Book: The Foolish Lovers

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




"Only you, Eleanor. Not anybody else!"

There was a silence for a few moments, and then she turned to the door
and inserted the key in the lock.

"Well, please go away now," she said. "You can't do any good here!..."

"Let me come in and tell your father and mother I want to marry you!"

She opened the door and gazed at him as if she could not believe her
ears.

"This is a residential club for women," she said. "I have no parents, I
think you're the silliest man I've ever encountered. Please go away!
You'll get me talked about!..."

She shut the door in his face.

He stared blankly at the glass panels of the door for a few moments and
then went down the steps into the street, and as he did so, he saw a
light suddenly illuminate the room immediately above the pillared
portico. He stared up at it, and saw that the window was open, and
while he looked, he saw Eleanor come to it and begin to draw it down.

He called out to her. "Eleanor!" he said, "Hi, Eleanor!"

She peered out of the window, and then leant her head through the
opening. "There's a policeman at the corner," she said, "I shall call
him if you don't go away!"

"Very well," he replied. "They can't put a man in gaol for loving a
woman!"

"They can put him in gaol for annoying her!"

"I'm not annoying you. How can I annoy you when I'm in love with you?
No, don't interrupt me. You haven't let me get a word out of my mouth
all night!" He could hear her laughing at him. "Are you codding me?" he
said.

"What?" she replied in a puzzled voice.

"Are you codding me?" he repeated. "Are you making fun of me?"

She leant out of the window as if she were trying to see him more
closely. "You really are funny," she said. "I was afraid of you ... you
stared so ... but I'm not afraid of you now. You're a funny little
fellow, but I do wish you'd go away!"

"Come down and talk to me, and I'll go home content!..."

"You're being silly again!"

"No, I'm not. I tell you, girl, I'm mad in love with you, and I'll sit
on your doorstep all night 'til you agree to go out with me!"

"The policeman would lock you up if you were to do that," she replied.
"I'm not in love with you ... I don't even like you ... I think you're
a horrid man, staring at people the way you do ... and I won't 'go out
with you,' as you call it. I'm not a servant girl!..."

"What does it matter to me what sort of a girl you are, if I'm in love
with you. You must like me ... you can't help it!..."

"Oh, can't I?"

"No. I never heard tell yet of a man loving a woman the way I love you,
and her not to fall in love with him!"

"Don't talk so loudly, please," she said in a lowered tone. "People
will hear you, and there's someone coming down the street."

"I don't care!..."

"But I do. Now listen to me, Mr.... Mr.... I can't remember your name!"

"My name's MacDermott, but you can call me John."

"Thank you, Mr. MacDermott, but I don't wish to call you John. Now
listen to me. I think you're a very romantic young man!... No, please
let me finish one sentence! You're a very romantic young man, and I
daresay you think that all you've got to do is to tell the first girl
you meet that you're in love with her, and she'll say, 'Oh, thank you!'
and fall into your arms. Well you're wrong! You may think you're very
romantic, but I think you're just a tedious fool!..."

"A what?"

"A tedious fool. You've made me feel exceedingly uncomfortable more
than once. I had to stop going to that tea-shop because I couldn't eat
my food without your eyes staring at me all the time. Fortunately, the
work I was doing in the City was only a temporary job, and I got a
permanent post elsewhere and was able to move away from the City
altogether!..."

"But Eleanor!..."

"How dare you call me Eleanor!"

"Because I love you!" he said.

She seemed to be nonplussed by his reply. She did not speak for a few
moments. Then, altering her tone, she said, "Oh, well, I daresay you
think you do!"

"I don't think. I know. I'll not be content till I marry you. Now,
Eleanor, do you hear that?"

"I know nothing whatever about you!..."

"Come down to the doorstep and I'll tell you. Will you?"

"No, of course not!"

"Well, how can you blame me then if you won't listen to me when I offer
to tell you about myself. You know my name. John MacDermott. And I'm
Irish!..."

"Yes," she interrupted, "I'm making big allowances for that!"

"My family's the most respected family in Ballyards!..."

"Where's that?" she asked.

