J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys

by Andrew Birkin

  While in Scotland, Barrie received a letter from Captain Scott, telling him that he was thinking about another expedition to the Antarctic; he also asked Barrie if he knew of a boy who could fill a vacancy at Osborne Naval College. Barrie replied on September 6th:

  My dear Scott,

  I know the right boy so well that it is as if I had been waiting for your letter. He is the second son of Mrs Llewelyn Davies [i.e. Jack] and so a grandson of du Maurier; from his earliest days he has seemed to all of us cut out for a sailor, he is really a fine intelligent quick boy with the open fearless face that attracts at first sight and in view of the future he already assumes a rolling gait. His people were meaning to try and get him a nomination for the exams next March (he is the right age) and so you can imagine how grateful they are to you. Mrs Davies sends you such messages that I decline to forward them. … Your invitation [to accompany Scott on a Naval manoeuvre] is really the only one I have had for years that I should much like to accept. I can't, I mustn't, I have been doing practically nothing for so long. But I know it means missing the thing I need most – to get into a new life for a bit. … Altho’, mind you, I would still rather let everything else go hang and enrol for the Antarctic. Everybody should do something once. I want to know what it is really like to be alive. I should probably double up the first day. So they say, but in my heart I beg to inform you I am not so sure. I chuckle with joy to hear all the old hankerings are coming back to you. I feel you have got to go again, and I too keep an eye open for the man with the dollars. It is one of the few things he can do with his money that can't do harm. …

  Yours ever,

  J. M. Barrie

  Sylvia and Jack, aged II (JMB)

  Arthur wrote to Barrie on his return to Berkhamsted:

  Dear Jimmy,

  You have done wonderful things for us since the beginning of June – most, of course, during June and also in the last week – but at Rustington also you made all the difference to the success and pleasantness of the holiday. We all hope to see you soon and often.

  Yours

  A.Ll.D.

  Two days later, Arthur visited his specialist, Roughton, who informed him that the tumour had spread to another part of his face, but that no further operation would be possible. He wrote to Margaret on September 18th:

  ‘I asked how far off the end would be, but he could not say – perhaps 6 months or a year. … I have thought it best to tell poor Sylvia. … She hardly realises what a support the boys will be to her as time goes on. It is all very terrible for her. … Of course what I care about now is to give her all the support I can, and also, if the worst comes, to leave her with memories of the remaining time which will afterwards be a comfort rather than an unhappiness. I myself have consolations and even occasions of poignant happiness such as could not come to any man who had no wife and children. My burden is far less heavy than Sylvia's.’

  Barrie was told the news, and wrote to Sylvia on September 20th:

  I mean to come down tomorrow: I may not be before seven or thereabout, as Mr Boucicault is pressing for a meeting in the afternoon [about Peter Pan rehearsals]. I shall bring a bag, and stay the night or not, just as you like. I am thinking of you and Arthur all the time. I am still full of hope.

  Your loving

  J.M.B.

  On the same day Arthur was writing to his father, who was now over eighty and in failing health himself:

  Dearest Father,

  Whatever may be in store for me, I hope I shall bear it as befits the son of a brave & wise man. I am troubled for myself, but much more for Sylvia. She is brave to a degree that I should have thought hardly possible, busy all day with endless activities & kindnesses for me & for the boys, & all the time the burden is almost heavier than she can bear. Besides her sympathy for me, she shrinks terribly from the loneliness after I am gone. She will have many good friends, but scarcely any one on whom she feels that she can really rely. I can see the end to what I may have to endure, but she at present seems to face the prospect of endless misery, & only sees that she must go on for the sake of the boys. I can foresee a not unhappy life for her in the future, with the boys growing up round her, but she cannot now see this. She & all the boys were never so desirable to me as now, & it is hard if I have to leave them. But whatever comes after death, whether anything or nothing, to die & leave them is not like what it would be if I were away from them in life, conscious that I could not see them or talk to them or help them.

  Barrie's unfailing kindness & tact are a great support to us both. …

  Your affect. son,

  A.Ll.D.

  Arthur's father, the Reverend John Llewelyn Davies, 1906

  For a while it looked as though there had been a false alarm, and Arthur apologized to Margaret for ‘having made a hullabaloo about nothing and having caused the family needless trouble’. Hope of an improvement was founded on faith in a new form of electrical treatment. The family clutched at the straw, and a semblance of normality returned; Barrie came down to Berkhamsted on Guy Fawkes Day, bringing box loads of fireworks for the boys. ‘I shall have a good look at them before they are lighted,’ wrote Sylvia to Margaret, ‘Jimmy is sure to light them at the wrong end.’ Michael also wrote to his aunt – his first surviving literary effort:

  Nico, aged 3, at Egerton House (JMB)

  Dear Aunt Margaret, Uncle Maurice has been, and I have got an Acorn. and I am going to plant it, and I am going to plant a tulip bulb, and Mr Barrie has got a cold, and Jack has had a Football match and he did not win, and thank you for the Post cards, and I cant say the difficult word that Gandfather [sic] told me, from Michael with love from Nik-o.

