by J. M. Barrie
CHAPTER XXV
MR. T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED TO TOWN
It is disquieting to reflect that we have devoted so much paper (thisis the third shilling's worth) to telling what a real biographer wouldalmost certainly have summed up in a few pages. "Caring nothing forglory, engrossed in his work alone, Mr. Sandys, soon after thepublication of the 'Letters,' sought the peace of his mother's nativevillage, and there, alike undisturbing and undisturbed, he gave hislife, as ever, to laborious days and quiet contemplation. The onevital fact in these six months of lofty endeavour is that he wasmaking progress with the new book. Fishing and other distractions wereoccasionally indulged in, but merely that he might rise fresher nextmorning to a book which absorbed," etc.
One can see exactly how it should be done, it has been done so oftenbefore. And there is a deal to be said for this method. His book waswhat he had been at during nearly the whole of that time;comparatively speaking, the fishing and "other distractions" (a neatphrase) had got an occasional hour only. But while we admire, we can'tdo it in that way. We seem fated to go on taking it for granted thatyou know the "vital facts" about Tommy, and devoting our attention tothe things that the real biographer leaves out.
Tommy arrived in London with little more than ten pounds in hispockets. All the rest he had spent on Elspeth.
He looked for furnished chambers in a fashionable quarter, and theywere much too expensive. But the young lady who showed them to himasked if it was _the_ Mr. Sandys, and he at once took the rooms. Hermother subsequently said that she understood he wrote books, and wouldhe deposit five pounds?
Such are the ups and downs of the literary calling.
The book, of course, was "Unrequited Love," and the true story of howit was not given to the world by his first publishers has never beentold. They had the chance, but they weighed the manuscript in theirhands as if it were butter, and said it was very small.
"If you knew how much time I have spent in making it smaller," repliedTommy, haughtily.
The madmen asked if he could not add a few chapters, whereupon, with ashudder, he tucked baby under his wing and flew away. That is howGoldie & Goldie got the book.
For one who had left London a glittering star, it was wonderful howlittle he brightened it by returning. At the club they did not knowthat he had been away. In society they seemed to have forgotten toexpect him back.
He had an eye for them--with a touch of red in it; but he bided histime. It was one of the terrible things about Tommy that he could bidehis time. Pym was the only person he called upon. He took Pym out todinner and conducted him home again. His kindness to Pym, the delicacywith which he pretended not to see that poor old Pym was degraded anddone for--they would have been pretty even in a woman, and we treatTommy unfairly in passing them by with a bow.
Pym had the manuscript to read, and you may be as sure he kept soberthat night as that Tommy lay awake. For when literature had to bejudged, who could be so grim a critic as this usually lenient toper?He could forgive much, could Pym. You had run away without paying yourrent, was it? Well, well, come in and have a drink. Broken your wife'sheart, have you? Poor chap, but you will soon get over it. But if itwas a split infinitive, "Go to the devil, sir."
"Into a cocked hat," was the verdict of Pym, meaning thereby that thusdid Tommy's second work beat his first. Tommy broke down and wept.
Presently Pym waxed sentimental and confided to Tommy that he, too,had once loved in vain. The sad case of those who love in vain, youremember, is the subject of the book. The saddest of autobiographies,it has been called.
An odd thing, this, I think. Tearing home (for the more he wasengrossed in mind the quicker he walked), Tommy was not revelling inPym's praise; he was neither blanching nor smiling at the thought thathe of all people had written as one who was unloved; he was notwondering what Grizel would say to it; he had even forgotten to sighover his own coming dissolution (indeed, about this time theflower-pot began to fade from his memory). What made him cut his wayso excitedly through the streets was this: Pym had questioned his useof the word "untimely" in chapter eight. And Tommy had always beenuneasy about that word.
He glared at every person he passed, and ran into perambulators. Herushed past his chambers like one who no longer had a home. He was inthe park now, and did not even notice that the Row was empty, thatmighty round a deserted circus; management, riders, clowns, all theperformers gone on their provincial tour, or nearly all, for a lady onhorseback sees him, remembers to some extent who he is, and giveschase. It is our dear Mrs. Jerry.
