THE DAWN
Jimmy had been dressed three hours before it was absolutely necessary
that he should be at the theatre, and then had wandered about his rooms,
tortured by doubts and fears; wondering if by chance it would not have
been better to have altered this line at the last, or to have extended
that phrase, so as to convey the meaning better. Suppose, after all, the
theatre took fire--now, when people were gathering at its very doors;
suppose the iron curtain refused to go up (such things had been known to
happen); or suppose Bennett Godsby, in the very hour of his triumph,
dropped dead from sheer excitement. Would there be a call for the
author, and should Jimmy go on, in that case? Nay, more--would he be
permitted to go on? That was the more vital question, because Bennett
Godsby had to be reckoned with in such a matter.
He went down to the theatre at last, to find the man at the stage door,
who always sat in the company of the gas stove and the very old dog,
rising to his feet to wish him good luck; Jimmy blushed to think that he
had not sufficient in his pocket for a tip. Also, there were telegrams;
one in particular from Alice, which he thrust into an inner pocket. Then
he went down on to the stage and looked about him.
Actually there was a man there--a property man, or some other debased
character--lounging on a settee, and whistling! It did not seem to occur
to him that so much depended on this night; if anything, the debased one
looked a trifle bored. Jimmy trembled at the thought that in the hands
of such people as this rested perhaps the fate of the play; for,
according to Bennett Godsby, the wrong coloured carpet put down on the
stage, or a chair six inches too much to the left, had ruined the fate
of the finest ere this. Thinking that, Jimmy went in search of Bennett
Godsby, with the object of cheering him.
He found him in his dressing-room, opening letters and telegrams, and
apparently not in the least anxious. The great man looked round at Jimmy
as he entered and nodded.
"I've got a ghastly feeling come over me, Larrance," he said--"a
horrible feeling that I shan't do myself justice to-night. It's the
life, I suppose; it's telling on me a bit. Every blessed thing seems to
have gone out of my head. I know I look calm," he added, as if in reply
to Jimmy's deprecatory smile, "but that's only manner. I've got to that
pitch that I simply don't care what happens--I don't indeed. It may suit
the part better, in a way--and it may not. Here--take this coat!"
He turned to the dresser, and began to prepare for the evening's work.
Jimmy, with a dull feeling that all was over with him, and that he
wished someone would stop the band then tuning up in the distance,
turned to go. Mr. Bennett Godsby called him back.
"By the way--you'll be somewhere about, I suppose?" he said.
"Oh, yes; I shall be somewhere about," replied Jimmy, and went out into
the streets again.
But the curtain went up in due time, and Mr. Bennett Godsby, also in due
time, went on to receive the applause of his friends in his dual
capacity of author and actor. Jimmy knew nothing of what was happening;
he could only guess, as he paced about outside, that this part of the
play had been reached, or that part; he knew that an act was over and
another begun when men in caps came tumbling out of the stage door, and
adjourned hurriedly to a neighbouring public-house. Then Jimmy ventured
inside again.
But he was not alone that night in his anxiety; there was someone else
who counted the hours, and wondered what was happening; someone who,
like Jimmy, but for a different reason, could have no sight of the
proceedings. Although Jimmy did not know it then, and was not to know it
until long, long afterwards, Moira had counted the days, and then the
hours; knew to a moment when the curtain was to rise; guessed almost to
a moment when it might fall again, and Jimmy's fate be known. And it was
her fate to stand outside, bitterly enough, and to see nothing.
She had not seen Jimmy since that night when she had gone to his rooms,
and had told him of herself and Charlie; that night she was so often to
remember, when she had seen him sitting in the circle of light from his
lamp; that night when the merciful darkness of the room had hidden her
tears. But she had thought about him often and often; had once, on a
little foolish impulse, put a common newspaper to her lips when she was
alone, because it spoke of him kindly and wished him well. Charlie knew
nothing of that; Charlie stood outside, as another part of her
life--something Jimmy did not touch.
Yet there had been a faint hope in her mind that she might have seen the
play--might have been present at Jimmy's triumph--for to imagine him
failing was impossible, she felt. More than that, there was in the girl
this night that strong, fine feeling--half the feeling of motherhood
almost--that made her feel she would have liked to take him in her arms,
and whisper words of comfort and of hope to him. It never occurred to
Moira that there might be others to do that; it never seemed possible to
her that this was a new Jimmy, grown out of old ways, and leaving her
lightly and easily enough to Charlie. To-night at least Jimmy--her
Jimmy!--stood alone, as it seemed to her, and she only understood from
what he had come, and what struggles he had had, before his name could
shine out before men as it did now. She wanted to tell him all this;
wanted to be somewhere near him--and yet quite secretly--so that at the
last crucial moment he might understand that she knew what he felt, and
that she was with him in his fight.
And yet--the difference! There had come no word from him--no suggestion
that she might like to see the play. She waited bravely until the very
end--the very moment when she knew that people must be gathering at the
theatre, and still nothing came. She determined then that she would go
down to the place; she might see something of him at least--might even
hear from others what was happening. Alone, and thinking only of him,
she made her way down the stairs; stopped for a moment at Charlie's
door. And as she stopped the door was opened, and Charlie stood there,
looking out at her.
"Hullo!--going out?" he asked, yawning a little. From his appearance he
had evidently been sitting over the fire for a long time, brooding.
"Yes, but only a little way," she said hurriedly, without looking at
him; for in a sense this was a disloyalty to Charlie. "I shan't be
long."
"Shall I come with you?" he asked, but with no alacrity in his tone.
"No--I shall be back directly--very soon, I mean," she replied.
"Oh--all right," he said, and as she went down stairs he closed the door
and went back to the fire.
He sat down there in the comfortable warmth, and fell asleep. His pipe
dropped from his mouth, and lay unheeded at his feet; he slept for quite
a long time. When he awoke the room seemed cold and dark; the fire had
died down and was almost out. Muttering impatiently against it, he set
to work to replenish it; then, shuddering, looked round the place with a
frown.
"I hate this room," he muttered. "Here I seem to spend my life; to this
I get up in the morning; from this I go to bed at night. I wonder how
long it'll last? No hope--nothing to look forward to; every jolly fellow
I ever met gone from me, or gone ahead of me. It's cursed bad luck; if
it wasn't for Moira, I'd----I wonder whether she's back yet?"
After a moment or two he went up softly to the upper rooms, and opened
the door. Patience sat in her deep chair against the fire, asleep; there
was no one else there. Charlie closed the door, and came down again;
looked irresolutely about his own room.
"I'll go out," he muttered to himself. "I've got a fit of the blues, and
I'll walk them off. What the deuce did Moira want to go out for--and
stay away all this time?"
He got his hat and coat, and went out into the streets. It was a windy,
gusty night, with splashes of rain flung at the few people in the
streets; for a moment he hesitated, and almost turned back. But the
thought of the cheerless room decided him against it; he walked on
sharply into the brighter streets. And as he walked his spirits rose a
little.
Meanwhile Moira had gone on, making straight for the theatre. Almost at
that time she was obsessed with the idea that Jimmy wanted her; that on
this night of all other nights he was lonely, even in the midst of his
success, and that he called to her. Wind nor gusts of rain mattered
anything to her then; it was Jimmy who called--Jimmy of whom she was
proud; Jimmy whom she loved at this moment as she had never loved him
before. In this hour her heart, so long held in check and starved within
her, woke and cried for him, as a child, waking from some uneasy dream
in the night, cries out for the touch of love--the sweet whisper of love
to calm and soothe its fears. Jimmy in a blaze of glory in the lighted
theatre was nothing to her then; her soul went out to the Jimmy of the
woods and the fields of her childhood. Through the streets of that
London that had taken them both into its cruel arms, and made of them
what it would, she went on to meet her Jimmy.
She came to the theatre, to find a crowd about it, and carriages and
cabs driving up in a long line. Only then did she realise that her
errand was a wrong one; that here was no place for her. She drew
back--poor shabby figure that she was--among those who waited in a line
at either side of the big doors to watch the carriage folk going in. And
then, for the first time, understood the bitterness of her position, as
she saw one bright girlish figure emerge from a carriage and flutter in
at the great doors. It was Alice.
