasped, for a dreadful thought had suddenly come to him. Had he arrived at this house only to hear that the girl was at the point of death?
“She returned from Barton last night, seeming even more depressed than when she left town,” said Mrs. Horneck. “But who could fancy that her condition was so low as to be liable to such complete prostration as was brought about by my son's announcement of this news about Signor Baretti?”
“It prostrated her?”
“Why, when Charles read out an account of the unhappy affair which is printed in one of the papers, Mary listened breathlessly, and when he read out the name of the man who was killed, she sank from her chair to the floor in a swoon, just as though the man had been one of her friends, instead of one whom none of us could ever possibly have met.”
“And now?”
“Now she is lying on the sofa in the drawingroom awaiting your coming with strange impatience—I told her that you had been here yesterday and also the day before. She has been talking very strangely since she awoke from her faint—accusing herself of bringing her friends into trouble, but evermore crying out, 'Why does he not come—why does he not come to tell me all that there is to be told?' She meant you, dear Dr. Goldsmith. She has somehow come to think of you as able to soothe her in this curious imaginary distress, from which she is suffering quite as acutely as if it were a real sorrow. Oh, I was quite overcome when I saw the poor child lying as if she were dead before my eyes! Her condition is the more sad, as I have reason to believe that Colonel Gwyn means to call to-day.”
“Never mind Colonel Gwyn for the present, madam,” said Goldsmith, “Will you have the goodness to lead me to her room? Have I not told you that I am confident that I can restore her to health?”
“Ah, Dr. Goldsmith, if you could!—ah, if you only could! But alas, alas!”
He followed her upstairs to the drawingroom where he had had his last interview with Mary. Even before the door was opened the sound of sobbing within the room came to his ears.
“Now, my dear child,” said her mother with an affectation of cheerfulness, “you see that Dr. Goldsmith has kept his word. He has come to his Jessamy Bride.”
The girl started up, but the struggle she had to do so showed him most pathetically how weak she was.
“Ah, he is come he is come!” she cried. “Leave him with me, mother; he has much to tell me.”
“Yes.” said he; “I have much.”
Mrs. Horneck left the room after kissing the girl's forehead.
She had hardly closed the door before Mary caught Goldsmith's hand spasmodically in both her own—he felt how they were trembling-as she cried—
“The terrible thing that has happened! He is dead—you know it, of course? Oh, it is terrible—terrible! But the letters!—they will be found upon him or at the place where he lived, and it will be impossible to keep my secret longer. Will his friends—he had evil friends, I know—will they print them, do you think? Ah, I see by your face that you believe they will print the letters, and I shall be undone—undone.”
“My dear,” he said, “you might be able to bear the worst news that I could bring you; but will you be able to bear the best?”
“The best! Ah, what is the best?”
“It is more difficult to prepare for the best than for the worst, my child. You are very weak, but you must not give way to your weakness.”
She stared at him with wistful, expectant eyes. Her hands were clasped more tightly than ever upon his own. He saw that she was trying to speak, but failing to utter a single word.
He waited for a few moments and then drew out of his pocket the packet of her letters, and gave it to her. She looked at it strangely for certainly a minute. She could not realise the truth. She could only gaze mutely at the packet. He perceived that that gradual dawning of the truth upon her meant the saving of her life. He knew that she would not now be overwhelmed with the joy of being saved.
Then she gave a sudden cry. The letters dropped from her hand. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him again and again on the cheeks. Quite as suddenly she ceased kissing him and laughed—not hysterically, but joyously, as she sprang to her feet with scarcely an effort and walked across the room to the window that looked upon the street. He followed her with his eyes and saw her gazing out. Then she turned round with another laugh that rippled through the room. How long was it since he had heard her laugh in that way?
She came toward him, and then he knew that he had had his reward, for her cheeks that had been white were now glowing with the roses of June, and her eyes that had been dim were sparkling with gladness.
“Ah,” she cried, putting out both her hands to him. “Ah, I knew that I was right in telling you my secret, and in asking you to help me. I knew that you would not fail me in my hour of need, and you shall be dear to me for evermore for having helped me. There is no one in the world like you, dear Oliver Goldsmith. I have always felt that—so good, so true, so full of tenderness and that sweet simplicity which has made the greatest and best people in the world love you, as I love you, dear, dear friend! O, you are a friend to be trusted—a friend who would be ready to die for his friend. Gratitude—you do not want gratitude. It is well that you do not want gratitude, for what could gratitude say to you for what you have done? You have saved me from death—from worse than death—and I know that the thought that you have done so will be your greatest reward. I will always be near you, that you may see me and feel that I live only because you stretched out your kind hand and drew me out of the deep waters—the waters that had well-nigh closed over my head.”
He sat before her, looking up to the sweet face that looked down upon him. His eyes were full of tears. The world had dealt hardly with him; but he felt that his life had not been wholly barren of gladness, since he had lived to see—even through the dimness of tears—so sweet a face looking into his own with eyes full of the light of—was it the gratitude of a girl? Was it the love of a woman?
He could not speak. He could not even return the pressure of the small hands that clasped his own with all the gracious pressure of the tendrils of a climbing flower.
“Have you nothing to say to me—no word to give me at this moment?” she asked in a whisper, and her head was bent closer to his, and her fingers seemed to him to tighten somewhat around his own.
