which he once had hoped of standing before Alice, and letting her
understand what he had done, and how hopeless was any thought of any
love story between them. Yet, curiously enough, she had never given him
the opportunity. It had happened that the one man who had roused his
jealousy--Ashby Feak--had gone away to some extraordinary region with an
exploring party, leaving the field, as it seemed, to Jimmy; and Jimmy,
knowing that he must not speak, had been content to drift aimlessly,
seeing much of the girl, and becoming quite a recognised institution at
all times and seasons at the house of the Baffalls. So the mouths had
drifted on, and Jimmy had drifted with them. The tie that held him was
known only to himself, so far as his own world was concerned; he had
told no one. If at any time Moira's name was mentioned--and then
pityingly as someone submerged and quite beyond her reach--by Alice,
Jimmy quickly changed the subject, without saying anything definite
concerning that hidden wife of his. What was at the back of his mind he
never realised--never admitted even to himself; but he held that balance
steadily between the woman who attracted him and the woman to whom he
belonged.
So the long winter had gone by, and the spring had come; and now the
summer was fading fast into autumn. He carried in his mind, as he
walked, the recollection of many, many days when he and Alice had been
together--long quiet days on the river; cheery little dinners at hotels,
where they could chat quietly, and look out in the cool of the evening
over the silent river; there were fifty or more such occasions to be
remembered. And always she had been sweet and gracious and friendly; and
always she had been beautiful.
If he had remembered at any time the woman who bore his name, and who
had lived in shame and loneliness, he had remembered her only with
something akin to impatience. Once, as he walked now, it struck him with
a pang that on a night when he had sat at dinner with Alice, looking out
over the river, he had remembered Moira; had had a sudden mental picture
of her flashed into the very room in which he sat; a picture of her
seated in a black dress, with a little child in her arms; her head was
bent low over the child. The picture had faded in a moment, as he had
meant it should do, and he had looked swiftly at the bright smiling face
on the opposite side of the table; and so had forgotten the gloomier
vision more easily.
He came to the big house that was so familiar to him at last, and rang
the bell; he had a feeling as he did so that there was vaguely something
wrong--that he was to encounter something disagreeable. He understood
what it was when, on the door being opened, he saw a man's hat, with
gloves dangling out of it, and a light cane lying beside it on the
table. He knew to whom they belonged--guessed in a moment that Mr. Ashby
Feak had come back from that wild land into which he had gone, with a
halo of romance and adventure about him that must appeal at once to the
heart of the girl.
Ashby Feak greeted him cordially, and then resumed his conversation with
Alice. Jimmy noted, with a scowl, that Alice was listening intently, and
that her face was glowing with excitement. She turned to Jimmy to call
his attention to the wonderful tale then being related; Jimmy listened
indifferently; the thing was something absurd about a bear or two, with
a side reference to a snake bite which might have proved fatal; Jimmy
wondered bitterly why it had ever been asserted that snake bites were
invariably supposed to cause death.
He stayed but a little time; in spite of appealing looks from Alice,
which seemed to suggest that she was rapidly getting bored by Ashby
Feak's conversation, he rose to go. He had actually reached the hall
when she came running out after him, closing the door behind her.
"Jimmy, dear--what is the matter?" she asked in a quick whisper.
"Nothing--nothing at all," he replied savagely. "What should be the
matter?"
"I hate a jealous disposition," she whispered, with a pout. "I suppose
if a friend calls to see me I may just as well be civil to him. You'd
like to shut me up altogether--never let me see a soul--wouldn't you?"
"I would," said Jimmy gloomily. "And I wanted so much to see you to-day;
I had lots of things to talk about. We've had such a glorious time while
he's been away; now it's all ended."
"I'm glad to see him back alive, at any rate," replied the girl. "The
poor dear's had some narrow shaves."
"I wish they'd been narrower," muttered Jimmy. "Good-bye!"
"I can't let you go like this, Jimmy," she said, with the ready tears
springing to her blue eyes. "I shouldn't sleep all night--and I should
be a sight to-morrow. Won't you--won't you meet me somewhere--to-day, if
you like."
"Of course I will," exclaimed Jimmy quickly. "Let it be somewhere where
we can have a long talk together. Where shall it be?"
"The National Gallery--one of the middle rooms to the left--three
o'clock," breathed Alice, with the air of an expert; and was gone. Jimmy
went away happy.
At the National Gallery that afternoon he felt he was an object of
suspicion to the officials on duty for a good hour; for of course he was
too early, and equally of course she was too late. But she came at last,
just as he had almost determined that he would go home, and would write
her a cutting letter that should give her to understand that he was not
to be played with; and his anger was gone in a moment. Ashby Feak had
stayed to lunch, and had, she averred, given her a headache. "Some
people would keep on talking about themselves, but now she would at last
have a rest." They found a seat near that most restful of pictures--poor
Fred Walker's "Harbour of Refuge"--and it fell about that Jimmy, when
not looking at the girl, had his eyes fixed on the fine strong figure of
the woman upon whom the elder one leans in the picture--that splendid
symbol of all that is beautiful and wonderful in duty beautifully and
wonderfully performed. It stirred something in him--woke now and then a
fleeting thought of the woman who had never complained--the woman who
had been grateful even to tears for what he had done. Meanwhile the
butterfly beside him, stifling a yawn prettily, was chattering.
"I'm sure I can't think why you should be so horrid about things, Jimmy.
I'm sure I've been a perfect angel all these months to you; there are
times when I've been kinder to you than I am even to poor old Uncle
Baffall; the only difference is that I haven't kissed you as I do Uncle
Baffall, although with him it's only just on his forehead night and
morning, and he generally rubs the place afterwards; I've seen him do
it. Not that you'd wish me to kiss you, I'm sure--as we're only friends.
A girl in my position must expect, I suppose, to have all sorts of
people coming after her; and I'm sure there are not half so many in my
case as in dozens and dozens of other girls. I could tell you things
about the shocking way some of 'em carry on that would make you write
different sorts of stories. And as for Mr. Ashby Feak, if he's fond of
me, poor dear----"
"Don't call him 'poor dear'!" snapped Jimmy quickly.
"I only do it to you--and perhaps to myself," said Alice. "He tells me
that all the time he was out there, mixed up with the bears and things,
and hearing them hoot at night--(at least, I'm not sure if it was the
bears--but something hooted)--all that time he thought of me in the most
extraordinary way; it was quite touching. I think it was quite noble of
him, considering how much he had to do."
"What are you going to do about him?" asked Jimmy, after a pause.
"I don't know, I'm sure," she replied, "Of course, he's not said
anything yet; he's only hinted. I suppose I owe him some return for
having thought about me like that; it wouldn't be fair to let him do all
that for nothing. Of course, I don't--I don't exactly like him;
although, of course, I was very glad to see him; but I shall have to
marry somebody--some day."
Jimmy looked morosely at the figure in the picture; it was no longer
beautiful in his eyes. He thought bitterly of Moira and of the child; he
saw this bright and radiant figure at his side drifting away from him,
and going to some other man. It was cruel--it was wrong; there must be
some way by which he could at least hold her--some way in which he might
free himself.
Perhaps the most curious thing was that he had no intention at the time
of telling her; he did not mean, as he had once meant, to stand before
her an heroic, self-sacrificing figure; he wanted her, and not her
worship, now. The object in his mind was to keep her away from Ashby
Feak, and from all others, until such time as by some impossible means
he should be free.
"Alice," he said at last, turning towards her, and so setting his back
to the picture--"you don't love this man Feak?"
"Oh--I don't know," she retorted, with a shrug of her shoulders. "He's
very nice--and he's brave--and I think he loves me. What more would
anyone ask?"
"Alice--have you any love for me--real love, I mean--not this empty
thing called friendship?"
"Jimmy!" It was of course what she had seemed to see trembling on his
lips a score of times; she had had a thought, in fact, that it might be
said this very afternoon; but she was very properly astonished for all
that.
"I mean it," he said. "I love you as I love no one else on earth;
there's no one like you anywhere--no one who understands me so
perfectly as you do--no one who could help me with my work as you are
able to help me. I love you."
