The Courting of Mary Smith

Front matter

MARY SMITE. VOL. MAM SMITH BY F. W. ROBINSON AUTHOR OF "GRANDMOTHER'S MONEY," "NO CHURCH," &c, &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. IH. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1886. All. rights reserved. CONTENTS in THE THIRD VOLUME. BOOK THE FOURTH. THIS WORLD OF CHANGE. CHAPTEIt PAGK I. Young Dodson 3 II. The Meeting 18 HI. Under fire 31 IV. 'J he Woman at Last 49 V. The Bearer of Bad News .... 60 VI. Locusts 66 VII. Hard Lines 77 BOOK THE FIFTH. ROUSED TO ACTION. I. Late at Night 89 II. Street Gossip 101 III. A Little Break down .... 107 IV. Two Old Fogies 124 V. Before His Arrival 138 VI. Met at Last 147 VH. The Second Time of Asking . VI CONTENTS. VIII. In Lancashire Again . . . .172 IX. A Surprise 185 X. The Telegram 196 BOOK THE SIXTH. renunciation. I. Afraid 213 II.

The Second Lecture at Coalsby . . 223 III. At Home with Mary Smith . . . 240 IV. Thin Ice 256 V. Mr. Smith's Manœuvres .... 274 VI. Making it Clear to Him .... 286 VII. A Look Im 308 VIII. A Meeting in the Strand . . . 311 IX. ' Vengeance is Mine ' 320 X. Sunshine

BOOK IV. THIS WORLD OF CHANGE.

Chapter 1. Young Dodson

We take up the thread of this story some two months after Jonathan Lovett and his sister went back to Keccleson. It is not a great lapse of time ; we are not of the unfeeling and inconsiderate raconteurs who leap lightly over ten or twenty years, and expect the reader's sympathy for a hero and heroine grown fat and puffy, or the hero and the heroine's children, in whom it is hard to pump fresh interest at the eleventh hour — -but there have been as many changes in these two months as in two generations. Nothing is as it was, and something is very much transformed since our act-drop was rung down.

The sands of life have been tearing through the glass at double-quick time, B and this little world of ours has had, possibly, more than its fair share of trial and trouble, of grief and joy, of hope and disappointment, since Mary Smith set up in business for herself; or, in other words, since Mary Smith's novel came out in three volumes, and was praised and ' slated,' puffed up and run down, acknowledged as a work of genius and proclaimed as the creation of an individual with the faintest idea of human na ture that it was possible to conceive; was announc ed as full of interest and destitute of all interest whatever ; was wonderfully realistic andwasnota bit like anything on earth or underthe earth; con tained a hero who was a creation and a hero who was a prig ; was wonderfully witty, was terribly dull ; was full of characters that lived and breath ed, was simply a box of wooden dolls, and desti tute of animation ; was wonderfully true to life and was not true at all to anything ; was the work of a noble, thoughtful woman, was the produc tion of a man whom one over-cute and smart re viewer would earnestly advise never to take pen in hand again, save in his legitimate sphere at the clerk's desk, or over a shop counter, re ceipting his master's bills.

Such are the wonderful and varied flowers of criticism strewn before the young novelist, the bright and sweet-scented of which he will take up and hold to his heart evermore, leaving the poison flowers and the stinging-nettles — that is of course, all the ' adverse opinions ' — to be trodden down, very propei.y, in the dust of the roadway. Mary Smith was bewildered by these ' notices of new books,' cheered by the good and depress ed for a while by the bad, sustained by the fact that the bad were in a minority, and the ' ayes ' had it'; that it was really in demand at the libraries, and that — marvellous and surprising phenomenon of the half-profit system — there was actually a small cheque promised to the author in due course, when the publisher was perfectly certain he should not lapse into immediate bank ruptcy after sending it.

Meanwhile, Mary Smith waited patiently for results and began her Lancashire novel, and looked after her father and the housekeeping and little Dids, devoting a few hours every day to the education of that quiet, sharp-eyed off spring of the Chinery, keeping watch and ward over her with jealous vigilance, and being ever in some doubt whether there was not lurking round the corner the shadowy, undisciplined,. distraught mother watching her chance to snatch at the child and disappear with her into the darkness of an unguessed life. But Floy Craven was not on the alert as regarded her daughter just then. That variable female had taken a new turn — for the better, perhaps, and as part of the new and better life concerning which she had raved to Mary Smith. At all events, it looked so, though it was a little startling, and there was nobody to envy her who knew anything of Foster Deane.

