Is it necessary to state that he began with verse? Finding most unaccountably a line singing in his head for the greater part of one day, he went home, and set that line down at the top of a fair sheet of paper, and added another; afterwards erasing the second as being unworthy of the first. Stumblingly, he went at the thing again; felt that the first line was not after all what it might be, and, moreover, that it was difficult to fit with a rhyme; therefore he began again.
Poor Jimmy! His beginnings were about all there were of him for a time; and he spoilt much paper. But by that time the subtle craze of it had eaten into his very life, and the warehouse was a mere necessary thing by which he must live, but which did not really concern him in the least. After a time the verses failed to concern him also; he determined to return to them at a later period—much as Mr. Thomas Hardy had done, after making himself famous in another direction; also there was Mr. George Meredith to be thought of, and remembered with satisfaction. In other words, Jimmy tackled prose—as being easier.
The writing seemed at first the smallest part of it all; it was the sending of the stuff about. Bulky packages came back to the boarding-house, with the names of various papers and magazines stamped aggressively on the covers; and, of course, created comment. Jimmy bore it with a burning face, and tried to call to mind other persecutions endured by the elect of the earth under similar conditions; the stories of sons who had been thrashed by commonplace fathers upon showing marked literary, artistic, or musical ability afforded him keen satisfaction. Obviously he was on the right road, although no thrashings in the actual sense were his.
But there came a day—I should rather have written a day of days—when a letter arrived from a paper—a packet far too small to contain the bulky thing that had been sent. Opening it, Jimmy discovered that a certain wonderful being desired to see him; tremblingly, Jimmy sought the office in his dinner-hour, and inquired for the editor. A small boy with no reverence about him—no lowering of the voice in speaking of so great a personage—took his name up; and presently Jimmy stood in the presence, with his knees knocking together, and a curious dryness in his throat.
The editor was a youngish man of a slim appearance and with flaxen hair. He was seated at an untidy desk, with his coat off, and with a pipe that was cold in his mouth. The room appeared to be decorated for the most part with photographs, chiefly of ladies. Photographs large and small—Continental photographs and English; photographs in costume, and photographs in but little costume at all. Paper clippings were all over the floor; and at the opposite side of the desk a pale boy in spectacles was at work upon a drawing that seemed to the unpractised glance of Jimmy already completed.
The man looked up at him, scanning him narrowly, and nodded towards a chair. "Well, Mr. Larrance," he said, "and what can we do for you?"
Jimmy thought it was rather the other way about, in the sense that he was desirous of knowing what he could do for the editor; but he smiled feebly, and murmured something about a letter he had received. The man was silent for a moment or two, as though debating what to say; finally he looked up, screwing his eyes shrewdly, and spoke.
"I suppose you run away with the idea that you're a genius—eh?" Jimmy shook his head and blushed at the mere suggestion, although he had a sneaking feeling that that suggestion might not be so very wrong after all. "Because, if you've got that sort of idea, you're not much good to us. You may be able to write some day; there are indications of it; but you've got a lot to learn. How long's your story?"
He took up the precious manuscript from beside him, and carelessly turned over the leaves. Jimmy had not thought of that vital point; he said he wasn't quite sure.
"You're like all the rest, my boy," retorted the young man, throwing the packet on his desk. "You write a story to please yourself—and you ramble on, and you fill it with accounts of green trees, and waving grass, and birds, and God knows what; things that everybody knows about, and don't want to read about; and you send us—say twenty thousand words—when we run to anything from five hundred to three thousand. Bless you, you wouldn't look at the paper—would you, now?"
Jimmy murmured that he had seen the paper—well, everywhere; and the young man grinned.
"That's our circulation; you couldn't help seeing it," he said. "But what do you think would happen to us if we printed that"—he indicated Jimmy's manuscript, without even glancing at it—"and shoved about five pages of it down their throats, just to see what they would swallow? What would be the result? I'll tell you."
He threw one leg over the arm of the chair, and struck a match; forgot to apply it to the pipe, and blew it out, and dropped it into his waste-paper basket. Jimmy watched him reverently.
"We should first of all be deluged with letters from all the smart young men who read us, and snigger at us, and like us; and they'd want to know what the something something we'd printed it for, or where we found it; and they'd offer to do something a great deal better, just to show us what the public wanted. William," he looked across at the boy at the other desk—"give me a copy of the last for Mr. Larrance—will you?"
The boy stretched out an arm, without looking up, and handed the man a copy of the paper; the editor, after flicking over the leaves complaisantly, passed it on to Jimmy. "Just look at that," he said.
Jimmy looked at the thing a little helplessly—turning over the pages mechanically; then he handed it back to the young man. "I see," he murmured.
"No, you don't; you only think you do," retorted the other, not unkindly. "My boy—we ain't out for literature, because we've got a living to make; but we do the thing honestly, and we work pretty hard. Observe, please."
He flicked over the first leaf, and pointed dramatically to the page disclosed.
"Snippets generally—some American, and some dodged up out of old chestnuts with a new flavour. But"—he held up a forefinger, and winked—"but, I say, doesn't the young man who buys us repeat them over to his friends, and his mother (if the old lady'll stand 'em!), and his girl, and a few others. Page two: a small story, sir, cut straight out of the heart of the Latin Quarter—with a real grisette, and an artist who is going into the Salon in five minutes—and a hopeless love story. Picture in the middle of the grisette—dodged up from a photograph, with the hair altered. About nine hundred words—and I paid eleven and sixpence for it. He's a beginner; but he'll do well presently. And that isn't his right name."
"It seems very short," Jimmy ventured to say.
"They've got to be short; I cut twenty lines out of this myself; he'd worked in something about his mother's grave, which wasn't in the picture a bit. Page three: picture of two girls and a man—dodged-up joke underneath. Page four: the beginning of our Grand New Serial Story—which you may begin any week by reading the synopsis at the top; I do the synopsis myself, and the ungrateful beast of an author complains bitterly. That takes up—the serial, I mean—three pages and a bit. More pictures; Continental cuttings—we have to tone them down a bit, but we get 'em very cheap—then a competition which takes up a page, and for which the prizes are small; then our Beginners' Page; which means that they send us stories, and we cut 'em down a bit, and send 'em a nicey-picey letter, saying they'll do better by and by, and will they please let us hear from 'em again. That's rather a cheap page," he added, contemplatively. "Then we finish up with a couple of novelettes in a nutshell; about six hundred words each—must be full of plot; then answers to correspondents—chiefly love and complexion stuff; and there you are! That's what we call editing," he added, proudly. "You can take that home if you like, and have a good look at it."
"I quite see that any story as long as mine wouldn't suit," said Jimmy, a little mystified. "I ought to have sent it somewhere else." He half rose from his seat.
"Stop a bit," said the young man, taking up the manuscript, and looking through it with his lips pursed. "Stop a bit." He tossed the thing over on to the other desk, and called to the boy: "William—what should you say was the length?"
William cast an eye over it—the eye of the expert who was not to be deceived, turned to the last page, seemed almost to weigh it in his hand, and then replied.
"Fifteen five hundred—might be a little over," he said, handing it back, and resuming his work as though this were a matter of the smallest interest.
