When he was washed, Jimmy appeared as a sandy-haired man with a
fuchsia-colored face, fattish, shapeless, with little twinkling,
blinking eyes. Round and ball-like his head was, round and ball-like
his body, and he bounced in all his movements. He was grotesque, but
not so grotesque as the idea René had of him, the idea which haunted
him as he sat alone in the scantily-furnished room, with no desire to
go out or to claim with the world any relationship but those which
chance had thrown his way, with Ann and the minstrel-gardener. He
spent many hours gazing out of the window at the children playing in
the litter and adding to it. There were swarms of children; little
girls in charge of babies, not so very much smaller than themselves;
boys tirelessly passing from one game to another, stopping only when a
car came up the mews or was brought out to be sluiced down or oiled.
There were one or two men who sat all day as listless as himself. They
smoked, chewed straws, occasionally talked, disappeared at intervals
round the corner, but returned to smoke, chew straws, and talk
occasionally. They were unconcerned, inattentive, and unmoved. René
saw one of them earn a coin of some sort by holding a tool for a
chauffeur while he groped in his engine. There were women who sat in
the windows for hours together, gazing out with unseeing eyes; other
women who stood in the doors and talked. One young woman in the
evening came and stood in a doorway with a baby in her arms. The light
had grown very soft. It fell upon her, and surrounded her with an
atmosphere that gave her beauty. René's eyes rested on her gladly, but
without conscious appreciation. Then, very slowly, he began to see
something that appealed to him and accounted for her fascination: the
line of her body drooping under the weight of the child in her arms,
her whole body one unconscious, comforting caress of protection. While
she stood there René saw nothing else, and he watched her until the
light faded and she disappeared, slipped away like a vision, into the
darkness. Somehow he felt that his day had not been in vain.
Ann came to inspect his quarters and to take him out. He was very
happy to see her, and she seemed to feel it, for she said:
"I knew you'd be better to-day. A good night's rest. That's what you
wanted. But I was afraid Jimmy would keep you up with his nonsense."
"He made me laugh," said René.
She gave a little crow of pleasure:
"Good old Jimmy!" she cried.
Then she asked him had he seen anyone that day, and he described some
of the people he had seen. As he described she told histories, so that
presently for René Mitcham Mews seemed a place bursting with human
energy, passions, disasters, jokes, follies, and frailties--just the
sort of place he had been seeking. There was Old Lunt, who sold
ballads and wrote letters for the people who had never learned to
write; there was Maggie, who went out as a midwife to keep the
families of her two daughters; Bellfield the furniture-remover, who
had a strange young man come to see him sometimes, who was like no one
else in the world; Mr. Martin, who used to keep the livery at the end
of the mews and had now gone in for taxicabs; Fat Bessie, who went out
charring and had an idiot son to whom her whole life was devoted;
Billy and Click, who were wrong 'uns, dirty wrong 'uns, but too clever
to be caught, though they would be one day.
"A bright lot," said Ann. "And then, of course, there's me--and you.
They'll laugh at you at first. They laugh at everything and everybody
new. But you mustn't mind that. They'll borrow money from you, but
don't you never lend them more than sixpence, if it's Maggie or
Bessie; twopence if it's any of the men."
"And who," asked René, "is the girl with the baby?"
"Oh, that's Rita. Baby? She's got four, and another coming. She's all
right. Bit washed out with it. Makes her stupid and sly. But she's all
right, and Joe's a good sort. One o' them as is always in and out of
work. I dunno why. I think he's the sort as can't work with a beast
above him. 'Lectrician. If you want a feller to talk, he's the one."
"I think your talk's about as good as I could have, Ann."
Her face lighted up.
"Is it? I _am_ glad. Ooh! It is nice to have you call me that. D'you
know, I couldn't stop thinking of you all day long. And it didn't stop
me working neither. I did best day I've done for a long time."
"And all day long I looked out of the window."