“What word?” said he. “Ah, my child, what word should come from such a man as I to such a woman as you? No, I have no word. Such complete happiness as is mine at this moment does not seek to find expression in words. You have given me such happiness as I never hoped for in my life. You have understood me—you alone, and that to such as I means happiness.”
She dropped his hands so suddenly as almost to suggest that she had flung them away from her. She took an impatient step or two in the direction of the window.
“You talk of my understanding you,” she said in a voice that had a sob in it. “Yes, but have you no thought of understanding me? Is it only a man's nature that is worth trying to understand? Is a woman's not worthy of a thought?”
He started up and seemed about to stretch his arms out to her, but with a sudden drawing in of his breath he put his hands behind his back and locked the fingers of both together.
Thus he stood looking at her while she had her face averted, not knowing the struggle that was going on between the two powers that are ever in the throes of conflict within the heart of a man who loves a woman well enough to have no thought of himself—no thought except for her happiness.
“No,” he said at last. “No, my dear, dear child; I have no word to say to you! I fear to speak a word. The happiness that a man builds up for himself may be destroyed by the utterance of one word. I wish to remain happy—watching your happiness—in silence. Perhaps I may understand you—I may understand something of the thought which gratitude suggests to you.”
“Ah, gratitude!” said she in a tone that was sad even in its scornfulness. She had not turned her head toward him.
“Yes, I may understand something of your nature—the sweetest, the tenderest that ever made a woman blessed; but I understand myself better, and I know in what direction lies my happiness—in what direction lies your happiness.”
“Ah! are you sure that they are two—that they are separate?” said she. And now she moved her head slowly so that she was looking into his face.
There was a long pause. She could not see the movement of his hands. He still held them behind him. At last he said slowly—
“I am sure, my dear one. Ah, I am but too sure. Would to God there were a chance of my being mistaken! Ah, dear, dear child, it is my lot to look on happiness through another man's eyes. And, believe me, there is more happiness in doing so than the world knows of. No, no! Do not speak—for God's sake, do not speak to me! Do not say those words which are trembling on your lips, for they mean unhappiness to both of us.”
She continued looking at him; then suddenly, with a little cry, she turned away, and throwing herself down on the sofa, burst into tears, with her face upon one of the arms, which her hands held tightly.
After a time he went to her side and laid a hand upon her hair.
She raised her head and looked up to him with streaming eyes. She put a hand out to him, saying in a low but clear voice—
“You are right. Oh, I know you are right. I will not speak that word; but I can never—never cease to think of you as the best—the noblest—the truest of men. You have been my best friend—my only friend—and there is no dearer name that a man can be called by a woman.”
He bent his head and kissed her on the forehead, but spoke no word.
A moment afterwards Mrs. Horneck entered the room.
“Oh, mother, mother!” cried the girl, starting up, “I knew that I was right—I knew that Dr. Goldsmith would be able to help me. Ah, I am a new girl since he came to see me. I feel that I am well once more—that I shall never be ill again! Oh, he is the best doctor in the world!”
“Why, what a transformation there is already!” said her mother. “Ah, Dr. Goldsmith was always my dear girl's friend!”
“Friend—friend!” she said slowly, almost gravely. “Yes, he was always my friend, and he will be so forever—my friend—our friend.”
“Always, always,” said Mrs. Horneck. “I am doubly glad to find that you have cast away your fit of melancholy, my dear, because Colonel Gwyn has just called and expresses the deepest anxiety regarding your condition. May I not ask him to come up in order that his mind may be relieved by seeing you?”
“No, no! I will not see Colonel Gwyn to-day,” cried the girl. “Send him away—send him away. I do not want to see him. I want to see no one but our good friend Oliver Goldsmith. Ah, what did Colonel Gwyn ever do for me that I should wish to see him?”
“My dear Mary——”
“Send him away, dear mother. I tell you that indeed I am not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to have a visitor. Dr. Goldsmith has not yet given me a good laugh, and till you come and find us laughing together as we used to laugh in the old days, you cannot say that I am myself again.”
“I will not do anything against your inclinations, child,” said Mrs. Horneck. “I will tell Colonel Gwyn to renew his visit to you next week.”
“Do, dear mother,” cried the girl, laughing. “Say next week, or next year, sweetest of mothers, or—best of all—say that he had better come by and by, and then add, in the true style of Mr. Garrick, that 'by and by is easily said.'”
As he went to his chambers to dress before going to dine with the Dillys in the Poultry, Goldsmith was happier than he had been for years. He had seen the light return to the face that he loved more than all the faces in the world, and he had been strong enough to put aside the temptation to hear her confess that she returned the love which he bore her, but which he had never confessed to her. He felt happy to know that the friendship which had been so great a consolation to him for several years—the friendship for the family who had been so good and so considerate to him—was the same now as it had always been. He felt happy in the reflection that he had spoken no word that would tend to jeopardise that friendship. He had seen enough of the world to be made aware of the fact that there is no more potent destroyer of friendship than love. He had put aside the temptation to speak a word of love; nay, he had prevented her from speaking what he believed would be a word of love, although the speaking of that word would have been the sweetest sound that had ever fallen upon his ears.