"There you are, you see," exclaimed the editor with a triumphant smile. "No good at all. But I'll tell you what I think—and I wouldn't tell everybody. It's got an idea in it; and I can assure you we often get double the quantity, without any idea at all. Now, I wonder if you're prepared to listen to reason?"
Jimmy indicating that he was prepared to listen to anything, the young man made one or two suggestions. In the first place, he was to take it away, and read it over; he was to take out the idea that was in it, and to boil it down—that was the actual expression used—to something like two thousand words. He was to leave in as much love as possible. "They'll stand any amount of that sort of thing," said the young man; and he was also to leave in all the sensation. If he came across a tree he was simply to say it was a tree, and not attempt to describe it; nor was he to let himself go on scenery at all. And if he did all that satisfactorily, and didn't spoil the idea, he would have a guinea. "We pay on Fridays," said the young man easily, as though that was the most ordinary part of the business.
"What we could do with you," said the young man, as he shook hands at parting—"would be to take one a fortnight; that would mean half a guinea every blessed week for you. Then now and then we could let you have a novelette to do—fourteen or fifteen thousand words, simply packed with incident—and for those we do pay; you'd get about four ten for those. Then now and then, when you'd got into the way of it, you could do a six or seven-hundred worder; I mean the novelette in a nutshell; and that would be another five bob. So there you are; you wouldn't need to look anywhere else. And always on Fridays, mind you—there would be your little bit waiting for you. Good morning!—and remember we don't want names; we're looking for young talent, and we're teaching it to earn its living."
So this particular young talent went back to the warehouse with dreams; Jimmy was absolutely certain that the thing could be done, and here, almost at once, was a fortune awaiting him. After all, when you came to think of it, it was simply a matter of hard work, but of congenial work at that; an hour or two every evening meant four tens and guineas and five bobs and what not; and when you came to add those together—well, your fortune was made. As a mild beginning, Jimmy tackled that bulky manuscript which he was to boil down that very night.
In the first place, the beginning must certainly stand. There was the full description not only of the heroine, but of her surroundings; despite what the young man had said as to his objection to descriptions of scenery, Jimmy felt that when that young man came to read again that particular part he would feel with Jimmy that it would be a crime to let it go. There was, of course, one objection; on counting it laboriously, Jimmy discovered that it amounted to just over six hundred words.
Then he came to the big scene in the middle; the real incident of the thing—that "idea" that had taken the fancy of the editor. Not a word of that must be missed—for every word had its special value. But that was a matter—(again much laborious counting)—of just over five hundred words.
Then he tried cutting the thing up; slicing out a paragraph or two here, and a sheet or two there, and reading them after he had joined them carefully; but the real beauty of the thing, Jimmy felt, was gone. He went to bed with a headache; only to dream that the young man was tearing reams of valuable manuscript, while the boy William looked on with an exasperating smile.
The next evening Jimmy began to write the whole thing again; for Jimmy was learning his lesson. He got it down to something near the limit arranged in two nights; decided, on an impulse, to take it to the office himself; and was received somewhat coolly by the young man.
"We're pretty full up just now," said the young man, scratching his head dubiously, and looking down into the pipe that never seemed to be alight. "However, I'll have a go at it."
Jimmy went away, and waited a week. He dared not write anything else; this was to be a test of his efficiency. If he could please this man he would go ahead; there were prospects for him if this matter came out fortunately. At the end of the week he once more climbed the stairs and knocked at the door. The room seemed full of the editor and the pale boy and several other men; all, with the exception of the pale boy, smoking and laughing and talking.
The editor detached himself, and came across to Jimmy, evidently in a good temper. "Let's see," he said, with the remainder of a smile that had been the proper compliment to a story he had just heard still lingering about his lips—"didn't I write you?"
Jimmy murmured that he had not yet had a letter; he wondered if by any good chance it would ever happen that he would be on such terms of familiarity with the great one as was the gentleman with his hat on the back of his head who had just sat down in the editorial chair and taken one of the editorial cigarettes.
"Oh, it's all right," said the young man. "Not quite the idea—in the working out, you'll understand; you seemed to miss it a bit somehow. But I've made it sixteen shillings. You know the office; go there on Friday, and tell 'em who you are. I'll have the account passed through."
Jimmy was staggering out at the door when the young man, who had darted back to his desk, came out after him, and called him. He whispered Jimmy on the staircase.
"Here's a couple of drawings—they haven't been used for a long time, and you might write up to 'em——"
"Write up to them?" asked Jimmy, in perplexity.
"Yes—yes," replied the other impatiently. "Make it a thousand words, so that we can space it out well; and write naturally and lightly. I don't care what order you use 'em in, but write so that those will come in as illustrations. Let me have it next week. And, by the way," he added hurriedly, "let the man's figure be the hero. Very necessary, that."
Jimmy discovered, on examining the drawings, that the figure of the man in one was that of a young gentleman with very broad shoulders and a very beautiful waist, apparently denouncing a lady upon a sofa; that of the gentleman in the other was heavily bearded, and was in the act of dashing forward to stop a runaway horse on which an altogether different young lady was being carried away at a great rate. Jimmy hesitated for a long time; but finally made it a matter of years between the first picture and the second, and so grew the beard naturally, while he exiled his hero for the purpose.
Jimmy became a frequent visitor to the office over which the young man presided, and a less frequent visitor to that other office where the shillings and occasional sovereigns were handed out to him. There was that to be said for the matter, at least; that the money was always forthcoming at the right time, if it had been earned; and a pretty starveling crew it was that waited about on Fridays—though a merry one nevertheless. Once or twice, too, it happened that something of Jimmy's that had not fitted the fancy of the young man was sent on its wanderings elsewhere, and fell into hands that detained it, and paid meagrely for it. So that Jimmy was becoming rich in a small way.
All this took time; I have been careful to say nothing of the quakings and the fevers of doubt and anxiety, the bitternesses and all the other little trifles that filled out a matter of two years; Jimmy forgot those pretty easily, because Jimmy was young, and Jimmy was fighting.
In proportion as that work took up his time the warehouse sunk into the background. For there were weeks when the money he earned at the warehouse was as nothing in proportion to what, for example, a novelette (at four ten) had brought him; other weeks when it loomed large, because he had earned nothing. So that it came about, after a time, that he came to be looked at a little askance in that busy house in the turning off Cheapside; was reprimanded once or twice for blunders and omissions; and with the remembrance of his secret income in his mind took but scant notice of what was said. Then, on the pretext of a change in the staff, Jimmy was sent for one day, and was astounded to find that his services were no longer required.
Astounded in a fashion, and yet not altogether displeased. A fleeting recollection of the man who had given him his first opportunity of making a start in life caused him to murmur the name of Mr. Baffall; but the man before whom he was arraigned shook his head, and smiled.
"Mr. Baffall was good enough to recommend you, Larrance, a long time ago; and we accepted that recommendation because he had had a good deal to do with the firm. But Mr. Baffall would be the last to expect us to keep on anybody we don't want. You're all right, Larrance—but you're not all right here. You dream too much; you're not smart enough. I think, for all our sakes, it would be better if you shook hands, and had a look round somewhere else. London's a big place—and I daresay you'll get on."
So Jimmy, with a curious feeling that was half fear and half elation, turned his back upon the warehouse he had known for some four years, and went out into the world in a new sense. He had plenty of money, as he counted money then, in hand; and there was work to be done for the young man who presided over that particular paper, and for other men doubtless, young as well as old.
