Jimmy Quixote Part 9

He grew calmer presently; some of the old sober strength of the man, that had been shattered for the time, returned to him. The peace of the night stole into his veins; he looked about him at the darkening world, and up at the stars, and thought how small and poor a thing he was, compared with all the worlds that took their calm and solemn ways about him. He was but a unit in a great scheme of things; and on this very earth he trod to-night other men in bygone years had trod their ways, of joy or pain, weariness or hope; and so had gone down into the dust, as he must go. It did not seem so bad, out here under the stars; it almost seemed as though the man walked alone with his G.o.d, and understood.

But now, perhaps more than ever before in his life, he needed a woman.

It was a vague indefinite longing--some faint touch of the helplessness of the man, alike in his birth and in his death. No mere child could be of use to him in this hour; he wanted to touch the hand of a woman; wanted to be sure of her, and to know, whoever she was, that she understood. And there was no one to whom he could turn--no one strong enough.

He avoided the house, save that he stood for a time at the gate, and looked at the windows, and counted the lights; he knew what each light meant, and knew who slept within. And only then for a moment did he turn aside, and see that all the landscape danced and was misty before him.

He went on, with that indefinite feeling of what he wanted and could not find.

He went on down into the succeeding valley beyond his own house; found himself presently wandering disconsolately outside the house of the Baffalls. And, the house of the Baffalls being a new one, was set close to the road, with only a mere strip of ground between it and a new and gaily painted railing. Half mechanically he glanced at the windows, and saw a light, and was comforted; because here were friends.

On the other side of the lighted window a woman lay wakeful. That was strange, because ordinarily speaking, as Mrs. Baffall herself expressed it, she no sooner touched the pillow than she was off! But on this night she lay thinking and listening; even the comfortable well-known presence of Baffall by her side did not rea.s.sure her. In some way or other the night held a mystery; someone seemed to be calling to her from out the dark depths of it.

She had been thinking a great deal about Old Paul--for the motherly heart of her, that never had been wakened to real motherhood, embraced even him. She had been a little sorry for him--as for one who had not quite made the best of things, or who had missed something to which he should have attained. She had thought once--blushing prettily at the thought--that she might have had such a son, of such an age, for herself; for she and Baffall had married early, and that had been many years ago. And to-night, for some hidden reason, she lay awake and thought about him.

She got out of bed softly at last, petulantly displeased with herself for this sudden change in her habits, and went to the window and looked out. It was a clear night, with stars showing, and a mere ghost of a wind rustling the trees; Mrs. Baffall shivered a little, and made a movement to go back to bed. But as she turned, she glanced again through the window, and stopped. For the tall figure of a man was pacing up and down in the road outside, not a dozen yards from where she stood. And the man had on his head a flapping soft hat, such as was worn by Paul Nannock.

To tell the sober truth, Mrs. Baffall was a little frightened. Perhaps because the half-waking dream of him had brought him so strongly into her memory--perhaps because it seemed so strange that he should be pacing up and down like this, when she had thought of him secure in his own house. She stood for a moment, with nervous fingers at her lips, looking at her sleeping husband, and wondering what she should do. Still watching Baffall, she went at last to a corner of the room, and got a heavy dressing-gown and put it on; slipped her bare feet into soft slippers, and made for the door. Mr. Baffall still slumbered heavily as she opened the door and went out on to the staircase.

Even then she had no very distinct idea of what she was to do. The fear had gone; she seemed to see only out in the darkness this lonely man who was fighting out some problem; seemed to feel, in the very heart of her, that he wanted her, and that she could help him. She felt her way down the stairs, and found a candle and lighted it; softly undid the bolts and locks of the door; and appeared there in the doorway, with her candle held above her head. That was the appearance she made to Paul Nannock, as he paused outside the railings and looked towards her.

Unconsciously this was what he had prayed and hoped for; for here was a woman who might--indeed, who must--understand. He thrust open the gate, and went in slowly, with his eyes fixed upon her; and so for a moment they looked at each other. And as they looked, all the surprise of the meeting was gone; it was only a man and a woman smiling upon each other in a very perfection of kindly friendship.

