Jimmy Quixote Part 18

"The Lord only knows!" exclaimed Charlie, with a laugh. "If you're so much afraid, why don't you come yourself? Put on your bonnet, Patience, and we'll make a night of it; and you shall wear your bonnet sideways by the time you come back, I'll warrant!"

"I'll stay here," she replied. "Only remember"--she held up a warning finger, and glanced at the door--"remember that she knows nothing of this horrible city; remember that she will look on it with the eyes of a child."

"I won't open her eyes," said Charlie, with a laugh that was half subdued. "Don't you worry about nothing; give her a latchkey, and don't wait up."

"I'll wait up," replied Patience grimly.

Moira came in with her eyes glowing, and her fingers fumbling over the b.u.t.ton of a shabby glove. Charlie took possession of the hand and the glove, and b.u.t.toned it in a desperate hurry and yet with some skill.

"We'll find a cab--(ever been in a cab, Moira?)--and we'll drive down town, and have a cosy little dinner. I think I've got money enough for that; if I haven't, I know a place where they'll trust me. I once lived a whole week on tick there. And after that--well--the night will be young--and London waiting for us! Come along!"

Moira went back at the last moment, and bent over the old woman, and kissed her. "I shan't really be late," she whispered; and wondered why Patience held to her for a moment with a clutching hand before letting her go. The last sight she had of Patience was as she looked back from the doorway; the old woman had sunk down in the chair, with her elbows on her knees, and was staring at the fire.

Outside the house the misty rain was still falling, and the wind was still coming in bursts down the little narrow street. But Moira was no longer tired nor hopeless; she would have laughed at a downpour. She eagerly slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow; they went gaily down the street together. At the end was a waiting cab--waiting because the driver had seen two young people hurrying along, laughing on such a night, and so was pretty sure of a fare. Charlie helped her in, and got in after her; gave the man an address; they were off. Bright-eyed Moira glanced round at the young man as she snuggled into her corner of the cab; laughed as the gla.s.s was let down in front of them. "It _is_ comfortable," she said.

"Poor old girl!" he murmured under his breath, with a new note of gravity in his tone. "Why have you let her hide you away like that all this time? And fancy being so delighted over a cab ride! You seem to have plenty of money, according to what Patience wrote in a letter to the Baffalls."

"That wasn't quite true," replied the girl; "it was only a matter of pride. Patience thought people might believe that she was poor; she exaggerated a little."

"And the house?--the house that was larger than you wanted?" he asked, with a whimsical look in his eyes.

She shook her head. "It isn't our house at all; we've only got a few furnished rooms at the top of it," she replied.

"And I was thinking of coming to live with you!" he cried, with a laugh.

"Oh, Charlie!" She seized his arm, and looked round eagerly into his face. "If you only would!"

"Why--would it mean so much to you?" he asked, in a tone half of pity, half of tenderness. "I don't suppose they'd find room for me."

"It might be managed; oh, I'm sure it might be managed!" she whispered.

"And you could work there--and I--we could see you often--every day."

He had no understanding of her real meaning; no knowledge of the desperate loneliness that spoke innocently in her voice and in her eyes; shallow himself, he was only vaguely flattered at her desire to see him, at her happiness in meeting him again. After all, this was something of a new sensation; this s.n.a.t.c.hing up of someone out of the darkness in which she had lain hidden; this showing to her all the wonders of a world of which he had grown a little tired. He promised himself some entertainment out of it; felt that under all the circ.u.mstances he was doing rather a good and a kindly thing.

"Well, even if I don't find a room there, we must manage to see a lot of each other, Moira," he said. "You must be heartily sick of spending all your time with old Patience; I should think you must yawn your heads off every night. Or do you go out at all, as she seemed to suggest?"

"We do not go out; I've only been out once--to enjoy myself, I mean--and that was to the opera. That was wonderful!"

"Oh, there are better things than the opera, my dear," he said, with a laugh. "The opera's dull and stupid compared to other things you shall see. But here we are at my restaurant; and here you shall taste the first of your new joys. Wait till he pulls the gla.s.s up."

