It was Uncle William who advised John to send the story to
_Blackwood's Magazine_. He said that in his young days, people
said _Blackwood's Magazine_ was the best magazine in the world.
Uncle Matthew had demurred to this. "I'm not saying it's not a good
one," he said, "but it's terribly bitter against Ireland. The man that
writes that magazine must have a bitter, blasting tongue in his head!"
"Never mind what it says about Ireland," Uncle William retorted. "Sure,
they're only against the Papishes, anyway!..."
"The Papishes are as good as the Protestants," Uncle Matthew exclaimed.
"I daresay they are," Uncle William admitted, "but I'm only saying that
_Blackwood's Magazine_ is against _them:_ it's not against
us; and I don't see why John shouldn't send his story to it. He's a
Protestant!"
"If I wrote a story," Uncle Matthew went on, "I wouldn't send it to any
paper that made little of my country, Protestant or Papish, no matter
how good a paper it was nor how much it paid me for my story. Ireland
is as good as England any day!..."
"It's better," said Uncle William complacently. "Sure, God Himself
knows the English would be on the dung-heap if it wasn't for us and the
Scotchmen. But that's no reason why John shouldn't send his story to
_Blackwood's Magazine_. In one way, it's a good reason why he
should send it there, for sure, if he does nothing else, he'll improve
the tone of the thing. You do what I tell you, John!..."
And so, accepting his Uncle William's advice, John sent the manuscript
of his story to the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine;_ and each
morning, after he had done so, he eagerly awaited the advent of the
postman. But the postman, more often than not, went past their door.
When he did deliver a letter to them, it was usually a trading letter
for Uncle William.
"Them people get a queer lot of stories to read," Uncle William said to
console his nephew, disappointed because he had not received a letter
of acceptance from the editor by Saturday morning, four days after he
had posted the manuscript. "It'll mebbe take them a week or two to
reach yours!..."
"They could have sent a postcard to say they'd got it all right," John
replied ruefully. "That's the civil thing to do, anyway!"
He remembered that the Benson Shakespearean Company was still in
Belfast and that _Romeo and Juliet_ was to be performed in the
afternoon, and _Julius Caesar_ in the evening; and he went up to
the city by an earlier train than usual so that he might be certain of
getting to the theatre in time to secure an end seat near the front of
the pit. He had proposed to his Uncle Matthew that he should go to
Belfast, too, to see the plays, but Uncle Matthew shook his head and
murmured that he was not feeling well. He had been listless lately,
they had noticed, and Uncle William, regarding him one afternoon as he
stood at the door of the shop, had turned to John and said that he
would be glad when the summer weather came in again, so that Uncle
Matthew could go down to the shore and lie in the sun.
"He's not a robust man, your Uncle Matthew!" he said. "I don't think he
tholes the winter well!"
"Och, he's mebbe only a wee bit out of sorts," John answered. "I wish,
he'd come to Belfast with me!..."
"He'll never go next or near that place again," Uncle William replied.
"He's never been there since that affair!..."
"You'd wonder at a man letting a thing of that sort affect his mind the
way Uncle Matthew let it affect his," John murmured.
"When a man believes in a thing as deeply as he believed in the oul'
Queen," said Uncle William, "it's a terrible shock to him to find out
that other people doesn't believe in it half as much as he does ... or
mebbe doesn't believe in it at all!"
"I suppose you're right," said John.
"I am," said Uncle William.
John was the first person to reach the door of the pit that afternoon.
The morning had been rough and blusterous, and although the streets
were dry, the cold wind blowing down from the hills made people
reluctant to stand outside a theatre door. John, who was hardy and
indifferent to cold, stood inside the shelter of the door and read the
copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ which he had borrowed from his Uncle
Matthew; and while he read the play he remembered his uncle's criticism
of the story he had written for _Blackwood's Magazine_: that it
ought to have had a woman in it! This play was full of love. Romeo,
sighing and groaning because his lady will not look kindly upon him,
runs from his friends who "jest at scars that never felt a wound" ...
and finds Juliet! In _The Merchant of Venice_, Bassanio and
Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Nerissa had all made love.
Even young Gobbo, in a coarse, philandering way, had made love, too! In
all the books he had read, women were prominent. Queer and distressing
things happened to the heroes; they were constantly in trouble and
under suspicion of wrong-doing; poverty and persecution were common to
them; frequently, they were misunderstood; but in the end, they had
their consolations and their rights and rewards. Love was the great
predominating element in all these stories, the support and inspiration
and reward of the troubled and tortured hero; and Woman was the symbol
of victory, of achievement. At the end of every journey, at the finish
of every fight, there was a Woman. Uncle Matthew had spoken wisely,
John thought, when he said that you cannot leave women out of your
schemes and plans.
