Jimmy Quixote: A Novel

Now it was Old Paul, wandering with her through the woods; she had only to move that hand from her knitting for a moment, and close her eyes stealthily, to feel the warm touch of his fingers again. Oh, God! the warm touch of his fingers!

Now it was Jimmy, shut up, too, in this dreadful world of London somewhere this night, and calling to her above all the roar of the streets, and never making her hear. She closed her eyes again, and lay with Jimmy on the warm earth, with the sun beating down upon them, and only a whisper now and then passing between them – the very inmost kernel of their thoughts. Moira had that moment seen a fairy flit across where the sunlight lay in a path from tree to tree; and she whispered it to Jimmy, who nodded in perfect understanding. Oh, God! the fairies in the sunlight!

Now she rode again in Paul's arms in the old donkey-chaise, with the Ancient One crawling home through the warm scented dusk of a summer night; and Old Paul murmured tales to her that she knew by heart, but yet could never hear too often; and she opened her eyes and blinked away the tears, and saw always the lamp on the little table, and the woman asleep in her chair.

There were, of course, summer mornings even in London – mornings when the fresh young spirit of her, not to be quenched, rose exultant to the sunlight, and craved for air and liberty. But even then the watchful jealousy of Patience had to be reckoned with; she must not go far; she must not stray in this direction nor in that. More often than not Patience insisted on going with her; so that the spectacle was presented of the white-faced girl going through the streets, guiding the slower steps of the old woman. That was how she saw London, and how she knew it for almost four long years.

It seems in a sense incredible; but it is strictly true. Even the people in the same house with her knew nothing of her, and probably cared nothing. She grew up in that bitter narrow environment; came to full womanhood in the heart of the greatest city in the world; and yet knew nothing of the life of the city or of the world at all. She dwelt always in the past, this child of the dark eyes and the unclouded and untouched heart; anything that she saw or heard in the streets through which she passed with the old woman for company went by her, and left no trace. Her necessarily lengthening frocks were lengthened by herself; whatever small vanities sprang up in her, with the growth of her womanhood, were caught deftly enough from the people she saw in the streets, and from shop windows, and were imitated cheaply and dexterously. But the life of loneliness did not change.

Once she escaped – and only once. She must have been nearly seventeen when the chance came, and then it came and was gone before almost she had had time to recover breath. It came in the strangest fashion, and it woke within her something that made her half afraid of herself, even while it filled her with strange delight.

A girl, some years older than herself, climbed the stairs one day, and asked for her – not by name, because few people knew her name at all. Patience met the intruder, and recognised in her a girl who lived in the rooms below – a sharp, bright, rather common girl – easy and good-natured, and knowing London perfectly; and Patience, seeing in her a new danger, confronted her and demanded her errand.

"Well, I thought she might like to go out with me to-night," said the girl, a little aggressively. "I shan't do her no harm; I know my way about. I've got two tickets – "

"No," said Patience in a low voice, as though she would keep the mere knowledge of the thing from the girl in the room behind her. "We keep ourselves to ourselves, thank you; there's nothing we want."

"I don't know that I was talking to you," retorted the other, rather hotly. "It strikes me as rather hard if a girl can't say what she'd like to do or what she wouldn't. And if the opera isn't respectable, then I'd like to know what is?"

Patience felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning a little guiltily, saw Moira standing beside her. She had caught that last word, and understood, curiously enough, what it meant; for Old Paul had spoken of it more than once. Old Paul had been lifted out of himself, it seemed, on occasions of heavy trouble, by this same wonderful opera; had felt his soul rising on wings of music far away from the earth and its troubles. This was Old Paul's business clearly, and Patience must stand aside. So much the girl demanded.

"I think I will go," said Moira, smiling out at the other girl. "It's very kind of you."