"Do you not know either? You're the second person I've met in London
didn't know that. It's in County Down. My mother lives there, and so
does my Uncle William. I've come here to write books!..."

"Are you an author?" she exclaimed with interest.

"I am," he said proudly. "I've written a novel and I'm writing a
play!... Come down and I'll tell you about them!"

"Oh, no, I can't. It's too late. And you must go home. Where do you
live?"

"At Brixton," he answered.

"That's miles from here. And you'll miss the last bus if you don't
hurry!..."

"I can walk. Come down, will you!"

"No. No, no. It's much too late," she said hurriedly. "And I can't stay
here talking to you any longer. Someone will make a complaint about me.
You'll get me into trouble!..."

"Well, will you meet me to-morrow somewhere? Wherever you like!"

"No!..."

"Ah, do!"

"No, I won't. Why should I?"

"Because I'm in love with you and want you to meet me."

"No!..."

"Then I'll sit here all night then. I'll let the peeler take me up, and
I'll tell the whole world I'm in love with you!"

"You're a beast. You're really a beast!"

"I'm not. I'm in love with you. That's all. Will you meet me the
morrow?"

"I don't know!..."

"Well, make up your mind then."

She remained silent for a few moments.

"Well?" he said.

"I don't see why I should meet you!..."

"Never mind about that. Just meet me!"

"Well ... perhaps ... only perhaps, mind you ... I don't promise
really ... I might meet you ... just for a minute or two!..."

"Where?"

"At the bookstall in Charing Cross station. Do you know it?"

"I'll soon find it. What time?"

"Five o'clock!"

"Right. I'll be there to the minute!..."

"Go home now. You've a long way to go, and I'm very tired!"

"All right, Eleanor. I wish you'd come down, though. Just for a wee
while!"

"I can't. Good-night!"

"Good-night, my dear. You've the loveliest eyes!..."

She closed the window, but he could see her standing behind the glass
looking at him.

He kissed his hand to her and then, when she had moved away, he walked
off.

"Good night, constable!" he said cheerily to the policeman at the
corner.

The policeman looked suspiciously at him.

"How do you get to Brixton from here?" John continued.

"First on the right, first on the left, first on the right again, and
you're in the Bayswater Road. Turn to the left and keep on until you
reach Marble Arch. You'll get a 'bus there, if you're lucky. If you're
too late, you'll have to walk it. Go down Park Lane and ask again. Make
for Victoria!"

"Thanks," said John.

He walked along the Bayswater Road, singing in his heart, and after a
while, finding that the street was almost empty, he began to sing
aloud. The roadway shone in the cold light thrown from the high
electric lamps, and there was a faint mist hanging about the trees in
Kensington Gardens. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was full of
friendly stars. All around him was beauty and light. The gleaming
roadway and the gleaming sky seemed to be illuminated in honour of his
triumphant love, for he did not doubt that his love was triumphant. The
night air was fresh and cool. It had none of the exhausted taste that
the air seems always to have in London during the day. It was new,
clean air, fresh from the sea or from the hills, and he took off his
hat so that his forehead might be fanned by it. He glanced about him as
if in every shadow he expected to see a friend. London no longer seemed
too large to love.

"I like this place," he said, waving his hat in the air.

A policeman told him of a very late 'bus that went down Whitehall and
would take him as far as Kensington Gate, and he hurried off to Charing
Cross and was lucky enough to catch the 'bus.

"How much?" he said to the conductor.

"Sixpence on this 'bus," the conductor replied.

John handed a shilling to him. "You can keep the change," he said.



VI

Hinde was lying on the sofa in the sitting-room when John, slightly
tired, but too elated to be aware of his fatigue, got home.

"Hilloa," he said sleepily, "how did the concert go?"

John suddenly remembered.

"Holy O!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his head.

"What's that?" Hinde said.

"I forgot all about it," John replied.

"Forgot all about it! Do you mean you didn't go to it?"

"I went all right, but I forgot to take my notice to the office!"

Hinde sat up and stared at him. "You _forgot_!..." He could not
say any more.

John told him of the encounter with Eleanor.

"You mean to say you let your paper down for the sake of a girl," Hinde
exclaimed incredulously.

