Jimmy Quixote Part 20

"Yes. I was in a place of which I don't suppose you know anything--the reading-room of the British Museum; only persons of some culture can gain admittance there, I am given to understand; and a man came up to me, and spoke my name. I imagined at first it must be someone who had heard of me, or of my work; fame travels, you know. Then I looked at him more closely, and there was something familiar--strangely familiar, I may say----"

"Yes--yes--it was Jimmy!" exclaimed Moira.

"It was Jimmy!" exclaimed Anthony, letting them into the secret with a burst. "I don't know how he's living exactly, but he's got a sort of idea that he can write. He gave me this--I presume as a specimen; it contains a rather foolish piece of fiction from his pen. Curious how one with no particular learning or experience will attempt these things," he added, spreading out the paper on his knee, and searching among its pages. "I never heard that Jimmy had been to a university, or was even moderately acquainted with the cla.s.sics. I haven't attempted to read it myself, except for the opening sentences."

Moira had eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from him; with a glowing face she held it out, so that Charlie might look over her shoulder. For there was the thing in print; there were the wonderful words--"By James Larrance,"

underneath the t.i.tle. And then a name caught the eyes of the girl, and she gasped, and looked quickly at Charlie.

"He's called one of his girls 'Moira,'" said Charlie, with a laugh. "So he hasn't forgotten you."

"Of course not," said Moira, scanning the paper eagerly. She turned to Ditchburn, quickly. "Do you know where he is?--where he lives?"

"I can find him easily enough," said the old man. "I will certainly bring him to see you," he added.

"And then"--Moira was looking at the paper she held, but was not reading the lines--"then we shall all be together again--just as in the old days!"

Anthony Ditchburn looked into the fire, and smiled. Perhaps he understood the difference; perhaps he knew that never could they be together again as in the old days--never any more.

CHAPTER V

ANOTHER TASTE OF BOHEMIA

When it came to an actual matter of finding Jimmy, that young man proved difficult. Anthony Ditchburn went out full of confidence, but returned dejected--returned, let it be said, at a time when a meal might be expected to be spread in that top floor in Locker Street, Chelsea; he required some pressing to stay, but asked a blessing in somewhat choice Latin. Patience felt, in regard to this latter, that it might be pagan, but sounded genteel.

"I have hunted high and low," said Mr. Ditchburn, sinking into a chair wearily and combing his ragged beard with his fingers. "First to the museum, where I had a good look round in all directions, but failed to find him; next, a weary tramp to Fleet Street, where I am told these struggling ones are sometimes to be discovered. But though I went to the very office of the paper, they declined to give me any information; I might even say that they looked upon me with suspicion."

This was not altogether to be wondered at perhaps, seeing that Anthony Ditchburn, with tears in his eyes, had endeavoured to borrow half-a-crown at that office, on the strength of a supposed friendship with Mr. James Larrance, which had lasted for many years; and had been repulsed coldly.

"They live in holes and corners, these writing people, I've heard,"

murmured Patience, with a shake of the head. "No getting up at regular hours; no going to bed at regular ones either. And as to meals----"

Patience raised her hands and closed her eyes at the mere horror of it.

"The ease of the thing surprises me," said Mr. Ditchburn presently, as he sat at the table eating ravenously. "A mere boy like this gets his name into print (I actually saw his name on a placard outside a paper shop this very afternoon) with no more qualifications than"--he looked round in search of a simile--"than you have. No grounding in the cla.s.sics--nothing!"

"Jimmy was always clever--and--and poetical," said Moira.

"There are others who are clever--also poetical," snapped Anthony; "yet they fail to obtain a hearing. Bah! it's the spread of cheap and popular education; every young jackanapes who can spell c-a-t--cat, d-o-g--dog, thinks he has a right to give his views to the public. It's a horrible state of things--and won't be mended in my time, I fear."

"But I've heard that it's difficult--very difficult indeed--to get a hearing--to persuade editors that you can write," urged Moira.

"Stuff and fiddlesticks!" exclaimed the old man. "You've only got to knuckle down to 'em--to pander to a public that doesn't know what it wants. _I've_ always refused to do that--and you see the result. I would rather starve."

Still on that mission to find Jimmy, Anthony Ditchburn haunted likely spots for a day or two, but with no success. He came in to report his want of progress each day, and each day came at the same time; moreover, he stayed, and smoked as late or later than they would have him. When he had gone on the last occasion, Moira hit upon a simpler plan to find her old friend, and adopted it. She wrote to him at the office of that paper Anthony Ditchburn had brought--wrote a little tender, girlish, friendly note, that should strike at once at Jimmy's heart. For the wonder of it was that Jimmy was not like an ordinary person at all; he could be found in this great world of London through the actual medium of the printed press.

There came a letter back to her in a surprisingly short s.p.a.ce of time.

It was headed with the address of the house in that little court off Holborn; was written in a scrawl that was almost boyish, and seemed to speak as Jimmy might have spoken.

"MY DEAR, DEAR MOIRA,

"Yes, of course I am 'your own special Jimmy' as you delightfully phrase it; and of course I am delighted to hear about you. We mustn't lose sight of each other again--and you must come soon and see me. What a lot we shall have to talk about! Your note doesn't say very much about you, or what you are doing; it seems strange to think you must be grown a woman. I shall have a lot to tell you when we meet; thanks for all the nice things you say about my work.

"Ever yours,

"JIMMY."

That was sufficiently wonderful; in that at least she had triumphed over them all; she had found Jimmy. Had she looked a little deeper into the letter she might have read that note of hesitation in it; that half suggestion that they were to meet at some future time, and not now, in the first flush of their finding each other. But she did not think of that; she saw only that Jimmy--Jimmy who was already in her eyes great and famous--was near at hand, and wanted to see her. She would go to him without delay.

