Jimmy Quixote Part 31

"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 circ.u.mstances. 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 grat.i.tude 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 fas.h.i.+on.

"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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 G.o.dsby had paid Jimmy much money, and had commissioned another play; and others were coming after Jimmy, and seeking him out, and a.s.suring him that he alone could "fit them"; a phrase which meant, as Jimmy knew, the writing of a play in which, like Bennett G.o.dsby of old, they carried the thing on their shoulders. But then Jimmy was getting used to the business. And Jimmy was pa.s.sing 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 circ.u.mstances.

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 circ.u.mstances; 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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.

It may well be thought that he would have found that opportunity for 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 inst.i.tution 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 a.s.serted 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.