She sat in a pensive attitude, with her eyes upon the floor; when she
spoke she did not look at him, but he was satisfied by the tenderness of
her tones and the light blush she had been able to call to the aid of
the situation, that he need fear no Ashby Feak. Keeping his back
resolutely to that figure in the picture, and so shutting out all that
was difficult and impossible, he took her hand a little shamefacedly,
noting as he did so that she was careful to look round to see that they
were not observed.
"Of course I always felt, Jimmy, that you did care for me; something in
your manner seemed to suggest it," she whispered. "Also I think Aunt
Baffall and Uncle Baffall have thought so too--although anything they
said would make not the slightest difference to me. I love them, and all
that kind of thing; but there's the end of it. As for Ashby Feak--well,
he's very nice as a friend--and I've felt a little sorry for him; but
anything else, Jimmy dear, was absolutely out of the question. And I
must say that whatever happens I feel easier in my mind about
everything."
"There's one thing, Alice," said Jimmy, a little lamely--"one thing
that's rather important. I haven't mentioned it before, and it is a
matter about which you'll have to trust me. Love means trust and
confidence, you know--and I've got a secret that I must keep even from
you."
She looked at him quickly and eagerly; he avoided her eyes. "It's
nothing awful--is it?" she asked.
"Nothing at all awful," replied Jimmy casually. "It simply means
that--well--for a time you would have--we should have, I mean--to
wait--to be true to each other, knowing that things will come right in
the future. You would have to take my hands in yours, in a manner of
speaking, and to say that you trusted me; to walk blindly with me.
Afterwards I should be able to tell you why I had kept you and myself
waiting. But not yet."
"Yes, Jimmy--that sounds very nice," replied Alice, a little doubtfully.
"Of course I'm not in any desperate hurry to get married--or--or
anything of that sort; but why should we have to wait? If it's money,
Aunt and Uncle Baffall are sure to be awfully good to me--and you're
becoming a greater man every day. _Do_ tell me what it is, Jimmy? I
won't breathe it to a living soul. Please, Jimmy dear?"
"It is impossible," replied Jimmy dramatically. "The difficulty--the
secret difficulty--may be got rid of--sooner, in fact, than I imagine.
But you must trust me. Surely, if you love me, there should be no
difficulty about that."
"Very well," said Alice after a pause. "It certainly sounds a little
romantic--and I love romance. And now, I suppose"--she glanced quickly
round the room, and then turned to him--"now, I suppose, we may consider
ourselves--what's the horrid word?"
"Engaged," said Jimmy, with a smile, but with secret misgiving.
Thus it happened that for a week or two Jimmy went to the house in a new
character; and Ashby Feak came no more. The Baffalls made no secret of
their delight; indeed, Mrs. Baffall said, more than once, that she had
"seen it coming for ages." And Jimmy, though very much in love, and
though telling himself again and again that it would all come right, and
that in some fashion or other the tangle could be smoothed out, yet went
to the house like a thief--even looking about him with the needless fear
that he might be watched. And now more than ever the quiet figure of the
woman in black, with her dark head bent over a sleeping child, was with
him; it sprang, indeed, between him and Alice when he would sometimes
have taken her into his arms.
It was on a night when his misgivings had been deeper than usual, and
when he had walked the streets for an hour or more, fighting out the
problem for himself, and finding no answer, that he went back to his new
rooms, to be told by the porter that a lady had come to see him, and had
been shown up. She would not give a name; but she wanted to see Mr.
Larrance particularly, and would wait. Mr. Larrance was an old friend,
she had said.
Jimmy climbed the stairs, wondering a little who could have called at
such an hour.
He went in a little eagerly; although he had left her but an hour or two
before, there was the vague possibility in his mind that this might be
Alice. Always expecting something to happen that should show him a way
out of the tangle, or increase it--for ever dreading that Alice should
confront him with a full knowledge of all the circumstances--he felt,
even as he mounted the stairs, that someone might have been to her, and
might have told her; and that here she was, hot and indignant, to tax
him with what he had done.
He opened the outer door, and went in. His visitor rose from a chair in
which she had been seated, and came towards him; it was Moira. And in
that moment--in the mere flash of a second, as it seemed--he saw with
something of astonishment that her hands were held out towards him, and
that she was smiling. So quick was it, that when, a moment later
(perhaps at sight of something in his face, or some gesture, half of
repulsion), she dropped her hands, and the smile faded from her eyes, he
could almost have sworn that she had not moved at all.
"You didn't mind my waiting--Jimmy," she said, a little hesitatingly.
"I wanted so much to see you--and it doesn't matter--with us--does it?"
"What doesn't matter?" he asked dully.
"My coming to see you--so late," she replied; and again he thought that
there was a tremor in her voice, and again it seemed almost as though
she would have stretched out her hands towards him. She stood still,
nervously clasping them together, her eyes devouring his face.
"Won't you sit down?" he asked, in a more kindly tone, as he moved a
chair for her. She seated herself, and he crossed the room and looked
out of the window; his back was almost turned towards her. "What can I
do for you?"
"I have not seen you, Jimmy, since--since our marriage day," she said at
last, in a low voice. "That--that seems funny--doesn't it; but then, of
course--everything is different--isn't it?"
"Of course," he replied. "How have you got on--and how are you living?"
"Very quietly; it is a little place--a mere tiny cottage, far away from
everyone; and Patience and I have spent a lot of time out of doors
lately. Patience tells me I have roses coming in my cheeks for the first
time in my life. That seems strange, too--doesn't it? But then, of
course, I'm very happy."
"I'm glad to know that," he forced himself to say.
"Very happy indeed. There is--there's the child; such a lot to do for
her. You don't ask about the child, Jimmy?"
"You are going to tell me about her," he said more gently.
She laughed softly, and leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees and
her hands clasped; she seemed to be looking far away beyond him. "I
think she's the prettiest baby in all the world, Jimmy," she said. "When
I wake up in the morning she is there to smile at me; and that begins
the day so well, you know. Sometimes she wakes me; a little soft hand
digging at me, and trying to open my eyes. I woke in a fright the other
night, dreaming that I had lost her; I was almost mad for a moment; I
cried out in the darkness; I called on God. And there she was, when the
dream had got out of my brain, lying soft and rosy and well beside me.
She has dark eyes--like mine; and little hands that double just round
one's finger, and hold it. I could sit all day with her holding me like
that. But there"--she laughed again, and sat upright--"I'm boring you
with all this that means so much to me--aren't I?"
"Oh--no," he replied. "I am--glad to know that you are so happy; I had
thought it might be otherwise. Why did you send back the money?"
"I did not need it," she replied. "Our wants are so few, Jimmy--just the
tiny house, and the garden--and the baby; I never thought I could be so
happy."
"You were very unhappy when I saw you last," he reminded her.
"I've tried to forget--I've almost succeeded," she whispered, with her
head bent. "Other thoughts have come to me as time has gone on--thoughts
that seemed to grow first when I knew that the child was to be born. I
could not tell you what they were, Jimmy; they were wonderful holy
thoughts, that came most to me at night; they made everything that had
happened seem so poor and so paltry." She sat for a minute or two in
silence, and then got up hastily. "Well--I must say good night, Jimmy; I
only waited to see you--just for a minute."
"You're not going back to the country to-night?" he said, holding her
hand for a moment.
"No--we are staying to-night in London, at the house of a friend of
Patience. Patience is looking after little Moira till I get back; so you
see I must hurry. It would be dreadful if she woke and called to me,
and I wasn't there--wouldn't it?" She laughed again, in that quick
nervous fashion of hers, and drew away her hand gently.
"You must let me put you in a cab, at any rate," he said, moving towards
the door. But she stopped him.
"It is only a little way, and I shall walk," she said. "I couldn't sit
still in any vehicle, however fast; I shall almost run to see her.
Good-bye, Jimmy; thank you for this long talk we've had. While I was
waiting for you I looked all round your rooms--just peeped at
everything, you know; I want to carry away the recollection of them in
my mind. I shall tell the child in a whisper where you live, and what it
looks like--and what a lot of books there are. Now I'm getting silly
again--so I'll go."
She was moving towards the door, with yet some hesitation in her
manner--some reluctance at going so abruptly--when there came a sharp
knock on the outer door. She drew back, and glanced at Jimmy.
