Jimmy Quixote Part 21

"Practically," said Jimmy, jingling some coppers in his pockets, and swallowing with some difficulty. "Still, it's a good thing to look back upon; to remember the days when you didn't have all you wanted--and--and so forth."

"You must have been very brave, Jimmy," she said in wonderment.

"I had to be," he retorted.

At that moment a curious b.u.mping sound was audible from the landing; then the door was thrust open without ceremony. In the doorway was framed, as a picture of Bohemia for the eyes of Moira, the figure of the landlady--a supercilious landlady, and no respecter of persons. She struck an att.i.tude as she came into the room, and looked about her contemptuously; had a particular eye for Moira.

"Ho!" she exclaimed, with a sniff. "So we entertains, do we? Not content with robbin' honest people of what's their doo, an' s.n.a.t.c.hin' the very bread from the mouths of the widow an' such like, we brings our young ladies, if you please, an' sits 'em down by our fires, an' what not. An'

it's cheques we're goin' to 'ave the very next time the postman walks in; an' I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we don't 'ave champagne wine for our lunches. Oh, it's a nice world for them as is brazen enough to 'old their 'eads 'igh, an' mock the pore an' the 'elpless!"

Jimmy, with a burning face, crossed the room to her, and endeavoured to control her. "My good woman--I've already told you that you shall have your money to-day; I'm a little pressed, but it isn't my fault. Don't make a scene, I implore you, before this lady." All this earnestly, and with backward glances towards the girl.

"Ho, yes--I dare say!" exclaimed the woman. "n.o.body mustn't be put out a bit while this 'ere robbery goes on--nor must we breathe a word that might be over'eard by anyone as doubtless calls theirselves most superior. 'Owever, young man"--she raised her voice for the benefit of Moira--"it's come to this 'ere with me; that money I will 'ave--an' this very day. I might've known, by the very look of yer, w'en you first come 'ere, that I was doin' a silly thing to let you 'ave the place at all--much less feed yer!"

She went out, slamming the door; Jimmy turned towards Moira. Something to his surprise, he saw that though the ready tears were in her eyes, she was smiling at him--smiling in something of the fas.h.i.+on of the old Moira, who had been sorry for him when he had got into a sc.r.a.pe. He went across to her, and stood looking down at her.

"She's a beast!" he said boyishly.

"And so you're really poor, Jimmy?" she whispered eagerly.

"Really--really hard up! That's splendid!"

"Splendid?" He looked down at her in perplexity.

"Yes. Because now that we've met again I shall be able to see all you do--and how you fight. It would have been awful to come back to you, and find that all the work had been done, and that I had not seen how it was done. It's beautiful to think that now, when your name is in print, and people are beginning to talk about you, all this goes on--this fight for money. I could not have liked you, Jimmy, unless you had been poor--that is, poor to begin with, of course. I shall be able to watch it all grow up; see you making money; I shall have been in the secret of it all."

"It's a poor sort of secret," he said ruefully.

"No, it isn't," she retorted. "Don't you understand, Jimmy dear, that being poor you're my friend in a special sense, because I'm poor too. It seems to me that the nicest people are poor, and I shan't feel so lonely in London now, as I should have done if I'd had to look up to you, as to someone richer than myself. But what are you going to do about--about her?" She jerked her head towards the door.

"Clear out, I suppose, if I can't pay up," he said. "Everything's gone wrong lately, Moira, and everything seemed to go so right at first. I was to have had a cheque this morning--and it hasn't come."

"Had any breakfast, Jimmy?" She spoke eagerly--wistfully--with a little catch in her voice.

"Not--not exactly," he replied. "Not that I was hungry, you'll understand; I never eat much before lunch----"

"Jimmy!" He looked round at her sharply, and read the reproach in her eyes. "You're not treating me fairly," she said.

"Well--what would you have me say? That I was beastly hungry--not having had a very liberal dinner last night--and that I dared not ask her for any breakfast, because I owed her too much already? Would you like me to say that?"

"To me--yes," she whispered. "Would you be hurt with me if I offered--offered to get you some breakfast?"

"Moira!" He drew back, and looked at her with a sudden frown of resentment.

"Oh, it's only a little matter," she pleaded, "and you shall pay me back some day--when you're rich. It's only a few coppers, Jimmy--and I should love to do it--please!"

She saw that he was relenting; she laughed gaily, and ran out of the room. Almost before he had done smiling foolishly at the door through which she had vanished, she came back again, bringing parcels with her.

And then, all aglow with excitement, was down on her knees before the fire, stirring it to activity, and laughing delightedly like a child.

"What am I to cook it in," she asked, suddenly. "I suppose you haven't a frying-pan?"

"Oh, yes--I have," he whispered, entering suddenly and completely into the spirit of the thing. "I keep a frying-pan and a kettle--because sometimes at night, after she's gone to bed, and one is hungry--well, even sausages are very comforting for supper."