"You wretch," she said, "to compel me to pursue you! Nothing couldhave induced me to do anything so unwomanly except that you are theonly man in town."
She shook her whip so prettily at him that it was as seductive as asmile. It was also a way of gaining time while she tried to rememberwhat it was he was famous for.
"I believe you don't know me!" she said, with a little shriek, forTommy had looked bewildered. "That would be too mortifying. Pleasepretend you do!"
Her look of appeal, the way in which she put her plump little handstogether, as if about to say her prayers, brought it all back toTommy. The one thing he was not certain of was whether he had proposedto her.
It was the one thing of which she was certain.
"You think I can forget so soon," he replied reproachfully, butcarefully.
"Then tell me my name," said she; she thought it might lead to hismentioning his own.
"I don't know what it is now. It was Mrs. Jerry once."
"It is Mrs. Jerry still."
"Then you did not marry him, after all?"
No wild joy had surged to his face, but when she answered yes, henodded his head with gentle melancholy three times. He had not thesmallest desire to deceive the lady; he was simply an actor who hadgot his cue and liked his part.
"But my friends still call me Mrs. Jerry," she saidsoftly.]
"But my friends still call me Mrs. Jerry," she said softly. "I supposeit suits me somehow."
"You will always be Mrs. Jerry to me," he replied huskily. Ah, thosemeetings with old loves!
"If you minded so much," Mrs. Jerry said, a little tremulously (shehad the softest heart, though her memory was a trifle defective), "youmight have discovered whether I had married him or not."
"Was there no reason why I should not seek to discover it?" Tommyasked with tremendous irony, but not knowing in the least what hemeant.
It confused Mrs. Jerry. They always confused her when they werefierce, and yet she liked them to be fierce when she re-met them, sofew of them were.
But she said the proper thing. "I am glad you have got over it."
Tommy maintained a masterly silence. No wonder he was a power withwomen.
"I say I am glad you have got over it," murmured Mrs. Jerry again. Hasit ever been noticed that the proper remark does not always gain inpropriety with repetition?
It is splendid to know that right feeling still kept Tommy silent.
Yet she went on briskly as if he had told her something: "Am Idetaining you? You were walking so quickly that I thought you were inpursuit of someone."
It brought Tommy back to earth, and he could accept her now as an oldfriend he was glad to meet again. "You could not guess what I was inpursuit of, Mrs. Jerry," he assured her, and with confidence, forwords are not usually chased down the Row.
But, though he made the sound of laughter, that terrible face whichMrs. Jerry remembered so well, but could not give a name to, took nopart in the revelry; he was as puzzling to her as those irritatingauthors who print their jokes without a note of exclamation at the endof them. Poor Mrs. Jerry thought it must be a laugh of horridbitterness, and that he was referring to his dead self or somethingdreadful of that sort, for which she was responsible.
"Please don't tell me," she said, in such obvious alarm that again helaughed that awful laugh. He promised, with a profound sigh, to carryhis secret unspoken to the grave, also to come to her "At Home" if shesent him a card.
He told her his address, but not his name, and she could not send thecard to "Occupier."
"Now tell me about yourself," said Mrs. Jerry, with charming cunning."Did you go away?"
"I came back a few days ago only."
"Had you any shooting?" (They nearly always threatened to make for adistant land where there was big game.)
Tommy smiled. He had never "had any shooting" except once in hisboyhood, when he and Corp acted as beaters, and he had weptpassionately over the first bird killed, and harangued the murderer.
"No," he replied; "I was at work all the time."
This, at least, told her that his work was of a kind which could bedone out of London. An inventor?
"When are we to see the result?" asked artful Mrs. Jerry.
"Very soon. Everything comes out about this time. It is our season,you know."
Mrs. Jerry pondered while she said: "How too entrancing!" What didcome out this month? Oh, plays! And whose season was it? The actor's,of course! He could not be an actor with that beard, but--ah, sheremembered now!
"Are they really clever this time?" she asked roguishly--"for you mustadmit that they are usually sticks."
