Book: The Foolish Lovers

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






III

When he went home that evening, he wrote to his mother. _Dear
Mother_, he wrote, _I've got acquainted with a girl here called
Eleanor Moore, and I've made up my mind I'm going to marry her. She's
greatly against it at present, but I daresay she'll change her
mind_.... There was more than that in the letter, but it is not
necessary to repeat the remainder of it here. He also wrote to Eleanor.
_My dearest_, the letter ran, _I'm looking forward to meeting
you again tomorrow night at the same place. I know you said you
wouldn't meet me, but I'm hoping you'll change your mind. I'll be
waiting for you anyway, and I'll wait till seven o'clock for you.
Remember that, Eleanor! If you don't turn up, it'll be hard for you to
sit in comfort and you thinking of me waiting for you. You'll never
have the heart to refuse me, will you? We can have our tea together,
and then go for a walk or a ride on a 'bus till dinner-time, and then,
if you like, after we've had something to eat, we'll go to a theatre.
Don't disappoint me, for I'm terribly in love with you. Yours only,
John MacDermott. P. S. Don't be any later than you can help. I hate
waiting about for people._



IV

She came, reluctantly so she said, to the bookstall at Charing
Cross station, but only to tell him that she could not do as he wished
her to do. She would take tea with him for this once, but it was
useless to ask her to go for a walk with him or for a 'bus-ride either,
and she certainly would not dine with him nor would she go to a
theatre. Yet she went for a walk on the Embankment with him, and they
paced up and down so long that she saw the force of his argument that
she might as well have her dinner in town as go back to her club where
the food would be tepid, if not actually cold, by the time she was
ready to eat it. She need not go to a theatre unless she wished to do,
but he could not help telling her that a great deal of praise had been
given to a piece called _Justice_ by a man called Galsworthy.
Mebbe she would like to see it. She was not to imagine that he was
forcing her to go to the theatre.... And so she went, and they sat
together in the pit, hearing with difficulty because of the horrible
acoustics of the Duke of York's Theatre; and when the play was over, he
had to comfort her, for the fate of Falder had pained her. They climbed
on to the top of a 'bus at Oxford Circus and were carried along Oxford
Street to the Bayswater Road. They sat close together on the back seat
of the 'bus, with a waterproofed apron over their knees because the
night was damp and chilly; and as the 'bus drove along to Marble Arch
they did not speak. The rain had ceased to fall before they quitted
the theatre, but the streets were still wet, and John found himself
again realising their beauty. Trees and hills and rivers in the country
and flowers and young animals were beautiful, but until this moment
he had never known that wet pavements and wooden or macadamised roads
were beautiful, too, when the lamps were lit and the cold grey gleam
of electric arcs or the soft, yellow, reluctant light of gas lamps
fell upon them. He could see a long wet gleam stretching far ahead
of him, past the Marble Arch and the darkness of Hyde Park and Kensington
Gardens into a region of which he knew nothing; and as he contemplated
that loveliness, he remembered that the sight of tramlines shining at
night had unaccountably moved him more than once. Once, at Ballyards,
he had stood still for a few moments to look at the railway track
glistening in the sunshine, and he remembered how puzzled he had been
when, in some magazine, he had read a complaint of trains, that they
marred the beauty of the fields. He had seen trains a long way off,
moving towards him and sending up puffs of thick white smoke that
trailed into thin strips of blown cloud, and had waited until the
silence of the distant engine, broken once or twice by a shrill, sharp
whistle, had become a stupendous noise, and the great machine,
masterfully hauling its carriages behind it, had galloped past him,
roaring and cheering and sending the debris swirling tempestuously
about it! ... The sight of a train going at a great speed had always
seemed to him to be a wonderful thing, but now he realised that it
was more than wonderful, that it was actually beautiful.... He turned
his head a little and looked past Eleanor to the Park. Little vague
yellow lights flickered through the trees, all filmy with the evening
mists, and he could smell the rich odour of wet earth. He looked
at Eleanor and as he did so, they both smiled, and he realised that
suddenly affection for him had come to life in her. Beneath the
protection of the waterproofed apron, his hand sought for hers and
held it. Half-heartedly she tried to withdraw her fingers from his grasp,
but he would not let them go, and so she did not persist in her effort.

