The Foolish Lovers

S >> St. John G. Ervine >> The Foolish Lovers

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"You're daft," said Mrs. MacDermott.

"Mebbe I am," Uncle Matthew replied wearily. "But that's the way I
feel, and no man can help the way he feels!"

He sat down at the table, resting his head in his hands, and gazed
hungrily at his nephew.

"You can help putting notions into a person's head," said Mrs.
MacDermott. "John might as well try to _write_ books as try to
sell them in this town!"

"_Write_ books!" John exclaimed.

"Aye, write them!..."

But Uncle Matthew would not let her finish her sentence. "And why
shouldn't he write books if he has a mind to it?" he demanded. "Wasn't
he always the wee lad for scribbling bits of stories in penny exercise
books?..."

"He was ... 'til I beat him for it," she replied. "Why can't you settle
down here in the shop with your Uncle William?" she said to her son.
"It's a comfortable, quiet sort of a life, and it's sure and steady,
and when we're all gone, it'll be yours for yourself. Won't it,
William?"

"Oh, aye!" said Uncle William. "Everything we have'll be John's right
enough, but I doubt he's not fond of the shop!..."

"What's wrong with the shop? It's as good as any in the town!" She
coaxed John with her voice. "You can marry some nice, respectable girl
and bring her here," she said, "and I'll gladly give place to her when
she comes!" She rocked herself gently to and fro in the rocking-chair.
"I'd like well to have the nursing of your children in the house that
you yourself were born in!..."

"Och, ma, I'm not in the way of marrying!..."

"You'll marry some time, won't you? And there's plenty would be glad to
have you. Aggie Logan, though I can't bear the sight of her, would give
the two eyes out of her head for you. Of course you'll marry, and I'd
be thankful glad to think of your son being born in this house. You
were born in it, and your da, too, and his da, and his da's da. Four
generations of you in one house to be pleased and proud of, and I pray
to God he'll let me live to see the fifth generation of the MacDermotts
born here, too. I'm a great woman for clinging to my home, and I love
to think of the generations coming one after the other in the same
house that the family's always lived in. How many people in this town
can say they've always lived in the one house like the MacDermotts?"

"Not very many," Uncle William proudly replied.

"No, indeed there's not, I tell you, John, son, the MacDermotts are
someone in this town, as grand in their way and as proud as Lord
Castlederry himself. That's something to live up to, isn't it! The good
name of your family! But if you go tramping the world for adventures
and romances, the way your Uncle Matthew would have you do, you'll lose
it all, and there'll be strangers in the house that your family's lived
in all these generations. And mebbe you'll come here, when you're an
oul' man and we're all dead and buried, and no one in the place'll have
any mind of you at all, and you'll be lonelier here nor anywhere else.
Oh, it would be terrible to be treated like a stranger in your own
town! And if you did start a bookshop and it failed on you, and you
lost all your money, wouldn't it be worse disgrace than any not to be
able to pay your debts in a place where everyone knows you ... to be
made a bankrupt mebbe?"

"Ah, but, ma, the world would never move at all if everybody stopped in
the one place!" John said.

"The world'll move well enough," she answered. "God moves it, not you."

John got up from the table and went, and sat on a low stool by the
fire. "I don't know so much," he said. "I read in a book one time!..."

"In a book!" Mrs. MacDermott sneered.

"Aye, ma, in a book!" John stoutly answered. "After all, you know the
Bible's a book!" Mrs. MacDermott had not got a retort to that
statement, and John, aware that he had scored a point, hurriedly
proceeded, "I was reading one time that all the work in the world was
started by men that wrote books. There never was any change or progress
'til someone started to think and write!..."

Mrs. MacDermott recovered her wits. "Were they happy and contented
men?" she demanded.

"I don't know, ma," John replied. "The book didn't say that. I suppose
not, or they wouldn't have wanted to make any alterations!"

"Let them that wants to make changes, make them," said Mrs. MacDermott.
"There's no need for you to go about altering the world when you can
stay at home here happy and content!"

Uncle Matthew rose from the table and came towards Mrs. MacDermott.
"What does it matter whether you're happy and contented or not, so long
as things are happening to you?" he exclaimed.

Mrs. MacDermott burst into bitter laughter. "You have little wit," she
said, "to be talking that daft way. Eh, William?" she added, turning to
her other brother-in-law. "What do you think about it?"

