The Foolish Lovers

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He understood the dislike which speedily grew up in Eleanor for this
work. There would be very little fun for her, less even than for him,
in a life that took him to Fleet Street in the evening and kept him
there until the middle of the night. He must escape from it somehow,
but in what way he was to escape from it he could not imagine. Vaguely,
he felt that a book or a play would lift him out of Fleet Street and
set him down in ease and comfort somewhere in agreeable surroundings;
but it might be many years before that desired bliss was achieved. He
would spend his youth in this atmosphere of neurosis and hasty
judgment, and perhaps when he was old and no longer full of zest for
enjoyment, he would have leisure for the things he could no longer
delight in. And Eleanor, too ... she would have to struggle with penury
until she grew tired and lustreless!... "No, she won't!" he vowed. "I'm
not going to let her down whatever happens. I'll make a position
somehow!..."

Then Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards. He stood by the
carriage-door talking to them both while the train filled with
passengers, and as the guard blew a succession of blasts on his
whistle, he leant forward to kiss Eleanor "Good-bye!" A tear rolled
down her cheek.... "I wish I weren't going now," she said, clinging to
him.

"It won't be for long," he murmured. "Will it, mother?" he added to
Mrs. MacDermott.

But his mother did not make any reply. She sat very tightly in her
seat, and he saw that there was a hard look in her eyes and that her
lips were closely joined together.

VI

He wandered out of the station... it was Saturday night and therefore
he had not to go to the _Sensation_ office ... and entered the
Hampstead Tube railway. On Monday, the agent would make an inventory of
the furniture, and John would move to Brixton. Until then, he would
stay at the flat, taking his meals at restaurants. He left the Tube at
Hampstead and walked home. The flat seemed very dark and cheerless when
he entered it, and he wandered from room to room in a disturbed state
as if he were searching for something and had forgotten for what he was
searching. A petticoat of Eleanor's, flung hastily on to the bed,
caught his eye, a blue silk petticoat that he remembered her buying
soon after they were married. He wondered why she had thrown it aside,
for she was fond of blue garments, and this was new from the laundry.
He rubbed his hand over its silk surface and listened to the sound it
made. Dear Eleanor! Most sweet and precious Eleanor!... He left the
bedroom and went into the combined sitting and dining-room and then
into the kitchen. At the door of the tiny spare bedroom, he stopped and
turned away. What was the use of wandering about the house in this
disconsolate manner? Eleanor had gone and it was idle to pretend
that he might suddenly come to her in some corner of the flat. It
was much too early to go to bed and, since he could not sit still
indoors, he resolved to go out and walk off his mood of depression
and loneliness. The trees on Hampstead Heath stood up in deep darkness,
and overhead he saw the innumerable stars shining coldly. In the
dusk and shadow he could hear the murmur of subdued voices and now
and then a peal of girlish laughter, or the deeper sound of a man's
mirth. Young, eager-eyed men and women went by, intent on love-making,
their faces shining with youth and the happiness of the unburdened.
All the beauty of the world lay still before them, untouched and undimmed,
drawing them towards it with rich and strange promises of wonderful
fulfilment. And no shadow fell upon their happiness to darken it or
make it cold.... He could feel his heart singing within him, and he asked
himself why it was that he should feel happy in this street, in which
Eleanor and he had walked in love together, when he had felt restless
and unhappy in the flat where they had lived and loved. He stood under
a lamp to look at his watch, and wondered where Eleanor was now ... what
stage of her journey she had reached. The train had left Euston at
half-past eight, and now the hour was twenty minutes past ten. Nearly
two hours since she had gone away from him. Sixty or eighty miles,
perhaps a hundred, separated them, and every moment the distance between
them was lengthening. He could stand here, leaning against these rails and
looking over the hollows of the Heath towards the softened glare of
London, and almost tell off the miles that were consumed by the
rushing, roaring train!... One mile ... two miles ... three miles!...

The laughter and the shining eyes of the young lovers made him feel
old, now that Eleanor was not with him to make him feel young. He felt
old, though he was not old, because he was lonely again, more lonely
than he had been before he saw Eleanor at the Albert Hall. He had
followed her as a man lost in a desert follows a star, and she had
brought him home at last ... and now she was gone from him, bearing a
baby. Soon, though, very soon, the time would pass and she would return
to him and they would never be separated again. He would fulfil his
desires. He would write great books and great plays, and Eleanor would
grow in loveliness and dignity, and his son ... for he was certain that
the child would be a boy ... would reach up from childhood to manhood
in strength and beauty!...