"Look!" he said, snuggling closer to her.

She turned towards the Park, and then, after a little while, turned
back again. "I've always loved the Park," she said. "It's the most
friendly thing in London!"

He urged his love for her again. He had seen affection for him in her
eyes and had felt that her hand was not being firmly withdrawn from
his.

"No, no," she protested, "don't let's talk about it any more. I don't
love you!..."

"Well, marry me anyhow!"

Backwards and forwards their arguments passed, returning always to that
point: _But I don't love you! Well, marry me anyhow!..._

He took her to the door of her club, and for a while, they stood at the
foot of the steps talking of the play they had seen that evening and of
his love for her.

"It's no good," she said, trying to leave him, but unable to do so
because he had taken hold of her hand and would not release it.

"Don't go in yet," he pleaded. "Wait a wee while longer!"

"What's the use?" she exclaimed.

"You'll meet me again to-morrow?..."

"I can't meet you _every _night!"

"Why not?" he demanded. "Tell me why not!"

"Well... well, because I can't. It's ridiculous. You're so absurd. You
keep on saying the same thing over and over... and it's so silly. If I
were in love with you, I might go out with you every evening, but!..."

"Do you like me!"

"I don't know. I... I suppose I must or I wouldn't go out with you at
all. Really, I'm sorry for you!..."

"Well, if you're sorry for me, come out with me tomorrow night. We'll
have our dinner in town again!"

"No, no! Don't you understand, Mr. MacDermott!..."

"John, John, John!" he said.

"I can't call you by your Christian name!..."

"Why not? I call you by yours, don't I?"

"Yes, but you oughtn't to. I've asked you not to call me Eleanor, but
it doesn't seem to be any good asking you to do anything that you don't
want to do. But even you must understand that I can't let you take me
out every evening. I can't let you pay for things!..."

"Oh," he said, as if his mind were illuminated. "Is that your trouble?
We can soon settle that. If you won't let me pay for things, pay for
them yourself ... only let me be with you when you're doing it. You
have to have food, haven't you? Well, so have I. We have no friends
in London that matter to us, and you like me ... you admitted it
yourself ... and I love you ... so why shouldn't we have our meals
together even, if you do pay for your own food?"

"Of course, it sounds all right as you put it," she answered, "but it
isn't all right. I can't explain things. I don't know how to explain
them, but I know about them all the same. And I know it isn't all
right. You'll begin to think I'm in love with you!..."

"I hope you will be, but you'll never be certain unless you see me fair
and often. You'll come again to-morrow, won't you?"

"Oh, good-night," she said impatiently, suddenly breaking from him.
"You're like a baby. You think you've only got to keep on asking for
things and people will get tired of saying 'No!' I won't go out with
you again. You make me feel tired and cross!..."

"Well, if you won't meet me to-morrow night, will you meet me the next
night?"

"No!"

"Then will you stay a wee while longer now?"

She turned on the top step and looked at him, and he saw with joy that
the anger had gone out of her eyes and that she was smiling at him.
"You really are!..." she said, and then she stopped. He waited for her
to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders and said only, "I don't know!
It simply isn't any good talking to you!"

He went up the steps and stood beside her and took hold of her hand.
"Let me kiss you, Eleanor," he said.

She started away from him. "No, of course I won't!"

"Just once!"

"No!"

"Well, why not? You've let me hold your hand. What's the difference?"

"There's every difference. Besides I didn't let you hold my hand. You
took it. I couldn't prevent you. You're so rough!..."

"No, my dear, not rough. Not really rough. Eleanor, just once!..."