In the left hand column of all the newspapers it was one day formally announced that Foster Deane, son of Severus Foster Deane, 7, Mount Indicus, Somerset, had taken to himself as wife Florence Craven, daughter of the late Joseph Craven, of Crutched Friars, E.C. ' Married !' exclaimed Mary Smith ; then she crossed her hands upon the paper in her lap and gave her imagination full play, and tried to think out the real reason of it all — which was a little beyond her, despite that fair amount of clear-sightedness she was fortunate enough to possess. This was how the pitiful story would have ended in a French novel, although not in an English — for the sake of the moral which is sold with it. There hardly seemed a moral in this at all — unless it was in the remorse of Foster Deane, the promptings of an awakened conscience that had led him at last to make all the restitution which lay in his power for his treachery, for the misery his vanity and hers had created, for the life he had almost laid waste, and the home, at least, he had left a ruin ; and yet Mary Smith's varied train of thought did not run on in this direction ; she did not, for some reason or other, beheve in the repentance of Foster Deane.

It was not the eleventh hour with him, and yet it was too late. It was unlike the man, for all his staginess and shoddy romance, she thought, a little uncharitably and indignantly ; unlike him who had given Florence Craven up, talked of the errors of his ways, and become engaged to Verity Lovett. Was there a motive in this new marriage, and a method in the madness which had brought it about I For, after all, Mary Smith considered, ruefully, that to marry Florence Craven, with her youth gone, her money vanished, and her taste for drink rapidly developing, savoured of madness in any case, save that of a roue-turnedsaint, which was not the case of Foster Deane, 'the great provincial actor,' as they still an nounced him on the big boards of the Thespian, where no one ever paid to see him act a second time, and where he was still struggling against adversity with a fortitude worthy of a better cause, and with a lavish outlay of capital that was not a little remarkable.

They were still playing the sensational drama in five acts and five-and-twenty tableaux ; they were making superhuman efforts to persuade the British public that it ivas drawing ' crowded houses,' that its success had been triumphant, and that places could be secured three months in advance ; but not all the big posters on the walls, nor the lengthy advertisements in all the newspapers, could galvanise into a semblance of life so crude and outrageous a creation. The actors played to big audiences, which were, however, the out come of the universal ' order,' and put-everybody-on-the-free-list system; there were riots nightly over fees for programmes, and the cus tody of hats, coats, bonnets, walking-sticks, and umbrellas ; indignant letters appeared in the newspapers as to the ' black mail ' levied by ' organised gangs of unprincipled harpies ' in the front of the house, until the newspapers would have no more of the correspondence, and got sick of the subject after warning people to keep away from the establishment.

They .vere dropping money fast, envious ' pros ' asserted in front of the various West End bars, where the few actors who are bibul ously disposed tilt their salaries down then thirsty throats from morn till dewy eve — or, say, from Saturday afternoon till Thursday morning, after which money is ' tightish,' and other peo ple's money wonderfully handy. They were flinging cash away by wholesale, the profession said, and for what reason was beyond its vari ous calculations. They could not puff it for the country, because there was nobody to buy it in the country, and if they were going to take it there themselves, why, the sooner they were shut up in a lunatic asylum the better for all parties concerned. And who found ' the coin ' ? — that was what bothered the profession ; Fos ter Deane had never had any of his own — he had run through his ' little pile ' years and years ago — and there was nobody living, surely — and who had ever had the faintest knowledge of Mr. Deane — who would have pitched a fortune into his hands, and let him have had such full swing as he had had at the Thespian for the last eight weeks, they said.

Still, there were signs of exhaustion at last. The posters on the walls grew soiled, and were not renewed, and it was announced, and under lined in the bills, that Mr. Foster Deane, by urgent desire, and before his departure for America, where everybody was clamouring to see him, would play the part of Hamlet for a limited number of nights. When the cast of the piece was suddenly presented to the public on a bill outside the door of a tobacconist's in the South Lambeth Road, Mary Smith perceived that the part of Laertes was set down to Mr. Ennerdale, and this reminded her once more that Mr. Ennerdale was Mr. Dodson, and that she had written twice to that gentleman at the theatre, asking him to call at South Lambeth Road, or communicate with Mr. Lovett, of Castle Lovett, and that in neither case had he replied to her letters: a proceeding all the more discourteous because in old days he had professed an ardent attachment for her, and had asked her more than once to become his wife and share his fortunes, which amounted at that time to a salary of sixty pounds a year for his services in a merchant's office that was kept by a frugal Scotchman who did not fool too much money away on his clerks. ' Dad,' said Mary Smith, suddenly, ' I am going to run after Mr. Dodson.' Dad was in the secret, and knew all that had been going on of late days, and took the whole affair with an equanimity that was part of his character, and which was a little aggravating.

