Jimmy Quixote Part 27

He turned to the dresser, and began to prepare for the evening's work.

Jimmy, with a dull feeling that all was over with him, and that he wished someone would stop the band then tuning up in the distance, turned to go. Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby called him back.

"By the way--you'll be somewhere about, I suppose?" he said.

"Oh, yes; I shall be somewhere about," replied Jimmy, and went out into the streets again.

But the curtain went up in due time, and Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby, also in due time, went on to receive the applause of his friends in his dual capacity of author and actor. Jimmy knew nothing of what was happening; he could only guess, as he paced about outside, that this part of the play had been reached, or that part; he knew that an act was over and another begun when men in caps came tumbling out of the stage door, and adjourned hurriedly to a neighbouring public-house. Then Jimmy ventured inside again.

But he was not alone that night in his anxiety; there was someone else who counted the hours, and wondered what was happening; someone who, like Jimmy, but for a different reason, could have no sight of the proceedings. Although Jimmy did not know it then, and was not to know it until long, long afterwards, Moira had counted the days, and then the hours; knew to a moment when the curtain was to rise; guessed almost to a moment when it might fall again, and Jimmy's fate be known. And it was her fate to stand outside, bitterly enough, and to see nothing.

She had not seen Jimmy since that night when she had gone to his rooms, and had told him of herself and Charlie; that night she was so often to remember, when she had seen him sitting in the circle of light from his lamp; that night when the merciful darkness of the room had hidden her tears. But she had thought about him often and often; had once, on a little foolish impulse, put a common newspaper to her lips when she was alone, because it spoke of him kindly and wished him well. Charlie knew nothing of that; Charlie stood outside, as another part of her life--something Jimmy did not touch.

Yet there had been a faint hope in her mind that she might have seen the play--might have been present at Jimmy's triumph--for to imagine him failing was impossible, she felt. More than that, there was in the girl this night that strong, fine feeling--half the feeling of motherhood almost--that made her feel she would have liked to take him in her arms, and whisper words of comfort and of hope to him. It never occurred to Moira that there might be others to do that; it never seemed possible to her that this was a new Jimmy, grown out of old ways, and leaving her lightly and easily enough to Charlie. To-night at least Jimmy--her Jimmy!--stood alone, as it seemed to her, and she only understood from what he had come, and what struggles he had had, before his name could shine out before men as it did now. She wanted to tell him all this; wanted to be somewhere near him--and yet quite secretly--so that at the last crucial moment he might understand that she knew what he felt, and that she was with him in his fight.

And yet--the difference! There had come no word from him--no suggestion that she might like to see the play. She waited bravely until the very end--the very moment when she knew that people must be gathering at the theatre, and still nothing came. She determined then that she would go down to the place; she might see something of him at least--might even hear from others what was happening. Alone, and thinking only of him, she made her way down the stairs; stopped for a moment at Charlie's door. And as she stopped the door was opened, and Charlie stood there, looking out at her.

"Hullo!--going out?" he asked, yawning a little. From his appearance he had evidently been sitting over the fire for a long time, brooding.

"Yes, but only a little way," she said hurriedly, without looking at him; for in a sense this was a disloyalty to Charlie. "I shan't be long."

"Shall I come with you?" he asked, but with no alacrity in his tone.

"No--I shall be back directly--very soon, I mean," she replied.

"Oh--all right," he said, and as she went down stairs he closed the door and went back to the fire.

He sat down there in the comfortable warmth, and fell asleep. His pipe dropped from his mouth, and lay unheeded at his feet; he slept for quite a long time. When he awoke the room seemed cold and dark; the fire had died down and was almost out. Muttering impatiently against it, he set to work to replenish it; then, shuddering, looked round the place with a frown.

"I hate this room," he muttered. "Here I seem to spend my life; to this I get up in the morning; from this I go to bed at night. I wonder how long it'll last? No hope--nothing to look forward to; every jolly fellow I ever met gone from me, or gone ahead of me. It's cursed bad luck; if it wasn't for Moira, I'd----I wonder whether she's back yet?"

After a moment or two he went up softly to the upper rooms, and opened the door. Patience sat in her deep chair against the fire, asleep; there was no one else there. Charlie closed the door, and came down again; looked irresolutely about his own room.

"I'll go out," he muttered to himself. "I've got a fit of the blues, and I'll walk them off. What the deuce did Moira want to go out for--and stay away all this time?"

He got his hat and coat, and went out into the streets. It was a windy, gusty night, with splashes of rain flung at the few people in the streets; for a moment he hesitated, and almost turned back. But the thought of the cheerless room decided him against it; he walked on sharply into the brighter streets. And as he walked his spirits rose a little.

Meanwhile Moira had gone on, making straight for the theatre. Almost at that time she was obsessed with the idea that Jimmy wanted her; that on this night of all other nights he was lonely, even in the midst of his success, and that he called to her. Wind nor gusts of rain mattered anything to her then; it was Jimmy who called--Jimmy of whom she was proud; Jimmy whom she loved at this moment as she had never loved him before. In this hour her heart, so long held in check and starved within her, woke and cried for him, as a child, waking from some uneasy dream in the night, cries out for the touch of love--the sweet whisper of love to calm and soothe its fears. Jimmy in a blaze of glory in the lighted theatre was nothing to her then; her soul went out to the Jimmy of the woods and the fields of her childhood. Through the streets of that London that had taken them both into its cruel arms, and made of them what it would, she went on to meet her Jimmy.

