The Foolish Lovers Part 21

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 ill.u.s.trations 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 Sat.u.r.day. 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sage 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 _n.o.ble_ 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 n.o.bility 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!"

John could not stay in the house with his memories of Uncle Matthew, and so he went for walks along the sh.o.r.es of the Lough, to Cubbinferry and Kirklea or turning coastwards, towards Millreagh and Holmesport; but there was no comfort to be found in these walks. He returned from them, tired in body, but unrested in mind. He tried to write another story, but he had to put the pen and ink and paper away again, and he told himself that he had no ability to write a story. Wherever he went and whatever he did, the loss of Uncle Matthew pressed upon him and left him with a sense of impotence, until at last, his nature, weary of its own dejection, turned and demanded relief. And so he set his thoughts again on Maggie Carmichael, and each day he found himself, more and more, thinking of her until, after a while, he began to think only of her. He had written to her a second time, but she had not answered his letter. He remembered that she had protested against her incompetence as a correspondent. "I'm a poor hand at letter-writing,"

she had said laughingly. She could talk easily enough, but she never knew what to put in a letter, and anyhow it was a terrible bother to write one. A letter would be a poor subst.i.tute for her, he told himself. He must see her soon. Mourning or no mourning, he would go to Belfast on the next Sat.u.r.day and would see her. It would not be possible for him to take her to a theatre, but she and he could go for a long walk or they could sit together in the restaurant and talk to each other. This loneliness and silence was becoming unendurable: he must get away from the atmosphere of loss and mourning into an atmosphere of life and love. Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that.

He felt certain that Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that. Uncle Matthew would hate to think of his nephew prowling along the roads in misery and suffering when his whole desire had been that he should have opportunity and satisfaction. He had bequeathed his property and his money "to my beloved nephew John MacDermott," and John had been deeply moved by the affection that glowed through the legal phraseology of the will. It was not yet known how much money there would be, for Mr.

McGonigal, the solicitor, had not completed his account of Uncle Matthew's affairs; but the amount of it could not be very large. That was immaterial to John. What mattered to him was that his Uncle's love for him had never flickered for a moment, but had shone steadily and surely until the day of his death.

"I never told anyone but him about Maggie," John thought. "I'm glad I told him ... and I know he'd want me to go to her now!"

And so, late on Friday evening, he resolved that he would go to Belfast on the following day. He sent a short note to Maggie, addressing it to the restaurant, in which he told her that he would call for her on Sat.u.r.day. He begged that she would go for a walk with him. "_We might go to the Cave Hill_," he wrote, "_and be back in plenty of time for tea!_"

III

He crossed the Lagan in the ferry-boat, so impatient was he to get quickly to Maggie, but when he reached the restaurant, Maggie was not there. He stood in the doorway, looking about the large room, but there was no one present, for it was too early yet for mid-day meals. Maggie was probably engaged in the small room at the back of the restaurant and would presently appear. It was Mrs. Bothwell who came to answer his call.

"Oh, good morning!" he said, trying to keep the note of disappointment out of his voice.

"Good morning," she answered.

"It's a brave day!"

"It's not so bad," she grudgingly admitted.

"Is ... is Maggie in?" he asked.

"In!" she exclaimed, looking at him with astonishment plain on her face.

"Yes. Isn't she in? She's not sick or anything, is she?" he replied anxiously.

"Oh, dear bless you, no! She's not sick," Mrs. Bothwell said. "Do you mean to say you don't know where she is?"

"No, I ... I don't, Mrs. Bothwell!" There was a note of apprehension in his voice. "I thought, she'd be here!"

"But haven't you been to the house?"

"No," he answered. "I've just arrived from Ballyards this minute.