Uncle William had lit his pipe, and was sitting in a listening
attitude, slowly puffing smoke. "I'm wondering," he said, "whether it's
more fun to be writing about things nor it is to be doing things!"

John turned to him and tapped him on the knee. "I've thought of that,
Uncle William," he said, "and I tell you what! I'll go and do
something, and then I'll write a book about it!"

"What'll you do?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.

"Something," said John. "I can easily do _some_thing!"

"And what about the bookshop?" said Uncle Matthew.

"Och, that was only a notion that came into my head," John answered. "I
won't bother myself selling books: I'll write them instead!" He glanced
about the kitchen. "I've a good mind to start writing something now!"
he said.

His mother sprang to her feet. "You'll do no such thing at this hour,"
she said. "It's nearly Sunday morning. Would you begin your career by
desecrating God's Day!"

"If you start doing things," said Uncle, reverting to John's
declaration of work, "you'll mebbe have no time to write about them!"

"Oh, I'll have the time right enough. I'll make the time," John said.

Uncle William got up and walked towards the staircase. "Where are you
going, William?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.

"To my bed," said Uncle William.

VII

Suddenly the itch to write came to John, and he began to rummage among
the papers and books on the shelves for writing-paper.

"What are you looking for?" his mother enquired.

"Paper to write on," he said.

"You'll not write one word the night!..."

"Ah, quit, ma!" he said. "I must put down an idea that's come in my
head. I'd mebbe forget it in the morning!"

"The greatest writers in the world have sat up all night, writing out
their thoughts," Uncle Matthew murmured.

John did not pay any heed to his mother's scowls and remonstrances. He
found sheets of writing-paper and placed them neatly on the table,
together with a pen and ink. He looked at the materials critically.
There was paper, there was ink and there was a pen with a new nib in
it, and blotting paper!...

He drew a chair up to the table and sat down in front of the writing
paper. He contemplated it for a long time while Mrs. MacDermott put
away the remnants of his supper, and his Uncle Matthew sat by the fire
watching him.

"What are you waiting for, John?" his Uncle Matthew asked.

"Inspiration," John replied.

He sat still, scarcely moving even for ease in his chair, staring at
the white paper until it began to dance in front of his eyes, but he
did not begin to write on it.

"Are you still waiting for inspiration, John?" his Uncle asked.

"Aye," he answered.

"You don't seem to be getting any," Mrs. MacDermott said.

He got up and put the writing materials away. "I'll wait 'til the
morning," he replied.

THE THIRD CHAPTER

I

John wrote his first story during the following week, and when he had
completed it, he made a copy of it on large sheets of foolscap in a
shapely hand, and sewed the pages together with green thread. Uncle
Matthew had purchased brass fasteners to bind the pages together, but
Uncle William said that a man might easily tear his fingers with "them
things" and contract blood-poisoning.

"And that would give him a scunner against your story, mebbe!" he
added.

John accepted Uncle William's advice, not so much in the interests of
humanity, as because he liked the look of the green thread. He had read
the story to his uncles, after the shop was closed. They had drawn
their chairs up to the fire, in which sods of turf and coal were
burning, and the agreeable odour of the turf soothed their senses while
they listened to John's sharp voice. Mrs. MacDermott would not join the
circle before the fire. She declared that she had too much work to do
to waste her time on trash, and she wondered that her brothers-in-law
could find nothing better to do than to encourage a headstrong lad in a
foolish business. She went about her work with much bustle and clatter,
which, however, diminished considerably as John began to read the
story, and ended altogether soon afterwards.

"D'you like it, Uncle William?" John said, when he had read the story
to them.

"Aye," said Uncle William.

"I'm glad," John answered. "And you, do you like it, Uncle Matthew?"

"I like it queer and well," Uncle Matthew murmured, "only!..." He
hesitated as if he were reluctant to make any adverse comment on the
story.

"Only what?" John demanded with some impatience. He had asked for the
opinions of his uncles, indeed, but it had not occurred to him that
they would not think as highly of the story as he thought of it
himself.

"Well ... there's no love in it!" Uncle Matthew went on.

"Love!"

"Aye," Uncle Matthew said. "There's no mention of a woman in it from
start to finish. I think there ought to be a woman in it!"

