by J. M. Barrie
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
As they sat amid the smell of rosin on that summer day, she told him,with a glance that said, "Now you will laugh at me," what had broughther into Caddam Wood.
"I came to rub something out."
He reflected. "A memory?"
"Yes."
"Of me?"
She nodded.
"An unhappy memory?"
"Not to me," she replied, leaning on him. "I have no memory of you Iwould rub out, no, not the unhappiest one, for it was you, and thatmakes it dear. All memories, however sad, of loved ones become sweet,don't they, when we get far enough away from them?"
"But to whom, then, is this memory painful, Grizel?"
Again she cast that glance at him. "To her," she whispered.
"'That little girl'!"
"Yes; the child I used to be. You see, she never grew up, and so theyare not distant memories to her. I try to rub them out of her mind bygiving her prettier things to think of. I go to the places where shewas most unhappy, and tell her sweet things about you. I am notmorbid, am I, in thinking of her still as some one apart from myself?You know how it began, in the lonely days when I used to look at herin mamma's mirror, and pity her, and fancy that she was pitying me andentreating me to be careful. Always when I think I see her now, sheseems to be looking anxiously at me and saying, 'Oh, do be careful!'And the sweet things I tell her about you are meant to show her howcareful I have become. Are you laughing at me for this? I sometimeslaugh at it myself."
"No, it is delicious," he answered her, speaking more lightly than hefelt. "What a numskull you make, Grizel, of any man who presumes towrite about women! I am at school again, and you are Miss Ailieteaching me the alphabet. But I thought you lost that serious littlegirl on the doleful day when she heard you say that you loved mebest."
"She came back. She has no one but me."
"And she still warns you against me?"
Grizel laughed gleefully. "I am too clever for her," she said. "I doall the talking. I allow her to listen only. And you must not blameher for distrusting you; I have said such things against you to her!Oh, the things I said! On the first day I saw you, for instance, afteryou came back to Thrums. It was in church. Do you remember?"
"I should like to know what you said to her about me that day."
"Would you?" Grizel asked merrily. "Well, let me see. She was not atchurch--she never went there, you remember; but of course she wascurious to hear about you, and I had no sooner got home than she cameto me and said, 'Was he there?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Is he much changed?'she asked. 'He has a beard,' I said. 'You know that is not what Ireally mean,' she said, and then I said, 'I don't think he is so muchchanged that it is impossible to recognize him again.'"
Tommy interrupted her: "Now what did you mean by that?"
"I meant that I thought you were a little annoyed to find thecongregation looking at Gavinia's baby more than at you!"
"Grizel, you are a wretch, but perhaps you were right. Well, what moredid the little inquisitor want to know?"
"She asked me if I felt any of my old fear of you, and I said No, andthen she clapped her hands with joy. And she asked whether you lookedat me as if you were begging me to say I still thought you a wonder,and I said I thought you did----"
"Grizel!"
"Oh, I told her ever so many dreadful things as soon as I found themout. I told her the whole story of your ankle, sir, for instance."
"On my word, Grizel, you seem to have omitted nothing!"
"Ah, but I did," she cried. "I never told her how much I wanted you tobe admirable; I pretended that I despised you merely, and in reality Iwas wringing my hands with woe every time you did not behave like agod."
"They will be worn away, Grizel, if you go on doing that."
"I don't think so," she replied, "nor can she think so if she believeshalf of what I have told her about you since. She knows how you savedthe boy's life. I told her that in the old Lair because she had someharsh memories of you there; and it was at the Cuttle Well that I toldher about the glove."
"And where," asked Tommy, severely, "did you tell her that you hadbeen mistaken in thinking me jealous of a baby and anxious to beconsidered a wonder?"
She hid her face for a moment, and then looked up roguishly into his."I have not told her that yet!" she replied. It was so audacious ofher that he took her by the ears.
"If I were vain," Tommy said reflectively, "I would certainly shakeyou now. You show a painful want of tact, Grizel, in implying that Iam not perfect. Nothing annoys men so much. We can stand anythingexcept that."
His merriness gladdened her. "They are only little things," she said,"and I have grown to love them. I know they are flaws; but I love thembecause----"
"Say because they are mine. You owe me that."