"No," she said again, this time speaking so loudly that she startled
herself. "Please go away. I shan't go out with you again. I was silly
to go out with you at all. You don't know how to behave!..."

She broke off abruptly and turned to open the door, but she had
difficulty with the key because of her anger.

"Let me open it for you," he said, taking the key from her hand and
inserting it in the lock. "There!" he added, when the door was open.

"Thank you," she said, taking the key from him. "Good-night!"

"Good-night, Eleanor!" he replied very softly.

They did not move. She stood with, her hand on the door and he stood on
the top step and gazed at her.

"Well--good-night," she said again.

"Dear Eleanor," he replied. "My dear Eleanor!"

She gulped a little. "Goo--good-night!" she said.

"I love you, my dear, so much. I shall never love anyone as I love you.
I have never loved anybody else but you, never, never!... Well, I
thought I loved someone else, but I didn't!..."

"It's no good," she began, but he interrupted her.

"Well, meet me again to-morrow night at the same place!..."

"No, I won't!"

"At five o'clock. I'll be there before you ... long before you. You'll
meet me, won't you?"

"No."

"Please, Eleanor!"

She hesitated. Then she said, "Oh, very well, then! But it'll be the
last time. Good-night!"

She pushed the door to, but before she could close it, he whispered
"Good-night, my darling!" to her, and then the door was between them.

He waited until he saw the flash of the light in her room, and hoped
that she would come to the window; but she did not do so, and after a
while he went away.



V

Up in her room, she was staring at her reflection in the mirror, while
he was waiting below on the pavement for her to come to the window, and
as he walked away, she began to talk to the angry, baffled girl she saw
before her.

"I won't marry him," she said. "I won't marry him. I don't love him. I
don't even like him. I _won't_ marry him!..."




THE SIXTH CHAPTER


I

Now that he had found Eleanor again, he was able to settle down to
work. It was necessary, he told himself, that he should have some
substantial achievements behind him before she and he were married,
particularly as he had lost his employment on the _Daily
Sensation_. The money he possessed would not last for ever and he
could hardly hope to sponge on his Uncle William ... even if he were
inclined to do so ... for the rest of his life. He must earn money by
his own work and earn it quickly. In one way, it was a good thing that
he had lost his work on the newspaper ... for he would have all the
more time to write his tragedy. The sketch for the Creams had been
hurriedly finished and posted to them at a music-hall in Scotland where
they were playing, so Cream wrote in acknowledging the MS., to
"enormous business. Dolly fetching 'em every time!..." Two pounds per
week, John told himself, would pay for the rent and some of the food
until he was able to earn large sums of money by his serious plays. The
tragedy would establish him. It would not make a fortune for him, for
tragedians did not make fortunes, but it would make his name known, and
Hinde had assured him that a man with a known name could easily earn a
reasonable livelihood as an occasional contributor to the newspapers.
It was Hinde who had proposed the subject of the tragedy to him. For
years he had dallied with the notion of writing it himself, he said,
but now he knew that he would never write anything but newspaper
stuff!...

"Do you know anything about St. Patrick?" he said to John.

"A wee bit. Not much."

"Well, you know he was a slave before he was a saint?" John nodded his
head. "A man called Milchu," Hinde continued, "was his master. An
Ulsterman. He was the chieftain of a clan that spread over Down and
Antrim. Our country. He had Patrick for six years, and then he lost
him. Patrick escaped. He returned to Ireland as a missionary and sent
word to Milchu that he had come to convert him to Christianity, and
Milchu sent word back that he'd see him damned first. Milchu wasn't
going to be converted by his slave. No fear. And he destroyed
himself ... set fire to his belongings and perished in his own flames
rather than have it said that an Ulster chieftain was converted by his own
slave. That's a great theme for a tragedy. I suppose you're a
Christian, Mac?"

"I am. I'm a Presbyterian!"

"Oh, well, you won't see the tragedy of it as well as I see it. Think
of a slave trying to convert a free man to a slave religion. There's a
tragedy for you!..."

