Jimmy Quixote: A Novel

by Tom Gallon

"What you have to consider chiefly is to build the play"—Mr. Bennett Godsby formed his hands roughly into the shape of a cup, as though he moulded the play within them—"to build the play round me. It may seem strange; but there is a certain public, I am given to understand, which wants me and demands me; and I have to consider that public. I think as a matter of fact"—Bennett Godsby looked up at the proscenium arch, and raised his eyebrows, and smoothed the hair back from his forehead—"I really think there is a large section of the public that would be better satisfied if I was never off at all; if, in fact, I carried the whole thing on my shoulders. And mind you"—this very confidentially, with a hand upon Jimmy's arm—"on many occasions it has been my fate to have to carry a play on my shoulders!"

Jimmy went back to his rooms, feeling that at last Fortune was treading hard upon his heels, and that his chance had really come. Already, as he walked, he seemed to see in the near future people turning in the street to glance at him; nudging each other as he went by. He saw himself seated at the theatre (he thought it wouldn't be a bad plan to appear rather bored, and to wear his honours coldly) and other people bowing to him, and saying who he was. He went back to his rooms, and seized the book, and plunged into it with fresh zest, although he knew it by heart.

So far as he could judge, it would take at a rough estimate at least six full acts to develop the Idea; and in three of those acts Mr. Bennett Godsby, as the leading character, could not appear at all.

This was awkward, remembering the injunction laid upon him by that gentleman that the play must be built round him; Jimmy decided that many things would have to be left out—valuable things at that. But the Jimmy who had learnt his lesson in the old days, what time a certain gentleman in shirt-sleeves had compelled him to cut down and alter work ruthlessly, was a Jimmy who had learnt something of his business, and had left behind him a good deal that was unmarketable. It may sound shameful; but Jimmy had about him an adaptability that was surprising, and that had long since sounded the first notes of his success.

So while Jimmy, heedless of anything but the great prospect that was looming before him, set to work then and there, making copious notes, and lifting passages out of the wonderful book that must not by any chance be omitted from the still more wonderful play that was to be written; and while the day drew on to a close, and the lamps were lit in the streets, and he still worked; someone set out for his rooms with the purpose of seeing him, someone who had been forgotten by Jimmy for the time, in the pressure of more urgent things. She came eagerly, and yet with a certain reluctance; she was turning to Jimmy in a crisis in her life, as to someone who might put a different complexion upon that life. The girl was Moira.

She came almost straight from that momentous interview with Charlie; for in a curious way she felt that this was a matter upon which Jimmy must have a word to say. Charlie had held her in his arms, and had kissed her; and almost, as she walked through the lighted streets, she was a child again in the garden of the rectory, with Charlie's arm about her, and his lips striving to meet hers; almost, too, she was the girl who had hidden among the trees and seen Jimmy fight for her. Oh, yes—Jimmy must have a word to say!

What that word would be or what she desired it to be, she scarcely knew or cared to think. It is safe at least to say that in that inmost heart of hers—that heart she had kept concealed from everyone, and which it might be her fate never to show at all, Jimmy stood first. She had passionately longed to see him; it had been Jimmy she was going to meet in London when first she came there with Patience; it was of Jimmy she had been so anxious to hear. On the other hand, of course, there was the natural girlish gratitude to the man who had spoken the first words of love to her—the man who had stepped brightly into her life, and stripped away her loneliness. An additional factor, too, in the case, and one which weighed with her heavily, was that Charlie needed help and guidance; had indeed asked for her strength to lean upon. Jimmy apparently needed no help and no guidance, and had strength enough for himself. Nevertheless, Jimmy must have a word to say in the matter.

Jimmy heard the tap upon the door; felt in his own mind that it heralded a visitor who would interrupt the important work—that work at the end of which lay a much-needed twenty pounds, to say nothing of fame and success. Glancing round impatiently from his desk, he called to the unknown one to come in.

She opened the door timidly, and looked in; and as she saw him then she was destined to remember him, many and many a time; to keep that picture of him in her mind. He sat within the circle of light thrown by his reading lamp; the rest of the room was in shadow. The desk was littered with papers, and Jimmy was evidently furiously at work. Even as she hesitated at the door, she seemed to see here the successful man of affairs—the man who prospered, and to whom work was readily given.

"Oh, it's you, Moira," he said, laying down his pen, and even then pausing for a moment to look at the work he left. "Come in."