Chapter 26

He returned to London on the following morning, carrying copies of the _Cottenham Daily Post_ and the _Cottenham Mercury_ with him. The notices of his play were mildly appreciative ... that of the _Post_ being so mild as to be almost denunciatory. The critic asserted that John's play, while interesting, showed that its author had no real understanding of the meaning of tragedy. He found no evidence in _Milchu and St. Patrick_ that John appreciated the importance of the pressure of the Significant Event. The Significant Event decided the development of a tragedy, but in Mr. MacDermott's play there was no Significant Event. The play just happened, so to speak, and it ought not to "just happen." It was an excellent discursus on the drama from the time of the morality plays to the time of the Irish Players, and it included references to Euripides, Ibsen, the Noh plays of Japan, Mr. Bernard Shaw (in a patronising manner), Synge and Mr. Masefield; but John felt, when he had read it, that most of it had been written before its author had seen his play. The other notice was less learned, but it left no doubt in the mind of the readers that although _Milchu and St. Patrick_ was an interesting piece ... the word "interesting," after he had read these notices, seemed to John to be equivalent to the word "poor" ... it was not likely to mark any epochs.

"I don't think much of Cottenham anyhow!" said John, putting, the papers in his pocket.

Eleanor met him at Euston. The fatigue which settles on a traveller in the last hour of a long railway journey had raised the devil of depression in John. He had reread the notices in the Cottenham papers, and as he considered their very restrained praises of his play, he remembered that Hinde had said _The Enchanted Lover_ was an ordinary novel.

"I wonder am I any good," he said to himself as the train hauled itself into Euston.

He looked out of the window and saw Eleanor standing on the platform, scanning the carriage as she sought for him.

"Well, she thinks I am," he thought, as he alighted from the train. "Eleanor!" he called to her, and she turned and when she saw him, her eyes lit and she hurried to him.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

I

Hinde's enthusiastic review of _The Enchanted Lover_ had not been followed by other reviews equally enthusiastic or nearly so. Many papers failed to do more than include it in the List of Books Received. _The Times Literary Supplement_ gave six lines of small type to a cold account of it. The reviewer declared that "this first novel is not without merit" but either had not been able to discover the merit or had not enough space in which to describe it, for he omitted to say what it was. John had paid a visit to the local lending library every morning for a week in order that he might see all the London newspapers and such of the provincial papers as were exhibited, and had searched their columns eagerly for references to his book; but the references were few and slight. Mr. Claude Jannissary, when John visited him, wagged his head dolefully and uttered some mournful remarks on the sad state of idealism in England. He regretted to say that the book was not selling so well as he had hoped it would sell. The appalling conditions of the publishing trade were accentuated by the extraordinary reluctance of the booksellers to take risks or to show any enthusiasm for new things. Between Mr. Jannissary and John, he might say that booksellers were a very unsatisfactory lot. Most of them were quite uncultured men. Hardly any of them read books. Mr. Jannissary longed for the day when booksellers would look upon their shops as places of adventure and romance!...

A curious sensation of distaste for these words passed through John when he heard them spoken by Mr. Jannissary. The booksellers, said the publishers, should be ambitious to earn the title of the new Elizabethans ... hungering and thirsting after dangerous experiences. He would like to see a bookseller turning disdainfully from "best sellers" and eagerly purchasing large quantities of books by unknown authors. "Think of the thrill of it," said Mr. Jannissary; and John, perturbed in his mind, tried hard to think of the thrill of it. His mental perturbation was due to the lean look of his bank balance. Money was going out of his house more rapidly than it was coming in, and Eleanor had been full of anxiety that morning. He had not yet received a cheque from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre for the royalties due on the week's performance of _Milchu and St. Patrick_, but he had soothed Eleanor's fears by assuring her that there would be the better part of a hundred pounds to come to them from Cottenham in a few days. In the meantime, he told her, he would call on Jannissary and see whether he could not obtain some money from him. "He must have sold much more than five hundred copies by this time," he said. "If all the bookshops in the country only took one copy each, he'd have sold more than five hundred, and I'm sure they'd all take two or three each. Perhaps more!"

