It did not seem to the girl that there was the old cordiality in his voice; no welcoming cry as she came into the place--no starting up gladly to meet her. And she so lonely--so much in need of a friend to whom she could talk! And Jimmy with that word to say!
"I"m frantically busy," said Jimmy, with a smile and another glance at his desk. "Sudden work, for which everything else must be set aside, Moira--great and wonderful work. I"ve got a chance to write a play."
"Yes, Jimmy?" She spoke quietly, and with no enthusiasm, as it seemed, in her tones. For she was chilled and repelled; this was not the man to whom to come on any affair of the heart; this was a Jimmy who, if he had a word to say, would be likely to say it about himself.
"A man has read my book--Bennett G.o.dsby; you"re sure to have heard of him--and he sees a play in it. I"m just to write off a few pages--suggesting what it"s to be--and I get twenty pounds for that"--Jimmy was talking excitedly, and was tapping the open book upon his desk as he spoke. "It"s a gorgeous chance--a wonderful opportunity!
I"ve had a long talk with him to-day. But there--sit down, Moira; I can spare you ten minutes. And don"t mind my excitement; one doesn"t get a chance like this every day."
She did not sit down; she stood looking into the small fire, and wondering why she had come, or what there was for her to say.
Jimmy--this Jimmy who knew great people, and talked so lightly of twenty pounds, and of plays, and what not--this was not the Jimmy who would have the word to say. Even as tears welled into her eyes--tears of bitterness and of loneliness--she thought of Charlie who had kissed her; Charlie who was not successful, but who always had a kind word for her, and a cheery laugh in the midst of all his misfortune. Why had she come here at all?
"Well, Moira," said Jimmy, leaning against his desk and looking at her--"and what"s the news with you?"
"Oh--the best, I suppose," she said, without raising her eyes. "I came here to-night to tell you something of my news. It"s about--about Charlie."
"Poor old Charlie!" he said lightly; and in her ears it sounded as the light dismissal by the successful man of the man who had failed. "What"s Charlie doing?"
"Charlie is going to do great things one of these days," she said brightly, surprising herself by discovering that she was suddenly the other man"s champion. "And I--I am going to help him."
"Well--you"ve always done that, you know," said Jimmy; and in his mind as he spoke was not Moira nor Charlie--nor any of their troubles. He seemed to see Bennett G.o.dsby walking the stage in one particular scene, and speaking the words that should have been set down for him by that new dramatist, James Larrance. "What are you doing for him now?"
"It isn"t what I"m doing for him now, Jimmy--it"s what I"m going to do for him," she said, raising her eyes for the first time. "I thought you"d like to hear about it. Charlie wants me--he"s asked me to marry him."
Jimmy had turned for a moment to look back at his precious notes; he swung round now towards her, and for a moment or two was silent. For this was a shock; and perhaps just then Jimmy realised for the first time that in this he might have had a word to say, after all. For Jimmy had planned, as he always did for himself and for others, a certain future, in which always he took the lead, and wherein always he arranged the lives of those in whom he was interested. In some part of that dim and distant future he was, as a very successful man, to have gone to Moira, and with much kindness have offered her a share in it; with no real priggishness in the thought, he yet felt that she should be very properly gratified, and a little humble, and very much admiring. It was all indefinite; but it had a place in that future; and this was a sudden disturbance of the scheme.
"Charlie has asked you to marry him?" He moved a little nearer to her, and laughed. "And what did you say?"
"Nothing--yet," said Moira. "You see, Jimmy"--her loneliness made her confidential with him; she must at that time, she felt, lean on someone--"I didn"t know what to say. Of course, I like Charlie--and I"m sorry for him--and I should like to help him. He says I could; that I should give him something to work for."
"A man always says that," said Jimmy wisely. "After all, it must be a matter for yourself, my dear girl," he added. "I suppose Charlie knows best; perhaps you will be able to help him to make something of himself."
"I hope so--I think so," she said, in a low voice. "I only came to-night, Jimmy, because--because we"ve been such good friends, you and I----"
"And always shall be, of course," he broke in.
"And I thought you"d like to know about it."
Jimmy looked at her thoughtfully for a moment or two; then he sighed, and smiled as she raised her eyes to him. "You"ve had but a poor life of it, Moira," he said; "I don"t wonder you turn to a man who promises you something better."
"Perhaps that"s it," she whispered, dropping her eyes. "After all, Jimmy, I suppose love only comes once--doesn"t it?"
"So they say," replied Jimmy solemnly.
"I suppose, Jimmy"--she kept her eyes averted, and her voice was scarcely more than a whisper--"I suppose, Jimmy, you don"t think--don"t think of those things--eh?"
"No--I don"t," said Jimmy, after a long look at her. "I am in a sense wedded to my work; I never think of anything else. A man must be free--free to live his life, and do the best that is in him"--Jimmy seemed to have read or heard that somewhere, but it sounded rather well just now. "I cannot see myself ever marrying," he added; yet there was a little bitterness in his heart as he said it, and as he thought of Charlie and of Moira.
"I understand," she said; and laughed curiously. "So I shall say what I meant to say all along to Charlie; I shall tell him that I"ll marry him.
Good-bye, Jimmy!"
He took the hand she held out to him; they stood for a moment in the shadows of the room; stood, too, perhaps, for a moment amid the shadows of old memories cl.u.s.tering thick and fast about them. Then he wrung her hand, and turned away.