The affairs of other folk did not interest him a great deal ; he was a shrewd old gentleman who thought it advisable and well not to trouble himself about them ; he was the personification of self-content now, with his Mary at home, and little Dids to laugh and wonder at, and Charles Lamb to read over and over again, with a glass of after-supper grog at his elbow, and his ' long clay ' filling the little room with smoke. ' Run after Dodson,' Mr. Smith said, without looking up from his book. ' Ah ! not you. You never liked that young man, Mary. You made up your mind not to like him long ago.' ' Was I right or wrong V ' Oh ! perfectly right,' was the answer. ' He was an erratic young jackanapes.' ' Still, I must sec him,' said his daughter. i And so, dad, I am going to haunt the stage door of the Thespian.

That is the only way to catch him comfortably.' 'Ah! — yes — I suppose so.' ' I could have done this at night long ago, had we left Dids, and had you and I waited till the piece was over — upsetting a night's rest for you, once in a way; but, now that they must be rehearsing " Hamlet," I am sure to intercept him. And,' said Mary Smith, decisively, ' I mean to have it out with him, dad.' But ' dad ' was very deep in Charles Lamb again, and did not hear her. After all, it was of no consequence; if Mary had made up her mind, she would carry out her project ; and as his Mary was always right, Heaven bless her ! what could it possibly matter to him ? The following afternoon Mary Smith left Dids Chinery in charge of a neighbour whom she could trust, went to London, discovered the stage-door of the Thespian, and interviewed a pimpular old man who lay in ambush in a cup board-like compartment at the foot of a ladder, and who told her there had been a rehearsal on since half-past one, and that it would be over at half-past four or thereabouts.

And at half past four to the minute Mary Smith had succeeded in effecting the capture of Mr. Dodson. There had been no particular hurry to secure that gentleman ; after her two letters to Dodson, Mary Smith had been asked, by a telegram from Mrs. Dalrymple, not to worry about the matter until further notice, as Mr. Lovett was unwell, and perfect freedom from excitement was considered necessary, but Mary Smith only bided her time and kept her eyes upon the Thespian advertisements, and was a little nervous as to the health of Mr. Lovett, who had become, almost against her will, as it were, a part of her life and an odd portion of her own httle world. And she had been glad when the news came that Mr. Lovett was much better — as glad as if the man had been her own father, and had been always kind and courteous to her.

The troubles of his life had interested her ; the strange isolation that it was now — a man so very rich and so very much alone, king of a splendid castle of echoes — a man almost dramatic in his isolation, to the imagination of Mary Smith. < Find out all about Dodson as soon as you can,' had been his last wish flashed along the wires, and it arrived at an opportune moment, when ' Laertes . . . Mr. J. Ennerdale,' formed a line in the bill of the Thespian, and afforded a safe intimation that Mr. Dodson was not hiding his light under a bushel. Curiously and satisfactorily enough, Mr. Dod son was the first person to emerge into the street. Mary Smith had been pretty certain he would not be the last. He was a 'fly-away young man,' as has been already intimated to the reader — a gentlemen always in a hurry, dashing hither and thither with a speed which would have been the more commendable in the way of business if there had been anything to be in a hurry about.

All his life he had been in hot haste — after nothing in particular. He had tried everything — engineering, painting, literature, poetry, the drama— in the leisure moments which his clerk ship afforded, and he had failed in them all. He was just clever enough to be a nuisance to all parties with whom he came in contact ; his ideas were good, but were invariably carried out bad ly. He had never had the patience to wait or to work ; he believed in his own genius— had he not inherited genius from his father? — and he was astonished that no one else believed in it, and after all the extraordinary proofs that he had shown of it, too. He had only required capital to astonish the world. That is what genius generally does require — another proof of how envious souls were keeping him in the background, hustling him in the crowd, even jamming him face foremost against the wall, and flattening the soul out of him, so that nobody should recognise him as one of the heaven-inspired.

He was a man with immense faith in himself, and that, allied to a moderate amount of perse verance, might have pushed him forward in the world ; but he was ' fly-away ' — there was no other name for him. And everybody knew he was ' fly-away,' and listened to his plans and projects with an amazing composure, even a terrible stohdity. Everybody knew that the idea he was so full of that day would have evaporat ed into thin air before twenty-four hours had elapsed, and that something new and startling would replace it. That he should have remain ed at the Thespian Theatre for two whole months was the most remarkable phase of his career, Mary Smith thought, and she knew young Dodson as well as most folk. She had, in her own way, liked young Dodson ; he had been part of her young life : they had been boy and girl together ; and though she was sorry for him, and had laughed at him and his ambitions very often, there was at the bottom of her heart just that fair amount of interest which a woman naturally has iu the man who has loved her, how ever httle affection at any time may have exist ed for him.

