Chapter 8

"Of course I'm in love with her. I never was in the habit of just going with girls. That's all right, mebbe, for Willie Logan, but I'm not fond of it," said John indignantly.

"You fell in love with her in a terrible great hurry," Uncle Matthew exclaimed.

"Aye," said John laughing. "It was queer and comic the way I fell in love with her, for I had no notion of such a thing when I went in the shop to have my tea. She's in a restaurant off High Street. I'd been to the Royal to see _Romeo and Juliet_, and I was full of the play and just wandering about, not thinking of what I was doing, when all of a sudden I saw this place fornent my eyes, and I just went in, and she was there by her lone. The woman that keeps the place had gone home with a sore head, and left her to look after it!"

"What's her name?"

"Maggie Carmichael. It's a nice name. They don't do much trade on a Saturday, and her and me were alone in the shop by ourselves so I asked her to have tea with me, and then I asked her to go to the Royal, and she agreed after a while, and when it was over, I took her home, and that's why I missed the train and had to tramp it the whole way home. She's older nor I am. She says she's twenty-two. She was codding me for never having kissed any other girl but her!..."

"You got that length, did you?"

"Aye," said John in confusion.

"You're like your da. Take what you want, the minute you want it. She'll think you're in earnest, John!"

"I am in earnest. I couldn't be any other way. How could a man feel about a woman, the way I feel about her, and not be in earnest?"

"As easy as winking," said Uncle Matthew. "You'll mebbe be in love a hundred times before you marry, and every time you'll think it's the right one at last. There's no law in love, John. You can't say about it, that you've got to know a woman well before you're safe in marrying her, nor you can't just shut your eyes and grab hold of the first one that comes to your hand. There's no law, John ... none at all. It's an adventure, love. That's what it is. You don't know what lies at the end of your journey ... and you can't know ... and mebbe when you reach the end, you don't know. You just have to take your chance, and trust to God it'll be all right! Is she in love with you?"

"I don't know. I don't suppose so. She made fun of me, so I suppose she can't be. But she said she liked me."

"Making fun of you is nothing to go by. Some women would make fun of God Almighty, and think no harm of it. You'll soon know whether she's in love with you or not, my son!"

"How will I, Uncle Matthew?"

"When she begins to treat you as if you were her property. That's a sure and certain sign. The minute a woman looks at a man as much as to say, 'That fellow belongs to me,' she's in love with him, as sure as death. Anyway, she's going to marry him! Boys-a-boys, John, but you're the lucky lad with all your youth and health in front of you, and you setting out in the world. Many's the time I've longed at nights to be lying snug and comfortable and quiet in a woman's arms, but I never had that pleasure. Whatever you do, John, don't die an unmarried man like your Uncle William and me. It's better to live with a cross sour-natured woman nor it is to live with no woman at all; for even the worst woman in the world has given a wee while of happiness to her man, and he always has that in his mind to comfort him however bad she turns out after. And if she is bad, sure you can run away from her!"

"Run away from her! You'd never advocate the like of that, Uncle Matthew?"

"I would. I'm a dying man, John, and mebbe I'll be dead by the morrow's morn, so you may be sure I'm saying things now that I mean with all my heart, for no man wants to go before his God with lies on his lips. And I tell you now, boy, that if a man and woman are not happy together, they ought to separate and go away from each other as far as they can get, no matter what the cost is. Them's my solemn words, John. I'd like well to see this girl you're after, but I'll mebbe not be able. No matter for that. Pay heed to me now, for fear I don't get the opportunity to say it to you again. Whatever adventures you set out on, never forget they're only adventures, and if one turns out to be bad, another'll mebbe turn out to be good. Don't be like me, don't let one thing affect your life for ever!..." He lay back on his pillow for a few moments and did not speak. John waited a little while, and then he leant forward. "Will I fetch my ma?" he asked.

Uncle Matthew shook his head and waved feebly with his hand, and John sat back again in his chair.

