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 God 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, God!—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.
"To Moira, beloved of my heart now and always, I give——"
At the last, with some growing faintness upon him, and with the pen trailing off illegibly, he must have tried to get to the children. For they found him at the foot of the stairs, lying there with his hands stretched up towards the room, and with a smile upon his face, as though at the last he had striven to call to them. Patience found him like that, early in the morning, before anyone was stirring; and the old woman sat for a long time on the stairs, holding him in her arms, as she had done many and many a time when he had been a child, and whispering to him, and striving to wake him. But he was quite dead.
There is a courage born of love and devotion greater than ever sprang from passion or from hate; and such a courage was given to the woman then. When she knew that her dead was past recall, she determined that no other hand should touch him—no other eyes look upon him, until presently he should lie calm and peaceful as she would have him lie. With a love-given strength that seemed impossible for her withered limbs, she got her arms about him, and got him toilsomely up the stairs; being so gentle with him, and whispering so tenderly, that he might have been a thing alive, and only sick and faint. And so got him to his room, and laid him on his bed; and only then, for the first time, gave way. For when that was done, and the door closed upon her and her dead, she wept her withered heart out; with only his cold hand against her cheek and her tears upon it.
Afterwards, while she gathered her wits, she kept up the amazing pretence that he had not yet come home. Everyone had gone to bed on the previous night before Old Paul had let himself into the house; and the woman told herself that she must seek some advice, before the children or Anthony Ditchburn knew what had happened. She did not quite know to whom to go; for the present she turned the key in the lock, and left him there, and set about her ordinary duties. For those must be done always, she thought, whether men lived or died.
Jimmy and the two girls spoke wonderingly about Old Paul at the breakfast table; Patience silenced them querulously, as she had done any time these ten years over awkward questions. And all the time she wondered what she should do, or to whom she should go; Anthony Ditchburn was impossible, and there seemed no one else. Yet someone must be told, and that soon.
The difficulty grew with Anthony Ditchburn. The going of Paul to London had always spelt for Ditchburn tobacco; and in this case it happened that, seeing fresh tobacco near at hand, the man had smoked more than usual, and his supply was exhausted. He came piteously to Patience, after she had dismissed the children to the rectory, and held out a ragged, empty pouch.
"He should have been back before this, Patience," he whimpered. "Even if he couldn't get back, he might have sent it. My work at a standstill—and my nerves shattered; it isn't fair. It's so little I ask——"
She turned a stony face to him. "There's no tobacco for you—and I know nothing about it," she said. "Did he ever forget any one of you?"
"He was never as careful as he might have been," retorted Anthony; and was staggered when she turned upon him fiercely, and drove him from the room.
She went up more than once during the day to that room; she was a little proud of the fact that she alone knew what had happened, and that she had him there to herself. Coming down on the last occasion, she heard someone moving about quietly in the room Old Paul had used as his study; with a raging heart against Anthony Ditchburn, she went straight in, with set teeth, to face him. And faced instead, the girl Moira—looking at her with eyes before the light of which her own fell.
The girl held a paper in her hand; she held it out towards the woman. "He's been here—last night," she said, in a whisper.
"Why, dearie, whatever are you talking about?" asked Patience, fearfully. "And what brings you back now?"
"I couldn't stay; I knew that he had come back," whispered Moira, watching the woman. "I knew it this morning; in a dream I had he called to me last night. And look at this; see what he's written!"
Patience went tremblingly towards the child; but in an instant Moira had snatched back the paper, and was rapidly folding it. "No—not for you to see—not for anyone to see," she said. "It was written for me—meant only for me. Where is he?"
Patience broke down at once; spread out tremulous hands towards the child, to soothe and silence her. "Now, my dear, there's nothing for you to ask about—nothing for you to know. And even if he did come back last night——"
The girl had raced out of the room, and was half-way up the stairs before the old woman had reached the door. Patience stood there, trembling and cowering against the wall; she heard the rattling of the handle of the door above. And that roused her as nothing else could have done; she stumbled up the stairs, whispering entreaties as she went.
"For the love of God, child, don't make a noise there!" she breathed. "He lies so quiet; tread soft, my dear—tread very soft!"
So they faced each other outside the door of the locked room—the white-faced child and the woman who wept and wrung her hands. And for a long moment, nothing was said.
"He's in there; I know it," whispered Moira. "You needn't think I'm afraid; and I shan't cry out. Let me go in!"
"No—no—dearie——"
"I will! I'll beat down the door if you don't let me in!" came the tense whisper.
