Affectionately,
J.M.B.
Peter wrote of George in the Morgue: ‘He had turned from a boy into a young man, and must have spread his wings a little in the vacations. … He had a devoted and in many ways invaluable mentor in J.M.B., but the way cannot have been made altogether easy for him, as the first of the family to grow up against so peculiar a background.’ In the summer of 1912, George and Jack had met three sisters, the Mitchell-Innes girls, at a dance given by Sylvia's sister, May, at her house in Cheyne Walk. All three girls were ‘swept off their feet’ by the two boys, but it was Josephine, the eldest, who succeeded in winning George to herself. She was, according to her sister Norma:
Josephine Mitchell-Innes. Barrie later wrote to her (28 June 1915): ‘I knew there was one matter on which George could make no mistake.’
‘terribly gay, and absolutely the right sort of person for George. He wasn't a great talker – he was rather shy, rather reserved. He had a vein of sadness in him – we all recognised it – whereas Dophine [Josephine's pet-name] was all fun and laughter, a tremendous mimic, and full of courage if anything went wrong. … George stayed with us several times in Scotland during his Cambridge life, and a great many times at our home, Churchill, in Hertfordshire. … George never took any credit for Peter Pan whatsoever, absolutely none – he was far too modest. He always said he was George Darling in the play – climbing in and out of kennels. But I remember he gave The Little White Bird to Dophine – rather shyly – he just wrote “Josephine's” inside it – just like George to write that. … I think one or two people were rather disturbed about Barrie, though of course it was never talked about openly. There was something very sinister about him, rather shivery. But of course George was deeply fond of him, and understood him so well – saw through him a little, I think – but never said anything unkind about him. George had extraordinary understanding, which is perhaps what gave him his sadness. It was almost what the Germans call Weltschmerz – a sadness of the world, not a personal sadness about himself. He had a very clear vision of people and life, and yet a beautiful sense of humour and sans-souci charm.’11
As eldest son, George was required to sign various documents relating to Sylvia's estate, which evidently distressed him. Barrie wrote to him at Cambridge on November 18th, 1913:
‘Yes, it was all very sad, and I knew how you were feeling it. Many things besides this will remind you now of the last days at Ashton, and they will take on a new meaning to you. Your mother did not want your minds to dwell on sadness even for a moment when you were younger. She grudged every second of happiness you were deprived of. I don't know if I told you that in the paper of directions she wrote at the end, but which was not found till long afterwards, she said she did not wish her funeral day to be made long and wearisome for you, and also that she did not wish any of you to go to the funeral. It can only be afterwards that a boy realises the unselfishness of a mother's love. It is a pain as well as a glory to him.’
Noël Coward as one of the Lost Boys in the 1913/14 Peter Pan revival
The boys might be growing up, but a part of their childhood would always remain the same age: Peter Pan, now in its ninth annual revival, and as firmly rooted in the Christmas tradition as Santa Claus. But if Peter grew no older, Pauline Chase, who had played him every year since 1906, was beginning to feel her age, and this was to be her final season. ‘When [the lost boys] seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out,’ warned Barrie in Peter and Wendy. The actors playing the Lost Boys found that the system also applied to them. Pauline Chase wrote in Peter Pan's Postbag: ‘Every December a terrifying ceremony takes place before Peter Pan is produced, and this is the measuring of the children who play in it. They are measured to see whether they have grown too tall, and they can all squeeze down into about two inches less than they really are, but this does not deceive the management. … “It won't do, my lad. … We are sorry for you, but – farewell!” Measuring day is one of the many tragedies of Peter Pan.’ A new recruit to the Lost Boys this year was the young Noël Coward, aged fourteen, who was given the part of Slightly. Barrie made a point of attending the rehearsals of each Peter Pan revival, adding the occasional new line from the store of children's remarks jotted down in his notebook during the course of the year. Sometimes one or more of the Davies boys accompanied him, and Michael's opinion was now beginning to play an increasingly important part in his decisions.
