Jimmy Quixote: A Novel

by Tom Gallon

Patience, in the course of careful years, had amassed savings. She had been in the family of Paul Nannock for so long a time, and her reward as a trusted servant had been so generous, and the necessity for spending anything so meagre, that she had a considerable sum, carefully invested—considerable, that is, for a woman in her position. The interest upon those savings had gone on accumulating, until at Old Paul's death she was in a position to fold her hands, and to slumber, if she liked, during the remainder of the time left to her. She chose to do that; her real interests in life had closed with the death of the last of the family she had served; quite simply and rather beautifully, there was nothing left for her to do. Nothing, that is, save as regarded the girl Moira; for Moira had elected to stay with her.

In a sense—a selfish, elderly sense—Patience clung to the girl. Her jealously watchful eyes had shown her that the child had been first in all things with Paul; she was, in a sense, a legacy left by him, all unconsciously, to the old woman. Perhaps, too, there was a curious feeling that if Moira went elsewhere she might come to talk about that precious memory of the dead man; and with Patience only must it be shared. She stood a little in awe of the girl; was attracted to her, in a subtle sense; and so made willingly enough an arrangement to keep her with her.

Patience had never really liked the country, save for the sake of her dead master; her heart always was in the turmoil of the streets where she had been born and where she had lived so long; now, free again, she would go back to it. And in that, of course, Moira was heartily with her; for had not Jimmy set out to the Enchanted City, and was she not absolutely to meet him at the very moment of her arrival? She had walked so often through Daisley Cross, and had seen practically every living soul that filled her world. London might be bigger, but anyone could be met there easily enough. In her idea of the place Jimmy stood waiting, with hands outstretched and a smile in his eyes.

The tragedy of the thing only dawned upon her later. So eager had she been to follow where Jimmy had gloriously led, that the matter of farewells was a small one. Mr. and Mrs. Baffall said good-bye solemnly, and urged that she would write; Alice was tearful for five minutes, but called that marvellous equanimity of hers to bear upon the situation, and waved a hand smilingly at the last. And then it was hey for London, and the old life left behind! She went willingly and even eagerly with Patience; and so the world swallowed her, and she was lost.

Patience had, of course, no concern for anyone outside the man who was dead and the girl who lived; no one else mattered. She had nodded sharply with pursed lips when Mrs. Baffall pressed her to write; in her heart she determined that not a line should be sent. She was going away to live her own life; all this was done with. And in that spirit she brought Moira to London—Moira, taller by an inch or two than the bent old woman whose hand she held, and to whom she clung.

Moira was about fourteen years of age, slim, but not very well formed, with all the awkward movements of a shy girl growing up rapidly. When it is remembered that she had never seen any place very much larger than Daisley Cross, save when she had taken little excursions with Old Paul and the others to neighbouring towns, it is not to be wondered at that that first coming to London was a shock greater than can well be described. The coming to the fringe of it—that fringe which was not London at all, and yet had long since left the country behind, and was a dreary expanse of roofs and chimney-pots—cleaner roofs and newer chimney-pots than were to be found further in. After that, the roar and the rush beating up about the carriage of the train like a great angry sea; men and women crowding and hurrying everywhere in the streets down below them, and on the stations through which they flew; and then, lastly, London itself, and the demon of Noise let loose upon them! Where in all that turmoil through which they had almost to fight their way was to be found Jimmy, as she had seen him last going up the quiet hill in the rain, on a morning that seemed to be set years back in the ages?

Patience had taken some tiny furnished rooms in the top part of a house in a small street in Chelsea; one of the narrowest streets imaginable; and there, in a dull, ordinary, complete fashion, she settled down with the girl; folded her hands—and was at rest.

But Moira? This child of the woods and the fields and the birds and the flowers; this little sensitive loving soul that craved the touch of loving hands and the whisper of loving words; what of her? On how many hopeless nights was she to stare out, wet-eyed, over the hideous streets, and wonder if this was the end, and if, like Patience, she was to grow old in these top rooms, and never see the world again, and never hear of anyone. On how many nights as she sat with her knitting or her needlework (for Patience knew her duty, and knew that in these things for the young lay salvation), did she glance past the lamp on the little table, and look at the sleeping woman whose spectacles had been carefully lifted off and laid on the table before she composed herself in her arm-chair. Always the lamp burning there—and the woman sleeping—and the silence of the room—and the memories that would not die, and that the child did her best indeed to keep alive.

Now it was Old Paul, wandering with her through the woods; she had only to move that hand from her knitting for a moment, and close her eyes stealthily, to feel the warm touch of his fingers again. Oh, God! the warm touch of his fingers!

Now it was Jimmy, shut up, too, in this dreadful world of London somewhere this night, and calling to her above all the roar of the streets, and never making her hear. She closed her eyes again, and lay with Jimmy on the warm earth, with the sun beating down upon them, and only a whisper now and then passing between them—the very inmost kernel of their thoughts. Moira had that moment seen a fairy flit across where the sunlight lay in a path from tree to tree; and she whispered it to Jimmy, who nodded in perfect understanding. Oh, God! the fairies in the sunlight!