The first thing Jimmy did was to leave that boarding-house in the neighbourhood of Camden Town, and to look about for a place more suited to his requirements as a literary man, and as an independent one to boot. After much searching, he discovered some rooms at the top of an old house in a small court leading out of Holborn; with an ancient wheezy dame to cook his breakfast and to make his bed, and to shift the dust about his room on occasion. There he established himself with his books; from there, on the first evening, he went as a new luxury to a small restaurant, and partook of a modest meal.
Somehow or other, matters did not seem to go on so smoothly after that time. For example, he went one day to the office over which his first friend presided, to discover that first friend standing outside on the pavement, with his coat on for the first time, thoughtfully scratching his chin and staring at his boots. On Jimmy accosting him, he looked up, and laughed ruefully.
"We've doubled up, dear boy," he said. "The blessed old rag has held out as long as it could; and the circulation has gone down and down till we hadn't got a gasp left in us; and we couldn't even afford to give it away! Not but what we're doing the thing properly, mind you," he added hastily. "You'll find your money all right on Friday—but it's the last. What's going to become of me I don't quite know; but I think there's a chance of my being mopped up by one of the big syndicates. I'm going to try, at any rate; it isn't quite so wearing a life."
Jimmy discovered that they had sold the novelettes; he had an introduction to the new proprietor, and contrived to get a little work out of him, though at a cheaper rate even than before. For the rest, with something like a new despair beginning to knock at his young heart, he scurried round, and wrote anything and everything he could.
Often and often, in those first few months, he knew what it was to have to think more than twice before spending a sixpence for food; he grew, too, to dread the coming of the wheezy old dame with a certain red-covered little book which contained the account for his breakfasts and for her own personal attendance upon him; invented excuses, now and then, to go out, so as to miss seeing her. But in some fashion he managed to pay that; managed also to put aside a little towards that big item—rent. Though that was a nightmare, indeed—a thing that meant the counting of days with a palpitating heart.
He found his way, quite naturally, to the British Museum and its reading-room; discovered also near it a tiny tea shop, where, provided you bought butter-and only one pat at that—you might eat as much bread as ever you liked. Oh—a blessed institution, and one to be encouraged!
So, struggling along, with an occasional flutter of the heart—(only very occasional this) at the sight of his name on a list of contents of some small paper; often hungry, and much perplexed at times over the question of clothes; with a wistful eye to the great men at the top, who had begun long ago perhaps in some such fashion as this; Jimmy trod the ways of freedom with a fair amount of contentment.
CHAPTER III
THE COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER
"I've been making up my mind to it for a long time; now I shall do it." Patience sat upright in her chair, and stared, not at the girl, but at the window of the room; she shook her head resolutely. "I shall do it in my own way—and it isn't as if it'll cost much. It'll only want two sheets—or an extra one, in case of a blot or anything like that, and I'll have 'em black-edged."
Moira looked at her for a moment in silence. "Why black-edged, Patience?" she asked at last.
"More respectable, if it isn't too deep. There's a something about a black edge that takes away any flippancy; with anybody elderly like me it's always more decent. If you wouldn't mind, my dear, getting three or four sheets—and envelopes to match—I could set about it."
The idea had been in the mind of Patience for some time; she had thought about it, and worried over it, until at last she had brought herself to undertake the extraordinary task itself. Distrustful always of anyone young and impulsive, such as she conceived Moira to be, and of anyone, moreover, with no knowledge or experience of life, she had felt that in some fashion or other the girl had blundered in writing to Alice. The Baffalls were people of quality; above all, they were people with money; was it not possible that Moira had let slip something about the narrow life she led with the old woman, and the care with which money had to be watched with an eye to the future. If that were the case—Patience bridled at the thought, and determined to set matters right in her own fashion. Filled with a fiery independence, the old woman seemed to see these people shrugging shoulders and pursing lips, in pity for her and her supposed poverty; she would tell a different tale, with the aid of that highly respectable black-edged paper.
Behold her, therefore, with the grimly-edged sheet spread on a newspaper before her on the table, and with Moira's inkstand and pen at her service. Behold her watching the girl furtively while she framed her first sentence. Her worn cheeks were hot at the thought of what she had to do, and what she had to say; feverishly, she wished that the girl would say something, if only something against which she could raise a protest.
"What are you going to say?" asked Moira unexpectedly, without glancing up from her needlework.
"Don't know yet; it's hard to begin," retorted Patience. "I've put the address at the top, and the day—and 'Dear Madam'—that's as far as I've got."
"What do you want to say?" asked Moira, without looking up.
"Well"—the thin old hand was guiding the pen over the newspaper, tracing lines in and out among the lines of print—"I want to put it so they'll understand what we do—and the people we see—and—and all that sort of thing."
"Surely it's easy to say that," said Moira, with a half smile. "But how will it interest them?"
"They've got to be interested," replied the old woman sharply as she looked up. "Anything you've put into their heads has got to be taken out again; they've got to understand that we're doing things rather well—going about—and that sort of thing."
Moira dropped her hands, and looked across at Patience with sudden interest. "But why?" she asked.
"Because I choose," said Patience stiffly. "Because I'm going to have 'em think different from what you've told 'em. Because I want 'em to know that we hold up our heads with the best of 'em. That's why. If I was younger, and hadn't forgot so many things, I could be able to write down just what I want. But my imagination seems to have got dead somehow."
"Are you going to put imagination in the letter?" asked the girl.
"What else is there to put?" Patience raised her head and looked at the girl; then lowered her eyes, and went on tracing the lines on the newspaper. "Oh, yes, I know; I understand more than you think. I'm a hard old woman—and you're a girl, with all the world calling to you. You hear the beat of hundreds of feet all marching on the road you'd like to travel; don't you hear the beat of the feet sometimes?"
"Sometimes," replied Moira, lowering her eyes.
"I know you do. And I'm glad to forget that the feet are marching at all; glad to think that if they march my way, it'll only be perhaps over my grave. I've done with it, and I've thought sometimes that you could be done with it, too."
Moira stretched a hand across the table, and touched the hand of the woman. "I'm not ungrateful—and we lead our quiet lives here," she said.
"I know that," replied Patience sharply. "But I don't mean that anyone else shall know that; I've got my pride—more than most folk. Who's Alice, if it comes to that, that she should be taken about, and drive in her carriage—and all that? If they took one girl—didn't I take the other; me that they looked on as a servant? I'll soon show 'em."
"You wouldn't show what wasn't true, dear?" whispered Moira.
"Yes—I would," was the surprising answer, "and not think twice about it. Who's to know?"
"I wouldn't do it," said Moira. "You'll only be sorry afterwards."
"Shall I? You don't know me," she retorted. "My pride'll keep me from ever being sorry. Now for it!"
Moira leaned her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her clasped hands, and watched. A slight flush of excitement had grown in the white face of Patience; her lips were set in grim determination as she poised the pen, and waited before setting down in black and white what was in her mind. It seemed difficult of expression; after a moment she raised her eyes hopelessly to the girl. "I don't know how to begin," she muttered, with a glance at the door, as though fearful of being overheard.
