"Exactly as before," he said; and saw himself going down the years with this burden upon him – and bearing it cheerfully.
She said – "Thank you, Jimmy" – and turned away from him; she whispered it quite humbly, without looking at him. When he would have taken her hand, perhaps with the impulse to say some more kindly word, she shrank away from him, and got to the door, and went out.
Jimmy, sitting alone, decided that the interview had not gone in any way as he had intended.
CHAPTER III
TWO WAYS OF LOVE
It was on a morning of late summer that Jimmy, playing with that fire at which he had, on occasion, warmed his hands for months past, set out to see Alice. London, so far as he was concerned, was empty of people in whom he was interested or who were interested in him; but he had lingered in it, chiefly because Alice, on a whim, had decided to keep the Baffalls and herself to their town house; and Jimmy, striding along through the bright sunshine, thought over the months that had gone by, and wondered a little where he stood, or what the future was to hold for him. Almost on this bright morning he decided that there was mighty little in life worth the grasping.
Yet Jimmy had not done badly; and in a future that was looming brightly before him Jimmy was a marked man. For that one who was greater than the now despised Bennett Godsby had paid Jimmy much money, and had commissioned another play; and others were coming after Jimmy, and seeking him out, and assuring him that he alone could "fit them"; a phrase which meant, as Jimmy knew, the writing of a play in which, like Bennett Godsby of old, they carried the thing on their shoulders. But then Jimmy was getting used to the business. And Jimmy was passing rich – for Jimmy, at least; and had changed his quarters long ago from the dingy little rooms in the little turning off Holborn.
Casting his mind back over those months, Jimmy seemed to see all that had happened; seemed to see also all that might have happened, had his life been directed in other channels. On this bright morning, while the sunlight lay upon the streets, he walked with the memory of another morning strong upon him – a morning of rain and wind, when he had stood in a draughty old church, hand in hand with the woman who was to be his wife.
It had been the strangest wedding; so different from anything he had imagined could ever happen to him; something with the shadow of the dead over it – something that spoke of disaster. He remembered particularly that the clergyman had seemed puzzled that two young people should stand hand in hand like this, with such tragic faces; he had tried to improve the occasion in more than ordinary fashion, with hopes of happiness and what not; and had wondered that he could not move them. Jimmy, remembering it all, wondered now that they were not moved to tears by the irony of it.
For it had all been wrong – and unnatural. They had parted bravely enough, as they had meant to do, at the church door, with the rain beating upon them and the dreary wind whistling about them; and so had gone their different ways. But the bitter tie that held them; the knowledge that was between them that what had been done was done that the world might be cheated of the truth; had been a greater barrier than anything else could possibly have been. And there had sprung up between them, curiously enough, a feud – a strange misunderstanding that never could have arisen in any other circumstances.
It had begun with money matters. Jimmy, in the pride of his new wealth, had sent money to Moira, telling her that he had a right to do so under the circumstances; and that money had been returned, with a simple line to the effect that she did not want it; she had plenty. He had kept a strict account of it, because he meant some day to insist that she should take it; but though he wrote again and again, he could not change her resolution.
Then again, when once or twice he called at the house soon after the marriage, she would not see him; sent Patience to him, with a message that she was well, but could not meet him then. And there came a day when, on going to the house, he was told that she and Patience had gone; had given up the rooms completely, and had gone into the country. Letters would be sent on, but the woman absolutely refused to tell him their address, or to give him any clue that would enable him to find them.
Then Jimmy wrote – quite a literary letter, in point of fact – setting out with some pathos what he had done for her, and what he still hoped to do. And a reply came – gentle and dignified and wonderful, had Jimmy but been able to read between the lines – in which she acknowledged all that he had done, and thanked him more than she could ever express. But she reminded him that it had been the name only he had given; that she had no part nor lot in his life. He must not misunderstand her, she had pleaded; but her life was done and ended, so far as he was concerned; she would live alone, grateful only for his name and the protection it gave her. There was even a pretty womanly note, to the effect that she was proud of that name, and glad to think that so many people must think well of it and of its owner. And she was in all things his "grateful Moira."
