THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE
ALICE SIT-BY-THE-FIRE
I
One would like to peep covertly into Amy's diary (octavo, with the word 'Amy' in gold letters wandering across the soft brown leather covers, as if it was a long word and, in Amy's opinion, rather a dear). To take such a liberty, and allow the reader to look over our shoulders, as they often invite you to do in novels (which, however, are much more coquettish things than plays) would be very helpful to us; we should learn at once what sort of girl Amy is, and why to-day finds her washing her hair. We should also get proof or otherwise, that we are interpreting her aright; for it is our desire not to record our feelings about Amy, but merely Amy's feelings about herself; not to tell what we think happened, but what Amy thought happened. The book, to be sure, is padlocked, but we happen to know where it is kept. (In the lower drawer of that hand-painted escritoire.) Sometimes in the night Amy, waking up, wonders whether she did lock her diary, and steals downstairs in white to make sure. On these occasions she undoubtedly lingers among the pages, re-reading the peculiarly delightful bit she wrote yesterday; so we could peep over her shoulder, while the reader peeps over ours. Then why don't we do it? Is it because this would be a form of eavesdropping, and that we cannot be sure our hands are clean enough to turn the pages of a young girl's thoughts? It cannot be that, because the novelists do it. It is because in a play we must tell nothing that is not revealed by the spoken words; you must find out all you want to know from them; there is no weather even in plays nowadays except in melodrama; the novelist can have sixteen chapters about the hero's grandparents, but we cannot even say he had any unless he says it himself. There can be no rummaging in the past for us to show what sort of people our characters are; we are allowed only to present them as they toe the mark; then the handkerchief falls, and off they go.
So now we know why we must not spy into Amy's diary. Perhaps we have not always been such sticklers for the etiquette of the thing; but we are always sticklers on Thursdays, and this is a Thursday.
As you are to be shown Amy's room, we are permitted to describe it, though not to tell (which would be much more interesting) why a girl of seventeen has, as her very own, the chief room of a house. The moment you open the door of this room (and please, you are not to look consciously at the escritoire as if you knew the diary was in it) you are aware, though Amy may not be visible, that there is an uncommonly clever girl in the house. The door does not always open easily, because attached thereto is a curtain which frequently catches in it, and this curtain is hand-sewn (extinct animals); indeed a gifted woman's touch is everywhere; if you are not hand-sewn you are almost certainly hand-painted, but incompletely, for Amy in her pursuit of the arts has often to drop one in order to keep pace with another. Some of the chairs have escaped as yet, but their time will come. The table-cover and the curtains are of a lovely pink, perforated ingeniously with many tiny holes, which when you consider them against a dark background, gradually assume the appearance of something pictorial, such as a basket of odd flowers. The fender stool is in brown velvet, and there are words on it that invite you to sit down. Some of the letters of this message have been burned away. There are artistic white bookshelves hanging lopsidedly here and there, and they also have pink curtains, no larger than a doll's garments. These little curtains are for covering the parts where there are no books as yet. The pictures on the walls are mostly studies done at school, and include the well-known windmill, and the equally popular old lady by the shore. Their frames are of fir-cones, glued together, or of straws which have gone limp, and droop like streaks of macaroni. There is a cosy corner; also a milking-stool, but no cow. The lampshades have had ribbons added to them, and from a distance look like ladies of the ballet. The flower-pot also is in a skirt. Near the door is a large screen, such as people hide behind in the more ordinary sort of play; it will be interesting to see whether we can resist the temptation to hide some one behind it.
A few common weeds rear their profane heads in this innocent garden; for instance a cruet-stand, a basket of cutlery, and a triangular dish of the kind in which the correct confine cheese. They have not strayed here, they live here; indeed this is among other things the dining- room of a modest little house in Brompton made beautiful, or nearly so, by a girl, who has a soul above food and conceals its accessories as far as possible from view, in drawers, even in the waste-paper basket. Not a dish, not a spoon, not a fork, is hand-painted, a sufficient indication of her contempt for them.