The suggestion that he might make a small advance to John on account of accrued royalties had a very chilling effect upon Mr. Jannissary. "My dear fellow," he said, putting up his hands in a benedictory manner and then dropping them as if to say that even he found difficulty in believing in the nobility of man, "impossible! Absolutely impossible! I've sunk ... Money ... much Money ... in your book ... I don't regret it ... not for a moment ... I believe in you, MacDermott ... strongly ... but it will be a long time before I recover any of that ... Money ... if I ever recover it. I'm sorry!..."

John had come away from the publisher in a cheerless state of mind, and as he turned into the Strand, he collided with Hinde.

"How's the book getting on?" Hinde demanded when they had greeted each other.

John told him of what Jannissary had said.

"I tell you what I'll do." said Hinde. "I'll work up a boom for it in the _Evening Herald_. I'll turn one of my chaps on to writing half a dozen letters to the Editor about it!..."

"But you don't like the book," John expostulated. "You told me it wasn't much good!"

"Och, I know that," Hinde replied, "but that doesn't matter. I'd like to do you a good turn. There's a smart chap working for me now ... he can put more superlatives into a paragraph than any other man in Fleet Street, and he isn't afraid of committing himself to anything. Most useful fellow to have on your staff. He does our Literary article, and he's discovered a fresh genius every week since he came to me. He'll get on, that chap! I'll turn him on to your book!"

"I don't want praise that I don't deserve," John said, thrusting out his lower lip.

"Oh, you'll deserve it all right. Everybody deserves some praise. How's Eleanor?"

"All right!"

Then Hinde hurried away, and John went home. There was a letter from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre awaiting him, and he eagerly opened the envelope.

"You needn't worry any longer," he said to Eleanor as he took out the contents of the envelope....

He gaped at the cheque and the Returns Sheet.

"How much is it?" Eleanor asked.

"There must be a mistake!..."

"How much is it?" she repeated.

"Sixteen pounds, nine shillings and sevenpence! But!..."

II

She took the Returns Sheet from him. "No," she said after she had examined it, "there doesn't appear to be any mistake. It seems to be all right!"

She put the paper and the cheque down, and turned away.

"It's queer, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes. Yes, very! We shall have to do something, John. We've very little left!"

"Of course, there's the London season to come yet," he said to comfort her.

"Not for a very long time," she answered, "and it may not be any better than this!" She hesitated for a moment, then she hurriedly said, "John, why shouldn't I go on with my work!"

"On with your work! What do you mean?"

"Why shouldn't I get a job again? We could manage, I think, and the money I'd earn would be useful. You could finish your new book!..."

His pride was hurt. "Oh, no," he said at once. "No, no, I can't agree to that. What sort of a husband would I look like if people heard that I couldn't maintain my wife. Oh, Eleanor, I couldn't think of such a thing!...

"I don't see why not. You're not going to make money easily, so far as I can see, and either you or I must get work of some sort. I know you want to finish your book, so why shouldn't I earn something to help us to keep going?"

"No," he said, "that's my job. I daresay Hinde would give me work if I asked for it!"

"But you've always been against doing journalism."

"I know. I'm still against it, but one can't always resist things. He might let me do literary work for him. I'll go in and see him to-morrow."

He told her of his encounter with Hinde that day and of Hinde's proposal to boom _The Enchanted Lover_. "I don't like the idea much, but perhaps it'll be useful!" He picked up the cheque from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. "I'm actually out of pocket over this affair," he said. "What with the cost of typing the play and my expenses in Cottenham...."

"I wish we could go back to Ballyards," Eleanor said.

"Go back to Ballyards!" he exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment.

"Yes, we'd be much better off there!"

"Go back and admit I've failed in London! Crawl home with my tail between my legs!..."

"Don't be melodramatic," said Eleanor.

"I have my pride," he retorted. "You can call that being melodramatic, if you like, but I call it decent pride. I won't admit to anybody that I've failed. I haven't failed!..."

"I didn't say you had, dear!"