There had come that day when an old and grey-haired woman had found him out in London, to tell him news he had been expecting, and yet had thrust aside out of his mind. The grey-haired old woman was Patience; and she brought news, tremblingly and yet happily, of the birth of a child. Jimmy had listened, a little dazed; had heard that the baby girl had the dark eyes of Moira herself, and that it was to be named after her. And Patience, knowing what he had done, or guessing it (for no one had ever told her the real truth of that matter, some part of which she had overheard on a night on the stairs in the little house in Chelsea) had wondered that he should say nothing about it, and should express no wish to see Moira. Almost she could have worshipped him – this man who had rescued her darling from a fate which seemed the worst that could happen to any woman; yet she was afraid of him – afraid most of all of his silence, and his refusal to say anything she might be longing to hear. He had sent back a friendly message to Moira at the last; some day he would come down and see her.
And that had led him quite naturally to get the address from Patience: Patience glad enough to give it, because she hoped and prayed always in her secret heart that old blunders might be forgotten, and that this man and woman, already mated, might come together. But Jimmy merely put the address among his papers, and decided to let matters alone. Resolutely he closed that side of his life; hesitatingly and shamefacedly he turned to the other and the brighter one.
He had said nothing of the matter to anyone; Moira was lost even to the small world that had known her. If at times that shadow in the background oppressed him, he let it remain a shadow only, and applied himself more strongly to his work. Yet in that work had grown a bitterness that, while it strengthened it, yet made it unlike anything he had previously done.
It may well be thought that he would have found that opportunity for which he once had hoped of standing before Alice, and letting her understand what he had done, and how hopeless was any thought of any love story between them. Yet, curiously enough, she had never given him the opportunity. It had happened that the one man who had roused his jealousy – Ashby Feak – had gone away to some extraordinary region with an exploring party, leaving the field, as it seemed, to Jimmy; and Jimmy, knowing that he must not speak, had been content to drift aimlessly, seeing much of the girl, and becoming quite a recognised institution at all times and seasons at the house of the Baffalls. So the mouths had drifted on, and Jimmy had drifted with them. The tie that held him was known only to himself, so far as his own world was concerned; he had told no one. If at any time Moira's name was mentioned – and then pityingly as someone submerged and quite beyond her reach – by Alice, Jimmy quickly changed the subject, without saying anything definite concerning that hidden wife of his. What was at the back of his mind he never realised – never admitted even to himself; but he held that balance steadily between the woman who attracted him and the woman to whom he belonged.
So the long winter had gone by, and the spring had come; and now the summer was fading fast into autumn. He carried in his mind, as he walked, the recollection of many, many days when he and Alice had been together – long quiet days on the river; cheery little dinners at hotels, where they could chat quietly, and look out in the cool of the evening over the silent river; there were fifty or more such occasions to be remembered. And always she had been sweet and gracious and friendly; and always she had been beautiful.
If he had remembered at any time the woman who bore his name, and who had lived in shame and loneliness, he had remembered her only with something akin to impatience. Once, as he walked now, it struck him with a pang that on a night when he had sat at dinner with Alice, looking out over the river, he had remembered Moira; had had a sudden mental picture of her flashed into the very room in which he sat; a picture of her seated in a black dress, with a little child in her arms; her head was bent low over the child. The picture had faded in a moment, as he had meant it should do, and he had looked swiftly at the bright smiling face on the opposite side of the table; and so had forgotten the gloomier vision more easily.
He came to the big house that was so familiar to him at last, and rang the bell; he had a feeling as he did so that there was vaguely something wrong – that he was to encounter something disagreeable. He understood what it was when, on the door being opened, he saw a man's hat, with gloves dangling out of it, and a light cane lying beside it on the table. He knew to whom they belonged – guessed in a moment that Mr. Ashby Feak had come back from that wild land into which he had gone, with a halo of romance and adventure about him that must appeal at once to the heart of the girl.
