Chapter 9

Wednesday dragged itself out slowly and very reluctantly; Thursday was worse than Wednesday; and Friday was only saved from being as bad as Thursday by its nearness to Saturday. On the morrow, he would see Maggie again. Many times during the week, he had debated with himself as to whether he should write to her or not, but the difficulty of knowing what to say to her, except that he loved her and was longing for the advent of Saturday, prevented him front doing so. In any case, it would be difficult to write to her without questions from his mother, and if Maggie were to reply to him, there would be no end to the talk from her. After all, a week was only a week. On Monday, a week had seemed to be an interminable period of time, but on Friday, it had resumed the normal aspect of a week, a thing with a definite and reachable end. It was odd to observe how, as the week drew to its close, the intolerable things became tolerable. Miss Gebbie seemed to be a little less inhuman on Friday than she had been on Monday, and Lizzie Turley marvellously recovered her power to add two and one together and get the correct result. Beyond all doubt, he was in love. There could not be any other explanation of his behaviour and his peculiar impatience. That any man should conduct himself as he had done during the week now ending, for any other reason than that he was in love, was impossible. Why, he woke up in the morning, thinking of Maggie, and he went to sleep at night, thinking of Maggie. He thought of her when he was at school, and he thought of her in the street, in the shop, in the kitchen, even in his Uncle Matthew's room. When it was his turn to sit by Uncle Matthew's side, his mind, for more than half the time, was in Belfast with Maggie. He had read more than a hundred pages of _Willie Reilly_ to his Uncle, but he had not comprehended one of them. He had been thinking exclusively of Maggie.

He wondered whether he would always be in this state of absorption. Other people fell in love, as he knew, but they seemed to be able to think of other things besides their love. Perhaps they were not so much in love as he was! He began to see difficulties arising from this great devotion of his to Maggie. It would be very hard to concentrate his mind on a story if it were full of thoughts of her. He would probably spoil any work he attempted to do, because his mind would not be on it, but away with Maggie. In none of the books he had read, had he seen any account of the length of time a pair of lovers took in which to get used to each other and to adjust their affections to the ordinary needs of life. He would never cease to love Maggie, of course, but he wondered how long it would be before his mind would become capable of thinking of Maggie and of something else at the same time ... or even of thinking of something else without thinking of Maggie at all....

VI

His mother had looked dubiously at him when he talked of going to Belfast on Saturday. She said that he ought not to leave home while his Uncle Matthew was so ill, but Dr. Dobbs had given a more optimistic opinion on the sick man's condition, and so, after they had argued over the matter, she withdrew her objection. Uncle William had insisted that John ought to go up to the city for the sake of the change. The lad had had a hard week, what with his school work and his writing and his attention to Uncle Matthew, and the change would be good for him. "Only don't miss the train this time," he added to John.

Maggie met him outside the theatre. He had not long to wait for her, and his heart thrilled at the sight of her as she came round Arthur's Corner.

"So you have come," she said to him, as she shook hands with him.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" he answered.

"Oh, well," she replied, "you never know with fellows! Some of them makes an appointment to meet you, and you'd think from the way they talk about it that they were dying to meet you; and then when the time comes, you might stand at the corner 'til your feet were frozen to the ground, but not a bit of them would turn up. I'd never forgive a boy that treated me that way!"

"I'm not the sort that treats a girl that way," said John.

"Oh, indeed you could break your word as well as the next! Many's a time I've give my word to a fellow and broke it myself, just because I didn't feel like keeping it. But it's different for a girl nor it is for a fellow. There's no harm in a girl disappointing a fellow. I hear this piece at the Royal is awfully good this week. It's about a girl that nearly gets torn to pieces by a mad lion. I don't know whether I like that sort of piece or not. It seems terrible silly, and it would be awful if the hero come on a minute or two late and the girl was ate up fornent your eyes!"

John laughed. "There's not much danger of that," he replied.

There were very few people waiting outside the Pit Door, and so they were able to secure good seats with ease. "The best of coming in the daytime," John said, "is you have a better chance of the front row than you have at night!"

She nodded her head. "But it's better at night," she answered. "A piece never seems real to me in the daylight."

"Where'll we go to-night?" he said to her.

"Oh, I can't go with you to-night again," she exclaimed, taking a chocolate from the box which he had bought for her.

"Why?"

"I have another appointment!..."

"Break it," he commanded.

"I couldn't do that!..."

"Oh, yes, you could," he insisted. "You told me yourself you'd disappointed fellows many's a time!"

"I daresay I did, but I can't break this one," she retorted.

Suspicion entered his mind. "Is it with another fellow?" he asked.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," she said.

"Is it?" he demanded.

"And what if it is?"