"Someone to see me, I expect--or it may be a message," he said. "Wait
one moment, please."
Moira drew back into the room at his bidding. Jimmy strode through the
little lobby outside, and opened the door. Ashby Feak stood there,
lounging against the side of the doorway, with his hands thrust into his
pockets; he nodded coolly, and made a movement to come in. But Jimmy
barred the way.
"I'm sorry, Feak," he exclaimed quickly--"but you can't come in now;
I--I'm busy. What do you want?"
"I want to have a bit of a talk with you," replied Ashby Feak--"and I
mean to have it, if I wait here all night. Five minutes will do--or
perhaps less; but it's rather important."
As Jimmy in some dismay fell back before him, the man strode through the
lobby, and into the room. He stopped short on seeing Moira standing
there; glanced quickly round at Jimmy, who had followed.
"I beg your pardon," said Ashby Feak slowly, with a glance from one to
the other--"I did not know you were engaged; you said you were busy.
What I have to say----"
Moira broke in quickly. "I was just going. I need not stay a moment.
Good-night, Jimmy dear."
The last words were said in a lower tone as she crossed the room to
where Jimmy stood; but Ashby Feak heard them; he started, and turned
swiftly.
"'Jimmy dear'?" He looked from one to the other with a growing smile on
his face. "Won't you introduce me, Larrance?" he asked at last.
"No; this lady is nothing to you," said Jimmy, in a low voice. "Stand
aside, please; she is just going."
"She is not going," exclaimed Feak--"not until I know who she is. You
know why I ask the question; I am not going to drag in names, especially
of women--but this is more than life or death to me. Now, madam--perhaps
you'll answer for yourself. Who are you?"
Bewildered, she looked at him for a moment, and then glanced at Jimmy as
if for permission; he slowly bowed his head. "I am Mr. Larrance's wife,"
she said.
Jimmy put up a hand quickly as Ashby Feak would have spoken. "It's quite
true; you need not say anything, and I am not going to explain. This
leaves you free of course; I will write a letter to-night, putting
myself right in that quarter. Good night!"
Ashby Feak, with a nod and a shrug of the shoulders, went out; they
heard the door slam behind him. Jimmy moved slowly across to the window,
without looking at Moira at all; she was watching him intently. After a
pause, in which it seemed that they could hear their very hearts beat,
she whispered a question:
"Jimmy--is there someone else?" He did not reply. "Someone else you
love, I mean?"
He did not look round at her; he stared down into the dark street below.
Across it a man was going hurriedly, and he was going in one
direction--straight to Alice.
"Yes," he said at last, in a heavy tone--"there is someone else."
CHAPTER IV
THE LONG NIGHT
Much in the fashion of a bear that has hibernated through a long
winter, and has come out lean and hungry into the warmth and brightness
of the new summer--so Anthony Ditchburn crawled out of his mean
lodging one sunny morning, and looked about him. He was a frowsy,
unwholesome-looking bear at the best, and he blinked at the sunshine,
basking a little in it with some faint show of pleasure, and facing life
again with some show of hope.
Exactly how he had lived during the winter he did not know; it had been
a matter of crouching over fires in mean kitchens of lodging
houses--sometimes cooking poor food for himself, and sometimes begging
it, already cooked, from others; a mean, scraping, starveling existence,
going on from day to day. Some part of it had been spent in an
infirmary, where he had given much trouble, and had lectured the doctors
and nurses cantankerously about his own case and his own symptoms; they
had been rather glad to get rid of him. Now, with the sun warming his
veins, and putting some strength into his shrunken limbs, he cast about
in his mind for someone to whom he could appeal.
A pathetic letter from him had reached Patience in the country; the old
woman had been careful to reply, although, somewhat to his disgust, she
had merely expressed sorrow for his difficulties, but had sent no
money. Finding the letter now, after searching his pockets carefully, he
discovered that the address of the place was a comparatively short
distance from London; and, the country appealing to him on this bright
day, and the chance of free lodging appealing even more strongly, he
determined to make his way there. The shiftless life he had led had
taught him to make the most of small opportunities; he knew that he
might count on a lift in a cart now and then, and might even beg a
little on the way, so low had he sunk.
Behold him, therefore, once more stirring in our story--creeping into
it, as it were, with no thought of harm, and with only the desire for
food and to shelter himself. See him going on his way, counting small
possibilities in his mind, and wondering if by chance he might be able
to quarter himself upon the two women for some indefinite period.
Drivers proved obdurate, and he got but few lifts upon the road; more
than that, the begging was not a success, and he spent one night asleep
under a hedge, cursing the stars that shone down upon him and the wind
that ruffled his garments. But he went on hopefully, and came at last to
the place to which Moira had retreated, and where she lived with old
Patience and with the child.
Then it was that Anthony Ditchburn threw himself, with something of
zeal, into what appeared to be a curious story. For he was informed
merely that Moira was married, and that this was her child; he heard
with astonishment that her husband was that Jimmy Larrance who had done
great things in London, and who was reputed to be well-to-do. He
questioned Patience artfully, but got no nearer to the real heart of the
mystery.
They were good friends, he was told; but they preferred to live apart.
Yes--Moira was perfectly happy; but they did not see anything of each
other, and Jimmy had never been down to the place at all. More than
that, they did not expect to see him there. The child, Anthony Ditchburn
was told, was more than a year old.
They did not exactly welcome him; but he was by this time an adept in
the art of forcing himself upon the unwary, and refusing to be got rid
of. There was a small odd room in the house that had in it some old
boxes and trunks; and out of these and some rugs and blankets he
contrived a bed without their knowledge; and was actually discovered
asleep there late at night. And there he camped for a week by night, and
shamelessly lived upon them by day.
Also, he made discoveries which might in the future prove useful to
himself. Creeping about in a noiseless fashion he had, he came upon
Moira and the child more than once in the garden, and listened to what
she said; saw her in tears, and saved up that picture in his mind for
future use. He meant to turn everything to account; he was presently to
visit a certain Mr. James Larrance in London, and to wring his heart
(and incidentally his purse) with harrowing tales of a devoted woman,
neglected and pining for love; of a child that was being taught to
prattle his name.
He made other discoveries too. He found that at a certain still hour of
the afternoon, when the child slept, and when old Patience nodded in a
shadowy corner of a darkened room, Moira stole out into the garden
carrying with her a worn, old writing-case, and that she wrote steadily
for quite a long time. And while she wrote she smiled always; the tears
were not for that time.
Yet the strange thing was that no letters were ever posted. The post
office was quite a long way off, and Anthony more than once proffered
his services; but he was smilingly told that there were no letters to
go. Yet he certainly saw envelopes; concealing himself in the garden one
afternoon, like the base unnatural creature he was, he saw without a
blush that she kissed a letter she had put into an envelope and sealed
and addressed. That evening he alluded pointedly to the carelessness of
people who omitted to post letters, and even told a lengthy anecdote
concerning a college friend of his who had lost a valuable appointment
by missing a mail; but Moira only smiled and said nothing.
Then he set himself to watch more carefully, and he found that the
letters were kept in an old box which stood under a table in the little
sitting-room, and that the old box was not locked. Patience not being
devoured by curiosity, and the baby taking no interest in such matters,
it had not occurred to Moira to put these things away more securely; so
that they were at Anthony's mercy. He slipped his shoes one night, and
crept down into the room; and went on his knees before the old box, and
opened it.
He took out a bundle of letters; noted that each envelope was addressed
carefully to "James Larrance, Esq." He noted also that in the bottom of
the box were some small garments, delicately made, for the child--mere
baby garments. He turned them over ruthlessly in his search for other
letters, but found none. He took all the underneath letters from the
packet, and deftly arranged the box again so that it should not seem
that they were gone--leaving a few of the more recent ones with the
garments. Then he closed the box, and crept back to his room.
He felt that he held in his hands material which should indirectly bring
him money. He saw a curious romance here, with misunderstandings marring
it; two young people separated--and the woman writing to the man, and
yet feeling too proud or too much afraid to post the letters. Anthony
Ditchburn had no ideas at all regarding the beauty of any such possible
story; nor was he working for the good of either side directly. He saw
only that they might--young fools that they were!--be brought to some
understanding which should make them feel that Anthony Ditchburn was a
man to be rewarded. He decided that he would go back to London next day,
and would seek out Jimmy; would bring him to his senses, as it were,
with a blow from this most powerful weapon; and would then claim his
reward afterwards. He slept well, and woke with that determination more
strongly in his mind in the morning.