She had not looked on death before; and this was not what she had expected. For this was the Old Paul that she had loved, lying asleep, with a smile on his lips, and that smile for her. He was gone; but sorrow was too mean a thing, in the ordinary sense, for him now. Child though she was, she knew that at the last he had written of her; that one little phrase, "beloved of my heart—now and always," lay warm against her heart even now, and comforted her. He had gone to that last sleep thinking of her; and nothing in that sleep was terrible. It had been his creed always to teach her to be brave; he had not taught that in vain. The old woman, standing fearfully within the door watching her, understood for the first time what this child was; seemed to look for the first time upon a new being that surprised and held her silent and dried her tears. She saw the slim figure of the girl, with hands clasped at her breast, bend forward; wonderingly heard her speak.
"Old Paul—it was kind of you," whispered the child. "I knew it always—that I was beloved of your heart; but it was sweet of you to remember to tell me."
She came out quite firmly, and locked the door, and took the key; the amazed woman followed her downstairs; ventured at the foot of them to touch her on the arm. "You—you weren't afraid?" she breathed.
Moira looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Afraid?—of Old Paul?" She turned away and went into his room.
Nor did she break down when presently Mrs. Baffall came in, with raised hands and streaming eyes, to comfort her. This was no question of callousness. Old Paul had been everything to her in life, and he must, therefore, be everything to her in death, and always. Nor was it affectation; it was only what Old Paul would have wished—part of that fine, strong, smiling philosophy that had been the very fibre of the man himself. Truth to tell, the child was a little impatient of what she regarded as a mere parading of grief. Old Paul would never speak to her again, and in that only did her grief lay; but he had spoken to her at the last—to her specially; and in that was her exquisite comfort.
Others had, of course, to be told, and they took the news in varying fashion. Alice became wide-eyed and tearful; she was a very appeal in herself. For the blue eyes, half obscured in a mist of tears, and the beautiful drooping mouth, quivering and pitiful, demanded sympathy and secured it. Jimmy wore a frightened aspect; for this was something he did not understand, and something that touched him unexpectedly. Curiously enough, only Mrs. Baffall seemed to know what was in the mind of Moira.
"It's quite uncanny," she said to Baffall, with a shake of the head. "It isn't as though the man had died at all; he lives in that very house with her and for her; he's always lived like that for her. She doesn't seem to know what death means—at least, not in his case. You see, Daniel, it makes me feel younger than she is—and ignorant, in a way. When I spoke to her this morning—and I was crying at the time—she didn't seem to understand that there was anything to cry for. 'You don't know Old Paul,' she keeps on saying; and she smiles at me in that queer way I want to hug her—and yet I dare not."
Mrs. Baffall, feeling it incumbent upon her to tell her friends what had happened, searched her mind for the names of friends; and discovered that not many were left outside that business that had been left behind in London. And, therefore, it happened that she thought, with the pens and paper actually before her, of Honora Jackman, with something of gratitude for the inspiration; and wrote to her, to that obscure address in London. And so evoked a black whirlwind.
For Honora came down as the whirlwind, preceded by a tempestuous telegram. Arriving in the evening, she was welcomed sombrely by Mrs. Baffall; and thereafter sat in a dejected attitude, sipping tea and saying little. She heard in whispers from Mrs. Baffall, and in low growls from Baffall, all that had taken place; she learned that the funeral was to be on the morrow. She nodded gloomily once or twice; strove to fix her eyeglass, and failed; and listened to a whispered account of the bravery of Old Paul, and of how the end had come. Then she sat up and spoke her mind, and Mrs. Baffall, though amazed, had a sneaking feeling that Honora had got to the truth of things.
"Oh, it's a damned rough world!" said Honora, viciously. "Here was a man that ought, in the proper course of things, to have been in armour, with a face turned towards the sun—going out to do noble things, and to fight for women—and all that sort of thing. You knew him—and you'd seen him. Instead of that, he comes down here among the woods and the flowers; and he walks steadfastly—before his God, I verily believe—and any feeble little child that raises a cry out of a hideous world is snatched up by him and glorified. And then they cut him off—all in a minute—and leave all sorts of other whelps to live, and do harm, and prosper."
"It's hard on the children," said Mrs. Baffall, after a pause in which she had striven to digest Honora's vehement statement.
Miss Jackman sat up, and smote her hands together. "The children! I'd forgotten the children," she said, breathlessly. "What's going to become of them?"
Mr. Baffall coughed, and stroked the grey beard on his chin; Mrs. Baffall smiled at him, and drew herself up a little proudly.
"We're taking Alice," she said softly. "I think we took her because there's something lady-like about her, and we seem to have understood her best," she added apologetically. "Then Baffall's got the idea that something might be done for the boy in London—in a matter of business; but we haven't quite had time to think about it yet."