"I don't want you to go out with anybody else but me!"

She ate another chocolate. "Have one?" she said, passing the box to him. He shook his head moodily. "Are you going to do what I ask or are you not?" he said.

"Don't be childish," she replied. "I've promised a friend to go to a concert to-night, and I'll have to go. That's all about it!"

"Is it a fellow?"

"Mebbe it is and mebbe it's not!" she teased.

"You know I'm in love with you!" She laughed lightly, and he bent his head closer to her. "Listen, Maggie," he went on, "I know I only met you for the first time last Saturday, but I'm terrible in love with you. Listen! I want to marry you, Maggie!..."

She burst out laughing.

"Don't make a mock of me," he pleaded.

She turned to look at him. "What age are you?" she demanded.

"I'm near nineteen," he answered.

"And I'm twenty-two," she retorted. "Twenty-two past, I am. Four years older nor you!..."

"That doesn't matter," he insisted.

"It wouldn't if the ages was the other way round ... you twenty-two and me nineteen!"

"It doesn't matter what way they are. It's not age that matters: it's feeling!"

"You'll feel different, mebbe, when you're a bit older. What would people say if I was to marry you now, after meeting you a couple of times, and you four years younger nor me?"

"It doesn't matter what they'd say," he replied. "Sure, people are always saying something!"

She ruminated! "I like going out with you well enough, and you're a queer, nice wee fellow, but it's foolish talk to be talking of getting married. What trade are you at?"

"I'm a monitor," he answered. "I'm in my last year!..."

"You're still at the school," she said.

"I'm a monitor," he replied, insisting on his status.

"Och, sure that's only learning. When in the earthly world would you be able to keep a wife?"

"I'm going to write books!..."

"What sort of books?"

"Story books," he said.

"Have you writ any yet?"

"No, but I wrote a short story once!"

She looked at him admiringly. "How much did you get for it?" she asked.

"I didn't get anything for it," he replied. "They wouldn't take it!"

She remained silent for a few moments. Then she said, "Your prospects aren't very bright!"

"But they'll get brighter," he said. "They will. I tell you they will!"

"When?" she asked.

"Some day," he answered.

"Some day may be a long day in coming," she went on. "I might have to wait a good while before you were able to marry me. Five or six years, mebbe, and then I'd be getting on to thirty, John. You'd better be looking out for a younger girl nor me!"

"I don't want anybody else but you," he replied.

VII

When the play was over, they walked arm in arm towards the restaurant where she was employed. "I promised Mrs. Bothwell we'd have our tea there," Maggie said to John. "It put her in a sweet temper, the thought of having two customers for certain. She'll mebbe give up that place. It's not paying her well. She wasn't going to give me the time off at first, but I told you were my cousin up from the country for the day!..."

"But I'm not your cousin," John objected.

"That doesn't matter. Sure, you have to tell a wee bit of a lie now and again, or you'd never get your way at all. And it saves bother and explaining!"

They crossed High Street and were soon at the foot of the stairs leading up to Bothwell's Restaurant. "Mind," said Maggie in a whisper, "you're my cousin!"

He did not speak, but followed her up the stairs and into the restaurant where she introduced him to a plain, stoutly-built, but cheerless woman who came from the small room into the large one as they entered it. There was one customer in the room, but he finished his tea and departed soon after Maggie and John arrived. In a little while, she and he were eating their meal. John politely asked Mrs. Bothwell to join them, but she declined.

She sat at a neighbouring table and talked to them of the play.

"I don't know when I was last at a theatre," she said, "and I don't know when I'll go again. I always say to myself when I come away, 'Well, that's over and my money's spent and what satisfaction have I got for it?' And when I think it all out, there doesn't seem to be any satisfaction. You've spent your money, and the play's over, and that's all. It seems a poor sort of return!'"

"You might say that about anything," John said. "A football match or ... or one of these nice wee cookies of yours!"

"Oh, indeed, you might," Mrs. Bothwell admitted. "Sure, there's no pleasure in the world that's lasting, and mebbe if there were we wouldn't like it. You pay your good money for a thing, and you have it a wee while, and then it's all over, and you have to pay more money for something else. Or mebbe you have it a long while, only you're not content with it. That's the way it always is. There's very little satisfaction to be got out of anything. Look at the Albert Memorial! That looks solid enough, but there's people says it'll tumble to the ground one of these days with the running water that's beneath it!"

Maggie took a big bite from a cookie. "Oh, now, there's satisfaction in everything," she said, "if you only go the right way about getting it and don't expect too much. I always say you get as much in this world as you're able to take ... and it's true enough. I know I take all in the way of enjoyment that I can put my two hands on. There's no use in being miserable, and it's nicer to be happy!"

