The Foolish Lovers

by St. John G. Ervine

He oscillated between an almost uncontrollable desire to return to Eleanor and a cold rage against her. Women, he told himself, always stepped between men and their work. Women drew men away from great labours and made creatures of comfort of them. They took an aspiring angel and made a domestic animal of him. He was prepared to endure hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, but Eleanor demanded that first of all he should provide comfort and security for her and her child. She would gladly turn a creative artist into a small tradesman for the sake of the greater profit that was made by the small tradesman. He would not be seduced from his proper work ... and yet, when he went back to Miss Squibb's after the Sensation had gone to bed, walking sometimes all the way from Fleet Street, over Blackfriars Bridge, he would spend the time of the journey in dreaming of Eleanor as he first saw her or as he saw her in the box at the Albert Hall when Tetrazzini sang. He would conjure up pictures of her standing at the bookstall at Charing Cross, waiting for him, or saying goodbye to him at the steps of the Women's Club in Bayswater or kneeling beside him in St. Chad's Church as the priest blessed their marriage or sitting before the fire in Ballyards holding her baby in her arms. And when these visions of her went through his mind, he felt an intense longing to go away from London at once and stay contentedly with her wherever she chose to be. Sometimes his mind was full of thoughts about his child. He had not felt much emotion about it when he was at Ballyards ... he had thought of it mostly with amazement and with some dislike of its shapeless face ... but now there were stirrings in his heart when he thought of it, and he wished that he could be with Eleanor and watch the gradual growth of the baby into a recognising being. His work at the Sensation office had become mechanical, and he worked at the table in the sub-editors' room without any consciousness of it; but he consoled himself for the fatigue and the dullness by promising himself a swift and brilliant release from Fleet Street when his second book was published. Even if his book were not to make money, it would establish his reputation, and when that was done, he could surely persuade Eleanor to believe that his life must be lived elsewhere than behind the counter of the shop. He had written to her several times since his return to London, and she had written to him, but there were signs of restraint in his letters and in hers. He told her that he had made arrangements for the sub-tenants to remain in the flat for the present. He wrote "for the present" deliberately. The phrase that shaped itself in his mind as he wrote the letter was "until you come back to London," but he changed it before he put his thoughts into written words. She gave long accounts of the baby to him, and described her life in Ballyards. She was helping Uncle William who said that her help was very useful to him. They were going to fight Pippin's multiple shops and beat them. She had suggested some alterations in the shop to Uncle William, and he, agreeing that one must move with the times, had consented to make the alterations. She did not ask John to come back, but when he read her letters, he felt that she was preventing herself, with difficulty, from doing so.

II

A month after his return to London, Hearts of Controversy was published. He took the complimentary copies out of their parcel and fingered them, turning the leaves backward and forward, and looking for a long while at the dedication "To the Memory of my Uncle Matthew." How pleased and proud Uncle Matthew would have been of this book, but how little pleasure John was deriving from it. He hardly cared now whether it failed or succeeded. If only something would happen that would enable him to return to Ballyards and Eleanor with some sort of pride left! ... Uncle Matthew's romantic dreams had remained romantic dreams because he had never left Ballyards; but John had gone out into the world to seek adventures, and all of them had ended dismally ... except his adventure with Eleanor. He had pursued her and won her and made her his wife and the mother of his son, and she was still his, even although he had left her and was living angrily away from her. He remembered how he had wandered into Hanging Sword Alley when he first came to London, and had been bitterly disappointed to find that this romantically-named lane was a dirty, grimy gutter of a street....

"I've been living a fool's life," he said to himself. "I had one great adventure, finding Eleanor, and I did not realise that that was the only romance I could hope for!"

He put the book down. "I'm not a writer," he said mournfully, "I'm a grocer. I'm not even a grocer. I'm ... a hack journalist!"

He had written a tragedy that was dead. He had written a novel that was dead. This second novel ... in a little while it, too, would be dead. Perhaps it was dead already. Perhaps it had never been alive. And he had written a music-hall sketch ... that lived. He had done no other work than his sub-editing on the Sensation since his return to London, and he realised that he would never do any more while he remained in Fleet Street....

Hinde entered the room while these thoughts were in his mind. "When's Eleanor coming back?" he asked, throwing himself into a chair in front of the fire.

"She's not coming back," John answered.

Hinde looked up sharply. "Oh?" he said in a questioning manner.

"I'm going to her ... as soon as I can. I've had my fill of this life. Do you remember asking me why I didn't sell happorths of tea and sugar?" Hinde nodded his head. "Well, I'm going back to sell them. The author of The Enchanted Lover and Hearts of Controversy has retired from the trade of writing and will now ... now devote himself to ... selling happorths of tea and sugar!" He laughed nervously as he spoke.