VII

The last post had brought the proofs of his second novel to him. He
tore the packet open, and began to correct them at once. _Hearts of
Controversy_ was the title of the book, and it was dedicated:

To the Memory of my Uncle Matthew.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER

I

When Eleanor's son was born, John was still in London. He had intended
to be with her, but Mr. Clotworthy would not give leave to him because
of illness among the staff. "I'm sorry," he had said, "but I can't let
you go. You'd only be in the way anyhow. A man's a cursed nuisance at a
time like that. When Corcoran comes back, I'll see if I can manage a
few days for you!" John murmured thanks and turned to go. "I hear good
accounts of you," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "Tarleton says you're
working splendidly. I'm glad you've learned sense at last!" John smiled
rather drearily, and then left the editor's room. So he was learning
sense, was he?... A few months ago, had Mr. Clotworthy told him that
leave to go to his wife was denied to him, he would have sent Mr.
Clotworthy to blazes ... but he was learning sense now, and so, though
he ached to go to Eleanor, he was remaining in London. Tarleton ... the
most common-minded man John had ever encountered ... said that he was
working splendidly. They were all pleased with him. He could invent
headlines and cross-headings and write paragraphs to the satisfaction
of Tarleton, whose conception of a romantic love story was some dull,
sordid intrigue heard in the Divorce Court. Tarleton always described a
street accident as a tragedy. Tarleton referred ... in print ... to the
greedy amours of a chorus girl as a "Thrilling Romance of the Stage,"
though he had other words to describe them in conversation. And John
was giving satisfaction to Tarleton....

He wrote to his mother and to Eleanor explaining why he could not
immediately go to Ballyards. Eleanor could not reply to his letter, but
Mrs. MacDermott wrote that she was recovering rapidly from her illness
and that the baby was a fine, healthy child. _"A MacDermott to the
backbone,"_ she wrote. _"It's queer work that keeps a man out of
his bed half the night and won't let him go to his wife when she's
having a child! Your Uncle William isn't looking well ... he feels the
weight of his years and the work on him ... and he is worried about the
shop. But he's greatly pleased with Eleanor being here. Him and her
gets on well together. He's near demented over the child!..."_

II

His son was a month old before John saw him. Mrs. MacDermott led him to
the cradle where the baby was sleeping, and as he looked down on it,
the child awoke and screwed up its face and began to cry. Mrs.
MacDermott took it in her arms and soothed it.

"Well?" she said to John.

He looked at the child with puzzled eyes. "Is it all right?" he asked.

"All right!" she exclaimed. "Of course, it's all right! What would be
wrong with it?"

"It's so ugly-looking!..."

She stared incredulously at him. "Ugly," she said, "it's a beautiful
baby. One of the loveliest children I've ever clapped my eyes on. Look
at it!..." She held the baby forward to him.

"I can see it right enough," he answered. "I think it's ugly!"

"You don't know a fine-looking child when you see it," she answered
indignantly.

He went back to Eleanor's room ... she was out of bed now, but because
the day was cold was sitting before a fire in her bedroom ... and sat
with her while she talked of little things that had happened to her
during their separation. "You know, John," she said, "you're not
looking well. You're getting thin and grey!..."

"Grey?"

"Yes ... your face looks grey. I'm sure that life isn't good for you!"

"I feel tired, but that may be the journey. The sea was rough last
night, crossing from Liverpool to Belfast, and I didn't get any sleep.
Mebbe that's what it is, I daresay I'll be looking all right to-morrow!"

"How long are you going to stay?" she asked.

"Well, Clotworthy told me to get back as soon as possible. Do you think
you'll be able to come home with me at the end of the week?"

She did not answer.

"Of course," he went on, "we've got to get the tenants out of the flat
first. I thought mebbe you'd come to Miss Squibb's with me till the
flat was ready!"

"I don't think I should like that," she answered.

"No, mebbe not, but I'm terribly lonesome without you, Eleanor. It's
been miserable all this while!..."

She put her arms about him and kissed him. "Poor old thing," she said.

"And I'd like you to come home as soon as possible."

Mrs. MacDermott brought the baby into the room. "John says he's an ugly
child," she said to Eleanor, glancing angrily at her son.

"Oh, John!" Eleanor exclaimed reproachfully. "He isn't ugly. He's
handsome!..."