Ashby Feak greeted him cordially, and then resumed his conversation with Alice. Jimmy noted, with a scowl, that Alice was listening intently, and that her face was glowing with excitement. She turned to Jimmy to call his attention to the wonderful tale then being related; Jimmy listened indifferently; the thing was something absurd about a bear or two, with a side reference to a snake bite which might have proved fatal; Jimmy wondered bitterly why it had ever been asserted that snake bites were invariably supposed to cause death.
He stayed but a little time; in spite of appealing looks from Alice, which seemed to suggest that she was rapidly getting bored by Ashby Feak's conversation, he rose to go. He had actually reached the hall when she came running out after him, closing the door behind her.
"Jimmy, dear – what is the matter?" she asked in a quick whisper.
"Nothing – nothing at all," he replied savagely. "What should be the matter?"
"I hate a jealous disposition," she whispered, with a pout. "I suppose if a friend calls to see me I may just as well be civil to him. You'd like to shut me up altogether – never let me see a soul – wouldn't you?"
"I would," said Jimmy gloomily. "And I wanted so much to see you to-day; I had lots of things to talk about. We've had such a glorious time while he's been away; now it's all ended."
"I'm glad to see him back alive, at any rate," replied the girl. "The poor dear's had some narrow shaves."
"I wish they'd been narrower," muttered Jimmy. "Good-bye!"
"I can't let you go like this, Jimmy," she said, with the ready tears springing to her blue eyes. "I shouldn't sleep all night – and I should be a sight to-morrow. Won't you – won't you meet me somewhere – to-day, if you like."
"Of course I will," exclaimed Jimmy quickly. "Let it be somewhere where we can have a long talk together. Where shall it be?"
"The National Gallery – one of the middle rooms to the left – three o'clock," breathed Alice, with the air of an expert; and was gone. Jimmy went away happy.
At the National Gallery that afternoon he felt he was an object of suspicion to the officials on duty for a good hour; for of course he was too early, and equally of course she was too late. But she came at last, just as he had almost determined that he would go home, and would write her a cutting letter that should give her to understand that he was not to be played with; and his anger was gone in a moment. Ashby Feak had stayed to lunch, and had, she averred, given her a headache. "Some people would keep on talking about themselves, but now she would at last have a rest." They found a seat near that most restful of pictures – poor Fred Walker's "Harbour of Refuge" – and it fell about that Jimmy, when not looking at the girl, had his eyes fixed on the fine strong figure of the woman upon whom the elder one leans in the picture – that splendid symbol of all that is beautiful and wonderful in duty beautifully and wonderfully performed. It stirred something in him – woke now and then a fleeting thought of the woman who had never complained – the woman who had been grateful even to tears for what he had done. Meanwhile the butterfly beside him, stifling a yawn prettily, was chattering.
"I'm sure I can't think why you should be so horrid about things, Jimmy. I'm sure I've been a perfect angel all these months to you; there are times when I've been kinder to you than I am even to poor old Uncle Baffall; the only difference is that I haven't kissed you as I do Uncle Baffall, although with him it's only just on his forehead night and morning, and he generally rubs the place afterwards; I've seen him do it. Not that you'd wish me to kiss you, I'm sure – as we're only friends. A girl in my position must expect, I suppose, to have all sorts of people coming after her; and I'm sure there are not half so many in my case as in dozens and dozens of other girls. I could tell you things about the shocking way some of 'em carry on that would make you write different sorts of stories. And as for Mr. Ashby Feak, if he's fond of me, poor dear – "
"Don't call him 'poor dear'!" snapped Jimmy quickly.
"I only do it to you – and perhaps to myself," said Alice. "He tells me that all the time he was out there, mixed up with the bears and things, and hearing them hoot at night – (at least, I'm not sure if it was the bears – but something hooted) – all that time he thought of me in the most extraordinary way; it was quite touching. I think it was quite noble of him, considering how much he had to do."
"What are you going to do about him?" asked Jimmy, after a pause.