"I remember the boy—Jimmy, didn't they call him?" said Honora thoughtfully. "A nice boy. And wasn't there another girl—dark-haired—bit of a spitfire?"
"Moira," said Mrs. Baffall. "We don't quite know what is going to be done with Moira; no one seems to know how to begin about her. We shall know better after to-morrow."
"After to-morrow?" Honora Jackman nodded and pursed up her lips. "What are the children going to do to-morrow?" she demanded suddenly.
"Well, my dear," began Mrs. Baffall, "in a little place like this, where everybody knows everybody—I suppose they'll go to the funeral; it's what might be expected——"
Honora suddenly brought down a fist smartly on the table beside her. "No—and no again—a thousand times over!" she exclaimed, with what seemed quite unnecessary violence. "You're wrong. The man is done with—so far as the mere flesh of him is concerned; what have children to do with that? Don't I know myself what I've suffered as a child; don't I know and remember how I've been dragged into dark rooms by the hand, and shown people in coffins; can I ever forget it? It isn't fair—it isn't right. Death comes soon enough to us all; never should a child see it or brood about it. I'll see to the children to-morrow," she added, with sudden alacrity. "I'll take them away, and let them know about it only afterwards. It's a hard world, but we might let the children sometimes see the best side of it; the worst comes soon enough."
"'Ear! 'ear!" exclaimed Mr. Baffall, in a hoarse whisper.
Honora Jackman kept her word in that matter valiantly. Whether as a tribute to the man who had stirred her careless time-beaten heart as few others had done, or whether simply on an impulse of generosity, it is impossible to say; but she determined to take charge of the young people for that day. She put in an appearance at the house quite early in the morning; was greeted by Jimmy somewhat shyly, and with but small recollection of past days. Alice, for her part, lifted a face which seemed all brimming eyes and quivering mouth, as she had done to everyone about her for days past; Moira was not to be discovered. Patience, appealed to, had not seen the girl that day; she had apparently slipped out of the house before anyone was stirring.
Honora Jackman drew Patience aside; spoke to her in her usual energetic and impetuous way.
"I'm going to take them away—just for the day—I'm going to get them out of it. He'd have wished that," she added, lowering her voice, "and I feel I ought to do something—for his sake—to-day. They don't know that it's to be to-day—do they?"
"I don't think so, Miss," replied the old woman. "There's been so much to see to, one way and another, that I don't know that it's been actually spoken of. But perhaps they guess, Miss."
"And perhaps they don't," exclaimed Honora sharply. "I'll bring 'em back when it's all over. Can you manage some sandwiches?—we'll picnic somewhere."
Thus it happened that, after a fruitless search for Moira, Honora Jackman started off with Jimmy and the younger girl into the woods; and Jimmy carried a parcel. They were rather an incongruous trio in their black garments (for Honora had "dodged up" something, as she expressed it to Mrs. Baffall), but no one thought of that. Jimmy, still stunned a little by the blow that had fallen, was glad to escape from the house; Alice was always willing to do anything she was told. The woods swallowed them up, and Honora Jackman had a warm feeling about her heart that perhaps at this late hour she might be doing something that would have pleased Old Paul after all.
It is not necessary to touch in detail the events of a saddened day; the only point that needs to be dwelt upon is the coming of the man in black, and what his coming meant to everyone concerned.
The man in black appeared first in the garden of the house, what time Mr. Baffall was pulling on stiff black gloves, and looking appropriately solemn and melancholy. The man in black had opened the gate, and had stepped quietly in; he looked all about him, almost as though he were making a valuation of the property generally. He was not a nice-looking man; he had a long thin cadaverous face, and his eyes were too near together, and his step was not a firm nor manly one. Indeed, he walked with something of a mincing gait, as though he apologised to the very ground for treading upon it.
Mr. Baffall stopped in the act of pulling on a glove, and stared out of the window at the stranger. He called in a whisper to Patience, and nodded towards the man, and looked inquiringly at the old woman. She shook her head.
"Don't know, I'm sure," she whispered. Then, in lingering tones of half remembrance, she added slowly: "And yet I seem to know the face—seem to remember——"
The man in black made no attempt to come into the house; he waited until the melancholy little procession was formed, and then fell in behind Mr. Baffall. Mrs. Baffall had gone to the churchyard, and Patience went by the way across the fields, and met her there. So that it came about that Mr. Baffall and the man in black were the only people who followed. Someone had knocked softly at the door of Anthony Ditchburn's room; but he had cried out in a frightened, whimpering voice that he was not well, and that they were to go away. Mr. Baffall did not care to say anything, or to question the man in black; he had known so little of Paul himself that he thought it possible this might be an old friend or acquaintance.