Not daring to approach Patience for necessary money to return to London
(for this was a time for haste, and no mere walking methods would
serve), he decided that he would get something from Moira; that was
legitimate, because, in a sense, he was working for her, and for her
future happiness. He waited until he could find her alone in the garden;
he pitched a tale of a sudden chance that had come to him in London--a
chance for honest work not to be missed. She, for her part, saw only a
chance of getting rid of a disagreeable tenant cheaply; she gave him the
money at once.
He got back to London, but did not go at once in search of Jimmy; with
the little extra money in his pocket, and with the certainty, as he
felt, of much more to follow, he determined that he would find a
comfortable spot wherein to smoke many pipes, and to drink strong
waters, and to while away an hour or two. So that it was quite late in
the afternoon when he got to Jimmy's rooms.
The porter told him, with a strange sort of shrug, that Mr. Larrance was
at home; it seemed, as the man somewhat disdainfully put it, that Mr.
Larrance was generally at home. Not understanding, Anthony Ditchburn
climbed the stairs, and knocked at the door; after an extraordinary
delay the door was opened, and Jimmy stood there, blinking out at him.
A new Jimmy. A Jimmy with no smartness about him, as it seemed in that
first casual glance--a reckless-looking Jimmy, with unkempt hair and
unbrushed clothes; moreover, a Jimmy who swayed a little as he stood.
"Good-afternoon, my dear friend," said Anthony, hesitating on the
landing. "It is long since I have seen you. I trust you are well."
"No--I'm not; but that doesn't concern you," retorted Jimmy. "You can
come in if you like."
It seemed a new sort of room to which Anthony was introduced--not the
old hard-working place he had known before. The desk was an untidy
wilderness of papers--and yet not the untidy wilderness of the man who
works. This was the room of a drone; of a man who slept the days away,
and had no future to look to. Anthony Ditchburn saw more than ever, as
he thought, that this was an unhappy story which he was to set right; on
the one side of the picture--the woman who wept, and who wrote letters
that were never sent; on the other side--the man who sat here, gloomy
and miserable, and probably longing for the woman he loved and was too
proud to approach. This was going to be quite an easy matter, Anthony
thought--and the easy reward to follow.
Jimmy had gone back into his rooms, and had dropped in a listless
attitude into a chair. Anthony Ditchburn, glancing about, saw a bottle
and glass on the table, and smacked his lips audibly. The younger man
turned towards him, and after looking at him sourly for a moment, nodded
at the bottle.
"You'll find a glass over there; help yourself," he said.
Anthony lost no time in doing so; he mixed a generous measure, and
raised his glass to his host. "To your good fortune!" he exclaimed.
Jimmy laughed bitterly; then went to the table and mixed for himself.
"Good fortune?" he said, as he drank; "my good fortune has gone long
ago. You don't know what you're talking about, Ditchburn, when you talk
so glibly of good fortune. I was lucky once," he went on more excitedly,
and seeming scarcely to realise to whom he talked, so that he might have
a listener. "I had the world at my feet; I was envied by everyone; the
game was in my hands. Look at me now!"
He spread out his hands and looked about him; his eyes were bloodshot
and savage. Tears of bitterness sprang into them now, and he turned away
his head. Mr. Anthony Ditchburn, feeling that the right moment had
arrived, began warily to unfold his delicate plot.
"I have had the pleasure, during the past few days, of seeing Mrs.
Larrance--your wife," he said. "Sweet girl--I wish I could have seen her
happier!"
He stopped on glancing at Jimmy; the young man's eyes were deadly. "So
you come from her--do you?" he asked; then, without giving Anthony time
to reply, he went on more quickly: "You bring something of a message
from her, I suppose? I don't want to hear it; I won't hear it."
Anthony Ditchburn, somewhat taken aback, hesitatingly drew the packet
from his pocket, and held it out. "I bring no actual message from her,"
he began; "but I have some letters here----"
"I won't read them."
"Letters which were never intended to be sent, I believe; quite a number
of them--all addressed to you. I saw her weeping once when she
mentioned your name to the child; I was quite moved, I assure you."
"Why did you bring them to me?" asked Jimmy. "They are nothing to me."
Anthony Ditchburn cleared his throat for an oration "I bring them," he
said, "in the faint hope that it may be my privilege to bring together
two young people who are most unhappily estranged. I am an old man, and
the world has not used me well; but I would like to think"--Anthony got
out a doubtful handkerchief, and dabbed at his eyes--"I would really
like to think, as I go down the desolate hill of life, that I have done
such a thing as this. You live apart--why? You refuse to see her--again,
why?"
"Give me the letters." Jimmy held out his hand for them; snatched them
from the hand of the old man, and flung them into a corner. "Sit down,"
he said roughly, "and listen to what I have to say."
Again it seemed as though he must talk to someone; again it seemed that
this old man, derelict though he was, would serve as well as any other.
Ditchburn was not particularly interested, because he saw, in the
attitude of the younger man, his own chances slipping away; this was not
the man who would be likely to reward the ambassador in such a business
as this. But he sat down, and listened with something of an air of
attention; also, he seized the opportunity to replenish his glass.
"I was a happy man before I married--before I was tricked into
marriage," he said. "I might have married in such a fashion as would
have gained for me a real helpmate; someone who understood me--someone
who would have lifted me up--inspired me. But circumstances I can't
explain prevented that; she went (I mean the woman I really loved) into
the arms of another man. They were married last week, and that finished
me--did for me completely."
"There seems to have been a blunder somewhere certainly," broke in
Anthony, a little helplessly.
"Blunder? I should think there has been a blunder," cried Jimmy, with a
laugh. "I set out so well; I meant to do such big things; and here, for
ever hung round my neck like a millstone, are a wife and child who are
nothing to me, and can be nothing. She drags me down, and keeps me down;
my work is not what it was; it will never be anything again. I can't
write; I can't think; I fly to that"--he flung out a hand towards the
bottle on the table--"and so get some relief. That's poor Jimmy
Larrance--who married a woman out of pity!"
Anthony Ditchburn coughed again, and shook his head; it seemed the only
thing he could do. "Sad--inexpressibly sad," he murmured.
"Sad, indeed," said Jimmy. "But what does it matter? Already people are
beginning to say that the work I've done lately--such as it is--isn't
what it was; the grip has gone out of it. They begin to hint at failure;
and you know how I started a year or two ago--eh?"
"I know--I remember well," murmured Anthony, with another melancholy
shake of the head.
"Exactly; even you can be sorry for me. Take another drink; it's the
best stuff in the world for a heartache--the best medicine for a
failure. You're a failure--aren't you, old Ditchburn; and I'm another;
we can shake hands on that!"
Anthony Ditchburn went away that evening--a little unsteadily as to the
stairs--but the richer by five pounds. Here was a gold mine indeed; here
was a man who, kept in a proper condition of insobriety, might spell
luxury for Anthony Ditchburn for some time to come. Only one regret the
old man had; that he had given up the letters; he might have done
something better with those in the future.
Let it not be supposed for a moment that this attitude on the part of
Jimmy had been a mere thing of a moment; it had been steadily growing.
He was of that temperament that must brood, and he had had loneliness
enough wherein to brood. It had begun on a particular day when Alice had
come to him, to demand weakly and tearfully the meaning of a certain
letter he had sent her.
He had had to tell her something; he had told her but half. To his
credit let it be put that he breathed no word against Moira; it had
merely been a mistaken marriage, and they had separated immediately. To
his credit, also, be it written that on reflection he decided not to
pose in any heroic attitude before Alice; simply as the pathetic victim
of a blunder. He had not loved Moira, he had said; he had felt pity for
her loneliness, and had married her; that was all. And he remembered now
the tears in the blue eyes, and the pathetic quiver in the voice, what
time Alice had told him that her heart was breaking.
Nevertheless, she had seen Ashby Feak for a few moments that night, and
Ashby Feak had had the good sense not to press his claims at that time.