"I don't know, I'm sure," she replied, "Of course, he's not said anything yet; he's only hinted. I suppose I owe him some return for having thought about me like that; it wouldn't be fair to let him do all that for nothing. Of course, I don't – I don't exactly like him; although, of course, I was very glad to see him; but I shall have to marry somebody – some day."
Jimmy looked morosely at the figure in the picture; it was no longer beautiful in his eyes. He thought bitterly of Moira and of the child; he saw this bright and radiant figure at his side drifting away from him, and going to some other man. It was cruel – it was wrong; there must be some way by which he could at least hold her – some way in which he might free himself.
Perhaps the most curious thing was that he had no intention at the time of telling her; he did not mean, as he had once meant, to stand before her an heroic, self-sacrificing figure; he wanted her, and not her worship, now. The object in his mind was to keep her away from Ashby Feak, and from all others, until such time as by some impossible means he should be free.
"Alice," he said at last, turning towards her, and so setting his back to the picture – "you don't love this man Feak?"
"Oh – I don't know," she retorted, with a shrug of her shoulders. "He's very nice – and he's brave – and I think he loves me. What more would anyone ask?"
"Alice – have you any love for me – real love, I mean – not this empty thing called friendship?"
"Jimmy!" It was of course what she had seemed to see trembling on his lips a score of times; she had had a thought, in fact, that it might be said this very afternoon; but she was very properly astonished for all that.
"I mean it," he said. "I love you as I love no one else on earth; there's no one like you anywhere – no one who understands me so perfectly as you do – no one who could help me with my work as you are able to help me. I love you."
She sat in a pensive attitude, with her eyes upon the floor; when she spoke she did not look at him, but he was satisfied by the tenderness of her tones and the light blush she had been able to call to the aid of the situation, that he need fear no Ashby Feak. Keeping his back resolutely to that figure in the picture, and so shutting out all that was difficult and impossible, he took her hand a little shamefacedly, noting as he did so that she was careful to look round to see that they were not observed.
"Of course I always felt, Jimmy, that you did care for me; something in your manner seemed to suggest it," she whispered. "Also I think Aunt Baffall and Uncle Baffall have thought so too – although anything they said would make not the slightest difference to me. I love them, and all that kind of thing; but there's the end of it. As for Ashby Feak – well, he's very nice as a friend – and I've felt a little sorry for him; but anything else, Jimmy dear, was absolutely out of the question. And I must say that whatever happens I feel easier in my mind about everything."
"There's one thing, Alice," said Jimmy, a little lamely – "one thing that's rather important. I haven't mentioned it before, and it is a matter about which you'll have to trust me. Love means trust and confidence, you know – and I've got a secret that I must keep even from you."
She looked at him quickly and eagerly; he avoided her eyes. "It's nothing awful – is it?" she asked.
"Nothing at all awful," replied Jimmy casually. "It simply means that – well – for a time you would have – we should have, I mean – to wait – to be true to each other, knowing that things will come right in the future. You would have to take my hands in yours, in a manner of speaking, and to say that you trusted me; to walk blindly with me. Afterwards I should be able to tell you why I had kept you and myself waiting. But not yet."
"Yes, Jimmy – that sounds very nice," replied Alice, a little doubtfully. "Of course I'm not in any desperate hurry to get married – or – or anything of that sort; but why should we have to wait? If it's money, Aunt and Uncle Baffall are sure to be awfully good to me – and you're becoming a greater man every day. Do tell me what it is, Jimmy? I won't breathe it to a living soul. Please, Jimmy dear?"
"It is impossible," replied Jimmy dramatically. "The difficulty – the secret difficulty – may be got rid of – sooner, in fact, than I imagine. But you must trust me. Surely, if you love me, there should be no difficulty about that."
"Very well," said Alice after a pause. "It certainly sounds a little romantic – and I love romance. And now, I suppose" – she glanced quickly round the room, and then turned to him – "now, I suppose, we may consider ourselves – what's the horrid word?"
"Engaged," said Jimmy, with a smile, but with secret misgiving.