Tommy blinked at this. "I really believe, Mrs. Jerry," he said slowly,"it is you who don't know who I am!"
"You prepare the aristocracy for the stage, don't you?" she saidplaintively.
"I!" he thundered.
"He had a beard," she said, in self-defence.
"Who?"
"Oh, I don't know! Please forgive me! I do remember, of course, whoyou are--I remember too well!" said Mrs. Jerry, generously.
"What is my name?" Tommy demanded.
She put her hands together again, beseechingly. "Please, please!" shesaid. "I have such a dreadful memory for names, but--oh, please!"
"What am I?" he insisted.
"You are the--the man who invents those delightful thingumbobs," shecried with an inspiration.
"I never invented anything, except two books," said Tommy, looking ather reproachfully.
"I know them by heart," she cried.
"One of them is not published yet," he informed her.
"I am looking forward to it so excitedly," she said at once.
"And my name is Sandys," said he.
"Thomas Sandys," she said, correcting him triumphantly. "How is thatdear, darling little Agnes--Elspeth?"
"You have me at last," he admitted.
"'Sandys on Woman!'" exclaimed Mrs. Jerry, all rippling smiles oncemore. "Can I ever forget it!"
"I shall never pretend to know anything about women again," Tommyanswered dolefully, but with a creditable absence of vindictiveness.
"Please, please!" said the little hands again.
"It is a nasty jar, Mrs. Jerry."
"Please!"
"Oh that I could forget so quickly!"
"Please!"
"I forgive you, if that is what you want."
She waved her whip. "And you will come and see me?"
"When I have got over this. It needs--a little time." He really saidthis to please her.
"You shall talk to me of the new book," she said, confident that thiswould fetch him, for he was not her first author. "By the way, what isit about?"
"Can you ask, Mrs. Jerry?" replied Tommy, passionately. "Oh, woman,woman, can you ask?"
This puzzled her at the time, but she understood what he had meantwhen the book came out, dedicated to Pym. "Goodness gracious!" shesaid to herself as she went from chapter to chapter, and she was veryself-conscious when she heard the book discussed in society, which wasnot quite as soon as it came out, for at first the ladies seemed tohave forgotten their Tommy.
But the journals made ample amends. He had invented, they said,something new in literature, a story that was yet not a story, told inthe form of essays which were no mere essays. There was no charactermentioned by name, there was not a line of dialogue, essays only, theymight say, were the net result, yet a human heart was laid bare, andsurely that was fiction in its highest form. Fiction founded on fact,no doubt (for it would be ostrich-like to deny that such a work mustbe the outcome of a painful personal experience), but in those wiseand penetrating pages Mr. Sandys called no one's attention to himself;his subject was an experience common to humanity, to be borne this wayor that; and without vainglory he showed how it should be borne, sothat those looking into the deep waters of the book (made clear by hispellucid style) might see, not the author, but themselves.
A few of the critics said that if the book added nothing to hisreputation, it detracted nothing from it, but probably their pen addedthis mechanically when they were away. What annoyed him more was thetwo or three who stated that, much as they liked "Unrequited Love,"they liked the "Letters" still better. He could not endure hearing agood word said for the "Letters" now.
The great public, I believe, always preferred the "Letters," but amongimportant sections of it the new book was a delight, and for variousreasons. For instance, it was no mere story. That got the thoughtfulpublic. Its style, again, got the public which knows it is the onlypublic that counts.
Society still held aloof (there was an African traveller on view thatyear), but otherwise everything was going on well, when the bolt came,as ever, from the quarter whence it was least expected. It came in aletter from Grizel, so direct as to be almost as direct as this: "Ithink it is a horrid book. The more beautifully it is written the morehorrid it seems. No one was ever loved more truly than you. You canknow nothing about unrequited love. Then why do you pretend to know? Isee why you always avoided telling me anything about the book, evenits title. It was because you knew what I should say. It is nothingbut sentiment. You were on your wings all the time you were writingit. That is why you could treat me as you did. Even to the last momentyou deceived me. I suppose you deceived yourself also. Had I knownwhat was in the manuscript I would not have kissed it, I would haveasked you to burn it. Had you not had the strength, and you would not,I should have burned it for you. It would have been a proof of mylove. I have ceased to care whether you are a famous man or not. Iwant you to be a real man. But you will not let me help you. I havecried all day. GRIZEL."