"You're mebbe right." said Mrs. Bothwell. "But you can't just be miserable or happy when you like. I can't anyway!"

"You should try," said Maggie.

Mrs. Bothwell went to the small room and did not return. John was glad that her dissatisfaction with the universe did not make her oblivious of the fact that Maggie and he were content enough with each other's company and did not require the presence of a third party.

He leant across the table and took hold of one of Maggie's hands. "You've not answered my question yet?" he said.

"What question?" she said.

"About going out with me," he replied.

"I'll go to the Royal with you next Saturday," she said.

"Ah, but for good! I mean it when I say I want to marry you!..."

"You're an awful wee fool," she exclaimed, drawing her hand from his and slapping him playfully.

"Fool!"

"Yes. I thought at first you were having me on, but I think now you're only a wee fool. But I like you all the same!"

"Am I a fool for loving you?" he demanded.

"Oh, no, not for that, but for knowing so little!"

"Marry me, Maggie," he pleaded.

"Wheesht," she said, "Mrs. Bothwell will hear you!..."

"I don't care who hears!..."

"But I do," she interrupted. "You're an awful one for not caring. You've said that more nor once to-day!" She glanced at the clock. "I'll have to be going soon," she said.

"No, not yet awhile!..."

"But I will. I'll be late if I stop!..."

She began to draw on her gloves as she spoke.

"Well, when will I see you again?" he asked.

"Next Saturday if you like!..."

"Can I not see you before? I could come up to Belfast on Wednesday!..."

"I'm engaged on Wednesday," she said.

"But!"

"Och, quit butting," she retorted. "I'll see you on Saturday and no sooner. Pay Mrs. Bothwell and come on!..."

VIII

She insisted on leaving him at the Junction, and he moodily watched her climbing into a tram. She waved her hand to him as the tram drove off, and he waved his in reply. And then she was gone, and he had a sense of loss and depression. He stared gloomily about him. What should he do now? He might go to the Opera House or to one of the music-halls or he might just walk about the streets....

He thought of what Mrs. Bothwell had said earlier in the day. "There's very little satisfaction in anything!"

"There's a lot in that," he said to himself. "I'll go home," he continued. "There's no pleasure in mouching round the town by yourself!"

He got into a tram and was soon at the railway station. On the platform, a little way in front of him, he saw Willie Logan, flushed and excited, with two girls, one on either side of him. Willie had an arm round each girl's waist.

"That fellow's getting plenty of fun anyway," John said, as he climbed into an empty carriage. He did not wish to join Willie's party. He knew too well what Willie was like: a noisy, demonstrative fellow, indiscriminately amorous. "Nearly every girl's worth kissing," Willie had said to him on one occasion. "If you can't get your bit of fun with one woman, sure you can get it with another!"

Willie, in the carriage, would kiss one girl, John knew, and then would turn and kiss the other, "just to show there's no ill will." He might even invite John to kiss them in turn ... so that John might not feel uncomfortable and "out of it." He would lie back in the carriage, his big face flushed and his eyes bright with pleasure, an arm round each of his companions, and when he was not kissing them, he would be bawling out some song, or, at stations, hanging half out of the window to chaff the porters and the station-master. "Get all you can," he would say, "and do without the rest!"

But John was not a promiscuist: he was a monopolist. He put the whole of his strength into his love for one woman, and he demanded a similar singleness of devotion from her. His mind was full of Maggie, but he felt that she had cast him out of her mind the moment that the tram bore her out of his sight.

"I'll make her want me," he said, tightening his fists. "I'll make her want me 'til she's heartsore with wanting!"

THE FIFTH CHAPTER

I

Uncle Matthew died three days later. He slipped out of life without ostentation or murmur. "The MacDermotts are not afeard to die," he had said to John at the beginning of his illness, and in that spirit he had died. In the morning, he had asked Mrs. MacDermott to look for _Don Quixote_ in the attic and bring it to him, and she had done so. He had tried to read the book, but it was too heavy for him--his strength was swiftly going from him--and it had fallen from his hands on to the quilt and then had rolled on to the floor.

"I can't hold it," he murmured.

"Will I read it to you?" she said to him.

"Yes, if you please!" he said.

It was a badly-bound book, printed in small, eye-tormenting type, and it was difficult to hold; but she made no complaint of these things, and for an hour or so, she read to Uncle Matthew. She put the book down when his breathing denoted that he was asleep, but she did not immediately go from the room. She sat for a time, looking at the delicate face on the pillow, and then she picked the book up again and began to examine it, turning the pages over slowly, reading here and reading there, and examining the illustrations closely. There was a puzzled look on her face, and the flesh, between her eyebrows was puckered and deeply lined. She put the book down on her lap and looked intently in front of her, as if she were considering some problem. She picked the book up again, and once more turned over the pages and examined the pictures; but she did not appear to find any solution of her problem as she did so, for she put the book down on the dressing-table and left it there. She bent over the sleeping man for a few moments, listening to his breathing, and then she went out of the room leaving the door ajar.