"No; but because they are weaknesses I don't have. I have others, butnot those, and it is sweet to me to know that you are weak in somematters in which I am strong. It makes me feel that I can be of use toyou."
"Are you insinuating that there are more of them?" Tommy demanded,sitting up.
"You are not very practical," she responded, "and I am."
"Go on."
"And you are--just a little--inclined to be senti----"
"Hush! I don't allow that word; but you may say, if you choose, that Iam sometimes carried away by a too generous impulse."
"And that it will be my part," said she, "to seize you by the arm andhold you back. Oh, you will give me a great deal to do! That is one ofthe things I love you for. It was one of the things I loved my dearDr. McQueen for." She looked up suddenly. "I have told him also aboutyou."
"Lately, Grizel?"
"Yes, in my parlour. It was his parlour, you know, and I had keptnothing from him while he was alive; that is to say, he always knewwhat I was thinking of, and I like to fancy that he knows still. Inthe evenings he used to sit in the arm-chair by the fire, and I sattalking or knitting at his feet, and if I ceased to do anything exceptsit still, looking straight before me, he knew I was thinking themorbid thoughts that had troubled me in the old days at Double Dykes.Without knowing it I sometimes shuddered at those times, and he wasdistressed. It reminded him of my mamma."
"I understand," Tommy said hurriedly. He meant: "Let us avoid painfulsubjects."
"I sit still by his arm-chair and tell him what ishappening to his Grizel."]
"It is years," she went on, "since those thoughts have troubled me,and it was he who drove them away. He was so kind! He thought so muchof my future that I still sit by his arm-chair and tell him what ishappening to his Grizel. I don't speak aloud, of course; I scarcelysay the words to myself even; and yet we seem to have long talkstogether. I told him I had given you his coat."
"Well, I don't think he was pleased at that, Grizel. I have had afeeling for some time that the coat dislikes me. It scratched my handthe first time I put it on. My hand caught in the hook of the collar,you will say; but no, that is not what I think. In my opinion, thedeed was maliciously done. McQueen always distrusted me, you know, andI expect his coat was saying, 'Hands off my Grizel.'"
She took it as quite a jest. "He does not distrust you now," she said,smiling. "I have told him what I think of you, and though he wassurprised at first, in the end his opinion was the same as mine."
"Ah, you saw to that, Grizel!"
"I had nothing to do with it. I merely told him everything, and he hadto agree with me. How could he doubt when he saw that you had made meso happy! Even mamma does not doubt."
"You have told her! All this is rather eerie, Grizel."
"You are not sorry, are you?" she asked, looking at him anxiously."Dr. McQueen wanted me to forget her. He thought that would be bestfor me. It was the only matter on which we differed. I gave upspeaking of her to him. You are the only person I have mentioned herto since I became a woman; but I often think of her. I am sure therewas a time, before I was old enough to understand, when she was veryfond of me. I was he
r baby, and women can't help being fond of theirbabies, even though they should never have had them. I think she oftenhugged me tight."
"Need we speak of this, Grizel?"
"For this once," she entreated. "You must remember that mamma oftenlooked at me with hatred, and said I was the cause of all her woe; butsometimes in her last months she would give me such sad looks that Itrembled, and I felt that she was picturing me growing into the kindof woman she wished so much she had not become herself, and that shelonged to save me. That is why I have told her that a good man lovesme. She is so glad, my poor dear mamma, that I tell her again andagain, and she loves to hear it as much as I to tell it. What sheloves to hear most is that you really do want to marry me. She is sofond of hearing that because it is what my father would never say toher."
Tommy was so much moved that he could not speak, but in his heart hegave thanks that what Grizel said of him to her mamma was true atlast.
"It makes her so happy," Grizel said, "that when I seem to see her nowshe looks as sweet and pure as she must have been in the days when shewas an innocent girl. I think she can enter into my feelings more thanany other person could ever do. Is that because she was my mother? Sheunderstands how I feel just as I can understand how in the end she waswilling to be bad because he wanted it so much."
