J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys

by Andrew Birkin

  Evan Talbot, Audrey Lucas, Michael and Barrie on the shore facing Eilean Shona

  To make the holiday the more attractive, Barrie had suggested that Michael and Nico might like to bring along a few of their friends. Roger Senhouse came, somewhat apprehensively, since, on a previous visit to Adelphi Terrace, Barrie had not addressed a single word to him. Nico brought two Eton friends, and Elizabeth and Audrey Lucas were also included in the house party. However, Barrie's enthusiasm for the holiday soon began to wane, and by August 17th he was writing to Cynthia:

  ‘This island has changed from sun to rain, and we have now had about 60 hours of it so wet that you get soaked if you dart across the lawn. It's dry for the moment and anon I will be observed – or rather, I won't be, for there is no one to observe me – playing clock-golf by my lonely self. I am mostly by my lonely self. … The others are out sea-fishing … and the party is merrier without me. … Michael has been drawing more sketches of me, and they are more than enough. He has a diabolical aptitude for finding my worst attributes, so bad that I indignantly deny them, then I furtively examine myself in the privacy of my chamber, and lo, they are there.’

  Barrie wrote again to Cynthia on September 7th:

  ‘We are a very Etonian household, and there is endless shop talked, during which I am expected to be merely the ladler out of food. If I speak to the owner of the puppy [Roger Senhouse] he shudders but answers politely and then edges away. Our longest conversation will be when he goes –

  ‘He:$(with dry lips but facing the situation in the bull-dog way) “Thank you very much for having me. Awfully good of you.”

  ‘I:$“Nice to have you here.”

  ‘(Exeunt in opposite directions)

  Barrie ‘playing clock-golf by my lonely self’ on Eilean Shona, photographed by Nico

  ‘Do my letters seem aged? I certainly feel so here. I have a conviction that they secretly think it indecent of me to play tennis, which however I am only suffered to do as a rare treat. They run about and gather the balls for me, and in their politeness almost offer to hold me up when it is my turn to serve. By the way, what an extraordinarily polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be “sorry” and admiration of each other's play crosses the net as frequently as the ball. I fancy this is all part of the “something” you get at public schools and can't get anywhere else. I feel sure that when any English public school boy shot a Boche he called out “Sorry”. If he was hit himself he cried, “Oh, well shot”.’

  In November of the previous year Barrie had been elected Rector of St Andrews University: a three-year appointment, which required him to make an address to the students at some point during the three years. He had not yet decided on a subject, but hours of arguing and debate with Michael and his student friends on Eilean Shona helped to formulate his ideas. Barrie was fond of a pretence towards the old accepted values, but his notebook shows that the views of a younger generation were not wasted on him:

  — Age & Youth the two great enemies. … Age (wisdom) failed – Now let us see what youth (audacity) can do. The 2 great partners in state shdn't be Tory, Liberal or Labour – but Age & Youth. … Rectors all advise work, labour sublime outlook, &c. This really not in touch with young men they used to be. No one can bridge that gulf (boys at Eton cheered General but said ‘Silly Ass’). Youth already knows nearly as much as Old & feel far more. Old advising young with advice rather a mockery just after War which young men died for. … They shd put statesmen who make war in front line. They shd be convicting me in dock (instead of my addressing) & condemning.

  Michael at Eilean Shona

  — Present Day – War Result – The Young – Plays – Litre &c. Might be speech or play with scene laid a few years hence. Present discussions of immorality of plays &c is all muddled ∵ the two sides (really old & young – i.e. Before & After War) don't understand (admit) that they have different views of what constitutes immorality. As dif[ferent] as ours from, say, an African tribe (This really the great result of war which at first didn't seem to show itself. It isn't those who fought agst their elders, but those who have been growing up since the war agst outlook of others (the soldiers are merely discontented). In short, there has arisen a new morality which seeks to go its own way agst the fierce protests (or despair) of the old morality. No argument can exist between the two till this is admitted. In present controversy it isn't admitted – the Old screams at the New as … vile ∵ not Old's way – and New despises Old as played out and false sentiment. When they admit that the other has a case to state, then … they can argue – not before.

