Tommy and Grizel

by J. M. Barrie

  CHAPTER XXXV

  THE PERFECT LOVER

  Tommy has not lasted. More than once since it became known that I waswriting his life I have been asked whether there ever really was sucha person, and I am afraid to inquire for his books at the library lestthey are no longer there. A recent project to bring out a new edition,with introductions by some other Tommy, received so little supportthat it fell to the ground. It must be admitted that, so far as thegreat public is concerned, Thomas Sandys is done for.

  They have even forgotten the manner of his death, though probably noyoung writer with an eye on posterity ever had a better send-off. Wereally thought at the time that Tommy had found a way.

  The surmise at Rintoul, immediately accepted by the world as a fact,was that he had been climbing the wall to obtain for Grizel theflowers accidentally left in the garden, and it at once tipped thetragedy with gold. The newspapers, which were in the middle of thedull season, thanked their gods for Tommy, and enthusiastically set towork on him. Great minds wrote criticisms of what they called hislife-work. The many persons who had been the first to discover himsaid so again. His friends were in demand for the most trivialreminiscences. Unhappy Pym cleared Lll 10s.

  Shall we quote? It is nearly always done at this stage of thebiography, so now for the testimonials to prove that our hero waswithout a flaw. A few specimens will suffice if we select some thatare very like many of the others. It keeps Grizel waiting, but Tommy,as you have seen, was always the great one; she existed only that hemight show how great he was. "Busy among us of late," says one, "hasbeen the grim visitor who knocks with equal confidence at the doors ofthe gifted and the ungifted, the pauper and the prince, and twice inone short month has he taken from us men of an eminence greaterperhaps than that of Mr. Sandys; but of them it could be said theirwork was finished, while his sun sinks tragically when it is yet day.Not by what his riper years might have achieved can this pure, spiritnow be judged, and to us, we confess, there is something infinitelypathetic in that thought. We would fain shut our eyes, and open themagain at twenty years hence, with Mr. Sandys in the fulness of hispowers. It is not to be. What he might have become is hidden from us;what he was we know. He was little more than a stripling when he'burst upon the town' to be its marvel--and to die; a 'marvellous boy'indeed; yet how unlike in character and in the nobility of his shortlife, as in the mournful yet lovely circumstances of his death, tothat other Might-Have-Been who 'perished in his pride.' Our young menof letters have travelled far since the days of Chatterton. Time waswhen a riotous life was considered part of their calling--when theyshunned the domestic ties and actually held that the consummate artistis able to love nothing but the creations of his fancy. It is such menas Thomas Sandys who have exploded that pernicious fallacy....

  "Whether his name will march down the ages is not for us, hiscontemporaries, to determine. He had the most modest opinion of hisown work, and was humbled rather than elated when he heard it praised.No one ever loved praise less; to be pointed at as a man ofdistinction was abhorrent to his shrinking nature; he seldom, indeed,knew that he was being pointed at, for his eyes were ever on theground. He set no great store by the remarkable popularity of hisworks. 'Nothing,' he has been heard to say to one of those gushingladies who were his aversion, 'nothing will so certainly perish as thetalk of the town.' It may be so, but if so, the greater the pity thathe has gone from among us before he had time to put the coping-stoneupon his work. There is a beautiful passage in one of his own books inwhich he sees the spirits of gallant youth who died too young forimmortality haunting the portals of the Elysian Fields, and the greatshades come to the portal and talk with them. We venture to say thathe is at least one of these."

  What was the individuality behind the work? They discussed it inleading articles and in the correspondence columns, and the man provedto be greater than his books. His distaste for admiration is again andagain insisted on and illustrated by many characteristic anecdotes. Heowed much to his parents, though he had the misfortune to lose themwhen he was but a child. "Little is known of his father, but weunderstand that he was a retired military officer in easycircumstances. The mother was a canny Scotchwoman of lowly birth,conspicuous for her devoutness even in a land where it is everyone'sbirthright, and on their marriage, which was a singularly happy one,they settled in London, going little into society, the worldforgetting, by the world forgot, and devoting themselves to each otherand to their two children. Of these Thomas was the elder, and as thetwig was early bent so did the tree incline. From his earliest yearshe was noted for the modesty which those who remember his boyhood inScotland (whither the children went to an uncle on the death of theirparents) still speak of with glistening eyes. In another column willbe found some interesting recollections of Mr. Sandys by his oldschoolmaster, Mr. David Cathro, M.A., who testifies with natural prideto the industry and amiability of his famous pupil. 'To know him,'says Mr. Cathro, 'was to love him.'"