"I saw you--a long time ago," she whispered. "Funny--I seemed to think it was you. Come in--come in and talk to me."

He went in and she closed the door; with a little cheery whisper to him that the fire was not quite out, and that it was a chilly night, and that Baffall was asleep, and that Old Paul mustn't mind her "get-up,"

Mrs. Baffall took him into a room, and set down the candle. And there stood, with her grey hair disordered and falling about her shoulders, looking at him, and mutely asking what he had to say. And because what he had to say was so momentous, he made no apology for his coming--he spoke direct from his heart.

"It's a little--a little trouble," he said--"and I wanted--wanted someone to speak to."

"Yes, my dear?" The words came out quite simply and naturally, as she seated herself and drew her dressing-gown about her. But never did she take her eyes from his face.

"I've known it a long time," went on Paul, swallowing something in his throat, and drawing himself up--"longer than I cared to confess to myself. I tried not to believe it--just as we all do; but it wasn't any good in the end. There was a ray of hope last week--something that might be done, they thought; but the ray of hope went to-day."

She drew a long breath, and then set her lips tightly, and nodded. He smiled at her; almost it seemed as though he tried to laugh. Seeing that, she turned her head away swiftly, and doubled one hand, and beat it softly on her knee as she looked at the remains of the fire. He went on speaking; and it was curious that he seemed to speak of someone else.

Never of himself.

"They don't give you much time in anything like this," he said in a whisper. "I've got the truth out of 'em--and G.o.d knows it wanted some pulling out; these people have wrong-headed ideas of mercy. It's death, Mrs. Baffall."

He spoke as though the very presence of it were in the room with them then; she glanced at him, but did not speak.

"When I heard it first I--I was afraid. Life seemed so big and strong; it was all about me--throbbing and pulsing and striving--as I came out from where they'd examined me. Men were laughing and striding along, and speaking to each other--men with years of life before them; I stood in a great city, with death hard at my elbow. In quite a little time I was to leave everything behind--I was to go out into the shadows.

Oh--I can tell you I was afraid!" He laughed now at that odd recollection--laughed shamefacedly.

"But not now?" It was the first time she had spoken since he began; she spoke in a whisper.

He shook his head. "Not for myself; the fear has gone," he said. "It will only be a sort of falling asleep. If ever I grow afraid again, it will be when I think about it in the sunlight. For I love the sunlight.

It isn't for myself--but oh, my G.o.d--what of the babies?"

He beat one fist softly into the palm of the other hand, and bit his lips, and looked at her wide-eyed. She felt that she had got to the very heart of the matter now; she was on surer ground. Already she looked upon the man as someone gone beyond her--someone to be spoken of with bated breath; but the children appealed to her practical mind; she probed deep down to the very source of the trouble that oppressed him.

Death was a thing to be met full front; but young lives were wrapped up with the failing life of Old Paul, and he did not know what was to happen to them.

"There'll be those who'll give a care to them," she suggested, with her own mind already making up to speak to Baffall about it on the morrow.

"You see, I gathered them about me so light-heartedly," said the man, "there was no thought about the future. I think I'd got an idea that we were going to live in this place for ever--without changing--almost without growing up. Silly--wasn't it?" He laughed feebly, and shook his head at that folly that was done with. "And yet I meant it for the best. Jimmy, now, could look after himself; boys are different. But it's the--the girls."

"Oh--I know, my dear--I know!" whispered the old woman, thrusting back a lock of grey hair from her forehead, and looking perplexedly at the fire. "But you can appoint guardians--people to look after them--and to look after the money?"

"Oh, yes, I shall do all that," he said. "That's the first thing I shall set about doing; I'll leave everything square and straight; trust me for that. It seems strange I should be arranging things like this--doesn't it? I think yesterday--or even this morning, for the matter of that--I wanted to live quite a long time. Now it doesn't seem to matter so much--except--except for the children." He waved his hand indefinitely, and smiled upon her with a wan smile.