The Rev. Temple Purdue must have been thinking of something else at one part of the service, for he began a line from quite another place.
"Forasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these——"
Then he checked himself hurriedly, and went on with the proper words; but Baffall glanced at Mrs. Baffall, and thought perhaps the little slip not so wrong after all.
As Mr. Baffall, at the end of everything, was replacing his hat and turning towards his home, the man in black touched him on the elbow, and tendered a card. Baffall, in some surprise, mechanically took it, but did not look at it; instead, he looked at the man in black, and decided that he did not like him. Then his eyes travelled to the card, and he read the name upon it—"Mr. Matthew Shandler."
Baffall looked up at the man, and back again at the card. The man cleared his throat, and sighed, and ventured an explanation.
"A—a second cousin—on his father's side," he murmured. "So far as I am aware, his sole living relative; and I have made every inquiry. But perhaps he left a will."
Mr. Baffall felt his heart sink; as he expressed it afterwards to Mrs. Baffall, he "knew directly it was all up with the children." Being a man of business, however, he invited Mr. Matthew Shandler to come home with him and discuss the situation.
The shadows lengthened into evening in the little churchyard, and over the woods and fields. Honora Jackman and the two children came presently tailing homewards to that changed house; afterwards Honora took her own way back to the house of the Baffalls. In the churchyard a slim white-faced girl stole out from among the shadows of the trees, looking about her carefully in all directions, and went to the grave; and there for the first time broke down and wept as she had never wept before. For this was the parting, and only her memories were to be left to her for the future. It was, perhaps, characteristic of her that she should have watched and waited until the darkness had fallen before she went to him; characteristic of her, too, that she felt she was never again to visit the grave. This was to be final—and this was between the dead man and herself only.
"Good-bye, Old Paul—for ever and ever," she whispered, kneeling there, and touching the earth softly with her palms, as in benediction. "Sleep very quietly—rest lightly—my dear—my dear! I shall never forget; I shall think of you, dear, sleeping here, with the trees whispering above you, and the birds—and all about you that you loved. Old Paul!—oh—my Old Paul!"
By the time she got back to the house she was calm and self-contained; she offered no explanation of her absence to anyone. When, in the big room upstairs, Alice begged that she might be allowed to drag her bed across, so that she could be near Moira in the night, Moira scornfully regarded her for a moment, and then dragged the bed across herself.
"What are you afraid of?" she demanded.
"I feel as if I should die," whimpered the other girl. "It's so awful. He's dead—and I feel that perhaps in the dark he might come in—as he used to do——"
"I wish he would," broke in Moira quickly. "Go to sleep; you can hold my hand, if you feel frightened."
The younger girl presently fell asleep, with the undried tears still upon her pink cheeks; a smile grew about her mouth as she lay there. The smile was answered by one in the face of Moira, but it was a scornful one. For her part she lay wakeful, with the tears gathering in her eyes quietly now and then, as old memories came back to her.
Meanwhile, Mr. Baffall was stubbornly fighting a battle. As he went on fighting it, he discovered that he hated the man in black more and more every moment, with a growing hatred; for Matthew Shandler was not to be moved in any way. They had been together to the house, but no will had been found; they had the testimony of Mrs. Baffall that Old Paul had declared his intention of doing it that very night of his death; which looked hopeless enough, on the face of it.
Mrs. Baffall had been early turned out of the room by the shoulders, gently enough, by her husband; because she persisted in bursting into tears, and in imploring Matthew Shandler to remember the children. Which, as Baffall put it afterwards, wasn't business.
Shandler, for his part, spoke with perfect justice, as the world knows it. The children were nothing to him, and were not related in any way to the late Paul Nannock. Right was right; and although Mr. Shandler was an exceedingly well-to-do man, as he admitted with some pride, the property belonging to Old Paul was most certainly his, unless someone with a better right put in a claim to it. And he referred Mr. Baffall, with a smile, to his solicitors.
Mr. Baffall waited until such time as he discovered that the battle was a hopeless one; then he closed the door, lest Mrs. Baffall be shocked; and he remembered, with sudden vehemence, certain language long since left behind with the sordid business that had made him rich. He gave vent to some home-truths and expressions of opinion that hurt no one; for the man in black was made of stronger stuff than Baffall supposed, and merely smiled in reply. When, finally, he left, with the knowledge that he had come conveniently enough into a very snug property, he wished Mr. Baffall "Good-night!" gently, and desired that that gentleman would make Matthew Shandler's farewells to his good wife.
There was a deadly quality about Matthew Shandler that could not in any sense be opposed. He did that which he had determined upon with quiet precision, and with absolutely no display of emotion; indeed, more than once, when bitter opposition was raised against him, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders and turned away. But he went on with the work nevertheless.