"I'll go back now," John said, turning to leave the room.

"Go back _now_! What's the good of that? The paper's been put to
bed half an hour and more ago. My God Almighty ... you let the paper
down. For the sake of a girl!"

He seemed to have difficulty in expressing his thoughts, and he sat
back and gaped at John as if he had just been informed that the Last
Day had been officially announced.

"You needn't show your nose in _that_ office again," he said
again. "I never heard of such a reason for letting a paper down! Good
heavens, man, don't you realise what you've done? _You've let the
paper down_!"

"I'm in love with this girl!..."

Hinde almost snarled at him. "Ach-h-h, _love_!" he shouted. "And
you propose to be a journalist. Let your paper down. For a girl. You
sloppy fellow!... My heavens above, I never heard of such a thing.
Letting your paper down!..."

He walked about the room, repeating many times that John had "let his
paper down."

"And I recommended you to Clotworthy, too. I told him you had the stuff
in you. I thought you had. I thought you could do a job decently, but
by the Holy O, you're no good. You let your own feelings come between
you and your work. Oh! Oh, oh! Oh, go to bed quick or I'll knock the
head off you. I'll not be responsible for myself if you stand there any
longer like a moonstruck fool!"

"If you talk to me like that," said John, "I'll hit you a welt on the
jaw. I'm sorry I forgot about the paper, but sure what does it matter
anyway?..."

"What does it matter!" Hinde almost shrieked at him. "Your paper will
be the only paper in London which won't have a report of that concert
in it to-morrow. That's what it matters? I'd be ashamed to let my paper
down for any reason on earth. If my mother was dying, I wouldn't let
her prevent me from doing my job!... If you can't understand that, John
MacDermott, you needn't try to be a journalist. You haven't got it in
you. Your paper's your father and your mother and your wife and your
children! Oh, go to bed, out of my sight, or I'll forget myself!..."

John walked towards the door.

"I'd rather love a woman any day than a paper," he said.

"Well, go and love her then, and don't try to interfere with a paper
again! Don't come down Fleet Street pretending you're a journalist!"

"Good-night!"

"Yah-h-h!" said Hinde.




THE FIFTH CHAPTER


I

It had been exceedingly difficult for John to explain his defection to
Mr. Clotworthy and to Tarleton. The only mitigating feature of the
business was that the matter to be reported was only a concert. Both
Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton trembled when they thought of the calamity
that would have befallen the paper if the forgotten report had been of
a murder! They hardly dared contemplate such a devastating prospect.
They invited John to think of another profession and wished him a very
good morning. Tarleton quitted the room, leaving John alone with the
editor, and as he went he showed such contempt towards him as is only
shown towards the meanest of God's creatures.

"Well, where's your Ulster now?" said Mr. Clotworthy very sardonically
when they were alone together.

"I know rightly I'm in the wrong from your point of view, Mr.
Clotworthy," John replied, "but I'd do the same thing again if twenty
jobs depended on it. It's hard to make you understand, and mebbe I'm a
fool to try, but there it is. The minute I clapped my eyes on her, I
forgot everything but her. I'm sorry I've lost my post here, but I'd be
sorrier to have lost her. That's all about it. You were very kind to
give me the work, and I wish I hadn't let your paper down the way Hinde
says I did, but it's no good me pretending about it. I'd do it again if
the same thing happened another time. That's the beginning and end of
it all. I'd rather be her husband than edit a dozen papers like yours.
I'd rather be her husband than be anything else in the world!"

"Well, good afternoon!" said Mr. Clotworthy.

"Good afternoon!" said John, turning away.

He moved towards the door of the room, feeling much less assurance than
he had felt when he came into it.

"If you care to send in some articles for page six," Mr. Clotworthy
added, "I'd be glad to see them!"

"Thank you," said John.

"Not at all," the editor replied without glancing up.

