Book: The Foolish Lovers

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




"I don't think much of Cottenham anyhow!" said John, putting, the
papers in his pocket.

Eleanor met him at Euston. The fatigue which settles on a traveller in
the last hour of a long railway journey had raised the devil of
depression in John. He had reread the notices in the Cottenham papers,
and as he considered their very restrained praises of his play, he
remembered that Hinde had said _The Enchanted Lover_ was an
ordinary novel.

"I wonder am I any good," he said to himself as the train hauled itself
into Euston.

He looked out of the window and saw Eleanor standing on the platform,
scanning the carriage as she sought for him.

"Well, she thinks I am," he thought, as he alighted from the train.
"Eleanor!" he called to her, and she turned and when she saw him, her
eyes lit and she hurried to him.




THE SECOND CHAPTER


I

Hinde's enthusiastic review of _The Enchanted Lover_ had not been
followed by other reviews equally enthusiastic or nearly so. Many
papers failed to do more than include it in the List of Books Received.
_The Times Literary Supplement_ gave six lines of small type to a
cold account of it. The reviewer declared that "this first novel is not
without merit" but either had not been able to discover the merit or
had not enough space in which to describe it, for he omitted to say
what it was. John had paid a visit to the local lending library every
morning for a week in order that he might see all the London newspapers
and such of the provincial papers as were exhibited, and had searched
their columns eagerly for references to his book; but the references
were few and slight. Mr. Claude Jannissary, when John visited him,
wagged his head dolefully and uttered some mournful remarks on the sad
state of idealism in England. He regretted to say that the book was not
selling so well as he had hoped it would sell. The appalling conditions
of the publishing trade were accentuated by the extraordinary
reluctance of the booksellers to take risks or to show any enthusiasm
for new things. Between Mr. Jannissary and John, he might say that
booksellers were a very unsatisfactory lot. Most of them were quite
uncultured men. Hardly any of them read books. Mr. Jannissary longed
for the day when booksellers would look upon their shops as places of
adventure and romance!...

A curious sensation of distaste for these words passed through John
when he heard them spoken by Mr. Jannissary. The booksellers, said the
publishers, should be ambitious to earn the title of the new
Elizabethans ... hungering and thirsting after dangerous experiences.
He would like to see a bookseller turning disdainfully from "best
sellers" and eagerly purchasing large quantities of books by unknown
authors. "Think of the thrill of it," said Mr. Jannissary; and John,
perturbed in his mind, tried hard to think of the thrill of it. His
mental perturbation was due to the lean look of his bank balance. Money
was going out of his house more rapidly than it was coming in, and
Eleanor had been full of anxiety that morning. He had not yet received
a cheque from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre for the royalties due on
the week's performance of _Milchu and St. Patrick_, but he had
soothed Eleanor's fears by assuring her that there would be the better
part of a hundred pounds to come to them from Cottenham in a few days.
In the meantime, he told her, he would call on Jannissary and see
whether he could not obtain some money from him. "He must have sold
much more than five hundred copies by this time," he said. "If all the
bookshops in the country only took one copy each, he'd have sold more
than five hundred, and I'm sure they'd all take two or three each.
Perhaps more!"

The suggestion that he might make a small advance to John on account
of accrued royalties had a very chilling effect upon Mr. Jannissary.
"My dear fellow," he said, putting up his hands in a benedictory
manner and then dropping them as if to say that even he found difficulty
in believing in the nobility of man, "impossible! Absolutely impossible!
I've sunk ... Money ... much Money ... in your book ... I don't regret
it ... not for a moment ... I believe in you, MacDermott ... strongly
... but it will be a long time before I recover any of that ... Money
... if I ever recover it. I'm sorry!..."

John had come away from the publisher in a cheerless state of mind, and
as he turned into the Strand, he collided with Hinde.

"How's the book getting on?" Hinde demanded when they had greeted each
other.

John told him of what Jannissary had said.

"I tell you what I'll do." said Hinde. "I'll work up a boom for it in
the _Evening Herald_. I'll turn one of my chaps on to writing half
a dozen letters to the Editor about it!..."

"But you don't like the book," John expostulated. "You told me it
wasn't much good!"

"Och, I know that," Hinde replied, "but that doesn't matter. I'd like
to do you a good turn. There's a smart chap working for me now ... he
can put more superlatives into a paragraph than any other man in Fleet
Street, and he isn't afraid of committing himself to anything. Most
useful fellow to have on your staff. He does our Literary article, and
he's discovered a fresh genius every week since he came to me. He'll
get on, that chap! I'll turn him on to your book!"