Alice had her home assured; though at the last Mrs. Baffall wondered, in a timorous whisper to her husband, whether it wouldn't have been better to have taken Moira. But she had never understood Moira; and, indeed, it is doubtful if the girl would have listened to any such proposition. Alice was satisfactory, in the sense that there was nothing unexpected about her; you always knew where to find her, and you were always sure that she would never be unladylike, or in any mood difficult of analysis. As a matter of fact, Moira had been approached, dubiously enough, on the subject, and had declared that she was going to stay with Patience. Which meant, in other words, that she would stay at the old house as long as anyone would permit her to do so.
Jimmy was to go out into the world. Mr. Baffall had tugged at his beard a great deal over Jimmy, and had at last decided that the boy should go to London, and should be given a post in a business there, the strings of which were still in Mr. Baffall's hands.
Mr. Matthew Shandler had sold everything in the house, and the house itself was to let. There had been no mercy about the man, nor any suggestion of mercy; these people were nothing to him, and they must be got rid of. So that there came a day when the few possessions of Patience were packed ready to be taken away, and when an old battered tin trunk—such a small pitiful little tin trunk!—that had come with Moira years before, when Old Paul had first brought her to the house, was fished out of a garret and stuffed with what clothes the girl possessed; some parcels held the rest. Patience—brave, strong old woman—was going out into the world to-morrow, and Moira was going with her. Mr. Baffall had done pulling his beard over them; he realised that the woman and the child must be left alone. Anthony Ditchburn had sent off a box of books to some unknown destination, and then had followed too—going away as mysteriously as, years before, he had come.
On the morrow Jimmy was to start; he was going quite early in the morning, consigned to a lodging and to his new business by the Baffalls. They had been very good to the boy, and he was starting fairly well; more than that, he was filled with awe and wonder and delight at the prospect of entering that wonderful place—that London to which Old Paul had gone now and again to fetch treasure. He had said "good-bye" easily enough to Alice; Alice who, in the future, was to live comfortably, and who had not paid her calls upon the Baffalls for nothing. And now it had come to the point when he must say "good-bye" to Moira.
His small luggage had been sent on to the station, and he was to walk. He came with Moira out of the dismantled house, and through the old garden; she would walk to the top of the hill with him, she said, and see him on his way. She choked down the heart that was rising in her as she went with him; she touched his hand casually as they walked side by side; and he let it linger there, so that they went hand in hand. It was a miserable morning—fitted appropriately enough to the occasion—and a drizzle of rain was all about them as they went, and made a mist over the familiar road and the fields.
They got to the top of the hill, and Jimmy turned his bright eyes upon her. "I shall see you again—soon and often," he said. "Who knows?—you may be coming to London, too. That'll be splendid—won't it?"
"Yes," she responded soberly. "We're bound to meet again, Jimmy—because London isn't so far off, after all, and we ought to be able to find each other easily. They say it's a big place; but we can easily meet. When I come to London I'll look for you."
"Good-bye!" he said, a little huskily. "You're not crying?"
"Only a little," she whispered; and with a boyish gesture he put his arm about her neck, and kissed her.
"I'm going to do big things in London," he said. "And then I'll do big things for you. Good-bye!"
So he went over the hill, and down the long road that had always led away into the world mysteriously when they had been younger. The road that was leading him away mysteriously into the world now. So she saw him trudging on through the rain; so she remembered afterwards that she had seen him, through the rain of Heaven and the rain of her tears.
END OF BOOK I
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF THE WORLD
The capacity of the average human being to drift apart from his fellows, whether by accident or design; to take up new interests to the neglect of old ones; to regard as mere pleasant memories vital matters which but yesterday stirred the very soul of him; all these have done much to people the great world and to spread men over its surface—but have sometimes been disastrous for the individual. Men and women have told themselves, times without number, that in this way will they live without separation; in that fashion will they order their lives; and lo! in a moment grim Fate steps in; and they are flung apart almost before there is time for remonstrance.
In such cases, happily, the new interests assert themselves, and the man or the woman—easily adaptable—begins instantly to form new ties, and to think less and less regretfully of the old ones. It is a kindly law of Nature—a merciful law.
This is true, of course, in the vast majority of cases—but not in all. It was not true in the case of the girl Moira, for instance; because she rebelled fiercely against the sudden snatching of herself away from the old life—the rude dispersal of everything and everyone that had made up that life. Hers was not a nature formed for forgetfulness; more than that, the new life (or may we not rather call it existence?) into which she had gone proved so bare as to force her back, against her will almost, to those old and pleasant recollections for almost her only mental food.