"Well, I don't know what women call beautiful or handsome," John said,
"but if you call that screwed-up face good-looking, then I don't know
what good looks are!"

"I'm sure you weren't half so beautiful as baby is," Eleanor murmured.

Mrs. MacDermott put the child in its mother's arms, and happed the
covering about its head. "Eight pounds he weighed when he was born,"
she said. "Eight pounds! And then you say he isn't beautiful! And him
your own son, too!"

"Oh, well, if you only mean he's weighty when you say he's beautiful,
mebbe you're right!..."

"You're unnatural, John," said Mrs. MacDermott.

"Are all babies like that?" he asked.

"All the good-looking ones are. Give him to me again, Eleanor, dear!"
She took the baby from its mother, and holding it tightly in her arms,
walked up and down the room singing it to sleep. "He's asleep," she
said in a whisper, coming closer to them. She held the child so that
they could see the tiny face in the firelight. They did not speak.
Eleanor, leaning back in her chair, and John sitting forward in his,
and Mrs. MacDermott standing with the baby in her arms, looked on the
child.

"I'm its father," said John, at last. "That seems comic!"

"And I'm its mother," Eleanor murmured.

Mrs. MacDermott lifted the child so that her lips could touch its tiny
mouth. "Five generations in the one house," she said. "I bless God for
this day!"

III

"Will you be able to come with me to London at the end of the week?"
John said at tea that evening.

"She's not near herself yet," Uncle William exclaimed.

"No, indeed she's not. You'd best leave her here another month," Mrs.
MacDermott added.

"You're forgetting, aren't you that she's been here more than three
months already."

"Och, what's three months when you're young," Uncle William replied.

"A great deal," said John. "Will you be ready, do you think, Eleanor?"

Eleanor hesitated. "I don't know," she said. "I don't feel very well
yet. Can't you stay on a while longer, John? You know you're tired and
need a rest, and it'll do you a lot of good to stay on for a week or
two!"

"I must get back. I've a living to earn for three of us now!"

"I shall be sorry to leave Ballyards," Eleanor replied.

"There's no need for either of you to leave it," Mrs. MacDermott
exclaimed. "Your home's here and there's no necessity for you to go
tramping the world among strangers!"

"We've settled all that, ma!" John retorted.

"You don't like that life on newspapers, do you, John?" Eleanor asked.

"No, but I have to live it until I can earn enough to keep us from my
books. It's no use arguing, ma. My mind's made up on that subject. It
was made up long ago!" Constraint fell upon them, and John, feeling
that he must make conversation again, turned to his Uncle. "How's the
shop doing?" he asked.

"Middling ... middling," Uncle William replied. "We're having a wee bit
of opposition to fight against. One of these big firms has just opened
a branch here. Pippin's! They're causing me a bit of anxiety, the way
they're cutting prices down, but I think we'll hold our own with them.
We always gave good value for the money, and some of these big shops
only pretends to do that. But it's anxious work!"

"A MacDermott ought to be ready to fight for the good name of his
family," said Mrs. MacDermott.

"Oh, I'm willing to fight all right," Uncle William answered.

"I know you are. I wasn't doubting you," Mrs. MacDermott assured him.

Their conversation became vague and disjointed. Several times John
turned to Eleanor and tried to settle a date on which she should return
to town, but on each occasion something interrupted them, and Eleanor
showed no inclination to be definite. "There's no hurry for a day or
two, is there?" she said at last, and then, pleading fatigue, she went
to bed.

"I can't see what you want to go back to London for," Mrs. MacDermott
said when Eleanor had gone. "The neither of you don't look well on that
life, and you could write your books here just as well as you can
there. Better, mebbe! Eleanor likes Ballyards. She doesn't care much
for London."

Suspicion entered John's mind. "Have you been putting notions into her
head?" he demanded.

"Notions! What notions?" she answered innocently.

"You know rightly what notions. Have you been trying to persuade her to
stay here?"

"It's well you know, my son, I never try to persuade no one to do
anything. I just let them find things out for themselves. It's the best
way in the end."

"As long as you act up to that, you can do what you like," John said.
"You may as well know, though, for good and all, that we're going back
to London. I've a new book coming out soon!..."

"I wonder will you make as much out of it as you made out of your other
book," Mrs. MacDermott said.