"I don't understand you," said John.

"No? Well, it doesn't matter. There's a theme for you to write about. A
free man killing himself rather than be conquered by a slave! Of
course, the real tragedy is that St. Patrick converted the rest of
Ireland to Christianity! ... Milchu escaped: the others surrendered. It
wasn't the English that beat the Irish, Mac. They were beaten before
ever the English put their feet on Irish ground. St. Patrick beat them.
The slave made slaves of them!..."

"Is that what you call Christians?" John indignantly demanded.
"Slaves?"

Hinde shrugged his shoulders. "The Irish people are the most Christian
people on earth," he said. "That's all!..."

They put the subject away from them, because they felt that if they did
not do so, there must be antagonism between them. But John determined
that he would write a play about St. Patrick and the Pagan Milchu.
Hinde lent him his ticket for the London Library, and he spent his
mornings reading biographies of the saint: Todd and Whitley, Stokes and
Zimmer and Professor J. B. Bury; and accounts of the ancient Irish
church. Slowly there came into his mind a picture of the saint that was
not very like the picture he had known before and was very different
from Hinde's conception of the relationship between Milchu and St.
Patrick. To him, the wonderful thing was that the slave had triumphed
over his owner. Milchu, in his conception, had not been sufficiently
manly to stand before Patrick and contend with him, and to own himself
the inferior of the two. He had run away from St. Patrick! With that
conception of the two men in his mind, he began to write his play.

"You're wrong" said Hinde. "Milchu was a gentleman and Patrick was a
slave!..."

"The son of a magistrate!" John indignantly interrupted.

"A lawyer's son!" Hinde sneered. "And Milchu, being a gentleman, would
not be governed by a slave. Think of an Irish gentleman being governed
by an Irish peasant!" There was a wry look on his face, "And a little
common Irish priest to govern a little common Irish peasant!... They
won't get gentlemen to live in a land like that!"

"I'm a peasant," said John. "There's not much difference between a
shopkeeper and a peasant!..."

"I'm talking of minds," said Hinde, "not of positions. I believe in
making peasants comfortable and secure, but I believe also in keeping
them in their place. I'm one of the world's Milchus, Mac. I'd rather
set fire to myself than submit to my inferiors!"

John sat in his chair in silence for a few moments, trying to
understand Hinde's argument. "Then why do you write for papers like the
_Daily Sensation_?" he asked at last.

Hinde winced. "I suppose because I'm not enough of a Milchu," he
replied.



II

John had met Eleanor at their customary trysting-place, in front of the
bookstall at Charing Cross Road, and they had walked along the
Embankment towards Blackfriars. The theme of his tragedy was very
present in his mind and he told the story to Eleanor as they walked
along the side of the river in the glowing dusk. They stood for a
while, with their elbows resting on the stone balustrade, and looked
down on the dark tide beneath them. The great, grim arches of Waterloo
Bridge, made melancholy by the lemon-coloured light of the lamps which
surmounted them, cast big, black shadows on the water. They could hear
little lapping waves splashing against the pillars, and presently a tug
went swiftly down to the Pool. Neither of them spoke. Behind them the
tramcars went whirring by, and once when John looked round, he felt as
if he must cry because of the beauty of these swift caravans of light,
gliding easily through the misty darkness of a London night. He had
turned quickly again to contemplate the river, and as he did so,
Eleanor stirred a little, moving more closely to him, demanding, so it
seemed, his comfort and protection, and instantly he put his arm about
her and drew her tightly to him. He did not care whether anyone saw
them or not. It was sufficient for him that in her apprehension she had
turned to him. Both his arms were about her, and his lips were on her
lips. "Dear Eleanor," he said....

Then she released herself from his embrace. "I felt frightened," she
said. "I don't know why. It's so lovely to-night ... and yet I felt
frightened!"

"Will we go?" he asked.

"Yes!"