Fury. Dejection. The heroic. They came in that order.
"This is too much!" he cried at first, "I can stand a good deal,Grizel, but there was once a worm that turned at last, you know. Takecare, madam, take care. Oh, but you are a charming lady; you candecide everything for everybody, can't you! What delicious letters youwrite, something unexpected in everyone of them! There are poor dogsof men, Grizel, who open their letters from their loves knowingexactly what will be inside--words of cheer, words of love, ofconfidence, of admiration, which help them as they sit into the nightat their work, fighting for fame that they may lay it at their lovedone's feet. Discouragement, obloquy, scorn, they get in plenty fromothers, but they are always sure of her,--do you hear, my originalGrizel?--those other dogs are always sure of her. Hurrah! Grizel, Iwas happy, I was actually honoured, it was helping me to do better andbetter, when you quickly put an end to all that. Hurrah, hurrah!"
I feel rather sorry for him. If he had not told her about his book itwas because she did not and never could understand what compels a manto write one book instead of another. "I had no say in the matter; thething demanded of me that I should do it, and I had to do it. Somemust write from their own experience, they can make nothing ofanything else; but it is to me like a chariot that won't budge; I haveto assume a character, Grizel, and then away we go. I don't attempt toexplain how I write, I hate to discuss it; all I know is that thosewho know how it should be done can never do it. London is overrun withsuch, and everyone of them is as cock-sure as you. You have takeneverything else, Grizel; surely you might leave me my books."
Yes, everything else, or nearly so. He put upon the table all thefeathers he had extracted since his return to London, and they didmake some little show, if less than it seemed to him. That littleadventure in the park; well, if it started wrongly, it but helped to
show the change in him, for he had determinedly kept away from Mrs.Jerry's house. He had met her once since the book came out, and shehad blushed exquisitely when referring to it, and said: "How you havesuffered! I blame myself dreadfully." Yes, and there was an unoccupiedsofa near by, and he had not sat down on it with her and continued theconversation. Was not that a feather? And there were other ladies,and, without going into particulars, they were several feathersbetween them. How doggedly, to punish himself, he had stuck to thecompany of men, a sex that never interested him!
"But all that is nothing. I am beyond the pale, I did so monstrous athing that I must die for it. What was this dreadful thing? When I sawyou with that glove I knew you loved me, and that you thought I lovedyou, and I had not the heart to dash your joy. You don't know it, butthat was the crime for which I must be exterminated, fiend that I am!"
Gusts of fury came at intervals all the morning. He wrote herappalling letters and destroyed them. He shook his fist and snappedhis fingers at her, and went out for drink (having none in the house),and called a hansom to take him to Mrs. Jerry's, and tore round thepark again and glared at everybody. He rushed on and on. "But the onething you shall never do, Grizel, is to interfere with my work; Iswear it, do you hear? In all else I am yours to mangle at your will,but touch it, and I am a beast at bay."
And still saying such things, he drew near the publishing offices ofGoldie & Goldie, and circled round them, less like a beast at bay thana bird that is taking a long way to its nest. And about four of theafternoon what does this odd beast or bird or fish do but stalk intoGoldie & Goldie's and order "Unrequited Love" to be withdrawn fromcirculation.
"Madam, I have carried out your wishes, and the man is hanged."
Not thus, but in words to that effect, did Tommy announce his deed toGrizel.
"I think you have done the right thing," she wrote back, "and I admireyou for it." But he thought she did not admire him sufficiently forit, and he did not answer her letter, so it was the last that passedbetween them.
Such is the true explanation (now first published) of an affair thatat the time created no small stir. "Why withdraw the book?" Goldie &Goldie asked of Tommy, but he would give no reason. "Why?" the publicasked of Goldie & Goldie, and they had to invent several. The publicinvented the others. The silliest were those you could know only bybelonging to a club.