Thus it happened that for a week or two Jimmy went to the house in a new character; and Ashby Feak came no more. The Baffalls made no secret of their delight; indeed, Mrs. Baffall said, more than once, that she had "seen it coming for ages." And Jimmy, though very much in love, and though telling himself again and again that it would all come right, and that in some fashion or other the tangle could be smoothed out, yet went to the house like a thief – even looking about him with the needless fear that he might be watched. And now more than ever the quiet figure of the woman in black, with her dark head bent over a sleeping child, was with him; it sprang, indeed, between him and Alice when he would sometimes have taken her into his arms.
It was on a night when his misgivings had been deeper than usual, and when he had walked the streets for an hour or more, fighting out the problem for himself, and finding no answer, that he went back to his new rooms, to be told by the porter that a lady had come to see him, and had been shown up. She would not give a name; but she wanted to see Mr. Larrance particularly, and would wait. Mr. Larrance was an old friend, she had said.
Jimmy climbed the stairs, wondering a little who could have called at such an hour.
He went in a little eagerly; although he had left her but an hour or two before, there was the vague possibility in his mind that this might be Alice. Always expecting something to happen that should show him a way out of the tangle, or increase it – for ever dreading that Alice should confront him with a full knowledge of all the circumstances – he felt, even as he mounted the stairs, that someone might have been to her, and might have told her; and that here she was, hot and indignant, to tax him with what he had done.
He opened the outer door, and went in. His visitor rose from a chair in which she had been seated, and came towards him; it was Moira. And in that moment – in the mere flash of a second, as it seemed – he saw with something of astonishment that her hands were held out towards him, and that she was smiling. So quick was it, that when, a moment later (perhaps at sight of something in his face, or some gesture, half of repulsion), she dropped her hands, and the smile faded from her eyes, he could almost have sworn that she had not moved at all.
"You didn't mind my waiting – Jimmy," she said, a little hesitatingly. "I wanted so much to see you – and it doesn't matter – with us – does it?"
"What doesn't matter?" he asked dully.
"My coming to see you – so late," she replied; and again he thought that there was a tremor in her voice, and again it seemed almost as though she would have stretched out her hands towards him. She stood still, nervously clasping them together, her eyes devouring his face.
"Won't you sit down?" he asked, in a more kindly tone, as he moved a chair for her. She seated herself, and he crossed the room and looked out of the window; his back was almost turned towards her. "What can I do for you?"
"I have not seen you, Jimmy, since – since our marriage day," she said at last, in a low voice. "That – that seems funny – doesn't it; but then, of course – everything is different – isn't it?"
"Of course," he replied. "How have you got on – and how are you living?"
"Very quietly; it is a little place – a mere tiny cottage, far away from everyone; and Patience and I have spent a lot of time out of doors lately. Patience tells me I have roses coming in my cheeks for the first time in my life. That seems strange, too – doesn't it? But then, of course, I'm very happy."
"I'm glad to know that," he forced himself to say.
"Very happy indeed. There is – there's the child; such a lot to do for her. You don't ask about the child, Jimmy?"
"You are going to tell me about her," he said more gently.
She laughed softly, and leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped; she seemed to be looking far away beyond him. "I think she's the prettiest baby in all the world, Jimmy," she said. "When I wake up in the morning she is there to smile at me; and that begins the day so well, you know. Sometimes she wakes me; a little soft hand digging at me, and trying to open my eyes. I woke in a fright the other night, dreaming that I had lost her; I was almost mad for a moment; I cried out in the darkness; I called on God. And there she was, when the dream had got out of my brain, lying soft and rosy and well beside me. She has dark eyes – like mine; and little hands that double just round one's finger, and hold it. I could sit all day with her holding me like that. But there" – she laughed again, and sat upright – "I'm boring you with all this that means so much to me – aren't I?"
"Oh – no," he replied. "I am – glad to know that you are so happy; I had thought it might be otherwise. Why did you send back the money?"
"I did not need it," she replied. "Our wants are so few, Jimmy – just the tiny house, and the garden – and the baby; I never thought I could be so happy."
"You were very unhappy when I saw you last," he reminded her.