"Not a bit of it," retorted the other, with a laugh. "I only got these by chance; there's not many going, I can tell you. It's Faust, and a bit of a big night. There's somebody else" – the girl laughed confusedly, and turned away her head – "somebody else that generally takes me out; but he'd only fall asleep. Can't stand opera at any price. So I thought – "

She put on the neatest that she had, and enjoyed the new luxury of a ride on the top of an omnibus. They came to a great building ablaze with lights; and by that time Moira was trembling to such an extent that the other girl, somewhat amused and amazed, put a friendly arm about the thin form to guide it up the stairs. Moira came to herself among a great press of people, with a great crowded building spreading far down below her, and a blank curtain, and the faint sound of music. Then she forgot everything, and looked and listened – and understood.

For this was very perfectly what Old Paul had told her; almost it was as though she sat with his hand in hers, swaying that hand softly in the darkness to the sound of the music below her; understanding, with the sympathetic pressure of his fingers, all the wondrous story spreading itself before her – the hope, the despair, the passion; all that love story that has stirred and moved the world for so long. She sat there, with her hands clasped, and her breath coming and going sharply; she saw nothing of anyone about her – knew nothing of where she was, or what the hour or the day; heard only the music – listened only as this thing was unfolded for her, and poured into her ears alone. For this was Love, as she had not known it nor understood it in her starved life; this was Love, that she knew, with a gasp of affright at the knowledge, it would be possible for her to feel and understand in its fullest intensity.

She sat there still after the curtain had fallen, and when the people were going out; her companion had to shake her somewhat roughly and with some feeling of uneasiness, before she would move at all. And then stumbled out like one blind.

Outside in the street, while the girl who knew her London was hurrying her along to get a 'bus, that London spread itself before Moira as a new and wonderful place. For here were men and women walking who could love as these dream people of the night had loved; here was a world transformed in a moment. She walked with light feet; all the world was alive for her to-night, and pulsing with a new feeling.

When they got out at the corner of the street that led to their own narrow little street, she took advantage of the darkness to catch at the hand of the other girl, and to raise it quickly to her lips. "I shall be grateful to you all my life," she whispered.

"Good Lord!" muttered the other girl, with an uncomfortable little laugh.

She found old Patience partially undressed, and with a shawl wrapped about her, slumbering uneasily before the burnt-out fire. Moira woke her rapturously; began to pour into her unsympathetic ears some halting, stumbling account of the wonders of the night; was met by a querulous pointing to the burnt-out fire, and to the fact that Patience had been kept out of her bed for hours beyond her usual time by these unnatural proceedings. The girl listened humbly, and said nothing more about what had happened; but she did not go again. As a matter of fact she had no further opportunity, probably because she was too surprising a companion to be taken out, even under the most generous impulses; perhaps even because no further tickets came to her friend. In any case it is doubtful if she would have accepted any further offer.

But though she dropped back to that dull routine that had been hers for so long, the memory of that night lived with her – to be stored away in that hidden chamber of memories, and not lightly to be forgotten. That was another matter over which she had merely to close her eyes, what time she sat in the dead silence of the room with the old woman and the lamp for company; and so to reconstruct the thing from beginning to end. Often and often, when Patience was asleep, the girl sat there, with her eyes closed, and her head raised, and her hands locked together in her lap over her work, quivering from head to foot with the sheer ecstasy of that music and that story that had thrilled her, and would thrill her while ever she remembered.

That incident and its consequences gave her courage – courage to override the tender, jealous watchfulness of Patience. Once or twice before, in some passionate desire to get back to the life she had known and understood in her childhood, Moira had set about the task of writing to Alice; once, too, a polite note to Mrs. Baffall. But in each instance the idea of Moira writing at all had been seized upon by the old woman as something strange and out of the way; sharp questions had been answered evasively; and finally, Patience had bitterly exclaimed against the ingratitude of one who had received such benefits as had fallen to the lot of Moira, and yet wanted someone else to fill her life. So the letters had been torn up, and Moira had gratefully whispered her thanks and her repentance to the churlish woman; and there the matter had ended. But on this occasion she was bolder.

That breaking away from the dominion of the old woman had been a greater departure than either of them suspected; it had roused in Moira that indefinite longing for the things that once had been hers. She wrote to Alice at the house of the Baffalls again; a mad, hungry letter, craving forgiveness for a long silence, and expressing vaguely enough all the longings of a heart that had been held in check sternly enough for a long time. Above all, she asked where Jimmy could be found in London; commented pitifully on the fact that she had not yet found him, although she had been in London so long. And having sent that letter, in defiance of frowns and shrugs and murmured complaints, sat down to await the postman that must inevitably come to her as a messenger straight from out of the old life.