Amy is present, but is not seen to the best advantage, for she has been washing her hair, and is now drying it by the fire. Notable among her garments are a dressing-jacket and a towel, and her head is bent so far back over the fire that we see her face nearly upside-down. This is no position in which we can do justice to her undoubted facial charm. Seated near her is her brother Cosmo, a boy of thirteen, in naval uniform. Cosmo is a cadet at Osborne, and properly proud of his station, but just now he looks proud of nothing. He is plunged in gloom. The cause of his woe is a telegram, which he is regarding from all points of the compass, as if in hopes of making it send him better news. At last he gives expression to his feelings. 'All I can say,' he sums up in the first words of the play, 'is that if father tries to kiss me, I shall kick him.'
If Amy makes any reply the words arrive upside-down and are unintelligible. The maid announces Miss Dunbar. Then Amy rises, brings her head to the position in which they are usually carried; and she and Ginevra look into each other's eyes. They always do this when they meet, though they meet several times a day, and it is worth doing, for what they see in those pellucid pools is love eternal. Thus they loved at school (in their last two terms), and thus they will love till the grave encloses them. These thoughts, and others even more beautiful, are in their minds as they gaze at each other now. No man will ever be able to say 'Amy,' or to say 'Ginevra,' with such a trill as they are saying it.
'Ginevra, my beloved.'
'My Amy, my better self.'
'My other me.'
There is something almost painful in love like this.
'Are you well, Ginevra?'
'Quite well, Amy.'
Heavens, the joy of Amy because Ginevra is quite well.
'How did my Amy sleep?'
'I had a good night.'
How happy is Ginevra because Amy has had a good night. All this time they have been slowly approaching each other, drawn by a power stronger than themselves. Their intention is to kiss. They do so. Cosmo snorts, and betakes himself to some other room, his bedroom probably, where a man may be alone with mannish things, his razor, for instance. The maidens do not resent his rudeness. They know that poor Cosmo's time will come, and they are glad to be alone, for they have much to say that is for no other mortal ears. Some of it is sure to go into the diary; indeed if we were to put our ear to the drawer where the diary is we could probably hear its little heart ticking in unison with theirs.
It is Ginevra who speaks first. She is indeed the bolder of the two. She grips Amy's hand and says quite firmly, 'Amy, shall we go to _another_ to-night?' This does not puzzle Amy, she is prepared for it, her honest grey eyes even tell that she has wanted it, but now that it is come she quails a little. 'Another theatre?' she murmurs. 'Ginevra, that would be five in one week.'
Ginevra does not blanch. 'Yes,' she says recklessly, 'but it is also only eight in seventeen years.'
'Isn't it,' says Amy, comforted. 'And they have taught us so much, haven't they? Until Monday, dear, when we went to our first real play we didn't know what Life is.'
'We were two raw, unbleached school-girls, Amy--absolutely unbleached.'
It is suc
h a phrase as this that gives Ginevra the moral ascendancy in their discussions.
'Of course,' Amy ventures, looking perhaps a little unbleached even now, 'of course I had my diary, dear, and I do think that, even before Monday, there were things in it of a not wholly ordinary kind.'
'Nothing,' persists Ginevra cruelly, 'that necessitated your keeping it locked.'
'No, I suppose not,' sadly enough. 'You are quite right, Ginevra. But we have made up for lost time. Every night since Monday, including the matinee, has been a revelation.'
She closes her eyes so that she may see the revelations more clearly. So does Ginevra.
'Amy, that heart-gripping scene when the love-maddened woman visited the _man_ in his _chambers_.'
'She wasn't absolutely love-maddened, Ginevra; she really loved her husband best all the time.'
'Not till the last act, darling.'
'Please don't say it, Ginevra. She was most foolish, especially in the crepe de chine, but _we_ know that she only went to the man's chambers to get back her letters. How I trembled for her then.'
'I was strangely calm,' says Ginevra the stony hearted.
'Oh, Ginevra, I had such a presentiment that the husband would call at those chambers while she was there. And he did. Ginevra, you remember his knock upon the door. Surely you trembled then?'
