John wrote to Maggie Carmichael to tell her of his Uncle's death. It
would not be possible for him to keep his engagement with her on the
following Saturday. She sent a thinly-written note of sympathy to him,
telling him that she would not expect to see him for a while because of
his bereavement. "_You'll not be in the mood for enjoying yourself at
present,_" she wrote, "_and I daresay you would prefer to stay at
home at present. I expect you'll miss your Uncle terribly!--_"
Indeed, he did miss his Uncle terribly!
There was a strange quietness in the house before the day of the
burial, which was natural, but it was maintained after Uncle Matthew
had been put in the grave where John's father lay. Uncle William's
quick, loud voice became hushed and slow and sometimes inaudible, and
Mrs. MacDermott went about her work with few words to anyone. John had
come on her, an hour or two before the coffin lid was screwed down,
putting a book in Uncle Matthew's hands. He saw the title of it ...
_Don Quixote_ ... and he said to her, "What are you doing, ma?"
She looked up quickly and hesitated. "Nothing!" she answered, and
suddenly aware that she did not wish to be observed, he went away and
left her alone. It seemed to him afterwards that she resented his
knowledge of what she had done ... that she looked at him sometimes as
if she were forbidding him ever to speak of it ... but she did not talk
of it. She spoke as seldom as Uncle William did, and it seemed to John
that the voice had been carried out of the house when Uncle Matthew had
been carried to the graveyard. He felt that he could not endure the
oppression of this silence any longer, that he must, speak to someone,
and, in his search for comfort, his mind wandered in search of Maggie
Carmichael with intenser devotion than he had ever experienced before.
If only Uncle Matthew were alive, John could talk to him of Maggie.
Uncle Matthew would listen to him. Uncle Matthew always had listened to
him. He had never shown any impatience when John had talked to him of
this scheme and that scheme, and he would not have mocked his love for
Maggie. How queer a thing it was that Uncle Matthew who had seemed to
be the least important person in the house should have so ... so
stifled the rest of them by his death!
Uncle William, who bore the whole burden of maintaining the family,
mourned for Uncle Matthew as if he had lost his support; and Mrs.
MacDermott began to talk, when she talked at all, of the things that
Matt had liked. Matt liked this and Matt liked that ... and yet she had
seemed not merely to disregard Uncle Matthew when he was alive, but
actually to dislike him. Uncle Matthew must have had a stronger place
in the house than any of them had imagined. John could not bear to go
to the attic now, although he wished to turn over the books which were
now his. It was in the attic that Uncle Matthew had found most of his
happiness, in the company of uncomplaining, unreproachful books, and
the memory of that happiness had drawn John to the attic one day when
he most missed his Uncle. He had handled the books very fondly, turning
over pages and pausing now and then to read a passage or two ... and
while he had turned the pages of an old book with faded, yellow leaves,
he had found a cutting from a Belfast newspaper. It contained a report
of the police proceedings against Uncle Matthew, and it was headed,
STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF A BALLYARDS MAN!... John hurriedly put the book
down and went out of the room. He had not shed a tear over Uncle
Matthew. He did not wish to cry over him. He felt that Uncle Matthew
would like his mourners to have dry eyes ... but it was hard not to cry
when one read that bare, uncomprehending account of Uncle Matthew's
chivalrous act. _Strange_ behaviour, the reporter named it, when
every instinct in John demanded that it should be called _noble_
behaviour. Was a man to be called a fool because his heart compelled
him to perform an act of simple loyalty?... _Strange behaviour_!
John seized the cutting and crumpled it in his hand. Then he
straightened it out again and tore it in pieces. Were people so poor in
faith and devotion that they could not recognise the nobility of what
Uncle Matthew had done? And for that act of goodness, Uncle Matthew had
gone to his grave under stigma. "Poor sowl," they said in Ballyards,
"it's a merciful release for him. He was always quare in the head!"
John could not stay in the house with his memories of Uncle Matthew,
and so he went for walks along the shores of the Lough, to Cubbinferry
and Kirklea or turning coastwards, towards Millreagh and Holmesport;
but there was no comfort to be found in these walks. He returned from
them, tired in body, but unrested in mind. He tried to write another
story, but he had to put the pen and ink and paper away again, and he
told himself that he had no ability to write a story. Wherever he went
and whatever he did, the loss of Uncle Matthew pressed upon him and
left him with a sense of impotence, until at last, his nature, weary of
its own dejection, turned and demanded relief. And so he set his
thoughts again on Maggie Carmichael, and each day he found himself,
more and more, thinking of her until, after a while, he began to think
only of her. He had written to her a second time, but she had not
answered his letter. He remembered that she had protested against her
incompetence as a correspondent. "I'm a poor hand at letter-writing,"
she had said laughingly. She could talk easily enough, but she never
knew what to put in a letter, and anyhow it was a terrible bother to
write one. A letter would be a poor substitute for her, he told
himself. He must see her soon. Mourning or no mourning, he would go to
Belfast on the next Saturday and would see her. It would not be
possible for him to take her to a theatre, but she and he could go for
a long walk or they could sit together in the restaurant and talk to
each other. This loneliness and silence was becoming unendurable: he
must get away from the atmosphere of loss and mourning into an
atmosphere of life and love. Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that.
He felt certain that Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that. Uncle
Matthew would hate to think of his nephew prowling along the roads in
misery and suffering when his whole desire had been that he should have
opportunity and satisfaction. He had bequeathed his property and his
money "to my beloved nephew John MacDermott," and John had been deeply
moved by the affection that glowed through the legal phraseology of the
will. It was not yet known how much money there would be, for Mr.
McGonigal, the solicitor, had not completed his account of Uncle
Matthew's affairs; but the amount of it could not be very large. That
was immaterial to John. What mattered to him was that his Uncle's love
for him had never flickered for a moment, but had shone steadily and
surely until the day of his death.
"I never told anyone but him about Maggie," John thought. "I'm glad I
told him ... and I know he'd want me to go to her now!"
And so, late on Friday evening, he resolved that he would go to Belfast
on the following day. He sent a short note to Maggie, addressing it to
the restaurant, in which he told her that he would call for her on
Saturday. He begged that she would go for a walk with him. "_We might
go to the Cave Hill_," he wrote, "_and be back in plenty of time
for tea!_"