Mr. and Mrs. Baffall came immediately afterwards, Mr. Baffall very much
out of place, and Mrs. Baffall but little more at ease. Peering through
the little crowd, Moira saw the girl greeting acquaintances
inside--almost heard the light ripple of her laughter. It wasn't
fair--it wasn't right that Jimmy should have forgotten. She drew back,
and got away from the crowd, and began to pace the streets again.
They would be taking their places now; Jimmy's play would be beginning.
Perhaps after all, she thought, she might contrive to get in; it would
be good to think that she might sit aloft somewhere and watch it, and
tell Jimmy about it afterwards. Yes--she would go in, although shillings
were hard to spare. She went round to a door in an alley, and mounted a
flight of stone steps; a man behind a little paybox window shook his
head at her.
"No good, miss; every seat gone, and not even standing room. Bless you,
they've been waiting 'ere for hours."
She turned away again, and went round again to the front of the theatre.
The last belated comers were hurrying in, and the crowd had gone; she
stood there helpless. Moving away a little, she came to a board hung
against the wall of the theatre; there in small print was Jimmy's name.
Glancing about her quickly, and seeing that she was alone, she softly
touched that name with her fingers, with infinite tenderness, before she
turned away.
"Jimmy," she said in a whisper, "you might have remembered, dear."
She did not go back at once, she paced the streets for a long time;
perhaps then some hardness was growing up in her heart--some new
bitterness at the fashion in which everything and everyone seemed to
have conspired to set her aside. When at last she turned her steps
towards Locker Street it had grown very late, and she was very tired;
she walked with lagging feet.
She got to the house and let herself in; the house was dark and silent.
Going slowly up the stairs, she had a mental picture of what she must
find when she reached her own rooms--Patience asleep in her chair, or
Patience asleep in her bed in her own small room. Perhaps, worst of all,
Patience asking questions--demanding querulously to know where she had
been; perhaps speaking of Jimmy. No--she would not face that yet; she
could not face it now. And so she halted on her way, and listened at the
door of Charlie's room for a sound within; rapped lightly, and, getting
no reply, turned the handle. The room was empty.
But the fire burned brightly, and the room held a welcome for her after
the wet and chilly streets. Charlie would come in presently, and they
could talk for a little while before she went to bed. For quite
desperately she wanted someone to whom to talk to-night--someone who
loved her; and Charlie had said, times without number, how much he loved
her. Poor Charlie, who was unsuccessful, and yet had always a good word
for her--always a smile with which to greet her.
She took off her hat and laid it down; presently stretched herself at
length on the shabby old sofa, and laid her cheek on her palm and looked
into the fire. The room was very silent; only the fire ticked a little
as it fell together; even the streets were quiet. Lying there, she
thought of what her life was to be, in all the days that were coming to
her--days of poverty and of struggle such as she had known for so long.
"Charlie and I will be together--and perhaps I shall be able to help
him," she murmured to herself. "It won't be so bad--with the firelight
in the winter--and a quiet room; and in the summer, when the sun shines,
the streets and the parks--and perhaps sometimes a glimpse of the
country. It won't be so bad--and there will be Charlie. And perhaps
Jimmy will----"
She broke off there, because her eyes had filled with tears, and she
could not go on. She turned her face a little, so that her arm hid it
from the fire; she seemed to murmur there a little brokenly: "Jimmy--you
might have remembered"--and again, "Jimmy!"
Then from sheer weariness she slept, and dreamed that she was back again
in the old days and the sun was shining. London was but a far-off dream,
and she did not know what it would be like. And so, when presently
Charlie Purdue opened the door and looked in, he saw her.
He came slowly across the room, and stood looking down at her; saw her
lying warm and rosy in the firelight, with the tears yet undried upon
her cheeks. As she murmured in her sleep, he suddenly stooped, and fell
upon one knee, and put his arms about her; it was his kiss upon her lips
that woke her to some consciousness of where she was.
"Moira! my Moira!" he whispered. "I didn't hope to find you here."
Still almost with that dream upon her, she wound her arms about his
neck, and nestled her head against his shoulder, as she might have done
as a little child, long, long before. Still in that dream, as it seemed,
and yet with a half memory of who she was and where she was, she
whispered, with her lips against his:
"Let me stay with you; don't send me away. I can't--I can't bear cold
looks to-night; don't speak to me. Let me stay; I want love to-night!"
It was his shame that he did not understand; his shame that he saw in
her only what he might have seen in any other woman he could meet and
conquer, in such an hour and under such circumstances. He wound his arms
about her and held her close, and put his lips to hers. And the fire
fell, and died down, and dropped to ashes.
* * * * *
The dawn was stealing in faint and grey, and the room was very cold. She
stood against the door looking at him shamed and frightened, she shrank
away from him when he would have held her; she beat him off with feeble
hands.
"I didn't know, Charlie--I didn't understand," she breathed. And said it
over and over many times.
When he would have touched her, she crouched away from him, and looked
with wild eyes at the grey dawn that was coming in from the world
outside, as though this were a new world on which she looked, and she
was afraid of it. And presently fled up to her room, sobbing to herself
as she went.
END OF BOOK II
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
"IT'LL BE ALL RIGHT"
There fell upon the little house in Locker Street, Chelsea, a silence
greater than had fallen before. Charlie Purdue dashed upstairs no more
with his laugh and his shout; Charlie Purdue was perplexed and a little
afraid. The thing that that happened--the careless, brutal thing of a
moment--had cut him off from the girl more completely than anything else
could have done; in a sense, he could not meet her eyes; in a sense, it
brought him back to what he was and to what he must do. At the mere
thought of her--the mere sight of her--he recognised the desperate
necessity for doing something with his life--making something of himself
for her sake. If she would only have spoken to him--if she would have
appealed to him in any set form of words to which he could have
replied--he would have been better satisfied and less ashamed; but the
tragedy of it was that she said nothing. Forced to remain there in the
very house with him, she avoided him, spoke always, when the necessity
arose, in mere monosyllables, and with hesitation. And that barrier he
failed to break down for a long time.
He strove to bring to bear upon the situation something of his old
cheery light-heartedness, however forced it might be; made something of
a foil of Patience, the better to rouse the girl. But she bent always
over her work, and only answered when actually challenged to do so by
Patience.
Moira went no more to his room; she seemed to live a new life, apart
from him. When once or twice he carried some new project to her, in the
hope to rouse her sympathy, she answered dully enough; the old
enthusiasm had gone. It was not given to him to understand her, or to
know all that she felt, or what new outlook on life she took at that
time; he was merely resentful that she should avoid him; merely bitter
with himself that he should have driven her in that sense from him.
There were no reproaches; he saw no tears; merely she withdrew into
herself, and held him and the world at arms' length, and fought out this
new fight for herself. How the battle went he could not know, and he
dared not ask.
Now and then he persuaded himself that it would all be forgotten with
any new change of circumstances; other women had been willing enough to
forget--why not she? No one would ever know anything; the time was
coming when he would marry her, and when they would begin to live out
their lives together. He did her that grave injustice to believe that if
the world prospered with him, and he could take her legitimately to his
heart, she would be glad and relieved; he had no understanding of all
her trembling fears at that time--no knowledge of the many hours when
she wept in her bruised and troubled heart, and saw herself cut off from
the rest of the world for ever, by reason of what she called her sin.
She never spoke of it, because there was no one to whom she might speak;
but she looked out on the world from that time with different eyes--with
the eyes, sadly enough, of one who weeps for the might-have-been.
Stories she had read and heard came back to her--old scraps of poems,
forgotten, or but dimly understood until this time--poems that touched
this, the greatest of all tragedies. She knew now how to class
herself--was afraid of what any who had loved her might have said, had
they known the truth about her. She grew afraid to pray; in one bitter
moment of self-abandonment and shame was glad to think that Old Paul was
dead. Old Paul--who had wondered once what love would do to her in the
great world!