Ginevra knits her lips triumphantly.
'Not even then, Amy. Somehow I felt sure that in the nick of time her lady friend would step out from somewhere and say that the letters were _hers_.'
'Nobly compromising herself, Ginevra.'
'Amy, how I love that bit where she s ays so unexpectedly, with noble self-renunciation, "He is my affianced husband."'
'Isn't it glorious. Strange, Ginevra, that it happened in each play.'
'That was because we always went to the thinking theatres, Amy. Real plays are always about a lady and two men; and alas, only one of them is her husband. That is Life, you know. It is called the odd, odd triangle.'
'Yes, I know.' Appealingly, 'Ginevra, I hope it wasn't wrong of me to go. A month ago I was only a school-girl.'
'We both were.'
'Yes, but you are now an art student, in lodgings, with a latchkey of your own; you have no one dependent on you, while I have a brother and sister to--to form.'
'You must leave it to the Navy, dear, to form Cosmo, if it can; and as the sister is only a baby, time enough to form her when she can exit from her pram.'
'I am in a mother's place for the time being, Ginevra.'
'Even mothers go to thinking theatres.'
'Whether mine does, Ginevra, I don't even know. This is a very strange position I am in, awaiting the return from India of parents I have not seen since I was twelve years old. I don't even know if they will like the house. The rent is what they told me to give, but perhaps my scheme of decoration won't appeal to them; they may think my housekeeping has been defective, and may not make allowance for my being so new to it.'
Ginevra takes Amy in her arms. 'My ownest Amy, if they are not both on their knees to you for the noble way in which you have striven to prepare this house for them--'
'Darling Ginevra, all I ask is to be allowed to do my duty.'
'Listen, then, Amy: your duty is to be able to help your parents in every way when they return. Your mother having been so long in India can know little about Life; how sweet, then, for you to be able to place your knowledge at her feet.'
'I had thought of that, dearest.'
'Then Amy, it would be simply wrong of us not to go to another theatre to-night. I have three and ninepence, so that if you can scrape together one and threepence--'
'Generous girl, it can't be.'
'Why not, Amy?'
The return of Cosmo handling the telegram more pugnaciously than ever provides the answer.
'Cosmo, show Miss Dunbar the telegram.'
Miss Dunbar reads: 'Boat arrived Southampton this morning.'
'A day earlier than they expected,' Amy explains.
'It's the other bit I am worrying about,' Cosmo says darkly. The other bit proves to be 'Hope to reach our pets this afternoon. Kisses from both to all. Deliriously excited. Mummy and Dad.'
Now we see why Cosmo has been in distress.
'Pets, kisses,' he cries. 'What can the telegraph people think.'
'Surely,' Amy says, 'you want to kiss your mother.'
'I'm going to kiss her,' he replies stoutly. 'I mean to do it. It's father I am worrying about; with his "kisses to _both_ from _all_." All I can say is that, if father comes slobbering over me, I'll surprise him.'
Here the outer door slams, and the three start to their feet as if Philippi had dawned. To Cosmo the slam sounds uncommonly like a father's kiss. He immediately begins to rehearse the greeting which is meant to ward off the fatal blow. 'How are you, father? I'm glad to see you, father; it's a long journey from India; won't you sit down?'
Amy is the first to recover. 'How silly of us,' she says; 'it is only nurse with baby.'
Presumably what we hear is a perambulator backing into its stall in the passage. Then nurse is distinctly heard in the adjoining room, and we may gather that this is for the nonce the nursery of the house, though to most occupants it would be the back dining-room. There is a door between the two rooms, and Cosmo, peeping through a chink in it, sounds to his fellow-conspirators the All's Well.
'Poor nurse,' Amy says with a kind sigh, 'I suppose I had better show her the telegram. She is sure to cry. She looks upon mother as a thief who has come to steal baby from her.'
Ginevra wags her head to indicate that this is another slice of Life; and nurse being called in is confronted with the telegram. She runs a gamut of emotion without words, implies that she is nobody and must submit, nods humbly, sets her teeth, is both indignant and servile, and finally bursts into tears. Amy tries to comfort her, but gets this terrible answer: 'They'll be bringing a black woman to nurse her--a yah-yah they call them.'
