He strode through the little town of Daisley Cross with his head erect; albeit he was a shabbier figure than he had been in the old days. It was a curious feeling, because he could not remember ever having been shabby in that place before; and yet with that new virtue on him he was not ashamed. In a sense, he felt that he could meet his father, because that father must inevitably recognise that here had been no squandering of money; but that Charlie, though unfortunate, must have lived hard and lived carefully. Which was the impression he desired to create.
The Rev. Temple Purdue walked in his somewhat neglected garden that morning, looking thoughtfully at all the decay and debris of the dead year, and thinking perhaps of the decay of his own hopes. He raised his eyes at the click of the gate--stood still, expectant, with a flushed face, as Charlie advanced towards him. Something of his love for the young man shone in his eyes for a moment, and was in his grasp when he gave a reluctant hand; then in a moment he was the stern father again, waiting to hear what Charlie had to say.
To begin with, Charlie was repentant; he saw now how much he might have done had he been more careful. It must not be understood, according to Charlie"s account, that he whined about it; no--he was simply ready to face whatever future might be given him, and to face it boldly. He wanted it to be understood that he had learned his lesson, and learned it well; the Rev. Temple Purdue heard with some astonishment that this remarkable son thanked his father for having given him the opportunity of learning that lesson.
They went to the house together, with a better understanding growing between them than there had been for a very long time. The heart of the old man had ached with longing for some such moment as this, and he had not believed that it could ever arise; yet here was the prodigal, smiling at him, and thanking him, and promising anything and everything.
The old man furtively wiped his eyes more than once as he listened to what Charlie had to say. And Charlie, as might have been expected under emotional circ.u.mstances, said too much.
"You"ve got to understand, sir, that I"m a different sort of man from what I was," he said, wagging his head strenuously at that disreputable figure of himself now rapidly vanishing into the background. "I"ve got responsibilities, and I mean to live up to them. I hope I know my duty to myself, as well as to others. That"s why I want to make a start; that"s what I mean when I say I"m going to live a different sort of life."
The father caught only one or two words, and clung to them; he looked round quickly at his son. "Responsibilities? To others?"
"Yes," said Charlie, not quite so boldly nor so bravely; "one other, at any rate. There"s--there"s a woman." He had decided, on the mere impulse of the moment, not to mention that woman"s name; it was no use making the case harder against himself than was necessary.
The old man stiffened and set his lips. "A woman?" he asked, in a different tone.
"Yes--someone I"m very fond of--someone who is very fond of me. I want--want to marry her."
Mr. Purdue"s face cleared. "My dear boy--you quite startled me for the moment; forgive me that I did not understand," he said. "But we need not talk about that now; I applaud your desire to settle down, and to lead a more regular life; but when you are established there will be time enough to arrange about your marriage. If this girl is worthy of you, she will wait, my boy."
"She can"t wait--it"s impossible," blurted out the son. "That"s why I"m here to-day; that"s what my responsibility means, I must marry her--and at once."
His father took a step towards him, and looked into his face; drew his breath sharply. "You mean----"
Charlie nodded slowly, without looking up. His father looked at him for a long minute, and then turned and walked to the door, and opened it. He seemed to brace himself in a curious fashion for what he had to say, but he was none the less resolute in his determination to say it. He seemed, as he drew himself up, to look taller than Charlie had ever seen him.
"So this is the meaning of your new resolution--of your sudden desire to get into a decent position, and to secure some money--is it?" he asked.
"Not content with the wrong you have done yourself, and the shame you have brought upon me, you have involved some wretched woman in deeper shame yet."
"She"s a good woman," muttered Charlie.
"That is impossible," retorted the other quickly. "But I will not discuss the matter with you; I have finished with you for good and all.
Get out of my house." He pointed to the door as he spoke, but kept his face averted from his son.
"Oh, very well." Charlie lounged towards the door, stopped for a moment close to the old man to speak. "You"ll do nothing for me--or for her?"
"Your companions and your friends do not concern me. Your duty, which you appear to know so clearly, points you straight to her, and demands that you shall do her justice and shall marry her; but with that I have nothing to do."
"Very good." Charlie heaved a deep sigh, and turned towards the open door. "I"ve promised her it"ll be all right--and I"ll keep my word, even if we starve together. And I hope you"ll never remember, at some time when you"d be glad to forget, what you"ve said to me. Good-bye--and this for the last time."
He flung out of the house, and across the garden, and disappeared into the wind-swept road. After a moment of silence the old man turned, and put a hand across his eyes; then swayed to the door, and went out quickly. "Charlie!" he called. "Charlie!" But there was no response, and the garden and the road seemed empty.
Charlie paced the station for an hour or more, waiting for a train to take him back to London; and the longer he paced, and the more he thought about matters, the deeper and the more fixed became his resolution to do that right thing on which he had set his mind, and regarding which he had made so many promises. Even in the railway carriage at last, on his way back to London, he nodded across at the opposite seat, as though the girl sat there and could hear him, and told her what he would do.