  According to another authority, T. Sandys got his early modesty fromhis father, who was of a very sweet disposition, and some instances ofthis modesty are given. They are all things that Elspeth did, butTommy is now represented as the person who had done them. "On theother hand, his strong will, singleness of purpose, and enviablecapacity for knowing what he wanted to be at were a heritage from hispractical and sagacious mother." "I think he was a little proud of hisstrength of will," writes the R.A. who painted his portrait (now inAmerica), "for I remember his anxiety that it should be suggested inthe picture." But another acquaintance (a lady) replies: "He was notproud of his strong will, but he liked to hear it spoken of, and heonce told me the reason. This strength of will was not, as isgenerally supposed, inherited by him; he was born without it, andacquired it by a tremendous effort. I believe I am the only person towhom he confided this, for he shrank from talk about himself, lookingupon it as a form of that sentimentality which his soul abhorred."

  He seems often to have warned ladies against this essentially womanishtendency to the sentimental. "It is an odious onion, dear lady," hewould say, holding both her hands in his. If men in his presencetalked sentimentally to ladies he was so irritated that he soon founda pretext for leaving the room. "Yet let it not be thought," says OneWho Knew Him Well, "that because he was so sternly practical himselfhe was intolerant of the outpourings of the sentimental. The man, inshort, reflected the views on this subject which are so admirablyphrased in his books, works that seem to me to found one of theirchief claims to distinction on this, that at last we have a writer whocan treat intimately of human love without leaving one smear of theonion upon his pages."

  On the whole, it may be noticed, comparatively few ladies contributeto the obituary reflections, "for the simple reason," says a simpleman, "that he went but little into female society. He who could writeso eloquently about women never seemed to know what to say to them.Ordinary tittle-tattle from them disappointed him. I should say thatto him there was so much of the divine in women that he was depressedwhen they hid their wings." This view is supported by Clubman, whonotes that Tommy would never join in the somewhat free talk about theother sex in which many men indulge. "I remember," he says, "a man'sdinner at which two of those present, both persons of eminence,started a theory that every man who is blessed or cursed with theartistic instinct has at some period of his life wanted to marry abarmaid. Mr. Sandys gave them such a look that they at onceapologized. Trivial, perhaps, but significant. On another occasion Iwas in a club smoking-room when the talk was of a similar kind. Mr.Sandys was not present. A member said, with a laugh, 'I wonder for howlong men can be together without talking gamesomely of women?' Beforeany answer could be given Mr. Sandys strolled in, and immediately theatmosphere cleared, as if someone had opened the windows. When he hadgone the member addressed turned to him who had propounded the problemand said, 'There is your answer--as long as Sandys is in the room.'"

  "A fitting epitaph, this, for Thomas Sandys," says the paper thatquotes it, "if we could not find a better. Mr. S
andys was from firstto last a man of character, but why when others falter was he alwaysso sure-footed? It is in the answer to this question that we find thekey to the books, and to the man who was greater than the books. Hewas the Perfect Lover. As he died seeking flowers for her who had thehigh honour to be his wife, so he had always lived. He gave hisaffection to her, as our correspondent Miss (or Mrs.) Ailie McLeanshows, in his earliest boyhood, and from this, his one romance, henever swerved. To the moment of his death all his beautiful thoughtswere flowers plucked for her; his books were bunches of them gatheredto place at her feet. No harm now in reading between the lines of hisbooks and culling what is the common knowledge of his friends in thenorth, that he had to serve a long apprenticeship before he won her.For long his attachment was unreciprocated, though she was ever hisloyal friend, and the volume called 'Unrequited Love' belongs to theperiod when he thought his life must be lived alone. The circumstancesof their marriage are at once too beautiful and too painful to bedwelt on here. Enough to say that, should the particulars ever begiven to the world, with the simple story of his life, a finermemorial will have been raised to him than anything in stone, such aswe see a committee is already being formed to erect. We venture topropose as a title for his biography, 'The Story of the PerfectLover.'"

  Yes, that memorial committee was formed; but so soon do people forgetthe hero of yesterday's paper that only the secretary attended thefirst meeting, and he never called another. But here, five and twentyyears later, is the biography, with the title changed. You may wonderthat I had the heart to write it. I do it, I have sometimes pretendedto myself, that we may all laugh at the stripling of a rogue, but thatwas never my reason. Have I been too cunning, or have you seen throughme all the time? Have you discovered that I was really pitying the boywho was so fond of boyhood that he could not with years become a man,telling nothing about him that was not true, but doing it withunnecessary scorn in the hope that I might goad you into crying:"Come, come, you are too hard on him!"