"Poor Jimmy!" She whispered it to herself, with a softened look, as she saw him go to a cupboard and open it, and with many glances towards the door bring out a battered frying-pan, and a kettle that had also seen better days. Also, he found a cup and saucer, and a plate or two.

Then, of course, the obvious miracle, while Jimmy stood watching wonderingly and admiringly. In no time at all a rasher and eggs were spluttering merrily over the fire, and the kettle was boiling, just to add another pleasant sound to the business. She made the tea in the kettle itself, gipsy fas.h.i.+on (the teapot was downstairs in charge of the dragon, it was explained), and in a trice had it poured out, and the eggs and bacon done to a turn, set before him. Her reward was in the hungry fas.h.i.+on in which he set to work upon it.

But he paused between bites to look up at her anxiously. "You'll never tell anyone?" he demanded.

She shook her head, and looked at him with perfect understanding. "Of course not, Jimmy; this is something quite between ourselves. You _were_ hungry, you know," she added, looking at the empty plates. "Feel better?"

"Rather!" he replied gratefully. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come here this morning, and done--done this!" He indicated the hastily-arranged breakfast table as he spoke. "Now I want you to tell me all about yourself--and what you've been doing all these years.

Do you know, Moira"--he went towards her, looking at her critically--"do you know that you've grown a woman?"

"I'm afraid so," she said shyly. She turned her head quickly towards the door, listening. "Hus.h.!.+ she's coming back again," she whispered, with a mischievous laugh that was half a frightened one. "We'd better clear these things away."

It was a hurried scrambling business; to tell the truth, they got somewhat in each other's way over the work; it was a mere frantic scurry, with whispers and soft laughter as they pa.s.sed each other. But it was done before the door was opened, and Moira was back again in her place by the fire, and Jimmy standing looking down at her. As the door opened, he turned somewhat coldly towards it, feeling that now he could receive the landlady with some greater firmness for the food that was in him; moreover, he must show Moira that he was not to be set at nought lightly by a mere landlady.

But his eyes opened to their roundest as he saw the two men who stood in the doorway--an old man and a young one. The old one he knew--had seen him more than once lately; it was Anthony Ditchburn. The face of the younger seemed familiar, but he did not at first recognise it. The slight exclamation to which he gave vent brought Moira's head round at once; she started to her feet.

"Charlie!" she exclaimed in surprise; and then Jimmy knew in a moment who the second visitor was.

"Forestalled!" exclaimed Ditchburn, spreading out his hands, and looking round upon them. "She's stolen a march upon us, after all, Charlie; and I made so sure of being first--didn't I, Purdue?"

"How are you, Jimmy?" Charlie had come forward, and was holding out his hand somewhat awkwardly. "Ditchburn told me he met you yesterday, and that you told him where you lived----"

"I'd forgotten," said Jimmy. "But I'm very glad to see you. It seems such ages since we met. Moira and I have had quite a long talk."

"There is a distinct smell of cooking," said Ditchburn, sniffing and looking about him. "If I put a name to it, I might almost say that it was bacon--and----"

"Quite impossible," broke in Jimmy, with a glance at the girl.

"It comes up from below," exclaimed Moira, with her eyes dancing. "I was really the first to find him," she went on, turning to Charlie. "You never saw anyone so surprised as he was when I came in."

"Is this where you do it all?" asked Charlie, coming across to the desk.

(Jimmy hurriedly hid the packages that had come in on that and the previous day.) "And I suppose you grind away like one o'clock--eh?"

"Yes--the work's pretty hard at times," said Jimmy with another glance at the girl.

"He calls it hard work!" exclaimed Anthony Ditchburn, raising his hands and his eyes at the same moment. "This business of writing for the popular tastes; this stringing together of words that shall catch the vulgar ear, and bring a smile to vulgar lips; this writing of things that can have no possible connection with the cla.s.sics--or with----"

"Never mind about that," broke in Charlie, "so long as you make money by it. That's the great thing--the making of the money. That's where independence comes in; no having to go to fathers to beg for s.h.i.+llings here or sovereigns there; there's the glorious feeling that you coin money by your pen. Jimmy--we must see more of you. It seems funny," he added, appealing to the others with a whimsical smile, "awfully funny to think that Jimmy--sober quiet old Jimmy--should have blossomed out like this."

Anthony Ditchburn had worked his way over to where Jimmy was standing, a little confused, against his desk; he bent his head to whisper, even while he kept his eyes fixed on the others. "I am in the deepest distress, old friend," he murmured, "but the loan of five s.h.i.+llings would immediately relieve that distress, and would make a new man of me.

Brethren in the paths of literature--treading its hard and th.o.r.n.y ways--and the one with a success which may not be perhaps unmerited--while the other----"

"I can't manage it--just now," whispered Jimmy, with a burning face.

Mr. Ditchburn moved away, muttering something to himself not wholly complimentary. Perhaps he felt a little relieved when Charlie burst in with a most inopportune suggestion.