CHAPTER XIX

Next morning I was awakened by somebody singing, and opening my eyes I saw George, in his shirt and trousers, strutting up and down the middle of the floor, a hair-brush in his hand. It took me half a minute to realise where I was, but George, when he saw I was awake, proceeded to give me imitations of various music-hall artists, until there was a sharp rap at our door, and Aunt Margaret’s voice told him to remember what day it was. With that I remembered myself, and simultaneously made up my mind that I wasn’t going to church. I determined that now I was away from home I would be my own master, and do just what seemed good in my own eyes, and that I would begin this policy at once.

Our room was at the back of the house, and from where I lay I could see through the window a strip of gray, desolate sky, broken here and there by a chimney, and across which the dark branch of an unhealthy tree waved. As I watched it, my mind strayed to a book of Japanese decorations, and to the library at Derryaghy, and to other things I cared for. I had already guessed from the little I had seen of the McAllisters that their fortunes were drooping. It was not so much that everything in the house was worn out and patched and on its last legs, that the children were ill-clad and looked ill-nourished, as that I seemed to scent that mysterious atmosphere of anxiety, worry, and struggle, which invariably accompanies a decreasing ability to pay one’s way. I hated it. I hated all that it implied――sordid economies and cheap pleasures, a degrading and enchaining struggle to keep things going. It did not awaken pity in me, but only disgust. It was like a horrible monster that clung and squeezed with a thousand slimy tentacles, sapping your strength, and sucking out your life-blood. I could even sympathise with those who had freed themselves from it by some bold decisive action, that might lie well outside the laws of morality and society.

In the midst of these reflections George informed me that I had better get up. He was tying his tie. His red hair was carefully plastered down with water, and he was examining his small, freckled face in the looking-glass. George had not yet begun to shave, but he had long, silly-looking hairs growing out of his chin, and I thought he looked extremely ugly and horribly common as he stood there.

When we went downstairs the others were just beginning breakfast. The whole family was terribly _endimanchée_. Aunt Margaret was redolent of cheap scent. Gordon and Thomas were dressed in green plush with white mother-of-pearl buttons. Their little, damp, red, snub noses seemed to have been set that very morning accidentally in the middle of their round faces, which were of the complexion of fresh putty, and their eyes were exactly like blue glass marbles. Uncle George, who was breakfasting in his gray shirt sleeves, suggested that I might like to go with George to the Bible-class, but I refused. I added, to prevent all future trouble, that I preferred to take a walk on Sunday morning.

“Do you go for walks when you are at home?” Aunt Margaret asked me, with her strange smile.

“No,” I answered.

“Doesn’t your father expect you to go to church?”

“I don’t know what he expects, I’m sure.”

“And don’t you think yourself you ought to go?”

“No.” I was quite certain about this at all events, and I added that, once you were familiar with any particular ideas, no matter how valuable, I couldn’t see that you gained very much by listening to them being repeated ad infinitum.

This explanation, far from convincing, evidently annoyed, Aunt Margaret, though she only said, “I would rather you didn’t talk like that before the children. They have been brought up to look upon religion with respect.”

I did not reply.

“I think I’ll go for a walk too,” George announced, with a wink at me.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” cried Aunt Margaret, flaring up into a shrill rage. “You see what comes of such talk! I’ll have no Sabbath-breaking in this house.”

“Ssh――ssh,” Uncle George mildly intervened. “To force people to do things against their will isn’t the proper way to take.”

“You want your children to give up going to church, then?”

“Nobody is giving up going to church. George is coming of course. Young people very often say things without meaning them. If Peter is for taking a walk this morning, I expect he will come out with us this evening to hear Dr. Russell, won’t you, Peter?”

But, altogether apart from Dr. Russell, that Sunday was a dreary day. In the afternoon I accompanied George, and we loafed about in the Ormeau Park, where he was evidently accustomed to meet his friends. These friends of George’s were all in business, and all looked upon themselves as young men. They smoked cheap cigarettes, wore their handkerchiefs in their sleeves, and were tremendously knowing and rakish, while the larger part of their conversation appeared to be concerned with the merits of professional football players. I could get on all right with George when he was by himself, but his friends, among whom he was remarkably popular, did not improve him. It took no great perspicacity to discover that they on their side regarded my company as a very questionable acquisition. This feeling, far from diminishing, obviously increased as the afternoon advanced. George described our adventure of the night before with immense gusto, and gave a burlesque imitation of the knock-out. To have an appreciative audience was his greatest delight, and the others, for that matter, left him a fairly free stage. Now that he had them he ignored me utterly, so that, in the end, I was left practically alone. I fulfilled a sort of highly disagreeable rôle of silent hanger-on. I did it most reluctantly, yet I could not summon up sufficient moral courage to go away.