And that was how he came to feel happy.
And yet, that same night, when he was sitting alone in his room, he found a delight in adding to that bundle of manuscripts which he had dedicated to her and which some weeks before he had designed to destroy. He added poem after poem to the verses which Johnson had rightly interpreted—verses pulsating with the love that was in his heart—verses which Mary Horneck could not fail to interpret aright should they ever come before her eyes.
“But they shall never come before her eyes,” he said. “Ah, never—never! It is in my power to avert at least that unhappiness from her life.”
And yet before he went to sleep he had a thought that perhaps one day she might read those verses of his—yes, perhaps one day. He wondered if that day was far off or nigh.
When he had been by her side, after Colonel Gwyn had left the house, he had told her the story of the recovery of her letters; he did not, however, think it necessary to tell her how the man had come to entertain his animosity to Baretti; and she thus regarded the latter's killing of Jackson as an accident.
After the lapse of a day or two he began to think if it might not be well for him to consult with Edmund Burke as to whether it would be to the advantage of Baretti or otherwise to submit evidence as to the threats made use of by Jackson in regard to Baretti. He thought that it might be possible to do so without introducing the name of Mary Horneck. But Burke, after hearing the story—no mention of the name of Mary Horneck being made by Goldsmith—came to the conclusion that it would be unwise to introduce at the trial any question of animosity on the part of the man who had been killed, lest the jury might be led to infer—as, indeed, they might have some sort of reason for doing-that the animosity on Jackson's part meant animosity on Baretti's part. Burke considered that a defence founded upon the plea of accident was the one which was most likely to succeed in obtaining from a jury a verdict of acquittal. If it could be shown that the man had attacked Baretti as impudently as some of the witnesses for the Crown were ready to admit that he did, Burke and his legal advisers thought that the prisoner had a good chance of obtaining a verdict.
The fact that neither Burke nor any one else spoke with confidence of the acquittal had, however, a deep effect upon Goldsmith. His sanguine nature had caused him from the first to feel certain of Baretti's safety, and any one who reads nowadays an account of the celebrated trial would undoubtedly be inclined to think that his feeling in this matter was fully justified. That there should have been any suggestion of premeditation in the unfortunate act of self-defence on the part of Baretti seems amazing to a modern reader of the case as stated by the Crown. But as Edmund Burke stated about that time in the House of Commons, England was a gigantic shambles. The barest evidence against a prisoner was considered sufficient to bring him to the gallows for an offence which nowadays, if proved against him on unmistakable testimony, would only entail his incarceration for a week. Women were hanged for stealing bread to keep their children from that starvation which was the result of the kidnapping of their husbands to serve in the navy; and yet Burke's was the only influential voice that was lifted up against a system in comparison with which slavery was not only tolerable, but commendable.
Baretti was indeed the only one of that famous circle of which Johnson was the centre, who felt confident that he would be acquitted. For all his railing against the detestable laws of the detestable country—which, however, he found preferable to his own—he ridiculed the possibility of his being found guilty. It was Johnson who considered it within the bounds of his duty to make the Italian understand that, however absurd was the notion of his being carted to the gallows, the likelihood was that he would experience the feelings incidental to such an excursion.
He went full of this intention with Reynolds to visit the prisoner at Newgate, and it may be taken for granted that he discharged his duty with his usual emphasis. It is recorded, however, on the excellent authority of Boswell, that Baretti was quite unmoved by the admonition of the sage.
It is also on authority of Boswell that we learn that Johnson was guilty of what appears to us nowadays as a very gross breach of good taste as well as of good feeling, when, on the question of the likelihood of Baretti's failing to obtain a verdict being discussed, he declared that if one of his friends were fairly hanged he should not suffer, but eat his dinner just the same as usual. It is fortunate, however, that we know something of the systems adopted by Johnson when pestered by the idiotic insistence of certain trivial matters by Boswell, and the record of Johnson's pretence to appear a callous man of the world probably deceived no one in the world except the one man whom it was meant to silence.
But, however callous Dr. Johnson may have pretended to be—however insincere Tom Davis the bookseller may—according to Johnson—have been, there can be no doubt that poor Goldsmith was in great trepidation until the trial was over. He gave evidence in favour of Baretti, though Boswell, true to his detestation of the man against whom he entertained an envy that showed itself every time he mentioned his name, declined to mention this fact, taking care, however, that Johnson got full credit for appearing in the witness-box with Burke, Garrick and Beauclerk.
Baretti was acquitted, the jury being satisfied that, as the fruit-knife was a weapon which was constantly carried by Frenchmen and Italians, they might possibly go so far as to assume that it had not been bought by the prisoner solely with the intention of murdering the man who had attacked him in the Haymarket. The carrying of the fruit-knife seems rather a strange turning-point of a case heard at a period when the law permitted men to carry swords presumably for their own protection.
Goldsmith's mind was set at ease by the acquittal of Baretti, and he joined in the many attempts that were made to show the sympathy which was felt—or, as Boswell would have us believe Johnson thought, was simulated—by his friends for Baretti. He gave a dinner in honour of the acquittal, inviting Johnson, Burke, Garrick, and a few others of the circle, and he proposed the health of their guest, which, he said, had not been so robust of late as to give all his friends an assurance that he would live to a ripe old age. He also toasted the jury and the counsel, as well as the turnkeys of Newgate and the usher of the Old Bailey.