IV

There was a letter for John in the morning. His subtenant wrote to say
that he liked the flat and found it so convenient that he was very
anxious to know whether there was a chance of John giving up possession
of it. He was willing to buy the furniture at a fair valuation!...

"Damned cheek," said John. He told the others of the contents of the
letter.

"If we were to stay here," Eleanor said, "that offer would be very
useful, wouldn't it?"

"It's of no use to us," he answered. "We're not going to stay here!"

In the afternoon, a telegram came from Clotworthy instructing John to
return to London immediately. "Will you come with me or come later by
yourself?" John said to Eleanor.

She hesitated for a few moments, then going quickly to him and putting
her arms about his neck, she whispered, "I don't want to go back to
London, John. I want to stay here!"

"You what?"

"I want to stay here. Oh, give up this work and stay at home. Your
Uncle is getting old and needs help, and I'll be much happier here than
in London!..."

"Give up writing!..."

"You'll be able to do some writing here if you want to!"

"Uncle William hasn't time to take a holiday. What time will I have to
write if I take on his work?"

"He has no one to help him. I'll help you!"

"The thing's absurd!"

"No, it isn't. I like being in the shop. I've helped Uncle William a
lot. I've made suggestions!..."

"My mother put this idea into your head!"

"No, she didn't. She's talked to me about Ballyards, of course, and the
MacDermotts and the shop, but she has not asked me to stay here. It's
my own idea. I like this little town, John, and its quiet ways and the
comfort of this house. I've always wanted comfort and quietness, and
I've got it here. I don't want to go back to the misery of London ...
always wondering whether we shall have enough money to pay our bills,
and you out half the night. Oh, let's stay here!"

He put her away from him. "No," he said obstinately. "I'm not going to
give in!..."

"I'm not asking you to give in!"

"You are. You're asking me to come back here where everybody knows me
and knows what I went out to do, and you're asking me to admit to them
that I've failed!"

"No, no, dear!..."

"Yes, you are. Because I haven't made a fortune at the start, you all
think I'm a failure. Hasn't every man had to struggle and fight for his
position, and amn't I fighting and struggling for mine? If you cared
for me!..."

"I do care for you, John!"

"Then you'd be glad to fight with me ... and struggle!..."

"Yes, I am prepared to fight with you ... but I'm not going to take
risks with the baby!..."

"What's he got to do with it?"

She turned on him angrily. "Are you willing to let him suffer for your
books, too? Do you think I'm going to let my child go without things to
feed your pride?..."

"He won't have to go without things. I'll earn enough for him and for
you."

"Yes, I know. We've seen something of that already. Well, I'm not going
back to London, John. I'm simply not going back. You can't expect me to
go from this house where I'm happy to that little poky flat in
Hampstead and sit there night after night while you are at the
office!..."

"Other women do it, don't they?"

"Other women can do what they like. If they're content to live like
that, they can, but I'm not content. I don't like that life, and I
won't live it. You must make up your mind to that. It isn't necessary
for you to go back to the _Sensation_ office--you can stay here
and help Uncle William!"

"Become a grocer!..."

"Why not? Isn't it better to be a good grocer than a bad novelist?"

His face flushed and he breathed very heavily. "You're all against me,
the whole lot of you. You make little of me. I get no help or
encouragement at all. My ma and you and Hinde!..."

"If you were good at that work, you would not need encouragement, would
you?"

"I don't need it. I can do without it. I'll prove to you yet that I can
write as well as anybody. Never you fear, Eleanor!..."

"I'm not going back to London," she said.

"Well, then, you can stay behind. I'll go back by myself!"

Mrs. MacDermott came into the room. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing," John replied. "I'm going back to London this evening.
Eleanor says she's going to stay here!..."

"For good?"

"Aye ... for good."

"And you? When are you coming back?"

"I'm not coming back. She'll have to come to me. You're always talking
about the pride of the MacDermotts. Well, I'll show you some of it.
I'll not put my foot inside this house till Eleanor comes back to me.
It's me that settles where we live ... not her ... not anybody. Do you
think I'm going to throw up everything now when I've made a start? I've
a new book coming out soon. You know that well ... the whole of you. I
know you don't think much of it, Eleanor!..."

"I didn't say that," she interjected.

"But I think a lot of it. I know it's good. I'm sure it's good. And if
it does well. I'll be able to leave the _Sensation_ office, and we
can live happily together ... but you'll have to come to me. I won't
come here to you!..."

