ANOTHER TASTE OF BOHEMIA
When it came to an actual matter of finding Jimmy, that young man proved
difficult. Anthony Ditchburn went out full of confidence, but returned
dejected--returned, let it be said, at a time when a meal might be
expected to be spread in that top floor in Locker Street, Chelsea; he
required some pressing to stay, but asked a blessing in somewhat choice
Latin. Patience felt, in regard to this latter, that it might be pagan,
but sounded genteel.
"I have hunted high and low," said Mr. Ditchburn, sinking into a chair
wearily and combing his ragged beard with his fingers. "First to the
museum, where I had a good look round in all directions, but failed to
find him; next, a weary tramp to Fleet Street, where I am told these
struggling ones are sometimes to be discovered. But though I went to the
very office of the paper, they declined to give me any information; I
might even say that they looked upon me with suspicion."
This was not altogether to be wondered at perhaps, seeing that Anthony
Ditchburn, with tears in his eyes, had endeavoured to borrow
half-a-crown at that office, on the strength of a supposed friendship
with Mr. James Larrance, which had lasted for many years; and had been
repulsed coldly.
"They live in holes and corners, these writing people, I've heard,"
murmured Patience, with a shake of the head. "No getting up at regular
hours; no going to bed at regular ones either. And as to meals----"
Patience raised her hands and closed her eyes at the mere horror of it.
"The ease of the thing surprises me," said Mr. Ditchburn presently, as
he sat at the table eating ravenously. "A mere boy like this gets his
name into print (I actually saw his name on a placard outside a paper
shop this very afternoon) with no more qualifications than"--he looked
round in search of a simile--"than you have. No grounding in the
classics--nothing!"
"Jimmy was always clever--and--and poetical," said Moira.
"There are others who are clever--also poetical," snapped Anthony; "yet
they fail to obtain a hearing. Bah! it's the spread of cheap and popular
education; every young jackanapes who can spell c-a-t--cat, d-o-g--dog,
thinks he has a right to give his views to the public. It's a horrible
state of things--and won't be mended in my time, I fear."
"But I've heard that it's difficult--very difficult indeed--to get a
hearing--to persuade editors that you can write," urged Moira.
"Stuff and fiddlesticks!" exclaimed the old man. "You've only got to
knuckle down to 'em--to pander to a public that doesn't know what it
wants. _I've_ always refused to do that--and you see the result. I would
rather starve."
Still on that mission to find Jimmy, Anthony Ditchburn haunted likely
spots for a day or two, but with no success. He came in to report his
want of progress each day, and each day came at the same time; moreover,
he stayed, and smoked as late or later than they would have him. When he
had gone on the last occasion, Moira hit upon a simpler plan to find her
old friend, and adopted it. She wrote to him at the office of that
paper Anthony Ditchburn had brought--wrote a little tender, girlish,
friendly note, that should strike at once at Jimmy's heart. For the
wonder of it was that Jimmy was not like an ordinary person at all; he
could be found in this great world of London through the actual medium
of the printed press.
There came a letter back to her in a surprisingly short space of time.
It was headed with the address of the house in that little court off
Holborn; was written in a scrawl that was almost boyish, and seemed to
speak as Jimmy might have spoken.
"MY DEAR, DEAR MOIRA,
"Yes, of course I am 'your own special Jimmy' as you delightfully
phrase it; and of course I am delighted to hear about you. We
mustn't lose sight of each other again--and you must come soon and
see me. What a lot we shall have to talk about! Your note doesn't
say very much about you, or what you are doing; it seems strange to
think you must be grown a woman. I shall have a lot to tell you
when we meet; thanks for all the nice things you say about my work.
"Ever yours,
"JIMMY."
That was sufficiently wonderful; in that at least she had triumphed over
them all; she had found Jimmy. Had she looked a little deeper into the
letter she might have read that note of hesitation in it; that half
suggestion that they were to meet at some future time, and not now, in
the first flush of their finding each other. But she did not think of
that; she saw only that Jimmy--Jimmy who was already in her eyes great
and famous--was near at hand, and wanted to see her. She would go to him
without delay.
In that, as may be guessed, was something of the old passionate, jealous
Moira, eager to be the first with all with whom she came in
contact--eager to stand first in their hearts. She had found Jimmy; she
would be the first to drag him out into the light of day, and to show
her friends how she had triumphed. She would take Jimmy by the hand and
draw him again amongst them all. She set off on the very morning of the
day that had brought her the letter.