When the trial was over, however, he showed that the strain to which he had been subjected was too great for him. His health broke down, and he was compelled to leave his chambers and hurry off to his cottage on the Edgware Road, hoping to be benefitted by the change to the country, and trusting also to be able to make some progress with the many works which he had engaged himself to complete for the booksellers. He had, in addition, his comedy to write for Garrick, and he was not unmindful of his promise to give Mrs. Abington a part worthy of her acceptance.
He returned at rare intervals to town, and never failed at such times to see his Jessamy Bride, with whom he had resumed his old relations of friendship. When she visited her sister at Barton she wrote to him in her usual high spirits. Little Comedy also sent him letters full of the fun in which she delighted to indulge with him, and he was never too busy to reply in the same strain. The pleasant circle at Bun-bury's country house wished to have him once again in their midst, to join in their pranks, and to submit, as he did with such good will, to their practical jests.
He did not go to Barton. He had made up his mind that that was one of the pleasures of life which he should forego. At Barton he knew that he would see Mary day by day, and he could not trust himself to be near her constantly and yet refrain from saying the words which would make both of them miserable. He had conquered himself once, but he was not sure that he would be as strong a second time.
This perpetual struggle in which he was engaged—this constant endeavour to crush out of his life the passion which alone made life endurable to him, left him worn and weak, so it was not surprising that, when a coach drove up to his cottage one day, after many months had passed, and Mrs. Horneck stepped out, she was greatly shocked at the change which was apparent in his appearance.
“Good heaven, Dr. Goldsmith!” she cried when she entered his little parlour, “you are killing yourself by your hard work. Sir Joshua said he was extremely apprehensive in regard to your health the last time he saw you, but were he to see you now, he would be not merely apprehensive but despairing.”
“Nay, my dear madam,” he said. “I am only suffering from a slight attack of an old enemy of mine. I am not so strong as I used to be; but let me assure you that I feel much better since you have been good enough to give me an opportunity of seeing you at my humble home. When I caught sight of you stepping out of the coach I received a great shock for a moment; I feared that—ah, I cannot tell you all that I feared.”
“However shocked you were, dear Dr. Goldsmith, you were not so shocked as I was when you appeared before me,” said the lady. “Why, dear sir, you are killing yourself. Oh, we must change all this. You have no one here to give you the attention which your condition requires.”
“What, madam! Am not I a physician myself?” said the Doctor, making a pitiful attempt to assume his old manner.
“Ah, sir! every moment I am more shocked,” said she. “I will take you in hand. I came here to beg of you to go to Barton in my interests, but now I will beg of you to go thither in your own.”
“To Barton? Oh, my dear madam——”
“Nay, sir, I insist! Ah! I might have known you better than to fancy I should easier prevail upon you by asking you to go to advance your own interests rather than mine. You were always more ready to help others than to help yourself.”
“How is it possible, dear lady, that you need my poor help?”
“Ah! I knew the best way to interest you. Dear friend, I know of no one who could be of the same help to us as you.”
“There is no one who would be more willing, madam.”
“You have proved it long ago, Dr. Goldsmith. When Mary had that mysterious indisposition, was not her recovery due to you? She announced that it was you, and you only, who had brought her back to life.”
“Ah! my dear Jessamy Bride was always generous. Surely she is not again in need of my help.”
“It is for her sake I come to you to-day, Dr. Goldsmith. I am sure that you are interested in her future—in the happiness which we all are anxious to secure for her.”
“Happiness? What happiness, dear madam?”
“I will tell you, sir. I look on you as one of our family—nay, I can talk with you more confidentially than I can with my own son.”
“You have ever been indulgent to me, Mrs. Horneck.”
“And you have ever been generous, sir; that is why I am here to-day. I know that Mary writes to you. I wonder if she has yet told you that Colonel Gwyn made her an offer with my consent.”
“No; she has not told me that.”
He spoke slowly, rising from his chair, but endeavoring to restrain the emotion which he felt.
“It is not unlike Mary to treat the matter as if it were finally settled, and so not worthy of another thought,” said Mrs. Horneck.
“Finally settled?” repeated Goldsmith. “Then she has accepted Colonel Gwyn's proposal?”
“On the contrary, sir, she rejected it,” said the mother.
He resumed his seat. Was the emotion which he experienced at that moment one of gladness?
“Yes, she rejected a suitor whom we all considered most eligible,” said the lady. “Colonel Gwyn is a man of good family, and his own character is irreproachable. He is in every respect a most admirable man, and I am convinced that my dear child's happiness would be assured with him—and yet she sends him away from her.”
“That is possibly because she knows her own mind—her own heart, I should rather say; and that heart the purest in the world.”
“Alas! she is but a girl.”
“Nay, to my mind, she is something more than a girl. No man that lives is worthy of her.”
“That may be true, dear friend; but no girl would thank you to act too rigidly on that assumption—an assumption which would condemn her to live and die an old maid. Now, my dear Dr. Goldsmith, I want you to take a practical and not a poetical view of a matter which so closely concerns the future of one who is dear to me, and in whom I am sure you take a great interest.”
