The Jessamy Bride

by Frank Frankfort Moore

As he went up the stairs to his chambers he could scarcely refrain from cheering. In his hand he carried the leathern wallet, and he had no doubt that it contained the letters which he hoped to place in the hands of his dear Jessamy Bride, who, he felt, had alone understood him—had alone trusted him with the discharge of a knightly task.

He closed his oaken outer door and forced up the wick of the lamp in his room. With trembling fingers by the light of its rays he unclasped the wallet and extracted its contents. He devoured the pages with his eyes, and then both wallet and papers fell from his hands. He dropped into a chair with an exclamation of wonder and dismay. The papers which he had taken from the wallet were those which, following the instructions of Mrs. Abington, he had brought with him to the tavern, pretending that they were the act of the comedy which he had to read to the actress!

He remained for a long time in the chair into which he had fallen. He was utterly stupefied. Apart from the shock of his disappointment, the occurrence was so mysterious as to deprive him of the power of thought. He could only gaze blankly down at the empty wallet and the papers, covered with his own handwriting, which he had picked up from his own desk before starting for the tavern.

What did it all mean? How on earth had those papers found their way into the wallet?

Those were the questions which he had to face, but for which, after an hour's consideration, he failed to find an answer.

He recollected distinctly having seen the expression of suspicion come over the man's face when he saw Mrs. Abington sitting on the chair over which his cloak was hanging; and when she had returned to the table, Jackson had staggered to the cloak, and running his hand down the lining until he had found the pocket, furtively took from it the wallet, which he transferred to the pocket on the inner side of his waistcoat. He had had no time—at least, so Goldsmith thought—to put the sham act of the play into the wallet; and yet he felt that the man must have done so unseen by the others in the room, or how could the papers ever have been in the wallet?

Great heavens! The man must only have been shamming intoxication the greater part of the night! He must have had so wide an experience of the craft of men and the wiles of women as caused him to live in a condition of constant suspicion of both men and women. He had clearly suspected Mrs. Abington's invitation to supper, and had amused himself at the expense of the actress and her other guest. He had led them both on, and had fooled them to the top of his bent, just when they were fancying that they were entrapping him.

Goldsmith felt that, indeed, he at least had been a fool, and, as usual, he had attained the summit of his foolishness just when he fancied he was showing himself to be especially astute. He had chuckled over his shrewdness in placing himself in the hands of a woman to the intent that he might defeat the ends of the scoundrel who threatened Mary Horneck's happiness, but now it was Jackson who was chuckling-Jackson, who had doubtless been watching with amused interest the childish attempts made by Mrs. Abington to entrap him.

How glibly she had talked of entrapping him! She had even gone the length of quoting Shakespeare; she was one of those people who fancy that when they have quoted Shakespeare they have said the last word on any subject. But when the time came for her to cease talking and begin to act, she had failed. She had proved to him that he had been a fool to place himself in her hands, hoping she would be able to help him.

He laughed bitterly at his own folly. The consciousness of having failed would have been bitter enough by itself, but now to it was added the consciousness of having been laughed at by the man of whom he was trying to get the better.