Amy signs to Ginevra, and Ginevra signs to Amy. These two souls perfectly understand each other, and the telegraphy means that it will be better for dear Ginevra to retire for a time to dear Amy's sweet little bedroom. Amy slips the diary into the hand of Ginevra, who pops upstairs with it to read the latest instalment. Nurse rambles on. 'I have had her for seventeen months. She was just two months old, the angel, when they sent her to England, and she has been mine ever since. The most of them has one look for their mammas and one look for their nurse, but she knew no better than to have both looks for me.' She returns to the nursery, wailing 'My reign is over.'
'Do you think Molly _will_ chuck nurse for mother?' asks Cosmo, to whom this is a new thought.
'It is the way of children,' the more experienced Amy tells him.
'Shabby little beasts,' the man says.
'You mustn't say that, Cosmo; but still it is hard on nurse. Of course,' with swimming eyes, 'in a sense it's hard on all of us--I mean to be expecting parents in these circumstances. There must be almost the same feeling of strangeness in the house as when it is a baby that is expected.'
'I suppose it is a bit like that,' Cosmo says gloomily. He goes to her as the awfulness of this sinks into him: 'Great Scott, Amy, it can't be quite so bad as that.'
Amy, who is of a very affectionate nature, is glad to have the comfort of his hand.
'What do we really know about mother, Cosmo?' she says darkly.
They are perhaps a touching pair.
'There are her letters, Amy.'
'Can one know a person by letters? Does she know you, Cosmo, by your letters to her, saying that your motto is "Something attempted, something done to earn a night's repose," and so on.'
'Well, I thought that would please her.'
'Perhaps in her letters she says things just to please us.'
Cosmo wriggles.
'This is pretty low of you, damping a fellow when he was trying to make the best of it.'
'All I want you to feel,' Amy says, getting closer to him, 'is
that as brother and sister, we are allies, you know--against the unknown.'
'Yes, Amy,' Cosmo says, and gets closer to her.
This so encourages her that she hastens to call him 'dear.'
'I want to say, dear, that I'm very sorry I used to shirk bowling to you.'
'That's nothing. I know what girls are. Amy, it's all right, I really am fond of you.'
'I have tried to be a sort of mother to you, Cosmo.'
'My socks and things--I know.' Returning anxiously to the greater question, 'Amy, do we know anything of them at all?'
'We know some cold facts, of course. We know that father is much older than mother.'
'I can't understand why such an old chap should be so keen to kiss me.'
'Mother is forty,' Amy says in a low voice.
'I thought she was almost more than forty,' Cosmo says in a still lower voice.
Amy shudders. 'Don't be so ungenerous, Cosmo.' But she has to add. 'Of course we must be prepared to see her look older.'
'Why?'
'She will be rather yellow, coming from India, you know. They will both be a little yellow.'
They exchange forlorn glances, but Cosmo says manfully, 'We shan't be any the less fond of them for that, Amy.'
'No, indeed.'
They clasp hands on it, and Cosmo has an inspiration.
'Do you think we should have these yellow flowers in the room? They might feel--eh?'
'How thoughtful of you, dear. I shall remove them at once. After all, Cosmo, we seem to know a good deal about them; and then we know some other things by heredity.'
'Heredity? That's drink, isn't it?'
She who has been to so many theatres smiles at him. 'No, you boy! It's something in a play. It means that if we know ourselves well, we know our parents also. From thinking of myself, Cosmo, I know mother. In her youth she was one who did not love easily; but when she loved once it was for aye. A nature very difficult to understand, but profoundly interesting. I can feel her _within me_, as she was when she walked down the aisle on that strong arm, to honour and obey him henceforth for aye. What cared they that they had to leave their native land, they were together for aye. And so--' Her face is flushed. Cosmo interrupts selfishly.
Barrie, J M - Alice Sit-By-The-Fire Page 1