  But the optimism was short-lived. By late November, Arthur was telling his sister that the artificial jaw had become quite hopeless, and that he was now obliged to take morphia at night to ease his pain. Nevertheless he managed to write cheerfully on November 26th:

  ‘We have been full of birthdays lately – Nicholas (aged 3) on Saturday, and Sylvia and also Smee [their dog], on Sunday. The boys got up a little acting of a humble sort. Michael much the best, though Jack also has some idea. Michael [aged six] reads to me regularly now, reversing our previous parts, and his reading is very clear and full of extraordinary spirit.’

  Dolly Ponsonby's diary records the onset of the final phase in Arthur's suffering:

  ‘Dec 5th. [1906] I left in the middle [of a dinner party] to go down to Berkhampstead where I spent the saddest most terrible night I can remember. Suffice it to say that Arthur Davies cannot live & told me so – but had not told Sylvia.

  ‘Friday 6th. Returned to London after luncheon. It was awful having to leave him & I longed to go down on my knees to him & tell him I thought him the noblest most heroic being that ever lived – but it couldn't be & I had to persist in telling him he would live. Sylvia is an example too of everything a woman should be – Her care of him & of the children, her patience & lovingness & strength – there is no one like her.’

  Wendy (Hilda Trevelyan) and Peter Pan (Pauline Chase) on Marooners' Rock in the Never Land. ‘The difference between [Peter] and the other boys … was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thing.’ (Peter and Wendy)

  Peter Pan had now opened for its third London season, with Pauline Chase as the new Peter, and Arthur asked if Margaret could take the boys to see the play, though she personally disliked it. ‘It would be dreadful if the children lost their pleasures’, he told her in a conversation note. Like hundreds of other children, Michael wrote to Peter Pan afterwards:2

  Dear Peter Pan thank you very much For

  the Post Card you Gave me I am Longing

  For some more of them and I have sent

  you A picture of the Little House For

  you And Nik-o thinks he can fly But he

  Only tumbles about his he sends his Love.

  From MICHAEL

  There was a second Peter Pan triumph this year: Barrie's pu
blishers, Hodder and Stoughton, had extracted the Peter Pan chapters from The Little White Bird and published them separately as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with fifty illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie wanted to pay tribute to the Llewelyn Davies family by dedicating the book to them, but his complimentary gesture must have been somewhat painful to the dying Arthur:

  TO SYLVIA AND ARTHUR LLEWELYN DAVIES AND THEIR BOYS (MY BOYS)

  Peter Davies wrote to Mary Hodgson in 1946: ‘Would you say that, assuming father never really liked J.M.B., he nevertheless became much fonder of him towards the end, and was much comforted in his last months by the thought that J.M.B.'s money would be there to help mother and all of us after his death?’ Mary replied, ‘I understood that your Aunt Margaret had been asked by your Father – and could not see her way to accept the responsibility. That J.M.B. was put forward as being more than willing. Your Father acquiesced to the inevitable, with astounding Grace and Fortitude. It would help your Mother – and further than that he neither desired nor was able to go.’ Jack, in later years, was of a similar opinion. He disagreed with Peter's conclusion that Arthur's gratitude to Barrie far outweighed his resentment: ‘I couldn't at all agree that Father did anything but most cordially dislike the Bart. I felt again and again that his letters simply blazoned the fact that he was doing all he could, poor man, to put up a smoke screen and leave Mother a little less sad and try to show her he didn't grudge the Bart being hale and hearty and rich enough to take over the business. … I've no doubt at all he was thankful, but he was a proud man, and it must have been extraordinarily bitter for him. And altogether too soft and saintlike to like the little man as well.’

  Mary Hodgson carrying Nico to bed (JMB)

  Arthur was now unable to speak, and once again had to resort to making notes. Most of them represent fragmentary scraps of conversation, and were preserved after Arthur's death by his sister Margaret:

  Barrie, George and Jack

  — I think I've had the last of the quacks today. I do it because Sylvia may think afterwards I have not tried everything.

  — I think it will be best for Sylvia to leave [Egerton House] as soon as possible & with George & Jack away, she will like to be in London I'm pretty sure – a small house in London. I can't talk about these things to her now – she doesn't like it. Her ways may not be quite understood by our family.

  — George understands pretty well how serious it is. He does not know what to say & does not like to say nothing, but I expect he knows I understand. He is very understandable.

  — Dear Jimmy.

  — I just like to see you.

  — I put all the burdens on you because you can help better than anyone.

  — Perhaps better that none of them should see me afterwards? Impression so given never disappears – not the sort of impression one wishes to be permanent.

  — Do write more things other than plays.

  Peter Davies commented in his Morgue:

  ‘“Do write more things other than plays.’ On the face of it a peculiar remark to address to J.M.B., and one which the world would be unlikely to endorse. He was at that time … the most praised as well as the most successful dramatist alive. But I think that, nevertheless, it was intended as a compliment, and may even have been accepted as one. I think that Arthur had heard so much that was wise and good and true said by that strange little Scotch genius, that he felt his plays, and indeed his writings generally, did less than justice to the brain that conceived them. The whimsicality that so many people have found intolerable in J.M.B.'s work and which was no doubt of the essence of his genius and primarily responsible for his achievements and success, was something almost beyond his control as soon as he had a pen or pencil in his hand. His conversation was often on a much higher plane, and doubtless rose to its highest in his talks with the dying Arthur.’