Gaby Deslys
A letter from Barrie to Peter Scott
This year, however, Barrie's mind was on a new project, as bizarre as anything he had yet attempted. Hullo, Ragtime! had been playing for over a year to packed houses, and Barrie had taken the Five to see it some dozen or more times. In November 1913, they went to see another revue at the Palace Theatre, featuring the French music-hall star, Gaby Deslys. Gaby was a phenomenon of the decade, the first of the modern sex-symbols, whose fantastic head-dresses, semi-nudity on stage, provocative dancing and scandalous private life more than compensated for her limited acting talent. She was a discredit to the theatrical profession, and Barrie was spellbound by her. Since the boys were equally enraptured, he took immediate steps to make her acquaintance and invited her round for tea in his flat at Adelphi Terrace. She could speak very little English, but he found her to be entrancing, and determined there and then that she should become his next star. He would write her a revue. Gaby could scarcely believe her good fortune; she knew well enough that she was little more than a glorified chorus-girl, and the prospect of having England's leading dramatist at her feet was flattery indeed. Cecil Beaton wrote, Out of sheer joie de vivre, on leaving [his Adelphi flat] she ran down the many circles of staircases ringing the doorbells of each flat as she passed.’12 When the news leaked out that Sir James Barrie was proposing to write Mam'selle Gaby Deslys a revue, a number of his peers were shocked and appalled; others, who knew him better, sensed that it was just another of his unpredictable flirtations, and prayed that the infatuation would pass before he made a fool of himself in public. A few, perhaps, perceived that in tackling a ragtime revue, Barrie was attempting to keep pace with the younger generation, and in particular his boys. Certainly they gave the enterprise their full support, and Barrie began to fill Michael's Christmas present – a new notebook – with a wild assortment of ideas: ‘Combine theatre with cinematography – Cinema way of kissing. Burlesque of American titles, “Nope” & “Yep” – Gaby a chorus-girl, flirts with conductor in pit.’ Tucked away at the foot of the same page is a glimpse of the other Barrie: ‘Father & Son (Me & Michael). Mutually fond of each other – His avoidance of my sentiment – I feign hurt, hide my pride. … Michael coming to me cried one tear at Dhivach – I picture it remorsefully alone among hills & streams – Send his laugh to be friends with it & gay together. Embarrassed when I tell it of him at Eton (has long forgotten it).’ More notes on Michael were followed by a long glossary of Eton slang: ‘Tanning is by a boy, Swiped by a master (not swished) – Tug = Colleger, Scug = Dirty small boy’.
Scrawled across the fly-leaf of a novel in the producer's celebrated blue pencil: ‘Dear Michael, This will admit two to the Duke of York's Theater. Charles Frohman’
When Frohman arrived at Easter, he found that his playwright had apparently abandoned the theatre in favour of the new medium of cinematography. Barrie was fascinated by it: it was a new toy, like his early cameras and the steam-car. He was now devising an entertainment even more fantastic than Gaby's revue, though in due course it would become a part of it. His scheme was to host a ‘Cinema Supper’: half a dozen all-star sketches written by himself and performed before an invited audience at the Savoy Theatre, followed by a banquet at the Savoy Hotel. Unbeknown to the guests, who were to include the Prime Minister and members of the Government, Barrie planned to have cameras throughout the auditorium and banquet-hall, filming their candid reactions. He then intended to edit the film into short sequences, to be projected at various points throughout Gaby's revue
on a huge screen at the back of the stage. A thirty-foot close-up of Prime Minister Asquith would, Barrie felt, make an original back-drop to one of Gaby's erotic dance routines. Frohman listened to the Baronet's proposal with a sense of déjà vu: he seemed to recall a similar madness of ten years ago, when the same writer had proposed a play in which people flew about the stage and crocodiles swallowed alarm-clocks. He was, however, no longer the Napoleon of Broadway: a series of box-office flops (including a recent effort from Barrie's own pen, The Adored One) had somewhat depleted his funds; moreover his health was poor, and he now had to move about with the aid of a stick. But his sense of adventure, like Hook's brain, was as gigantic as ever. He suggested that they should repair to Paris for further discussions, taking George, Peter and Michael with them. Peter Davies described the visit in his Morgue:
George aged 21 in July 1914
‘We stayed at the Meurice in the Rue de Rivoli, and … wore in the evenings tail coats and white ties. This was George's first … glimpse not only of Paris but of what might be called the cosmopolitan hotel and restaurant vie de luxe, as it existed before the First Great War. A morning wandering round the Louvre or the Latin Quarter – lunch at Armenouville – afternoon looking through the bookstalls by the river … or flinging rings over hooks with the rest of the party … or (once) placating the goddess in the Rue Pasquier* – tea at Rumpelmayer's while the band played Je sais que vous êtes jolie, followed by a game of L'Attaque with Michael – dinner at Fouquet or Larue … – a revue or a French play which none of us understood, least of all Frohman, who probably bought the English rights nevertheless – and finally supper at the Café de Paris with Irene [and] Vernon Castle dancing. George took to all this like a duck to water … and it was then that George and I first clearly saw what Jack had missed by being sent into the Navy instead of to Eton.’