  — This sentimentality is deep in it and is the flag of the Old (at least in New's opinion). From Art the two seek different things. In the Old's plays, novels &c, what public wanted was to be made to like characters so much that the work had to have happy endings – to be sympathetic was the one aim of the artist. Undoubtedly this often led to sloppiness & insincerity in the works of great writers – all must end happily at any cost. We were brought up to this.

  — The New no longer ask for this. They don't care tho' characters end miserably or not – they don't want to be sympathetic with them, they enjoy seeing them stripped of their qualities as much as the Old liked them to be emphasized. It may be a mood (but it is perhaps something better), but they are out for dissection, exposure, they have lost simple faith – probably the War is main cause of it – they query everything. Perhaps they accept too little & we accepted too much.

  Barrie at work on Eilean Shona

  — In a play they cd be shown in action as things will be a few years hence, when by the passing away of the old (or a revolution) they have established their new morality and new laws of the land. The Sentimental-Sympathetic may be illegal – the old put out of way & little statuettes of them kept instead. There may be Class A, Class B people, &c. A love scene might be under accepted conditions that to propose marriage is Class B and ‘living together’ Class A – and more honoured because more difficult to go on with. The end of it shd not be satire but leaving the idea open that New may be better than Old. We can't be sure that they are wrong & we right – we who seem to have made the greatest mess of things that has ever been made in the history of the world.

  Sonnet written by Michael on the summit of Eilean Shona

  At the end of the holiday, Michael decided to return to Oxford instead of going to Paris. The reasons for his last-minute change of heart are unclear: in all probability it was his own decision, though Elizabeth Lucas may have had a hand in the matter. Barrie wrote to her on October 17th:

  Michael on Eilean Shona

  ‘It was nice of you to have that talk with Michael and I have no doubt that for the time at least it had a steadying effect. All sorts of things do set him “furiously to think” and they seem to burn out like a piece of paper. He is at present I think really working well at Oxford and has at any rate spasms of happiness out of it, but one never knows of the morrow. I think few have suffered from the loss of a mother as he has done.’

  Barrie's transcription (with proof corrections) as it appeared in his St Andrews Address, Courage, with ‘secure’ and ‘duty’ changed to ‘serene’ and ‘beauty’

  December 1920, and Barrie was again attending rehearsals for Peter Pan – its sixteenth consecutive annual revival. More lines were being added from his notebook, jotted down in curious juxtaposition with notes for his St Andrews address:

  — P. Pan. Child: ‘Mother, what hour was I born?’ ‘½ past 2 in the morning.’ ‘Oh, mother, I hope I didn't wake you.’

  — Patriotism. As world grows smaller, views of P[atriotism] shd be more world-wide. The men out there were realising this on both sides as they faced each other.

  — Hook. Eton & Magdalen. … Studied for Mods. Took to drink in 1881, elected M.P. following year, &c.

  — T. Hardy great when political swells are dead, rotten & forgotten.

  — So far as self is concerned, neither school nor university of any importance to
me. … Nothing disgusts me more than people beslavering me with praise, but I think an individual may have done me harm by thinking too little of me.

  — Good subject for Rectorial address might be the mess the Rector himself has made of life. … First piece of advice, don't copy me.

  — Great thing to form own opinion, don't accept hearsay. Try to get at what you really see in it all. Question authority. Question accepted views, values, reputations. Don't be afraid to be among the rebels. … Speak scornfully of the Victorian age. Of Edwardian age. Of last year. Of old-fashioned writers like Barrie, who accept old-fangled ideas. Don't be greybeards before your time – too much advice is to make you so.

  — Youth shd demand its share in running of the country (tho' we have no intention of giving it them). Look around & see how much share Youth has now that the war is over – they got a handsome share while it lasted.

  — P. Pan. ‘I thought it was only flowers that died.’

  — Play Title – ‘The Man Who Didn't Couldn't Grow Up’ or ‘The Old Age of Peter Pan.’