"I don't want praise that I don't deserve," John said, thrusting out
his lower lip.

"Oh, you'll deserve it all right. Everybody deserves some praise. How's
Eleanor?"

"All right!"

Then Hinde hurried away, and John went home. There was a letter from
the Cottenham Repertory Theatre awaiting him, and he eagerly opened the
envelope.

"You needn't worry any longer," he said to Eleanor as he took out the
contents of the envelope....

He gaped at the cheque and the Returns Sheet.

"How much is it?" Eleanor asked.

"There must be a mistake!..."

"How much is it?" she repeated.

"Sixteen pounds, nine shillings and sevenpence! But!..."


II

She took the Returns Sheet from him. "No," she said after she had
examined it, "there doesn't appear to be any mistake. It seems to be
all right!"

She put the paper and the cheque down, and turned away.

"It's queer, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes. Yes, very! We shall have to do something, John. We've very little
left!"

"Of course, there's the London season to come yet," he said to comfort
her.

"Not for a very long time," she answered, "and it may not be any better
than this!" She hesitated for a moment, then she hurriedly said, "John,
why shouldn't I go on with my work!"

"On with your work! What do you mean?"

"Why shouldn't I get a job again? We could manage, I think, and the
money I'd earn would be useful. You could finish your new book!..."

His pride was hurt. "Oh, no," he said at once. "No, no, I can't agree
to that. What sort of a husband would I look like if people heard that
I couldn't maintain my wife. Oh, Eleanor, I couldn't think of such a
thing!...

"I don't see why not. You're not going to make money easily, so far as
I can see, and either you or I must get work of some sort. I know you
want to finish your book, so why shouldn't I earn something to help us
to keep going?"

"No," he said, "that's my job. I daresay Hinde would give me work if I
asked for it!"

"But you've always been against doing journalism."

"I know. I'm still against it, but one can't always resist things.
He might let me do literary work for him. I'll go in and see him
to-morrow."

He told her of his encounter with Hinde that day and of Hinde's
proposal to boom _The Enchanted Lover_. "I don't like the idea
much, but perhaps it'll be useful!" He picked up the cheque from the
Cottenham Repertory Theatre. "I'm actually out of pocket over this
affair," he said. "What with the cost of typing the play and my
expenses in Cottenham...."

"I wish we could go back to Ballyards," Eleanor said.

"Go back to Ballyards!" he exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment.

"Yes, we'd be much better off there!"

"Go back and admit I've failed in London! Crawl home with my tail
between my legs!..."

"Don't be melodramatic," said Eleanor.

"I have my pride," he retorted. "You can call that being melodramatic,
if you like, but I call it decent pride. I won't admit to anybody that
I've failed. I haven't failed!..."

"I didn't say you had, dear!"

"I won't fail. You wait. Just you wait. I'll succeed all right. If I
have failed so far, I can try again, can't I? Can't I?"

"Yes, John!..."

"I'm not going to take a knock-down blow as a knockout. I know I can
write. I feel the stuff inside me. The book I'm doing now, isn't that
good?"

"Well!..."

"Isn't it good? You'll have to admit it's good!"

"I daresay it is. It isn't the kind of book I like, but I'm sure it's
good. That's why I want to get a job, so that you can finish it in
peace. Let me try ... just until you've finished the book. Then perhaps
things will be all right. I'd like to be able to say that I helped
you!"

"You're a lot too good for me."

"Oh, no, I'm not. Any girl who _is_ a girl would want to help,
wouldn't she?"

His temper had subsided now, and the reproach he always felt after such
a scene as this made him feel very ashamed of himself.

"I'm sorry, Eleanor, that I lost my temper just now. I didn't mean to
say what I did!..."

"But, my dear," she exclaimed, "you didn't say much, and if you did it
was because you were upset about the play and the novel. Don't worry
about that. Now, listen to me. I met Mr. Crawford this morning!..."

"Crawford?"

"Yes. He's managing director of that motor place I used to be in. He
told me he had never had a secretary so useful as I was, and that he
wished I'd never met you!..."

"Did he, indeed?"

"Yes. Of course, that was only a joke. I'm sure he'd let me go back to
my old job for a while!..."

"No. No, no!"

She stood up, half turned away from him, and said, "Well, I'm going to
ask for it anyhow!"

"You're what?"