It took more than a fortnight for that messenger to arrive; but he came one morning, and left a letter addressed to "Miss Moira Nannock," and bearing the London postmark. In all that starved time this had been the only letter the girl had had; one or two had come for Patience purely on business, and relating to small matters of dividends. Moira carried it up to her room, and looked at the precious thing with sparkling eyes before she opened it. Opening it, she found it to be commonplace enough, even though it had a certain note of conventional girlish impulse about it.

"Dearest Moira,

"How perfectly sweet of you to have written to me after all this long time! Of course I have not forgotten the old days; how could you suppose such a thing? I have never really got over Old Paul's death yet; it was so inexpressibly sad. For a time, at least, we have left Daisley Cross. I was bored to death there, and dear Aunt Baffall was only too glad to bring me to London. We are staying at a house here for the present, and you must come and see me as soon as you can. I must close now, having a dozen other letters to answer before a tiresome morning drive.

    "Yours with love,
    "Alice Vickery."

There was not much in the letter; but the suggestion that Alice, too, had come to London seemed to be a binding together anew of the original little company. Moreover, there was at the very end of the note a little hurried scrawl, giving the business address to which Jimmy had been sent. Alice had "got it out of Uncle Baffall" – but did not know anything more about Jimmy. At all events, here, with the simple coming of the postman, Moira was in touch already with almost all the people who had come into her life at the very beginning; and life took on a new aspect from that time.

Patience asked about the letter; nodded grimly when she understood that the Baffalls had come to London. "Trust her for that," said the old woman – "she'll make them do what she likes without any trouble at all. That's where you're different, my dear. Alice will slide through the world with that smile of hers and that little turn at the corners of her mouth; people will simply lie down for her to walk over 'em."

Moira, in that new eagerness to reconstruct her original world, went at once to the address of the Baffalls, as given in the letter. She was a little dismayed, on coming into the neighbourhood, to find what a very grand neighbourhood it was; she walked round the square twice before summoning courage to approach the door of the house. And when that door was opened by a tall footman, who looked straight over the top of her head while blandly asking her business, she nearly turned and ran away again. But was finally ushered into a room that seemed all gold and mirrors, and sat down there to await the appearance of this new Alice.

Mrs. Baffall came instead. Mrs. Baffall, looking a little older and a little greyer and a little more nervous; Mrs. Baffall with an eye upon the door, even while she tearfully hugged Moira. Yet Mrs. Baffall, very prosperous-looking for all that, even though not quite fitting in with the gold and the mirrors.

"Oh, my dear," murmured Mrs. Baffall, turning the pale face to the light of the windows that she might see it better, "where have you been all this time? – and why haven't we seen you? Often and often I've thought about you – (oh, my dear – what a white, thin face it is!) – and wondered what had become of you. And Old Paul (though the Lord forgive me for speaking so disrespectful of the dead) going away like that, without ever making the least provision! And as you know, my dear, Baffall and me couldn't do everything – and you did make up your mind to go your own way – and – "

"I've wanted to write to you often," said Moira, speaking a little unsteadily – "but – but there seemed to be nothing to write about. We've led very quiet lives. And Alice – "

"Well – and very pretty," said Mrs. Baffall hurriedly, with another glance at the door. "Not but what, my dear, it hasn't been in my mind many a time that it might have been better to take someone else at the first – instead of her. For she hustles us, my dear; we don't seem to get that peace in the house that Baffall and me looked forward to. It's pictures here – and a crick in the neck through looking at the top ones – and a concert there – and all sorts of things that we ain't used to. But still – she's young – and I suppose – "

The door opened, and a vision came in. The word is advisable, seeing that for the moment Moira did not recognise, in this radiant appearance, the short-skirted child of the tumbled curls she had known a few years before. For this was a being perfectly dressed, with hair perfectly arranged, and with a wonderfully correct smile of welcome parting her lips and brightening her blue eyes. There was no haste or impetuosity or eagerness; only one swift critical glance at the thin, somewhat shabbily dressed figure; then an embrace, with a little murmur in the girl's ear that was half pitying and half patronising; a murmur that sent the hot blood to Moira's cheeks, and chilled her at the same time.