“I would do anything for her happiness.”
“I know it. Well you have long been aware, I am sure, that she regards you with the greatest respect and esteem—nay, if I may say it, with affection as well.”
“Ah! affection—affection for me?”
“You know it. If you were her brother she could not have a warmer regard for you. And that is why I have come to you to-day to beg of you to yield to the entreaties of your friends at Barton and pay them a visit. Mary is there, and I hope you will see your way to use your influence with her on behalf of Colonel Gwyn.”
“What! I, madam?”
“Has my suggestion startled you? It should not have done so. I tell you, my friend, there is no one to whom I could go in this way, saving yourself. Indeed, there is no one else who would be worth going to, for no one possesses the influence over her that you have always had. I am convinced, Dr. Goldsmith, that she would listen to your persuasion while turning a deaf ear to that of any one else. You will lend us your influence, will you not, dear friend?”
“I must have time to think—to think. How can I answer you at once in this matter? Ah, you cannot know what my decision means to me.”
He had left his chair once more and was standing against the fireplace looking into the empty grate.
“You are wrong,” she said in a low tone. “You are wrong; I know what is in your thoughts—in your heart. You fear that if Mary were married she would stand on a different footing in respect to you.”
“Ah! a different footing!”
“I think that you are in error in that respect,” said the lady. “Marriage is not such a change as some people seem to fancy it is. Is not Katherine the same to you now as she was before she married Charles Bunbury?”
He looked at her with a little smile upon his face. How little she knew of what was in his heart!
“Ah, yes, my dear Little Comedy is unchanged,” said he.
“And your Jessamy Bride would be equally unchanged,” said Mrs. Horneck.
“But where lies the need for her to marry at once?” he inquired. “If she were in love with Colonel Gwyn there would be no reason why they should not marry at once; but if she does not love him——”
“Who can say that she does not love him?” cried the lady. “Oh, my dear Dr. Goldsmith, a young woman is herself the worst judge in all the world of whether or not she loves one particular man. I give you my word, sir, I was married for five years before I knew that I loved my husband. When I married him I know that I was under the impression that I actually disliked him. Marriages are made in heaven, they say, and very properly, for heaven only knows whether a woman really loves a man, and a man a woman. Neither of the persons in the contract is capable of pronouncing a just opinion on the subject.”
“I think that Mary should know what is in her own heart.”
“Alas! alas! I fear for her. It is because I fear for her I am desirous of seeing her married to a good man—a man with whom her future happiness would be assured. You have talked of her heart, my friend; alas! that is just why I fear for her. I know how her heart dominates her life and prevents her from exercising her judgment. A girl who is ruled by her heart is in a perilous way. I wonder if she told you what her uncle, with whom she was sojourning in Devonshire, told me about her meeting a certain man there—my brother did not make me acquainted with his name—and being so carried away with some plausible story he told that she actually fancied herself in love with him—actually, until my brother, learning that the man was a disreputable fellow, put a stop to an affair that could only have had a disastrous ending. Ah! her heart——”
“Yes, she told me all that. Undoubtedly she is dominated by her heart.”
“That is, I repeat, why I tremble for her future. If she were to meet at some time, when perhaps I might not be near her, another adventurer like the fellow whom she met in Devonshire, who can say that she would not fancy she loved him? What disaster might result! Dear friend, would you desire to save her from the fate of your Olivia?”
There was a long pause before he said—
“Madam, I will do as you ask me. I will go to Mary and endeavour to point out to her that it is her duty to marry Colonel Gwyn.”
“I knew you would grant my request, my dear, dear friend,” cried the mother, catching his hand and pressing it. “But I would ask of you not to put the proposal to her quite in that way. To suggest that a girl with a heart should marry a particular man because her duty lies in that direction would be foolishness itself. Duty? The word is abhorrent to the ear of a young woman whose heart is ripe for love.”
“You are a woman.”
“I am one indeed; I know what are a woman's thoughts—her longings—her hopes—and alas! her self-deceptions. A woman's heart—ah, Dr. Goldsmith, you once put into a few lines the whole tragedy of a woman's life. What experience was it urged you to write those lines?—
'When lovely woman stoops to folly.
And finds too late. . .'
To think that one day, perhaps a child of mine should sing that song of poor Olivia!” He did not tell her that Mary had already quoted the lines in his hearing. He bowed his head, saying—
“I will go to her.”
“You will be saving her—ah, sir, will you not be saving yourself,” cried Mrs. Horneck.
He started slightly.
“Saving myself? What can your meaning be, Mrs. Horneck?”
“I tell you I was shocked beyond measure when I entered this room and saw you,” she replied. “You are ill, sir; you are very ill, and the change to the garden at Barton will do you good. You have been neglecting yourself—yes, and some one who will nurse you back to life. Oh, Barton is the place for you!”
“There is no place I should like better to die at,” said he.
“To die at?” she said. “Nonsense, sir! you are I trust, far from death still. Nay, you will find life, and not death, there. Life is there for you.”
“Your daughter Mary is there,” said he.
He wrote that very evening, after Mrs. Horneck had taken her departure, one of his merry letters to Katherine Bunbury, telling her that he had resolved to yield gracefully to her entreaties to visit her, and meant to leave for Barton the next day. When that letter was written he gave himself up to his thoughts.