And while she was downstairs, Uncle Matthew died. He had not wakened from his sleep. He seemed to be exactly in the same position as he was when she left the room. He was not breathing ... that was all. She called to Uncle William, and he came quickly up the stairs.

"Is anything wrong?" he said anxiously.

"Matt's dead!" she replied.

He stood still.

"Shut the shop," she said, "and send for John and the doctor!"

He did not move.

She touched him on the shoulder. "Do you hear me, William?"

He started. "Aye," he said, "I hear you right enough!"

But he still remained in the room, gazing blindly at his brother. Then he went over to the bed and sat down and cried.

"Poor William!" said Mrs. MacDermott, putting her arms around him.

II

John wrote to Maggie Carmichael to tell her of his Uncle's death. It would not be possible for him to keep his engagement with her on the following Saturday. She sent a thinly-written note of sympathy to him, telling him that she would not expect to see him for a while because of his bereavement. "_You'll not be in the mood for enjoying yourself at present,_" she wrote, "_and I daresay you would prefer to stay at home at present. I expect you'll miss your Uncle terribly!--_"

Indeed, he did miss his Uncle terribly!

There was a strange quietness in the house before the day of the burial, which was natural, but it was maintained after Uncle Matthew had been put in the grave where John's father lay. Uncle William's quick, loud voice became hushed and slow and sometimes inaudible, and Mrs. MacDermott went about her work with few words to anyone. John had come on her, an hour or two before the coffin lid was screwed down, putting a book in Uncle Matthew's hands. He saw the title of it ... _Don Quixote_ ... and he said to her, "What are you doing, ma?" She looked up quickly and hesitated. "Nothing!" she answered, and suddenly aware that she did not wish to be observed, he went away and left her alone. It seemed to him afterwards that she resented his knowledge of what she had done ... that she looked at him sometimes as if she were forbidding him ever to speak of it ... but she did not talk of it. She spoke as seldom as Uncle William did, and it seemed to John that the voice had been carried out of the house when Uncle Matthew had been carried to the graveyard. He felt that he could not endure the oppression of this silence any longer, that he must, speak to someone, and, in his search for comfort, his mind wandered in search of Maggie Carmichael with intenser devotion than he had ever experienced before. If only Uncle Matthew were alive, John could talk to him of Maggie. Uncle Matthew would listen to him. Uncle Matthew always had listened to him. He had never shown any impatience when John had talked to him of this scheme and that scheme, and he would not have mocked his love for Maggie. How queer a thing it was that Uncle Matthew who had seemed to be the least important person in the house should have so ... so stifled the rest of them by his death!

Uncle William, who bore the whole burden of maintaining the family, mourned for Uncle Matthew as if he had lost his support; and Mrs. MacDermott began to talk, when she talked at all, of the things that Matt had liked. Matt liked this and Matt liked that ... and yet she had seemed not merely to disregard Uncle Matthew when he was alive, but actually to dislike him. Uncle Matthew must have had a stronger place in the house than any of them had imagined. John could not bear to go to the attic now, although he wished to turn over the books which were now his. It was in the attic that Uncle Matthew had found most of his happiness, in the company of uncomplaining, unreproachful books, and the memory of that happiness had drawn John to the attic one day when he most missed his Uncle. He had handled the books very fondly, turning over pages and pausing now and then to read a passage or two ... and while he had turned the pages of an old book with faded, yellow leaves, he had found a cutting from a Belfast newspaper. It contained a report of the police proceedings against Uncle Matthew, and it was headed, STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF A BALLYARDS MAN!... John hurriedly put the book down and went out of the room. He had not shed a tear over Uncle Matthew. He did not wish to cry over him. He felt that Uncle Matthew would like his mourners to have dry eyes ... but it was hard not to cry when one read that bare, uncomprehending account of Uncle Matthew's chivalrous act. _Strange_ behaviour, the reporter named it, when every instinct in John demanded that it should be called _noble_ behaviour. Was a man to be called a fool because his heart compelled him to perform an act of simple loyalty?... _Strange behaviour_! John seized the cutting and crumpled it in his hand. Then he straightened it out again and tore it in pieces. Were people so poor in faith and devotion that they could not recognise the nobility of what Uncle Matthew had done? And for that act of goodness, Uncle Matthew had gone to his grave under stigma. "Poor sowl," they said in Ballyards, "it's a merciful release for him. He was always quare in the head!"