"She will, if you persuade her!" Suddenly her tone altered, and the hard tone went out of her voice. She leant towards him, touching him on the arm. "Persuade her, son!" she said. "My heart's hungry to have her child born in its own home among its own people!"

She looked at him so pleadingly that he was deeply moved. He felt his blood calling to him, and the ties of kinship stirring strongly in his heart. Pictures of Ballyards pa.s.sed swiftly through his mind, and in rapid succession he saw the shop and Uncle Matthew and Uncle William and Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff and the Logans and the Square and the Lough, and could smell the sweet odours of the country, the smell of wet earth and the reek of turf fires and the cold smell of brackish water....

"Have your own way," he said to his mother, and she drew him to her and kissed him more tenderly than she had kissed him for many years.

IV

When they told their plan to Eleanor her eyes lit up immediately, and he saw that she was eager to go to Ballyards, but almost at once, she turned to him and said, "Oh, but you, John? What about you?"

"I'll be all right," he replied. "Don't worry about me!"

"Couldn't you come, too?"

"You know I can't. How can I give up this job on the _Sensation_ the minute I've got it!"

"Easy enough," Mrs. MacDermott interjected. "If you've only just got it, there'll be no hardship to you or to them if you give it up now!"

"I have to earn our keep," he insisted.

"There's the shop," Mrs. MacDermott insisted.

"I won't go next or near the shop," he shouted in sudden fury. "I came here to write books and I'll write them!"

"You're not writing books when you're sitting up half the night in a newspaper office!"

"I know I'm not. But I must get money to ... to pay for!..."

"Are you worrying yourself about Eleanor's confinement, son? Never bother your head about that. I'll not let her want for anything!..."

"I know you won't," he replied in a softer voice, "but I'd rather earn the money myself!"

Mrs. MacDermott tightened her mouth. "Very well," she said.

"I've a good mind to let the flat till you come back," John murmured to Eleanor.

"What's that?" Mrs. MacDermott demanded.

"I was saying I'd a good mind to let the flat until she comes back. I could go to Miss Squibb's for a while. It 'ud really be cheaper!..."

"Would you let strangers walk into your house and use your furniture?"

"Yes. Why not? We shall be able to pay the rent and have a profit out of what we shall get for sub-letting it."

"Making a hotel out of your home," Mrs. MacDermott said in disgust.

"Och, we're not all home-mad," John retorted.

"That's the pity," his mother rejoined.

V

Three weeks later, Eleanor, and Mrs. MacDermott departed for Ballyards.

Eleanor had refused to go away from London until she had seen John settled in his work and the flat sub-let to suitable tenants. She arranged for his return to Miss Squibb who, most opportunely, had his old room vacant, and she made Lizzie promise to take particular care of his comfort. "I can tyke care of 'im all right," Lizzie said. "I've tyken care of Mr. 'Inde for years, an' I feel I can tyke care of anybody after 'im. You leave 'im to me, Mrs. MacDermott, an' I wown't let 'im come to no 'arm!" She leant forward suddenly and whispered to Eleanor. "I do 'ope it's a boy," she said.

"Why?" said Eleanor blushing.

"Ow, I dunno. Looks better some'ow to 'ave a boy first go off. You can always 'ave a girl afterwards. Wot you goin' to call it, if it's a boy?"

"John, of course!" said Eleanor.

"Um-m-m. Well, I suppose you'll 'ave to, after 'is father, but if I 'ad a son I'd call 'im Perceval. I dunno why! I just would. It sounds nice some'ow. I mean it 'as a nice sound. Only people 'ud call 'im Perce, of course, an' that would be 'orrible. I dessay you're right. It's better to be called John than to be called Perce!"

"Why don't you get married, Lizzie?" Eleanor said.

"Never been ast. That's why. I'd jump at the chance if I got it. You down't think I'm 'angin' on 'ere out of love for Aunt. I'm just 'angin'

on in 'ope!..."

But before Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards, they realised that John's sub-editorial work was hard and inconvenient. The unnatural hours of labour in noisy and insanitary surroundings left him very tired and crochetty in the morning, and he felt disinclined for other work. He had written his series of articles on London Streets for the _Evening Herald_, and Hinde had professed to like them sufficiently to ask for more of them. Twelve of them had been printed ... one each day for a fortnight ... and the money had cleared John of debt and left a little for the coming expense. Cream's two pounds per week came regularly every Monday morning, and this, with the income from the _Sensation_, and an occasional article made the prospects of life seem clearer. "There's no fame in it," he told himself, "but at least I'm paying my way!" In a little while, his second novel would be published, and perhaps it would bring a reward which he had unaccountably missed with his first book and his tragedy. More than anything else now, he wanted recognition. Money was good and acceptable and he would gladly have much more of it, but far beyond money he valued recognition. If he had to make choice between a large income and a large reputation, he would unhesitatingly choose a large reputation.

He longed to hear Hinde admitting that he had been mistaken in John's quality. Indeed, in the last a.n.a.lysis, it seemed that more than money and more than general recognition, he craved for recognition from Hinde. He wished to see Hinde coming to him in a respectful manner!...