All his thoughts were of Mary. He was going to place a barrier between her and himself. He was going to give himself a chance of life by making it impossible for him to love her. This writer of books had brought himself to think that if Mary Horneck were to marry Colonel Gwyn he, Oliver Goldsmith, would come to think of her as he thought of her sister—with the affection which exists between good friends.
While her mother had been talking to him about her and her loving heart, he had suddenly become possessed of the truth: it was her sympathetic heart that had led her to make the two mistakes of her life. First, she had fancied that she loved the impostor whom she had met in Devonshire, and then she had fancied that she loved him, Oliver Goldsmith. He knew what she meant by the words which she had spoken in his presence. He knew that if he had not been strong enough to answer her as he had done that day, she would have told him that she loved him.
Her mother was right. She was in great danger through her liability to follow the promptings of her heart. If already she had made two such mistakes as he had become aware of, into what disaster might not she be led in the future?
Yes; her mother was right. Safety for a girl with so tender a heart was to be found only in marriage—marriage with such a man as Colonel Gwyn undoubtedly was. He recollected the details of Colonel Gwyn's visit to himself, and how favourably impressed he had been with the man. He undoubtedly possessed every trait of character that goes to constitute a good man and a good husband. Above all, he was devoted to Mary Horneck, and there was no man who would be better able to keep her from the dangers which surrounded her.
Yes, he would go to Barton and carry out Mrs. Horneck's request. He would, moreover, be careful to refrain from any mention of the word duty, which would, the lady had declared, if introduced into his argument, tend to frustrate his intention.
He went down to Barton by coach the next day. He felt very ill indeed, and he was not quite so confident as Mrs. Horneck that the result of his visit would be to restore him to perfect health. His last thought before leaving was that if Mary was made happy nothing else was worth a moment's consideration.
She met him with a chaise driven by Bunbury, at the cross roads, where the coach set him down; and he could not fail to perceive that she was even more shocked than her mother had been at his changed appearance. While still on the top of the coach he saw her face lighted with pleasure the instant she caught sight of him. She waved her hand toward him, and Bunbury waved his whip. But the moment he had swung himself painfully and laboriously to the ground, he saw the look of amazement both on her face and on that of her brother-in-law.
She was speechless, but it was not in the nature of Bunbury to be so.
“Good Lord! Noll, what have you been doing to yourself?” he cried. “Why, you're not like the same man. Is he, Mary?”
Mary only shook her head.
“I have been ill,” said Oliver. “But I am better already, having seen you both with your brown country faces. How is my Little Comedy? Is she ready to give me another lesson in loo?”
“She will give you what you need most, you may be certain,” said Bunbury, while the groom was strapping on his carpet-bag. “Oh! yes; we will take care that you get rid of that student's face of yours,” he continued. “Yes, and those sunken eyes! Good Lord! what a wreck you are! But we'll build you up again, never fear! Barton is the place for you and such as you, my friend.”
“I tell you I am better already,” cried Goldsmith; and then, as the chaise drove off, he glanced at the girl sitting opposite to him. Her face had become pale, her eyes were dim. She had spoken no word to him; she was not even looking at him. She was gazing over the hedgerows and the ploughed fields.
Bunbury rattled away in unison with the rattling of the chaise along the uneven road. He roared with laughter as he recalled some of the jests which had been played upon Goldsmith when he had last been at Barton; but though Oliver tried to smile in response, Mary was silent. When the chaise arrived at the house, however, and Little Comedy welcomed her guest at the great door, her high spirits triumphed over even the depressing effect of her husband's artificial hilarity. She did not betray the shock which she experienced on observing how greatly changed was her friend since he had been with her and her sister at Ranelagh. She met him with a laugh and a cry of “You have never come to us without your scratch-wig? If you have forgot it, you will e'en have to go back for it.”
The allusion to the merriment which had made the house noisy when he had last been at Barton caused Oliver to brighten up somewhat; and later on, at dinner, he yielded to the influence of Katherine Bun-bury's splendid vitality. Other guests were at the table, and the genial chat quickly became general. After dinner, he sang several of his Irish songs for his friends in the drawing-room, Mary playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord. Before he went to his bed-room he was ready to confess that Mrs. Horneck had judged rightly what would be the effect upon himself of his visit to the house he loved. He felt better—better than he had been for months.
In the morning he was pleased to find that Mary seemed to have recovered her usual spirits. She walked round the grounds with him and her sister after breakfast, and laughed without reservation at the latter's amusing imitation, after the manner of Garrick, of Colonel Gwyn's declaration of his passion, and of Mary's reply to him. She had caught very happily the manner of the suitor, though of course she made a burlesque of the scene, especially in assuming the fluttered demureness which she declared she had good reason for knowing had frightened the lover so greatly as to cause him to talk of the evil results of drinking tea, when he had meant to talk about love.
She had such a talent for this form of fun, and she put so much character into her casual travesties of every one whom she sought to imitate, she never gave offence, as a less adroit or less discriminating person would be certain to have done. Mary laughed even more heartily than Goldsmith at the account her sister gave of the imaginary scene.