"My sweet Moira – to meet you like this!" exclaimed the exquisite one. "Over and over again I've urged Aunt Baffall to do something – to advertise – or inquire of somebody – and yet nothing's been done. How have you lived, my dear – and what are you doing with yourself? Do sit down and tell me all about it?"

Moira sat down, with her eyes straying in the direction of the perplexed old woman, whose motherly instincts, cheated so long, had induced her late in life to bring this awkward swan under her very ordinary goose's wing. When presently Mr. Baffall strayed in, he did but accentuate the position; for he was more awkward than ever, and seemed to have a vague and horrible feeling that Moira had come there with the object of being adopted also. He sat there, while Mrs. Baffall furtively reached for his hand, and regarded the two girls in silence.

"Now I want to have a long talk with Moira; so you'll please run away," said Alice at last, after a long and somewhat awkward pause. "You know what time to order the carriage, dear Uncle Baffall; and I do hope that Aunt Baffall will lie down for half an hour before we start; she is so liable to fall asleep," she added to Moira, as she took an arm of each of the old people and hurried them out of the room.

"But I wanted to talk to her myself," protested Mrs. Baffall feebly. But the door was closed and she was gone.

Afterwards, in recalling the conversation that had taken place, Moira found it difficult to remember anything in particular. She had a vague notion that Alice's time was largely taken up with the fitting on of frocks and with conversations with young gentlemen upon nothing in particular; but she brought away with her a distinct notion that the blue eyes were more beautiful than ever, although somewhat colder, and that the droop of the mouth would have made almost anyone who did not understand, sorry for the girl in an indefinite way. Only one point did honest Moira think of resentfully afterwards; and that was Alice's dismissal of the Baffalls from the very scheme of things, as being necessary only for what they gave her.

"The dear old things are so stuffy," she had said. "Positively, sometimes, my dear, I find myself blushing for them, and going hot and cold when I think of the mistakes they have made. But there – I think most of my real friends understand!"

Remembering that resplendent vision that drove in a carriage through this London in a corner of which Moira hid, she determined to go no more in search of Alice. Instead, she turned with an eagerly-beating heart in the direction in which Jimmy might be found – Jimmy, who had not even been mentioned by Alice or by the Baffalls. Only now, as she went in search of him, did she begin to think it strange that nothing had been said concerning Mr. Baffall's other protégé.

The address was that of a huge general warehouse in a narrow street turning out of Cheapside. Moira found it with some difficulty; read the name over the big windows with a feeling of pride that Jimmy should belong to such an establishment. After a little hesitation she went inside, through big swing doors, into a great warehouse stacked to the very ceiling with parcels wrapped in paper, and with cardboard boxes and bales; and with innumerable young men and elderly men and boys at work among the parcels and the bales, and here and there a figure perched at a high desk, jotting down something called to him by one of the busy figures. But no sign of Jimmy.

A young gentleman without a coat lounged forward to the counter at which she stood; glanced at her quickly for a moment, and went on writing in a book. Without looking up he asked what she wanted.

"Mr. James Larrance," she said, in a low voice. "I wanted to speak to him for a moment – if he's not too busy."

The man glanced up quickly, and laughed; spread a piece of blotting-paper on the book, and rubbed it vigorously. Then he turned in the direction of another man, and jerked his head to beckon him. "Mr. James Larrance, if you please," he said; and laughed again, and went on with his work.

The other man who had been beckoned was somewhat older than the first; moreover, he wore a coat, as showing some greater importance. He came to the counter, and lounged with one elbow upon it, and looked at the girl.

"Don't you know he's gone?" he asked.

"No – I didn't know that," she faltered.

"Well, he has," he retorted. "The work here wasn't quite good enough for him; he'd got notions above cloth and calico, I suppose – at any rate, notions that wouldn't do here. So he decided to go away, and I suppose make a fortune for himself – eh?" He glanced at the younger man and laughed unpleasantly.