"Yes, John, I'm going to ask for it. Don't shout at me! You really must
listen to sense. I'm not going to run into debt or have trouble with
tradesmen about money just because of your pride. I want you to finish
that book!"

"I'd rather sweep the streets than let you go back to your old job."

"Well, I'll get a new one then!"

"Or any job," he said. "I don't care what it is. That man Crawford,
what do you think he'd say if you went back to him? I know. 'Poor Mrs.
MacDermott, her husband must be a rum sort of a fellow ... not able to
keep his wife ... she had to go out to work again soon after he married
her!' That's what he'd say!"

"But does it matter what he says?"

"Yes. I'm not going to have anybody say that I can't earn enough to
keep you decently!"

"That's all very fine, John, but you're not doing it. Your novel hasn't
brought you any money at all, and you've spent as much on the play as
you've got so far. You've had one or two articles printed, and that's
all. The rest of the money we've lived on has come from your Uncle
William!..."

"Uncle William! None of it came from him. Uncle Matthew left me his
money and my mother gave me the rest!"

"Yes, and how did they get it? From your Uncle William, of course. His
work has kept them, hasn't it? And you? We're sponging on your Uncle
William, and I hate to think we're sponging on him. You're very proud
about not letting me go out to work, but you're not so proud about
letting Uncle William keep you!"

This was a blow between the eyes for him. "That's a bitterly unkind
thing to say," he murmured.

"It's true, isn't it?" she retorted. "I don't want to be unkind, John,
but we've really got to face things. I'm frightened. I don't like the
thought of getting into debt. I've never been in debt before. Never!
And I can't see what's going to happen when we've spent our money if
one of us doesn't start to earn something now!" She changed her tone.
"John, don't be silly about it. Do agree to my getting a job for the
present. You'll be able to get on with your book at home, and any other
writing you want to do, and then perhaps things will get straight and
we'll be all right!"

"The point is, do you believe in me?" he demanded.

"Of course I believe in you!..."

"Ah, but I mean in my work. In my writing. Do you believe in that?"

"What's that got to do with it? Lots of books are very good that I
don't much care for. I liked _The Enchanted Lover_--it was quite
good--but I don't much care for the one you're doing now. I can't help
that. I daresay other people will like it better!"

"Why don't you like it?"

"Well, it doesn't seem to me to be about anything."

"Listen, Eleanor! I don't want just to be one of a mob of fairly good
writers. If I can't be a great writer, I don't want to be a writer at
all. I'll have everything or I'll have nothing!"

"I see!"

"So now you know. I feel I have greatness in me ... but you don't feel
like that about me," he said.

"I don't know anything about greatness. All I know is that I like some
things and that I don't like others. I don't know why a book is great
or why it isn't. You can't judge things by what I say. It's quite
possible that you are a great writer, and that's why I want you to let
me get a job, so that you can go on with your work and be able to show
the world what you can do. I'd hate to think you'd been prevented from
doing your best work because you'd had to use up your energy doing
other things. It won't take long to finish this book, will it?"

"No."

"Well, then, I shan't have to work for very long. By the time it's
finished, _The Enchanted Lover_ may have earned a lot of money for
us ... and the play, too ... and then we can just laugh at our troubles
now!..."



III

He remained obdurate for a while, but in the end she wore his
opposition down. Mr. Crawford gladly welcomed her back to her old job,
and even offered her a larger salary than she had been receiving before
her marriage. "I've learned your value since you went away," he said.
"I'm a fool to tell you that, perhaps, but I can't help it. Half the
young women who go out to offices nowadays would be dear at ninepence a
week. The last girl we had here caused me to imperil my immortal soul
twice a day through her incompetence. I've sworn more in a week since
you left us, than I ever swore in my life before!..."

Eleanor insisted that John should not inform his mother of her return
to work. Intuitively she knew that Mrs. MacDermott's pride would be
outraged by this knowledge, and that she would make bitter complaint to
John of his failure to maintain his wife in a way worthy of his family;
and so she urged John to say nothing at all of the matter either to
Mrs. MacDermott or to Uncle William. He had made no comment on the
matter, but she knew that he had been relieved by her request.

Hinde had fulfilled his promise to boom _The Enchanted Lover_ in
the _Evening Herald_, and Mr. Jannissary reluctantly admitted that
the book was selling. "Slowly, of course, but still ... selling! I
think I shall get my money back," he said.

"Do you think I'll get any money out of it?" John asked.