"I won't fail. You wait. Just you wait. I'll succeed all right. If I have failed so far, I can try again, can't I? Can't I?"

"Yes, John!..."

"I'm not going to take a knock-down blow as a knockout. I know I can write. I feel the stuff inside me. The book I'm doing now, isn't that good?"

"Well!..."

"Isn't it good? You'll have to admit it's good!"

"I daresay it is. It isn't the kind of book I like, but I'm sure it's good. That's why I want to get a job, so that you can finish it in peace. Let me try ... just until you've finished the book. Then perhaps things will be all right. I'd like to be able to say that I helped you!"

"You're a lot too good for me."

"Oh, no, I'm not. Any girl who _is_ a girl would want to help, wouldn't she?"

His temper had subsided now, and the reproach he always felt after such a scene as this made him feel very ashamed of himself.

"I'm sorry, Eleanor, that I lost my temper just now. I didn't mean to say what I did!..."

"But, my dear," she exclaimed, "you didn't say much, and if you did it was because you were upset about the play and the novel. Don't worry about that. Now, listen to me. I met Mr. Crawford this morning!..."

"Crawford?"

"Yes. He's managing director of that motor place I used to be in. He told me he had never had a secretary so useful as I was, and that he wished I'd never met you!..."

"Did he, indeed?"

"Yes. Of course, that was only a joke. I'm sure he'd let me go back to my old job for a while!..."

"No. No, no!"

She stood up, half turned away from him, and said, "Well, I'm going to ask for it anyhow!"

"You're what?"

"Yes, John, I'm going to ask for it. Don't shout at me! You really must listen to sense. I'm not going to run into debt or have trouble with tradesmen about money just because of your pride. I want you to finish that book!"

"I'd rather sweep the streets than let you go back to your old job."

"Well, I'll get a new one then!"

"Or any job," he said. "I don't care what it is. That man Crawford, what do you think he'd say if you went back to him? I know. 'Poor Mrs. MacDermott, her husband must be a rum sort of a fellow ... not able to keep his wife ... she had to go out to work again soon after he married her!' That's what he'd say!"

"But does it matter what he says?"

"Yes. I'm not going to have anybody say that I can't earn enough to keep you decently!"

"That's all very fine, John, but you're not doing it. Your novel hasn't brought you any money at all, and you've spent as much on the play as you've got so far. You've had one or two articles printed, and that's all. The rest of the money we've lived on has come from your Uncle William!..."

"Uncle William! None of it came from him. Uncle Matthew left me his money and my mother gave me the rest!"

"Yes, and how did they get it? From your Uncle William, of course. His work has kept them, hasn't it? And you? We're sponging on your Uncle William, and I hate to think we're sponging on him. You're very proud about not letting me go out to work, but you're not so proud about letting Uncle William keep you!"

This was a blow between the eyes for him. "That's a bitterly unkind thing to say," he murmured.

"It's true, isn't it?" she retorted. "I don't want to be unkind, John, but we've really got to face things. I'm frightened. I don't like the thought of getting into debt. I've never been in debt before. Never! And I can't see what's going to happen when we've spent our money if one of us doesn't start to earn something now!" She changed her tone. "John, don't be silly about it. Do agree to my getting a job for the present. You'll be able to get on with your book at home, and any other writing you want to do, and then perhaps things will get straight and we'll be all right!"

"The point is, do you believe in me?" he demanded.

"Of course I believe in you!..."

"Ah, but I mean in my work. In my writing. Do you believe in that?"

"What's that got to do with it? Lots of books are very good that I don't much care for. I liked _The Enchanted Lover_--it was quite good--but I don't much care for the one you're doing now. I can't help that. I daresay other people will like it better!"

"Why don't you like it?"

"Well, it doesn't seem to me to be about anything."

"Listen, Eleanor! I don't want just to be one of a mob of fairly good writers. If I can't be a great writer, I don't want to be a writer at all. I'll have everything or I'll have nothing!"

"I see!"

"So now you know. I feel I have greatness in me ... but you don't feel like that about me," he said.

