The Foolish Lovers Part 22

What's wrong, Mrs. Bothwell!"

"There's nothing wrong that I know of. Only I don't understand you not knowing about it. Why aren't you at the church?"

"Church!"

"Aye. Sure, I'd be there myself only I can't leave the shop. I'm glad she's getting a fine day for it anyway!"

John touched her on the arm. "I don't understand what you're talking about, Mrs. Bothwell," he said. "What's happening!"

"Didn't you know she's being married the day on a policeman?..."

"Married!" he exclaimed incredulously.

"Aye. She's been going with him this long while back, and now that he's been promoted ... they've made him a sergeant ... they've got married.

She's done well for herself. How is it you didn't know about it, and you and her such chums together?"

"Did I hear you saying she's getting married the day?" he murmured, gazing at her in a stupefied fashion.

"That's what. I keep on telling you," she replied, "only you don't pay no heed to me. I thought you were her cousin!..."

"No, I'm not her cousin," he answered. "I was ... I was going with her.

That's all. I'm sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Bothwell!"

"Oh, it's no bother at all. She must have been having you on, for the banns was up at St. George's this three weeks!..."

"St. George's!" he repeated.

"Aye, these three weeks. She had a fancy to be married in St. George's Church, for all it's a ritualistic place, and people says they're going fast to Popery there. But I don't wonder at her, for it's quare and nice to see the wee boys in their surplices, singing the hymns!..."

He interrupted her. "Three weeks ago," he said, as if calculating.

"That must have been soon after I met her for the first time. I met her here in this room, Mrs. Bothwell. I'd been to the Royal to see a play, and I came in here for my tea, and I struck up to her for I liked her look!..."

"Oh, she's a nice enough looking girl is Maggie, though looks is not everything," Mrs. Bothwell interjected.

"She never told me!..."

"Oh, well, if it comes to that, you never told her anything about yourself, did you?" Mrs. Bothwell demanded. "I suppose she thought you were just a fellow out for a bit of fun, and she might as well have a bit of fun, too!"

"But I wasn't out for fun," he exclaimed. "I was in earnest!"

"That's where you made your mistake," said Mrs. Bothwell. "I'm sorry for you, but sure you're young enough not to take a thing like that to heart, and she's not the only girl in the world by a long chalk. By the time you're her age, she'll have a child or two, and'll mebbe be feeling very sorry for herself ... and you'll have the world fornent you still! A young fellow like you isn't going to let a wee thing like that upset you?"

"It isn't a wee thing, Mrs. Bothwell. It's a big thing," he insisted.

"Och, sure, everything's big looking 'til you see something bigger. One of these days you'll be wondering what in the earthly world made you think twice about her!"

He turned away from her and moved towards the door, but suddenly he remembered the letter which he had written to Maggie on the previous evening.

"Did a letter for her come this morning?" he said, turning again to Mrs. Bothwell. "I wrote to her last night to tell her I was coming up the day!"

"One did come," she answered. "I put it in the kitchen, intending to re-address it when I had a minute to spare. I'll go and get it. I suppose you don't want it sent on to her now?"

"No, I don't. It was only to tell her I'd meet her here!"

"Well, I'll bring it to you then." She went into the kitchen and presently returned, carrying John's letter in her hand. "Is this it?"

she said. "It's got the Ballyards postmark on it."

He took it from her. "Yes, that's it," he replied, tearing it in pieces. "Could I trouble you to put it in the fire," he said, handing the torn paper to her.

"It's no trouble at all," she answered, taking the pieces from him.

"Good morning, Mrs. Bothwell!" he said.

"Well, good morning to you!"

He opened the door and was about to pa.s.s out of the restaurant when she spoke to him again.

"I wouldn't let a thing like that upset me if I was you," she said.

"Sure, what's one girl more nor another girl! You'll get your pick and choice before long. A fine fellow like you'll not go begging for nothing!"

"I'm not letting it upset me," he said, "but it'll be the queer girl that'll make a fool of me in a hurry!"

"That's the spirit,'"' said Mrs. Bothwell.

IV

He walked down the stairs and into the street in a state of fury. He had been treated as if he were a corner-boy.

Willie Logan, who was any girl's boy, could not have been treated so contemptuously as he, who had never cared for any other girl, had been treated. She had married a policeman ... _a peeler!_ She might as well have married a soldier or a militia-man. A MacDermott had been rejected in favour of a peeler! She had gone straight from his embraces to the embraces of a policeman ... a common policeman. She had refused to meet him on a Wednesday, he remembered, because, probably, she had engaged to meet the peeler on that evening. He would be off duty then!

While she was yielding her lips to John, she was actually engaged to be married to ... to a policeman! By heaven!...

What a good and fortunate thing it was that he had not spoken of her to anyone except to Uncle Matthew! If anyone were to know that a MacDermott had fallen in love with a girl who had preferred to marry a peeler ... _a peeler_, mind you! ... they would split their sides laughing. What a humiliation! What an insufferable thing to have happened to him! That was your love for you! That was your romance for you! ... Och! Och, och!! This was a lesson for him, indeed. No more love or romance for him. Willie Logan could run after girls until the soles dropped off his boots, but John MacDermott would let the girls do the running after him in future. No girl would ever get the chance again to throw him over for ... for a _peeler!_ If that was their love, they could keep their love!...

He walked about the town until, after a while, he found himself at the Theatre Royal. Still raging against Maggie, he paid for a seat in the pit. He had forgotten that he was in mourning, and he remembered only that he was a jilted lover, a MacDermott cast aside for a policeman. He sat through the first act of the play, without much comprehension of its theme. Then in the middle of the second act, he heard the heroine vowing that she loved the hero, and he got up and walked out of the theatre.

"I could write a better play than that with one hand tied behind my back," he said to himself. "Her and her love!"

He walked rapidly from the theatre, conscious of hunger, for he had omitted to get a meal before going into the theatre, but he was unwilling to forego the pleasure of starving himself as a sign of his humiliation. He made his way towards Smithfield and stopped in front of a bookstall. A couple of loutish lads were fingering a red-bound book as he approached the stall, and he heard them t.i.ttering in a sneaky, furtive fashion as he drew near. The owner of the stall emerged from the back of his premises, and when they saw him, they hurriedly put the book down and walked away. John glanced at it and read the t.i.tle on the cover: The Art of Love by Ovid.

"Love!" he exclaimed aloud. "Ooo-oo-oo!"

The streets were full of young men and women intent on an evening's pleasure, and as he hurried away from Smithfield Market towards the railway station, he received bright glances from girls who were willing to make friends with him. He scowled heavily at them, and when they looked away to other men, he filled his mind with sneers and bitter thoughts. A few hours before, these young girls would have seemed to him to be very beautiful and innocent, but now they appeared to him to be deceitful and wicked. Each evening, he told himself, these girls came out of their houses in search of "boys" whom they lured into love-making, teasing and tormenting them, until at last they tired of them and sent them empty away. That was your love for you! Uncle Matthew had dreamed of romantic love, and John had set out to find it, and behold, what was it! A girl's frolic, a piece of feminine sport, in which the girl had the fun and the boy had the humiliation and pain. Maggie could go from him, her lips still warm with his kisses, to her policeman ...

and take kisses from him! There might be other hoaxed lovers ... if she had one, why not have two or three or four ... and his kisses might have meant no more to her than the kisses of half-a-dozen other men.

Well, he had learned his lesson! No more love for him....

He crossed the Queen's Bridge, and when he reached the station, he came upon Willie Logan, moodily gazing at the barriers which were not yet open. John, undesirous of society, nodded to him and would have gone away, but Willie suddenly caught hold of his arm.