"Life's just balancing one adventure against another," Uncle Matthew said at last, without raising his head from the pillow. "The good against the bad. And the happy man is him that can set off a lot of good adventures against bad ones, and have a balance of good ones in his favour. But it takes courage to have a lot, John. The Jenny-joes of the world never try again after the first bad one. I ... I was staggered that time ... I ... I never got my foothold again. The balance is against me, John!..."

Mrs. MacDermott came into the room.

"It's time you went to your bed, son," she said, "and your Uncle'll want to get to sleep, mebbe. Are you all right, Matt?"

"I'm nicely, thank you, Hannah!"

John got up from his seat and said "Good-night!" to his Uncle.

"Good-night, John. Mind well what I've said to you!"

"I will, Uncle Matthew!"

"Good-night, son, dear!" said Uncle Matthew, smiling at him.

III

In the morning, Uncle Matthew was better than he had been during the night, and Dr. Dobbs, when he called to see him, thought that he would live for several weeks more. John went down to the kitchen from his Uncle's room, happy at the thought that his Uncle might recover in spite of the doctor's statement that death was inevitable within a short time. Doctors, he told himself, had made many mistakes, and perhaps Dr. Dobbs was making a mistake about Uncle Matthew.

He had lain late, heavy with fatigue, for Mrs. MacDermott had not called him at his usual hour and so the morning was well advanced when he came down.

"There's a letter for you," said Uncle William, pointing to the mantel-shelf, where a foolscap envelope rested against the clock. "It'll be about the story, I'm thinking!"

John took the letter in his trembling fingers and tore it open.

"They've sent it back," he said in a low tone.

"There'll be a note with it," Uncle William murmured.

"Yes!..." He straightened out the printed note and read it. "They've declined it," he said.

"They've what?" Uncle William exclaimed, taking the printed slip from John's hands. He read the note of rejection through several times.

"What does it say?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.

"It's a queer kind of a note, this!" said Uncle William. "You'd think the man was breaking his heart at the idea of not printing the story. He doesn't say anything about it, whether it's good or bad. He just thanks John for sending it to him and says he's sorry he can't accept it. If he's so sorry as all that, why the hell doesn't he print it?"

"William!" said Mrs. MacDermott sharply. "This is Sunday!"

"Well, dear knows I don't want to desecrate God's Day," Uncle William answered, accepting the rebuke, "but that is a lamentable letter to get. I must say!"

Mrs. MacDermott held her hand out for the letter. "Give it to me," she said, and she took it from Uncle William.

"This is his way of saying your story's no good, John," she said, when she had read through the note. "No man would refuse a thing if he thought it was worth printing!"

Her words hurt John very sorely. He looked at her, but he did not speak, and then, after a moment or two, he turned away.

"Now, now, that's not right at all," Uncle William said comfortingly. "There might be a thousand things to prevent the man from printing the story. Mebbe he doesn't know a good story when he sees it. Sure, half these papers nowadays print stories that would turn a child's stomach, and a thing's not bad just because one paper won't take it. There's other magazines besides _Blackwood's_, John, as good, too, and mebbe better!" He went over to his nephew and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "There, there, now, don't let this upset you! Your Uncle Matthew was telling me the other day that some of the greatest writers in the world had their best stories refused time after time. Don't lose heart over a thing like that!"

"I haven't lost heart, Uncle William. I daresay it isn't as good as I thought it was, but I'll improve. It wasn't to be expected I'd succeed the first time!"

"That's the spirit, boy. That's the spirit!"

"Only I'm disappointed all the same. It's likely I don't know enough yet!"

"Oh, that's very likely," said Uncle William. "You're only a young fellow yet, you know!"

"Mebbe that story of mine is full of ignorant mistakes I wouldn't have made if I'd been about the world a bit and seen more!"

"I daresay you're right! I daresay you're right!..."

Mrs. MacDermott came between them. "What are you leading up to?" she demanded.

"I must travel a bit before I start writing things," John answered. "I must know more and see more. My Uncle Matthew's right. You have to go out into the world to get adventure and romance!..."

"Can't you get all the adventure and romance you need in this place, and not go tramping among strangers and foreigners for it?" Mrs. MacDermott retorted angrily.