A day or two later he had met her, apparently by chance, and from that
time all was smooth sailing. She had written a letter to Jimmy--the
letter of an old friend, who dwelt upon the past, but must make the best
of the present; and she had spoken with tenderness of the great kindness
of Mr. Ashby Feak. And after that--with a decent interval--the wedding.
Once or twice, in that time of his great loneliness, Jimmy had tried to
work; had set himself resolutely to it, determining that he would show
everyone the stuff that was in him. But always before him rose two
pictures--the one of the woman he believed he loved, and whom he had
last seen with tears in her blue eyes; the other of the woman to whom he
was tied, living her life quietly and happily, as he believed, in the
country. And at the thought of those two pictures the pen fell from his
hand, and he sought the old consolation.
There cannot be set down here all the incidents of that time--all the
slow processes of neglect and carelessness--all the constant telling
himself, day after day, that there was nothing for which he need strive.
Only in the course of many months certain pictures stand out, and may be
recorded.
A day that arrived when, out of some curious hazy dream, he woke to find
that he had no money--or, at best, not sufficient for the demands upon
him. Which, in process of time, led to his abandonment of those
comfortable rooms of his, and a return to something like those he had
once occupied in a small court in the neighbourhood of Holborn. That was
necessary, for economic reasons; but it did but add to his bitterness
against what he regarded as the cause of it all.
Another day--set much further on in the record--when a play that had
been commissioned, and of which he had had great hopes, was curtly
returned to him, with the intimation that he had failed to work out his
own idea at all adequately; in a savage temper he ripped the pages
across and across, and flung them on the fire.
A day when he woke out of black night, as it were, and saw in his own
diseased and tortured mind a swift and sudden ending to his troubles.
Somewhere down in the quiet and peaceful country there was a smiling,
happy, contented woman, with a child that was not his, and that woman
was the very root of all his troubles; but for her he would have been a
great man. There might be an end; some dream that had belonged to the
black night suggested what that end should be. He would go down and see
her.
In some blind, stumbling, halting fashion he got to the place; was
turned back, again and again, on his way by one circumstance and
another; finally, only reaching her late at night. And then a savage
Jimmy--hungry and forlorn--but with a purpose staring out of his
bloodshot eyes. That picture had been a horrible one, but he remembered
it often and often.
After endless journeyings, he seemed to have found himself alone in a
room with her. It seemed a pretty room, with dainty things about it such
as might properly indicate the presence of a dainty woman. He remembered
that she had come down from some upper room, singing; remembered that
she had stopped at sight of him as she came in; and yet had spoken
calmly and gently to him, while her dark eyes were fixed on his.
There had been no word of reproach from her, in spite of all he had
said. His words had stung and lashed her; he had not spared her; he had
set the thing fully and brutally before her. She was dragging him down;
she and the child were a burden upon him. He had stretched out
passionate hands to call attention to himself; had begged bitterly that
she would note the change in him; and then had cursed her for the cause
of it all. And she had looked at him, white faced but dry eyed, and had
told him that he did not mean what he said.
"I mean to find some way of escape--or you shall find one," he had said,
speaking as it seemed words that he remembered had come out of the black
night through which he had passed to this hour. "There must be a way;
there shall be a way. What are you to me? In all your life has there
been no man you have loved?"
Her unfaltering gaze did not change even at that; only her face flushed
a little. "Yes, Jimmy," she had said in a whisper; and still he had not
understood.
The end of that picture seemed to be, so far as he could remember, that
she stood straight and firm and fine before him, and that he had her
horribly by the throat. And still her eyes burnt into his; and still,
while he muttered that there was a way, and that this might be the way,
and that he could kill her, she looked steadily at him, and smiled.
"Yes--kill me," she had breathed; "I shall not flinch from you. That
might be the best thing, after all--at your hands."
And he had got away, and had gone out into the darkness; with a notion
in his head that she was calling after him as he ran and stumbled to get
away from the house.
Then black darkness again--a darkness through which figures flitted here
and there; and men came, and talked to him, and left him; men who
laughed, or men who drank, or men who clapped him on the shoulder, and
strove to advise him. And then all the figures merging impossibly, as it
seemed, into the one figure of Moira. Moira flitting about his rooms,
softly putting things straight; Moira, with grave eyes, looking into
his, and with lips that smiled. And for a time that dream did not fade.
Curiously, too, it seemed good and restful to have her there; broken
thing though he was, he yet was able to realise that. Not that he could
tell exactly from whence she came, or where she went when each day was
ended; sufficient for him then that she was there; that he heard her
voice speaking to him; that he could watch her moving about the room.
And gradually, as he came to realise what he was, and what he had been,
and how low he had fallen, a great shame came upon him that she should
see him like this. And it was part of the dream--almost the waking part
of it--that he should strive to tell her so; and that she, with a cry,
should take him for the first time in her arms, and hide his face upon
her breast and soothe him as she might have soothed a child. And from
that dream he woke to find her gone.
But she came again--and it was to find a Jimmy changed, by some curious
process, in her absence. Some of the bitterness remained; but here was a
man who looked out with eyes that had some eagerness in them in search
for the better things he had left behind so long. Presently, on an
impulse, he began to talk to her about that long neglected work; began
to discuss, half to himself and half to her, some point in it that had
baffled him. Found himself presently, indeed, talking eagerly about it,
while she sat on the opposite side of the fireplace with her chin
propped in her hands, and with her eyes upon his, listening--suggesting!
From that it was but a step to his desk--with a flying pen for music to
her ears. She had sent him there; she saw the old eager light in the
tired eyes and in the worn face; she answered quickly when he spoke, or
when he read a phrase to her. She sat there--eager, alert, and
ready--while the night wore itself away, and while he wrote. And in her
heart a song to match the flying pen.
The long night was ended, and the blessed dawn had come. When presently
the pen ceased, while his lamp died out beside him, and his head lay
upon his work where he slept, she stole softly from the room, and went
away. For she knew that she had won.
CHAPTER V
"IF I MIGHT DIE!"
She was gone, but the spirit of her remained. Never again could he shame
himself as he had done before; always it seemed that her presence was in
the room; if his pen dropped from his hand, it was only that it might
be caught up again at the remembrance of her eager face when she had
urged him to work.
Not that the victory was gained in a moment. There were times when he
went back; times when, had he but recognised it, he needed her. He was
still resentful, in a sense; still felt, in fact, that what she had done
had been but something of a repayment for what he had done for her; more
than that, despite himself, he resented the fact that she had seen him
in such a condition, and had been able to help him. Yet, on the other
hand, that, in a zig-zag fashion, brought about in him a determination
to work--if only to show her that he could work without her direct aid.
She came again; and then a more generous mood was on him that urged him
half-shamefacedly to thank her. She came in brightly and yet
hesitatingly, as though not certain what she would find; relief was in
her face in an instant when she saw the difference in him. So for a
moment they looked at each other, with the gulf that had narrowed for a
time between them widening again.
"It's all right, you see," said Jimmy after a moment or two, and without
turning his head to look at her. "I've pulled straight; I'm working hard
once more."
"Of course--I knew you would, Jimmy," she replied.
"I'm not going to apologise--or make excuses----"
"Oh--please!" She held out hands of entreaty towards him.
"Things went all wrong with me; they'd have been worse but for you. I
don't know what you found me like"--the words were hard to say, but he
spoke them doggedly--"I only know how you left me. And I've done lots of
work--good work, too--since then, Moira."
"Oh, I'm glad," she said shyly. "And I didn't do anything--not any more
than another might have done."
He paced up and down the room for a moment or two, with bent head; then
began to talk as though he had some difficulty in saying what he had
determined to say--as though it were forced from him in a measure. She
stood straight and slim and tall, looking at him; for a time, after he
had finished speaking, she did not reply.
"The new play's all right, I believe; at any rate my man says so, and
backs his opinion with money. Things seem to be going better with
me--since--since you came to me. It's been a bit of a muddle, I know,
old lady; but I like to treat people as people treat me; and you've been
the one that has behaved well to me--the only one that hasn't deserted
me. The pity and the tragedy of it is that you and I are just two lonely
people--not loving anyone very much--and yet forced to remain lonely.