And this had not been love; bitterly she declared that to herself again
and again. She was of the stuff that would have walked barefoot through
hell in the service of a man to whom her heart had been fully given; and
lo! it had been her fate to fall in so poor a fashion as this. That was
the shame of it in her eyes.
She went once or twice to the house in which Jimmy lived. Not to see
him, because she told herself that she was never to see him again; that,
of all people in the world, he most of all must know nothing of
her--must forget her. She never acknowledged to herself why that should
be; she only thought of it with tears, many and many a time, as of
something she had lost and could never regain. Jimmy, who was once to
have said a word in a great crisis of her life--Jimmy, who had not said
that word; he was the one above all others who must not know anything
of this. Yet it was something of a comfort at that time to go to the
house wherein he lived; even to stand in the cold streets, and look up
at his windows and wonder what he was doing and how he fared. She found
that she could say a prayer for him easily and earnestly, even while she
could not pray for herself.
Once she was bold enough to climb the stairs of the house, on the
pretext of seeing him, and to wait outside the door of his rooms in the
darkness of the staircase; she put her face against the door, and
listened, almost thinking that she would go in for a moment, just to
touch his friendly hand--just to look into his eyes. But there came from
the room a shout of laughter, and the sounds of men's voices; she
hurried away again, and went home.
Meanwhile, the affairs of Charlie Purdue prospered not at all. He had
scandalised the little house in Locker Street by getting deeply into
debt with the landlady, and his constant assurances that he would be
able to pay very soon were beginning to be regarded with suspicion.
Always with that idea in his mind that presently something wonderful was
to happen--something which should mean to him unlimited money, earned at
the least possible expenditure of time or energy--he had racked his
brains to discover any and every person from whom he could borrow, and
had pretty nearly exhausted the list. The weeks had grown into months,
and Charlie had lost something of his gaiety and his brightness; quite
unused to trouble or responsibility, he fretted under the weight of
both, and became morose and taciturn and embittered. He got to that
easiest of all stages in such a career, wherein a man tells himself that
to fight any longer is absurd, and that the world must have its way, and
must do what it will with him. That further stage, wherein Charlie told
himself (and others who would listen) that he had a father, if you
please, with no one in the world dependent upon him; a father with a fat
living and a private income to boot; yet here was poor Charlie Purdue
(if you would but look at him for a moment) without a sixpence to call
his own, and with no prospects in the world. Charlie conveniently forgot
to mention how long-suffering the father in the fat living had been;
that was a mere matter of detail that did not concern the question. The
fact that Charlie, at the end of every such expression of opinion,
declared with much heartiness that all he wanted in this world was
plenty of work, if only someone would give it to him, commended him to
such as did not know him, and caused him to be referred to sighingly and
pityingly as "Poor Charlie Purdue."
He stooped to the depth of a meanness that was in a sense accidental
when he strove to borrow from Patience. Instinctively he chose a time
when Moira was away; and he was careful to explain to the old woman that
this was merely a temporary matter, and that he expected to be in funds
again in the course of a day or two; he seemed to suggest that it was
only a question, on the part of Patience, of paying it out with one
hand, and receiving it back with the other almost at once. Patience,
however, had other views; she asked questions as to what Charlie was
going to do in the near future. Evidently she had kept her eyes open,
and had, moreover, heard whispers regarding those shadowy prospects of
his of which he had suspected nothing.
"Well, you see, my dear Patience," Charlie explained, as carelessly as
he could, "it isn't for my own sake exactly; it has to do with Moira."
"With Moira?" The old woman looked at him under lowering brows, and with
a new note of suspicion in her tones. "Why with her?"
"Oh, I know nothing's been said about it yet," he went on, a little
lamely, "but it's settled between us that we're going to be married.
Don't look at me like that; we're awfully fond of each other--and I
shall do better with her than I should alone."
"I can quite believe that," replied Patience steadily. "But how are you
going to live?"
"That's the same old silly question that everyone seems to ask in this
world," retorted Charlie. "You don't seem to realise that I'm a
man--strong and healthy--and with all the world before me. I may have
failed in one or two things; but I shan't fail in everything. Moira and
I will be all right; it's only just at this present moment that things
are a little tight with me, and that I want a little temporary
assistance. You knew me in the old days, Patience--and you've seen
something of me recently----"
"Yes--I've seen a great deal of you," said the old woman; "but that
doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. You talk of love; what
right have you to speak of love, when you're simply an idler in the
world, unable to support yourself?"
"My dear Patience," he exclaimed, with some indignation, "you forget who
I am, and what my education has been. I've done my best; it's not my
fault if I've failed in--in various ways."
"It's not for me to blame you, Mr. Purdue," said the old woman steadily;
"and I'm not sure I was thinking about you. I was thinking about the
girl--Moira. What's going to become of her?"
"Oh--that'll be all right," he exclaimed. It was his invariable reply in
regard to everything, although be it noted it had grown a little fainter
and less confident during the past two or three months. "Moira
understands me; we shall get on splendidly."
"I suppose you think, Mr. Purdue, that I'm a rich woman--eh?" she asked
after a pause, during which she had swung a bunch of keys on one finger,
for the tantalising of the man who hoped that one of those keys might
unlock temporary wealth for him.
"Oh--I know that you're all right," retorted Charlie, with a laugh. "And
you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that it's on Moira's account as
much as on mine. She wouldn't like to see me suffer, I know." He smiled
expectantly, as he looked at the old woman.
"Very well, I'll talk to Moira about it," was her surprising reply, as
she dropped the keys back into her pocket and turned away.
But that would not suit Charlie at all; Moira might learn it afterwards,
but not now. "No--no--you mustn't do that," he exclaimed hurriedly. "It
might--might trouble her, you understand; I don't want her to think that
I'm worried to such an extent that I have to come to you. I wouldn't say
anything to Moira, Patience."
The old woman looked at him keenly. "Either I speak to Moira, or I let
the matter alone altogether," she said.
"Very well--let it alone altogether then," he exclaimed violently. "It's
only what I might have expected; anyone with any money in this world
seems to desire to stick to it, whether they actually need it or not;
there's no charity--no open-handedness--no disposition to help any poor
devil who has fallen by the way. Keep your money."
"I will," said the old woman imperturbably.
Whether or not Patience waited, in the hope or expectation that Moira
would say something to her concerning that all-important engagement, it
is impossible to say; certainly she made no attempt to question the
girl. She watched her intently at times; would look across at her over
the rims of her spectacles, and would note the bowed head and the
close-drawn lips; but she said nothing. She saw, perhaps with a pained
perplexity, that Moira grew quieter and quieter as the weeks went on;
that she sat more often in an attitude of dejection, staring into the
fire; but still she said nothing. Until at last one night, when they sat
alone together, Moira rose quickly from her chair, and made a movement
towards the door; it was as though she had suddenly made up her mind to
a thing that must be done.
"Where are you going?" asked the old woman, almost in a whisper.
"I'm going down--down to see Charlie," she replied, and laughed a
little, as though to reassure not only the anxious old woman, but
herself. "Only for a moment or two," she added.
Patience rose as the girl left the room; she stood still, with her hand
resting on the table; she watched the door through which Moira had
disappeared. Then, with set lips, and some new determination in her
eyes, she crossed the room on tip-toe, and went out on to the landing.
There she stood and looked over, and listened, and presently stole down
the stairs, and stood outside the door. Hearing but little, she yet
understood what the girl's errand was--seemed to understand in a flash
all that the change in the girl had indicated--all that the old woman
herself had been until that night unable to understand.
Charlie had turned, with some note of surprise in his tones, to greet
the girl; for this was the first time she had been to his rooms for some
three months. With something of his old cheery manner he welcomed her,
and set a chair for her near the fire. She moved across to it, but did
not sit down; instead, she leaned upon the back of it, and looked
steadily into the flames, as though debating in what form of words she
should say what was in her mind.
