In the days of Goldsmith

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

PAUL BECK A STOLEN LIFE THE REBELS

By

Chapter I Kissing Goes By Favour

‘Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love.’

THE man was standing at the window, tapping his jack-boots impatiently with his riding-whip. The maid knelt on the brocaded sofa with her elbows on the arm of it and her chin on the palms of her large white hands, watching him mockingly. He was tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered, hard-featured, clean-shaven. A big nose ran down his face, with small, deep-set eyes on either side. His mouth was wide and thick-lipped, his chin square. He was dressed richly and in youthful fashion, with broad-skirted, plum-coloured coat and_ knee-breeches, and a broidered silk waistcoat. But his hair was scanty and grizzled at the temples, and his skin the colour of an overripe apple, wrinkled, yellowish, with little veins, and splotches of red. He was a

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man of about thirty years, whom dissipation had withered, not bloated.

The girl did not look more than twenty, but ripe for her age. She had a smooth, cream-coloured complexion, warming to red in the cheeks, sleek black hair coiled in great masses on her head and _ worn low down on a low forehead. Her eyebrows were black and thick, her eyelashes were black and long. The eyes were black, too, and very bright, but the heavy lids drooped over them till at times they were mere luminous slits. Ripe and red were her lips, her chin prominent and well-formed and dimpled at the point.

‘She was dressed very plainly, with almost Quaker simplicity, in a dark, closely-fitting gown with no more frills or tucks or flounces than a leopard’s skin. But the womanly curves of her seductive figure were more suggestively accentuated by the closely-fitting dress than by flattering finery. Face and figure had a wonderful attractiveness. Her eyes narrowed and closed as she looked at the man by the window, and a slow, languorous smile showed a gleam of white teeth.

‘Well, well, say on,’ he cried, facing round from the window. ‘ What did he swear he’d do? Don’t play the cat with me, Carry.’

‘What wouid you give to know, Toney ?’

He mastered his impatience with a half-strangled oath and came over to her.

‘Don’t tease, there’s a good wench. It’s your concern as much as mine. You know I love you, Carry, and mean to wed you.’ He slipped his arm

KISSING GOES BY FAVOUR 13 round her waist and kissed the full red lips that were lifted to his as a cat lifts its sleek head to be stroked. ‘ You know, wench, old Simon Jenkins, the miser, that lies adying inside there, is worth a big plum in land and money, and I’m his nephew and heir.

‘He will not leave you a single stiver, Toney,’ she said slowly.

This time the curse came out unmistakably as his arm dropped from her waist and he stared in blank dismay.

But her eyes and smile mocked his anger.

‘Ts this the best news you have for me, you jade, after all your promises ?”

‘ Ay, the best,’ she answered saucily ; ‘nor so bad, neither, if you will hear it to the close. Old Simon likes not a bone in your great body. “A hectoring roysterer,” he calls you, “a blood-stained Mohock, a spendthrift who would squander his hard-won substance on drabs and drink.” Nay, curse not, Toney ; I but quote the old man’s saying. Do I not know you sober and virtuous? “ He shall never touch stiver of my leaving,” quoth old Simon. “If I must part with my money, it shall go to those I love and who love me.” ’

‘And who may those be ?’ Toney asked sulkily. ‘I know of none such.’

‘Out upon you, dullard! Is there not myself, the simple-hearted, grateful daughter, whom he has adopted and reared like a nun in a convent? Is there not Signor Simplicity, Roderick O’Connor, the cousin whom he has bred like a monk? We love

14 INSTHE DAYS OF GOLDSMITH old Simon, and we love each other like two innocent dicky-birds on a bough. So much, at least, you know, you naughty, roystering Toney !’

‘So much I know for the devil’s truth, Mistress Innocence,’ Toney Jenkins answered, with a grin, ‘but to the rest—what of the will he had devised ? To whom goes the coin 2’

‘Old Simon has approved of our innocent loves, you wicked reprobate! For Signor Simplicity has made that confession to the old man, though he lacks courage to make it to poor me. A dawdler and a nincompoop!’ she spirted out, with sudden spitefulness, and dropped as suddenly back into the canting tone. ‘He has won my simple maiden’s heart—so old Simon has been taught—and we are to be married.’