He put his arm in hers and she did not resist him. "You're my
sweetheart now, aren't you, Eleanor?" he whispered to her, as they
walked along towards Westminster.

She did not answer.

"My dear sweetheart," he went on, "and presently you'll be my dear
wife, and we'll have a little house somewhere, and we'll love each
other for ever and ever. Won't we?" He pressed her arm in his. "Won't
we, Eleanor? Every night when I come home from work and we have had our
supper, we'll go for a walk like this, and I'll talk and you'll listen,
and we'll be very happy, and we'll never be lonely again. Oh, I pity
the poor men who don't know you, Eleanor!..."

She smiled up at him, but still she did not speak.

"I couldn't have believed I should be so happy as I am," he continued.
"I wonder if it's right for one woman to have so much power over a
man ... to be able to make him happy or miserable just as the fancy takes
her ... but I don't care whether it's right or wrong. I'm content so
long as I have you. We're going to be married, aren't we, Eleanor?
Aren't we?"

He stopped and turned her round so that they were facing each other.

"Aren't we, Eleanor?" he repeated.

"Don't let's talk about that," she murmured. "I'm so happy to-night,
and I don't want to think about what's past or what's to come. I only
want to be happy now!"

"With me?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Then you do love me?..."

"I don't know. I can't tell. But I'm frightfully happy. I expect I
shall feel that I've made a fool of myself ... in the morning, but just
now I don't care whether I'm fool or not. I'm like you. I'm content.
Let's go on walking!"

They turned back at Boadicea's statue, and when they were in the
shadows again, he took his arm from hers and put it about her waist.
"Let's pretend there's nobody else here but us," he said.



III

They dined in Soho, and when they had finished their meal, they walked
to Oxford Circus and once more climbed to the top of a 'bus that would
take them along the Bayswater Road.

"You must like me, Eleanor," he said to her, as they sat huddled
together on the back seat, "or you wouldn't come out with me as you
do!"

"Yes," she answered, "I think I do like you. It seems odd that I should
like you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't ever like you. But I
do. You're very likeable, really. It's because you're so silly, I
suppose. And so persistent!"

"Then why can't we get married, my dear? Isn't it sickening for you to
be living in that club and me to be living at Brixton, when we might be
living in our own home? I hate this beastly separation every night.
Let's get married, Eleanor!"

"I suppose we will in the end," she said, "but I don't feel like
getting married to you. After all, John!..." She called him by his
Christian name now. "After all, John, if I were to marry you now, when
we know so little of each other, it would be very poor fun for me, if
you discovered after we were married that you did not care for me as
much as you imagined. And suppose I never fell in love with you?"

"Yes," he said gloomily.

"How awful!"

"But I'd have you. I'd have the comfort of being your husband and of
having you for my wife!"

"It mightn't be a comfort. Oh, no, it's too risky, John. We must wait.
We must know more of each other!..."

"Will you get engaged to me then?" he suggested.

"But that's a promise. No. Let's just go on as we are now, being
friends and meeting sometimes!"

"Supposing we were engaged without anybody knowing about it?" he said.
"Would that do?"

"I don't want either of us to be bound ... not yet. Oh, not yet. Do be
sensible, John!"

"I am sensible. I know that I want to marry you. That's sensible, isn't
it?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," she replied, laughing.

"Well, isn't it sensible to want to be sensible as soon as possible?
You needn't laugh. I mean it. It's just foolishness to be going on like
this. I'm as sensible as anybody, and I can't see any sense in our not
marrying at once. Get engaged to me for a while anyway!"

"But what would be the good of that?"

"All the good in the world. I just want the comfort of knowing there's
a chance of you marrying me!"

"It seems so unsatisfactory to me ... and so risky!" she protested.

"I'm willing to take the risk. I'll wait as long as you like."

"I'll think about it. But if I do get engaged to you, we won't get
married for a long time!"

"How long?"

"Oh, a long time. A very long time."

"What do you mean? Six months?"

"No, years. Oh, five years, perhaps!"

