Jimmy Quixote: A Novel

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."

It did not seem to the girl that there was the old cordiality in his voice; no welcoming cry as she came into the place – no starting up gladly to meet her. And she so lonely – so much in need of a friend to whom she could talk! And Jimmy with that word to say!

"I'm frantically busy," said Jimmy, with a smile and another glance at his desk. "Sudden work, for which everything else must be set aside, Moira – great and wonderful work. I've got a chance to write a play."

"Yes, Jimmy?" She spoke quietly, and with no enthusiasm, as it seemed, in her tones. For she was chilled and repelled; this was not the man to whom to come on any affair of the heart; this was a Jimmy who, if he had a word to say, would be likely to say it about himself.

"A man has read my book – Bennett Godsby; you're sure to have heard of him – and he sees a play in it. I'm just to write off a few pages – suggesting what it's to be – and I get twenty pounds for that" – Jimmy was talking excitedly, and was tapping the open book upon his desk as he spoke. "It's a gorgeous chance – a wonderful opportunity! I've had a long talk with him to-day. But there – sit down, Moira; I can spare you ten minutes. And don't mind my excitement; one doesn't get a chance like this every day."

She did not sit down; she stood looking into the small fire, and wondering why she had come, or what there was for her to say. Jimmy – this Jimmy who knew great people, and talked so lightly of twenty pounds, and of plays, and what not – this was not the Jimmy who would have the word to say. Even as tears welled into her eyes – tears of bitterness and of loneliness – she thought of Charlie who had kissed her; Charlie who was not successful, but who always had a kind word for her, and a cheery laugh in the midst of all his misfortune. Why had she come here at all?

"Well, Moira," said Jimmy, leaning against his desk and looking at her – "and what's the news with you?"

"Oh – the best, I suppose," she said, without raising her eyes. "I came here to-night to tell you something of my news. It's about – about Charlie."

"Poor old Charlie!" he said lightly; and in her ears it sounded as the light dismissal by the successful man of the man who had failed. "What's Charlie doing?"

"Charlie is going to do great things one of these days," she said brightly, surprising herself by discovering that she was suddenly the other man's champion. "And I – I am going to help him."

"Well – you've always done that, you know," said Jimmy; and in his mind as he spoke was not Moira nor Charlie – nor any of their troubles. He seemed to see Bennett Godsby walking the stage in one particular scene, and speaking the words that should have been set down for him by that new dramatist, James Larrance. "What are you doing for him now?"

"It isn't what I'm doing for him now, Jimmy – it's what I'm going to do for him," she said, raising her eyes for the first time. "I thought you'd like to hear about it. Charlie wants me – he's asked me to marry him."

Jimmy had turned for a moment to look back at his precious notes; he swung round now towards her, and for a moment or two was silent. For this was a shock; and perhaps just then Jimmy realised for the first time that in this he might have had a word to say, after all. For Jimmy had planned, as he always did for himself and for others, a certain future, in which always he took the lead, and wherein always he arranged the lives of those in whom he was interested. In some part of that dim and distant future he was, as a very successful man, to have gone to Moira, and with much kindness have offered her a share in it; with no real priggishness in the thought, he yet felt that she should be very properly gratified, and a little humble, and very much admiring. It was all indefinite; but it had a place in that future; and this was a sudden disturbance of the scheme.

"Charlie has asked you to marry him?" He moved a little nearer to her, and laughed. "And what did you say?"

"Nothing – yet," said Moira. "You see, Jimmy" – her loneliness made her confidential with him; she must at that time, she felt, lean on someone – "I didn't know what to say. Of course, I like Charlie – and I'm sorry for him – and I should like to help him. He says I could; that I should give him something to work for."

"A man always says that," said Jimmy wisely. "After all, it must be a matter for yourself, my dear girl," he added. "I suppose Charlie knows best; perhaps you will be able to help him to make something of himself."

"I hope so – I think so," she said, in a low voice. "I only came to-night, Jimmy, because – because we've been such good friends, you and I – "

"And always shall be, of course," he broke in.

"And I thought you'd like to know about it."

Jimmy looked at her thoughtfully for a moment or two; then he sighed, and smiled as she raised her eyes to him. "You've had but a poor life of it, Moira," he said; "I don't wonder you turn to a man who promises you something better."

"Perhaps that's it," she whispered, dropping her eyes. "After all, Jimmy, I suppose love only comes once – doesn't it?"

"So they say," replied Jimmy solemnly.

