"What's the use of writing about him," she said. "Sure, he's been dead this long while back!"

He did not attempt to make her understand. "And then there's the novel I wrote when I was at home," he concluded.

"But you've heard nothing of it yet. As far as I can see you've done little here that you couldn't have done at home!"

"Oh, yes I have. I've learned a great deal more than I could ever have learned in Ballyards. And I've met Eleanor!"

"H'm!" she said, rising from her seat. "I'm going to my bed now. That girl Lizzie seems a good-natured sort of a soul. Where does Eleanor live?"

"Oh, a long way from here!..."

"Give me her address, will you?"

"Yes, ma, but why?"

"I'm going to see her the morrow!"

He had to explain that Eleanor could not be seen in the day-time because of her employment, and he proposed that his mother should go with him in the evening to meet her at the bookstall at Charing Cross station.

"Very well," she said as she kissed him, "Good-night!"

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

I

Mrs. MacDermott had remained in London for a week. John, eager to show the sights to her, had tried to persuade her to stay for a longer period, but she was obstinate in her determination to return to Ireland at the end of the week. "I don't like the place," she said; "it's not neighbourly!" She repeated this objection so frequently that John began for the first time in his life to understand something of his mother's point of view. He remembered how she had insisted upon the fact that the MacDermotts had lived over the shop in Ballyards for several generations; and now, with her repet.i.tion of the statement that London was an unneighbourly town, he realised that Ballyards in her mind was a place of kinsmen, that the people of Ballyards were members of one family. She was horrified when she discovered that Hinde had been stating the bare truth when he said that he had lived in Miss Squibb's house for several years, but still was ignorant of the names of his neighbours. Miss Squibb had told her that people in London made a habit of taking a house on a three-years' lease. "When it expires, they go somewhere else," she had said. Miss Squibb had never heard of a family that had lived in the same house in London for several generations. She did not think it was a nice idea, that. She liked "chynge" herself, and was sorry she could not afford to get as much of it as she would like to have.

"I do not understand the people in this place," Mrs. MacDermott had complained to Hinde. "They've no feeling for anything. They don't love their homes!..."

But although she had stayed in London for a week only, she had seen much of Eleanor Moore in that time. It had not occurred to John, until the moment his mother and he entered Charing Cross station, that Mrs.

MacDermott and Eleanor might not like each other. He imagined that his mother must like Eleanor simply because he liked her, but as he held a swing-door open so that his mother might pa.s.s through, a sudden dubiety took possession of him and he became full of alarm. Supposing they did not care for each other?... The doubt had hardly time to enter his mind when it was resolved for him. Eleanor arrived at the bookstall almost simultaneously with themselves. (It struck him then that Eleanor was a remarkably punctual girl.) "This is my mother, Eleanor!" he had said, and stood anxiously by to watch their greeting. The old woman and the girl regarded each other for a moment, and then Mrs. MacDermott had taken Eleanor's outstretched hand and had drawn her to her and had kissed her; and John's dubiety disappeared from his mind. They had dined together in Soho that night, but Mrs. MacDermott had not enjoyed the meal. The number of diners and the clatter of dishes and knives and the foreign look and the foreign language of the waiters disconcerted her and made her feel as if she were a stranger. Above all else in the world, Mrs. MacDermott hated to feel like a stranger! She demanded familiar surroundings and faces, and was unhappy when she found herself without recognition. The menu made her suspicious of the food because it was written in French. She distrusted foreigners. London appeared to be full of all sorts of people from all parts of the world. Never in her life had she seen so many black men as she had seen in London that day. John had taken her to St. Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon and had shown her the place where Queen Victoria returned thanks to Almighty G.o.d for her Diamond Jubilee ... and there, standing on the very steps of a Christian church, was a Chinaman! There were no Chinamen in Ballyards, thank G.o.d, nor were there any black men either.

She realised, of course, that G.o.d had made black men and Chinamen and every other sort of men, but she wished that they would stay in the land in which G.o.d had put them and would not go trapesing about the world!...

"What about us, then?" said John. "We don't stay in the one place!"

"I know that," she replied. "That's what's wrong with the world.

Everyone should stay in his own country!"

The dinner had not entirely pleased John. Somehow, in a way that he could not understand, he found himself being edged out of the conversation, not altogether, but as a princ.i.p.al. His mother and Eleanor addressed each other primarily; they only addressed him now and then and in a way that seemed to indicate that they had suddenly remembered his presence and were afraid he might feel hurt at being left out of their talk. He was glad, of course, that his mother and Eleanor were getting on so well together, but after all he was in charge of this affair.... When his mother proposed to Eleanor that they should meet on the following evening and go somewhere for a quiet talk, he could hardly believe his ears.