There was a curious feeling of hesitation about her; she was half afraid
of this man who had grown into something so different from what might
have been anticipated. Jimmy poor and unknown; Jimmy in a warehouse,
labouring among ordinary men and boys; that was a Jimmy to be taken
frankly by the hand as a comrade in the struggle in this great world of
London. But Jimmy famous; Jimmy in print, to be read and admired by the
million; that was a Jimmy to be approached with care and hesitation.
True, genius appeared to be but indifferently housed, she thought, as
she climbed the dark stairs to his room; but then genius was
proverbially careless in such matters.
We may leap ahead of Moira's hesitating steps, and open the door for
ourselves, and discover Jimmy. Jimmy in a somewhat despondent mood,
having a dull aching wonder in his heart as to whether after all this
game of writing was worth the candle; a little momentary feeling of envy
for those who plodded the ways to offices that held certain salaries for
them at the end of each carefully mapped-out week. For Jimmy had had two
rebuffs that week; there was the evidence of them in packets at his
elbow at that very moment. And beside the packets a certain red-covered
book, that had haunted him long, and over which there had been a storm
that very morning. For the wheezy dame who looked after him had
delivered an ultimatum, and had snapped her fingers at Jimmy's
suggestion that there was certainly money coming to him in the near
future. Jimmy had pulled out periodicals, and had held before her
undazzled eyes stories by himself, with his very name attached to them,
but unpaid for; the good woman had merely retorted that she "couldn't
abide readin' of any sort, an' didn't mean to begin at her time of
life."
Therefore, Jimmy had no prospect of lunch; which might not have been a
serious matter had there been any prospect of dinner, or, after that,
any prospect of a bed. As the wheezy dame before mentioned had taken it
into her head, the better to revive his drooping spirits, to come back
into the room at intervals, and to launch at him further suggestions
regarding the impropriety of his conduct in general, and the
advisability of his earning an honest living at the earliest possible
moment in particular, Jimmy had had a stormy morning, and was not in the
best mood for visitors. Therefore, when, after a preliminary tap at the
door, urgently repeated, the door was opened, and he heard the swish of
skirts, Jimmy, without looking round, saluted his visitor.
"Now, my good lady--I can't do impossibilities--but I should like to do
my work. You shall be paid in time; there's three guineas due to me this
morning, and you shall be settled with to the uttermost farthing. If
you'd read more yourself, and encourage your friends to do so, it might
push up the circulation of some of the papers a bit, and I should get
the money sooner. Please don't leave the door open; there's a frightful
draught."
Finding that the door was not closed, and finding, also, something to
his astonishment, that no fresh outburst came from the direction of the
doorway, Jimmy turned round. Turned round, to find this tall,
white-faced, wistful-looking girl, with hands strangely outstretched to
him, and a smile parting and fluttering her lips. He fell back in
amazement.
"Jimmy! You know me, Jimmy--you haven't forgotten?"
He went towards her blindly, with his eyes fixed upon hers; he seemed to
grope for her hands. Perhaps, of all times in his life, he wanted her
most then; perhaps, above all things, he was glad, in an indefinite
unconscious way, to find that she seemed to be poor and shabby, and
perhaps a little thin and hungry too. That was as it should be; he could
not quite have borne anything else then.
He took her hands and held them; the two of them laughed shyly at each
other, swaying towards each other for a moment, and swaying away again.
And then the eager words found vent.
"Moira--dear old Moira!"
"Jimmy--oh, Jimmy!"
He shut the door, and drew her across to a chair by the fire, and looked
long at her. He stirred the fire, simply to have some occupation for his
hands; looked up at her with a half smile. She, for her part, found that
a new hesitation had come upon her--a new reluctance into her speech.
For though this was no genius of a Jimmy, to be held in reverence and
awe and worship, still, this was a Jimmy grown up, with a deeper voice,
and with the responsibilities of life upon him. The only blessed thought
in her mind, as it had been a blessed thought in his, was that he, too,
was poor and shabby--perhaps even a little in trouble.
They laughed at each other softly--a little sentimentally and foolishly,
if the truth be told, because there was so much to be said that each was
looking for a beginning. The years had gone by for each of them, and
had given each of them, in a sense, a new experience of the world, and
yet a small experience at the best. So that, although it was the old
Jimmy and the old Moira who looked into each other's eyes in this poor
room, it was yet a new Jimmy and a new Moira, with much to be learned
and much to be forgotten. The child who had romped and wandered with him
through sunny days was left far behind; this woman who smiled with the
eyes of the old Moira was a something different, with which he had to
get acquainted.