I swear that Tommy had not foreseen the result. Quite unwittingly thefavoured of the gods had found a way again. The talk about hisincomprehensible action was the turning-point in the fortunes of thebook. There were already a few thousand copies in circulation, and nowmany thousand people wanted them. Sandys, Sandys, Sandys! where hadthe ladies heard that name before? Society woke up, Sandys was againits hero; the traveller had to go lecturing in the provinces.
The ladies! Yes, and their friends, the men. There was a Tommy societyin Mayfair that winter, nearly all of the members eminent orbeautiful, and they held each other's hands. Both sexes were eligible,married or single, and the one rule was something about sympathy. Itafterwards became the Souls, but those in the know still call them theTommies.
They blackballed Mrs. Jerry (she was rather plump), but her marriedstepdaughter, Lady Pippinworth (who had been a Miss Ridge-Fulton), wasone of them. Indeed, the Ridge-Fultons are among the thinnest familiesin the country.
T. Sandys was invited to join the society, but declined, and thusnever quite knew what they did, nor can any outsider know, there beinga regulation among the Tommies against telling. I believe, however,that they were a brotherhood, with sisters. You had to pass anexamination in unrequited love, showing how you had suffered, andafter that either the men or the women (I forget which) dressed inwhite to the throat, and then each got some other's old love's hand tohold, and you all sat on the floor and thought hard. There may havebeen even more in it than this, for one got to know Tommies at sightby a sort of careworn halo round the brow, and it is said that theHouse of Commons was several times nearly counted out because so manyof its middle-aged members were holding the floor in another place.
Of course there were also the Anti-Tommies, who called themselves(rather vulgarly) the Tummies. Many of them were that shape. They heldthat, though you had loved in vain, it was no such mighty matter toboast of; but they were poor in argument, and their only really strongcard was that Mr. Sandys was stoutish himself.
Their organs in the press said that he was a man of true genius, andslightly inclined to _embonpoint_.
This maddened him, but on the whole his return was a triumph, anddespite thoughts of Grizel he was very, very happy, for he was at playagain. He was a boy, and all the ladies were girls. Perhaps the ladyhe saw most frequently was Mrs. Jerry's stepdaughter. Lady Pippinworthwas a friend of Lady Rintoul, and had several times visited her at theSpittal, but that was not the sole reason why Tommy so frequentlydrank tea with her. They had met first at a country house, where, onenight after the ladies had retired to rest, Lady Pippinworth camestealing into the smoking-room with the tidings that there wereburglars in the house. As she approached her room she had heardwhispers, and then, her door being ajar, she had peeped upon themiscreants. She had also seen a pile of her jewellery on the table,and a pistol keeping guard on top of it. There were several men in thehouse, but that pistol cowed all of them save Tommy. "If we could lockthem in!" someone suggested, but the key was on the wrong side of thedoor. "I shall put it on the right side," Tommy said pluckily, "if youothers will prevent their escaping by the window"; and withcharacteristic courage he set off for her Ladyship's room. Hisintention was to insert his hand, whip out the key, and lock the dooron the outside, a sufficiently hazardous enterprise; but what does hedo instead? Locks the door on the inside, and goes for the burglarswith his fists! A happy recollection of Corp's famous one from theshoulder disposed at once of the man who had seized the pistol; withthe other gentleman Tommy had a stand-up fight in which both of themtook and gave, but when support arrived, one burglar was senseless onthe floor and T. Sandys was sitting on the other. Courageous of Tommy,was it not? But observe the end. He was left in the dining-room totake charge of his captives until morning, and by and by he wasexhorting them in such noble language to mend their ways that theytook the measure of him, and so touching were their family historiesthat Tommy wept and untied their cords and showed them out at thefront door and gave them ten shillings each, and the one who beggedfor the honour of shaking hands with him also took his watch. Thus didTommy and Lady Pippinworth become friends, but it was not this thatsent him so often to her house to tea. She was a beautiful woman, witha reputation for having broken many hearts without damaging her own.He thought it an interesting case.