"I don't know anything about greatness. All I know is that I like some things and that I don't like others. I don't know why a book is great or why it isn't. You can't judge things by what I say. It's quite possible that you are a great writer, and that's why I want you to let me get a job, so that you can go on with your work and be able to show the world what you can do. I'd hate to think you'd been prevented from doing your best work because you'd had to use up your energy doing other things. It won't take long to finish this book, will it?"

"No."

"Well, then, I shan't have to work for very long. By the time it's finished, _The Enchanted Lover_ may have earned a lot of money for us ... and the play, too ... and then we can just laugh at our troubles now!..."

III

He remained obdurate for a while, but in the end she wore his opposition down. Mr. Crawford gladly welcomed her back to her old job, and even offered her a larger salary than she had been receiving before her marriage. "I've learned your value since you went away," he said. "I'm a fool to tell you that, perhaps, but I can't help it. Half the young women who go out to offices nowadays would be dear at ninepence a week. The last girl we had here caused me to imperil my immortal soul twice a day through her incompetence. I've sworn more in a week since you left us, than I ever swore in my life before!..."

Eleanor insisted that John should not inform his mother of her return to work. Intuitively she knew that Mrs. MacDermott's pride would be outraged by this knowledge, and that she would make bitter complaint to John of his failure to maintain his wife in a way worthy of his family; and so she urged John to say nothing at all of the matter either to Mrs. MacDermott or to Uncle William. He had made no comment on the matter, but she knew that he had been relieved by her request.

Hinde had fulfilled his promise to boom _The Enchanted Lover_ in the _Evening Herald_, and Mr. Jannissary reluctantly admitted that the book was selling. "Slowly, of course, but still ... selling! I think I shall get my money back," he said.

"Do you think I'll get any money out of it?" John asked.

"Ah, these things are on the knees of the gods, my dear fellow! It is impossible to say!"

The second book moved in a leisurely manner to its close, and Mr. Jannissary declared that he was delighted to hear that _The Enchanted Lover_ would shortly have a successor. He thought that perhaps he could promise to pay royalties from the first copy of the new novel!...

"How do writers manage to live, Mr. Jannissary?" John said to him at this point, and Mr. Jannissary murmured that there was a divinity which shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.

"Oh, is that it?" said John.

"Some men have been very hungry, MacDermott because they served their Art faithfully. Think of the garrets, the lonely attics in which beautiful things have been imagined!..."

"I've no desire to go hungry or to live in a lonely attic, Mr. Jannissary. Let me tell you that!"

"No ... no, of course not. None of us have. I trust I am not a voluptuary or self-indulgent in any way, but I too would dislike to be excessively hungry. Still, I think it must be a great consolation to a man to think that he had made a great work out of ... his pain, so to speak!"

John reflected for a moment on this. Then he said, "How do you manage to keep going, Mr. Jannissary, when you publish so many books that don't bring you any return?"

Mr. Jannissary glanced very interrogatively at John. Then he waved his hands, and murmured vaguely. "Sacrifices," he said. "We all have to make sacrifices!..."

John left the publisher and went on to the office of the _Evening Herald_ where he saw Hinde. "I've brought an article I thought you'd like to print," he said when he had been admitted to Hinde's office. Hinde glanced quickly through it. "Good," he said, "I'll put it in to-morrow. I suppose," he continued, "you wouldn't like to do a job for me?"

"What sort of a job?"

"There's to be a great ceremony at Westminster Abbey to-morrow ... dedication of a chapel for the Order of the Bath. The King'll be there. Like to go and write an account of it?"

"Yes, I would!"

"Good. I'll get Masters to send the ticket of admission on to you to-night!"

He felt much happier when he left the Herald offices than he had felt when he entered them. He had sold an article and had been commissioned to do an interesting job. Eleanor would be pleased. He hurried home so that he might be there to greet her when she returned from her work.

IV

She was sitting in front of the fire when he entered the flat. "Hilloa," he said, "you're home early, aren't you?"

She looked up and smiled rather wanly at him.

"Yes," she said, "I came home about three!..."