"Why, my dear girl--it's an age since you've honoured me with a visit,"
he said. "And how solemn you look; quite tragic." He made a movement
towards her, as though he would have dropped an arm about her shoulders;
saw the eyes that were turned upon him, and recoiled. For the eyes were
swimming in tears, and there was in them such an agony of despair and
misery that it struck him dumb. He stood looking at her for a moment or
two with a dropped jaw.
"Why, old girl," he blurted out at last, "what's wrong? Why do you look
at me like that?"
"Charlie--don't you--don't you know?" It was a mere whisper, but he
heard it, and partly understood, even while he told himself in his heart
that he would not understand and would not believe. As he moved towards
her she dropped her head on the back of the chair, and he heard the
sobbing cry that broke from her.
"Dear God!--what shall I do?"
He stood for a moment like one stunned; then he took her roughly by the
shoulders and twisted her round. She hid her face, and while he strove
to drag her hands away he spoke brutally, because of his own terror.
"You're wrong--you don't know what you're talking about. Come now--look
at me--speak to me--tell me."
She murmured behind her hands; he bent his head to listen. Then he got
away from her and walked across to the fireplace, and stood there,
beating his foot impatiently on the floor and biting his lips. Presently
he came back to her and laid his hand on her shoulder, and spoke
steadily:
"Now, look here--don't be silly--and don't give way. It'll be all right;
you can take that from me, now, Moira; it'll be all right. You may be
mistaken; I don't know anything about that; but in any case, it'll be
all right. Do you understand?"
She shook her head in a dull, feeble sort of way, and he took her in his
arms and soothed her, and kissed away her tears. Over and over again he
impressed that upon her; it would be all right.
"Money or no money, we'll get married; it's only a little earlier than I
meant--and no one can say a word against you then. I'm not a blackguard;
I'll do the right thing. I'll get money from somewhere--from my father,
if necessary; and I'll make him give me something to do--work of some
sort."
"Soon?" she whispered.
"At once," he exclaimed. "I'll go down to-morrow; he's a good sort
really, and he won't leave us in the lurch. There now"--he took her by
the shoulders, and shook her rallyingly, and looked into her eyes--"the
tears are gone--aren't they? That's right; give me a smile, if it's only
an April one. And keep that in your mind clearly, my dear; it'll be all
right."
Patience crept away upstairs noiselessly; when presently Moira came in,
she saw the old woman seated in her chair as usual, with her eyes
closed, and apparently asleep. But that night, when Moira lay
wakeful--thinking long thoughts, and striving to look into a future that
was dark and frightening, the door of her room was softly opened, and
the old woman came in.
For a moment or two the queer-looking old figure in night array stood
looking at the girl with a trembling lip; she was a little afraid to go
near her. Then, stirred to tenderness by some understanding of the
girl's desperate need, she set down her candle, and stretched out her
thin arms; and with a cry Moira rose to meet her, and the two faces--the
young and the old--the one of the woman with no experience, and the
other of the woman who had learned so much--were bent together, and the
kindly rain of tears fell from them and eased their hearts. There
seemed no need for real words; it was the mere confused murmur of one
woman to another, in a matter that only a woman could know and
understand. Dawn, striking into the poor room, saw Moira sleeping in the
old woman's arms, and Patience, cramped and tired, keeping watch with
her, as she had done through the long night.
By the morning Charlie was gone. To do him justice, he carried with him
the remembrance of the girl's tear-stained face, and of her broken,
dejected figure as she had leaned on the back of the shabby old chair,
and whispered the dread that was in her heart. That made him valiant to
face his father--to secure something for the future that should mean not
only something for himself, but for Moira. He was very indefinite about
it in his own mind; he only told himself, again and again, as he had
told her, that something must be done, and--that it would be all right.
He strode through the little town of Daisley Cross with his head erect;
albeit he was a shabbier figure than he had been in the old days. It was
a curious feeling, because he could not remember ever having been shabby
in that place before; and yet with that new virtue on him he was not
ashamed. In a sense, he felt that he could meet his father, because that
father must inevitably recognise that here had been no squandering of
money; but that Charlie, though unfortunate, must have lived hard and
lived carefully. Which was the impression he desired to create.
The Rev. Temple Purdue walked in his somewhat neglected garden that
morning, looking thoughtfully at all the decay and débris of the dead
year, and thinking perhaps of the decay of his own hopes. He raised his
eyes at the click of the gate--stood still, expectant, with a flushed
face, as Charlie advanced towards him. Something of his love for the
young man shone in his eyes for a moment, and was in his grasp when he
gave a reluctant hand; then in a moment he was the stern father again,
waiting to hear what Charlie had to say.
To begin with, Charlie was repentant; he saw now how much he might have
done had he been more careful. It must not be understood, according to
Charlie's account, that he whined about it; no--he was simply ready to
face whatever future might be given him, and to face it boldly. He
wanted it to be understood that he had learned his lesson, and learned
it well; the Rev. Temple Purdue heard with some astonishment that this
remarkable son thanked his father for having given him the opportunity
of learning that lesson.
They went to the house together, with a better understanding growing
between them than there had been for a very long time. The heart of the
old man had ached with longing for some such moment as this, and he had
not believed that it could ever arise; yet here was the prodigal,
smiling at him, and thanking him, and promising anything and everything.
The old man furtively wiped his eyes more than once as he listened to
what Charlie had to say. And Charlie, as might have been expected under
emotional circumstances, said too much.
"You've got to understand, sir, that I'm a different sort of man from
what I was," he said, wagging his head strenuously at that disreputable
figure of himself now rapidly vanishing into the background. "I've got
responsibilities, and I mean to live up to them. I hope I know my duty
to myself, as well as to others. That's why I want to make a start;
that's what I mean when I say I'm going to live a different sort of
life."
The father caught only one or two words, and clung to them; he looked
round quickly at his son. "Responsibilities? To others?"
"Yes," said Charlie, not quite so boldly nor so bravely; "one other, at
any rate. There's--there's a woman." He had decided, on the mere impulse
of the moment, not to mention that woman's name; it was no use making
the case harder against himself than was necessary.
The old man stiffened and set his lips. "A woman?" he asked, in a
different tone.
"Yes--someone I'm very fond of--someone who is very fond of me. I
want--want to marry her."
Mr. Purdue's face cleared. "My dear boy--you quite startled me for the
moment; forgive me that I did not understand," he said. "But we need not
talk about that now; I applaud your desire to settle down, and to lead a
more regular life; but when you are established there will be time
enough to arrange about your marriage. If this girl is worthy of you,
she will wait, my boy."
"She can't wait--it's impossible," blurted out the son. "That's why I'm
here to-day; that's what my responsibility means, I must marry her--and
at once."
His father took a step towards him, and looked into his face; drew his
breath sharply. "You mean----"
Charlie nodded slowly, without looking up. His father looked at him for
a long minute, and then turned and walked to the door, and opened it. He
seemed to brace himself in a curious fashion for what he had to say, but
he was none the less resolute in his determination to say it. He seemed,
as he drew himself up, to look taller than Charlie had ever seen him.
"So this is the meaning of your new resolution--of your sudden desire to
get into a decent position, and to secure some money--is it?" he asked.
"Not content with the wrong you have done yourself, and the shame you
have brought upon me, you have involved some wretched woman in deeper
shame yet."
"She's a good woman," muttered Charlie.
"That is impossible," retorted the other quickly. "But I will not
discuss the matter with you; I have finished with you for good and all.
Get out of my house." He pointed to the door as he spoke, but kept his
face averted from his son.
"Oh, very well." Charlie lounged towards the door, stopped for a moment
close to the old man to speak. "You'll do nothing for me--or for her?"
"Your companions and your friends do not concern me. Your duty, which
you appear to know so clearly, points you straight to her, and demands
that you shall do her justice and shall marry her; but with that I have
nothing to do."
"Very good." Charlie heaved a deep sigh, and turned towards the open
door. "I've promised her it'll be all right--and I'll keep my word, even
if we starve together. And I hope you'll never remember, at some time
when you'd be glad to forget, what you've said to me. Good-bye--and this
for the last time."