  Barrie at his desk in Adelphi Terrace House

  After spending Christmas in Paris with Nico and Elizabeth Lucas, Michael returned to Oxford. Barrie wrote to Elizabeth Lucas on February 27th, 1921:

  ‘Michael will be back soon, but contemplates a reading-party with another undergrad in Dorset, and that will be much better for him than London. He is working hard and really enjoying his life at Oxford for the present at least. He has the oddest way of alternating between extraordinary reserve and surprising intimacy. No medium. In his rooms at Oxford lately he suddenly unbosomed himself marvellously. One has to wait for those times, but they are worth while when they come.’

  Barrie spent Easter with Cynthia Asquith and her family at Stanway, the home of her parents, Lord and Lady Wemyss, then moved on to Dorset, where Michael was staying in a little inn at Corfe Castle, reading for his finals with Rupert Buxton. The rest of the holiday was spent in London, with only Nico and his gramophone for company: ‘You and your Jazz! I heard the Jazz Band at the Coliseum one night & thought it so abominable that I nearly got up in my seat and yelled!’18 Nevertheless, like Peterkin's hammer, Barrie missed the blare when Nico returned to Eton: ‘Once again I take up the pen at the beginning of a new half and thus indite thee. With melancholy heart I saw the iron horse glide away with you from Paddington, but must be must be, and at any rate we had a grand time.’19

  Michael's last letter to Nico: ‘Be mild’

  Work was Barrie's constant hedge against loneliness during the term-time, and with Michael also back at Oxford, he now concentrated his energies on rehearsing the murder play he had written for him, Shall We Join the Ladies? The play was to be performed at the opening of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art's new theatre on May 27th with a glittering cast: Irene Vanbrugh, Marie Löhr, Fay Compton, Dion Boucicault, Charles Hawtrey, Sybil Thorndike, Cyril Maude, Leon Quatermaine, Lady Tree, Lilian McCarthy, Nelson Keys, Madge Titheradge, Norman Forbes, Hilda Trevelyan, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Gerald du Maurier. Even Frohman had never gathered such an assembly; and all for the sake of a one-act play written to please Michael. Twenty-one in a few weeks' time, the first night would be as much a tribute to his coming of age as to the opening of R.A.D.A.'s theatre.

  On Thursday, May 19th, Cynthia Asquith worked at the flat until six o'clock, then went to have dinner with a friend, leaving Barrie alone to write his nightly letter to Michael. Despite their occasional differences, the daily exchange of correspondence between Barrie and Michael had continued without interruption, and recently Cynthia had arranged a ‘great cave’ of Michael's letters into chronological order, starting with his first effort, written as a child of five.

  At about eleven o'clock Barrie put on his hat and coat, took the letter and went down in the lift to post it. He was about to leave the building when a stranger came up to him. He introduced himself as a reporter from a London newspaper, and wondered whether Sir James could oblige him with a few more facts about the drowning. Barrie looked blankly at him. What drowning? The reporter then realized that Barrie was unaware of the news received from Oxford less than an hour before: that two undergraduates, Rupert Buxton and Michael Llewelyn Davies, had been drowned while bathing in the River Thames at Sandford Pool. Their bodies had not yet been recovered, but the tragedy had been witnessed by two men working at a near-by paper mill.

  Barrie needed no further details. He knew that Michael could barely swim a stroke, knew that none the less he had gone on trying, knew that Buxton was his closest friend. There could be no mistake. He walked back to the lift, returned to his flat and shut the door. Some time later he telephoned Peter and Gerald du Maurier. Later still he rang Cynthia Asquith, telling her, in a voice she scarcely recognized: ‘I have had the most terrible news. Michael has been drowned at Oxford.’20 When she arrived at the flat, she found him in a state of complete shock. Peter and Gerald were also there, but Barrie was inconsolable: he simply did not hear them. He refused to go to bed, and when Cynthia returned early next morning, she found that he had spent the entire night pacing up and down the study. Peter went down to Eton to break the news to Nico and bring him back to the flat. When Barrie saw him, he cried out, ‘Oh, take him away, take him away!’21 Nico wrote in 1975:

  ‘Strangely, I don't remember feeling hurt by this, rather did I understand in some way how my very closeness to Michael made his more or less uncontrollable grief even more uncontrollable. … My first duty was to go and break the news to Mary Hodgson, who was working as a midwife for Queen Charlotte's Hospital. I was riding on the top of the bus when I saw her, walking along the street. I ran back to her, and she immediately knew what had happened by the look on my face. We stood in a doorway and sobbed together.’