‘But the will?’ he cried sharply. ‘A truce to this foolery, my girl: tell me the will.’

‘Why, this is the will,’ she answered, with a mocking drawl. ‘ He and IJ are to share old Simon’s thousands between us.’

‘And for me ?”

‘Weeping and gnashing of teeth is thy portion— the reprobate’s inheritance. See, if you credit me not, here is the paper to speak for me.’

She drew a folded paper from her bodice as she spoke, and held it mockingly before him.

‘The will! he cried, and grabbed at it eagerly. But she drew it dexterously through his closing fingers, and kept it out of reach.

‘ Nay, ’tis but a copy, honest Toney. The original he gives to the custody of Master Oliver Goldsmith,

KISSING GOES BY FAVOUR 15 the poet, who is godfather to my sweetest lover and bridegroom that is to be.’

‘What says the paper? Read, wench—read !’

‘It is short as your temper, Toney. “‘I will and bequeath all I die possessed of to my cousin Roderick O’Connor provided always he be lawfully married within a six months from my death.’

‘Married to you, wench ? Is it not so ?’

‘It is so intended, but it is not so set out in the will.’

‘Damnation! He may pick any light wench off the street and take land and money with his loose bargain.’

“You art but a fool, Toney—a muddy-pated fool at best. The boy loves me and none but me—loves me and reverences me as an angel whom you know as a woman of flesh and blood. He has heard nothing of this term of the will, nor is like to hear, for I have begged of old Father Simon that I may tell him of it. He is my slave, I tell you. At the motion of my innocent little finger he will come and go, and I will shyly hold him on and off till the six months’ term has expired. Then you shall have the money as heir, and you and I, Toney, man and wife together, will laugh the fool to scorn. What think you of my pretty plan ?’

‘“Humph! Six months is a long trial of a man’s constancy. A fasting love will scarce live through it.’

‘You speak for yourself, reprobate. He will wait and work for me for twice seven years if need be, as Jacob did for Rachel. Nor need’st you fast the time out, either, Toney. I will marry you when) you please, and none shall be the wiser for it.’

Her eyelids drooped as she said it, her lips parted a little, and her voice was soft as a purring cat.

‘Nay, that were not well, wench,’ he answered hastily, ‘ till the six months have come and gone. Perchance——’

‘You fool!’ she broke in hastily, and sprang from the sofa. ‘Do you think that——’

She would have struck him with her open hand on the broad cheek, but a knock at the chamber door arrested her in her mad career. She sank instantly back on the couch. Diving into her pocket, she fished out a small, lace-edged handkerchief, which she pressed to her eyes. Every line of the pensive face and drooping figure spoke of meekness, sorrowing.

‘Come in,’ she cried in mournful tones, as the knock, after a pause, was repeated more insistently.

Then came softly into the room a squat, square-built, muscular little man very gaily dressed. Very ugly, too, one would have said at first view, and instantly would have repented the hasty verdict. True, the homely face was ploughed deep with the disfiguring ravages of the small-pox. But there was in it a gentleness and tenderness that made a beauty of their own. A kindly, generous spirit looked cheerily out on the virtues and follies of the world through those brave, bright eyes of his.

They grew brighter with pitying tears at sight of the drooping figure of the weeping girl on the sofa.

‘Caroline, my poor child !’ he said, and touched

KISSING GOES BY FAVOUR 17 her shoulder softly as he spoke. ‘I have come on his own request to visit our good friend Master Simon. May I see him ?’

She looked up in his face, silent for a moment, as if dazed with grief. It was sorrow acted to the life.

‘He is sick unto death,’ she whispered ; ‘the physician has left him even now without hope. But he has called for you more than once, Dr. Goldsmith, and he waits for you impatiently. You know the way to his chamber.’

As the doctor crossed the room his eye lit with surprise upon the figure of the man at the window. The quick-witted wench touched his sleeve and whispered softly :

‘It is Master Anthony Jenkins ’—her voice trembled at the name; ‘he is an ill-living man. Father has even said so, and I fear him. Yet, when he came sorrowing and eager to make his peace, I might not deny him the house. But I stayed him in this outer room, knowing Father Simon’s heart, and fearing for his weakness.’

