Chapter 28

"I know you won't," he replied in a softer voice, "but I'd rather earn the money myself!"

Mrs. MacDermott tightened her mouth. "Very well," she said.

"I've a good mind to let the flat till you come back," John murmured to Eleanor.

"What's that?" Mrs. MacDermott demanded.

"I was saying I'd a good mind to let the flat until she comes back. I could go to Miss Squibb's for a while. It 'ud really be cheaper!..."

"Would you let strangers walk into your house and use your furniture?"

"Yes. Why not? We shall be able to pay the rent and have a profit out of what we shall get for sub-letting it."

"Making a hotel out of your home," Mrs. MacDermott said in disgust.

"Och, we're not all home-mad," John retorted.

"That's the pity," his mother rejoined.

V

Three weeks later, Eleanor, and Mrs. MacDermott departed for Ballyards. Eleanor had refused to go away from London until she had seen John settled in his work and the flat sub-let to suitable tenants. She arranged for his return to Miss Squibb who, most opportunely, had his old room vacant, and she made Lizzie promise to take particular care of his comfort. "I can tyke care of 'im all right," Lizzie said. "I've tyken care of Mr. 'Inde for years, an' I feel I can tyke care of anybody after 'im. You leave 'im to me, Mrs. MacDermott, an' I wown't let 'im come to no 'arm!" She leant forward suddenly and whispered to Eleanor. "I do 'ope it's a boy," she said.

"Why?" said Eleanor blushing.

"Ow, I dunno. Looks better some'ow to 'ave a boy first go off. You can always 'ave a girl afterwards. Wot you goin' to call it, if it's a boy?"

"John, of course!" said Eleanor.

"Um-m-m. Well, I suppose you'll 'ave to, after 'is father, but if I 'ad a son I'd call 'im Perceval. I dunno why! I just would. It sounds nice some'ow. I mean it 'as a nice sound. Only people 'ud call 'im Perce, of course, an' that would be 'orrible. I dessay you're right. It's better to be called John than to be called Perce!"

"Why don't you get married, Lizzie?" Eleanor said.

"Never been ast. That's why. I'd jump at the chance if I got it. You down't think I'm 'angin' on 'ere out of love for Aunt. I'm just 'angin' on in 'ope!..."

But before Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards, they realised that John's sub-editorial work was hard and inconvenient. The unnatural hours of labour in noisy and insanitary surroundings left him very tired and crochetty in the morning, and he felt disinclined for other work. He had written his series of articles on London Streets for the _Evening Herald_, and Hinde had professed to like them sufficiently to ask for more of them. Twelve of them had been printed ... one each day for a fortnight ... and the money had cleared John of debt and left a little for the coming expense. Cream's two pounds per week came regularly every Monday morning, and this, with the income from the _Sensation_, and an occasional article made the prospects of life seem clearer. "There's no fame in it," he told himself, "but at least I'm paying my way!" In a little while, his second novel would be published, and perhaps it would bring a reward which he had unaccountably missed with his first book and his tragedy. More than anything else now, he wanted recognition. Money was good and acceptable and he would gladly have much more of it, but far beyond money he valued recognition. If he had to make choice between a large income and a large reputation, he would unhesitatingly choose a large reputation. He longed to hear Hinde admitting that he had been mistaken in John's quality. Indeed, in the last analysis, it seemed that more than money and more than general recognition, he craved for recognition from Hinde. He wished to see Hinde coming to him in a respectful manner!...

But there was little likelihood of that happening while he performed sub-editorial work on the _Sensation_. Every night he and the other sub-editors, young and unhealthy-looking men, sat round a big table, handling "flimsies" and scribbling rapidly. They invented head-lines and cross-headings, and they cut down the work of the outside staff. When a nugget of gold was found in Wales and was pronounced to be a lump of quartz with streaks of gold in it rather than a nugget of pure gold, John had headed the paragraph in which the news was reported, ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. He glanced at the heading after he had written it. "I seem to be getting into the way of this sort of thing," he said with a sigh. He put the paper down and got up from the table. The baskets lying about, full of "copy" or "flimsies" or cuttings from other papers; the hard, blinding light from the unshaded electric globes; the litter of newspapers and torn envelopes; the incessant _rurr-rurr-rurr_ of the printing machines; and the hot, exhausted air of the room ... all these seemed disgusting. He shut his eyes for a moment. "Oh, God," he prayed, "let my book be a success! Get me out of this, Oh, God, for Jesus Christ's sake!..."

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.