"How can I get adventure and romance in a place where I know everybody?" John rejoined.

"Are you proposing to leave home, John!" Uncle William asked.

"Aye! For a while anyway," John answered, "I'll go to London!..."

"You'll not go to no London," Mrs. MacDermott retorted, "and your Uncle, Matthew lying on his deathbed!..."

"I'm not proposing to go this minute, ma!..."

"You'll not go at all," she insisted.

"I will!"

"You will not, I tell you. What would a lump of a lad like you do in a place of that sort, where there's temptation and sin at every corner! Doesn't everyone know that the Devil's roaming up and down the streets of London day and night, luring young men to their ruin? There's bad women in London!..."

"There's bad women everywhere," John replied. "You don't need to be your age to know that!"

She listened angrily while John explained his point of view to his Uncle William. Travel and new experiences were necessary to the development of his mind.

"Don't you go up to Belfast every week!" Mrs. MacDermott interrupted.

"I was in Belfast yesterday," John retorted, "but there wasn't a thing happened to me, romantic or anything else!..." He stopped abruptly, smitten by the recollection of his meeting with Maggie Carmichael. After all, _that_ was a romantic adventure! Most strange that he had not thought of his love affair in that way before! Of course, it was a romantic adventure! He had walked straight out of a dull street, you might say, into an enchanted café ... and had found Maggie in captivity, waiting for him to deliver her from it. She had been lonely ... and he had come to comfort her. He had taken her from that dull, cheerless ... prison ... you could call it that!... and had taken her to a pleasant place and made love to her! Oh, but of course it was a romantic adventure, with love and a beautiful golden-haired girl at the end of it. And here he was, moping over the misadventure of a manuscript and talking of travel in distant places in search of exciting experiences as if he had not already had the most thrilling and wonderful adventure that is possible to a man! Why, if he were to leave Ballyards and go to London, he would lose Maggie ... would not see her again!... By the Holy O, his mother was right after all! Women _were_ right sometimes! There was plenty of romance and adventure lying at your hand, if you only took the trouble to look for it. Mebbe... mebbe a thing was romantic or not romantic, just according to the way you looked at it. One man could see romance in a grocer's shop, and another man could not see romance anywhere but in places where he had never been!...

"Mebbe you're right, ma," he said.

Mrs. MacDermott looked suspiciously at him. "You changed your mind very quick," she said.

"I always change my mind quick," he replied.

They heard the noise of tapping overhead.

"That's your Uncle Matthew," said Mrs. MacDermott, rising from her chair.

"I'll go," John exclaimed hastily. "It's mebbe me he wants!"

He ran quickly up the stairs and entered his Uncle's room.

"Yes, Uncle Matthew?" he said.

"I heard you all talking together," Uncle Matthew answered. "What's happened?"

"Oh, nothing! My story's been refused. That's all."

Uncle Matthew put out his hand and took hold of John's. "Are you very disappointed?" he said.

"Yes, I am. I made sure they'd take it!"

"There ought to have been a woman in it. You know, John, I told you that. There was no love in that story, and people like to read about love. That's natural. Sure, it's the beginning of everything!"

"I didn't know anything about it then, Uncle!..."

"No, but you do now ... a wee bit ... and you might have imagined it. You'd never be your father's son, if you hadn't a heart brimful of love. What else were you talking about?"

John told his Uncle of his proposal to go to London in search of experience.

"Aye, you'll have to do that some day," his Uncle replied, "but there's no hurry yet awhile. You'd better finish your schooling first, and you could go on writing here 'til you get more mastery of it. You might try to write a book, and then when it's done, you could go to London or somewhere. I'd be sorry if you went just now!..."

"I'm not meaning to go yet, Uncle!"

"Very good, son. I'd like you to be here when I ... when!..."

He did not finish his sentence, but the pressure of his hand on John's increased.

"Eh, John?" he said.

"Yes, Uncle Matthew!" John replied. He quickly changed the conversation. "You're looking a lot better," he said.