"I suppose, Jimmy" – she kept her eyes averted, and her voice was scarcely more than a whisper – "I suppose, Jimmy, you don't think – don't think of those things – eh?"

"No – I don't," said Jimmy, after a long look at her. "I am in a sense wedded to my work; I never think of anything else. A man must be free – free to live his life, and do the best that is in him" – Jimmy seemed to have read or heard that somewhere, but it sounded rather well just now. "I cannot see myself ever marrying," he added; yet there was a little bitterness in his heart as he said it, and as he thought of Charlie and of Moira.

"I understand," she said; and laughed curiously. "So I shall say what I meant to say all along to Charlie; I shall tell him that I'll marry him. Good-bye, Jimmy!"

He took the hand she held out to him; they stood for a moment in the shadows of the room; stood, too, perhaps, for a moment amid the shadows of old memories clustering thick and fast about them. Then he wrung her hand, and turned away.

"I hope you'll be very happy, Moira," he said.

"Oh – I think so," she replied; and when he turned again from his notes she was gone.

Curiously enough he did not touch the notes again that night. He sat for a long time in front of the fire – thinking – thinking; striving to look into that new future which had so suddenly to be rearranged.

"I can quite see what is going to happen," he told himself. "I can see myself, in the years that are coming, a man grown successful – and yet not caring very much about the success." (Jimmy was very confident about this point.) "And yet there shall be no bitterness in me; I can feel myself looking at things, sanely, and telling myself that this was, after all, for the best – quite for the best. Poor Moira!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE SIDES OF THE 'BUSES O!

Jimmy had suddenly found himself a personage – in something of a roundabout and accidental fashion. Paragraphs had appeared in newspapers, giving strange accounts of the young dramatist; a photographer had most surprisingly asked for a sitting, for which no charge would be made, and in regard to which certain copies of the photograph were actually to be presented to Jimmy; and many other things had happened.

So far as the actual play was concerned, matters had not gone so smoothly as might at first have been anticipated. The synopsis, to begin with, seemed to puzzle Mr. Bennett Godsby not a little; he suggested that he "couldn't see himself in it." Jimmy waited a little hopelessly at the theatre on several evenings; had messages sent out to him by the great man, declaring that the great man was changing – or absolutely worn out – or that he hadn't had time to think about the matter. Finally, one night Jimmy received a note, requesting him to call and see Mr. Bennett Godsby at his house on the following morning.

Jimmy went, and discovered Bennett Godsby, in a sense, in the bosom of his family – that family consisting of Mrs. Bennett Godsby, and a young and rather plump Miss Bennett Godsby. Mrs. Bennett Godsby had at one time appeared with her husband; Jimmy seemed to understand that there must have been acrimonious discussions when the time came when Mrs. Bennett Godsby was no longer young enough, nor slim enough, to play lead with him. She had the appearance, not only of being very plump, but of threatening to be plumper; she was somewhat negligently dressed, and she wore even at that early hour all the rings that could possibly be got on her short fingers. Mr. Bennett Godsby introduced Jimmy, and then led the young man into another room in order to talk business.

"Now, my dear Larrance," he began, "I confess I'm a little disappointed. I don't know how it is – but you haven't quite hit it; at least, that's how it strikes me. I suppose it's lack of experience, or something of the sort – or perhaps I was mistaken when I thought there was a play in the thing after all. It won't carry; there's nothing in it to grip 'em."

"I'm sorry," said Jimmy, with a sinking feeling at his heart. "Perhaps you could suggest – "

"Just what I'm going to do," said Mr. Godsby, sitting down and drawing Jimmy's synopsis towards him. "You know" – he looked up with a pained expression – "this thing has worried me more than you think. You'll understand that men like myself – men who live for their art – are bound to understand and to feel the characters they portray. I can assure you I've found myself speaking abruptly to Mrs. Bennett Godsby – in the fashion in which I imagine the man in your play would speak. She's been surprised. 'Bennett,' she has said to me, 'what is this? What is troubling you?' She knows; she's been through the mill herself – only, of course, in a smaller way. I should love to play that character," he added, with a sigh, as he tapped the paper.

Jimmy sat silent; he did not know what to do or what to say. More than that, he dared not break in upon the reflections of Mr. Bennett Godsby, for that gentleman was evidently thinking deeply. After a moment or two the actor got up and strolled across the room, and frowned at a picture; turned round, and frowned upon Jimmy by way of a change. "It's lack of experience – that's what it is," he said, nodding his head sagely.

"On my part?" Jimmy looked anxious.