"Everyone's been trying to find you," she said at last, laughing
nervously. "Now that you're such an important person, we've all been
anxious to hear about you--to know what you were doing. Jimmy"--she
leaned down towards him where he knelt before the refractory fire--"why
didn't you try to find us?"
He got up from his knees, and stood a little shamefacedly beside his
desk, turning over papers on it. "Well, you see," he began at last, "I
had a notion I wanted to do something in the world--to be great--and all
that sort of thing; then I think I meant to spring in upon you all--and
surprise you."
He finished rather lamely, but the eyes into which he looked were
tender, and he laughed more easily. "You see, I've had a bit of a
struggle," he said. "Before a man does anything in this sort of
profession, he's got to be prepared to live on dry bread almost----"
"But not now, Jimmy," she broke in hurriedly. "All that is done with."
"Practically," said Jimmy, jingling some coppers in his pockets, and
swallowing with some difficulty. "Still, it's a good thing to look back
upon; to remember the days when you didn't have all you wanted--and--and
so forth."
"You must have been very brave, Jimmy," she said in wonderment.
"I had to be," he retorted.
At that moment a curious bumping sound was audible from the landing;
then the door was thrust open without ceremony. In the doorway was
framed, as a picture of Bohemia for the eyes of Moira, the figure of the
landlady--a supercilious landlady, and no respecter of persons. She
struck an attitude as she came into the room, and looked about her
contemptuously; had a particular eye for Moira.
"Ho!" she exclaimed, with a sniff. "So we entertains, do we? Not content
with robbin' honest people of what's their doo, an' snatchin' the very
bread from the mouths of the widow an' such like, we brings our young
ladies, if you please, an' sits 'em down by our fires, an' what not. An'
it's cheques we're goin' to 'ave the very next time the postman walks
in; an' I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we don't 'ave champagne wine
for our lunches. Oh, it's a nice world for them as is brazen enough to
'old their 'eads 'igh, an' mock the pore an' the 'elpless!"
Jimmy, with a burning face, crossed the room to her, and endeavoured to
control her. "My good woman--I've already told you that you shall have
your money to-day; I'm a little pressed, but it isn't my fault. Don't
make a scene, I implore you, before this lady." All this earnestly, and
with backward glances towards the girl.
"Ho, yes--I dare say!" exclaimed the woman. "Nobody mustn't be put out a
bit while this 'ere robbery goes on--nor must we breathe a word that
might be over'eard by anyone as doubtless calls theirselves most
superior. 'Owever, young man"--she raised her voice for the benefit of
Moira--"it's come to this 'ere with me; that money I will 'ave--an' this
very day. I might've known, by the very look of yer, w'en you first come
'ere, that I was doin' a silly thing to let you 'ave the place at
all--much less feed yer!"
She went out, slamming the door; Jimmy turned towards Moira. Something
to his surprise, he saw that though the ready tears were in her eyes,
she was smiling at him--smiling in something of the fashion of the old
Moira, who had been sorry for him when he had got into a scrape. He went
across to her, and stood looking down at her.
"She's a beast!" he said boyishly.
"And so you're really poor, Jimmy?" she whispered eagerly.
"Really--really hard up! That's splendid!"
"Splendid?" He looked down at her in perplexity.
"Yes. Because now that we've met again I shall be able to see all you
do--and how you fight. It would have been awful to come back to you, and
find that all the work had been done, and that I had not seen how it was
done. It's beautiful to think that now, when your name is in print, and
people are beginning to talk about you, all this goes on--this fight for
money. I could not have liked you, Jimmy, unless you had been poor--that
is, poor to begin with, of course. I shall be able to watch it all grow
up; see you making money; I shall have been in the secret of it all."
"It's a poor sort of secret," he said ruefully.
"No, it isn't," she retorted. "Don't you understand, Jimmy dear, that
being poor you're my friend in a special sense, because I'm poor too. It
seems to me that the nicest people are poor, and I shan't feel so lonely
in London now, as I should have done if I'd had to look up to you, as to
someone richer than myself. But what are you going to do about--about
her?" She jerked her head towards the door.
"Clear out, I suppose, if I can't pay up," he said. "Everything's gone
wrong lately, Moira, and everything seemed to go so right at first. I
was to have had a cheque this morning--and it hasn't come."
"Had any breakfast, Jimmy?" She spoke eagerly--wistfully--with a little
catch in her voice.