Goldsmith soon found that the proposal of Colonel Gwyn had passed into the already long list of family jests, and he saw that he was expected to understand the many allusions daily made to the incident of his rejection. A new nickname had been found by her brother-in-law for Mary, and of course Katherine quickly discovered one that was extremely appropriate to Colonel Gwyn; and thus, with sly glances and good-humoured mirth, the hours passed as they had always done in the house which humoured mirth, the hours passed as they had always done in the house which had ever been so delightful to at least one of the guests.
He could not help feeling, however, before his visit had reached its fourth day, that the fact of their treating in this humourous fashion an incident which Mrs. Horneck had charged him to treat very seriously was extremely embarrassing to his mission. How was he to ask Mary to treat as the most serious incident in her life the one which was every day treated before her eyes with levity by her sister and her husband?
And yet he felt daily the truth of what Mrs. Horneck had said to him—that Mary's acceptance of Colonel Gwyn would be an assurance of her future such as might not be so easily found again. He feared to think what might be in store for a girl who had shown herself to be ruled only by her own sympathetic heart.
He resolved that he would speak to her without delay respecting Colonel Gwyn; and though he was afraid that at first she might be disposed to laugh at his attempt to put a more serious complexion upon her rejection of the suitor whom her mother considered most eligible, he had no doubt that he could bring her to regard the matter with some degree of gravity.
The opportunity for making an attempt in this direction occurred on the afternoon of the fourth day of his visit. He found himself alone with Mary in the still-room. She had just put on an apron in order to put new covers on the jars of preserved walnuts. As she stood in the middle of the many-scented room, surrounded by bottles of distilled waters and jars of preserved fruits and great Worcester bowls of potpourri, with bundles of sweet herbs and drying lavenders suspended from the ceiling, Charles Bunbury, passing along the corridor with his dogs, glanced in.
“What a housewife we have become!” he cried. “Quite right, my dear; the head of the Gwyn household will need to be deft.”
Mary laughed, throwing a sprig of thyme at him, and Oliver spoke before the dog's paws sounded on the polished oak of the staircase.
“I am afraid, my Jessamy Bride,” said he, “that I do not enter into the spirit of this jest about Colonel Gwyn so heartily as your sister or her husband.”
“'Tis foolish on their part,” said she. “But Little Comedy is ever on the watch for a subject for her jests, and Charles is an active abettor of her in her folly. This particular jest is, I think, a trifle threadbare by now.”
“Colonel Gwyn is a gentleman who deserves the respect of every one,” said he.
“Indeed, I agree with you,” she cried. “I agree with you heartily. I do not know a man whom I respect more highly. Had I not every right to feel flattered by his attention?”
“No—no; you have no reason to feel flattered by the attention of any man from the Prince down—or should I say up?” he replied.
“'Twould be treason to say so,” she laughed. “Well, let poor Colonel Gwyn be. What a pity 'tis Sir Isaac Newton did not discover a new way of treating walnuts for pickling! That discovery would have been more valuable to us than his theory of gravitation, which, I hold, never saved a poor woman a day's work.”
“I do not want to let Colonel Gwyn be,” said he quietly. “On the contrary, I came down here specially to talk of him.”
“Ah, I perceive that you have been speaking with my mother,” said she, continuing her work.
“Mary, my dear, I have been thinking about you very earnestly of late,” said he.
“Only of late!” she cried. “Ah! I flattered myself that I had some of your thoughts long ago as well.”
“I have always thought of you with the truest affection, dear child. But latterly you have never been out of my thoughts.” She ceased her work and looked towards him gratefully—attentively. He left his seat and went to her side.
“My sweet Jessamy Bride,” said he, “I have thought of your future with great uneasiness of heart. I feel towards you as—as—perhaps a father might feel, or an elder brother. My happiness in the future is dependent upon yours, and alas! I fear for you; the world is full of snares.”
“I know that,” she quietly said. “Ah, you know that I have had some experience of the snares. If you had not come to my help what shame would have been mine!”
“Dear child, there was no blame to be attached to you in that painful affair,” said he. “It was your tender heart that led you astray at first, and thank God you have the same good heart in your bosom. But alas! 'tis just the tenderness of your heart that makes me fear for you.”
“Nay; it can become as steel upon occasions,” said she. “Did not I send Colonel Gwyn away from me?”
“You were wrong to do so, my Mary,” he said. “Colonel Gwyn is a good man—he is a man with whom your future would be sure. He would be able to shelter you from all dangers—from the dangers into which your own heart may lead you again as it led you before.”
“You have come here to plead the cause of Colonel Gwyn?” said she.
“Yes,” he replied. “I believe him to be a good man. I believe that as his wife you would be safe from all the dangers which surround such a girl as you in the world.”
“Ah! my dear friend,” she cried. “I have seen enough of the world to know that a woman is not sheltered from the dangers of the world from the day she marries. Nay, is it not often the case that the dangers only begin to beset her on that day?”
“Often—often. But it would not be so with you, dear child—at least, not if you marry Colonel Gwyn.”
“Even if I do not love him? Ah! I fear that you have become a worldly man all at once, Dr. Goldsmith. You counsel a poor weak girl from the standpoint of her matchmaking mother.”