Uncle Matthew smiled. "Oh, aye," he replied, "I feel a lot better, too. I'll mebbe beat the doctor yet. He thinks I'm done for, but mebbe I'll teach him different!"

"You will, indeed. And why wouldn't you? You're young yet!"

Uncle Matthew did not reply to this. He turned on his pillow and glanced towards the dressing-table.

"Are you looking for anything?" John asked.

"Is there a book there?"

"No," John said. "Do you want one?"

"Your ma read a wee bit to me in the night, after you went to bed. I thought mebbe you'd read a wee bit more to me. _Willie Reilly_, it was."

"I'll get it for you," John replied, going to the door. He called to his mother, and she told him that she had brought the book downstairs with her.

"Wait a minute and I'll fetch it," she said.

She returned in a moment or two, carrying the book in her hand, and mounted half-way up the staircase to meet him. She pointed to a place in the book. "I read up to there to him in the night," she said. John looked at his mother, as he took the book from her hands, and saw how tired she looked.

"Did you not get any sleep at all, ma?" he asked with concern.

"I'm all right, son," she answered.

"No, you're not," he insisted. "You'll just go to your bed this minute and lie down for a while!..."

"And the dinner to cook and all," she interrupted.

"Well, after your dinner then. You'll lie down the whole afternoon. Uncle William and me'll get the tea ready, and we'll take it in turns to look after Uncle Matthew!"

She stood on the step beneath him, looking at him with dark, tired eyes, and then she put out her hand and touched him on the shoulder. "You'll not leave me, John?" she pleaded.

"No, ma," he answered. "Not for a long while yet!"

She turned away from him and went down the stairs again.

John returned to his Uncle's room, and sat down by the side of the bed. He opened the book and began to read of Willie Reilly and his Colleen Bawn. Now and then he glanced at his Uncle and wondered at the childlike and innocent look on his face. There was a strange simplicity in his eyes ... not the simplicity of those who have not got understanding, but of those who have a deep and unchangeable knowledge that is very different from the knowledge of other men; and once again John assured himself that while Uncle Matthew's behaviour might be "quare" when compared with that of other people, yet it was not foolish behaviour nor the behaviour of the feeble-minded: it was the conduct of a man who responded immediately to simple and honest emotions, who did not stop to consider questions of discretion or interest, but did the thing which seemed to him to be right.

"What are you thinking of, Uncle Matthew?" he said suddenly, putting down the book, for it seemed to him that his Uncle was no longer listening.

"I was thinking I wouldn't have missed my life for the wide world!" Uncle Matthew replied.

"After everything?" John asked.

"Aye, in spite of everything," said Uncle Matthew. "There's great value in life ... great value!"

John picked up the book again, but he did not begin to read, nor did Uncle Matthew show any signs that he wished the reading to be resumed.

"Our minds go this way and that way," Uncle Matthew went on, "and some of us are not happy 'til we're away here and there!..."

"You were always wanting to be off after adventures yourself, Uncle Matthew!"

"Aye, John, I was, and I never went. I've oftentimes thought little of myself for that, but I'm wondering now, lying here, whether it wasn't a great adventure to stop at home. I don't know! I don't know! But I'll know in a wee while! John!"

"Yes, Uncle!"

"I wouldn't change places with the King of England, at this minute, not for all the money in the mint and my weight in gold!"

"Why, Uncle Matthew?"

"Do you know why? Because in a wee while, I'll know all there is to know, and he'll be left here knowing no more nor the rest of you. God is good, John. He shares out his knowledge without favour to anyone. The like of us'll know as much in the next world as the like of them!..."