  Most of London's newspapers carried the story on their front pages. The Evening Standard's coverage was typical:

  THE TRAGEDY OF PETER PAN

  SIR J. M. BARRIE'S LOSS OF AN ADOPTED SON

  ‘There is something of the wistful pathos of some of his own imaginings in the tragedy which has darkened the home of Sir James Barrie. Almost the first remark of friends, on hearing of the death of the adopted son of the dramatist to-day … was: “What a terrible blow for Sir James !” The young men, Mr Michael Llewelyn Davies and Mr Rupert E. V. Buxton … were drowned near Sandford bathing pool, Oxford, yesterday. The two undergraduates were almost inseparable companions. Mr Davies was only 20 and Mr Buxton 22. … The “original” of Peter Pan was named George, [who] was killed in action in March 1915. … Now both boys who are most closely associated with the fashioning of Peter Pan are dead. One recalls the words of Peter himself: “To die would be an awfully big adventure.”’

  The two bodies were not recovered until Friday afternoon, and an inquest was held at Oxford the following day. It was established that the pool, or weir, was a known danger spot: a large memorial overlooked it, commemorating two students who had been drowned there in 1843. The men who had witnessed Michael's death testified that the pool was ‘as still as a mill-pond’ at the time of the tragedy. ‘I heard a shout’, stated one. ‘I looked in the direction and saw two men bathing in the pool in difficulties. … Their heads were close together: they were sort of standing in the water and not struggling.’ ‘Did you form the impression that they were clasped?’ ‘Yes, that was my impression.’22 Since it was known that Michael could not swim, the jury returned a verdict of accidental drowning and ‘expressed the opinion that Mr Buxton lost his life in his endeavour to save his friend. The Dean [of Michael's College] in making this communication to the Coroner completely broke down with emotion.’23 It was rumoured among some that the accident had been suicide. Boothby was ‘convinced that it was a mutual suicide pact’. ‘Perfectly possible,’ wrote Peter in his notes for the family Morgue, ‘but entirely unproven.’ Nico commented, ‘I've always had something of a hunch that Michael's death was suicide. He was in a way the “type” – exceptionally clever, subject to long fits of
depression. I'm apt to think – stressing think – that he was going through something of a homosexual phase and maybe let this get a bigger hold on his thinking than it need: I have no knowledge of Rupert's leanings in this direction, but I would guess they preferred each other's company to anyone else's.’ Barrie himself mentioned suicide in later years to Josephine Mitchell-Innes as the possible cause of Michael's death; yet a part of him refused to accept any such notion. Had not Sylvia entrusted him to his care? ‘I do not want my Michael to be pressed at all at work – he is at present not very strong but very keen and intelligent: great care must be taken not to overwork him. Mary understands and of course J.M.B. knows & will be careful & watch.’

  Following the inquest, Michael's body was brought back to Adelphi Terrace, where it remained until the funeral. Barrie had not slept for two days and nights: he ‘looked like a man in a nightmare’, wrote Cynthia in her diary. She called in his doctor, Sir Douglas Shields, who persuaded him to take a sleeping draught. For the rest of the time he remained shut away in his bedroom, refusing to see anyone. ‘No praise or gratitude can possibly be too great for Cynthia during these days’, wrote Denis Mackail. ‘It may be said … that it was she who preserved his reason, for throughout that almost unimaginable week-end there were moments of terrible danger.’ The ‘terrible danger’ was Barrie's overwhelming desire to end his own life – a life rendered utterly pointless without Michael.