He left the _Daily Sensation_ office, and walked towards Charing
Cross. A queer depression had settled upon his spirits. Hinde had
treated him as if he were mentally deficient, and he knew that Mr.
Clotworthy and Tarleton, particularly Tarleton, regarded him with
coldness, but he was not deeply affected by their disapproval.
Nevertheless, depression possessed him. He felt that Eleanor would fail
to keep her appointment. Quietly considered, there seemed to be no
reason why she should keep it. She knew absolutely nothing of him
except what he had told her while she leaned out of the window. How was
she to know that he was speaking the truth? What right had he to expect
her to pay any heed to him at all? Dreary, drizzling thoughts poured
through his mind. He felt as certain that his novel would not be
published as he felt that Eleanor would not be at the bookstall at
Charing Cross station when he arrived there. The tragedy on which he
was working had seemed to him to be a very marvellous play, but now he
thought it was too poor to be worth finishing. He had been in London
for what was quite a long time, but he had achieved nothing. He had not
even written the music-hall sketch for the Creams. He had not earned a
farthing during the time that he had been in London. All the exaltation
which had filled him as he walked along the Bayswater Road on the
previous night, with his mind full of Eleanor and love and starshine
and moonlight and gleaming streets and trees hanging with mist and
friendliness for all men, had gone clean out of him. Fleet Street was a
dirty, ill-ventilated alley full of scuffling men and harassed women.
London itself was a great angry thing, a place of distrust and
contention, where no one ever offered a friendly greeting to a
stranger. He would go to Charing Cross station and he would stand
patiently in front of the bookstall, but Eleanor would not come to meet
him. He would stand there, dumb and uncomplaining, and no one of the
hurrying crowd of people would turn to him and say, "You're in trouble.
I'm sorry!" They would neither know nor care. They would be too busy
catching trains. He would stand there for an hour, for two hours ...
until his legs began to ache with the pain of standing in one place for
a long time ... and then, when it was apparent that waiting was useless
and he had, perhaps, aroused the suspicions of policemen and railway
porters concerning his purpose in loitering thus so persistently in
front of the bookstall, he would go home in his misery to a
contemptuous Hinde!...



II

And while these bitter thoughts poured through his mind, he entered
Charing Cross station, and there in front of the bookstall was Eleanor
Moore. The bitter thoughts poured out of his mind in a rapid flood. He
felt so certain that his novel would be published that he could almost
see it stacked on the bookstall behind Eleanor. He would finish the
tragedy that week and in a short while England would be acclaiming him
as a great dramatist!... He hurried towards her and held out his hand,
and she shyly took it.

"Have you been here long?" he anxiously asked.

"No," she answered, "I've only just come!"

"Let's go and have some tea," he went on.

"I've had mine, thanks!..."

"Well, have some more. I've not had any!..."

"I don't think I can, thanks. I've really come to say that I can't!..."

"There's a little place near here," he interrupted hurriedly, "where
they give you lovely home-made bread. I found it one day when I was
wandering about. We'll just go there and talk about whatever you want
to say. Give me that umbrella of yours!" He took it from her hand as he
spoke. "This is the way," he said, leading her from the station. As
they crossed the road, he took hold of her arm. "These streets are
terribly dangerous," he said. "You never know what minute you're going
to be run over!"

He still held her arm when they were safely on the pavement, but
she contrived to free herself without making a point of doing so.
He tried to bring her back to the mood in which they were when she
leaned out of the window to listen to him ... "like Romeo and Juliet,"
he told himself ... but the congestion of the streets made such
intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the
hurrying foot-passengers, and so they could only speak in short,
dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where
he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...

"Eleanor," he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had
departed to fulfil it, "it's no good, you telling me that you can't go
out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!..."

"But it's absurd," she expostulated. "How can you possibly talk like
that when we're such strangers to each other!"

"You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've
hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I
lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after
day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance,
I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked
him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!"

She laughed at him. "But that was right, wasn't it?" she said. "You
wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to
ask for it?"

"He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen
that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think
no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?"

"No."

He told her of his relationship with the _Daily Sensation_.

"Then you've lost your work?" she said.

He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The
waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until
she had gone.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"It doesn't bother me," he replied. "I only told you to show you how
much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me
that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that
... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your
husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will
you marry me, Eleanor?"

"I've never met anyone like you before!..."