‘You did wisely, my girl,’ Goldsmith said, ‘ and he did well and wisely to be stayed by you.’

‘ He is rough and uncouth, and they whisper wild stories of his doings. I am afraid of him.’

‘In truth, his reputation is not of the best,’ Goldsmith said. ‘Dame Gossip has blabbed of him. But she is ever a lying jade, sparing of good report and prodigal of evil. The white man she will have but gray, and the gray man black. I warrant the man is better than he is spoken.’

‘It may be,’ said the timid maiden, ‘ but, none the less, he frightens me.’

She glanced back with a comical grimace at the bugbear as Dr. Goldsmith passed before her into the inner room.

He grinned, amused at her comic pantomime, but yet shook his head doubtingly.

‘T? faith, lass !’ he said, ‘ you frighten me. Where got you all these witches’ tricks in this dull den ? I doubt you are too clever for a plain man’s management.’

‘It is not great argument of my wit that I love you, Toney, plain man as you do most truly call yourself.’

‘T am as well favoured as another,’ he growled.

‘Right, so that other be as ill-favoured as you, but such a paragon is hard to find.’

‘You have a passing bitter tongue, Carry. It stings like a blade’s point. If I be such a one as you say, why speak to me of love ?’

She laughed in answer—a low, rich, musical laugh—in mockery of herself and him.

‘Ay, why indeed ? Seemsitnotstrange ? There is no answer but I love you, and yet that is no right answer neither, for you, my rough Toney, are not a man to be loved, and yet—and yet, I love you. You are rough and coarse and strong—a man with the wild animal alive in you, and I love you Tor at.)

She came to him unasked, and laid her shapely hand on his shoulder and her fair face close to his rough one. But when he would have kissed her

KISSING GOES BY FAVOUR 19 once again she put him from her, yet with a gentleness that was almost an invitation.

“Now must you go. My milk-and-water lover comes to woo. I hear his faltering footstep on the stairs. Nay, stay if you please, and hear our wooing. It will serve as a stage-play for your amusement. ‘“* The Bashful Youth and the Modest Maiden” shall be the title. There is a hole in the screen yonder through which you can see and hear.’

CHAPTER II A MISTRESS OF WILES ‘I know a maiden fair to see

Take care ;

She can both false and friendly be— Beware, beware ;

Trust her not, she is fooling thee.

She has two eyes so soft and brown— Take care ;

She gives a side-glance and looks down— Beware, beware.’

*Heicu-Ho!’ The girl sank again on the couch with a mocking mimicry of a profound sigh, turning her back to the door that opened softly and let in her bashful lover.

‘Heigh-ho !’ His sigh as he entered was like an echo of her own. Following the sigh a well-shaped, manly youth, clean limbed and deep chested, clad jn close-fitting black velvet, with lace on the collar and at the sleeves, came softly into the room. A frank and manly face was his—a face to outface the world with mirth and laughter. But the poor youth looked very glum and woebegone, for the exaggerated melancholy of a first love had marked him for her own.

A MISTRESS OF WILES at

‘Heigh-ho !’ again from the sofa. This time it was a soft, pitiful little sigh—the very ghost of a sigh. But it startled the young lover like a thunderbolt. The book he carried under his arm dropped with a thud on the carpet. He flushed red as a naughty schoolboy at the sudden presence of his master, and would have slipped slyly off the way he came, but she saw him through half-closed eyes, and called to him,

* Roderick !

“Yes, Caroline.’

‘Oh! I’m so unhappy, Roderick.’

‘I wish I might comfort you, Caroline.’

‘No one can comfort me. He is dying, the only living creature in the wide world that loves me.’

She looked the young man innocently in the face as she said it. The light in those dark eyes made him shiver; the beauty of her flesh frightened the boy.

“Oh, Caroline!’ he stammered out, ‘I love you; you know I love you!’ He dropped on one knee beside the sofa and caught her hand, white, firm, and cool, between his two fevered palms.