IV

When the sharper anxieties concerning Uncle Matthew had subsided, John's mind was filled with thoughts of Maggie Carmichael. It seemed to him to be impossible that any seven days in the history of the world had been so long in passing as the seven days which separated him from his next meeting with her. His work at the Ballyards National School lost any interest it ever had for him: the pupils seemed to be at once the stupidest and laziest and most aggravating children on earth. Lizzie Turley completely lost her power to add two and one together and make three of them. Strive as he might, he could not make her comprehend or remember that two and one, when added together, did not amount to five. There was even a dreadful day when she lost her power to subtract.... Miss Gebbie, the teacher to whom he was most often monitor, had always had hard, uncouth manners, but they became almost intolerable before the seven days had passed by ... and it seemed certain that there must be a crisis in her life and in his before the clock struck three on Friday afternoon! If she complained again, he said to himself, about the way in which he marked the children's exercise books, he would tell her in very plain language what he thought of her and her big bamboo-cane. When she slapped the children, the corners of her mouth went down and her large lips tightened and a cruel glint came into her eyes!...

It was only during the reading half-hour that his mind was at ease in school that week, for then he could let his thoughts roam from Ballyards to Belfast, and fill his eyes with visions of Maggie. The droning voices of the children, reading "Jack has got a cart and can draw sand and clay in it," were almost soothing, and it was sufficient for supervision, if now and then, he would call out, "Next!" The child who was reading would instantly stop, and the child next to her would instantly begin....

It seemed to him that he had the clearest impressions of Maggie Carmichael, and yet had also the vaguest impressions of her. He remembered very distinctly that she had bright, laughing eyes, and that her hair was fair, and that she had pretty teeth: white and even. He had often read in books of the beauty of a woman's teeth, but he had never paid much attention to them. After all, what was the purpose of teeth? To bite. It was ridiculous, he had told himself, to talk and write of beauty in teeth when all that mattered was whether they could bite well or not.... But now, remembering the beauty of Maggie Carmichael's mouth, he saw that the writers had done well when they insisted on the beauty of teeth. Any sort of a good tooth would do for biting and chewing, but there was something more than that to be said for good, white, even teeth. If teeth were of no value otherwise than for biting and chewing, false teeth were better than natural teeth!... And false teeth were so hideous to look at; so smug, so self-conscious. Aggie Logan had false teeth. So had Teeshie McBratney and Sadie Cochrane. Things with pale gums!...

He had wanted to kiss Maggie Carmichael's teeth, so beautiful were they. Just her teeth. It had been splendid to kiss her lips, but then one always kissed lips. Men, according to the books, even kissed hair and ears and eyes. He had read recently of a man who kissed a woman on the neck, just behind the ear; and at the time he had thought that this was a very queer thing to do. Love, he supposed, was responsible for a thing like that. He could not account for it in any other way. He understood _now_, of course. When a man loved a woman, every part of her was very dear and beautiful to him, and to kiss her neck just behind the ear was as exquisite as to kiss her lips. No one, in any of the books he had read, had wished to kiss a woman's teeth. There were still hidden joys in kissing ... and he had discovered one of them. He would kiss Maggie's teeth on Saturday. He would kiss her lips, too, of course, and her hair and her eyes and ears and the part of her neck that was just behind her ear, but most of all he would kiss her teeth!...

He thought that it was very strange that he should think so ardently of kissing Maggie. He could have kissed Aggie Logan dozens of times, but he had never had the slightest desire to kiss her. He remembered how foolish he had thought her that night at the soiree when someone proposed that they should play Postman's Knock. Aggie Logan had called him out to the lobby. There was a letter for him, she said, with three stamps on it. Three stamps! Did anyone ever hear the like of that? And he was to go into the lobby and give her three kisses, one after the other ... peck, peck, peck ... and then it would be his turn to call for someone, and Aggie would expect him to call for her! ... Willie Logan had called for a girl. He had a letter for her with fifty stamps on it ... A great roar of laughter had gone up from the others when they heard of the amount of the postage, and Willie was thought to be a daring, desperate fellow ... until the superintendent of the Sunday School said that there must be reason in all things and proposed a limit of three stamps on each letter ... no person to be called for more than twice in succession. Willie, boisterous and very amorous, whispered to John that he did not care what limit they made ... no one could tell how many extra stamps you put on your letter out in the lobby....

John had not answered Aggie's call. He had contrived to get out of the school-room without being observed, and Aggie had been obliged to call for someone else. Kissing!... Kiss her!... Three stamps!... Peck, peck, _peck_!...

V