"I thought you'd find it difficult," was the reply. "Why not say at once that we drive every morning until luncheon; pay calls in the afternoon; are never to be found at home in the evening? If you want imagination——Why, what are you writing?"
The pen was jerking rapidly over the paper, and Patience was saying the words aloud as she wrote. "Dear Madam,—I have been meaning to write to you for a long time—but London life takes up so much of my time—and Moira—'is it one "r," Moira?'—is always out and about—when not with me, then with some young companion." She glanced up half shyly at Moira, who was watching.
"Can't you spell 'companion'?" asked Moira demurely.
"Of course I can," explained Patience. "My in-vest-ments having turned out better than I hoped, we are finding this house almost too large for us, but should not like to change. I do not think that we could go back to the country now; we seem to want more life than we used to have, especially now after my re-tire-ment. I am afraid sometimes"—she raised her eyes again to the face of the girl, and then lowered them—"afraid sometimes that the life is almost too gay for Moira; but then she is young, and——"
Her voice trailed off, and she finished the letter with a commonplace or two that she had dug out of the respectable past. Then she looked up again at the girl, half appealingly. "It ain't exactly what I wanted to say; 'tain't strong enough," she said. "Couldn't I write something underneath?"
"Tear it up," suggested Moira, in a whisper. "Why should you write such things—when they'll know——"
"The letter's going," exclaimed Patience sternly. She turned again to the page, and took up her pen; began to write, while she muttered the words aloud.
"P.S.—I name no names; but there may be parties that have said things about me, and it is my wish to right myself in the eyes of all. Moira sits opposite me while I write"—she raised her eyes again for a moment, and lowered them quickly; perhaps she thought of the many, many nights on which the girl had sat there, with the lamp between them—"having no engagement for this evening outside."
She addressed the envelope hurriedly, as though afraid her resolution might fail. Moira, glancing across at the thing when it was finished, raised a protest.
"It's no use sending it to Daisley Cross," she said; "they're in London."
"I ain't going to waste an envelope," retorted Patience, after gazing at it for a moment a little blankly. "It'll find 'em."
So it came about that the letter found its way to the breakfast table of the Baffalls at Daisley Cross, for they were down there, as it happened, by a sudden whim on the part of Alice.
"Now I do hope nobody I know has died," murmured Mrs. Baffall, as she turned the black thing over and over. "No—I don't know the writing—but the postmark's London. Now, it couldn't be——No—it wouldn't be them; they were quite well a week ago; besides, the writing isn't the same. Now I come to look at it," added Mrs. Baffall, brightening, "it isn't unlike Janie Ford's writing; she has just those little twiggles at the ends of the words. And yet it isn't Janie."
It occurred to her at last that it might be well to open it, which she did, shaking her head as she did so, and murmuring suggestions as to who the writer might be. The letter open, she began to punctuate her reading of it with little soft "oh's" now and then, and an upraised hand. Mr. Baffall complacently waited until she had turned the page, and had got to the end of the letter; then, as she laid it down and looked round at the two expectant faces, he smiled, and asked who it was had really written it.
"Well—you'll never guess," said Mrs. Baffall. "If anyone had come to me this morning, and had said to me—suddenly and without any warning—'Flora Baffall, you're going to have a letter with the name of Patience Roe at the end of it'—well, I don't know what I should have said to them. Ten to one I should have laughed."
"And what does Patience Roe want?" asked Mr. Baffall. "Not in any difficulty, I hope?"
"Moira didn't come to see me in London," said Alice. "At least—not after that once."
"Well, it's not surprising," said Mrs. Baffall, appealing to the letter, and seeming to shake her head over it. "According to what Patience says here, they never have time for anything—she speaks of Moira as being almost too gay."
Alice started, and looked round quickly with a frown. "What?" she exclaimed. "Gay? Well, she didn't look very gay when I saw her; surely you didn't think so Aunt Baffall? A poor washed-out, shabby thing——"
"Patience says something about investments having turned out better than she expected," murmured Mrs. Baffall. "Which is very pleasing, as Baffall himself would tell you, my dear—knowing something about it. If I didn't know Patience, I should almost think this was like a boasting letter—what we should call a bit of show-off. But it can't be that, of course."
When the meal was ended, and Alice had gone singing off to her own quarters, Baffall came round the table to his wife, and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. "May I see the letter, mother?" he asked.
She handed it to him, and he read it in silence; screwed up one eye over it, and tugged at his short beard, and rumpled his hair. Finally, tapping it with a stunted forefinger, he gave his verdict.
"When anybody writes like that—for no particular reason—it's either one or other of two things. Either they're what we'd call in business 'bluffing'—which means that the letter's got to be read the opposite way, in a manner of speaking—or else they're merely bragging for the sake of bragging."
"That isn't her way, I should think," broke in Mrs. Baffall quickly.
"I should think not," retorted her husband, "but you never can tell. There's some reason for it, and it concerns that dark-eyed girl. I'm not much of a judge—but what did you think when you saw her in London, mother?"
"Well—without meaning to be unkind, Daniel, I did run an eye over her," said Mrs. Baffall; "and I must say she was poor as poor. Neat, mind you, as such a girl always would be—and more of a lady than half a hundred of 'em would be, no matter how much you spent on 'em; but poor—what I'd call make-shifty, if you'll understand."
Mr. Baffall nodded slowly. "I understand," he said; "therefore, it looks like bluff. Of course, the investments may have turned out much better; but you can't lead me to believe that that old woman would be the sort to make a splash about it, even if she came into a quarter of a million."
Mr. Baffall took a turn across the room, and touched the handle of the door to be certain that the door was closed. Then he came back to Mrs. Baffall, and spoke in a lowered voice.
"How do you think it would be if Alice was to go——"
Mrs. Baffall shook her head vigorously; Mr. Baffall nodded slowly, with a perplexed face. "Perhaps you're right," he said slowly; "perhaps Alice isn't quite the sort. Not but what, being brought up as children, I should have thought——"
It was the turn of Mrs. Baffall to shake her head again. "It doesn't matter much how you bring 'em up, Daniel, or how you don't; it's what's in 'em to begin with. She's a nice girl, Daniel"—the old lady seemed to indicate the girl who had gone singing from the room—"but God didn't give her quite the sort of heart you an' me was looking for. Come and kiss you, she will, and her smile is beautiful to see; yet it leaves a longing somehow for something you never get."
"She always looks very nice—and is much admired," suggested Mr. Baffall simply.
"Which is something to be grateful for," replied Mrs. Baffall, brightening a little. "If only I could have understood the other one."
"I wouldn't worry about it," said Mr. Baffall, with a hand upon her shoulder. "I daresay the other one's happier as she is."
Nevertheless, Mr. Baffall was not altogether happy about the matter; he pondered over it with bent brows while he smoked his morning cigar round what he called the "estate." It ended, in fact, by his taking the cigar and the letter in the direction of the rectory, in the hope for temporal advice at least. There, without ceremony, he spread the letter before the Rev. Temple Purdue (grown a little greyer with the years, but otherwise unchanged) and indicated by a wave of the hand that it was to be read.
Mr. Purdue turned it over solemnly to find the signature; turned it back again to begin the reading of it. When he had finished he took off his spectacles, and laid them on his writing table, and looked up mildly at Mr. Baffall.