“Nay, God knows, my sweet Mary, what it costs me to speak to you in this way. God knows how much sweeter it would be for me to be able to think of you always as I think of you know—bound to no man—the dearest of all my friends. I know it would be impossible for me to occupy the same position as I now do in regard to you if you were married. Ah! I have seen that there is no more potent divider of friendship than marriage.”
“And yet you urge upon me to marry Colonel Gwyn?”
“Yes—yes—I say I do think it would mean the assurance of your—your happiness—yes, happiness in the future.”
“Surely no man ever had so good a heart as you!” she cried. “You are ready to sacrifice yourself—I mean you are ready to forego all the pleasure which our meeting, as we have been in the habit of meeting for the past four years, gives you, for the sake of seeing me on the way to happiness—or what you fancy will be happiness.”
“I am ready, my dear child; you know what the sacrifice means to me.”
“I do,” she said after a pause. “I do, because I know what it would mean to me. But you shall not be called to make that sacrifice. I will not marry Colonel Gwyn.”
“Nay—nay—do not speak so definitely,” he said.
“I will speak definitely,” she cried. “Yes, the time is come for me to speak definitely. I might agree to marry Colonel Gwyn in the hope of being happy if I did not love some one else; but loving some one else with all my heart, I dare not—oh! I dare not even entertain the thought of marrying Colonel Gwyn.”
“You love some one else?” he said slowly, wonderingly. For a moment there went through his mind the thought—
“Her heart has led her astray once again.'”
“I love some one else with all my heart and all my strength,” she cried; “I love one who is worthy of all the love of the best that lives in the world. I love one who is cruel enough to wish to turn me away from his heart, though that heart of his has known the secret of mine for long.”
Now he knew what she meant. He put his hands together before her, saying in a hushed voice—
“Ah, child—child—spare me that pain—let me go from you.”
“Not till you hear me,” she said. “Ah! cannot you perceive that I love you—only you, Oliver Goldsmith?”
“Hush—for God's sake!” he cried.
“I will not hush,” she said. “I will speak for love's sake—for the sake of that love which I bear you—for the sake of that love which I know you return.”
“Alas—alas!”
“I know it. Is there any shame in such a girl as I am confessing her love for such a man as you? I think that there is none. The shame before heaven would be in my keeping silence—in marrying a man I do not love. Ah! I have known you as no one else has known you. I have understood your nature—so sweet—so simple—so great—so true. I thought last year when you saved me from worse than death that the feeling which I had for you might perhaps be gratitude; but now I have come to know the truth.”
He laid his hand on her arm, saying in a whisper—
“Stop—stop—for God's sake, stop! I—I—do not love you.”
She looked at him and laughed at first. But as his head fell, her laugh died away. There was a long silence, during which she kept her eyes fixed upon him, as he stood before her looking at the floor.
“You do not love me?” she said in a slow whisper. “Will you say those words again with your eyes looking into mine?”
“Do not humiliate me further,” he said. “Have some pity upon me.”
“No—no; pity is not for me,” she said. “If you spoke the truth when you said those words, speak it again now. Tell me again that you do not love me.”
“You say you know me,” he cried, “and yet you think it possible that I could take advantage of this second mistake that your kind and sympathetic heart has made for your own undoing. Look there—there—into that glass, and see what a terrible mistake your heart has made.”
He pointed to a long, narrow mirror between the windows. It reflected an exquisite face and figure by the side of a face on which long suffering and struggle, long years of hardship and toil, had left their mark—a figure attenuated by want and ill-health.
“Look at that ludicrous contrast, my child,” he said, “and you will see what a mistake your heart has made. Have I not heard the jests which have been made when we were walking together? Have I not noticed the pain they gave you? Do you think me capable of increasing that pain in the future? Do you think me capable of bringing upon your family, who have been kinder than any living beings to me, the greatest misfortune that could befall them? Nay, nay, my dear child; you cannot think that I could be so base.”
“I will not think of anything except that I love the man who is best worthy of being loved of all men in the world,” said she. “Ah, sir, cannot you perceive that your attitude toward me now but strengthens my affection for you?”
“Mary—Mary—this is madness!”
“Listen to me,” she said. “I feel that you return my affection; but I will put you to the test. If you can look into my face and tell me that you do not love me I will marry Colonel Gwyn.”
There was another pause before he said—
“Have I not spoken once? Why should you urge me on to so painful an ordeal? Let me go—let me go.”
“Not until you answer me—not until I have proved you. Look into my eyes, Oliver Goldsmith, and speak those words to me that you spoke just now.”
“Ah, dear child——”
“You cannot speak those words.” There was another long silence. The terrible struggle that was going on in the heart of that man whose words are now so dear to the hearts of so many million men and women, was maintained in silence. No one but himself could hear the tempter's voice whispering to him to put his arms round the beautiful girl who stood before him, and kiss her on her cheeks, which were now rosy with expectation.
He lifted up his head. His lips moved, He put out a hand to her a little way, but with a moan he drew it back. Then he looked into her eyes, and said slowly—
“It is the truth. I do not love you with the heart of a lover.”
“That is enough. Leave me! My heart is broken!”
She fell into a chair, and covered her face with her hands.
He looked at her for a moment; then, with a cry of agony, he went out of the room—out of the house.
In his heart, as he wandered on to the high road, there was not much of the exaltation of a man who knows that he has overcome an unworthy impulse.