  In another series of conversations notes, Arthur wrote to Margaret: ‘Jimmy thinks George ought to be told everything.’ Later he wrote, ‘Told George – said probably, tho' always a chance. Asked him if he would like to see Mr B[arrie] or me. Yes.’ In Margaret's handwriting: ‘Arthur said all had gone wrong – better talk to G[eorge] of other things. … Death was the end of a glorious thing, Life. Life would be nothing without death or the risk of it. Had never thought death shd be a gloomy thing. Peter had seen this. How Michael and he were discussing what gift they would like best. Michael said not to die – but Peter saw it in the way Arthur did.’

  Barrie went to Ireland with Frohman at the end of March 1907, for the opening of Peter Pan in Dublin. He wrote to Sylvia on April 1st from the Shelbourne Hotel:

  How I wish I could say to you that now I am going up to Arthur, it is the only thing I seem to want to do nowadays. He lies there like a wounded soldier and is the gallantest figure any of us is ever likely to see. I always had a passion for simplicity, and I feel sure now that there can be nothing very heroic or loveable without it. I hope you are taking your medicine and making faces at it, and I know your dear heart beats brave as ever. On Wednesday evening sometime you will see me minus my waistcoat and probably not well brushed.

  Ever your loving

  J.M.B.

  Barrie returned to Berkhamsted and resumed his post at Arthur's bedside. The dying man communicated with conversation notes, telling him that he now suffered from nightmares:

  — Vague fancies … that I was going to have, or perhaps had had, an infant. All this was vaguely connected with thirst and pain in my face.

  — I'm quite happy. This last 6 months has been the happiest of my life. I've received so much kindness. Bless my bones.

  — It is in all the little things that character is shown. Anyone can face the big things.

  — [After morphia] This is the most blessed time in the day.

  — Hurrah for Rustington and Fortingal!

  — What have the boys been doing? I leave it entirely to you (& Jimmy), subject to Sylvia's wishes. He's been a wonderful son – you can always tell him that.

  — When you go, bring me Matthew Arnold – especially ‘The Way of Peace’ … But don't bother this evening if difficult to find.

  — I don't think anyone has ever done so much for me.

  — Read this now, about the Child, Nurse & Death.

  — Give me your hand.

  Sylvia (JMB)

  Barrie's own notebook entries continued, prompted by his conversations with Arthur:

  — 1,000 N's Dying man's fears to friend that he may break down & blubber at end – weakness may master him. … His idea wd have liked to have children – to live on in them. Speaks to friend (a father) about great difference in dying if you have children (yourself living on) – if you haven't you go out completely.

  — Play. The Second Chance on people being given a second chance – in first act they are shown at 6's & 7's wishing had done differently – if only had second chance (marriage, &c) – it is given them by supernatural means & we see how they make use of it – (or it is a dream). They might suddenly all go back 20 yrs. Shd they be aware while dreaming that this is a second chance & so try to avoid doing as before? Or shd they not know?*

  — Voices. To an old man comes his mother, young & beautiful ∵ she died young, & they talk strangely of the promise & fulfilment. It takes her long to know he is her son – she is looking for the little boy she left behind.

  — Novel on ‘The Accursed Thing’ – On everybody having one accursed vice to fight or yield to. Might have three young men all right but for this – the one physical, 2nd moral, 3rd mental. Physical – an illness. Moral – loose living. Mental – mind working to evil actions. To each the others' failings seem terrible, &c. All treated as diseases. Perhaps they shd overcome – or one do it wholly, one half & one fail.†

  — Character who fails to develop normally, whose spirit remains young in an ageing body, constantly upset by the painful astonishment known to all of us when some outward proof suddenly jabs our inward conviction of perpetual youth.

>   — Young Widow whose husband instead of leaving it in will that if she marries she loses her money leaves it to the man she marries.

  — Play: ‘The Widow's Mite’ (Little man's devotion to widow).

  — Death scene. Character gathers them together for last words. Suddenly dies.

  — The Lovely Moment. Finest Dream in the World. That it is early morning & I am out on a highland road – dew &c – it is time before I knew anything of sorrow pain or death. Everyone I have loved is still alive – it is the morning of life.

  * * *

  All the boys except George were sent down to Ramsgate to stay with their grandmother, Emma du Maurier, for the Easter holidays. It was Arthur's last selfless gesture: he knew that he was dying, and he wanted his sons to be spared the anguish of the death-bed. He wrote the last letter of his life to Michael:

  Egerton House, Berkhamsted.

  April 15, 1907

  My dearest Michael

  My letters from my boys are indeed a pleasure to me when they arrive in the morning. I hope my boys are getting lots of happiness out of other people's kindness to them and their own kindness to other people every day. It would be fine to have a magic carpet and … [fly] to Ramsgate, and see what is going on. … I expect you are having plenty of fun and very fine weather, but that we are getting more flowers, especially primroses. My nurse is very good at finding primroses and violets.