"Not--not exactly," he replied. "Not that I was hungry, you'll
understand; I never eat much before lunch----"
"Jimmy!" He looked round at her sharply, and read the reproach in her
eyes. "You're not treating me fairly," she said.
"Well--what would you have me say? That I was beastly hungry--not having
had a very liberal dinner last night--and that I dared not ask her for
any breakfast, because I owed her too much already? Would you like me to
say that?"
"To me--yes," she whispered. "Would you be hurt with me if I
offered--offered to get you some breakfast?"
"Moira!" He drew back, and looked at her with a sudden frown of
resentment.
"Oh, it's only a little matter," she pleaded, "and you shall pay me back
some day--when you're rich. It's only a few coppers, Jimmy--and I should
love to do it--please!"
She saw that he was relenting; she laughed gaily, and ran out of the
room. Almost before he had done smiling foolishly at the door through
which she had vanished, she came back again, bringing parcels with her.
And then, all aglow with excitement, was down on her knees before the
fire, stirring it to activity, and laughing delightedly like a child.
"What am I to cook it in," she asked, suddenly. "I suppose you haven't a
frying-pan?"
"Oh, yes--I have," he whispered, entering suddenly and completely into
the spirit of the thing. "I keep a frying-pan and a kettle--because
sometimes at night, after she's gone to bed, and one is hungry--well,
even sausages are very comforting for supper."
"Poor Jimmy!" She whispered it to herself, with a softened look, as she
saw him go to a cupboard and open it, and with many glances towards the
door bring out a battered frying-pan, and a kettle that had also seen
better days. Also, he found a cup and saucer, and a plate or two.
Then, of course, the obvious miracle, while Jimmy stood watching
wonderingly and admiringly. In no time at all a rasher and eggs were
spluttering merrily over the fire, and the kettle was boiling, just to
add another pleasant sound to the business. She made the tea in the
kettle itself, gipsy fashion (the teapot was downstairs in charge of the
dragon, it was explained), and in a trice had it poured out, and the
eggs and bacon done to a turn, set before him. Her reward was in the
hungry fashion in which he set to work upon it.
But he paused between bites to look up at her anxiously. "You'll never
tell anyone?" he demanded.
She shook her head, and looked at him with perfect understanding. "Of
course not, Jimmy; this is something quite between ourselves. You _were_
hungry, you know," she added, looking at the empty plates. "Feel
better?"
"Rather!" he replied gratefully. "I don't know what would have happened
if you hadn't come here this morning, and done--done this!" He indicated
the hastily-arranged breakfast table as he spoke. "Now I want you to
tell me all about yourself--and what you've been doing all these years.
Do you know, Moira"--he went towards her, looking at her critically--"do
you know that you've grown a woman?"
"I'm afraid so," she said shyly. She turned her head quickly towards the
door, listening. "Hush! she's coming back again," she whispered, with a
mischievous laugh that was half a frightened one. "We'd better clear
these things away."
It was a hurried scrambling business; to tell the truth, they got
somewhat in each other's way over the work; it was a mere frantic
scurry, with whispers and soft laughter as they passed each other. But
it was done before the door was opened, and Moira was back again in her
place by the fire, and Jimmy standing looking down at her. As the door
opened, he turned somewhat coldly towards it, feeling that now he could
receive the landlady with some greater firmness for the food that was in
him; moreover, he must show Moira that he was not to be set at nought
lightly by a mere landlady.
But his eyes opened to their roundest as he saw the two men who stood in
the doorway--an old man and a young one. The old one he knew--had seen
him more than once lately; it was Anthony Ditchburn. The face of the
younger seemed familiar, but he did not at first recognise it. The
slight exclamation to which he gave vent brought Moira's head round at
once; she started to her feet.
"Charlie!" she exclaimed in surprise; and then Jimmy knew in a moment
who the second visitor was.
"Forestalled!" exclaimed Ditchburn, spreading out his hands, and looking
round upon them. "She's stolen a march upon us, after all, Charlie; and
I made so sure of being first--didn't I, Purdue?"
"How are you, Jimmy?" Charlie had come forward, and was holding out his
hand somewhat awkwardly. "Ditchburn told me he met you yesterday, and
that you told him where you lived----"
"I'd forgotten," said Jimmy. "But I'm very glad to see you. It seems
such ages since we met. Moira and I have had quite a long talk."