"I've tried to forget – I've almost succeeded," she whispered, with her head bent. "Other thoughts have come to me as time has gone on – thoughts that seemed to grow first when I knew that the child was to be born. I could not tell you what they were, Jimmy; they were wonderful holy thoughts, that came most to me at night; they made everything that had happened seem so poor and so paltry." She sat for a minute or two in silence, and then got up hastily. "Well – I must say good night, Jimmy; I only waited to see you – just for a minute."
"You're not going back to the country to-night?" he said, holding her hand for a moment.
"No – we are staying to-night in London, at the house of a friend of Patience. Patience is looking after little Moira till I get back; so you see I must hurry. It would be dreadful if she woke and called to me, and I wasn't there – wouldn't it?" She laughed again, in that quick nervous fashion of hers, and drew away her hand gently.
"You must let me put you in a cab, at any rate," he said, moving towards the door. But she stopped him.
"It is only a little way, and I shall walk," she said. "I couldn't sit still in any vehicle, however fast; I shall almost run to see her. Good-bye, Jimmy; thank you for this long talk we've had. While I was waiting for you I looked all round your rooms – just peeped at everything, you know; I want to carry away the recollection of them in my mind. I shall tell the child in a whisper where you live, and what it looks like – and what a lot of books there are. Now I'm getting silly again – so I'll go."
She was moving towards the door, with yet some hesitation in her manner – some reluctance at going so abruptly – when there came a sharp knock on the outer door. She drew back, and glanced at Jimmy.
"Someone to see me, I expect – or it may be a message," he said. "Wait one moment, please."
Moira drew back into the room at his bidding. Jimmy strode through the little lobby outside, and opened the door. Ashby Feak stood there, lounging against the side of the doorway, with his hands thrust into his pockets; he nodded coolly, and made a movement to come in. But Jimmy barred the way.
"I'm sorry, Feak," he exclaimed quickly – "but you can't come in now; I – I'm busy. What do you want?"
"I want to have a bit of a talk with you," replied Ashby Feak – "and I mean to have it, if I wait here all night. Five minutes will do – or perhaps less; but it's rather important."
As Jimmy in some dismay fell back before him, the man strode through the lobby, and into the room. He stopped short on seeing Moira standing there; glanced quickly round at Jimmy, who had followed.
"I beg your pardon," said Ashby Feak slowly, with a glance from one to the other – "I did not know you were engaged; you said you were busy. What I have to say – "
Moira broke in quickly. "I was just going. I need not stay a moment. Good-night, Jimmy dear."
The last words were said in a lower tone as she crossed the room to where Jimmy stood; but Ashby Feak heard them; he started, and turned swiftly.
"'Jimmy dear'?" He looked from one to the other with a growing smile on his face. "Won't you introduce me, Larrance?" he asked at last.
"No; this lady is nothing to you," said Jimmy, in a low voice. "Stand aside, please; she is just going."
"She is not going," exclaimed Feak – "not until I know who she is. You know why I ask the question; I am not going to drag in names, especially of women – but this is more than life or death to me. Now, madam – perhaps you'll answer for yourself. Who are you?"
Bewildered, she looked at him for a moment, and then glanced at Jimmy as if for permission; he slowly bowed his head. "I am Mr. Larrance's wife," she said.
Jimmy put up a hand quickly as Ashby Feak would have spoken. "It's quite true; you need not say anything, and I am not going to explain. This leaves you free of course; I will write a letter to-night, putting myself right in that quarter. Good night!"
Ashby Feak, with a nod and a shrug of the shoulders, went out; they heard the door slam behind him. Jimmy moved slowly across to the window, without looking at Moira at all; she was watching him intently. After a pause, in which it seemed that they could hear their very hearts beat, she whispered a question:
"Jimmy – is there someone else?" He did not reply. "Someone else you love, I mean?"
He did not look round at her; he stared down into the dark street below. Across it a man was going hurriedly, and he was going in one direction – straight to Alice.
"Yes," he said at last, in a heavy tone – "there is someone else."