But there was little likelihood of that happening while he performed sub-editorial work on the _Sensation_. Every night he and the other sub-editors, young and unhealthy-looking men, sat round a big table, handling "flimsies" and scribbling rapidly. They invented head-lines and cross-headings, and they cut down the work of the outside staff. When a nugget of gold was found in Wales and was p.r.o.nounced to be a lump of quartz with streaks of gold in it rather than a nugget of pure gold, John had headed the paragraph in which the news was reported, ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. He glanced at the heading after he had written it. "I seem to be getting into the way of this sort of thing," he said with a sigh. He put the paper down and got up from the table. The baskets lying about, full of "copy" or "flimsies"

or cuttings from other papers; the hard, blinding light from the unshaded electric globes; the litter of newspapers and torn envelopes; the incessant _rurr-rurr-rurr_ of the printing machines; and the hot, exhausted air of the room ... all these seemed disgusting. He shut his eyes for a moment. "Oh, G.o.d," he prayed, "let my book be a success!

Get me out of this, Oh, G.o.d, for Jesus Christ's sake!..."

He understood the dislike which speedily grew up in Eleanor for this work. There would be very little fun for her, less even than for him, in a life that took him to Fleet Street in the evening and kept him there until the middle of the night. He must escape from it somehow, but in what way he was to escape from it he could not imagine. Vaguely, he felt that a book or a play would lift him out of Fleet Street and set him down in ease and comfort somewhere in agreeable surroundings; but it might be many years before that desired bliss was achieved. He would spend his youth in this atmosphere of neurosis and hasty judgment, and perhaps when he was old and no longer full of zest for enjoyment, he would have leisure for the things he could no longer delight in. And Eleanor, too ... she would have to struggle with penury until she grew tired and l.u.s.treless!... "No, she won't!" he vowed. "I'm not going to let her down whatever happens. I'll make a position somehow!..."

Then Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards. He stood by the carriage-door talking to them both while the train filled with pa.s.sengers, and as the guard blew a succession of blasts on his whistle, he leant forward to kiss Eleanor "Good-bye!" A tear rolled down her cheek.... "I wish I weren't going now," she said, clinging to him.

"It won't be for long," he murmured. "Will it, mother?" he added to Mrs. MacDermott.

But his mother did not make any reply. She sat very tightly in her seat, and he saw that there was a hard look in her eyes and that her lips were closely joined together.

VI

He wandered out of the station... it was Sat.u.r.day night and therefore he had not to go to the _Sensation_ office ... and entered the Hampstead Tube railway. On Monday, the agent would make an inventory of the furniture, and John would move to Brixton. Until then, he would stay at the flat, taking his meals at restaurants. He left the Tube at Hampstead and walked home. The flat seemed very dark and cheerless when he entered it, and he wandered from room to room in a disturbed state as if he were searching for something and had forgotten for what he was searching. A petticoat of Eleanor's, flung hastily on to the bed, caught his eye, a blue silk petticoat that he remembered her buying soon after they were married. He wondered why she had thrown it aside, for she was fond of blue garments, and this was new from the laundry.

He rubbed his hand over its silk surface and listened to the sound it made. Dear Eleanor! Most sweet and precious Eleanor!... He left the bedroom and went into the combined sitting and dining-room and then into the kitchen. At the door of the tiny spare bedroom, he stopped and turned away. What was the use of wandering about the house in this disconsolate manner? Eleanor had gone and it was idle to pretend that he might suddenly come to her in some corner of the flat. It was much too early to go to bed and, since he could not sit still indoors, he resolved to go out and walk off his mood of depression and loneliness. The trees on Hampstead Heath stood up in deep darkness, and overhead he saw the innumerable stars shining coldly. In the dusk and shadow he could hear the murmur of subdued voices and now and then a peal of girlish laughter, or the deeper sound of a man's mirth. Young, eager-eyed men and women went by, intent on love-making, their faces shining with youth and the happiness of the unburdened.

All the beauty of the world lay still before them, untouched and undimmed, drawing them towards it with rich and strange promises of wonderful fulfilment. And no shadow fell upon their happiness to darken it or make it cold.... He could feel his heart singing within him, and he asked himself why it was that he should feel happy in this street, in which Eleanor and he had walked in love together, when he had felt restless and unhappy in the flat where they had lived and loved. He stood under a lamp to look at his watch, and wondered where Eleanor was now ... what stage of her journey she had reached. The train had left Euston at half-past eight, and now the hour was twenty minutes past ten. Nearly two hours since she had gone away from him. Sixty or eighty miles, perhaps a hundred, separated them, and every moment the distance between them was lengthening. He could stand here, leaning against these rails and looking over the hollows of the Heath towards the softened glare of London, and almost tell off the miles that were consumed by the rushing, roaring train!... One mile ... two miles ... three miles!...

The laughter and the shining eyes of the young lovers made him feel old, now that Eleanor was not with him to make him feel young. He felt old, though he was not old, because he was lonely again, more lonely than he had been before he saw Eleanor at the Albert Hall. He had followed her as a man lost in a desert follows a star, and she had brought him home at last ... and now she was gone from him, bearing a baby. Soon, though, very soon, the time would pa.s.s and she would return to him and they would never be separated again. He would fulfil his desires. He would write great books and great plays, and Eleanor would grow in loveliness and dignity, and his son ... for he was certain that the child would be a boy ... would reach up from childhood to manhood in strength and beauty!...

VII