It was extraordinary how well Charlie seemed to be known. A smiling man, with a stiff hand to the peak of his cap, held open the door for them; another smiling man, rotund of body, was discovered bowing within the doors, and preceded them to a table in a corner; hoped that the gentleman was well, and issued sharp orders in a foreign tongue to the flying waiters. Charlie took it all as a mere matter of course; had a word or two to say about the menu, and the changing of a particular dish; and then sank down at the other side of the table. Truly a new experience to look into the dark eyes of this girl, and to see how she sat in this very ordinary restaurant with her lips parted, looking about her, and enjoying every moment of the time, even while she waited for dinner. And she was such a striking looking girl, too, he thought critically, with that black hair and those dark eyes set in her white face. No one need quarrel with him for bringing out such a girl as this; there was something attractive, in a fashion, about her very shabbiness; it gave an air to her.

She ate sparingly; there was so much to be seen--so much to which to listen. People coming and going--hurrying or taking this matter of dining easily; and beyond the doors the brightly lighted street, and all the hum and noise of a London that was making night holiday. And opposite her--here familiarly, with his eyes smiling into hers--Charlie of the pleasant smile and the pleasant voice; Charlie who had known her in the old days that his very presence recalled with a pang, and yet with a dear remembrance.

It is probable that had it been anyone else out of that old familiar life--anyone else as joyous and as glad to meet her--it would have been the same; he would have been as certain of a welcome. But it happened that Charlie was the first; and Charlie had that exquisite quality--exquisite for that time at least--that he knew how to laugh, and had found a trick of being light-hearted. The world and all it held was as much a great game to him as she had once believed it might be for her; gladly and eagerly, like a child who is taught some pleasant lesson that has less of task than of sport about it, she listened to him, and was glad to learn anything he could teach her.

He whispered whimsical surmises as to the characters of the people at the adjoining tables; set her bubbling with laughter at a humorous suggestion as to what would happen if anyone there should feel compelled to rise and give an account of himself or herself.

"You would have to confess that you had never been in a restaurant before," he whispered across the table. "How they'd stare at you!"

"So that _you_ don't laugh at me, I don't mind," she replied. "I think I could sit here for ever--just looking at the people--and wondering about them; I don't want it ever to leave off."

He asked her if he might smoke; she nodded gravely, and smiled. He might have been surprised had he known what the savour of the smoke in her nostrils meant to her; how it breathed in a vague way of Old Paul and his pipe on far-off evenings, and of a thousand things for which she had longed. Then at last the time came for him to pay the reckoning, and for them both to go. She rose with something of a sigh; but all was not over yet.

As they came out of the place, he took her by the elbow and turned her sharply off down the street; dodged with her carefully and yet laughingly through a press of traffic; and stopped with her before the doors of a brilliantly lighted building, outside which hung posters and photographs of all shapes and sizes and sorts. Before she had time to utter a word he had hurried her inside, and had stopped at a little ticket office, from out of which a man looked at him; then had put down money, and had taken up two printed slips. Only then, when he stood before her looking at the numbers on the slips, did she venture a remonstrance.

"What place is this? You know I ought--I really ought to be going home."

"We shan't stay half an hour if you don't like it," he replied lightly.

"I told you we were going to see life to-night; this is Bohemia, Moira, though with rather a small 'b,' I'm afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of."

They went down carpeted stairs, and in a moment Moira found herself sinking back luxuriously into a cushioned seat, with Charlie beside her.

For a moment, a little bewildered and a little frightened, she looked about her with the air of one who had dropped into new and strange surroundings by the merest chance. Someone was singing on the stage; and voices up above had taken up the refrain of the song raucously and altogether out of tune; as the song ceased, she heard shrill whistlings and shouts and the clapping of hands.

"You'll hear something better than this presently," Charlie murmured in her ear; and she woke with a start, and tried to concentrate her thoughts on what was pa.s.sing on the stage.