In that, as may be guessed, was something of the old pa.s.sionate, jealous Moira, eager to be the first with all with whom she came in contact--eager to stand first in their hearts. She had found Jimmy; she would be the first to drag him out into the light of day, and to show her friends how she had triumphed. She would take Jimmy by the hand and draw him again amongst them all. She set off on the very morning of the day that had brought her the letter.

There was a curious feeling of hesitation about her; she was half afraid of this man who had grown into something so different from what might have been antic.i.p.ated. Jimmy poor and unknown; Jimmy in a warehouse, labouring among ordinary men and boys; that was a Jimmy to be taken frankly by the hand as a comrade in the struggle in this great world of London. But Jimmy famous; Jimmy in print, to be read and admired by the million; that was a Jimmy to be approached with care and hesitation.

True, genius appeared to be but indifferently housed, she thought, as she climbed the dark stairs to his room; but then genius was proverbially careless in such matters.

We may leap ahead of Moira's hesitating steps, and open the door for ourselves, and discover Jimmy. Jimmy in a somewhat despondent mood, having a dull aching wonder in his heart as to whether after all this game of writing was worth the candle; a little momentary feeling of envy for those who plodded the ways to offices that held certain salaries for them at the end of each carefully mapped-out week. For Jimmy had had two rebuffs that week; there was the evidence of them in packets at his elbow at that very moment. And beside the packets a certain red-covered book, that had haunted him long, and over which there had been a storm that very morning. For the wheezy dame who looked after him had delivered an ultimatum, and had snapped her fingers at Jimmy's suggestion that there was certainly money coming to him in the near future. Jimmy had pulled out periodicals, and had held before her undazzled eyes stories by himself, with his very name attached to them, but unpaid for; the good woman had merely retorted that she "couldn't abide readin' of any sort, an' didn't mean to begin at her time of life."

Therefore, Jimmy had no prospect of lunch; which might not have been a serious matter had there been any prospect of dinner, or, after that, any prospect of a bed. As the wheezy dame before mentioned had taken it into her head, the better to revive his drooping spirits, to come back into the room at intervals, and to launch at him further suggestions regarding the impropriety of his conduct in general, and the advisability of his earning an honest living at the earliest possible moment in particular, Jimmy had had a stormy morning, and was not in the best mood for visitors. Therefore, when, after a preliminary tap at the door, urgently repeated, the door was opened, and he heard the swish of skirts, Jimmy, without looking round, saluted his visitor.

"Now, my good lady--I can't do impossibilities--but I should like to do my work. You shall be paid in time; there's three guineas due to me this morning, and you shall be settled with to the uttermost farthing. If you'd read more yourself, and encourage your friends to do so, it might push up the circulation of some of the papers a bit, and I should get the money sooner. Please don't leave the door open; there's a frightful draught."

Finding that the door was not closed, and finding, also, something to his astonishment, that no fresh outburst came from the direction of the doorway, Jimmy turned round. Turned round, to find this tall, white-faced, wistful-looking girl, with hands strangely outstretched to him, and a smile parting and fluttering her lips. He fell back in amazement.

"Jimmy! You know me, Jimmy--you haven't forgotten?"

He went towards her blindly, with his eyes fixed upon hers; he seemed to grope for her hands. Perhaps, of all times in his life, he wanted her most then; perhaps, above all things, he was glad, in an indefinite unconscious way, to find that she seemed to be poor and shabby, and perhaps a little thin and hungry too. That was as it should be; he could not quite have borne anything else then.

He took her hands and held them; the two of them laughed shyly at each other, swaying towards each other for a moment, and swaying away again.

And then the eager words found vent.

"Moira--dear old Moira!"

"Jimmy--oh, Jimmy!"

He shut the door, and drew her across to a chair by the fire, and looked long at her. He stirred the fire, simply to have some occupation for his hands; looked up at her with a half smile. She, for her part, found that a new hesitation had come upon her--a new reluctance into her speech.

For though this was no genius of a Jimmy, to be held in reverence and awe and worship, still, this was a Jimmy grown up, with a deeper voice, and with the responsibilities of life upon him. The only blessed thought in her mind, as it had been a blessed thought in his, was that he, too, was poor and shabby--perhaps even a little in trouble.

They laughed at each other softly--a little sentimentally and foolishly, if the truth be told, because there was so much to be said that each was looking for a beginning. The years had gone by for each of them, and had given each of them, in a sense, a new experience of the world, and yet a small experience at the best. So that, although it was the old Jimmy and the old Moira who looked into each other's eyes in this poor room, it was yet a new Jimmy and a new Moira, with much to be learned and much to be forgotten. The child who had romped and wandered with him through sunny days was left far behind; this woman who smiled with the eyes of the old Moira was a something different, with which he had to get acquainted.

"Everyone's been trying to find you," she said at last, laughing nervously. "Now that you're such an important person, we've all been anxious to hear about you--to know what you were doing. Jimmy"--she leaned down towards him where he knelt before the refractory fire--"why didn't you try to find us?"

He got up from his knees, and stood a little shamefacedly beside his desk, turning over papers on it. "Well, you see," he began at last, "I had a notion I wanted to do something in the world--to be great--and all that sort of thing; then I think I meant to spring in upon you all--and surprise you."

He finished rather lamely, but the eyes into which he looked were tender, and he laughed more easily. "You see, I've had a bit of a struggle," he said. "Before a man does anything in this sort of profession, he's got to be prepared to live on dry bread almost----"

"But not now, Jimmy," she broke in hurriedly. "All that is done with."