Mrs. MacDermott, who had been silent now for some time, made a noise
with a dish on the table. "Och, sure, what does he know about love?"
she exclaimed angrily. "A child that's not long left his mother's arms
would know as much. Mebbe, now you've read your oul' story, John, the
whole of yous will sit up to the table and take your tea!"

John, disregarding his mother, sat back in his chair and contemplated
his Uncle Matthew.

"I wonder now, are you right?" he exclaimed.

"I am," Uncle Matthew replied. "The best stories in the world have
women in them, and love-making! I never could take any interest in
_Robinson Crusoe_ because he hadn't got a girl on that island with
him, and I thought to myself many's a time, it was a queer mistake not
to make Friday a woman. He could have fallen in love with her then!"

Uncle William said up sharply. "Aye, and had a wheen of black babies!"
he said. "Man, dear, Matthew, think what you're saying! What sort of
romance would there be in the like of that? I never read much, as you
know, but I always had a great fancy for _Robinson Crusoe_. The
way that man turned to and did things for himself ... I tell you my
heart warmed to him. _I_ like your story, John, women or no women.
Sure, love isn't the only thing that men make!..."

"It's the most important," said Uncle Matthew.

"And why shouldn't a story be written about any other thing nor a lot
of love?" Uncle William continued, ignoring the interruption. "I
daresay you'll get a mint of money for that story, John. I've heard
tell that some of these writers gets big pay for their stories. Pounds
and pounds!"

John crinkled his manuscript in his hand and regarded it with a modest
look. "I don't suppose I'll get much for the first one," he said. "In
fact, if they'll print it, I'll be willing to let them have it for
nothing ... just for the satisfaction!"

"That would be a foolish thing to do," Uncle William retorted. "Sure,
if it's worth printing, it's worth paying for. That's the way I look at
it, anyhow!"

"I daresay I'll make more, when I know the way of it better!" John
answered. "What paper will I send it to, do you think?"

"Send it to the best one," said Uncle William.

Mrs. MacDermott took a plate of toast from the fender where it had been
put to keep warm. "Send it to the one that pays the most," she
suggested.

"I thought you weren't listening, ma!" John exclaimed, laughing at her.

"A body can't help hearing when people are talking at the top of their
voices," she said tartly. "Come on, for dear sake, and have your teas,
the whole of yous!"

II

It was Uncle William who advised John to send the story to
_Blackwood's Magazine_. He said that in his young days, people
said _Blackwood's Magazine_ was the best magazine in the world.
Uncle Matthew had demurred to this. "I'm not saying it's not a good
one," he said, "but it's terribly bitter against Ireland. The man that
writes that magazine must have a bitter, blasting tongue in his head!"

"Never mind what it says about Ireland," Uncle William retorted. "Sure,
they're only against the Papishes, anyway!..."

"The Papishes are as good as the Protestants," Uncle Matthew exclaimed.

"I daresay they are," Uncle William admitted, "but I'm only saying that
_Blackwood's Magazine_ is against _them:_ it's not against
us; and I don't see why John shouldn't send his story to it. He's a
Protestant!"

"If I wrote a story," Uncle Matthew went on, "I wouldn't send it to any
paper that made little of my country, Protestant or Papish, no matter
how good a paper it was nor how much it paid me for my story. Ireland
is as good as England any day!..."

"It's better," said Uncle William complacently. "Sure, God Himself
knows the English would be on the dung-heap if it wasn't for us and the
Scotchmen. But that's no reason why John shouldn't send his story to
_Blackwood's Magazine_. In one way, it's a good reason why he
should send it there, for sure, if he does nothing else, he'll improve
the tone of the thing. You do what I tell you, John!..."

And so, accepting his Uncle William's advice, John sent the manuscript
of his story to the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine;_ and each
morning, after he had done so, he eagerly awaited the advent of the
postman. But the postman, more often than not, went past their door.
When he did deliver a letter to them, it was usually a trading letter
for Uncle William.

"Them people get a queer lot of stories to read," Uncle William said to
console his nephew, disappointed because he had not received a letter
of acceptance from the editor by Saturday morning, four days after he
had posted the manuscript. "It'll mebbe take them a week or two to
reach yours!..."

"They could have sent a postcard to say they'd got it all right," John
replied ruefully. "That's the civil thing to do, anyway!"