"Seems very satisfactory," he said. "Really, my dear Baffall, it is kind and thoughtful of you to have given me news of old friends like this—very kind indeed. I always had a great respect for Patience Roe—a very great respect indeed."
"That's one of the letters," said Mr. Baffall, leaning forward, and tapping it with a finger, "that wants reading between the lines. There is more in it than the mere words—and, according to Mrs. Baffall, it don't bear out what she thought when she saw the girl in London; nor, for the matter of that, does it bear out what I saw. Mr. Purdue, I've got a sneaking feeling that I should like to do something for that girl—young lady, I suppose you'd call her now; and I think that thought's in Mrs. Baffall's mind too."
Mr. Purdue looked at his visitor in some perplexity. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand," he said.
"Mr. Purdue, sir," went on Baffall solemnly, "when I was in business, if things went very wrong with me, and I didn't quite know where to turn for money or credit, what was the first thing I did?" Mr. Purdue shook his head. "Why, I made believe that I'd got more money than I knew what to do with, and was looking out for investments; or I suggested that business was so flourishing that I really couldn't entertain the idea of taking any more. That was my move—and that's the move in that letter. For all we know, they may be in Queer Street, and yet much too proud to let anybody show 'em the way out."
"You distress me greatly," said Mr. Purdue, with a sigh. "What do you suggest should be done?"
Baffall shook his head. "Whatever's done must be done delicately," he said. "If me or Mrs. B., or Alice was to go—and Alice would want the carriage—I can understand their backs would be up—and their pride would stand in the way; I was always a bit afraid of that girl myself. But if there was anybody in London—struggling a bit, perhaps, like themselves—it might be a help to the girl, for it seems to me that she must have a pretty slow time of it with that old woman."
The Rev. Temple Purdue sat silent for a few moments, thoughtfully biting the end of a pen. He looked up at last, and spoke almost apologetically. "There's Charlie," he said.
There seemed to be some understanding between the two men as regarded Charlie; they looked at each other for a moment or two in silence; the rector sighed a little.
"Yes, there's Charlie," said Mr. Baffall, a little sternly. "Doing any better?"
"I have hopes of him," replied Purdue. "You see, he lost his mother when he was very young, Baffall; we must never forget that. And if he's wild and headstrong—well, that is one of the faults of youth, I suppose. You see—to go to London like that—plunge at once into a medical school—and live in lodgings——"
"I see what you're driving at," broke in Baffall. "You think that if he lived with anyone who would keep an eye on him——"
"I'm sure he'd do better," exclaimed the other eagerly. "I've thought of it often; but I have no time to go to London myself. He writes for money—and still more money; he sends promises of what he will do, and what he will undo; he's a good boy at heart."
"Patience Roe has rooms to spare in her house," said Daniel Baffall thoughtfully.
Such a little phrase to change a life—nay, to change lives! These two men, with their lives nearly spent, and with the road they had traversed stretching far behind them, sat innocently plotting what was to be done with younger lives that were in their keeping; and innocently they forged links that were to bind together those lives in a fashion they would never have suspected. Somewhere in that great London of which the one knew nothing, and which the other was glad to forget, Moira sat waiting for the beat of the many feet that were to come marching into her life; somewhere in that London Charlie lived his careless existence, with no thought of any morrow but a bright one. And these two men were pulling strings that should draw the two inevitably together.
"I'll write to her," exclaimed Purdue suddenly, "and I'll write to Charlie. He wants friends of a better sort in London; and if, as you suspect, they are poor, this may help them."
"I'm glad I came to you," said Baffall, as he got to his feet. "After all, that girl may help to keep the boy straight. Boys want a lot of keeping straight these days, it seems to me."
He had moved to the door when Mr. Purdue, going after him, detained him with a question. "No news of Jimmy?"
Mr. Baffall's brows contracted. "Not a word," he replied. "I'm disappointed in that boy; we both seem to have been a bit unlucky in that respect, Mr. Purdue. I got Jimmy into a good situation—provided for him, in a way; and he left it—or was turned out of it—for incompetence; and that's the last we've heard of him. It wants a strong boy or a strong man to hold his own in London."
The Rev. Temple Purdue sighed. "And Charlie is not strong—in that way," he said.
The Rev. Temple Purdue wrote two letters that evening in his study. The one was to astonish Patience Roe on the following day, and to cause her to regret that she had sent a letter to Daisley Cross at all. It suggested that Mr. Purdue was glad to hear of her continued prosperity; it mentioned incidentally that his son was in London, and would in all probability call upon them at an early date; concerning that particular item of news Patience said nothing to Moira.
The second letter was to Charlie; it was a letter written with some shakings of the head and many pauses for reflection. It addressed Charlie as "My dear boy," and it reminded him once again that his father was not a rich man, and that much money had already travelled Londonwards for Charlie's benefit. It contained some advice (which Charlie was afterwards to skim through hurriedly with a frowning face), and it mentioned the address of Patience Roe and Moira. More than that, it finished with the suggestion that Charlie might find it pleasant to visit them, and that he might perhaps care to make a change of lodging, and to take up his quarters with friends.
And while the rector penned that letter in his quiet study at Daisley Cross, a man in a little squalid coffee-house in a turning off Fleet Street was writing a letter to him.
The man was one of that great army of men in London who have no means, and no hopes, and no prospects; who, in some fashion or other, manage to keep a frowsy bed to which to retire when the long, scheming, hungry, pitiful day is ended; who have come down from borrowing sovereigns to borrowing shillings and even sixpences; who are acquainted with every cheap place in the great city where, for the expenditure even of a penny, shelter may be had for an indefinite number of hours. And his name was Anthony Ditchburn.
It had taken Anthony Ditchburn a long time to get to this coffee-house (which was also, by the way, a species of reading-room, to which admittance was to be gained by the payment of one penny, and the luxuries of which included chess and draughts and dominoes); yet the road he had traversed to it had been a fairly straight one. He had begun with the borrowing of sovereigns from such men as had known him in university days, and were sorry for the position in which the man had suddenly found himself by the death of Paul Nannock at Daisley Cross—Paul Nannock, who had died so inconsiderately, and left Ditchburn in the lurch. Then, when that source of income had gone, and men closed their doors against him, Anthony Ditchburn took to writing begging letters, and found it quite a profitable business for a time.
He got easily into the reading-room of the British Museum; it was warm there, and writing materials were at his hand for the asking. He flew at high game; wrote to people he had never met, but whose titles seemed to promise something substantial; quoted the letters which he had a right to set down after his name, and referred to the university lists boldly. To his surprise money came in readily; he fell so quickly into the business that he prepared lists of his patrons, and of others to whom he might apply, and set down against them the amounts they had given, or which might be expected.
It took a long time to exhaust his list, but the hour dawned when he was met with rebuff after rebuff, and when even the mention of the great work on which he had been so long engaged failed to attract the attention it should have done. Then, remembering those people in whose midst he had lived in the flourishing times of Old Paul, he looked in the direction of Daisley Cross, and sent a missive winging towards it.
That was the missive written in the little squalid coffee-house. Anthony Ditchburn had quarrelled bitterly with another shabby, greasy individual, who had dared to occupy the table at which Ditchburn usually sat in the dark little reading-room; had quoted Latin at him, and had been retorted to in the same tongue; had gone away discomfited. Finally, he had haggled with a contemptuous young lady in charge of the room for an outside soiled sheet of paper, and had got it for a halfpenny; had managed to secure an envelope for himself, at no expenditure at all, while her back was turned. And then had sat down to write to the Rev. Temple Purdue.