She came to the theatre, to find a crowd about it, and carriages and cabs driving up in a long line. Only then did she realise that her errand was a wrong one; that here was no place for her. She drew back--poor shabby figure that she was--among those who waited in a line at either side of the big doors to watch the carriage folk going in. And then, for the first time, understood the bitterness of her position, as she saw one bright girlish figure emerge from a carriage and flutter in at the great doors. It was Alice.

Mr. and Mrs. Baffall came immediately afterwards, Mr. Baffall very much out of place, and Mrs. Baffall but little more at ease. Peering through the little crowd, Moira saw the girl greeting acquaintances inside--almost heard the light ripple of her laughter. It wasn't fair--it wasn't right that Jimmy should have forgotten. She drew back, and got away from the crowd, and began to pace the streets again.

They would be taking their places now; Jimmy's play would be beginning.

Perhaps after all, she thought, she might contrive to get in; it would be good to think that she might sit aloft somewhere and watch it, and tell Jimmy about it afterwards. Yes--she would go in, although shillings were hard to spare. She went round to a door in an alley, and mounted a flight of stone steps; a man behind a little paybox window shook his head at her.

"No good, miss; every seat gone, and not even standing room. Bless you, they've been waiting 'ere for hours."

She turned away again, and went round again to the front of the theatre.

The last belated comers were hurrying in, and the crowd had gone; she stood there helpless. Moving away a little, she came to a board hung against the wall of the theatre; there in small print was Jimmy's name.

Glancing about her quickly, and seeing that she was alone, she softly touched that name with her fingers, with infinite tenderness, before she turned away.

"Jimmy," she said in a whisper, "you might have remembered, dear."

She did not go back at once, she paced the streets for a long time; perhaps then some hardness was growing up in her heart--some new bitterness at the fashion in which everything and everyone seemed to have conspired to set her aside. When at last she turned her steps towards Locker Street it had grown very late, and she was very tired; she walked with lagging feet.

She got to the house and let herself in; the house was dark and silent.

Going slowly up the stairs, she had a mental picture of what she must find when she reached her own rooms--Patience asleep in her chair, or Patience asleep in her bed in her own small room. Perhaps, worst of all, Patience asking questions--demanding querulously to know where she had been; perhaps speaking of Jimmy. No--she would not face that yet; she could not face it now. And so she halted on her way, and listened at the door of Charlie's room for a sound within; rapped lightly, and, getting no reply, turned the handle. The room was empty.

But the fire burned brightly, and the room held a welcome for her after the wet and chilly streets. Charlie would come in presently, and they could talk for a little while before she went to bed. For quite desperately she wanted someone to whom to talk to-night--someone who loved her; and Charlie had said, times without number, how much he loved her. Poor Charlie, who was unsuccessful, and yet had always a good word for her--always a smile with which to greet her.

She took off her hat and laid it down; presently stretched herself at length on the shabby old sofa, and laid her cheek on her palm and looked into the fire. The room was very silent; only the fire ticked a little as it fell together; even the streets were quiet. Lying there, she thought of what her life was to be, in all the days that were coming to her--days of poverty and of struggle such as she had known for so long.

"Charlie and I will be together--and perhaps I shall be able to help him," she murmured to herself. "It won't be so bad--with the firelight in the winter--and a quiet room; and in the summer, when the sun shines, the streets and the parks--and perhaps sometimes a glimpse of the country. It won't be so bad--and there will be Charlie. And perhaps Jimmy will----"

She broke off there, because her eyes had filled with tears, and she could not go on. She turned her face a little, so that her arm hid it from the fire; she seemed to murmur there a little brokenly: "Jimmy--you might have remembered"--and again, "Jimmy!"

Then from sheer weariness she slept, and dreamed that she was back again in the old days and the sun was shining. London was but a far-off dream, and she did not know what it would be like. And so, when presently Charlie Purdue opened the door and looked in, he saw her.

He came slowly across the room, and stood looking down at her; saw her lying warm and rosy in the firelight, with the tears yet undried upon her cheeks. As she murmured in her sleep, he suddenly stooped, and fell upon one knee, and put his arms about her; it was his kiss upon her lips that woke her to some consciousness of where she was.

"Moira! my Moira!" he whispered. "I didn't hope to find you here."

Still almost with that dream upon her, she wound her arms about his neck, and nestled her head against his shoulder, as she might have done as a little child, long, long before. Still in that dream, as it seemed, and yet with a half memory of who she was and where she was, she whispered, with her lips against his:

"Let me stay with you; don't send me away. I can't--I can't bear cold looks to-night; don't speak to me. Let me stay; I want love to-night!"

It was his shame that he did not understand; his shame that he saw in her only what he might have seen in any other woman he could meet and conquer, in such an hour and under such circ.u.mstances. He wound his arms about her and held her close, and put his lips to hers. And the fire fell, and died down, and dropped to ashes.

The dawn was stealing in faint and grey, and the room was very cold. She stood against the door looking at him shamed and frightened, she shrank away from him when he would have held her; she beat him off with feeble hands.

"I didn't know, Charlie--I didn't understand," she breathed. And said it over and over many times.

When he would have touched her, she crouched away from him, and looked with wild eyes at the grey dawn that was coming in from the world outside, as though this were a new world on which she looked, and she was afraid of it. And presently fled up to her room, sobbing to herself as she went.

END OF BOOK II

BOOK III

CHAPTER I