"I hope you"ll be very happy, Moira," he said.
"Oh--I think so," she replied; and when he turned again from his notes she was gone.
Curiously enough he did not touch the notes again that night. He sat for a long time in front of the fire--thinking--thinking; striving to look into that new future which had so suddenly to be rearranged.
"I can quite see what is going to happen," he told himself. "I can see myself, in the years that are coming, a man grown successful--and yet not caring very much about the success." (Jimmy was very confident about this point.) "And yet there shall be no bitterness in me; I can feel myself looking at things, sanely, and telling myself that this was, after all, for the best--quite for the best. Poor Moira!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE SIDES OF THE "BUSES O!
Jimmy had suddenly found himself a personage--in something of a roundabout and accidental fashion. Paragraphs had appeared in newspapers, giving strange accounts of the young dramatist; a photographer had most surprisingly asked for a sitting, for which no charge would be made, and in regard to which certain copies of the photograph were actually to be presented to Jimmy; and many other things had happened.
So far as the actual play was concerned, matters had not gone so smoothly as might at first have been antic.i.p.ated. The synopsis, to begin with, seemed to puzzle Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby not a little; he suggested that he "couldn"t see himself in it." Jimmy waited a little hopelessly at the theatre on several evenings; had messages sent out to him by the great man, declaring that the great man was changing--or absolutely worn out--or that he hadn"t had time to think about the matter. Finally, one night Jimmy received a note, requesting him to call and see Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby at his house on the following morning.
Jimmy went, and discovered Bennett G.o.dsby, in a sense, in the bosom of his family--that family consisting of Mrs. Bennett G.o.dsby, and a young and rather plump Miss Bennett G.o.dsby. Mrs. Bennett G.o.dsby had at one time appeared with her husband; Jimmy seemed to understand that there must have been acrimonious discussions when the time came when Mrs.
Bennett G.o.dsby was no longer young enough, nor slim enough, to play lead with him. She had the appearance, not only of being very plump, but of threatening to be plumper; she was somewhat negligently dressed, and she wore even at that early hour all the rings that could possibly be got on her short fingers. Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby introduced Jimmy, and then led the young man into another room in order to talk business.
"Now, my dear Larrance," he began, "I confess I"m a little disappointed.
I don"t know how it is--but you haven"t quite hit it; at least, that"s how it strikes me. I suppose it"s lack of experience, or something of the sort--or perhaps I was mistaken when I thought there was a play in the thing after all. It won"t carry; there"s nothing in it to grip "em."
"I"m sorry," said Jimmy, with a sinking feeling at his heart. "Perhaps you could suggest----"
"Just what I"m going to do," said Mr. G.o.dsby, sitting down and drawing Jimmy"s synopsis towards him. "You know"--he looked up with a pained expression--"this thing has worried me more than you think. You"ll understand that men like myself--men who live for their art--are bound to understand and to feel the characters they portray. I can a.s.sure you I"ve found myself speaking abruptly to Mrs. Bennett G.o.dsby--in the fashion in which I imagine the man in your play would speak. She"s been surprised. "Bennett," she has said to me, "what is this? What is troubling you?" She knows; she"s been through the mill herself--only, of course, in a smaller way. I should love to play that character," he added, with a sigh, as he tapped the paper.
Jimmy sat silent; he did not know what to do or what to say. More than that, he dared not break in upon the reflections of Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby, for that gentleman was evidently thinking deeply. After a moment or two the actor got up and strolled across the room, and frowned at a picture; turned round, and frowned upon Jimmy by way of a change. "It"s lack of experience--that"s what it is," he said, nodding his head sagely.
"On my part?" Jimmy looked anxious.
"Yes, sir, on your part. The brain is there--the creative force, if I may say so; but you can"t convey things. Now, if only I had the time to set to work on that myself--but, of course, one mustn"t interfere with another man"s work. Oh, no--not to be thought of."
Jimmy hastened to a.s.sure Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby that he would value any suggestion that gentleman cared to make--would esteem it a privilege to do anything in his power to meet the wishes of such a man--to profit by his experience. Mr. G.o.dsby, saying nothing, picked up the offending pages, and rapidly scanned them; presently sat down opposite Jimmy, and began to go steadily through the thing, scene by scene.
The alterations were somewhat drastic, but they did not affect the plot very greatly. The chief thing desirable seemed to be that Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby should turn up at effective moments; should have a scene twisted here that would gain for him the sympathy of the audience; should have this changed, and that made bigger, in order, as he phrased it, to "lift the thing up."
"You see, my dear Larrance," he said confidentially, "they want _me_. I a.s.sure you that if I"m off for ten minutes it becomes a question of their looking round about them, and whispering, and saying to themselves: "Where"s Bennett G.o.dsby? Why isn"t he here? Why doesn"t he lift the thing up?" I"ve been a.s.sured of it again and again by those who have sat in the front of the house, and have heard those things said. See the position it places me in!"
Jimmy said he quite saw the position, and he was honestly sorry for Mr.
Bennett G.o.dsby. At the same time----
"Well, you see; I know what the public wants; I"ve sampled its tastes pretty well. Now, my suggestion is this: I"ll help you with the play; I"ll show you what it wants, and how it might be turned about; and--well, in a sense, we"ll write it together."