"There is a distinct smell of cooking," said Ditchburn, sniffing and
looking about him. "If I put a name to it, I might almost say that it
was bacon--and----"
"Quite impossible," broke in Jimmy, with a glance at the girl.
"It comes up from below," exclaimed Moira, with her eyes dancing. "I was
really the first to find him," she went on, turning to Charlie. "You
never saw anyone so surprised as he was when I came in."
"Is this where you do it all?" asked Charlie, coming across to the desk.
(Jimmy hurriedly hid the packages that had come in on that and the
previous day.) "And I suppose you grind away like one o'clock--eh?"
"Yes--the work's pretty hard at times," said Jimmy with another glance
at the girl.
"He calls it hard work!" exclaimed Anthony Ditchburn, raising his hands
and his eyes at the same moment. "This business of writing for the
popular tastes; this stringing together of words that shall catch the
vulgar ear, and bring a smile to vulgar lips; this writing of things
that can have no possible connection with the classics--or with----"
"Never mind about that," broke in Charlie, "so long as you make money by
it. That's the great thing--the making of the money. That's where
independence comes in; no having to go to fathers to beg for shillings
here or sovereigns there; there's the glorious feeling that you coin
money by your pen. Jimmy--we must see more of you. It seems funny," he
added, appealing to the others with a whimsical smile, "awfully funny to
think that Jimmy--sober quiet old Jimmy--should have blossomed out like
this."
Anthony Ditchburn had worked his way over to where Jimmy was standing, a
little confused, against his desk; he bent his head to whisper, even
while he kept his eyes fixed on the others. "I am in the deepest
distress, old friend," he murmured, "but the loan of five shillings
would immediately relieve that distress, and would make a new man of me.
Brethren in the paths of literature--treading its hard and thorny
ways--and the one with a success which may not be perhaps
unmerited--while the other----"
"I can't manage it--just now," whispered Jimmy, with a burning face.
Mr. Ditchburn moved away, muttering something to himself not wholly
complimentary. Perhaps he felt a little relieved when Charlie burst in
with a most inopportune suggestion.
"The best thing old Jimmy can do, now that we've routed him out, is to
make a glorious occasion of it, and take us all to lunch. If I had my
watch with me," he went on ruefully, diving into his waistcoat pocket
and bringing up empty fingers, "I could tell you the time to a minute,
but I know it's near lunch time. There's a beautiful little restaurant
not a stone's throw from here, and we can celebrate the occasion with
proper joyfulness. What do you say, Jimmy?"
Jimmy might have said a great deal; instead, he glanced at Moira. The
girl, having already penetrated to the true inwardness of the situation,
endeavoured to carry the thing off with a laugh.
"I'm afraid you don't understand, Charlie," she said, "that these
celebrated writing people breakfast late. I actually caught Jimmy at his
breakfast when I came in--didn't I, Jimmy?"
"I only finished five minutes ago," said Jimmy. "I lunch--much later."
"The true meaning of hospitality, my young friend, is to see others
enjoy themselves," said Anthony Ditchburn, a little spitefully. "The
suggestion is an admirable one; we are but ordinary mortals, and you can
at all events have the satisfaction of looking on while we eat. Come,
Purdue--lead the way!"
Moira would have stepped forward, in the endeavour to save a
catastrophe--would have flung herself into the breach somehow, but it
was not necessary. Even then Providence was knocking at the door, though
in a strange shape; Jimmy had heard the knocking before the others, and
had heard it with dread. He crossed the room swiftly, and opened to the
landlady; took from her hand a letter, and, checking what she was about
to say, closed the door upon her. He came back to his desk, with a
murmured apology as he opened the letter; glanced at Moira with a
meaning look.
Inside the envelope, accompanying a brief note, was a slip of pink
paper--rather larger than the ordinary cheque, in that it had printed at
the top of it the names of many papers unknown in the larger world of
literature; it bore two signatures at the foot, and it was for the sum
of five guineas. Jimmy thrust it into his pocket, and turned with a
bright face to the others.
"It _is_ a great occasion," he said, "and we must celebrate it; we'll
certainly go to lunch. But we'll go to my own restaurant; they know me
there, and it is more comfortable. Lead the way, Charlie!"
Anthony Ditchburn and Charlie went out of the place hilariously, arm in
arm; Jimmy followed with Moira. At the door, as he paused for a moment,
she whispered to him, with a look of awe on her face:
"Does it always come in like that, Jimmy?"
He heaved a sigh--laughed a little as he looked into her eyes. "Mostly
like that," he replied; and they went down the stairs together.