"It would have been worse for you, dear--the going would have been worse, I mean--except for the babies," she reminded him gently. "That seems to me the best of it; several of 'em to be sorry--more sorry than most. Now, when it comes to my time----"

He moved towards the door of the room, and came back again; he fingered the brim of his hat, and looked at it as he spoke. "Of course they may have made a mistake--but I don't think so. It seems--seems rather a pity--doesn't it?" And again he spoke as of someone else.

She did not reply; together they went to the outer door, and stood there for a moment looking at the stars. He seemed to indicate the stars as he leaned towards the old woman for a moment, and nodded his head towards the sky.

"It all seems very peaceful," he said whimsically. "I mean--nothing seems to be threatened; no vengeance or punishment for blunders--nothing of that at all. Even G.o.d sleeps, perhaps, on such a night as this--and mercifully forgets. Good-night!"

There was that between them that the old hand lay for a moment in the firmer grasp of the younger one before he shook it and let it go. As he reached the gate, he looked back and nodded; and she called to him, holding her candle above her head:

"Good-bye!" Then, as he disappeared, she called out feebly, in a mere whisper--"No--no--I didn't mean 'good-bye'; I meant--'good-night.' Not 'good-bye'!"

But Paul was gone, and a puff of wind from the garden blew out her candle.

CHAPTER VII

"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY"

Old Paul went home comforted and uplifted, and filled with the thought that the first thing he must do before he slept must be to make provision for the future for his young people. Before he slept! There was that in the thought that gave solemn pause to everything, and gripped his heart for a moment--but only for a moment. The night was coming, in a special sense, to him; but it was to be only a falling asleep.

He let himself into the old house, and went quietly to his room; lit his lamp, and sat down to smoke and to think. Then he got out pens and papers, and set to his task. For the time might be short in which this was to be done.

But the pen dropped from his fingers, and he lay back in his chair, with a smile upon his face, dreaming. Not to-night should this be done; it would seem as though he feared that to-night was the last opportunity.

He would wait; some other night, when he was calmer, he might take up the pen, and set out what his wishes were. This was not a night for business; if the Shadows were to claim him so soon, he would have at least this night to himself. It occurred to him, too, that he would not sleep; that was a giving of so much time to an eternity that should claim soon all the time that was his. He would sit up, and dream.

His thoughts, from touching gently on the peaceful life he had led there, and on the children who had been about him in those quiet years, went back further and touched his earlier life; touched gently the woman who had been in her grave so long, and whose child was near Paul's heart that night. Almost it seemed as though he was a mere boy again, flushed and primed with the knowledge that she loved him; with the world stretching fair before him, and the woman beckoning. Mercifully enough, all that had happened since was swept away and forgotten; he loved her, and out of the past she came to him on this night, and stood before him.

He rose in the quiet room, and stretched out his arms, and called her name; and it was the glad, joyous call of the youth in love.

"Moira!--my Moira!"

The child in the room above heard dimly in her sleep, and turned, and smiled; she had heard the cry from his lips over and over again in infinite tenderness. And this, was but a beautiful dream, from which she did not desire to wake. She turned and snuggled comfortably into her pillow, and slept with that smile on her lips.

The lonely man stood there with a face transfigured; his youth was coming back to him. The warm kisses of the woman were on his lips; her soft, rounded body was pressed close in his arms; he heard the whisper that he had heard once in reality--"I love you, Paul--I love you!"

Then the dream changed; his arms fell to his sides, and he stared out into the room, seeming to shrink a little into himself. He was striving to remember now what had been said to him that day; striving almost to believe that it was not true. Above all, he was alone; and even now there might be a Presence in the house. He was not afraid; but if he might only know when It was coming. Not yet--oh, G.o.d!--not yet!

And then the prayer--the only cowardly cry that had come from him--"Lord, let it be sudden; kill me in my sleep!"--and then a seizing of the paper, and a wild beginning to write.