I've been thinking about it rather carefully, Moira, from a practical
common-sense point of view, and I don't see why we shouldn't cheat Fate,
in a manner of speaking, and come together. I'm not speaking on the
impulse of the moment. I'm simply saying what I've thought about very
carefully. We're married; you're Mrs. James Larrance; and I've no doubt
the child is a sweet little thing; we'll bring her up nicely. There'll
be plenty of money, and we shall live where you like. What do you think
of it?"
"No, Jimmy," she said at last; and he thought he had never heard her
speak in so quietly determined a voice before. "When you kept faith with
Charlie, and saved me and the child from shame, I asked nothing of
you--not even money--nothing but just the name the world demands. You
gave me that; I have blessed you on my knees many and many a time; but I
want nothing more. I helped you a little, perhaps, as I might have
helped any other dear friend; but I will not go even to your arms,
Jimmy, for pity. You do not love me; the thing would be a mockery. We
can at least keep our self-respect, each of us; in the years that are
coming we can look at each other with friendly eyes, and live our own
lives--apart. I speak with no bitterness, Jimmy dear! in my heart I am
very, very grateful. But I will live with my child alone."
"Of course I understand that anyone of so strong a nature as you must
find it hard to forget the--the other man--the man who should have been
your husband," he said. He waited for a moment, as though expecting her
to reply; but she said nothing. "At the same time," he went on, "I am
bound to say that I think you are wrong. For your own sake, and for the
sake of the child, you ought to establish yourself properly. If I'm
ready to give up all sorts of dreams and things, surely you should be
willing to meet me half way."
She shook her head, although she smiled at him. "We will not discuss it,
Jimmy; my mind is firmly made up," she replied.
He let her go, with something more of tenderness in his farewell than he
had ever shown before. He was disappointed, chiefly, perhaps, because he
felt that she had not shown a proper gratitude; he felt that in all
probability she would presently find that, for her own sake as well as
that of the child, it might be expedient for her to adopt his very
sensible suggestion.
For Jimmy had not yet learnt his lesson; still felt, in fact, even
without confessing it in so many words, that he had conferred a great
and singular favour upon the woman to whom he had given his name; he was
pained somewhat that she should not recognise how great that favour had
been; should not be more at his feet.
The coming of Anthony Ditchburn to him again (for although Jimmy, in
this better time, had moved again into fresh quarters, Anthony had
contrived to trace him) brought about a reminder of that stolen packet
of letters that had been flung so contemptuously into a corner. Mr.
Ditchburn could not understand yet why nothing substantial had come of
that carefully planned piece of business; the money he had had was gone;
and he went again with large hopes. But Jimmy was curt with him, and
dismissed him somewhat summarily. True, he gave him some money; and
Anthony, before leaving, jogged his memory as to the letters.
"She meant them for you, my dear young friend; they may contain
something of the utmost importance. It seems such a pity that two young
and loving hearts--beating naturally towards each other----."
Alone in his rooms again, Jimmy began a search for the things. In the
confusion attendant upon moving they had been lost sight of; he found
himself hunting somewhat anxiously for these curious epistles, written
by his wife, and yet never sent. It was possible that they might contain
some allusion to the business--might suggest some way out of the tangle
in which they both were placed.
He found the packet at last, and opened it, and began to read. And, once
beginning, seemed unable to leave off. There were many of the letters,
and the first of them dated back nearly two years. It was the time of
Charlie Purdue's death.
He read on and on steadily--stopping for nothing, save, when the light
failed, to get a lamp; carrying one letter in his hands even while he
did that. And while he read a curious feeling of solemnity came on him;
it seemed as though from some spirit-world the very soul of this woman
he had not understood cried to him--craved him--longed for him and loved
him. Just as he had learnt so much from her unconsciously before, so he
learnt from her again; saw the little things that might, but for his
blindness; have pointed him clearly to her, and shown him what was in
her mind.
Long afterwards little phrases and scraps from them lingered in his
mind, not to be lightly forgotten; little scraps and phrases, spoken as
it seemed by the dream-woman who had been so near him in all things, and
yet so far away. Imaginative always, he had yet not imagined this; had
seen, from the very circumstances under which she had come to him in her
sorrow, only a woman seeking for an escape from the consequences of her
sin; only a woman desiring to hide what she had shamefully done. Now he
read the truth.
"I write here, my love, what you may not ever read; unless it should
happen that at some time when I am dead, and the world goes on without
me, you may find this paper, and think that I am speaking to you--when
it is too late. I want to set down solemnly here what I dare not ever
tell you. I write it carefully, because the words are more precious than
anything I have ever written. And yet I turn away my face for a moment
before I write; because my face is hot with what I am going to say.
See--here it is! I LOVE YOU. There are no words like these anywhere in
any language; and they mean so much that I want to write them again and
again.
"You are going to marry me. Out of that great heart of yours that is
sorry for me, and for the wreck I have made of my life, you take pity on
me, and shelter me. Yet you do something greater than that, although you
don't know it; you make me the happiest woman in all the world----"
He read no more then; he got up and paced about the room, holding the
letter in his hands. For he seemed to see her as she had once stood
before him, with the tears swimming in her eyes; he seemed to see
himself as a lower, meaner thing, because he had told her callously of
the arrangement he had made to save her honour. This woman--who could
write this and mean it all!
Another letter, further on, was written with beautiful tenderness, as
she might have written to him had she stood in the nearest and dearest
relation to him. It is scarcely too much to say that he read it with awe
and wonder.
"----For they tell me that women sometimes die at such a time as that;
and I was never strong. But I am not afraid; that might be best for
everyone. Only I want to tell you now--with all the earnestness that is
in me, and with all the strength that this change in me has given--that
I never loved him. On the night he asked me to marry him I came to you.
(Oh, do you remember the old shabby, shadowy room, and you in the light
of the lamp, my dear; and all the cold world outside?) I prayed then
that you might say something to me; that you might, out of some love for
me, snatch me from him. But you did not speak. Then I was sorry for
him--and I promised. But so surely as I believe in God, so surely do I
write here that I did not love him."
"_The child is yours!_ Don't look away from this when you read it, Jimmy
dear,--because it's true. The child that is to be mine--born of my body,
and part of my very soul--is the spirit-child that might in some better,
happier time have been yours. So much is that so, that I have felt,
through all the doubts and fears of these months, that the child is
yours; the other man has never for a moment entered into my thoughts. He
never did, and the sin was never mine. In the long, long dreams of my
girlhood, when thoughts and desires were mine that I did not understand,
it was always you--never anyone else. The only sorrow I have had--the
bitterest thought of all--was that I had been spoiled in your sight; I
never thought of anything else. So that if I die, I shall die with that
happiness; that I was your wife, not alone in name, but in thought. I
never have belonged to anyone else."
He laid it aside reverently with the others, and went on reading. All
the dear intimate thoughts of her--so innocent and so kindly--so sweet
and whimsical--were spread here for him; he wondered that he could ever
have thought of any other woman. His heart leaped at the thought that
she belonged to him; that he might claim her, and tell her that he loved
her. He went on reading.
"I scrawl this in pencil; because I want to write to you first of all,
my dear--I want to speak to you before I speak to anyone. It is all
right; the child lies warm within my arms, just as I used to hold that
poor, shabby old doll of mine you laughed at when I was a child. Do you
remember? Why do we grow up, I wonder; and yet it's beautiful to grow
up--wonderful to suffer, and to know for what we suffer. You won't read
this; I shall only dream that you read it, and that something impossible
keeps you away from me, and that you are a little sorry and yet a little
glad. For your baby--yours and mine, dear--is the prettiest baby in all
the world; quite what she ought to be. Aren't you proud of her?"
Proud of her? He longed then to go at once and find the child; wanted,
almost savagely, to take the mite in his arms, and hide his shamed face
upon her, and whisper his love for the woman who had waited so long for
it. For here was the record of all her patience--all the dear wonder of
her. He whispered her name brokenly while he read. "Moira!--Moira!"
"You were not kind to me to-day, Jimmy, dear," she wrote again. "I
wanted so much for you to be kind to me to-day; I came to tell you
about the baby. You were very patient; and once your eyes smiled at me.