Patience, in the course of careful years, had amassed savings. She had been in the family of Paul Nannock for so long a time, and her reward as a trusted servant had been so generous, and the necessity for spending anything so meagre, that she had a considerable sum, carefully invested—considerable, that is, for a woman in her position. The interest upon those savings had gone on accumulating, until at Old Paul's death she was in a position to fold her hands, and to slumber, if she liked, during the remainder of the time left to her. She chose to do that; her real interests in life had closed with the death of the last of the family she had served; quite simply and rather beautifully, there was nothing left for her to do. Nothing, that is, save as regarded the girl Moira; for Moira had elected to stay with her.
In a sense—a selfish, elderly sense—Patience clung to the girl. Her jealously watchful eyes had shown her that the child had been first in all things with Paul; she was, in a sense, a legacy left by him, all unconsciously, to the old woman. Perhaps, too, there was a curious feeling that if Moira went elsewhere she might come to talk about that precious memory of the dead man; and with Patience only must it be shared. She stood a little in awe of the girl; was attracted to her, in a subtle sense; and so made willingly enough an arrangement to keep her with her.
Patience had never really liked the country, save for the sake of her dead master; her heart always was in the turmoil of the streets where she had been born and where she had lived so long; now, free again, she would go back to it. And in that, of course, Moira was heartily with her; for had not Jimmy set out to the Enchanted City, and was she not absolutely to meet him at the very moment of her arrival? She had walked so often through Daisley Cross, and had seen practically every living soul that filled her world. London might be bigger, but anyone could be met there easily enough. In her idea of the place Jimmy stood waiting, with hands outstretched and a smile in his eyes.
The tragedy of the thing only dawned upon her later. So eager had she been to follow where Jimmy had gloriously led, that the matter of farewells was a small one. Mr. and Mrs. Baffall said good-bye solemnly, and urged that she would write; Alice was tearful for five minutes, but called that marvellous equanimity of hers to bear upon the situation, and waved a hand smilingly at the last. And then it was hey for London, and the old life left behind! She went willingly and even eagerly with Patience; and so the world swallowed her, and she was lost.
Patience had, of course, no concern for anyone outside the man who was dead and the girl who lived; no one else mattered. She had nodded sharply with pursed lips when Mrs. Baffall pressed her to write; in her heart she determined that not a line should be sent. She was going away to live her own life; all this was done with. And in that spirit she brought Moira to London—Moira, taller by an inch or two than the bent old woman whose hand she held, and to whom she clung.
Moira was about fourteen years of age, slim, but not very well formed, with all the awkward movements of a shy girl growing up rapidly. When it is remembered that she had never seen any place very much larger than Daisley Cross, save when she had taken little excursions with Old Paul and the others to neighbouring towns, it is not to be wondered at that that first coming to London was a shock greater than can well be described. The coming to the fringe of it—that fringe which was not London at all, and yet had long since left the country behind, and was a dreary expanse of roofs and chimney-pots—cleaner roofs and newer chimney-pots than were to be found further in. After that, the roar and the rush beating up about the carriage of the train like a great angry sea; men and women crowding and hurrying everywhere in the streets down below them, and on the stations through which they flew; and then, lastly, London itself, and the demon of Noise let loose upon them! Where in all that turmoil through which they had almost to fight their way was to be found Jimmy, as she had seen him last going up the quiet hill in the rain, on a morning that seemed to be set years back in the ages?
Patience had taken some tiny furnished rooms in the top part of a house in a small street in Chelsea; one of the narrowest streets imaginable; and there, in a dull, ordinary, complete fashion, she settled down with the girl; folded her hands—and was at rest.
But Moira? This child of the woods and the fields and the birds and the flowers; this little sensitive loving soul that craved the touch of loving hands and the whisper of loving words; what of her? On how many hopeless nights was she to stare out, wet-eyed, over the hideous streets, and wonder if this was the end, and if, like Patience, she was to grow old in these top rooms, and never see the world again, and never hear of anyone. On how many nights as she sat with her knitting or her needlework (for Patience knew her duty, and knew that in these things for the young lay salvation), did she glance past the lamp on the little table, and look at the sleeping woman whose spectacles had been carefully lifted off and laid on the table before she composed herself in her arm-chair. Always the lamp burning there—and the woman sleeping—and the silence of the room—and the memories that would not die, and that the child did her best indeed to keep alive.
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.
"Can't I see him doing it!" replied the other, addressing the sheet of blotting-paper, and thumping it to give emphasis to his words.
"Could you tell me where I should find him?" asked Moira. "I'm an old friend; I knew him years ago."
"You might find him, miss, on the Hotel Embankment—enjoying the air—or he might have got an appointment as Inspector of Public Buildings—that is to say—the outside of 'em," said the younger clerk, with another laugh.