"It"ll be all right," he said. "Money, or no money, we"ll get married--and no one shall point a finger at you. Then the old man"ll be sorry; he"ll understand that I"ve done the right thing, and am in that sense a better Christian than he is, in spite of his cloth. Don"t you worry, Moira--because there"s nothing to worry about. When once I get back to London, I"m going to take up real work; I"ll decide before the end of the week whether I"ll go in for painting, or writing, or something else easy like that. After all, perhaps it"s best that this has happened; it"ll put strength into me, and make me do things for the sake of somebody else. I shouldn"t be surprised to find in the long run that there was quite a Providence in it for us both."
He was still troubled, however, about the business; he felt a lump coming in his throat more than once at the thought of the bitter injustice to which he had been subjected by his father. It wasn"t fair.
Here was a young man, trying to do his solemn duty in the face of tremendous odds, and his own father refused to help him. Oh, it wasn"t right at all!
He had had but a scanty breakfast, and he was faint and tired and discouraged by the time his slow train got to London. There was still a shilling or two in his pockets; he went into the bar of the refreshment room, and ordered something that should put new courage into him for that indefinite fight with the world that was beginning that very week.
It put such courage into him that he told himself he was going to be very good to Moira; she should live to bless the day on which she had met him. So he had some more of that liquid courage--and yet some more--telling himself, in a despairing, half-whimsical way, that for this lapse his poor old father was directly responsible, had he but known it. And then went out into the streets, with his hat on the back of his head and his hands in his pockets to make his way to Moira.
I think he must have been murmuring to himself again that it would be all right when the accident happened. He never knew very much about it; he was crossing a road, and there were shouts and the screaming of a woman, and the thunder of horses" hoofs; then he turned about, and beat feeble protesting hands against the moving thing that was crushing him, and then lost consciousness.
When he woke up, as it were, he was in a strange place, with strange faces about him; there seemed to be a great weight on his lungs and in his head; he could not breathe well, and he found it difficult to speak.
Someone, bending an ear down to him to get a faint whisper, and wondering a little perhaps why he smiled so cheerfully, seemed to think that he said twice over that it would be all right, and that he wanted to see Jimmy. And so, with some labour, they got a name and an address from him, and wrote them down. And as soon as possible sent for a certain Mr. James Larrance to come in all haste to see a man who had but an hour to live.
CHAPTER II
JIMMY QUIXOTE
In an accidental haphazard way Jimmy had succeeded. Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby had scored something of a success with that play in the making of which he had so largely interested himself, and the secret of the authorship had leaked out. Moreover, sundry people, reading the book, had lighted on that idea for themselves, and had seen what was indefinitely referred to as "promise" in it. And so it had come about that someone greater than Bennett G.o.dsby had descended upon Jimmy, and had held out a bait in the form of a pink cheque for one hundred pounds--this time with no deductions. And Jimmy had gasped and wondered, but had fortunately kept his head; and so had started, with that bait for comfort and support, on the writing of another play for the man greater even than Bennett G.o.dsby.
The world was changed, so far as Jimmy was concerned; he looked at it through rose-coloured gla.s.ses. No more poverty nor struggling; no more counting up of small gains; no more dodging of landladies. Jimmy had yet to learn, of course, that the struggle is never done, and that it goes on to the very end; but he did not know that then.
Also, Jimmy was going into Society--with what was for him a very large "S." That Society comprised, in the first place, Mr. Bennett G.o.dsby (who kept touch with the young man, with an eye to the future) and Mrs.
Bennett G.o.dsby and daughter; also the new and greater one with whom cheques for a hundred pounds appeared to be but casual things; and the Baffalls and Alice. More particularly, it may be said, the Baffalls and Alice.
It was a pleasant thing for a man who lived in somewhat shabby rooms alone to have a little note delivered to him in the morning, making an appointment for the evening; a little dinner, or a theatre party--or even a mere going round to a pleasant house to see the Baffalls--and especially Alice. It was an excuse for putting on that evening dress which spelled prosperity; it was an easy and a pleasant ending to a day of work. So that he went often, and saw much of her.
Perhaps her greatest merit in his eyes was what may be termed her adaptability. She had no emotions and no rough edges; you did not need to be afraid of her. Whatever you talked about you discovered she understood, and was sympathetic; which, on later reflection, meant that she had no particular views about anything, but that her views were yours. In other words, you discovered, on thinking about it, that her conversation had been limited largely to monosyllabic affirmatives or negatives--carefully interlarded with smiles; and that you yourself had talked a great deal, having been encouraged to do so by the smiles.
But she was always pretty, and always restful; and if you told her of a disappointment or a worry she had always a tender--"Poor boy!"--or some such soothing word to throw at you. Then again, when one was back in one"s lonely rooms at night, it was pleasant to think what she would have been like, sitting in that empty chair at the other side of the fireplace; pleasant to think how she would have smiled, and what she would have said, and what she would have done. Always, of course, with the proviso that she must be in the same sort of pretty frock you had admired so much that night, with the dimpled arms showing, and the firelight dancing on her hair and in her blue eyes. In effect, when Jimmy came to consider the matter, he knew that he must regard her always in the light of an ornament--something that others must admire quite as much as he did; something about which people must whisper enviously, and call him a lucky dog.