"I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you
marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it
up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three
weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a
month from to-day!"

"Oh, stop, stop," she said. "Your mind is running away with you. I
spoke to you for the first time last night!..."

"Beg your pardon," he said, "you spoke to me the first day we met. I
handed you your letter!..."

"Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to
you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no,
please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know
you!..."

"I love you, don't I?" he demanded.

"You say so!"

"Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple
enough!"

She passed a cup of tea to him. "Do all Irishmen behave like this?" she
said.

"I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind
queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go
humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I
know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it.
I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now,
and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?"

"No!"

"How long will it be before you will marry me, then?"

She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. "Really," she
said, "you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry
you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in
you!..."

"No, but you will!"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't any use talking," she said. "Your
mind is made up!..."

"It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I
have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got
to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might
as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about
it when it's going to happen in the end!"

She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. "I'm going home," she
said. "This conversation makes me feel dizzy!"

"There's no hurry," he exclaimed.

She spoke coldly and deliberately, "It's not a question of hurry," she
replied. "It's a question of desire, I _wish_ to go home. Your
conversation bores and annoys me!"

"Why?"

"Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my
own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely
because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a
gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!..."

"What's wrong with my accent?" he demanded.

"I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that
before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you
were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with
Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in
Ireland!"

He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. "Sit down," he said.
"Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!"

She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. "Very well!" she said
primly.

"Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange
to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a
dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a
hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll
love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you.
I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with
you!..."

She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. "But," she said,
and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.

"There's no buts about it," he replied. "I love you. I don't know why I
love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that
the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I
schemed to make you talk to me!..."

"Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted the
_Graphic_ back again!..."

"You remember that, do you?" he asked.

"Well, it was so obvious and so stupid," she answered.

"Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?
It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!"

"It's so difficult to say!..."

"Do you believe me," he insisted. "Do I look like a man that would tell
lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?"

She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. "No," she said;
"I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!..."

"I do, Eleanor. As true as God's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe
me?"

"But I don't love you," she burst out.

"Well, mebbe you don't. That's understandable!" he admitted.

"And the whole thing's so unusual," she protested.

"What does that matter? If I love you and you get to love me, does it
matter about anything else? Have wit, woman, have wit!"

"Don't speak to me like that. You're very abrupt, Mr. MacDermott!..."
"My name's John to you! Now, don't flare up again. You were nice and
amenable a minute ago. You can stop like that. You and me are going to
marry some time. The sooner the better. All I want you to do now, as
you say you don't love me, is to give me a chance to make you love me.
Come out with me for a walk ... or we'll go to a theatre, if you like!
Anyway, let's be friends. I don't know anybody in this town except one
man, and him and me's had a row over the head of the _Daily
Sensation!_..." "Yes," she interrupted, "you've lost your work
through your foolishness. What are you going to do now? It isn't very
easy to get work." "I'll get it all right if I want it, I've enough
money to keep me easy for a year without doing a hand's turn, and I
daresay my mother and my Uncle William 'ud let me have more if I wanted
it. I don't want to be on a paper much. I want to write books!" Her
interest was restored. "Tell me about the book you've written. Is it
printed yet?" she said. He told her of his work, and of the Creams and
of Hinde. He told her, too, of his life in Ballyards. "Where do you
come from?" he said. "Devonshire," she answered. "My father was rector
of a village there until he died. Then mother and I lived in Exeter
until she died!..." "You're alone then?" he asked. "Yes. My mother
had an annuity. That stopped when she died. My cousin ... he's a doctor
in Exeter ... settled up her affairs for me, and when everything was
arranged, there was just enough money to pay for my secretarial
training and keep me for a year. I trained for six months and then I
went as a stop-gap to that office where you saw me. I'm in an office in
Long Acre now--a motor place!" "And have you no friends here--relations,
I mean?" "Some cousins. I don't often see them. And one or
two people who knew father and mother!" "You're really alone then ...
like me?" he said. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, I suppose I am!" He
leant back in his chair. "It seems like the hand of God," he said,
"bringing the two of us together!" "I wish," she said, "you wouldn't
talk about God so much!"

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