Jimmy Quixote: A Novel

by Tom Gallon

"I swear it; she shall not suffer," said Jimmy; and there was in him a great and sudden uplifting of his heart at the thought of this thing he was to do.

Charlie had but little else to say; the few mutterings he made, in the few minutes that remained, could scarcely be distinguished even by the man who bent above him. But at the last, with some faint suspicion of the old cheery smile that had been his always, he drew Jimmy's head down to him, and whispered a message:

"Tell her—tell her from me—I said it'd be—be all right!"

Then someone drew a screen about the bed, and Jimmy went out into the late winter afternoon, with some of his elation gone; and thinking deeply of the man who lay so quiet in the big ward with the high windows.

At first he was all for going straight to Moira, and telling her; he saw himself breaking the news of this sudden death; and then soothing her by telling her what he had done, and what he had promised; perhaps he began to wonder a little how she would receive him under those circumstances. But when he had walked a little way towards Chelsea, he suddenly decided that he must not see her yet; when he went to her she must be prepared, and must know beforehand all that had happened. Therefore he hurried home, and wrote a letter to Patience—telling her what had happened, and begging her to break the news to the girl as gently as possible. He added in the letter that he would come the next day, and see Moira; he wanted to talk to her. He made it clear that he had seen Charlie at the last, and had been with him when he died; he made it clear also that he had a message from the dead man to Moira.

That despatched, he sat down to think over the situation—to consider fairly and clearly the position in which he found himself. He discovered that he rather liked it; he felt that this was in a sense altogether appropriate. He was to do a great and noble thing—and in the doing of it was to have two women at his feet in one moment. The first, because he gave up everything for her and to preserve her good name; the second, in wonder and awe that any man could do such a thing. He quite saw Alice blaming herself that she had trifled, even for a moment, with such a man as this.

Being, as it were, the executor of Charlie Purdue's poor affairs, he wrote also to the Rev. Temple Purdue, telling him of what had happened; he did not know, of course, that Charlie had been returning from a visit to his father at the time of the accident.

He went on the following morning to Locker Street, Chelsea. If the truth be told he rather dreaded the coming interview—rather wondered, in fact, how Moira—this new Moira of whom he knew nothing—would take the suggestion he had to offer. He had always thought of her in a curious, indefinite, detached fashion—as of someone he did not really understand; he wondered now how he was to be met—whether by tears and self-reproaches—or in what other fashion.

But he was destined not to meet her then. He found his way upstairs, and was met at the door of the room by Patience—Patience with an inscrutable face, save that the eyes were tragic. They shook hands in silence, and he followed her into the room.

"Where's Moira?" he asked; and it was curious that he spoke in the subdued tones of one speaking of someone ill or dead. "I want to see her."