He flung out of the house, and across the garden, and disappeared into
the wind-swept road. After a moment of silence the old man turned, and
put a hand across his eyes; then swayed to the door, and went out
quickly. "Charlie!" he called. "Charlie!" But there was no response, and
the garden and the road seemed empty.
Charlie paced the station for an hour or more, waiting for a train to
take him back to London; and the longer he paced, and the more he
thought about matters, the deeper and the more fixed became his
resolution to do that right thing on which he had set his mind, and
regarding which he had made so many promises. Even in the railway
carriage at last, on his way back to London, he nodded across at the
opposite seat, as though the girl sat there and could hear him, and told
her what he would do.
"It'll be all right," he said. "Money, or no money, we'll get
married--and no one shall point a finger at you. Then the old man'll be
sorry; he'll understand that I've done the right thing, and am in that
sense a better Christian than he is, in spite of his cloth. Don't you
worry, Moira--because there's nothing to worry about. When once I get
back to London, I'm going to take up real work; I'll decide before the
end of the week whether I'll go in for painting, or writing, or
something else easy like that. After all, perhaps it's best that this
has happened; it'll put strength into me, and make me do things for the
sake of somebody else. I shouldn't be surprised to find in the long run
that there was quite a Providence in it for us both."
He was still troubled, however, about the business; he felt a lump
coming in his throat more than once at the thought of the bitter
injustice to which he had been subjected by his father. It wasn't fair.
Here was a young man, trying to do his solemn duty in the face of
tremendous odds, and his own father refused to help him. Oh, it wasn't
right at all!
He had had but a scanty breakfast, and he was faint and tired and
discouraged by the time his slow train got to London. There was still a
shilling or two in his pockets; he went into the bar of the refreshment
room, and ordered something that should put new courage into him for
that indefinite fight with the world that was beginning that very week.
It put such courage into him that he told himself he was going to be
very good to Moira; she should live to bless the day on which she had
met him. So he had some more of that liquid courage--and yet some
more--telling himself, in a despairing, half-whimsical way, that for
this lapse his poor old father was directly responsible, had he but
known it. And then went out into the streets, with his hat on the back
of his head and his hands in his pockets to make his way to Moira.
I think he must have been murmuring to himself again that it would be
all right when the accident happened. He never knew very much about it;
he was crossing a road, and there were shouts and the screaming of a
woman, and the thunder of horses' hoofs; then he turned about, and beat
feeble protesting hands against the moving thing that was crushing him,
and then lost consciousness.
When he woke up, as it were, he was in a strange place, with strange
faces about him; there seemed to be a great weight on his lungs and in
his head; he could not breathe well, and he found it difficult to speak.
Someone, bending an ear down to him to get a faint whisper, and
wondering a little perhaps why he smiled so cheerfully, seemed to think
that he said twice over that it would be all right, and that he wanted
to see Jimmy. And so, with some labour, they got a name and an address
from him, and wrote them down. And as soon as possible sent for a
certain Mr. James Larrance to come in all haste to see a man who had but
an hour to live.
CHAPTER II
JIMMY QUIXOTE
In an accidental haphazard way Jimmy had succeeded. Mr. Bennett Godsby
had scored something of a success with that play in the making of which
he had so largely interested himself, and the secret of the authorship
had leaked out. Moreover, sundry people, reading the book, had lighted
on that idea for themselves, and had seen what was indefinitely referred
to as "promise" in it. And so it had come about that someone greater
than Bennett Godsby had descended upon Jimmy, and had held out a bait in
the form of a pink cheque for one hundred pounds--this time with no
deductions. And Jimmy had gasped and wondered, but had fortunately kept
his head; and so had started, with that bait for comfort and support,
on the writing of another play for the man greater even than Bennett
Godsby.
The world was changed, so far as Jimmy was concerned; he looked at it
through rose-coloured glasses. No more poverty nor struggling; no more
counting up of small gains; no more dodging of landladies. Jimmy had yet
to learn, of course, that the struggle is never done, and that it goes
on to the very end; but he did not know that then.
Also, Jimmy was going into Society--with what was for him a very large
"S." That Society comprised, in the first place, Mr. Bennett Godsby (who
kept touch with the young man, with an eye to the future) and Mrs.
Bennett Godsby and daughter; also the new and greater one with whom
cheques for a hundred pounds appeared to be but casual things; and the
Baffalls and Alice. More particularly, it may be said, the Baffalls and
Alice.
It was a pleasant thing for a man who lived in somewhat shabby rooms
alone to have a little note delivered to him in the morning, making an
appointment for the evening; a little dinner, or a theatre party--or
even a mere going round to a pleasant house to see the Baffalls--and
especially Alice. It was an excuse for putting on that evening dress
which spelled prosperity; it was an easy and a pleasant ending to a day
of work. So that he went often, and saw much of her.
Perhaps her greatest merit in his eyes was what may be termed her
adaptability. She had no emotions and no rough edges; you did not need
to be afraid of her. Whatever you talked about you discovered she
understood, and was sympathetic; which, on later reflection, meant that
she had no particular views about anything, but that her views were
yours. In other words, you discovered, on thinking about it, that her
conversation had been limited largely to monosyllabic affirmatives or
negatives--carefully interlarded with smiles; and that you yourself had
talked a great deal, having been encouraged to do so by the smiles.
But she was always pretty, and always restful; and if you told her of a
disappointment or a worry she had always a tender--"Poor boy!"--or some
such soothing word to throw at you. Then again, when one was back in
one's lonely rooms at night, it was pleasant to think what she would
have been like, sitting in that empty chair at the other side of the
fireplace; pleasant to think how she would have smiled, and what she
would have said, and what she would have done. Always, of course, with
the proviso that she must be in the same sort of pretty frock you had
admired so much that night, with the dimpled arms showing, and the
firelight dancing on her hair and in her blue eyes. In effect, when
Jimmy came to consider the matter, he knew that he must regard her
always in the light of an ornament--something that others must admire
quite as much as he did; something about which people must whisper
enviously, and call him a lucky dog.
Even when he tried the experiment of talking about his work and his
plans and hopes, she was quite as satisfactory. She knew just when to
nod--just when to remind you how clever you were--just when to wonder
how you managed to think of such brilliant things. And her capacity for
listening was marvellous.
Jimmy having found it necessary, as has been stated, to reconstruct his
world, and to dismiss Moira from that share in his prosperity which he
had originally designed for her, came to decide that he might after all
do worse than fall in love with Alice. Some day or other he must marry;
some day or other there must be someone as beautifully dressed, and as
beautiful in herself as this girl, who would take her place with him in
the great world into which he was slowly moving, and would be admired as
much as he was admired for his work. That was inevitable--and Alice
would be most satisfactory.
Let it not be supposed that he actually said this thing to himself in so
cold-blooded a fashion; rather that that was the actual impression in
his mind. There was that adaptability about him at that time, when his
work chiefly held possession of him, that would have enabled him to fall
in love quite easily with anyone half as pretty as Alice; there was no
task about it, and he had for a long time found himself anxiously
watching the hours when he was separated from her--anxiously longing for
the time when he should see her. This was no grand passion in any sense
of the word; it was merely a man and a maid who saw much of each other,
and who were on the friendliest terms; it wanted but the slightest touch
of either of them to set them on fire, and to see the thing done and
settled. Perhaps Daniel Baffall and his wife nodded over it together
more than once, and said in whispers that this was what might naturally
be expected; perhaps Alice had her own views, and knew pretty clearly,
as she usually did, what was coming.
Of course, there were others. There were men who came there,
disturbingly enough, on occasions when Jimmy had hoped to find her
alone; men who seemed to know a great deal about her pursuits, and who
even had the audacity to make appointments with her for the following
day or for other days, quite as though they had a right to do so.
Generally speaking, however, the others may be said to have resolved
themselves in time into a certain Mr. Ashby Feak; so that Jimmy's
jealousies melted away, even as the other men melted away, and centred
round Ashby Feak, and round him alone.