But you were only sorry for me, as you always are; and I would have been
so glad for just a word of tenderness. You asked if you should get a cab
for me; you would have said that to any other woman--wouldn't you? And I
had dreamt the night before that your arms were about me, and that you
whispered to me something I have longed so often to hear you say."
"And the someone else? I am mad at the thought of it; wild at the
thought that I could have been so blind as not to understand. I have
thought sometimes that only your pride kept you from me--or perhaps a
little the thought of what I had done; and all the time you have thought
of her. What shall I do; how can I find a way? And yet in my selfish
heart I am glad to think that I hold you; that she can never come into
your life. Can you forget her? Can you presently come to love me a
little, and to think that after all I belong to you?"
A little further on she wrote in a more despondent tone; he remembered
by the date that this was the time when she had come to him in the hour
of his degradation, and had set him to his work again.
"I am no nearer to you; I have but done what any poor friend of yours
might have done. I wish that that first thought had been true; I wish
that you had killed me in your madness. It would have been the end--and
I so glad to die! For the thought of me has driven you down and held you
down, as you said; and I that love you so can do nothing. If I might
die, Jimmy dear----"
He read no more. Now, for the first time, he seemed to set these women,
who had been with him as it were through all his life, side by side; to
see the one, so strong, so fine, and so patient; the other--the gay
butterfly that had been good to look at. He had thought that Alice had
helped him; now, through his shamed memory, came the remembrance of the
monosyllables--the light laughter--the ready acquiescence in all he had
said or suggested. And set against that the woman who had come to him in
his rooms, and had not been ashamed to speak of the child and of her
love for it--to speak of the little hands that held her own and wound
themselves about her heart.
He thought savagely of all he had lost; triumphantly of all he would
regain.
But he was a little late. Mr. Anthony Ditchburn--that poor, wavering,
drifting wreck of humanity--had got the start of him; and Anthony
Ditchburn wanted money and craved shelter. He had gone down to that
quiet country place where Moira lived with Patience and the child; and
there had blurted out the truth.
He had been quite proud, in a sense, of what he had done; he seemed to
see a grateful Moira, blessing him for having brought those hidden
letters to the notice of her obdurate husband. Ashamed and afraid to
send the letters herself, she yet would welcome this messenger; would
understand the motive in the mind of the man who had done so daring a
thing. Therefore when, in due course, Anthony Ditchburn presented
himself again at the cottage, and presently (the better to establish a
temporary residence there) blurted out what he had done, he was a little
astonished at the result.
She stood for a moment as if stunned; opened her lips to speak once or
twice, but could get out no words. Then she sprang for the door, and he
and the wondering Patience heard her flying up the stairs; then the
sound of swift feet overhead. A few moments later she was down again;
and there was a look in her eyes before which Anthony Ditchburn
trembled.
"Why did you do it?" she demanded. "Is nothing sacred to you; am I to be
shamed and degraded by such a creature as you? You have sheltered
here--you have eaten our bread, and slept secure under our roof; yet you
rob me of what was mine--steal the very soul of me!"
"But you addressed them to him," pleaded Ditchburn.
"Yes--for my own comfort--to cheat myself," she cried passionately. "And
now--now he has read them"--she beat her hands together, and suddenly
and surprisingly burst into tears. "I cannot see him again--cannot meet
him; and I that hoped some day to climb as high as his heart!"
Anthony Ditchburn had begun again a halting explanation; but she checked
him fiercely. She flung open the door, and pointed outside imperiously.
"Go!" she cried, "for I am in that mood when I might do you harm.
Go--and never let me see you again!"
"I'm a poor old man--and it's raining," he whimpered; but she thrust him
out of the house and shut the door upon him.
The money he had carried him, half crazily, back to London and to Jimmy.
To Jimmy he told his woes; told of this strange madness that had come
upon the woman he desired to help. And to his surprise and disgust Jimmy
seemed to have caught this new fever too; for he also turned him roughly
from the place, cursing him for a fool.
And here we may take our leave of Anthony Ditchburn; may see him, in
imagination, going on for years yet, borrowing innumerable coins, and
prating of his woes and of the treatment he had received from the world.
And dying at last obscurely, and still railing, to any who may hear him,
of the ingratitude of friends.
Meanwhile Jimmy made all speed to find Moira. All speed for him, that
is; for, hesitating as ever, he must needs sit down to think about her,
and to dream of how beautifully he was to bring her back into his life.
So that when, in sudden and desperate haste, he started from London for
the cottage where he had seen her under such different circumstances not
so long before, a fear began to creep into his heart that Anthony
Ditchburn might have spoiled the business after all. Which proved to be
true.
He found Patience at the cottage; she shook her head even as he hurried
through the garden towards her. Moira was gone, the old woman said; had
left within an hour of Ditchburn's visit. She had implored Patience to
look after the child; when the old woman had clung to her, and begged to
know when she would return, she had said with tears: "Never!" But the
old woman was wiser than Jimmy; she smiled and shook her head, and
whispered what only a woman could whisper with perfect understanding of
another:
"She will come back to the child," she said.
Jimmy looked at her sharply; seemed to understand a little what she
meant. He caught the hand of Patience and wrung it; laughed like a boy
at what he read in her eyes.
"Then--if I took the child----"
"Oh--Mr. Jimmy," said Patience with a sob, "she'll come back to the
child!"
CHAPTER VI
THE SPIRIT OF OLD PAUL
THE thought that was growing in Jimmy's mind, and which had started from
what Patience had said, bore fruit upon the morrow. Jimmy slept that
night at the cottage--having in his mind perhaps the hope that Moira
might come back. Yet morning dawned and she had not been seen.
With the dawn he roused himself from his uneasy slumbers on a couch, and
went to find Patience, to seek the news of the night. He found her with
the baby; the baby a dark-eyed mite, scarcely dressed, and giving the
old woman a bad time in matters of hair pulling and general infantile
wickedness; yet Patience seemed to like it. Jimmy stood just within the
door, looking at the child shyly and awkwardly; Patience whispered what
she had to say over the child's head, much as though that small mortal
might have understood.
"No news, Mr. Jimmy; no word of her."
"You seemed so sure that she would come back," said Jimmy.
"Dear man--shouldn't I know her by this time!" exclaimed Patience very
impatiently. "What has she to live for but this baby? If only you would
understand--if only you would see that she has left the way clear for
you! Come in; the child won't eat you."
Jimmy came in, and introduced himself to the baby; she seemed to approve
of him; in the lonely heart of the man there was a curious stirring as
the soft fingers of the child closed on his. "She's a pretty baby," he
said with a smile.
"Not another like her in the world--and lots that'll tell her so as she
grows up. Girl babies growing up every day--and boy babies to match 'em,
and none of 'em knowing what's in store for 'em. It's just a big puzzle
they'll have to unravel for themselves in the years to come." Thus
Patience, wagging the head of experience over the baby.
"I've made up my mind what to do; I've been thinking about it all
night," said Jimmy presently. "She'll come back to the child, you said;
and I believe you're right. I want her, Patience; I seem to have grown
up years and years in the last day or two. I dare not lose her now; I
need her, as I never needed anyone in all my life."
"I wonder if that's true," said the old woman, bending over the child.
"Men are so sure of things one minute--and not at all sure the next. For
the love of God, Mr. Jimmy, be very sure before you meet her; she
deserves something better than any man has given her yet."
"I'm sure now, Patience," whispered Jimmy humbly. "I'm going to take the
child--_my_ child, she called it--and I'm going to trust to her to
follow. You must help me, Patience; I'll leave a message for her that
shall bring her--not to me, because I don't deserve it--but to the baby.
I didn't understand before; I've been a blind fool--groping in the
dark."
"You seem to understand yourself pretty well, Mr. Jimmy," replied the
old woman; and Jimmy laughed.
Behold, then, Jimmy in a hurry; see him writing a note (not literary
this time, but something from the old Jimmy to the old Moira) and
leaving it for her. See also Patience, keenly alive to what was in his
mind and eager to help him, and hear the baby crowing through it all!
This is the note he left:
"I have taken the child; she is the prettiest baby I have ever
seen, and you were right to say so. She belongs to me, and I shall
keep her. She is a child, as we once were; she is going to teach me
what is best and brightest in the world that once was good to us. I
am taking her back to the beginning of things--I want to show her
how her mother was once a child who loved the sun and the fields
and the woods.