"In a word, my dear—he's gone from here—and I haven't yet heard that he's got another billet. That's the long and the short of it. Good morning!" Thus the elder man as he turned away.
Moira came out into the busy streets; she saw here the last chance of touching that old life gone from her. Alice unapproachable, and Jimmy wandering London friendless; the prospect was not a cheerful one.
She went home to Patience, and took up again the life she had striven to change—took it up with a new humility and a new gratitude.
CHAPTER II
JIMMY—AND A MATTER OF FOOD
London, as we already know, had held out hands of welcome to the innocent Jimmy, and had promised great things to him; moreover, changing her name to Fortune, she had seemed to tell him that in a little time she would be his for the mere wooing. He soon discovered, however, what manner of jade she was, and how shamefully she had deceived him.
It must be said at once that Mr. Baffall had behaved rather well. Remembering complacently his own first struggles in the great city—struggles intimately connected even now in his mind with a shortage of food and of clothing—he decided that the boy was starting with good prospects—far better, indeed, than those his patron had enjoyed. The boy was put into a good business, and a sufficient sum was to be paid for his lodging in a modest way; Jimmy had but to work within those carefully-arranged lines that had been drawn for him, and all would be well. He would rise step by step, and presently take his place, with his advancing years, in the great army of men in that particular line of life. Mr. Baffall shook his head at the thought of the possibilities of Jimmy rising to be a second Baffall on such beginnings; such things did not happen every day. But for the rest he was well provided for, and there was an end of the matter.
Jimmy's lodging was in a sort of rough-and-tumble haphazard boarding-house in the neighbourhood of Camden Town—a boarding-house crowded with young men and half-grown youths, and presided over by a lady of untidy appearance and rasping voice, and with an air of being always in a hurry. She was assisted in the management of the place by two haphazard, scrambling, hurrying servant-maids—never quite clean (save on special occasions, when they managed to get out for an hour or so) and always haggard and tired-looking. Everyone appeared to be in a great hurry in the morning, from the time when the first young man clattered downstairs, and plunged at his breakfast, until the time when the more aristocratic, who did not begin work until ten o'clock, hurried away from the house; and everyone appeared very tired at night, what time that strangely composite meal known as a "meat tea" was set before the returning workers. Jimmy discovered, something to his dismay, that this, outside the actual life of the warehouse in that turning off Cheapside, was to be his life.
The thing was hideous from the beginning; hideous in the sense that, in being swallowed up in such an existence, he became at once a mere unit in the scheme of things—one of a hurrying, driving crowd, with no individuality, and no time to think of anything but his work, and his journeys to and fro, and his eating and his sleeping. And even sleep was hideous; because, to his dismay, he found that, as a junior in the boarding-house he had to share a room with two other youths, given a little to sky-larking, and to the smoking of cheap cigarettes.
At the warehouse, as a beginner, he did whatever odd work was set before him; wondered a little at first, in a petulant fashion, why the men and the boys seemed so much happier than he was, and so generally contented with their lot. But, grimly silent regarding the past, and suspicious as to the future, he took his place in this new life like a bruised, stunned creature driven along by an unkind fate. Only afterwards was he to learn that there is another life of the senses, quite independent of the mere work of the hands, or the mere sights and sounds around about us.
His first night at the boarding-house began disastrously, and ended in a triumph. The room in which the "meat tea" had been partaken of was musty and noisy; such of the boarders as had not gone out were seated about the room; one noisy youth was pounding a broken-down piano in a corner. Jimmy decided to go out; and after roaming about the streets for a long time, went back, and went up to his room. He found himself alone there, and was rather glad of the seclusion; he partially undressed and lay down on his bed, with his hands clasped under his head and his eyes closed—wondering a little that so great a change could have come into his life in a matter of a few hours; wondering also what the morrow was to bring him, in this great place wherein he was to make his fortune. For he had not yet been to the warehouse.
He was disturbed by an enormous thud at the door, and by the entrance of the two youths who shared the room with him, and who had apparently been having a scuffle on the landing, the better to impress the new lodger. Jimmy turned a little on one side to look at them; decided that they were not particularly interesting; and rolled over on his back again. A little smothered laughter followed; and presently, while he still lay with his eyes closed, something shot across the room and struck him on the arm. Jimmy was up in a moment, seated on the side of the bed, and looking gravely down at the shoe that had been thrown at him. The others were apparently very busy with their undressing.
"I beg your pardon," said Jimmy gravely—"who threw that?"
The elder of the two—a tall weedy youth with loose lips, turned to the other, and grinned and shook his head. "I dunno' what he's talking about," he murmured feebly—"or what he's doing with my shoe."