Barrie widened George's horizon still further by sending him off to Italy for two weeks in the summer. He wrote to him at Massa Carrara on June 29th, 1914:
‘It seems to be a little heaven below, and your first introduction to Italy something you won't forget. London is very close just now, and when evening comes I envy your roof garden and the fireflies. … Peter sends me orders to take him to the opera at Long Leave. … My [Cinema] Supper is on Friday & I have written half a dozen plays for it. I'll send you a programme.’
The Cinema Supper went according to plan, with Lillah McCarthy, Henry Ainley, Marie Löhr, Irene Vanbrugh, Marie Tempest, Gerald du Maurier and Granville-Barker taking part in Barrie's sketches. However, the Prime Minister, upon learning that his unguarded gestures and grimaces had been recorded on cellulose, hurriedly wrote a letter from 10 Downing Street, forbidding the exhibition of his likeness in a music-hall revue. A number of other guests shared Asquith's indignation and Barrie was obliged to think up alternative material for his cinematic sequences. His solution was to hire a team of film technicians, persuade Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton and William Archer to dress up as cowboys, then film them in the wilds of Hertfordshire doing a Western burlesque. This too fell flat, since Barrie had omitted to tell Shaw that he intended projecting his performance on stage while another actor did a simultaneous impersonation of him. Shaw was unamused, and confiscated the film.
Barrie wrote again to George on July 13th:
‘Peter and I set out on Saturday to wire you the result of the Eton & Harrow match and forgot about it in the stress of going to the opera. Both nights of Long Leave did he drag me to the opera. … Another piece of news just arrived tonight is that Michael who went in for the College Scholarship exam came out seventh. He will stay on at Macnaghten's, but I am glad he went in and some other boy can be made happy with the scholarship. … Very near your birthday now! … I hope all is still very happy in your romantic home. It is an experience you won't forget. Write soon.’
The mention of Peter dragging his guardian to the opera prompted him to comment in the Morgue:
Barrie in his favourite fishing hat
‘Being himself totally unmusical, [Barrie] not only did not encourage such leanings, but in one way and another could not help discouraging them. … I felt obscurely then, and feel strongly now, that a little more encouragement in the artistic way would have been very good for us all; would have filled a real need in our sprouting natures. … The lighter side of life was thoroughly catered for, and for that I am duly and deeply grateful. Hullo, Ragtime! and its successors, with which J.M.B. was so oddly and closely connected, was one of our major preoccupations, and delights, and what we didn't know about revue was scarcely worth knowing. … I don't forget that Rupert Brooke went to Hullo, Ragtime! ten – or was it twenty? – times; or that Michael wrote two wonderful sonnets; or that George was good enough for anyone's money as he was, … [but] the fact is that music and painting and poetry, and the part that they may be supposed to play in making a civilized being, had a curiously small place in J.M.B.'s view of things. I think it was of far more interest to him that George and all of us should excel in games and fishing … than that we should acquire any real culture in Matthew Arnold's sense of the word.’