"My God Almighty!" he said. "Do you know what you're saying! Five
years? We might all be dead and buried long before then. What age will
I be in five years time. Oh, wheesht with you, Eleanor, and don't be
talking such balderdash. Five years! Holy O!"

"What does 'Holy O!' mean?" she demanded.

"I don't know. It's just a thing to say when you can't think of
anything else. Five years! Five minutes is more like it!"

"We're too young to be married yet, and in five years' time we'll know
each other much better!"

"I should think so, too," he said. "It's a lifetime, woman! Whatever
put that idea into your head!"

"If I get engaged to you at all," she replied, "and I'm not sure that I
will, it'll be for five years or not at all. You may be willing to take
risks, but I'm not. Risks are all right for men ... they can afford to
take them ... but women can't. If you don't agree to that, you'll have
to give up the idea altogether!"

"Then you'll get engaged to me?"

"No, I didn't say that. I said that if I got engaged to you at all, it
would be for five years. I'm not sure that I shall get engaged to you.
I don't think I really like you. I think I'd just get tired of saying
'No' to you!..." She could see that his face had become glum, and she
hurriedly reassured him. "Yes, I do like you! I like you quite well ...
but I'm not going to marry you ... if I ever marry you ... till I'm
sure about you!"

They descended from the 'bus and walked towards her club.

"Anyway," he said, "I consider myself engaged to you. And I'll buy you
a ring the morrow morning!"

"Indeed, you won't," she said.

"Indeed, I will," he replied. "I'll have it handy for the time you
agree to have me!"

"You won't be able to get one until you know the size, and I won't tell
you that!..."

They wrangled on the doorstep until it was late, but she would not
yield to him. He could consider himself engaged to her if he liked ...
she could not prevent him from considering anything he chose to
consider ... but she would not consider herself engaged to him nor
would she wear a ring until she was sure of her feelings.

He kissed her when they parted, and she did not resist him. It was
useless to try to resist an accomplished thing. His childlike
insistence both attracted and irritated her. She felt drawn to him
because his mind seemed to be so completely centred upon her, and
repelled by him because his own wishes appeared to be the only
considerations he had. She could not decide whether the love he had for
her ... and she believed that he loved her ... was complete devotion or
complete selfishness. Love at first sight was a perfectly credible,
though unusual thing. It was possible that he had fallen in love with
her ... her vanity was pleased by the thought that he had done so ...
but she certainly had not fallen in love with him either at first or at
second sight. She was not in love with him now. She felt certain of
that. He was likeable and kind and a very comforting person, and there
was much more pleasure to be had from a walk with him than from an
evening spent in the club!... Ugh, that club, that dreadful
conglomeration of isolated women! Oh, oh, oh! She gave little shudders
as she reflected on her club-mates. Most of them were girls like
herself, working as secretaries either in offices or in other places
... to medical men or writers ... and, like her, they had few friends
in London. Their homes were in the country. Among them were a number of
aimless spinsters, subsisting sparely on private means ... poor,
wilting women without occupation or interest. They were of an earlier
generation than Eleanor, the generation which was too genteel to work
for its living, and they had survived their friends and their families
and were left high and dry, without any obvious excuse for existing,
among young women who were profoundly contemptuous of a woman who could
not earn a living for herself. They sat about in the drawing-room and
sizzled! They knew exactly at what hour this girl came in on Monday
night, and at exactly what hour the other girl came in on Tuesday
night. They whispered things to each other! They thought it was very
peculiar behaviour for a girl to come back to the club alone with a man
at twelve o'clock ... "midnight, my dear!" they would say, as if
"midnight" had a more terrible sound than twelve o'clock ... and they
were certain that Miss Dilldall's parents should be informed of the
fact that on Saturday evening she went off in a taxi-cab with a man who
was wearing dress-clothes and a gibus-hat. Miss Dilldall publicly
boasted of the fact that she had smoked a cigarette in a restaurant in
Soho!...

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