But still the innocent young maid would not understand.

‘Of course, I know you love me, Roderick, but not as he did, and I’m fond of you too.’

‘Do you love me a little, Carry °’

‘I love you a great deal, Roderick—better than I love Dickey or Puck.’

The reprobate behind the screen almost choked with suppressed laughter.

But there was a childlike simplicity in her voice that dashed the fervour of poor Roderick’s love-making. It seemed somehow an insult to her sweet innocence.

‘ You are too young, Caroline,’ he said, ‘ to understand how much I love you. You are yet but a child. I will not trouble your innocence with my love.’

He had dropped her hand awkwardly enough, and now he would have fled. But this did not suit the plans of simple Caroline.

‘Nay, you are but one short year my elder,’ she said. ‘If you are a man, then] amawoman.’ Her eyes warmed him now more than her words had chilled.

Yet still he held back the torrent of his love lest he might wrong her innocence.

‘You loved me better when I was a child,’ she went on softly ; ‘ you kissed me then sometimes.’

The alluring light in her eyes lit a sudden fire in him that flamed beyond restraint. He caught her in his arms and crushed her close to him, and showered kisses on her lips. All the passionate woman in her responded to his passion as she lay warm in his arms. This was indeed the way to win her if he had the wit to know it.

But a moment later he was stricken with grief and shame. His arms fell from about her waist, and he stood back in sheepish awkwardness, head drooped, hands dangling.

A MISTRESS OF WILES 23

In her heart she mocked him.

‘Caroline !! he whispered hoarsely, ‘can you forgive me ?’

* Forgive you, Roderick !’—with innocent surprise that ignored the meaning of his kisses as she had ignored the meaning of his love. ‘I am glad you kissed me; it was very good of you. He always kissed me when he was pleased with me,’

She dropped her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook with emotion—sorrow, poor Roderick thought.

He was wild to comfort her. He drew one of the hands from her face, and held it captive, and the clinging touch of it gave him courage to speak.

‘Caroline,’ he went on, ‘ I know it is wicked of me to speak to you of such things at sucha time. But I cannot help myself. I love you, Caroline—not as a child loves child, or as a brother loves a sister, but as man loves woman. My whole life will be spent to keep grief away from yours. Pity me, Caroline, and time will teach you what love means.’

‘I fear you have taught me already, Roderick,’ she whispered softly.

‘Oh, my darling, you love me a little!’

‘I love you a great deal.’

‘And you will marry me ?’

She opened on him wide eyes of innocent surprise.

‘But why marry, Roderick? Is it not enough to love? I never could tell why people wanted so to marry.’

He had no explanation ready.

‘Tt is usual,’ he said weakly, ‘ when people love.’

‘But, Roderick, is it right to talk of such things when he lies a-dying who was so good to both of us ?’

Poor Roderick was stricken with remorse at her reminder.

‘You are right, Caroline; it is unseemly and ungrateful. The words were forced from me, I cannot tell how ’—she could have told how if she had so chosen; ‘I should not have spoken, yet I cannot be sorry that I spoke. He wished it, too; he told me that he wished it.’

‘And he told me also, Roderick.’

‘It is not for his sake you love me, Carry °’ he queried, with sudden jealousy.

‘I love you because I love you, dearest,’ she whispered. ‘Can you look me in the eyes and doubt it ?’

He looked her in the eyes, and closed his own lest he might look too long, for their light maddened him.

‘And you will marry me ?’

‘ Perhaps some time—a year hence, or half a year. But please speak no more of it now. Oh! leave me, leave me; Iam ashamed of myself and of the thoughts you have awakened in me while he lies dying. If you love me, dearest, leave me.’

He kept his hands back from her with a strong effort.

‘You will be true to me 2’ he asked.

‘True to death! But leave me now; do not kiss me, do not touch me—it seems treason to my grief.’

As the door closed behind him she laughed a low

A MISTRESS OF WILES 25 derisive laugh, and there was a hoarse echo from behind the screen.

‘Why, Carry,’ Jenkins began, his evil face showing cautiously. But the door opened again, and he skulked back into his hiding-place.