"No, no, Grizel," Tommy cried passionately, "you don't understandthat!"
She rocked her arms. "Yes, I do," she said; "I do. I could never havecared for such a man; but I can understand how mamma yielded to him,and I have no feeling for her except pity, and I have told her so, andit is what she loves to hear her daughter tell her best of all."
They put the subject from them, and she told him what it was that shehad come to rub out in Caddam. If you have read of Tommy's boyhood youmay remember the day it ended with his departure for the farm, andthat he and Elspeth walked through Caddam to the cart that was to takehim from her, and how, to comfort her, he swore that he loved her withhis whole heart, and Grizel not at all, and that Grizel was in thewood and heard. And how Elspeth had promised to wave to Tommy in thecart as long as it was visible, but broke down and went home sobbing,and how Grizel took her place and waved, pretending to be Elspeth, sothat he might think she was bearing up bravely. Tommy had not knownwhat Grizel did for him that day, and when he heard it now for thefirst time from her own lips, he realized afresh what a glorious girlshe was and had always been.
"You may try to rub that memory out of little Grizel's head," hedeclared, looking very proudly at her, "but you shall never rub it outof mine."
It was by his wish that they went together to the spot where she hadheard him say that he loved Elspeth only--"if you can find it," Tommysaid, "after all these years"; and she smiled at his mannishwords--she had found it so often since! There was the very clump ofwhin.
And here was the boy to match. Oh, who by striving could make himselfa boy again as Tommy could! I tell you he was always irresistiblethen. What is genius? It is the power to be a boy again at will. WhenI think of him flinging off the years and whistling childhood back,not to himself only, but to all who heard, distributing it among themgaily, imperiously calling on them to dance, dance, for they are boysand girls again until they stop--when to recall him in those wildmoods is to myself to grasp for a moment at the dear dead days thatwere so much the best, I cannot wonder that Grizel loved him. I am hisslave myself; I see that all that was wrong with Tommy was that hecould not always be a boy.
"Hide there again, Grizel," he cried to her, little Tommy cried toher, Stroke the Jacobite, her captain, cried to the Lady Griselda; andhe disappeared, and presently marched down the path with an imaginaryElspeth by his side. "I love you both, Elspeth," he was going to say,"and my love for the one does not make me love the other less"; but heglanced at Grizel, and she was leaning forward to catch his words asif this were no play, but life or death, and he knew what she longedto hear him say, and he said it: "I love you very much, Elspeth, buthowever much I love you, it would be idle to pretend that I don't loveGrizel more."
A stifled cry of joy came from a clump of whin hard by, and they wereman and woman again.
"Did you not know it, Grizel?"
"No, no; you never told me."
"I never dreamed it was necessary to tell you."
"Oh, if you knew how I have longed that it might be so, yes, andsometimes hated Elspeth because I feared it could not be! I have triedso hard to be content with second place. I have thought it all out,and said to myself it was natural that Elspeth should be first."
"My tragic love," he said, "I can see you arguing in that way, but Idon't see you convincing yourself. My passionate Grizel is not thegirl to accept second place from anyone. If I know anything of her, Iknow that."
To his surprise, she answered softly: "You are wrong. I wonder at itmyself, but I had made up my mind to be content with second place, andto be grateful for it."
"I could not have believed it!" he cried.
"I could not have believed it myself," said she.
"Are you the Grizel----" he began.
"No," she said, "I have changed a little," and she looked patheticallyat him.
"It stabs me," he said, "to see you so humble."
"I am humbler than I was," she answered huskily, but she was lookingat him with the fondest love.
"Don't look at me so, Grizel," he implored. "I am unworthy of it. I amthe man who has made you so humble."
"Yes," she answered, and still she looked at him with the fondestlove. A film came over his eyes, and she touched them softly with herhandkerchief.
"Those eyes that but a little while ago were looking so coldly atyou!" he said.
"Dear eyes!" said she.
"Though I were to strike you----" he cried, raising his hand.
She took the hand in hers and kissed it.
"Has it come to this!" he said, and as she could not speak, shenodded. He fell upon his knees before her.
"I am glad you are a little sorry," she said; "I am a little sorrymyself."