"Ah, these things are on the knees of the gods, my dear fellow! It is
impossible to say!"

The second book moved in a leisurely manner to its close, and Mr.
Jannissary declared that he was delighted to hear that _The Enchanted
Lover_ would shortly have a successor. He thought that perhaps he
could promise to pay royalties from the first copy of the new novel!...

"How do writers manage to live, Mr. Jannissary?" John said to him at
this point, and Mr. Jannissary murmured that there was a divinity which
shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.

"Oh, is that it?" said John.

"Some men have been very hungry, MacDermott because they served their
Art faithfully. Think of the garrets, the lonely attics in which
beautiful things have been imagined!..."

"I've no desire to go hungry or to live in a lonely attic, Mr.
Jannissary. Let me tell you that!"

"No ... no, of course not. None of us have. I trust I am not a
voluptuary or self-indulgent in any way, but I too would dislike to be
excessively hungry. Still, I think it must be a great consolation to a
man to think that he had made a great work out of ... his pain, so to
speak!"

John reflected for a moment on this. Then he said, "How do you manage
to keep going, Mr. Jannissary, when you publish so many books that
don't bring you any return?"

Mr. Jannissary glanced very interrogatively at John. Then he waved his
hands, and murmured vaguely. "Sacrifices," he said. "We all have to
make sacrifices!..."

John left the publisher and went on to the office of the _Evening
Herald_ where he saw Hinde. "I've brought an article I thought you'd
like to print," he said when he had been admitted to Hinde's office.
Hinde glanced quickly through it. "Good," he said, "I'll put it in
to-morrow. I suppose," he continued, "you wouldn't like to do a job for
me?"

"What sort of a job?"

"There's to be a great ceremony at Westminster Abbey to-morrow ...
dedication of a chapel for the Order of the Bath. The King'll be there.
Like to go and write an account of it?"

"Yes, I would!"

"Good. I'll get Masters to send the ticket of admission on to you
to-night!"

He felt much happier when he left the Herald offices than he had felt
when he entered them. He had sold an article and had been commissioned
to do an interesting job. Eleanor would be pleased. He hurried home so
that he might be there to greet her when she returned from her work.



IV

She was sitting in front of the fire when he entered the flat.
"Hilloa," he said, "you're home early, aren't you?"

She looked up and smiled rather wanly at him.

"Yes," she said, "I came home about three!..."

"Why? Aren't you well?"

"I'm not feeling very grand!"

"What's the matter!"

"I don't know. At least I ... Oh, I don't know. It may only be
imagination!"

He sat down beside her. "Imagination!..." She looked at him very
steadily, and he found himself remembering how beautiful he had thought
her eyes were that day when he saw her for the first time. They were
still very beautiful.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know ... but I ... I think I'm going
to have a baby!"

"Holy Smoke!"

"I don't know. I feel so stupid!..."

She had been smiling while she was telling this to him, but now she
dismayed him by bursting into tears.

"Eleanor!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say or to do, and she let
herself subside into his arms and lay there, half laughing and half
crying.

"I'm being a ... frightful ... fool," she said between sobs, "but I ...
I can't help it!"

They sat together until the dusk had turned to darkness, holding each
other and whispering explanations and hopes and fears. A queer sense of
responsibility settled upon John, a feeling that he must bear burdens
and be glad to bear them. Eleanor seemed to him now to be a very
fragile and timid creature, turning instinctively to him for care and
protection. Immeasureable love for her surged in his heart. This very
dear and gentle girl, so full of courage and yet so full of alarm, had
become inexpressibly precious to him. She had come to him in doubt and
had entrusted her life to him, not certain that she cared for him
sufficiently to be entirely happy with him. He had tried to make her
happy, and slowly he had seen her liking for him growing into some sort
of affection. Perhaps now she loved him as he loved her. Soon she would
be the mother of a child ... his child!... How very extraordinary it
seemed! A few months ago, Eleanor and he had been strangers to each
other ... and now she was about to bear a child to him!

"I must work hard," he said to himself, and then to her, "Of course,
you can't go back to Mr. Crawford. I'll write to my mother and tell
her!"

He remembered the commission from Hinde, and while he was telling her
of it, the postman delivered a letter from the Herald in which was the
invitation card for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

She examined it with interest. "But it says Morning Dress must be
worn," she exclaimed, pointing to the notice in the corner of the card.
"You haven't got any Morning Dress!"

"Do you think it'll matter?"

"They may not let you in if you go as you are now. You haven't even a
silk hat!"