"Yes, sir, on your part. The brain is there – the creative force, if I may say so; but you can't convey things. Now, if only I had the time to set to work on that myself – but, of course, one mustn't interfere with another man's work. Oh, no – not to be thought of."

Jimmy hastened to assure Mr. Bennett Godsby that he would value any suggestion that gentleman cared to make – would esteem it a privilege to do anything in his power to meet the wishes of such a man – to profit by his experience. Mr. Godsby, saying nothing, picked up the offending pages, and rapidly scanned them; presently sat down opposite Jimmy, and began to go steadily through the thing, scene by scene.

The alterations were somewhat drastic, but they did not affect the plot very greatly. The chief thing desirable seemed to be that Mr. Bennett Godsby should turn up at effective moments; should have a scene twisted here that would gain for him the sympathy of the audience; should have this changed, and that made bigger, in order, as he phrased it, to "lift the thing up."

"You see, my dear Larrance," he said confidentially, "they want me. I assure you that if I'm off for ten minutes it becomes a question of their looking round about them, and whispering, and saying to themselves: 'Where's Bennett Godsby? Why isn't he here? Why doesn't he lift the thing up?' I've been assured of it again and again by those who have sat in the front of the house, and have heard those things said. See the position it places me in!"

Jimmy said he quite saw the position, and he was honestly sorry for Mr. Bennett Godsby. At the same time —

"Well, you see; I know what the public wants; I've sampled its tastes pretty well. Now, my suggestion is this: I'll help you with the play; I'll show you what it wants, and how it might be turned about; and – well, in a sense, we'll write it together."

Jimmy pondered. "But then, you see, it wouldn't be quite my play," he said.

"Oh, yes, it would; we're not going to quarrel about that," said Bennett Godsby. "There's nothing grasping about me; I shall be pleased if I've helped a young dramatist; better pleased still, perhaps, if I've got the play I want. You keep your name to it by all means, and together we'll make a success of it. You've got my notes there (I'm afraid I've pencilled the thing all over, but you mustn't mind that), and you can go to work at once. We'll call this synopsis, with its alterations, the synopsis I wanted. And I'll send you a cheque to-night."

"You are really very good, Mr. Godsby," said Jimmy, rising as the other rose, and gathering up the papers.

"Oh, that's all right; I only want to do the best for both of us," replied the other. "You get to work, and bring it to me bit by bit; we'll talk it over. I won't forget the cheque. Good morning!"

Jimmy came out of the house convinced once more that there really were some very wonderful people in the world, and that all the nonsense talked about those in high places in the various professions ought to be contradicted without delay. He modified that exuberant feeling a little on receiving a letter the next morning from Mr. Bennett Godsby, enclosing a cheque for ten pounds.

"My dear Mr. Larrance.

"Under all the circumstances, I feel you are right about the joint authorship; if I am to do half the work (or probably more than half) I ought to have something of the glory. I need scarcely say it will be a good thing for you to have your name associated with mine, and I shan't mind a bit. It will be a good advertisement for each of us. Under all the circumstances, too, I quite see that for half the work (or more than half, as I have suggested) I ought to have half the pay. Therefore, I have credited my private account with ten pounds, and I send you the other ten herewith. Good luck to our united efforts.

"Ever yours most cordially,"Bennett Godsby."

Jimmy consoled himself with the thought that, after all, it was a very big chance for him; he saw himself connected indefinitely with Mr. Bennett Godsby, and the two of them rising to fame and fortune (the second somewhat more limited than he had at first imagined) side by side. Obviously, too, Mr. Bennett Godsby would do his best for a play in which he was so intimately concerned.

Then began for Jimmy a matter, as he afterwards described it, of waiting on doorsteps. For, pinning his faith to the play and to the play only, and seeing in its certain success a relief from all the hack work he had been doing for so long, Jimmy set aside everything else for its sake; worked at it night and day, and waited on Bennett Godsby at all times and seasons, with scenes and ideas, as they occurred to him and as he wrote them down. As Mr. Bennett Godsby had at least three addresses at which he might (or might not) be found, Jimmy's task was not an easy one. The three addresses were the theatre, the club, and Mr. Bennett Godsby's house; and it became sometimes a stern chase on Jimmy's part to get hold of his man. Even then, if he ran him to earth, it was a thousand chances to one that Bennett Godsby was going out – or desired to talk about something else – or was engaged with a visitor; and in those days every visitor spelt, in the mind of Jimmy, a new man with a new play to catch the fancy of the actor.