Ashby Feak was a tall fair man, at whose age it would be difficult to
guess, and concerning whose life various stories were told. He had been
abroad a great deal, and had done something in the way of exploration in
a mild way in various places; had written a little concerning his
travels. That he was interesting there was not the slightest doubt; that
he had a wider and a deeper knowledge and experience of the world than
Jimmy was also beyond question. Daniel Baffall did not like him, and
Mrs. Baffall was a little afraid of him; but he came often,
nevertheless, and in a sense he monopolised the girl, after a time, as
no other man had done. She still held to Jimmy in a half-hearted way;
but Jimmy found it difficult to discover her alone, and the old cordial
talks were things of the past.
He manoeuvred to see more of her, and was sometimes successful;
sometimes, in fact, he was able to take the girl, with Mrs. Baffall for
company, to places into which Ashby Feak could not go; while Ashby Feak,
on his side, could return that compliment easily enough. And Alice
received both men apparently on equal terms--now and then bestowing a
favour upon Jimmy, and the next moment taking it away from him, in a
sense, for the better encouragement of Mr. Feak. In the long run,
however, Jimmy told himself that Ashby Feak seemed to score more than he
did.
Jimmy was in that bitter mood engendered by the receipt of a note from
her, suggesting that she would be unable to keep an appointment made
with him, and suggesting further that he had been "horrid" to her the
night before, when that hurried message came which summoned him to
Charlie's bedside. All he heard was that a man was dying, and had craved
to see him; he had no suspicion of who the man was. But the summons
drove from his mind that lighter business of jealousy, and sent him off
at once to find the man.
That poor, broken, misguided thing called Charlie Purdue was fast losing
his strong grip on life by the time Jimmy--subdued and wondering and
sorry--was brought to him. There had been no time to summon anyone else;
indeed, but for that faint glimmer of intelligence which had allowed of
the getting of the address and the sending for Jimmy, Charlie had lain
passive, watching the light change outside the high windows in the great
ward in which he lay, and solemnly facing this, the last phase in his
tumultuous life. Watching it so solemnly even, that he was able to see
only one dark-eyed girl (he remembered with a pang that the eyes had
been filled with tears when last he had looked into them), and the
remembrance of a promise he had made--long, long ago, as it seemed--that
it would be all right! Strangely enough, the instinct to make it all
right had urged him, racked with pain though he was, and with death
looking in at the great windows, to send for Jimmy. He did not know yet
what Jimmy was to do; but Jimmy had loved her, and they had fought
together over her--this dying man and the other--years before. Jimmy
would know--Jimmy would remember.
For a time the man in the bed and the man standing beside it held hands
and said nothing; perhaps because there was so much to be said. A doctor
had shaken his head, and pursed up his lips, and turned away; a nurse,
at a nod from the doctor, had held something to the man's lips and had
turned away, too. Jimmy bent down, and put his face close to that of the
other; and even then, in that hour, Charlie was laughing as it seemed;
at all events his eyes laughed.
"It's going to be quick," he whispered. "I may slip away while you look
at me. I know enough of the game--quite enough for that. It's a
bit--bit of a silly ending--isn't it?"
Jimmy said nothing; he could only hold the hand, and stare into the face
of this man who had been his friend as a boy--this man who had made such
a poor business, as it seemed, of the life that had been given him.
"Only--for God's sake--listen to me." Charlie's eyes closed for a
moment, and he seemed to set his teeth to keep back a groan. "It isn't
me--it's someone--someone else. It's a woman."
Jimmy nodded. It seemed, as he bent over the other man, that he must
remember all his life this quiet ward, with the high windows, and the
fading light outside, and the man in the bed whispering. It was as
though he had entered upon another life--something stronger and more
forceful than anything he had yet understood. He was miles away from the
petty smallnesses and jealousies that had been his for some time past.
"You know her--Moira. One of the best, Jimmy--damn sight too good for
me. We were going--going to be married. I--you needn't look at me for a
minute--I wronged her."
Jimmy was looking at him intently; the words seemed to sing through his
ears like some tune he had remembered. "I wronged her!--I wronged her!"
"I was a beast--but I've promised--promised faithfully it would be all
right. She'll die--kill herself, I think--shame, you know. There's going
to be--a child. Jimmy--what shall we do?"
In that last hour, as it seemed, the two were drawn together; the great
city that had sucked their lives into itself, and made of them what it
would, was a thing forgotten; almost they were boys again in the woods
and the fields; almost it seemed that the one stretched out hands to the
other, and craved for help.
"It won't be long--before I'm gone, Jimmy"--the other hand was feebly
groping for the stronger hand of the man beside the bed--"Jimmy--she'll
be all alone--and--and the child. You loved her--I think you did--and
she was fond of you----"
This was what he had meant to say; even if it was unfinished in words,
his eyes said the rest. Jimmy, looking at him, seemed to have a vision
of something else beyond him; seemed to see this woman bowed in shame,
and left lonely and helpless. And in a curious, ironical, half-whimsical
way, quite apart from the tragedy of it, this fitted in with Jimmy's
mood of the day--was but the legitimate complement of the bitterness of
the morning. Alice was not for him; Alice turned to another man; and
here was something that Jimmy might do that must for ever place him on a
lonely and wonderful pedestal, far above Alice, and far above the petty
things of the world in which he lived. He saw it all; saw that,
wonderfully, he must step forward to rescue this girl, and must perforce
occupy that lonely position, because of her and of the sacrifice he made
for her--that position he had long ago seemed to map out for himself in
his mind.
So swift was his thought that even before he answered he seemed to see a
radiant figure standing before him--and he obdurate; he, with some
sadness, declaring that it could never be--that he had sacrificed
himself for someone else. And so rising to a point in her view, and in
the view of others, to which he could never under more commonplace
circumstances have reached. He voiced that thought, in a measure, when
he answered the dying man.
"I think I understand," he whispered. "You would have done the right
thing for her?"
"Yes--yes--I would!"
"But there is no time? I understand; she shall not be left alone. I did
love her--I'll marry her."
"Oh--may God bless you!" The feeble spluttering lips were pressed
against his hands; Charlie was laughing and crying hysterically. "Swear
it--swear you'll make her marry you!"
"I swear it; she shall not suffer," said Jimmy; and there was in him a
great and sudden uplifting of his heart at the thought of this thing he
was to do.
Charlie had but little else to say; the few mutterings he made, in the
few minutes that remained, could scarcely be distinguished even by the
man who bent above him. But at the last, with some faint suspicion of
the old cheery smile that had been his always, he drew Jimmy's head down
to him, and whispered a message:
"Tell her--tell her from me--I said it'd be--be all right!"
Then someone drew a screen about the bed, and Jimmy went out into the
late winter afternoon, with some of his elation gone; and thinking
deeply of the man who lay so quiet in the big ward with the high
windows.
At first he was all for going straight to Moira, and telling her; he saw
himself breaking the news of this sudden death; and then soothing her by
telling her what he had done, and what he had promised; perhaps he began
to wonder a little how she would receive him under those circumstances.
But when he had walked a little way towards Chelsea, he suddenly decided
that he must not see her yet; when he went to her she must be prepared,
and must know beforehand all that had happened. Therefore he hurried
home, and wrote a letter to Patience--telling her what had happened, and
begging her to break the news to the girl as gently as possible. He
added in the letter that he would come the next day, and see Moira; he
wanted to talk to her. He made it clear that he had seen Charlie at the
last, and had been with him when he died; he made it clear also that he
had a message from the dead man to Moira.
That despatched, he sat down to think over the situation--to consider
fairly and clearly the position in which he found himself. He discovered
that he rather liked it; he felt that this was in a sense altogether
appropriate. He was to do a great and noble thing--and in the doing of
it was to have two women at his feet in one moment. The first, because
he gave up everything for her and to preserve her good name; the second,
in wonder and awe that any man could do such a thing. He quite saw Alice
blaming herself that she had trifled, even for a moment, with such a man
as this.
