Jimmy gulped, and began dimly to call to mind all the romances of which he had heard or which he had read. Almost he wished that something wonderful might happen--some danger that should threaten her; it seemed then that he would have known perfectly what to do. Strong boy though he was, he was almost on the verge of tears at his own helplessness--at the thought that she must go away, and leave him as she had found him but a few days since. For this was not love in the ordinary sense; this was but that fine chivalry that lies deep in the hearts of all of us, and can be wakened at a whisper or at the touch of a hand; only in some of us it grows and springs to full life earlier than in others. Jimmy did not understand what the very word woman meant; only he stretched out warm impulsive young hands into the future, and craved to do that which the best of men had done before him and had laid down their lives for.
The woman did not matter; the fact that she was a woman sufficed.
Even when she began to reveal a little of her purpose he did not understand; he was glad only to help her. Still keeping that hand upon his shoulder as they walked towards the village, she began delicately to ask him about the lives they led--he and the others and Old Paul--and how they spent their days. And by the guileless Jimmy was let suddenly into the secret heart of it all.
The betrayal was disgraceful; but, then, Honora knew the ways of youth, and she meant to gain her point. She fished delicately, with slow, easy questions for bait, until Jimmy had led her--in words, at least--into the very heart of that paradise which Old Paul had made for himself and the children, in certain deep woods unexplored by others. Honora had a vision of the man hidden away there, surrounded by the children, and reading and talking to them on sunny afternoons. There, apparently, he was to be taken off his guard; there discovered in his most intimate moments, and taken unawares. Honora laid her plans, and determined heartlessly enough to use the boy to further them. Jimmy was to meet her on the morrow; the infatuated boy was actually to bring this loud-voiced hearty woman into the holy of holies, and to spring her suddenly upon his friends.
Only when Jimmy had parted from her, and was taking his way back to the house, did he realise what he had promised, and what it involved. He remembered how first he had been taken--walking on tip-toe and breathing carefully--deep down into that place of trees and ferns and birds and rustling things; remembered with what pride he had a.s.sisted to bring Moira and Alice into it afterwards. The place had been Old Paul"s discovery; you had to plunge through ma.s.ses of undergrowth and drop down a bank to get to it, and no one in the world had ever found it before!
Alice had been properly frightened, and had torn her frock; Moira had gone into it with her eyes wide open, and her lips parted a little in sheer delight. And to-morrow Honora Jackman was to scramble into it, and to take them all by surprise.
Jimmy thought deeply about the prospect. In the first place, it might be well to break it to the others; to explain that the lady was really very nice, and that he adored her, and to try and recollect a few of the things she had said when speaking about their retreat. On the other hand (a wiser and more subtle thought, this), it might be well to meet Miss Jackman, and take her by another route to another place, and so get over the difficulty in that way. But Jimmy had not yet learnt to be absolutely dishonest; he faced the thought resolutely that to-morrow he must redeem his promise, and must thrust the lady, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, into the paradise.
This new Judas had revealed the very time when Paul might be discovered with his young people; Jimmy woke with the thought of that in the morning, and carried that leaden thought all day; or, at least, until the time when he was to meet Honora Jackman. He had made an excuse for deserting the party; had slipped away at the last moment, and now hung about, flushed and irresolute, but strangely happy, to wait for the lady with the eyegla.s.s. And presently saw her swinging along towards him, and already noting him with a smile. Jimmy discovered, too, that another miracle was to happen at the very moment of meeting; for she dropped an arm about his shoulders, and stooped and brushed his lips with her own.
"You"re the best friend I have in the world," she whispered, truthfully enough.
The intoxicated Jimmy stumbled on through the wood with the woman behind him. His lips were wet with her kiss, and had it been anyone else who had done this thing, he would have rubbed the lips hard to get rid of the taint of it. But now he dared not even lick them. Honora Jackman sang softly as she walked, and Jimmy, with that wondrous being behind spelling indefinite happiness, faced resolutely the dreadful moment when he must meet those he had betrayed. He wished desperately that she might have been content with any other place in the wood in which to sit and talk with him; why she should choose this particular spot, and be so anxious about it, had not yet dawned upon the mind of Jimmy. So, with fear knocking at his heart, he came to the top of the bank and parted the bushes and looked down.
