Chapter III

Mrs. MacDermott solved the problem, not by letter, but by word of mouth. She telegraphed to John to meet her at Euston, and on the way from the station to Hampstead, she told him of her plan.

"I'd settled this in my mind from the beginning," she said, "and you've only just advanced things a week or two by your letter. I'm going to take Eleanor back to Ballyards with me!..."

"What for?"

"What for!" she exclaimed. "So's your child can be born in the house where you were born and your da and his da!... That's why! Where else would a MacDermott be born but in his own home?"

"But what about me?"

"You! You can come home too, if you like!"

"How can I come home when I have my work to do? It'll be three months yet before the child is born!..."

"Well, you can stay here by yourself then!"

"In the flat ... alone?"

"Aye. What's to hinder you? That's what your Uncle William that's twice your age would have to do, if you had your way!"

"I don't see that at all. He could easily give Cassie McClurg a few shillings a week to come and look after him while you stay here with us!..."

"I'm not thinking about you or your Uncle William. I'm thinking about Eleanor and the child. I want it to be born at home!"

"Och, what does it matter where it's born," John impatiently demanded, "so long as it is born?"

"You _fool_!" said Mrs. MacDermott, and there was such scorn in her voice as John had never heard in any voice before. She turned away and would not speak to him again. He lay back against the cushions of the cab and considered Eleanor would certainly be well cared for at home, but ... "what about me?" he asked. He supposed he could manage by himself. Of course, he could. That was not the point that was worrying him. He hated the thought of being separated from Eleanor!...

"No," he said to his mother, "I don't think I can agree to that!"

"It doesn't matter whether you agree to it or not," she replied. "It's what's going to happen!" She turned on him furiously. "Have you no nature or pride? Where else would Eleanor be so well-tended as at home?..."

"It isn't her home," he objected.

"It _is_ her home. She's a MacDermott now, and anyway the child is. You'd keep her here in this Godforsaken town, surrounded by strangers, and no relation of her own to be near her when her trouble comes!... There's times, John, when I wonder are you a man at all? Your mind is so set on yourself that you're like a lump of stone. You and your old books ... as if they matter a tinker's curse to anybody!..."

"I know you never thought anything of my work," he complained, "and Eleanor doesn't think much of it either. I get little encouragement from any of you!"

"You get encouragement," Mrs. MacDermott retorted, "when you've earned it. It's no use pulling a poor mouth to me, my son. I come from a family that never asked for pity, and I married into one that never asked for pity. My family and your da's family went through the world, giving back as much as we got and a wee bit more, and we never let a murmur out of us when we got hurt. There were times when I thought it was hard on the women of the family, but I see now, well and plain, that there's no pleasure in this world but to be keeping your head high and never to let nothing downcast you. I'd be ashamed to be a cry-ba!..."

"I'm no cry-ba!" he muttered sulkily.

"Well, prove it then. Let Eleanor come without making a sour face over it. Come yourself if you want to, but anyway let her come!"

"I don't believe she'll go," he said.

"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 passed 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.