Being, as it were, the executor of Charlie Purdue's poor affairs, he
wrote also to the Rev. Temple Purdue, telling him of what had happened;
he did not know, of course, that Charlie had been returning from a visit
to his father at the time of the accident.
He went on the following morning to Locker Street, Chelsea. If the truth
be told he rather dreaded the coming interview--rather wondered, in
fact, how Moira--this new Moira of whom he knew nothing--would take the
suggestion he had to offer. He had always thought of her in a curious,
indefinite, detached fashion--as of someone he did not really
understand; he wondered now how he was to be met--whether by tears and
self-reproaches--or in what other fashion.
But he was destined not to meet her then. He found his way upstairs, and
was met at the door of the room by Patience--Patience with an
inscrutable face, save that the eyes were tragic. They shook hands in
silence, and he followed her into the room.
"Where's Moira?" he asked; and it was curious that he spoke in the
subdued tones of one speaking of someone ill or dead. "I want to see
her."
"She's not here," replied Patience. "I--I don't know where she is."
"Not know where she is?" he demanded. "But you had my note; you know
what has happened?"
"Yes--I know," replied the old woman in a dull, level voice. "And she
knows, too; I told her last night."
"Well--what did she say?"
"She didn't say anything; she seemed stunned," said Patience. "I broke
it to her gently; I said there had been an accident, and that someone
she loved--just like that I put it--someone she loved was dead. And the
funny thing was that she looked at me wildly--and said another name--not
his at all."
"Another name?" Jimmy looked at her in perplexity. "Whose?"
"Yours. She must have been thinking of something else," said the old
woman. "Then, when I told her who it was, she sat for a long time
brooding; but she didn't say anything. And this morning she went out
quite early, without a word to me."
"I'll come again," said Jimmy, moving towards the door. And at the door
she called him softly.
"Mr. Jimmy--did he tell you anything?" It was a mere whisper, and she
looked at him intently while she spoke.
"Everything. That's what I'm to see her about," he said. "I'll come
again."
He went back to his own rooms, and tried to work; but he could only
think of the man who lay dead, and of the girl who was in a sense his
pitiful legacy. He felt he could do nothing until he had seen her; until
he had completed the work left for him. After that he would settle down
again to the life he knew--the life of which this had been so strange an
interruption.
There came a note from Alice--a little hurried scrawled thing--demanding
petulantly to know what had become of him, and whether he would not go
and see her that evening; she would be all alone, she said, and promised
to be very good. He was tearing it up slowly when there came a
hesitating knock at the door; he went to open it, and found waiting
there, outside on the landing, old Mr. Purdue. He took his hand, and
drew him into the room, and shut the door.
Jimmy's head was in a whirl; there seemed at that time so many vital
things to be thought about and arranged--things more vital than he had
ever touched before. On the one hand, the desperate woman whose lover
was gone; on the other, the woman who wrote from the security of her
assured position, and asked him to go and see her. And, lastly, this
broken old man whose only son was dead--the only hope he had in life
gone. Jimmy dropped the pieces of paper in the fire, and faced Mr.
Purdue.
"I came at once," said the old man. "It was kind of you to do what you
have done--you have been most thoughtful. I would have liked--liked to
have seen him again--alive, I mean. Because, you know"--he spread out
his hands with a feeble gesture that was pitiful to see--"because, you
know--this was my fault."
"Your fault?" Jimmy looked at him in astonishment.
"Yes. He came down to see me--he wanted to tell me something--wanted me
to help him. And I drove him away; I wouldn't listen to him. I wish I'd
listened now."
Jimmy stood waiting; he knew there must be something else to be said; he
wondered, in view of what was in his own mind, what he might have to say
himself. Mr. Purdue stood nervously rubbing one hand over the back of
the other, and blinking his eyes at the fire; it almost seemed as if he
tried to weep, but had forgotten the trick of it.
"When Charlie came to me--he spoke of a woman--some woman he must
marry," went on the old man. "I would not listen to that--and I should
have listened, I suppose. I suppose you know nothing--nothing about
her?"
"Yes--I know everything," replied Jimmy, steadily. "I know the woman
well; she will be provided for."
He did not mean it quite in that way--did not intend, perhaps, to put
the statement so crudely; but in face of this new and strange situation
he seemed to be acting in a new and strange fashion. Proud, in a curious
sense, of what he was to do, he yet had in him that chivalry which would
make him keep secret Moira's name, even while he boasted of what he was
to do for her. While the old man stared at him, he repeated that phrase
he had used.
"She will be provided for," he said again; and he said it sternly.
"I'm glad," replied the other, with something of a sigh of relief. "I'm
glad he thought of that--at the last."
Mr. Purdue asked but a few questions after that; and then set out to do
all that was to be done for the dead man. There was to be an inquest;
and after that the father had decided to take the son back to the place
where he had lived as a boy. Jimmy was not, of course, concerned in
that, and the two men parted presently; the one to go back to the
solitary life he had lived so long--the other to step forward into the
new life that was so strangely opening for him.
Always with that feeling in his mind of the great thing he was doing,
Jimmy decided to do it very completely; he would not go near Alice
again, nor would he reply to her note. The time was coming when he could
stand before her, as he had already suggested, and would let her know
of this thing he had done; the time when he would very beautifully, as
he felt, go out of her presence for ever, leaving an ineffaceable memory
behind him, to be treasured by her while she lived.
He was hugging that thought to himself, and was deciding that he would
go and see Moira, and tell her what her fate was to be; and he had
lingered over it a little until the day had grown dark; when he was
thrown a little off his balance by Moira coming to him. He was sitting
at his desk--not working, but with the circle of light from his lamp
falling upon his brooding face, when she came softly in, and stood
within the door, looking at him. Just so once before she had seen him,
on a night when he was to have spoken a word to her that should have
changed the current of their lives; just so she saw him now, for a
moment, before he moved, and rose, and came towards her.
"You wished to see me?" She stood still in the shadows of the room; it
was strange, he thought, that she made no attempt to take his hand. For
his part, he found himself looking at her with a new feeling--a feeling
of wonder. She stood here so quiet and calm--apparently so perfectly
self-possessed. His notion of a possible interview had been that it
would be a thing of tears and lamentations; that she would be bowed at
his feet. Not, to do him justice, that he desired that; it merely fitted
in with his idea of what was right under the circumstances. And here she
was, asking calmly if he wished to see her.
"Yes," he replied, a little awkwardly. "You had my message--you know
what has happened?"
She nodded slowly; she kept her eyes fixed upon his; she seemed to be
waiting breathlessly for something he was to say. "Charlie's dead," she
said; "and I suppose he sent a message to me."
Jimmy set a chair for her, but she did not seem to notice it. She
watched him as he moved, and her eyes were on his face when he turned
again to her. Her impatience was shown by the fact that she said again,
in the same quick whisper: "He sent a message for me?"
"Yes." Jimmy felt that the interview was not arranging itself in the
proper way at all. "He told me--told me everything about--about you; he
sent for me on purpose."
She nodded slowly again; her face was very white. "So that you know--you
know what I am?" she breathed.
"I have not said anything about that," said Jimmy, more disconcerted
than ever. "If Charlie had lived he would have married you; but there
was no time. He died so quickly. But his message to you--the last
message of all--was that it would be all right."
She smiled a little wanly; she shook her head. "Poor Charlie!--that was
always what he said. And now he has gone, and it can't be all right at
all--can it?"
"I think it can," said Jimmy, turning away from her, and walking across
to the fireplace. "That was why Charlie sent for me; and that is why
I--I wanted to see you. Because, you see, Moira--I'm going to make it
all right."
"You?" She started violently, and made a movement towards him; checked
herself, with a hand upon her lips. "What have you to do with it?"
"Everything. I promised Charlie before he died that I would do what he
was to have done, had he lived. I promised him that I would marry you."