"Hullo!" he called feebly.
There was a shriek of delight, changing instantly to a dead silence as the head of Honora appeared beside his own, looking down at them. Old Paul was upon his hands and knees working out an elaborate design with fir cones; he looked up at the apparition and straightened himself, and got ceremoniously to his feet, treading out the design as he moved.
Honora, nothing daunted, looked down and nodded cheerfully, and surveyed the paradise out of her bright eyes through a brighter eyegla.s.s.
"How perfectly heavenly!" she exclaimed. "Will you help me down?"
Now Old Paul was something of a coward; moreover, he had lived so long that hermit life away from women that he had nothing wherewith to meet the situation. Jimmy had jumped down, and was industriously kicking away at the ground beneath his feet, without caring very much to look at anyone, and Paul glanced round at the girls. Most of all he looked at Moira, and he read the shameful answer he was to give clearly in her eyes. After that he faced Honora Jackman with some sternness, though with a little laughter in his eyes.
"I"m afraid you must go back," he said. "You see, this is private property, in a manner of speaking; it"s our enchanted garden--and all that sort of thing. I"m afraid you must go back."
"I don"t think I can find my way," she retorted; and then lowering her voice, added rallying to the innocent face uplifted to her own below the bank, "I declare you"re the biggest baby of the lot!"
"Very likely; but I"d rather you went back; Jimmy will take you," he said.
Jimmy, after a moment of amazed silence, scrambled up the bank, cast a glance of withering scorn back at Old Paul, and then disappeared with Honora into the wood. In less than five minutes he was back again, and he came like a young fury, bursting through the bushes, and flinging himself breathless before Paul, who had resumed work with the fir cones.
"You"re a beast!" the boy shouted, almost crying. "She"s much nicer than you think--and she"s a lady--and she was crying when I left her. You"re a brute, Old Paul!"
That statement was to an extent true, but the tears in the eyes of Honora Jackman had been those of sheer rage and mortification. Moreover, Jimmy"s outburst may be accounted for by the fact that she had utterly ignored him at the moment of parting, except to request him viciously to "run away and play." For Honora was seriously annoyed.
"Oho! sits the wind in that quarter?" said Old Paul, sitting back on his heels, and regarding the boy with a quizzical smile. "Poor old Jimmy!
I"ll wager a week"s pocket money with you, Jimmy, that you love her.
Come, now--out with it!"
Jimmy stammered and stuttered, and looked about at the trees. "I do--and I don"t mind who knows it," he said at last, hotly.
"Brave boy! good boy! You"re growing up finely, Jimmy, and it"s just what I might have expected of you. But even in your love, Jimmy, you mustn"t betray your friends," he added gravely. "She"s a nice lady, though a trifle old for you, Jimmy; but you"re growing every day. I"ll even forgive you for calling me names, though that wasn"t quite fair.
Did you see her safely out of the wood, Jimmy?"
But Jimmy, with a sudden suspicious sound in his throat, had turned and bolted up the bank. And in a moment Paul"s smile faded, and he took the bank at a leap, and went after the boy. He found him lying p.r.o.ne on the ground, with his face hidden on his arms, sobbing as though his heart would break. He flung himself in a moment beside him, and put his head down close to Jimmy"s.
"Jimmy--old Jimmy--I didn"t mean----"
Jimmy raised his face cautiously, looked about him to be sure that no eyes save those of Paul could note his swollen eyelids and his quivering lips. "I know you didn"t," he gulped. "But you don"t understand me; you don"t know how wonderful she is. You haven"t thought that she hasn"t got a friend in the world--"cept me; she told me that," he added proudly.
"Did she now!" Old Paul sat up and looked at the boy. "She"s more wonderful than I thought, Jimmy. And I suppose you"d do anything for her--die for her?"