He turned to his mother. "Mebbe you're content now," he said. "You've
got your way. There's a MacDermott in the house to carry on the
business when he's old enough. You'll not need me now!"

He went out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and a little
while later, they heard him leaving the house.

"Wait, daughter," said Mrs. MacDermott, taking hold of Eleanor by the
hand. "Don't fret yourself, daughter, dear. I lived with his
father!..."

"But he always had his own way. You told me so yourself."

"Yes, that's true, but John has some of my blood in him, and my blood
clings to its home. Content yourself a wee while!"

V

He met Uncle William crossing the Square, and suddenly he realised how
old Uncle William was, and how tired he looked.

"Come a piece of the road with me," he said, putting his arm in his
Uncle's. "Eleanor and me have just have a fall-out, and I want to walk
my anger off. I'm going back to London to-night!..."

"You're going soon, aren't you?"

"Yes. I had a telegram from the office a while ago. Eleanor doesn't
want to go home. She wants to stay here!"

"Aye, she's well content with us!"

"But her place is with me. I'm her husband!..."

"Indeed, you are. A wife's place is with her husband. It's a pity you
can't agree to be in the same place!

"Listen, John," he went on, as they came away from the town and
strolled along the road leading to the Lough, "there's a thing I'm
going to tell you that I've never said to no one before. It's this. The
thing that destroyed your father and your Uncle Matthew was their pride
in themselves. They never stopped to consider other people. They did
what they wanted to do regardless of how it affected their neighbours
or their friends. And nothing came out of their work. Your father died
and left an angry memory behind him. Your Uncle Matthew died and left
nothing but a wrong view of things to you. Your mother ... well, I
hardly know what to say about her. She's had much to thole, and it's
made her bitter in her mind, and many's a time I think she's demented
about the pride of the MacDermotts. I'm proud of my name, too, and
proud of the respect we've earned for ourselves, but I'm old and tired,
John, and I've nothing to comfort me, and the pride of the MacDermotts
gives me little consolation for the things I've missed. I'd give the
two eyes out of my head to have a wife like your wife, and a wee child
for my own, but I've had to do without the both of them. You see, John,
I had to keep the family going when the others failed to support it,
I'd be a glad and happy man if I had my wife and my child in the
shop!..."

"Do you want me to come home too, then?"

"Every man must do the best for himself, I'm only telling you not to
eat up other people's lives when you're holding on to your own opinion.
I daresay you know what's best for yourself, but I wonder whether
you'll think that in ten years' time. Or twenty years' time. If you can
comfort your mind with the thought that this world is a romance, the
way your Uncle Matthew did, then you'll mebbe be content, but I never
saw any romance in it, and the only comfort I get from it is the
thought that I'm keeping up a good name. The MacDermotts always gave
good value for the money. I wouldn't mind if they put that on my
gravestone!" He changed his tone abruptly. "Do you think you're a good
writer, John?" he asked.

"I don't know, Uncle William. I try hard to believe I am, but I'm not
sure. Do you think I am?"

"How can I tell? I've no knowledge of these things, and I can't
distinguish between my pride in you and my judgment. I liked your book
well enough, but I'm doubtful would I have bothered my head about it if
someone else had written it. Is your next book a good one?"

"_I_ think so, but Eleanor doesn't!"

"The position isn't very satisfactory, is it? You're going to leave
that young girl for the sake of something that you're uncertain of?"

"I want to prove my worth to her!"

"You mean you want to content yourself. You want to make her think you
were right and she was wrong!"

"I have my pride!..."

"Aye, you have your pride, but I'm wondering would you rather have that
than Eleanor?"

They sat down on the edge of the Lough and did not speak for a long
time. John picked up pebbles and threw them into the water, while his
Uncle gazed at the opposite shore. They sat there until it was time to
go home to tea.

"We'd better be moving," said Uncle William. "Are you settled in your
mind that you're going back to London?"

"Yes," said John.

VI

"Good-bye, Eleanor!" he said when the time came to catch the train to
Belfast.

"Good-bye, John!"

He took hold of her hand and waited for her to offer her lips to him,
but she did not offer them.

"If you change your mind," he said, but she interrupted him quickly.

"I shan't change my mind," she said.

"Very well. Good-bye!"

She did not speak. She was afraid to speak.

"Well, good-bye again!" he said.

He turned to his mother. Her eyes were very bright, but there were no
tears in them. She looked steadily at him.

"It's a pity," she said.

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