He remembered that the Benson Shakespearean Company was still in
Belfast and that _Romeo and Juliet_ was to be performed in the
afternoon, and _Julius Caesar_ in the evening; and he went up to
the city by an earlier train than usual so that he might be certain of
getting to the theatre in time to secure an end seat near the front of
the pit. He had proposed to his Uncle Matthew that he should go to
Belfast, too, to see the plays, but Uncle Matthew shook his head and
murmured that he was not feeling well. He had been listless lately,
they had noticed, and Uncle William, regarding him one afternoon as he
stood at the door of the shop, had turned to John and said that he
would be glad when the summer weather came in again, so that Uncle
Matthew could go down to the shore and lie in the sun.

"He's not a robust man, your Uncle Matthew!" he said. "I don't think he
tholes the winter well!"

"Och, he's mebbe only a wee bit out of sorts," John answered. "I wish,
he'd come to Belfast with me!..."

"He'll never go next or near that place again," Uncle William replied.
"He's never been there since that affair!..."

"You'd wonder at a man letting a thing of that sort affect his mind the
way Uncle Matthew let it affect his," John murmured.

"When a man believes in a thing as deeply as he believed in the oul'
Queen," said Uncle William, "it's a terrible shock to him to find out
that other people doesn't believe in it half as much as he does ... or
mebbe doesn't believe in it at all!"

"I suppose you're right," said John.

"I am," said Uncle William.

John was the first person to reach the door of the pit that afternoon.
The morning had been rough and blusterous, and although the streets
were dry, the cold wind blowing down from the hills made people
reluctant to stand outside a theatre door. John, who was hardy and
indifferent to cold, stood inside the shelter of the door and read the
copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ which he had borrowed from his Uncle
Matthew; and while he read the play he remembered his uncle's criticism
of the story he had written for _Blackwood's Magazine_: that it
ought to have had a woman in it! This play was full of love. Romeo,
sighing and groaning because his lady will not look kindly upon him,
runs from his friends who "jest at scars that never felt a wound" ...
and finds Juliet! In _The Merchant of Venice_, Bassanio and
Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Nerissa had all made love.
Even young Gobbo, in a coarse, philandering way, had made love, too! In
all the books he had read, women were prominent. Queer and distressing
things happened to the heroes; they were constantly in trouble and
under suspicion of wrong-doing; poverty and persecution were common to
them; frequently, they were misunderstood; but in the end, they had
their consolations and their rights and rewards. Love was the great
predominating element in all these stories, the support and inspiration
and reward of the troubled and tortured hero; and Woman was the symbol
of victory, of achievement. At the end of every journey, at the finish
of every fight, there was a Woman. Uncle Matthew had spoken wisely,
John thought, when he said that you cannot leave women out of your
schemes and plans.

John had not thought of leaving women out of his schemes and plans. In
all his romantic imaginings, a woman of superb beauty had figured in a
dim way; but the woman had been a dream woman only, bearing no
resemblance whatever to the visible women about him. He had so much
regard for this woman of his imagined adventures ... she changed her
looks as frequently as he changed the scene of his romances ... that he
had no regard left for the women of his acquaintance. He nodded to the
girls he knew when he met them in the street, but he had never felt any
desire to "go up the road" with one of them. Willie Logan, as John
knew, was "coortin' hard" and laying up trouble for himself by his
diverse affections; and Aggie Logan, forgetful, perhaps, of the rebuff
that John had given to her childish offers of love, had lately taken to
hanging about the street when John was due to pass along it. She would
pretend not to see him until he was close to her. Then she would start
and giggle and say, "Oh, John, is that you? You're a terrible stranger
these days!..." Once while he was listening to her as she made some
such remark as that, Lady Castlederry drove by in her carriage, and his
eyes wandered from the sallow, giggling girl in front of him to the
beautiful woman in the carriage; and Aggie suffered severely by the
comparison. And yet Aggie had a quicker and more intelligent look than
Lady Castlederry. The beautiful, arrogant woman was like the dream-woman
of his romances ... and again, she was not like her; for the dream-women
had not got Lady Castlederry's look of settled stupidity in her eyes.

John had hurriedly quitted Aggie's company on that occasion. He knew
why Aggie always contrived to meet him in the street, and he thought
that she was a poor fool of a girl to do it. And her brother Willie was
a "great gumph of a fellow," to go capering up and down the road in the
evenings after any girl that would say a civil word to him or laugh
when he laughed!...