Knowing his man, and inwardly reproaching himself that he had not done something in this direction before, Anthony Ditchburn adopted the grand manner in dealing with him.
"Rev. and Gentle Sir,
"I venture to turn, in the midst of unmerited misfortune, to one who has been placed (and I would add, quite deservedly placed) in a position of ease and comfort; as a scholar I appeal to a scholar.
"You may doubtless remember that some years ago I grounded in the elements some children, who afterwards (solely owing to a whim on the part of our poor dear old friend Nannock) were passed on to you for further instruction. Incidentally, it will ever be a satisfaction to me that they lisped their first words of knowledge under the guidance of two such men.
"Since that period, although I have been a wanderer in various seats of learning, and have contributed with some degree of success to various of the heavier reviews, the time has at last come when, owing to a difference of opinion with an editor, I am in temporary difficulties. I am amazed when I think that such a misfortune should ever have befallen me; I tremble at the thought of what I must face in the great world." (It may be added that Anthony Ditchburn had trembled often and often in a hundred such letters, until he knew quite well the trick of it; could even give a shake of his pen to emphasise it.) "Will you—quite as a temporary matter—oblige me with a small loan, which will enable me to satisfy a truculent being who demands a something for rent; and also to provide myself during the next day or two with the mere necessaries of life? I need scarcely add that the amount will be repaid as soon as I receive a remittance—long since overdue—from a friend to whom, in a more fortunate moment, I rendered assistance, and who shall of course be nameless.
"I am, Rev. Sir,
"Obediently and sincerely yours,
"Anthony Ditchburn.
"P.S.—A mere matter of ten shillings would stay the pangs of hunger, and permit me to pay something on account for my poor lodging.—A. D."
That written, and the envelope addressed, Anthony found a greasy piece of folded paper in an inner pocket, and from it took a stamp. Then the letter was despatched, bearing the name and address of the coffee-house as Anthony's abode; and so took its way down to Daisley Cross to startle the Rev. Temple Purdue, and to show him anew what a hard and sordid place this London was.
But the letter had one effect, and that incidentally a great one. For Mr. Purdue, after conning the letter for a long time, and clicking his tongue over it, and sighing and shaking his head, despatched it in turn to the only person he knew in London, who would be likely, as being on the spot, to give what assistance was necessary, and to take an old acquaintance by the hand. That person Charlie Purdue.
On his own account the rector sent a sovereign to Anthony Ditchburn, who under his present circumstances felt that he had tapped a gold mine. Also, the innocent rector mentioned his son's address, and begged that the eminent scholar would look the young man up. "Charlie will be glad of a solid friend," he wrote.
But long before Anthony Ditchburn had had time to enter into Charlie's life in that new and somewhat startling capacity of solid friend, Charlie himself had read his father's letter, and had, on an impulsive moment when things were wrong with him, and he had nothing very much to occupy his attention, started for Chelsea; had found the little house, and had climbed the stairs to find Moira. Of course, she knew nothing of him or of his coming; he took her unawares, in that little room wherein she spent her lonely days and her lonely evenings with the old woman.
It had been a day of misty rain and bitter wind; a day when the mere commonplace work of mean shopping had seemed more toilsome than usual. She had come home with damp skirts, and with limbs reluctant to climb the stairs; had sunk down in the firelight, and had leaned her head back and had closed her eyes. The lamp was lighted, and she was alone; for it happened that old Patience was in her bedroom, putting those little absurd touches to her dress and to her cap, without the addition of which she would not have faced the evening.
There came a tap at the door; Moira spoke wearily, although she did not turn her head; this was probably the landlady on some petty matter of the household. "Come in," she said.
The door was opened, and someone stood there. Moira waited for that someone to speak; heard a cough, and got up quickly. There, for a moment, she stood behind the lamp, looking with parted lips at the young man—fair, well-dressed, and smiling—who stood with a hand outstretched to her. Then something in the look told her who he was, whispered to her heart that here suddenly was a friend come out of the brighter world into her life. She touched his hand, and caught a sob—half of laughter, half of tears—in her throat, and whispered his name.
"Charlie!" And again, wringing his hand—"Charlie!" And yet again, almost hysterically as it seemed—"Charlie!"
CHAPTER IV
THE MAN IN PRINT
To have him standing there was wonderful; to look into his eyes, and feel his friendly clasp of her hand; to hear again the light-hearted voice and the light-hearted, gay little laugh——Well—it was just the Charlie of the woods and the fields and the sunshine of the old days. There seemed no change in him, save that he had a dainty suggestion of a moustache (she blushed that she should have noticed that, and then laughed because she had blushed), and his voice a little deeper. For the rest—simply happy-go-lucky Charlie Purdue of the woods and the fields and the sunshine.
He said over and over again that he was glad to see her; looked round the room in the firelight and lamplight, and said what a jolly place it was. And instantly it became a jolly place; the grey sobriety of it faded and was gone. The fire burnt brighter—the chairs were comfortable; it was a jolly room!
That was what Patience saw when she came in with a look of vacant surprise on her face at hearing the laughter. Came in, to be seized at once by Charlie, in that impetuous fashion of his, and kissed and hugged until the cap she had so carefully arranged was all awry. But even then it was only Charlie, and she scarcely dared frown at him.
"Well, if this isn't splendid!" he exclaimed. "To think of you being here all this time—hidden away like moles (although moles don't occupy top floors—generally—do they?)—and I knowing nothing about it. Moira grown a woman—and a pretty woman, too, my dear—and Patience looking younger than ever, especially with her cap on one side like that."
Even Patience laughed; his gaiety was infectious. She and Moira, exchanging smiles for perhaps the first time for months, bustled about to get tea ready; and Charlie Purdue, talking all the while, found out where the kettle was to be filled, and had it on the fire in no time, and assisted generally. To the scandal of old Patience (that is, had she had time to think about it), they found themselves all talking at the top of their voices, punctuated by Charlie's laughter from time to time. He had dashed in out of the world, and had seized them and shaken them, and put new life into them. Across the table under the lamp Moira found herself looking at him gratefully—telling herself, in a little whisper deep down in her heart, that the days of loneliness were over; that a friend had come to her at last, with the breath of the old days about him.
"And what are you doing, Charlie?" she asked at last.
"Oh, I'm studying medicine," he replied, with a grimace. "It was always a whim of dad's to make a doctor of me; and I hate it. It isn't what I was cut out for somehow; it's beastly work. Besides, when I'd finished boyhood I thought I'd left books behind; and here I am grinding away at them harder than ever, and trying for examinations—and—and failing," he added ruefully.
"Oh, Charlie!" The dark eyes regarded him not unkindly, but still with some reproach in their depths. And yet in a sense it was like Charlie to fail, and to laugh at the failure.
"Yes, it's true," he went on. "There seem to be so many things to be done in London, outside the work—such a fine gay life to be lived; so many people calling me here or calling me there—jolly fellows everyone. No day is long enough for all that one can crowd into it; and then the next day comes, and the work hasn't been done. But I won't talk about that to-night; there's so much else that's pleasanter to talk about. What have you been doing, the pair of you, all this time? How have you been living?"