"Why? Aren't you well?"

"I'm not feeling very grand!"

"What's the matter!"

"I don't know. At least I ... Oh, I don't know. It may only be imagination!"

He sat down beside her. "Imagination!..." She looked at him very steadily, and he found himself remembering how beautiful he had thought her eyes were that day when he saw her for the first time. They were still very beautiful.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know ... but I ... I think I'm going to have a baby!"

"Holy Smoke!"

"I don't know. I feel so stupid!..."

She had been smiling while she was telling this to him, but now she dismayed him by bursting into tears.

"Eleanor!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say or to do, and she let herself subside into his arms and lay there, half laughing and half crying.

"I'm being a ... frightful ... fool," she said between sobs, "but I ... I can't help it!"

They sat together until the dusk had turned to darkness, holding each other and whispering explanations and hopes and fears. A queer sense of responsibility settled upon John, a feeling that he must bear burdens and be glad to bear them. Eleanor seemed to him now to be a very fragile and timid creature, turning instinctively to him for care and protection. Immeasureable love for her surged in his heart. This very dear and gentle girl, so full of courage and yet so full of alarm, had become inexpressibly precious to him. She had come to him in doubt and had entrusted her life to him, not certain that she cared for him sufficiently to be entirely happy with him. He had tried to make her happy, and slowly he had seen her liking for him growing into some sort of affection. Perhaps now she loved him as he loved her. Soon she would be the mother of a child ... his child!... How very extraordinary it seemed! A few months ago, Eleanor and he had been strangers to each other ... and now she was about to bear a child to him!

"I must work hard," he said to himself, and then to her, "Of course, you can't go back to Mr. Crawford. I'll write to my mother and tell her!"

He remembered the commission from Hinde, and while he was telling her of it, the postman delivered a letter from the Herald in which was the invitation card for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

She examined it with interest. "But it says Morning Dress must be worn," she exclaimed, pointing to the notice in the corner of the card. "You haven't got any Morning Dress!"

"Do you think it'll matter?"

"They may not let you in if you go as you are now. You haven't even a silk hat!"

"What shall I do then?" he asked.

"We must think of something. Perhaps Mrs. Townley's husband would lend you his silk hat!" The Townleys were their neighbours. "He hardly ever wears it, and he's about your size!"

"I shouldn't like to ask them!..."

"Oh, I'll ask them all right," Eleanor said.

She left the flat and crossed the staircase to the door of the Townleys' flat, and after a little while, she returned carrying a silk hat that was much in need of ironing.

"She lent it quite willingly," Eleanor said. "She says Mr. Townley's only used it twice. Once when they were married and once at a funeral. Put it on!" She fixed it on his head. "It doesn't quite fit," she said. "Perhaps if I were to put some paper inside the band, that would make it sit better!"

She lined the hat with, tissue paper and then, put it on his head again. "That's a lot better," she exclaimed. "Look at yourself in the glass!"

"I feel an awful fool in it," he murmured, glancing at his reflection in the mirror.

"Oh, well, I suppose all men do feel like fools when they put on silk hats ... at first anyhow ... but it isn't any worse than a bowler hat or one of those awful squash-hats that Socialists wear. Men's hats are hideous whatever shape they are. I don't know what we're to do about a morning coat for you. I didn't like to ask Mrs. Townley to lend her husband's to me!..."

"Good Lord, no! You can't borrow the man's entire wardrobe from him!"

"Your grey flannel trousers might look like ordinary trousers, if we could get a morning-coat for you!" She paused as if she were reflecting on the problem. "I know," she said at last. "It's sure to rain, in the morning. King George is going to the thing, so it's sure to rain. Wear your overcoat ... then you won't need a morning coat ... and the silk hat and your grey flannel trousers and your patent leather boots!..."

"It's a bit of a mixture, isn't it?"

"It won't be noticed. That'll do very nicely! Thank goodness, we've solved that problem! The money will be useful, dearest!"

V

"What luck!" said Eleanor, looking out of the window in the morning. The sky was grey and the streets were wet and dirty.