There was that solemnity in the homely face and figure of Dr. Goldsmith as he entered that is begotten of communion with death. He had in his hand a folded paper fastened with a large splash of red sealing-wax.

Caroline’s piteous gaze was on his face as he came in.

“He is dead!’ she cried excitedly. ‘I can see in your look he is dead,’ and she fell to weeping disconsolately.

Goldsmith was deeply touched with a pity for her that was almost pain. He caught her hands within his own. When she had moderated her sobbing he spoke to her very gently.

‘I do not blame you, my child, to ease your heart with tears. For he that is dead hath loved you dearly, and love is too rare a gift to be lightly lost.’

At this she broke out sobbing again, but softly, that she might not lose a word, and the kindly voice went on:

‘You feel your grief, my child, more keenly because you are so young. ’Tis one of the penalties that youth must pay. Its pains are sharp and short. Youth lives its life, and age dies its death. It is the world’s law. Next spring will cover his naked grave with flowers, and heal the wounds in your heart till but the soft remembrance of your grief remains, like the sweet faint perfume of the flowers on his grave.’

‘IT shall never hear his voice again,’ she broke out.

‘His latest words were of you,’ the doctor said soothingly. ‘ Another time I will tell you of them, and they will comfort you.’

‘Now! now!’ entreated the sorrow-stricken girl, lifting a flushed, tear-stained face from the sofa pillow. ‘It eases my heart to speak of him.’

‘He told me,’ the doctor went on, ‘ what pleased me much to hear—that you and my young friend and godson, Roderick O’Connor, are affectionate lovers. He had set his heart on your marriage. With his last breath he blessed your union, and prayed that his death might not delay its early consummation. In this will he said there was ample provision for you both.’

‘He was so good to me. I may read, may I not, in his own dear hand——’

‘Nay, child, you see it is sealed with his own seal, and on it is writ plain in his own hand an order bidding me open it first on the day of Roderick O’Connor’s wedding, which he prays may be speedily. That rests with you, Caroline, for if I know my godson’s heart; he worships you.’

‘ He is indeed a wise and gentle youth, exceeding meek, and I love him dearly, and yet I am afraid.’

‘But why ?—of what ?’

‘Nay, that I know not; of the marriage itself belike. It is a fearsome thing for a maid.’

The minx was playing her pranks with the doctor himself. There was a light in her timid eyes that

A MISTRESS OF WILES 27 stirred his Irish blood that age had not chilled. He rose to take his leave.

“Then I must needs send Roderick to persuade you, he said. ‘A lover’s arguments are most prevailing when marriage is the theme. Grief now holds first place in your young heart, but by-and-by love will claim his rights, and not be denied.’

He kissed her hand with quaint courtesy, and was gone.

CHAPTER Iii TWO ARE COMPANY

Tis well to be witty and wise, ’Tis well to be loyal and true, ’Tis well to be off with the old love Before you are on with the new.’

ANTHONY JENKINS’ burly form came boldly from behind the screen.

‘I thought the dull proser would never go,’ he growled. ‘He would have you weep over the old skinflint that the devil has taken to himself at last, yet leaving his money, the best part of him, behind.’

She raised a pretty finger in mocking protest.

* You are rude and irreverent, Toney,’ she droned sanctimoniously. ‘It behoves me to mourn for the dear friend and father I have lost—the dear father who cooped me up in this hole from all the resort of the world and made me lead the life of anun. Ay, cooped me up for his own use, as a chicken is cooped for the table. For let me tell you, Anthony, that, simple as I sit here, I might have been Mistress Simeon Jenkins if I had so chosen. I might have mourned as his widow instead of daughter for that good old man. Failing himself, he offers me that

TWO ARE COMPANY 29 nauseous dish of virtuous milk and water young Master Roderick. Dr. Goldsmith spoke sooth, Toney—’tis only love can comfort in such grief.’

‘A man can never tell if you be in jest or earnest. You were tender enough with young lack-liver just now, and took his kisses patiently.’

‘T’faith, he kisses most persuadingly,’ she said, glancing with a kind of demure malice at her smouldering companion.