"Our lives have been quiet ones," said Patience, a little stiffly. "I am living the life I hoped to live years ago; a life of comfort and of—of ease."
Charlie glanced at the girl quickly; then back again to the old woman. "And Moira?" he asked, "what has Moira been doing?"
"Living here—quietly," replied the girl, with a half smile at him.
"And being a bit dull, I'll be bound," he exclaimed, getting up and looking about the room impatiently. "But to-night you shan't be dull; to-night you shall taste what London is; I'll look after you."
Patience had risen swiftly to her feet; she seemed in that small room to set herself against the door, as though she would keep the girl back—as though she would keep out the roar of the great London that was calling to Moira. "She can't go!" she breathed, looking from one to the other of the eager faces.
"Can't she? Why not?" demanded Charlie, with his bright laugh. "Do you think anyone will steal her? I'll look after her; we'll go and have a little quiet dinner somewhere, and then—well, then we'll see things afterwards."
"She can't go," breathed Patience again, but in a feebler tone. "Leave her with me."
"Don't be silly, Patience; I'll bring her back safely. Why, I know every inch of this London you're so much afraid of," he went on; "I've explored places that would make you shudder even to hear about. Moira, get ready; to-night you belong to me and to me only."
Moira slipped out of the room, after hesitating for but a moment; then Patience faced the young man with a whispered question. "Where are you going to take her?" she demanded.
"The Lord only knows!" exclaimed Charlie, with a laugh. "If you're so much afraid, why don't you come yourself? Put on your bonnet, Patience, and we'll make a night of it; and you shall wear your bonnet sideways by the time you come back, I'll warrant!"
"I'll stay here," she replied. "Only remember"—she held up a warning finger, and glanced at the door—"remember that she knows nothing of this horrible city; remember that she will look on it with the eyes of a child."
"I won't open her eyes," said Charlie, with a laugh that was half subdued. "Don't you worry about nothing; give her a latchkey, and don't wait up."
"I'll wait up," replied Patience grimly.
Moira came in with her eyes glowing, and her fingers fumbling over the button of a shabby glove. Charlie took possession of the hand and the glove, and buttoned it in a desperate hurry and yet with some skill.
"We'll find a cab—(ever been in a cab, Moira?)—and we'll drive down town, and have a cosy little dinner. I think I've got money enough for that; if I haven't, I know a place where they'll trust me. I once lived a whole week on tick there. And after that—well—the night will be young—and London waiting for us! Come along!"
Moira went back at the last moment, and bent over the old woman, and kissed her. "I shan't really be late," she whispered; and wondered why Patience held to her for a moment with a clutching hand before letting her go. The last sight she had of Patience was as she looked back from the doorway; the old woman had sunk down in the chair, with her elbows on her knees, and was staring at the fire.
Outside the house the misty rain was still falling, and the wind was still coming in bursts down the little narrow street. But Moira was no longer tired nor hopeless; she would have laughed at a downpour. She eagerly slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow; they went gaily down the street together. At the end was a waiting cab—waiting because the driver had seen two young people hurrying along, laughing on such a night, and so was pretty sure of a fare. Charlie helped her in, and got in after her; gave the man an address; they were off. Bright-eyed Moira glanced round at the young man as she snuggled into her corner of the cab; laughed as the glass was let down in front of them. "It is comfortable," she said.
"Poor old girl!" he murmured under his breath, with a new note of gravity in his tone. "Why have you let her hide you away like that all this time? And fancy being so delighted over a cab ride! You seem to have plenty of money, according to what Patience wrote in a letter to the Baffalls."
"That wasn't quite true," replied the girl; "it was only a matter of pride. Patience thought people might believe that she was poor; she exaggerated a little."
"And the house?—the house that was larger than you wanted?" he asked, with a whimsical look in his eyes.
She shook her head. "It isn't our house at all; we've only got a few furnished rooms at the top of it," she replied.
"And I was thinking of coming to live with you!" he cried, with a laugh.
"Oh, Charlie!" She seized his arm, and looked round eagerly into his face. "If you only would!"
"Why—would it mean so much to you?" he asked, in a tone half of pity, half of tenderness. "I don't suppose they'd find room for me."
"It might be managed; oh, I'm sure it might be managed!" she whispered. "And you could work there—and I—we could see you often—every day."
He had no understanding of her real meaning; no knowledge of the desperate loneliness that spoke innocently in her voice and in her eyes; shallow himself, he was only vaguely flattered at her desire to see him, at her happiness in meeting him again. After all, this was something of a new sensation; this snatching up of someone out of the darkness in which she had lain hidden; this showing to her all the wonders of a world of which he had grown a little tired. He promised himself some entertainment out of it; felt that under all the circumstances he was doing rather a good and a kindly thing.
"Well, even if I don't find a room there, we must manage to see a lot of each other, Moira," he said. "You must be heartily sick of spending all your time with old Patience; I should think you must yawn your heads off every night. Or do you go out at all, as she seemed to suggest?"
"We do not go out; I've only been out once—to enjoy myself, I mean—and that was to the opera. That was wonderful!"
"Oh, there are better things than the opera, my dear," he said, with a laugh. "The opera's dull and stupid compared to other things you shall see. But here we are at my restaurant; and here you shall taste the first of your new joys. Wait till he pulls the glass up."
It was extraordinary how well Charlie seemed to be known. A smiling man, with a stiff hand to the peak of his cap, held open the door for them; another smiling man, rotund of body, was discovered bowing within the doors, and preceded them to a table in a corner; hoped that the gentleman was well, and issued sharp orders in a foreign tongue to the flying waiters. Charlie took it all as a mere matter of course; had a word or two to say about the menu, and the changing of a particular dish; and then sank down at the other side of the table. Truly a new experience to look into the dark eyes of this girl, and to see how she sat in this very ordinary restaurant with her lips parted, looking about her, and enjoying every moment of the time, even while she waited for dinner. And she was such a striking looking girl, too, he thought critically, with that black hair and those dark eyes set in her white face. No one need quarrel with him for bringing out such a girl as this; there was something attractive, in a fashion, about her very shabbiness; it gave an air to her.
She ate sparingly; there was so much to be seen—so much to which to listen. People coming and going—hurrying or taking this matter of dining easily; and beyond the doors the brightly lighted street, and all the hum and noise of a London that was making night holiday. And opposite her—here familiarly, with his eyes smiling into hers—Charlie of the pleasant smile and the pleasant voice; Charlie who had known her in the old days that his very presence recalled with a pang, and yet with a dear remembrance.
It is probable that had it been anyone else out of that old familiar life—anyone else as joyous and as glad to meet her—it would have been the same; he would have been as certain of a welcome. But it happened that Charlie was the first; and Charlie had that exquisite quality—exquisite for that time at least—that he knew how to laugh, and had found a trick of being light-hearted. The world and all it held was as much a great game to him as she had once believed it might be for her; gladly and eagerly, like a child who is taught some pleasant lesson that has less of task than of sport about it, she listened to him, and was glad to learn anything he could teach her.
He whispered whimsical surmises as to the characters of the people at the adjoining tables; set her bubbling with laughter at a humorous suggestion as to what would happen if anyone there should feel compelled to rise and give an account of himself or herself.