At the end of July 1914, Barrie took George, Michael and Nico up to Scotland for their summer holidays. Jack, now a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, was with his ship in the North Atlantic, but Peter, who was finishing his Eton O.T.C. summer Camp, would be joining them in a few days. Barrie had rented a large shooting lodge, Auch Lodge, near the Bridge of Orchy in Argyllshire, with fishing rights to the Orchy and Kinglass rivers, and once again had arranged for Johnny Mackay to be on hand as a gillie to Michael and Nico. He wrote to Lord Lucas (of the wooden leg) from Auch Lodge on July 31st, 1914:
‘Nicholas is riding about on an absurdly fat pony which necessitates his legs being at right-angles to his body. The others are fishing. The waters are a-crawl with salmon, but they will look at nothing till the rain comes. The really big event is that Johnny Mackay (Michael's gillie) has a new set of artificial teeth. He wears them and joins in the talk with a simple dignity, not boastful, but aware that he is the owner of a good thing – rather like the lady who passes round her necklace.’
Auch Lodge, near the Bridge of Orchy in Argyllshire
He wrote again on Tuesday, August 4th, 1914:
‘We are so isolated from news here, that when I wrote last I was quite ignorant that Europe was in a blaze. … It seems awful to be up here at such a time catching fish, or not catching them, for it has rained four days and nights and is still at it, and all the world is spate and bog. … We occasionally get the morning paper in the evening, and there may be big news to-day.’
‘My Confession Book’, Nico's successor to the Querist's Album, with 1914 confessions from Barrie, Mary Hodgson, George (signed ‘Santa Claus’) and Michael
There was indeed big news, of which Barrie and the boys were blissfully unaware. At midnight on August 4th, Great Britain declared war on Germany. George wrote in his diary:
Tuesday, Aug 4.
A vilely wet & windy day. After lunch I went to the bottom of the Kinglass & fished up, but caught nothing. The burn was too big.
* Members of the staff at 23 Campden Hill Square.
* A family nickname.
* A well-known red-light district.
14
1914–1915
Wednesday, August 5th, the first day of war, proved to be more favourable for George's fishing: ‘Still rather wet, but the burns have gone down. I fished the Kinglass … getting 5 trout.’ Even when Peter arrived from London next day with news of the war, George took it in his stride: ‘Aug 6. Peter arrived for breakfast, bringing with him a letter to me about joining the Special Reserve or Territorials. We took lunch out up the burn that runs into the Kinglass under the railway bridge & each got 10 trout weighing 30 oz. Pouring rain. We went to London in the evening.’ Peter Davies wrote in his Morgue:
‘The letter proved to be a circular from the Adjutant of the Cambridge O.T.C., pointing out that it was the obvious duty of all under
graduates to offer their services forthwith. … This slightly disconcerting document – for great wars were a novelty then – was taken to apply to me also, as I had left Eton and was due to go to Trinity next term. Accordingly George and I travelled back to London the same night, in a carriage full of reservists rejoining the colours, who by their boozy geniality did a good deal to reconcile us to the dark fate which seemed to have descended on us so unexpectedly. Next day we went down to Cambridge, where the Corps Adjutant, a major in the Rifle Brigade, recommended the Rifle Depôt at Winchester as a suitable gambit. The “Pack up your troubles” philosophy caught from the reservists was by now beginning to recede from us, and I think George as well as I had odd sensations in the pit of the stomach as we emerged from Winchester Station and climbed the hill to the Depôt. At any rate George had one of those queer turns, something between a fainting fit and a sick headache, to which he had been prone since childhood, and had to sit for a few minutes on a seat outside the barracks. I would willingly have turned tail and gone back to London humiliated but free. George however, the moment he recovered, marched me in with him through those dark portals: and somehow or other … we found ourselves inside the office of Lt. Col. the Hon. J. R. Brownlow, D.S.O., commanding the 6th (Special Reserve) Battalion of the King's Royal Rifles. … [He] was busy writing, and looked up to ask rather gruffly what we wanted.
J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys Page 28