Charlie was still smoking; indeed, most of the men round about in the other seats were doing the same. Moira became aware, after a moment or two, that a fat heavy man a seat or two removed from her had leaned forward, and was staring at her; she averted her eyes, and glanced round towards Charlie. For his part, that young man was so engrossed with what was pa.s.sing on the stage that he had removed his cigar from a mouth that was wide open, while his eyes were crinkled up in laughter. On the stage a diminutive man was hopping about with eccentric gestures, sparring at nothing, and occasionally holding a one-sided sort of interview with the conductor of the orchestra; yet he must have been funny, or why was Charlie so convulsed, and why were the other faces at which the girl glanced timidly, addressed to the stage and convulsed also. Moira decided that there must be something missing in her; the better to please Charlie, she made a feint of laughing also.

After a time it was obvious that Charlie tired a little of the performance; once or twice he glanced at the girl, as though on the point of suggesting that they should go, and yet, in his good nature, unwilling to cut short her pleasure. At last, however, he leaned towards her, and whispered:

"Tired of it?"

"There's rather a lot, Charlie--for all at once," she whispered; and the next moment, taking her at her word, he was walking out of the place with her.

"You mustn't have too much Bohemia all at once, miss," said Charlie, beckoning to a hansom. "You won't sleep after this. We'll take our London in doses, and you shall learn as much of it as you like to learn.

Now for home--and Patience--and perhaps a lecture."

They drove home in comparative silence. More than once it was in her mind to say something to him in the way of thanks--to tell him what a night this had been in her life. But she checked herself, partly from shyness, partly because, although this was the Charlie of old days, there was yet the difference between the boy who had known nothing and the man who had learned so much. Only when they got out of the cab, and stood together for a moment at the door of the little house in Locker Street, did she put out her hand to him, and murmur a word of thanks.

"Thank you, Charlie," she whispered. "It has been wonderful. The beautiful dinner--and the lights and the music----. Thank you."

They heard the steps of the old woman in the house, coming down the last few stairs, and approaching the door. For a moment, as Charlie held her hand, and saw the flushed, grateful face before him, he drew that hand towards him, and bent his head to her; she, puzzled a little, drew back.

If he had meant to kiss her he repented of the thought, or decided that the time was not yet; he laughed, and shook the hand, and the next moment had jumped into the cab, and was away. And the dark house swallowed her up.

Patience said nothing while the girl chattered on lightly about all that had happened, and about how kind Charlie had been, and how good-natured; Patience merely looked at her from under brooding brows, and made the simple preparations for bed. But an hour or two afterwards the old woman stole softly into the room where the girl lay asleep; shading the candle, she looked down and saw that Moira's face, even in sleep, was smiling, and that there was a flush upon it.

In just such a fashion, had the girl but known it, the old woman had looked down at her often and often while she slept; for only at that time, when Moira lay unconscious, could the deep, strong love of the woman flash out of her eyes, and set itself in the firm lines of the mouth, without the possibility of betrayal. Now, as she looked down at the face, she saw upon it that smile it had not worn before; knew what had come into the girl's life, and vaguely dreaded it. She went softly from the room, and closed the door; outside, she looked at the candle flame, and shook her head.

"She's slipping from me--she's slipping from me," she whispered.

Meanwhile Charlie had gone home--thinking, in his own careless fashion as he went, what a queer evening it had been, and what queer company he had kept. It would be untrue to say that Moira had made any impression upon him, in an active sense; it simply happened that, in his own careless, good-natured fashion, he was sorry for her, and thought it a shame that she should have been kept away from all the good things of life so long. He remembered that she had grown prettier even than he should have thought possible; had noted with approval that there was an air of grace and refinement about her which he rather liked. He would see her again--and that soon.

Charlie got out of his cab, and climbed the stairs to his rooms.

Reaching the top stair in the semi-darkness, he stumbled over someone sitting there--someone asleep by the startled sounds he made as he got up. Charlie saw that it was an old man, who, in the confusion of the moment, had pulled off his hat, and was bowing and sc.r.a.ping before the younger one.

"Who are you?" asked Charlie, staring at him.

"I think you will remember me, Mr. Purdue," replied the quavering voice, "although it is years since we met. You were a child then--and I had the felicity of calling you by your Christian name. Years have gone by, and while fortune has raised you--(as I am sure you must deserve)--to a position of affluence--it has seen fit to cast me down, and in a sense, to trample upon me. But I thought that if I might----"