Hence Mary Smith had no nervous feelings as to her meeting with John Dodson ; she was glad to be stirring in the business at last ; she was sure that he would be glad to see her, despite his silence, and she did not much doubt that he would tell her all that he knew concerning Verity and Foster Deane — concerning himself. He had been always outspoken — a weak, foohsh, hot-headed, every-day young man — and, if there had never beeu a grain of love in her thoughts towards him, there had been a fair share of that pity which is akin to love, we are told on a most excellent authority. And it had been impossible not to pity young Dodson; he had so many bright visions, and they faded away so rapidly, and left him despairing sometimes for three quarters of an hour. When he had turned out of the back slum in which the Thespian stage-door was situated, and was in a respectable street leading into the Strand, Mary Smith was not at all nervous about overtaking him and addressing him. ' It is running after him, but here goes,' she said to herself ; ' and, oh, dear ! if it's beginning all over again his tiresome nonsense. What a penalty to pay !' At that moment she touched his arm and said, « Jack !' c VOL.

Chapter II. The Meeting

Young Dodson swung round, looked at Mary Smith, and coloured up a bright red. He was a thin, dark young man, close shaven, as befitted his new calling, with a high forehead, a flat little nose, a sloping chin, and ears that stuck out like an elf's, and it was possible he was at that moment one of the ugliest young men ' knocking about ' at the West-end. ' Mary,' he said ; then he stood and stared at her till she offered him her hand, which, after a glance of surprise and a fresh rush of vermilion to his countenance, he took and shook in his own with considerable energy. ' I'm very glad to see you, Mary — awfully glad,' he said, speaking with that volubility which was one of his characteristics, and which required a good and attentive listener to keep up with and understand all that he was rattling forth at full speed ; ' who would have dreamed of seeing you here ?

How's the father getting on ? what an age since I have seen him — since I used to smoke a pipe with him in that dear old front parlour where he and I and you used to argue and quarrel and make it up, on every conceivable subject under the sun. I've read your book, Mary. By Jove ! who would have thought that you had had it in you to write like that ? I had to wait a week at Mudie's before I could get it — fancy that ! such a demand, you know, and all that sort of thing. I wonder you are not too proud to speak to one of the most unlucky dogs that ever cumbered the face of the earth. But I am glad you are famous — that life is not all in the valley where the shadows lie — I am really and truly glad. Upon my soul I am !' ' But I am not famous.' • Oh, yes, you are ! Don't tell me.' ' People don't get famous at one leap — at least, I have not heard of anyone doing so,' she said ; ' and I have my way to make and my liv ing to get.' ' I should have thought you had made ten thousand pounds out of that book — fifteen pero2 haps?' he ran on ; ' I have told everybody you are making thousands.' ' I think, if I wait long enough, and the sale keeps up, I may get a cheque for fifty pounds.

But it is not absolutely promised. And I don't know,' she added, thoughtfully, ' that that is so very bad for a beginning. It is so easy to fail.' ' Ah ! you are hitting off at me — come, that's too bad.' ' No. I was not thinking of you. I beg your pardon, John.' ' Oh, it's true enough, though ; but that does not matter. I shall make a hit one of these days — I don't exactly know in what way. But I shall. I'm not one of the despairing sort — that's not my style, is it ? though I've been al ways out of luck's way.' ' No. Yours is a sanguine nature,' said Mary Smith, quietly, ' and luck may turn, very proba bly -will turn, as you have more friends and well wishers than you know of yet.' ' Oh, yes,' he answered, ironically; 'lots of them.' ' I have come here expressly to tell you of one of them.' ' Expressly?' ' Yes, expressly.' ' That's very kind of you — but I'm sure I haven't any friends and well-wishers.

And, be tween you and me, Mary Smith, I don't deserve any. I have treated them all so badly in the old days, when one or two did care for me, and thought 1 was going to be a great man. You for one.' Mary Smith had never thought he was going to be a great man, but she did not disturb the harmony of the proceedings by stating this fact. They were getting on very well together ; he was glad to see her; he was just the same frank, careless, enthusiastic, despondent, go lightly young fellow he had ever been since he had attained to man's estate. Not a man to trust one's life with, but not bad company for half-an-hour, when in one of his best moods. 'And I suppose — I hope — that you are my friend and well-wisher still, Mary V he said. ' Yes.' - And — ' But not the friend I have come to talk to you about.' John Dodson looked at his watch. ' I promised to dine with Deane at the *' Albion " at five, and ' ' Never mind about Mr. Deane or your dinner for once,' said Mary Smith, very decisively ; ' I want to talk to you all by yourself.' He laughed — and it was a pleasant, hearty laugh enough.