Even when he tried the experiment of talking about his work and his plans and hopes, she was quite as satisfactory. She knew just when to nod--just when to remind you how clever you were--just when to wonder how you managed to think of such brilliant things. And her capacity for listening was marvellous.
Jimmy having found it necessary, as has been stated, to reconstruct his world, and to dismiss Moira from that share in his prosperity which he had originally designed for her, came to decide that he might after all do worse than fall in love with Alice. Some day or other he must marry; some day or other there must be someone as beautifully dressed, and as beautiful in herself as this girl, who would take her place with him in the great world into which he was slowly moving, and would be admired as much as he was admired for his work. That was inevitable--and Alice would be most satisfactory.
Let it not be supposed that he actually said this thing to himself in so cold-blooded a fashion; rather that that was the actual impression in his mind. There was that adaptability about him at that time, when his work chiefly held possession of him, that would have enabled him to fall in love quite easily with anyone half as pretty as Alice; there was no task about it, and he had for a long time found himself anxiously watching the hours when he was separated from her--anxiously longing for the time when he should see her. This was no grand pa.s.sion in any sense of the word; it was merely a man and a maid who saw much of each other, and who were on the friendliest terms; it wanted but the slightest touch of either of them to set them on fire, and to see the thing done and settled. Perhaps Daniel Baffall and his wife nodded over it together more than once, and said in whispers that this was what might naturally be expected; perhaps Alice had her own views, and knew pretty clearly, as she usually did, what was coming.
Of course, there were others. There were men who came there, disturbingly enough, on occasions when Jimmy had hoped to find her alone; men who seemed to know a great deal about her pursuits, and who even had the audacity to make appointments with her for the following day or for other days, quite as though they had a right to do so.
Generally speaking, however, the others may be said to have resolved themselves in time into a certain Mr. Ashby Feak; so that Jimmy"s jealousies melted away, even as the other men melted away, and centred round Ashby Feak, and round him alone.
Ashby Feak was a tall fair man, at whose age it would be difficult to guess, and concerning whose life various stories were told. He had been abroad a great deal, and had done something in the way of exploration in a mild way in various places; had written a little concerning his travels. That he was interesting there was not the slightest doubt; that he had a wider and a deeper knowledge and experience of the world than Jimmy was also beyond question. Daniel Baffall did not like him, and Mrs. Baffall was a little afraid of him; but he came often, nevertheless, and in a sense he monopolised the girl, after a time, as no other man had done. She still held to Jimmy in a half-hearted way; but Jimmy found it difficult to discover her alone, and the old cordial talks were things of the past.
He manoeuvred to see more of her, and was sometimes successful; sometimes, in fact, he was able to take the girl, with Mrs. Baffall for company, to places into which Ashby Feak could not go; while Ashby Feak, on his side, could return that compliment easily enough. And Alice received both men apparently on equal terms--now and then bestowing a favour upon Jimmy, and the next moment taking it away from him, in a sense, for the better encouragement of Mr. Feak. In the long run, however, Jimmy told himself that Ashby Feak seemed to score more than he did.
Jimmy was in that bitter mood engendered by the receipt of a note from her, suggesting that she would be unable to keep an appointment made with him, and suggesting further that he had been "horrid" to her the night before, when that hurried message came which summoned him to Charlie"s bedside. All he heard was that a man was dying, and had craved to see him; he had no suspicion of who the man was. But the summons drove from his mind that lighter business of jealousy, and sent him off at once to find the man.
That poor, broken, misguided thing called Charlie Purdue was fast losing his strong grip on life by the time Jimmy--subdued and wondering and sorry--was brought to him. There had been no time to summon anyone else; indeed, but for that faint glimmer of intelligence which had allowed of the getting of the address and the sending for Jimmy, Charlie had lain pa.s.sive, watching the light change outside the high windows in the great ward in which he lay, and solemnly facing this, the last phase in his tumultuous life. Watching it so solemnly even, that he was able to see only one dark-eyed girl (he remembered with a pang that the eyes had been filled with tears when last he had looked into them), and the remembrance of a promise he had made--long, long ago, as it seemed--that it would be all right! Strangely enough, the instinct to make it all right had urged him, racked with pain though he was, and with death looking in at the great windows, to send for Jimmy. He did not know yet what Jimmy was to do; but Jimmy had loved her, and they had fought together over her--this dying man and the other--years before. Jimmy would know--Jimmy would remember.
For a time the man in the bed and the man standing beside it held hands and said nothing; perhaps because there was so much to be said. A doctor had shaken his head, and pursed up his lips, and turned away; a nurse, at a nod from the doctor, had held something to the man"s lips and had turned away, too. Jimmy bent down, and put his face close to that of the other; and even then, in that hour, Charlie was laughing as it seemed; at all events his eyes laughed.
"It"s going to be quick," he whispered. "I may slip away while you look at me. I know enough of the game--quite enough for that. It"s a bit--bit of a silly ending--isn"t it?"