"But what about me?" he said.

"Oh, you! You'll do rightly!" his mother replied.

"But!..."

"You can come and bring me home from wherever we go," Mrs. MacDermott continued.

Eleanor had suggested that Mrs. MacDermott should meet her at the bookstall and go to her club from which John would fetch her at ten o'clock.

"That'll do nicely, Eleanor!" Mrs. MacDermott said.

John hardly noticed that his mother had called Eleanor by her Christian name: it seemed natural that she should do so; but he was vaguely disturbed by the arrangement that had just been made.

"I wonder what she's up to?" he said to himself as he moodily examined his mother's face.

He sat back in his chair and listened while Eleanor and his mother talked together. He was not accustomed to taking a subsidiary part in discussions and he greatly disliked his present position, but he could not think of any way of altering it.

"Do you like living in London?" Mrs. MacDermott had suddenly said to Eleanor.

"No, I hate it," Eleanor vehemently answered.

"Then why do you stay?" Mrs. MacDermott continued.

"I have to. A girl gets better-paid work in London than in the provinces. That's the only reason!"

"Would you rather live in the country, then?"

"Yes!" Eleanor said.

"I wonder would you like Ballyards!" Mrs. MacDermott said almost as if she were speaking to herself. Then she began to talk of something else.

II

He had taken his mother to Charing Cross station on the following day, hoping that they would relent and allow him to go to Eleanor's club with them, but neither of them made any sign of relenting. His mother, indeed, turned to him immediately after Eleanor had arrived and said, "Well, we'll say 'Good-bye' for the present, John. We'll expect you at ten!" and very sulkily he had departed from them. He saw Eleanor lead his mother out of the station. She had taken hold of Mrs. MacDermott's arm and drawn it into hers, and linked thus, they had gone out, but neither of them had turned to look back at him. He had not known how to fill in the time between then and ten o'clock ... whether to go to a theatre or walk about the streets ... and had ended by spinning out his dinner-time as long as possible, and then walking from Soho to Eleanor's club. He had arrived there before ten o'clock, but they allowed him to sit with them!... He had an overwhelming sense of being _allowed_ to do so. Suddenly and unaccountably all his power had gone from him, his instinctive insistence upon his own will, his immediate a.s.sumption that what he desired must be acceptable to others and his complete indifference to whether what he desired was acceptable or not to others... suddenly and unaccountably these things had gone from him and he was submitting to the will of his mother and of Eleanor. His mother's conversation, too, had been displeasing to him.

She talked of Ballyards and of the shop all the time. She talked of the prosperity of the business and of the respect in which the MacDermotts were held in their town. Mr. Hinde had told her of the harsh conditions in which journalists and writers had to work, particularly the journalists. They had no settled life... they went here, there and everywhere, but their wives stayed always in the one place... and sometimes money was not easily obtainable. Anything might happen to put a journalist out of employment!...

"But I don't want to be a journalist, mother!" John had testily interrupted. "I want to write books and plays!"

"That's even worse." she had said. "It takes a man years and years before he can earn a living out of books. Mr. Hinde told me that!..."

"He seems to have told you a fearful lot," John sarcastically exclaimed.

"I asked him a lot," Mrs. MacDermott replied. "If you ever get that book of yours printed at all, he says, you'll not get more nor thirty pounds for it, if you get that much. And there's little hope of you making your fortune with the tragedy you're wasting your time over.

Now, your Uncle William has a big turnover in the shop!..."

"I daresay he has," John snapped, "but I'm not interested in the shop, and I am interested in books!"

"Oh, well," Mrs. MacDermott murmured, "It's nice to have work that takes your fancy, but if you get married I'm thinking your wife'll have a poor job of it making ends meet on the amount of interest you take in your work, if that's all the reward you get for it. You were a year writing that story of yours, and you haven't had a penny-farthing for it yet. However, you know best what suits you. I suppose it's time we were thinking about the road!" She rose as she spoke, and Eleanor rose too. "Come up to my room," Eleanor said, "and we'll get your things!"

They left John sitting in the cheerless room. "That's a queer way for her to be talking," he said to himself. "Making little of me like that!"

He maintained a sulky manner towards his mother as they returned to Brixton, but Mrs. MacDermott paid no heed to him.