"What shall I do then?" he asked.

"We must think of something. Perhaps Mrs. Townley's husband would lend
you his silk hat!" The Townleys were their neighbours. "He hardly ever
wears it, and he's about your size!"

"I shouldn't like to ask them!..."

"Oh, I'll ask them all right," Eleanor said.

She left the flat and crossed the staircase to the door of the
Townleys' flat, and after a little while, she returned carrying a silk
hat that was much in need of ironing.

"She lent it quite willingly," Eleanor said. "She says Mr. Townley's
only used it twice. Once when they were married and once at a funeral.
Put it on!" She fixed it on his head. "It doesn't quite fit," she said.
"Perhaps if I were to put some paper inside the band, that would make
it sit better!"

She lined the hat with, tissue paper and then, put it on his head
again. "That's a lot better," she exclaimed. "Look at yourself in the
glass!"

"I feel an awful fool in it," he murmured, glancing at his reflection
in the mirror.

"Oh, well, I suppose all men do feel like fools when they put on silk
hats ... at first anyhow ... but it isn't any worse than a bowler hat
or one of those awful squash-hats that Socialists wear. Men's hats are
hideous whatever shape they are. I don't know what we're to do about a
morning coat for you. I didn't like to ask Mrs. Townley to lend her
husband's to me!..."

"Good Lord, no! You can't borrow the man's entire wardrobe from him!"

"Your grey flannel trousers might look like ordinary trousers, if we
could get a morning-coat for you!" She paused as if she were reflecting
on the problem. "I know," she said at last. "It's sure to rain, in the
morning. King George is going to the thing, so it's sure to rain. Wear
your overcoat ... then you won't need a morning coat ... and the silk
hat and your grey flannel trousers and your patent leather boots!..."

"It's a bit of a mixture, isn't it?"

"It won't be noticed. That'll do very nicely! Thank goodness, we've
solved that problem! The money will be useful, dearest!"



V

"What luck!" said Eleanor, looking out of the window in the morning.
The sky was grey and the streets were wet and dirty.

John had urged her to stay at home, offering to explain to Mr. Crawford
why she was not returning to her employment, but she had insisted that
she was well enough now and must treat Mr. Crawford as fairly as he had
treated her. "I'll give notice to him at once," she said, "and he can
get someone else as soon as possible ... but I can't leave him in the
lurch!"

They travelled by Tube to town together, and John went on to
Westminster Abbey. He was very early and when he arrived at the
entrance nominated on the Invitation Card he found that he was the
first arrival. Ten minutes afterwards, a grubby-looking man in a slouch
hat ambled up the asphalt path to the narrow door against which John
was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and
the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this
ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative
and had a surly look. "But they won't let you in, like that!" said
John.

"Won't let me in! Who won't let me in?" the man demanded.

"It says 'Morning Dress to be worn' on the Invitation Card," John
answered, showing his card as he spoke.

"That's all bunkum! They'd let me in if I were naked. I'm here to
report the performance, not to display my elegance, and these people
want the thing reported as much as possible. I don't suppose you know
me?"

"No, I don't," said John.

"Well, I'm known as the Funeral Expert in Fleet Street. My paper always
sends me out on special occasions to report big funerals. I'm very good
at that sort of thing. I seem to have a flair for funerals somehow.
I've never done a show like this before, but if I can only persuade
myself to believe that there's a corpse about, I'll do it better than
anybody else. I make a specialty of quoting the more literary parts of
the Burial Service in my reports!..."

"You won't be able to do that to-day. This isn't a funeral," said John.

"No, but I can quote the hymns if they've got any merit at all.
Otherwise I shall drag in the psalms. Hymns aren't very quotable as a
rule. Shocking doggerel most of 'em!..."

They were joined by other reporters, and John observed that he alone
among them was wearing a silk hat. He commented on the fact to the
Funeral Expert.

"There's only one silk hat in the whole of Fleet Street," the Funeral
Expert replied, "and it belongs to the man who specialises in Murders.
He never investigates a murder without wearing his silk hat. He says
it's in keeping with the theme!"

The door was opened by a verger and the journalists entered the Abbey
and were led up some very narrow and dark and damp stone stairs until
at last they emerged on to a rude platform of planks high up in the
roof. At one end of the platform a pole had been placed breast-high
between two pillars, and against this the journalists were invited to
lean. Far below, the ceremony was to take place. John felt giddy as he
looked down on the floor of the Cathedral.

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