John had not thought of leaving women out of his schemes and plans. In
all his romantic imaginings, a woman of superb beauty had figured in a
dim way; but the woman had been a dream woman only, bearing no
resemblance whatever to the visible women about him. He had so much
regard for this woman of his imagined adventures ... she changed her
looks as frequently as he changed the scene of his romances ... that he
had no regard left for the women of his acquaintance. He nodded to the
girls he knew when he met them in the street, but he had never felt any
desire to "go up the road" with one of them. Willie Logan, as John
knew, was "coortin' hard" and laying up trouble for himself by his
diverse affections; and Aggie Logan, forgetful, perhaps, of the rebuff
that John had given to her childish offers of love, had lately taken to
hanging about the street when John was due to pass along it. She would
pretend not to see him until he was close to her. Then she would start
and giggle and say, "Oh, John, is that you? You're a terrible stranger
these days!..." Once while he was listening to her as she made some
such remark as that, Lady Castlederry drove by in her carriage, and his
eyes wandered from the sallow, giggling girl in front of him to the
beautiful woman in the carriage; and Aggie suffered severely by the
comparison. And yet Aggie had a quicker and more intelligent look than
Lady Castlederry. The beautiful, arrogant woman was like the dream-woman
of his romances ... and again, she was not like her; for the dream-women
had not got Lady Castlederry's look of settled stupidity in her eyes.
John had hurriedly quitted Aggie's company on that occasion. He knew
why Aggie always contrived to meet him in the street, and he thought
that she was a poor fool of a girl to do it. And her brother Willie was
a "great gumph of a fellow," to go capering up and down the road in the
evenings after any girl that would say a civil word to him or laugh
when he laughed!...
All the same, women mattered to men. Uncle Matthew had said so, and
Uncle Matthew was in the right of it. In the story-books, women surged
into the hero's life, good women and bad women and even indifferent
women. And, now, in these plays, he could see for himself that women
mattered enormously. Yet he had never been in love with a girl! He was
not even in love with the dream-woman of his romances. She was his
reward for honourable and arduous service ... that was all. He was not
in love with her any more than he was in love with a Sunday School
prize. It was a reward for regular attendance and for accurate answers
to Biblical questions, and he was glad to have it. It rested on the
bookshelf in the drawing-room, and sometimes, when there were visitors
in the house, his mother would request him to take it down and show it
to them. They would read the inscription and make remarks on the oddness
of Mr. McCaughan's signature and turn over the pages of the book ... and
then they would hand it back to him and he would replace it on the
shelf ... and no more was said about it. Really, his dream-woman
had not meant much more to him than that. She would be given to him
when he had won his fight, and he would take her and be glad to get
her ... he would be very proud of her and would exhibit her to his
friends and say, "This is my beautiful wife!" and then!... oh, well,
there did not appear to be anything else after that. The book always
came to an end when the hero married the heroine. Probably she and he
had children ... but, beyond the fact that they lived happily ever
afterwards, there did not appear to be much more to say about them....
Somehow, it seemed to him now, as he stood in the shelter of the Pit
Entrance to the Theatre Royal, reading _Romeo and Juliet_, that
the heroine was different from his dream-woman. His dream-woman had
always been very insubstantial and remote, but Juliet was a real woman,
alive and passionate, with a real father and a real mother. The odd
thing about his dream-woman was that she did not appear to have any
relatives ... at least he had never heard of any. She had not even got
a name. She never spoke to him. Always, when the adventure was ended,
he went up to the dream-woman, waiting for him in a misty manner, and
he took hold of her hand and led her away ... and while he was leading
her away, the adventure seemed to come to an end ... the picture
dissolved ... and he could not see any more. Once, indeed, he had
kissed his dream-woman ... he had kissed her exactly as he had kissed
his great-aunt, Miss Clotworthy, who was famous for the fact that
she had attended a Sunday School in Belfast as pupil and teacher for
fifty-seven years without a break ... and the dream-woman had taken the
kiss in the unemotional manner in which she took hold of his hand when he
led her away ... and lost her!...
There was something wrong with his dream-woman, he told himself. This
man Shakespeare, so everybody said, was the greatest poet England had
produced ... perhaps the greatest poet the world had produced ... and
he ought to know something of what women were like. Whatever else
Juliet might be, she certainly was not like John's dream-woman. She did
not stand at the end of the road waiting for Romeo to come to her. She
did not wait until the fight was fought and won. She did not offer a
cold hand or cold lips to Romeo. Her behaviour was really more like
that of Aggie Logan than that of the dream-woman!...
Aggie Logan! That "girner" with the sallow look and the giggle! He
could see her now, standing in the street waiting for him, dabbing at
her mouth with the foolish handkerchief she always carried in her hand.
What did she want to keep on dabbing at her mouth with her handkerchief
for! Men didn't dab at _their_ mouths.... Nor did the dream-woman
dab at hers.... But it was just possible ... indeed, it was very
likely, that Juliet dabbed at hers!...
At that moment, the Pit Door opened, and John, having paid his
shilling, passed into the theatre.