‘IT swear you are but a fickle light-o’-love. Soa man kiss you you care not who the man be.’ He caught her arm roughly; she did not wince, but answered his violence with mocking laughter.

* You will be ever a fool, Toney, and tangle yourself in any net I spread for you. There must be flies to catch our fish, and lines to hold. Those kisses are but earnest of a debt. Nay, start not; you are too rough and ready, a debt that shall never be paid in full. I will hold him with sweet words and kisses as with a silken cord till six months be sped, then I will whistle him down the wind.’

‘Can I trust you, wench? You are slippery as an eel in any man’s fingers. Perchance I may be found your fool, not he.’

‘Then I will set him loose amongst marriageable maids, to be wedded ere one month of the six has sped. Will that please you, you old growler °’

‘Nay, tie him tight to your apron-string, Carry. I care not so the fortune comes my way.’

‘You care not!’ she said with sudden heat, more stung by this carelessness than by his jealousy.

Oh, you dullard, do I count for nothing to you ? Look at me! look at me! Am I not worth winning ??

She faced him in all her alluring beauty, with passion half asleep in her dark eyes. A man might have bartered his soul for her body.

‘Tf you prize the fortune above my love, then I will marry him to plague you, and we two will spend the great fortune freely between us while you whine with dry lips like to Dives in hell.’

Her vehemence frightened him; her beauty abashed him. He caught her roughly to his strong arms, and closed her angry lips with a rude kiss thrice repeated.

The vigour of her anger relaxed instantly. She nestled to him with lips half parted, and looked up into his face with eyes in which love smouldered ready to break fiercely into flame.

‘Then you love, me, Carry, and not yon superfine gentleman, who woos in such set phrases, who kneels to you as a saint ?’

“I love you, old rough and rugged, because of the man in you. You know, lamatrue woman. I want warm love, not chill worship. I love you best because you are strong and masterful and hold me tight and hard, and woo boldly with plain ay and nay phrase, and will not be denied. Good Master Roderick O’Connor ’—there was a world of contempt in her tones ; she seemed to spurn the name—‘ [ hate his girl’s face, his smooth prate, his ambling courtesy. I would as lief be dieted with milk and water as wedded to this male maid. Give me a man like

TWO ARE COMPANY 31 yourself, Toney. I would rather have a rake than a milksop any day.’

She poised herself on tiptoe and kissed him unasked.

So excited was she, so love-inflamed, she did not see the door had opened softly, and even now it framed a figure struck suddenly rigid, a face utterly pale with amazement.

Roderick O’Connor, lured by a restless longing that draws the moth to the light, coming shyly back for a last word and smile from her he loved, had opened the door timidly, on a sight that struck him motionless and dumb—his affianced wife clasped close in the arms of the Mohock, Anthony Jenkins. He heard her languorous murmur of passion for another, her scornful reviling of himself. He saw the two close in passionate kissing. Like one in a nightmare, powerless to move, he stood silent through it all.

Then the woman saw him of a sudden, saw the pale face and staring eyes, and knew at a glance what he had seen and heard.

Instinctively she cried out and broke from Anthony Jenkins’ arms, but her first look at Roderick’s face told her the game was up.

Jenkins looked when she looked, and stood sullenly fumbling his sword-hilt with a big red hand.

The woman, mad with the wrath of exposure and defeat, gave her tongue free rein, eager to sting.

‘ Eavesdropper and spy! she cried, ‘I trust you are well satisfied. You have proved the proverb that secret listeners hear no good of themselves.

Like you better the bitter truth or the sweet lies, you purblind fool? Nay, I own it, I would have fooled you to the top of your bent that I might have;—-that I might make sport of you. And yet I knew you not then as I know you now—for eavesdropper and spy! You have changed my laughter to loathing.’

Still he said no word, but looked at her curiously, moistening his dry lips.

There was something in his eyes that abashed - even her. But she brazened it out all the more fiercely on that account.

‘I charge you home that you came to pimp and spy, and you stand there like a dumb dog, lacking the courage to foreswear yourself.’

‘You know it is false—false as your vows, false as your own heart. You would fain hide your own shame by shaming me. Woman!