"JIMMY."
In the strangest fashion this new Jimmy and the conspiring Patience took
the child and went away; the note was left in a familiar place, where,
as the old woman assured him, Moira must be certain to discover it. They
travelled up to London, and later in the day started for Daisley Cross;
Patience marvelling, but trusting all things to this man who seemed at
last to have grasped the situation. Indeed when she looked at him in
surprise at his suggestion that they should go down there, he had
answered, as it seemed with perfect understanding: "I can speak to her
there as I cannot speak in any other place."
The old place, when he walked through it on the first night of their
arrival, seemed very familiar and yet very strange; it had not grown up
with him. More than that, people he met turned to stare after him as
after a stranger. He walked through the places he remembered so well,
with something of the thought in his mind of what he had lost--something
of a perception of what he had forgotten and thrown away. Almost it
seemed that he saw her swinging down the road before him, a slim girl in
short skirts, and with eyes that looked back at him with a friendly
smile. Eyes, he remembered now, always for him!
He had taken rooms for Patience and himself at the little old-fashioned
inn in the town; the landlord, whom he had seen standing at his door
many, many times on former sunny days, but who did not in the least
recognise him, seemed to wonder a little at the coming of this young man
and the old woman and the child; murmured about it, with lifted
eyebrows, to his spouse. For Jimmy, going in and out of the place, and
asking always if anyone had inquired for him, was a mystery in himself.
He went back to the old house they had known in their childhood; stood
looking over a low part of the wall he remembered into the grounds,
seeing alien lights in the windows of the rooms that once had been his
and Moira's. From there he dived down into the woods, to find the happy
places they had known as children; only to find them grown over and
changed. Yet he stood in one spot under the light of the moon and the
stars, and called her name softly, as though it might be possible that
she could come out of the shadows of the past, and look into his eyes
again, and touch his hand, as she had done when a child. Those eyes, he
remembered again with a pang, that had been always for him!
He wandered about miserably the next day; told Patience at intervals
that she had been wrong, and that Moira would not come back. More than
that, in his restlessness he rushed back to London, and from London down
to the cottage. Going to the place where the note had been secreted he
found it gone, and went back to Daisley Cross with renewed hope.
There Patience met him with great news. Patience, with the hope of
renewing some memories of her past life in the place, had entrusted the
child to a plump and sympathetic daughter of the landlady, and had gone
out to Daisley Place. The rest she told in whispers.
"I saw her, Mr. Jimmy--saw her like a ghost this late afternoon,
creeping round the old place. God knows what was in my mind that kept me
still; but I couldn't call to her then; she didn't seem to belong to me
any longer. I watched her flit away again, taking the road that leads
away from the town, and I lost her in the darkness. But she's here, Mr.
Jimmy--she's come back again!"
His fear was lest he might frighten her--lest he might send her flying
from him again, shamed and hurt and indignant. Patience had said that
the child would draw her surely, and Patience should know. He would have
given much to know if the child had drawn her, or if she had come in the
hope to see him; but in this later time Jimmy was learning
patience--learning, with a new humility, to understand the woman he had
never understood before.
He tramped for miles that evening, in the hope of finding her; came back
at last to the sleepy little inn, and went up to the sitting-room. A
fire had been lighted, for the autumn evening was chill; Patience,
seated beside it, looked up at him quickly, and then turned away her
eyes. Jimmy seated himself beside the fire, and took the child into his
arms; already they were quite friendly, and she nestled to him now
naturally enough. So he sat for a long time, with his arm about her,
looking into the fire, and thinking of the woman who was her mother,
wandering forlorn and frightened outside. So, as the shadows fell and
the fire died down, and old Patience, worn out with the excitements and
fatigue of the day, slumbered heavily in her chair, Jimmy, as in a
dream, talked half to himself and half to the child in his arms.
"Little Moira--in the days when you were a child I loved you--was
jealous for you--fought for you. You didn't understand that--did you? We
had not learnt our lesson then; the world was so busy with us that we
had not had time to learn the better lesson of love. I wonder if we
understand it now?"
Someone was listening. From the shadows of the house another shadow had
emerged, and had crept up the stairs; it stood now at the door,
listening. For Moira had travelled far that day, and now had come to the
point when, as it seemed, she could not go back, and yet dared not
remain where she was. She had seen the familiar figure of Patience in
the streets of Daisley Cross for a minute that afternoon, and so had
discovered where the three were to be found. More than once she had
ventured to the very doors of the inn, only to turn away again; for in a
strange fashion she was afraid of this man who knew her secret.
The passionate starved heart of her demanded him fully, or not at all.
Once in pity he had given her his name; once in charity he had offered
to take her and her child, and to give them the protection that was
their right; but she would not have that. Her tragedy was that she was
bound to the man whom she loved with all her heart and soul; but she
must know that what he might say to her, in this better time, was not a
matter of mere words, but a thing of the heart, before ever she
stretched out glad hands to meet his. She must be certain of
that--absolutely certain.
Again--the child. She yearned for that; passionately wanted her baby.
Almost she hated the man for a moment, in a laughing, whimsical way,
because he had tried to reach her like this; yet was glad to think now,
as she peered in through the doorway, that the child was so naturally in
the arms of the man. So she listened with her starved heart beating for
them both.
"You don't seem to understand, little Moira, what you've done for me--or
what I am--through you. Years ago you wove fairy tales for me--peopled
the great world for me with beings other than those my dull eyes could
see. Had I but known it, all that was best in me came from you; only I
did not understand. I love you, Moira----Can you hear me, dear woman,
out in the darkness"--(he could not know how near to him she
stood!)--"and will you love me a little, in pity for me?"
She drew away from the door, and covered her face with her hands; then
bent again a moment later, to listen to the murmuring voice within.
"I want to make up to you for all the wrong I've done you, dear," he
went on. "For it was I who did the deepest wrong of all, in that I drove
you away from me; I can never atone for that. I asked you if there was
no man in all the world you loved--shameful beast that I was!--and still
did not understand, when you said there was. Don't let me lose you now;
there is no life for me without you!"
She turned away and stole down the stairs. She could not trust herself
yet to meet him; she wanted to be alone. For now that this thing had
happened for which she had prayed and longed and hoped, she was fearful
of it; more than that, she wanted to hold it from her for a time the
better to grasp it afterwards. She sobbed and laughed like a mad thing
as she went; whispered to herself, over and over again, all that he had
said; saw, over and over again, that picture in the firelight of the man
with the child in his arms.
She came, as it were unconsciously, to the place towards which her heart
had yearned so often in the stony London streets--the grave of Old Paul.
To this everything had beautifully brought her; here, most of all
to-night, she desired to be; because, most of all others, Old Paul would
have understood. Old Paul had wondered what love would do to her in the
world; and lo! love that had threatened to fling her, bruised and
broken, to the mercy of the world, had but shown her, after all, that he
jested a little roughly, and that all was well. Love had been kind--and
Old Paul need not have feared. Before anything else she must tell Old
Paul that.
Jimmy, coming presently almost as by an instinct to that spot, found her
kneeling; and stood aloof for a time, watching her, and wondering what
she would say. But when she raised her eyes at last, and got to her
feet, she came towards him, smiling, with the glory of the autumn moon
as it seemed about her; and she came like a maid that meets her lover
shyly. And for a time they held hands, and looked into each other's
eyes, as though they could never look away again.
"Jimmy!" she whispered at last, with a lingering note of tenderness on
the name, "I was afraid before--but I heard all you said to the child.
You--you like the baby?"
In that most surprising love story, when she asked that most surprising
question she was in his arms, and he held her close, and looked deep
into her eyes. "She's mine--_my_ baby; you said so," he whispered, and
kissed her.
So in the end it was only a man and a woman walking hand in hand through
the darkness along a country lane; only an old woman peering out of a
window on a scene which had been familiar years and years before, the
while the tears dropped softly and yet happily on her withered hands.
Yet they were all satisfied.
Love had shown them the way, after all; love went before them now,
through the darkness--and into the brighter promise of a new day.
THE END
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._