"I would!" exclaimed the boy earnestly. "If I thought she was in trouble--or anybody was going to do anything that would hurt her--I"d----"
"I know--I know, Jimmy," replied Paul, with a grave nod. "And it"s a brave feeling--isn"t it, boy? Makes you tingle all over, especially at the tips of the fingers. Makes you carry your head up, and draw your breath quickly--eh?"
"Why--how do you know, Old Paul?" asked the boy, staring at him.
"Oh--just guessed it," said Paul, with a little laugh. "Come on, Jimmy Quixote, let"s join the ladies."
"What"s "Quixote"?" asked Jimmy, getting slowly to his feet.
"Oh, he was a gentleman who went out to fight for ladies--and he tilted at windmills and things," said Paul. "But he was rather a good sort, Jimmy; and I think I like you the better for this afternoon. You don"t mind my calling you "Jimmy Quixote," do you?"
"Not if he was that sort of man," replied Jimmy.
For a long time after that--long, indeed, after Honora Jackman had left the Baffalls in peace and gone again upon her journeyings--Old Paul would sometimes, in moments of confidence, tenderly call Jimmy by that curious name, so that between them it rather stuck to him. It was, moreover, a reminder of something that must not be known by others--a sweet and beautiful confidence--the first of that kind between them.
But Honora Jackman was not of the kind to be ignored, nor did she mean to give up the pursuit so easily. The children were a nuisance, but she remembered that they were not always in evidence; there was a time when the tiresome creatures were safely shut away with the Rev. Temple Purdue, and when Old Paul had, in a manner of speaking, lost his bodyguard. It would be hard if Honora did not contrive to get hold of the man at that time, and her confidence in herself told her that she could soon bring the man to her feet if once she had got him out of his usual surroundings. He was a good creature, and he was rich, and he was simply wasting his life. Apart from all else, too, Honora"s pride was piqued at the thought of his apparent inaccessibility; she would challenge him, and that, too, before the children. To do her justice, she felt that ordinary honesty demanded that she should not attack Paul behind their backs.
The opportunity arrived easily enough. On the following morning, behold Honora at the gate leading to the grounds, standing tall and slim and straight as the children came out on their way to the rectory; behold Old Paul standing sheepishly in the gateway, and giving her "Good morning!" Jimmy flushed hotly, and gave her his hand; Alice did likewise; Moira shyly drew back and bowed. Honora Jackman gaily nodded to Paul, and proffered her blunt request.
"I lost my way again in the woods this morning, Mr. Nannock," she said.
"You will really have to show me the way through them--and I"ll promise not to go near your sacred haunts," she added, with a glance at Jimmy.
"I--I should be delighted," said the recreant Paul in a low voice.
"I can"t manage it this morning; I"ve got some shopping to do in the village for Mrs. Baffall," said Honora. "Shall we say--to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," echoed Paul, with a nod.
The three children walked in silence to the rectory; it was a dismal day for everyone. And that night, for the second time, Old Paul sat in his room smoking, and listening for a little light footfall on the stairs--a footfall that never came.
CHAPTER IV
THE ELOPING PERSONS
That was a night against which a black mark had afterwards to be set in the memory of Paul Nannock. It had seemed such a simple thing, and so inevitable--that promise to which he had been forced, and which would have meant, with anyone else, a mere matter of an idle stroll and a little easy talk. But with this man the children stood first; and ever in the front rank of them stood Moira, child of the woman he had loved.
The absurdity of regarding the little expedition with Honora Jackman seriously occurred to him more than once, and yet he shrank from it; and the fact that the sensitive child who was so near to his heart had stamped it with her disapproval meant much to Paul. It was a desertion on his part, and she had answered it by a desertion of her own. Paul sat up later than usual, in the hope that she might after all come creeping down to his room; but she never appeared.
He stole upstairs at last, miserably enough, and listened at the door of her room. All was silent, and he told himself that she had forgotten, and had fallen asleep. Had he known that she lay in her bed, wide-awake, fighting out jealously the bitter problem in her mind, it would have been a matter of his hurrying in in the darkness, and taking her in his arms, and promising I know not what. But he did not know that, and he went upstairs to his own room.