Jimmy Quixote: A Novel. Gallon Tom

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СКАЧАТЬ in fact, than they had ever been. It was as though they had been lifted out of their ordinary world, and set down in an enchanted one somewhere else; the ordinary conditions of life had slipped past them; and could be lightly forgotten. Old Paul told her something of the days when he had been a boy, something of his life in a time that seemed now far off, lying back in the shadows. And Moira learned, to her surprise, that in that time Patience had been with him, and had even then, as it seemed to his remembrance, been quite old.

      "I was a little chap, and I remember that we were all very poor, Moira," he said across the table. "But always Patience was there; she looked after my mother a lot, when my mother seemed only to be a young girl. Then heaps and heaps of riches came to me, too late for the young girl who was my mother, but still I had Patience with me; which accounts, you see," he added whimsically, "for her being there now, and understanding me so well. If sometimes you think she's hard and stern, dear, you've only got to remember that I've given her a lot of trouble in my time, and made her anxious about me. I've taken a deal of watching, Moira."

      "You have, Old Paul," she retorted, with a remembrance of her rescue of him that day. "You might have been quite destroyed if we hadn't looked after you carefully," she added, with her elbows on the table and her chin propped in her palms.

      "Do you know," he said, looking across at her gratefully, "although I wouldn't mention it to a soul, I shall never know quite how to thank you for to-day. This elopement of ours has quite put matters straight; I should never have thought of it myself at all."

      "Patience says that it takes a woman to manage things," retorted Moira wisely.

      They found the Ancient One less inclined to move than ever after his feasting; indeed, Moira declared that it was a little difficult to fit him in between the shafts. But they got him started, and went away on another unknown expedition, with the whole inn to watch them, including the landlady and the bouncing female who had brought in the knives and forks and plates. At the last moment the Ancient One decided that he would return to the hay, and it became necessary for Old Paul to lead him out into the high road, and for the landlady and the bouncing one to push the chaise behind; while Moira, in a high state of dignity, sat in the chaise, and strove hard not to laugh. For Old Paul saying pretty things to the donkey while he led him was certainly funny.

      Paul had been thoughtful in regard to the home-coming, and the landlady had received secret orders, so that by the time the long bright day was ending, and the shadows were lengthening across the roads and fields, they came, in some unaccountable fashion, by a circuitous route back to the inn again; there to find the landlady, apparently moved to astonishment at their re-appearance, and yet with a sumptuous meal on the way. Moira was handed over to the care of the motherly woman and the bouncing maid, while Paul smoked a pipe, and lounged in a deep window seat, and looked out over the darkening fields. And presently the child came down, radiant and hungry, with her attendant slaves hovering about her. The man and the child ate their meal in the dusk of the room, with only their eyes for lights – the one for the other.

      "It's been the most wonderful elopement possible," said Moira, with a deep sigh of contentment. "I'm sure that even the Ancient One will remember it to his dying day – that is, if he ever dies at all."

      "I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Paul.

      A little jealous feeling crept in, even in the midst of Moira's happiness; she stole round the table, and got an arm about his neck, and whispered:

      "Have you thought about her at all, Old Paul?"

      "Once – but not seriously," he whispered. "But I don't like you to say that, dear," he added.

      "That's because you don't understand," she breathed, with her lips against his cheek. "I should have died if I had thought of you in the woods with her; I could not have borne it. Promise me, Old Paul – promise me truly?"

      "What, little maid?" he whispered.

      "Promise me that never in all your life will you elope with anybody but me. Let me know that no one else will be taken away by you like this. Let this be my own – my very own elopement."

      And Old Paul most solemnly promised.

      They drove home under a kindly moon and stars; and by that time Moira was nearly asleep. Jogging along through the country lanes, Old Paul as he held the reins and kept an arm about the child, dreamed dreams. Dreamed, perhaps, that this might have been the woman who had died; that in such a fashion he might have travelled through an impossible world of moonshine and of starshine with her, and been impossibly happy. Almost he came to think that by the love of the child he had won back to the love of the mother; that the disaster that had touched his life was a thing to be forgotten – something long since atoned for, alike in death and by the gift of this baby. The love his young manhood had known for the mother seemed to be swallowed up in this purer, finer love for the child; he came back, at the end of his perfect day, secure in that love at least.

      By the time the sleepy Ancient One stopped at the gate in the wall Moira was awake again; she suffered herself to be lifted from the chaise, and so to face the commonplace world again. She stood, swaying a little with sleep, in the warm dusk; she became dimly conscious that someone was surveying her through a bright eyeglass. That was the crowning moment of her triumph, and she did not need to say anything in explanation.

      "I was taking a stroll," sounded the high voice of Honora Jackman. "Where have you been hiding all day, you two?"

      Old Paul felt the warm fingers of the child tighten about his hand; he knew what answer he must give. "Well, as a matter of fact," he replied blandly, "Moira and I have been away all day – on a little excursion." The fingers tightened still more, and he plunged desperately into the full truth. "We – we eloped together early this morning; and it has been a wonderful day."

      That was enough; impelled by the stern hand of Moira he was swept past Honora Jackman, and was drawn towards the house, leading the Ancient One. It was the hour of Moira's triumph, and she would not have abated one jot of it. The shrill little laugh the woman gave was the final beautiful note of it.

      Only Anthony Ditchburn seemed to have suffered. He came querulously to Paul that night – looking in with a scared face, and with glances over his shoulder, as though in fear of pursuit.

      "Why did you go away, Nannock?" he demanded. "She's a horrible woman; she came early, and said something about woods; seemed to have a sort of suspicion that I was hiding you. Came again several times during the day, and asked about you; was positively rude at times. And I in the midst of an important chapter! You needn't laugh," he added piteously; "it has quite unnerved me. She's dangerous."

      But Old Paul leaned back in his chair, and laughed until he cried.

      CHAPTER V

      JIMMY'S AFFECTIONS

      It does not need to be recorded here that after that first fierce outburst the image of Honora Jackman faded from the mind of Jimmy, and became but as a vague dream of the past. True, for a time he hugged to himself the impossible thought of her; remembered with a pang the day of her departure. For even the Baffalls were to see the last of her, and Jimmy was to be privileged to be inconsolable for some twenty-four hours.

      She did not depart without something of a sensation. She felt she owed it to her reputation, and to her superior knowledge of the world, that she should let this man know that she understood his feelings – understood, in particular, that he was afraid of her. Bitterly though she resented the fashion in which he had set her aside, there was consolation in the thought that he had had to set, as she believed, the frail child between herself and him; she would remind him of that at least before she went. Mrs. Baffall being easily managed on such a matter, it came СКАЧАТЬ