All the same, women mattered to men. Uncle Matthew had said so, and
Uncle Matthew was in the right of it. In the story-books, women surged
into the hero's life, good women and bad women and even indifferent
women. And, now, in these plays, he could see for himself that women
mattered enormously. Yet he had never been in love with a girl! He was
not even in love with the dream-woman of his romances. She was his
reward for honourable and arduous service ... that was all. He was not
in love with her any more than he was in love with a Sunday School
prize. It was a reward for regular attendance and for accurate answers
to Biblical questions, and he was glad to have it. It rested on the
bookshelf in the drawing-room, and sometimes, when there were visitors
in the house, his mother would request him to take it down and show it
to them. They would read the inscription and make remarks on the oddness
of Mr. McCaughan's signature and turn over the pages of the book ... and
then they would hand it back to him and he would replace it on the
shelf ... and no more was said about it. Really, his dream-woman
had not meant much more to him than that. She would be given to him
when he had won his fight, and he would take her and be glad to get
her ... he would be very proud of her and would exhibit her to his
friends and say, "This is my beautiful wife!" and then!... oh, well,
there did not appear to be anything else after that. The book always
came to an end when the hero married the heroine. Probably she and he
had children ... but, beyond the fact that they lived happily ever
afterwards, there did not appear to be much more to say about them....

Somehow, it seemed to him now, as he stood in the shelter of the Pit
Entrance to the Theatre Royal, reading _Romeo and Juliet_, that
the heroine was different from his dream-woman. His dream-woman had
always been very insubstantial and remote, but Juliet was a real woman,
alive and passionate, with a real father and a real mother. The odd
thing about his dream-woman was that she did not appear to have any
relatives ... at least he had never heard of any. She had not even got
a name. She never spoke to him. Always, when the adventure was ended,
he went up to the dream-woman, waiting for him in a misty manner, and
he took hold of her hand and led her away ... and while he was leading
her away, the adventure seemed to come to an end ... the picture
dissolved ... and he could not see any more. Once, indeed, he had
kissed his dream-woman ... he had kissed her exactly as he had kissed
his great-aunt, Miss Clotworthy, who was famous for the fact that
she had attended a Sunday School in Belfast as pupil and teacher for
fifty-seven years without a break ... and the dream-woman had taken the
kiss in the unemotional manner in which she took hold of his hand when he
led her away ... and lost her!...

There was something wrong with his dream-woman, he told himself. This
man Shakespeare, so everybody said, was the greatest poet England had
produced ... perhaps the greatest poet the world had produced ... and
he ought to know something of what women were like. Whatever else
Juliet might be, she certainly was not like John's dream-woman. She did
not stand at the end of the road waiting for Romeo to come to her. She
did not wait until the fight was fought and won. She did not offer a
cold hand or cold lips to Romeo. Her behaviour was really more like
that of Aggie Logan than that of the dream-woman!...

Aggie Logan! That "girner" with the sallow look and the giggle! He
could see her now, standing in the street waiting for him, dabbing at
her mouth with the foolish handkerchief she always carried in her hand.
What did she want to keep on dabbing at her mouth with her handkerchief
for! Men didn't dab at _their_ mouths.... Nor did the dream-woman
dab at hers.... But it was just possible ... indeed, it was very
likely, that Juliet dabbed at hers!...

At that moment, the Pit Door opened, and John, having paid his
shilling, passed into the theatre.

III

He came away from the play in a disturbed and exalted state. Suddenly
and compellingly, he had become aware of the fact of Women. While he
sat in the front row of the pit, listening with his whole body to the
play, something stirred in him and he became aware of Women. The
actress who played the part of Juliet had turned towards the audience
for a few moments during the performance and, so it seemed to him, had
looked straight into his eyes. She did not avert her gaze immediately,
nor did he avert his. He imagined that she was appealing to him ... he
forgot that he was sitting in the pit of a theatre listening to a play
written by a man who had died three hundred years ago ... and
remembered only that he was a young man with aspirations and romantic
longings, and that a young woman, in a pitiable plight, was gazing into
his eyes ... and his heart reached out to her. He drew in his breath
quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell
dead and he did not even turn to look at her.

When the play was over, he had sat still in his seat, more deeply moved
than he had ever been before, overwhelmed by the disaster which had
come upon the young lovers through the foolish brawls of their foolish
elders; and it was not until an impatient woman had prodded him in the
side that he returned to reality.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am!" he said and got up and hurried out of the
theatre into the street.

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