There was a deathlike silence in the room for a moment or two; Jimmy
seemed literally to feel her eyes looking at him, even though his back
was turned towards her. Almost for a moment he expected an
outburst--though whether of gratitude or of shame he could not tell. But
when she spoke it was in a clear, steady, level voice--much as she
might have spoken had she been discussing the fate of someone else.
"But why are you doing this?" she asked.
"It seems to be the better way," he replied, glancing round at her for a
moment. "In the first place, I promised Charlie that I would do it; and
I mustn't break that promise. He died happily, because he knew that it
would be all right for you. So many people would suffer if anything went
wrong with you; and I suppose it's a man's privilege to
protect--and--and support a woman. As for me--well, I'm glad to do it."
"Glad?"
"Yes--quite glad. I was always very fond of you, Moira; we've been
friends for a long time; we were almost sweethearts as boy and
girl--weren't we?----Did you speak?"
She shook her head, and after a moment's pause he went on again. And now
she looked at him no more.
"I am bound up in my work, and in the future that seems to be opening
out before me," he said. "In a sense, I may be said to be wedded to my
work; I do not think I ever meant really to marry. But I will give you
my name--and that, as I say, I do gladly. You will be Mrs. Larrance--and
no one will be able to say a word against you. We shall be good
friends--and that will be all. In the eyes of the world you will be my
wife; but we shall go on as before."
The silence after that grew to such a length and became so tense that at
last Jimmy looked round fully at her, wondering a little that she did
not speak. He saw that she stood with her head bowed; he did not know,
and did not even guess, that her tears were falling fast in the silence
of the room. He did not know, nor did he guess, that for one word of
tenderness or kindness in that hour she would have fallen before him,
and have kissed his feet.
"Well--you don't say anything," he said at last. "How is it to be?"
"There is no one in your life--no one to whom you might turn--at some
other time--if you were free?" she asked in a whisper, without raising
her head.
"There is no one," he replied. "You need not fear that."
"And you will take me--knowing what you know--and will give me your
name--just because of your promise to the man who is dead--just because
you--because you're my friend?"
"Yes." He looked at her steadily; he wondered a little that she should
take this matter in such a fashion.
"Then it shall be as you say," she whispered. "And thank you, Jimmy; I
think I know all that is in your mind; there is no one else would do so
much. Let me know what you want me to do--and when--and I will be ready.
And after that we live our lives as before--eh?"
"Exactly as before," he said; and saw himself going down the years with
this burden upon him--and bearing it cheerfully.
She said--"Thank you, Jimmy"--and turned away from him; she whispered it
quite humbly, without looking at him. When he would have taken her hand,
perhaps with the impulse to say some more kindly word, she shrank away
from him, and got to the door, and went out.
Jimmy, sitting alone, decided that the interview had not gone in any way
as he had intended.
CHAPTER III
TWO WAYS OF LOVE
It was on a morning of late summer that Jimmy, playing with that fire at
which he had, on occasion, warmed his hands for months past, set out to
see Alice. London, so far as he was concerned, was empty of people in
whom he was interested or who were interested in him; but he had
lingered in it, chiefly because Alice, on a whim, had decided to keep
the Baffalls and herself to their town house; and Jimmy, striding along
through the bright sunshine, thought over the months that had gone by,
and wondered a little where he stood, or what the future was to hold for
him. Almost on this bright morning he decided that there was mighty
little in life worth the grasping.
Yet Jimmy had not done badly; and in a future that was looming brightly
before him Jimmy was a marked man. For that one who was greater than the
now despised Bennett Godsby had paid Jimmy much money, and had
commissioned another play; and others were coming after Jimmy, and
seeking him out, and assuring him that he alone could "fit them"; a
phrase which meant, as Jimmy knew, the writing of a play in which, like
Bennett Godsby of old, they carried the thing on their shoulders. But
then Jimmy was getting used to the business. And Jimmy was passing
rich--for Jimmy, at least; and had changed his quarters long ago from
the dingy little rooms in the little turning off Holborn.
Casting his mind back over those months, Jimmy seemed to see all that
had happened; seemed to see also all that might have happened, had his
life been directed in other channels. On this bright morning, while the
sunlight lay upon the streets, he walked with the memory of another
morning strong upon him--a morning of rain and wind, when he had stood
in a draughty old church, hand in hand with the woman who was to be his
wife.
It had been the strangest wedding; so different from anything he had
imagined could ever happen to him; something with the shadow of the dead
over it--something that spoke of disaster. He remembered particularly
that the clergyman had seemed puzzled that two young people should stand
hand in hand like this, with such tragic faces; he had tried to improve
the occasion in more than ordinary fashion, with hopes of happiness and
what not; and had wondered that he could not move them. Jimmy,
remembering it all, wondered now that they were not moved to tears by
the irony of it.
For it had all been wrong--and unnatural. They had parted bravely
enough, as they had meant to do, at the church door, with the rain
beating upon them and the dreary wind whistling about them; and so had
gone their different ways. But the bitter tie that held them; the
knowledge that was between them that what had been done was done that
the world might be cheated of the truth; had been a greater barrier than
anything else could possibly have been. And there had sprung up between
them, curiously enough, a feud--a strange misunderstanding that never
could have arisen in any other circumstances.
It had begun with money matters. Jimmy, in the pride of his new wealth,
had sent money to Moira, telling her that he had a right to do so under
the circumstances; and that money had been returned, with a simple line
to the effect that she did not want it; she had plenty. He had kept a
strict account of it, because he meant some day to insist that she
should take it; but though he wrote again and again, he could not change
her resolution.
Then again, when once or twice he called at the house soon after the
marriage, she would not see him; sent Patience to him, with a message
that she was well, but could not meet him then. And there came a day
when, on going to the house, he was told that she and Patience had gone;
had given up the rooms completely, and had gone into the country.
Letters would be sent on, but the woman absolutely refused to tell him
their address, or to give him any clue that would enable him to find
them.
Then Jimmy wrote--quite a literary letter, in point of fact--setting out
with some pathos what he had done for her, and what he still hoped to
do. And a reply came--gentle and dignified and wonderful, had Jimmy but
been able to read between the lines--in which she acknowledged all that
he had done, and thanked him more than she could ever express. But she
reminded him that it had been the name only he had given; that she had
no part nor lot in his life. He must not misunderstand her, she had
pleaded; but her life was done and ended, so far as he was concerned;
she would live alone, grateful only for his name and the protection it
gave her. There was even a pretty womanly note, to the effect that she
was proud of that name, and glad to think that so many people must think
well of it and of its owner. And she was in all things his "grateful
Moira."
There had come that day when an old and grey-haired woman had found him
out in London, to tell him news he had been expecting, and yet had
thrust aside out of his mind. The grey-haired old woman was Patience;
and she brought news, tremblingly and yet happily, of the birth of a
child. Jimmy had listened, a little dazed; had heard that the baby girl
had the dark eyes of Moira herself, and that it was to be named after
her. And Patience, knowing what he had done, or guessing it (for no one
had ever told her the real truth of that matter, some part of which she
had overheard on a night on the stairs in the little house in Chelsea)
had wondered that he should say nothing about it, and should express no
wish to see Moira. Almost she could have worshipped him--this man who
had rescued her darling from a fate which seemed the worst that could
happen to any woman; yet she was afraid of him--afraid most of all of
his silence, and his refusal to say anything she might be longing to
hear. He had sent back a friendly message to Moira at the last; some day
he would come down and see her.
And that had led him quite naturally to get the address from Patience:
Patience glad enough to give it, because she hoped and prayed always in
her secret heart that old blunders might be forgotten, and that this man
and woman, already mated, might come together. But Jimmy merely put the
address among his papers, and decided to let matters alone. Resolutely
he closed that side of his life; hesitatingly and shamefacedly he turned
to the other and the brighter one.
He had said nothing of the matter to anyone; Moira was lost even to the
small world that had known her. If at times that shadow in the
background oppressed him, he let it remain a shadow only, and applied
himself more strongly to his work. Yet in that work had grown a
bitterness that, while it strengthened it, yet made it unlike anything
he had previously done.