In that business of manufacturing the play Jimmy learnt much, and incidentally almost starved himself again in the learning. Cherished scenes and bits of dialogue had to be cast overboard and lost. Phrases from the melodramatic brain of Mr. Bennett Godsby had to take their place. The original pile of notes had grown into a chaotic heap of blotted and altered sheets of paper before the thing was done; but it was done at last, and almost to the satisfaction of Bennett Godsby.

"Mind, I won't say that we've got it," said Mr. Godsby (and be it noted that in this time the great man had dwindled a little in the sight of Jimmy, and did not seem quite so great). "A little more niggering at it would have done a lot of good; but I suppose it'll have to do until we get to rehearsals. I'll send you the other cheque to-night."

The other cheque did not come that night, nor the next morning; it came about a week later, and it was something short of the ten pounds, because Mr. Bennett Godsby had deducted Jimmy's share of the type writing bill. But Jimmy looked forward to the rehearsals, and to the production of the great play; Jimmy hugged himself over paragraphs in the papers, in which his name was openly associated with that of the great Bennett Godsby.

Some slight mistake had been made over the paragraphs – a little misunderstanding. It was declared that the great Bennett Godsby, hitherto known only in the front rank of living actors, had suddenly blossomed out as a dramatist; had written a dramatic version of a novel by a certain Mr. James Larrance; the paragraphs seemed to suggest that Mr. James Larrance was lucky in having been selected for that honour.

Then, in the very midst of rehearsals, other paragraphs appeared, which stated that the play had been written by Mr. Bennett Godsby; that he hoped for lenient treatment from his ever faithful public in this his first essay with such work. Jimmy pointed out the paragraph to him one morning when they stood together on the half-lighted stage; rehearsals were getting to an end at last.

"I can't understand it," said the great man, staring with a puzzled air at the paragraph. "I quite see your meaning; it isn't right at all. But these beasts of writers will say anything to get a few shillings; they've put words in my mouth before now that I've never uttered. I tell you what I'll do," he added, with deep indignation, "I'll write to these people – sort of letter that they must put in, and that will help things along a bit – and I'll tell them the true facts of the case. I'm glad you called my attention to it, my dear Larrance; there mustn't be any misunderstanding."

But the curious part was that when next day a letter appeared in that paper, signed by Mr. Bennett Godsby, it did not seem to put things quite as straight as it should have done. Much was made of Mr. Bennett Godsby in the letter; much of Mr. Bennett Godsby's kindness to a young author, but mighty little of James Larrance. And that morning Bennett Godsby, in what appeared to be a towering rage, informed Jimmy that that had not been his letter at all; "they had disgracefully garbled it."

Other mistakes occurred also in regard to printing; according to Bennett Godsby, you never could trust a theatrical printer to put things as they should be. Here, for example, was one scoundrel (Bennett Godsby pointed it out himself, and almost tore his hair over it at the time) who had had the audacity to print the name of the play, and then underneath the authors' names, with Bennett Godsby first – and James Larrance very much second, and in much smaller type! Did you ever hear of such a thing; would you have conceived it possible that an intelligent firm of printers could have committed such an outrage? Too late now, of course, to alter it, because every bill had been printed, and the loss would be enormous.

"However, it's all right, you know," said Bennett Godsby, taking him by the arm confidentially, and leading him aside. "Everybody knows the real facts of the case; the public will understand that of course the book was yours – and the title – and all that sort of thing."

"But the book isn't mentioned," objected Jimmy.

"Another oversight," whispered the other. "But, of course, everybody knows about that, too; it was mentioned to me yesterday on several occasions. I said to one man in particular, just as I might say to you, 'You know the book?' I said. 'Know the book?' he replied – just like that, and laughed. It was such an absurd question – wasn't it?"

Jimmy was vaguely comforted; he felt that in all probability everybody did know about it. More than that, he had been comforted from time to time by the assurance of various members of the company as to the value of certain lines, and the excellence of certain business; and they had been careful to inform him (in whispers, and out of the hearing of Bennett Godsby) that they knew perfectly well who had written the play, and that Bennett Godsby could probably not have done it "for toffee."

Of course, there came the moment when by no possibility could this play be produced; and when Jimmy sat quaking in the stalls, and wondered what was going to happen to him. The further moment when Bennett Godsby wondered why he had ever adopted this particular profession, when so many others were open to him; the further moment when he did not see what there was in the thing after all, or how it came about that he had ever imagined this was a play that would strike the public. Then, to crown matters, Mrs. Bennett Godsby came down, and tittered audibly in the midst of the big scene; true, she apologised afterwards, and said that she had not taken it "in the right spirit"; but that apology was received with gloom.