The loose lips tightened in a moment as the shoe caught them full and square; he looked round in amazement at this outrage, to discover Jimmy standing in the centre of the room, with his hands gripped tight at his sides, and a very dangerous look in his eyes. For this was what Jimmy wanted, in the sense that he could relieve an over-burdened heart only in some such fashion as this, and because, too, he felt that it was demanded of him that he should show London something of his quality.
It was Jimmy's second fight; he remembered the first even now, in the sweet, clean smelling woods, and decided that this was an even more important battle. The weedy youth got up from the bed on which he was seated, and with a pitying glance at Jimmy, and an amused shrug at his companion, as though suggesting that he supposed this sort of thing had to be done, the better to keep people in their places, strolled out to meet his assailant. And the next moment found his head in a most surprising fashion striking the floor.
For the country boy, well fed and well cared for, and used to hard exercise out of doors, was more than a match for this cigarette-smoking, narrow-chested youth, who stood half a head taller. He got up slowly, and looked with pained surprise at his friend; then tried rushing tactics, and came at Jimmy like a whirlwind. But Jimmy met him coolly; and he went down again, and decided to stay there. The other youth muttered something about speaking to the landlady in the morning, and not knowing quite what things were coming to; until Jimmy happening to glance in his direction, he decided to get into bed as rapidly as possible. Jimmy, seeing that the matter was at an end, calmly undressed and went to bed himself.
He had no further trouble after that; so far as the boarding-house was concerned he was left severely alone; while at the warehouse everyone was so busy, and those in authority were so constantly hurrying backwards and forwards through the place, that there was but scant opportunity for anything but the work itself.
Yet in the time that followed he sunk more and more into himself, as it were, and became more and more dependent upon himself. It was part of Jimmy's nature that he must at all times make the most of everything, and enlarge upon any circumstance if possible; his very dreams were large ones. Therefore, when it happened that he realised, as day after day went on in its dull monotony, that there was nothing here about which he could boast, he determined to be silent about his life. There had been a sort of dim feeling in his mind that he would write to Moira; surely if he wrote to the old home any letter would be forwarded. But in a curious shame-faced fashion he realised that to Moira most of all he must have something to write about; must have done something in the big world to which she had so confidently consigned him before he could approach her again. And as yet he had done nothing.
In the very beginning of his career at the warehouse he trembled more than once, when the outer door opened, at the possibility of someone who had been with him in the old days coming in, and finding him there hauling parcels about, and for the most part without a coat; every time the door swung back on its hinges he felt it might be possible that Moira or Alice—or, worst thought of all, Charlie Purdue—might walk into the place: Charlie, with a grin upon his good-humoured face that would have been exasperating. But, of course, no one ever came, and after a time he ceased to watch the door.
For the most part in the evenings he wandered about the streets—staring into shop windows, and lingering about outside theatres, and generally touching the mere fringe of the great life that was pulsing all about him. But when some twelve months had gone by, the coming of younger lads than himself to the boarding-house as well as to the warehouse sent him a step up in each place; so that at the boarding-house he had a tiny room at the very top of the house to himself—a mere cupboard, but still a room in his eyes; while at the warehouse he somehow got to a desk whereat he wore his coat, and left the parcels behind. And in so doing gained a little money for himself in addition to the meagre pocket-money he had had.
That room at the top of the house became in a very big sense the boy's home. It was something to return to; something to know, in the stress and worry of the day, was waiting for him, even though he might occupy it for but a few hours at the most. And no sooner had he got that room than he set about, in quite an imitative fashion, to do what others had done before him. An imitative fashion, because he had lighted by accident upon what was to him a wonderful romance; the story of a boy as poor as he was, and working as hard as he worked, who had gathered books about him, and made of himself a great and celebrated man.
Jimmy being a mere creature of impulse, and in a desperate hurry always to do whatever his mind happened to light upon—until something else attracted his attention—began setting about the great and celebrated business without delay. He bought books—a few at a time, and quite unsuited to his purpose—and fell asleep over them with great regularity in the room upstairs for a week or two. They taught him something—stirred that brain that had not been stirred by anything beyond figures for a long time; made him think for himself. For, save that grounding in elementary things given by the Rev. Temple Purdue, and a deeper grounding in classical matters the importance of which he had not grasped, Jimmy was profoundly ignorant. For the first time he began to remember something of the romantic side of life, as told him years before by Old Paul; for the first time began to apply that half-forgotten knowledge to his own purposes. Two years from the time Jimmy had landed in London, when he was coming near to his twentieth year, he began sheepishly and with a locked door to write. By that time the books covered two long shelves, and were in every state of binding imaginable, and in every condition of repair.