"You would have to confess that you had never been in a restaurant before," he whispered across the table. "How they'd stare at you!"
"So that you don't laugh at me, I don't mind," she replied. "I think I could sit here for ever—just looking at the people—and wondering about them; I don't want it ever to leave off."
He asked her if he might smoke; she nodded gravely, and smiled. He might have been surprised had he known what the savour of the smoke in her nostrils meant to her; how it breathed in a vague way of Old Paul and his pipe on far-off evenings, and of a thousand things for which she had longed. Then at last the time came for him to pay the reckoning, and for them both to go. She rose with something of a sigh; but all was not over yet.
As they came out of the place, he took her by the elbow and turned her sharply off down the street; dodged with her carefully and yet laughingly through a press of traffic; and stopped with her before the doors of a brilliantly lighted building, outside which hung posters and photographs of all shapes and sizes and sorts. Before she had time to utter a word he had hurried her inside, and had stopped at a little ticket office, from out of which a man looked at him; then had put down money, and had taken up two printed slips. Only then, when he stood before her looking at the numbers on the slips, did she venture a remonstrance.
"What place is this? You know I ought—I really ought to be going home."
"We shan't stay half an hour if you don't like it," he replied lightly. "I told you we were going to see life to-night; this is Bohemia, Moira, though with rather a small 'b,' I'm afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of."
They went down carpeted stairs, and in a moment Moira found herself sinking back luxuriously into a cushioned seat, with Charlie beside her. For a moment, a little bewildered and a little frightened, she looked about her with the air of one who had dropped into new and strange surroundings by the merest chance. Someone was singing on the stage; and voices up above had taken up the refrain of the song raucously and altogether out of tune; as the song ceased, she heard shrill whistlings and shouts and the clapping of hands.
"You'll hear something better than this presently," Charlie murmured in her ear; and she woke with a start, and tried to concentrate her thoughts on what was passing on the stage.
Charlie was still smoking; indeed, most of the men round about in the other seats were doing the same. Moira became aware, after a moment or two, that a fat heavy man a seat or two removed from her had leaned forward, and was staring at her; she averted her eyes, and glanced round towards Charlie. For his part, that young man was so engrossed with what was passing on the stage that he had removed his cigar from a mouth that was wide open, while his eyes were crinkled up in laughter. On the stage a diminutive man was hopping about with eccentric gestures, sparring at nothing, and occasionally holding a one-sided sort of interview with the conductor of the orchestra; yet he must have been funny, or why was Charlie so convulsed, and why were the other faces at which the girl glanced timidly, addressed to the stage and convulsed also. Moira decided that there must be something missing in her; the better to please Charlie, she made a feint of laughing also.
After a time it was obvious that Charlie tired a little of the performance; once or twice he glanced at the girl, as though on the point of suggesting that they should go, and yet, in his good nature, unwilling to cut short her pleasure. At last, however, he leaned towards her, and whispered:
"Tired of it?"
"There's rather a lot, Charlie—for all at once," she whispered; and the next moment, taking her at her word, he was walking out of the place with her.
"You mustn't have too much Bohemia all at once, miss," said Charlie, beckoning to a hansom. "You won't sleep after this. We'll take our London in doses, and you shall learn as much of it as you like to learn. Now for home—and Patience—and perhaps a lecture."
They drove home in comparative silence. More than once it was in her mind to say something to him in the way of thanks—to tell him what a night this had been in her life. But she checked herself, partly from shyness, partly because, although this was the Charlie of old days, there was yet the difference between the boy who had known nothing and the man who had learned so much. Only when they got out of the cab, and stood together for a moment at the door of the little house in Locker Street, did she put out her hand to him, and murmur a word of thanks.
"Thank you, Charlie," she whispered. "It has been wonderful. The beautiful dinner—and the lights and the music——. Thank you."
They heard the steps of the old woman in the house, coming down the last few stairs, and approaching the door. For a moment, as Charlie held her hand, and saw the flushed, grateful face before him, he drew that hand towards him, and bent his head to her; she, puzzled a little, drew back. If he had meant to kiss her he repented of the thought, or decided that the time was not yet; he laughed, and shook the hand, and the next moment had jumped into the cab, and was away. And the dark house swallowed her up.
Patience said nothing while the girl chattered on lightly about all that had happened, and about how kind Charlie had been, and how good-natured; Patience merely looked at her from under brooding brows, and made the simple preparations for bed. But an hour or two afterwards the old woman stole softly into the room where the girl lay asleep; shading the candle, she looked down and saw that Moira's face, even in sleep, was smiling, and that there was a flush upon it.
In just such a fashion, had the girl but known it, the old woman had looked down at her often and often while she slept; for only at that time, when Moira lay unconscious, could the deep, strong love of the woman flash out of her eyes, and set itself in the firm lines of the mouth, without the possibility of betrayal. Now, as she looked down at the face, she saw upon it that smile it had not worn before; knew what had come into the girl's life, and vaguely dreaded it. She went softly from the room, and closed the door; outside, she looked at the candle flame, and shook her head.
"She's slipping from me—she's slipping from me," she whispered.
Meanwhile Charlie had gone home—thinking, in his own careless fashion as he went, what a queer evening it had been, and what queer company he had kept. It would be untrue to say that Moira had made any impression upon him, in an active sense; it simply happened that, in his own careless, good-natured fashion, he was sorry for her, and thought it a shame that she should have been kept away from all the good things of life so long. He remembered that she had grown prettier even than he should have thought possible; had noted with approval that there was an air of grace and refinement about her which he rather liked. He would see her again—and that soon.
Charlie got out of his cab, and climbed the stairs to his rooms. Reaching the top stair in the semi-darkness, he stumbled over someone sitting there—someone asleep by the startled sounds he made as he got up. Charlie saw that it was an old man, who, in the confusion of the moment, had pulled off his hat, and was bowing and scraping before the younger one.
"Who are you?" asked Charlie, staring at him.
"I think you will remember me, Mr. Purdue," replied the quavering voice, "although it is years since we met. You were a child then—and I had the felicity of calling you by your Christian name. Years have gone by, and while fortune has raised you—(as I am sure you must deserve)—to a position of affluence—it has seen fit to cast me down, and in a sense, to trample upon me. But I thought that if I might——"
By that time Charlie had got the door open, and had gone in and turned up the gas. Facing about there, he saw that the old man had come into the doorway, and was standing watching him; and then in a moment, somewhat ruefully, Charlie recognised him.
"Why—it's old Ditchburn——. I beg your pardon; I should have said Mr. Ditchburn. Come in. How did you find me out?"
Anthony Ditchburn came into the room humbly, and looked about with the air of one who was sizing things up, with a view to the value, in a pecuniary sense, of the man who lived there. "Your esteemed father was so good as to suggest that I might call and see you," he said.
"Very kind of my esteemed father," said Charlie, looking at the old man doubtfully. "Would you mind shutting the door; then you can come in and talk."
Anthony Ditchburn, nothing loth, closed the door with alacrity, and came into the room. Charlie saw how ragged and unkempt the man was; noted in a quick glance all the little devices of poverty for the saving of his dress and the covering of worn seams and threads; he mentally decided that Mr. Ditchburn would probably endeavour to "touch him" for something before he departed.