There did not seem much of the conspirator about him, thought Mary Smith. ' Very well,' he said ; ' let us stroll along the Embankment.' ' I will not keep you from your dinner very long ' ' Don't mind that. I never cared about dinners — have been without them too often to care,' he said, lightly ; ' have got acclimatised.' ' — Or from Mr. Deane,' said Mary Smith, fin ishing the remark he had not allowed her to conclude before. ' Confound Foster Deane and all his works ! I hate the fellow. I loathe, despise, detest, and abominate him !' he cried, indignantly now ; ' of all the conceited, incompetent, patronising, purse-proud, untrustworthy, selfish, born-idiots, give me Foster Deane. That's straight, is it not ? but " them's my sentiments !" ' ' I am glad you don't like him.' ' Why ?' he asked, quickly, ' why should you be glad I hate the cad ?' ' I should have thought worse of you if you had been his dearest friend.' ' Oh !' was the scornful response, ' the man hasn't a friend in the world.' ' Very likely.' They were close upon the Embankment.

They had crossed the Strand, and were in a side street' out of the turmoil of the busy thoroughfare. And here Mary Smith began business — ' straight ' as young Dodson would have termed it again, and in order to make up for the lost time spent in preliminaries that had been to one of them like a leaf from the pleasant past life on which he had turned his back, thinking it was best — being so quite sure that it was best. 'Why did you not answer the two letters which I wrote to you, Jack ?' she asked, reproachfully. He had been ' Jack ' to her, and she ' Polly ' to him, when they were children in South Lam beth, and the old epithet affected him, as she thought it would. She was anxious now to get at all the truth which she thought he was honest enough to tell her. And surely she had good news for him, and he would be grateful for it in a few more minutes. ' The first letter was to tell me to come to South Lambeth Road — and that you wanted to see me,' he said, slowly. ' Yes,' said Mary ; ' and that required an answer — from a gentleman, even if the gentle man was not disposed to come.' ' I did write to you,' he said. ' Indeed !

Then ' ' But I tore the letter up again,' he went on. ' It was a long letter of twelve pages, and took me a heap of time, but I tore it all to pieces afterwards,' he said, ruefully. ' Why ?' ' I thought it was not worth while — it was not right that I should bother you any more. And 1 took a solemn oath, oh ! ever so long ago, never to come into your house again, never to see you again, hold any communication with you again, if I could help it.' ' How you must have hated me !' ' No. Oh, no I' he added ; ' quite the contrary.' Mary Smith felt that it was her turn to get red in the face. ' It was not good for me to have you on my mind,' he continued ; ' it unsettled me, aud you were so awfully sure I was not fit for you in any way.* 'Yes. I was quite sure of that.' ' Ah ! and you were right, too, Mary ; you knew what a fool and a waster I was better than I did myself.

I ought not to go on like this, but you asked me a question just now, and I have answered it.' ' And the second letter ?' said Mary, passing to a less embarrassing subject. ' Did you read it at all ?' There was a pause. ' Of course I read it' ' And took notice of the advice it contained?' ' I never cared for advice," he said, ruefully ; ' and I did not want to go down to Castle Lovett. I had reasons for not going.' ' What were they ?' she asked, almost peremp torily. ' Well, I had not the money to spare for the railway journey, for one thing — I was hard up. And then I was engaged for the run of the piece — it could not have got on without me. Though I only play in the last act, it is a death-bed confession that takes five-and-twenty minutes, and there's a lot in it.' ' So I should think.' ' The people hooted me the first night, the brutes ! but they have got used to it since, and don't seem to mind it so much.

And ' ' Jack, what is the use of going on like this ? You have not told me the real reason why you keep away from Mr. Lovett.' ' Haven't I ?' he answered, evasively now. ' You know you haven't !' exclaimed Mary Smith. ' I don't know that I can say any more than that I did not wish to see the man. Is not that sufficient ?' 'No.' ' Why should I put myself out of the way to run after him?' he inquired. ' He would be your benefactor.' ' He never was anybody's benefactor. ' He would be yours, I am sure. He is anxious to help you in the world.' 'Is he?' ' Yes.' 'Do you know that he was the man who organised the plot that brought about the ruin of my father?' he said — 'the man who stepped between my father's lawful right to become prosperous; who brought him to ruin, to selfdestruction ? And you ask me to go and see that wretch !' He spoke in a loud voice, and people glanced at him as they passed, and looked after him curiously. ' Yes.