  Perhaps the manner in which he went to his death deprives him of thesewords. Had the castle gone on fire that day while he was at tea, andhe perished in the flames in a splendid attempt to save the life ofhis enemy (a very probable thing), then you might have felt a littleliking for him. Yet he would have been precisely the same person. Idon't blame you, but you are a Tommy.

  Grizel knew how he died. She found Lady Pippinworth's letter to him,and understood who the woman was; but it was only in hopes ofobtaining the lost manuscript that she went to see her. Then LadyPippinworth told her all. Are you sorry that Grizel knew? I am notsorry--I am glad. As a child, as a girl, and as a wife, the truth hadbeen all she wanted, and she wanted it just the same when she was awidow. We have a right to know the truth; no right to ask anythingelse from God, but the right to ask that.

  And to her latest breath she went on loving Tommy just the same. Shethought everything out calmly for herself; she saw that there is nogreat man on this earth except the man who conquers self, and that insome the accursed thing which is in all of us may be so strong that tobattle with it and be beaten is not altogether to fail. It is foolishto demand complete success of those we want to love. We should rejoicewhen they rise for a moment above themselves, and sympathize with themwhen they fall. In their heyday young lovers think each other perfect;but a nobler love comes when they see the failings also, and thishigher love is so much more worth attaining to that they need not cryout though it has to be beaten into them with rods. So they learnhumanity's limitations, and that the accursed thing to me is not theaccursed thing to you; but all have it, and from this comes pity forthose who have sinned, and the desire to help each other springs, forknowledge is sympathy, and sympathy is love, and to learn it the Sonof God became a man.

  And Grizel also thought anxiously about herself, and how from the timewhen she was the smallest girl she had longed to be a good woman andfeared that perhaps she never should. And as she looked back at theroad she had travelled, there came along it the little girl to judgeher. She came trembling, but determined to know the truth, and shelooked at Grizel until she saw into her soul, and then she smiled,well pleased.

  Grizel lived on at Double Dykes, helping David in the old way. She wastoo strong and fine a nature to succumb. Even her brightness came backto her. They sometimes wondered at the serenity of her face. Somestill thought her a little stand-offish, for, though the pride hadgone from her walk, a distinction of manner grew upon her and made herseem a finer lady than before. There was no other noticeable change,except that with the years she lost her beautiful contours and becamea little angular--the old maid's figure, I believe it is sometimescalled.

  No one would have dared to smile at Grizel become an old maid beforesome of the young men of Thrums. They were people who would havesuffered much for her, and all because she had the courage to talk tothem of some things before their marriage-day came round. And fortheir young wives who had tidings to whisper to her about the unbornshe had the pretty idea that they should live with beautiful thoughts,so that these might become part of the child.

  When Gavinia told this to Corp, he gulped and said, "I wonder Godcould hae haen the heart."

  "Life's a queerer thing," Gavinia replied, sadly enough, "than we usedto think it when we was bairns in the Den."

  He spoke of it to Grizel. She let Corp speak of anything to herbecause he was so loyal to Tommy.

  "You've given away a' your bonny things, Grizel," he said, "one byone, and this notion is the bonniest o' them a'. I'm thinking thatwhen it cam' into your head you meant it for yoursel'."

  Grizel smiled at him.

  "I mind," Corp went on, "how when you was little you couldna see abairn without rocking your arms in a waeful kind o' a way, and wecould never thole the meaning o't. It just comes over me this minuteas it meant that when you was a woman you would like terrible to haebairns o' your ain, and you doubted you never should."

  She raised her hand to stop him. "You see, I was not meant to havethem, Corp," she said. "I think that when women are too fond of otherpeople's babies they never have any of their own."

  But Corp shook his head. "I dinna understand it," he told her, "butI'm sure you was meant to hae them. Something's gane wrang."

  She was still smiling at him, but her eyes were wet now, and she drewhim on to talk of the days when Tommy was a boy. It was sweet toGrizel to listen while Elspeth and David told her of the thousandthings Tommy had done for her when she was ill, but she loved best totalk with Corp of the time when they were all children in the Den. Thedays of childhood are the best.

  She lived so long after Tommy that she was almost a middle-aged womanwhen she died.

  And so the Painted Lady's daughter has found a way of making Tommy'slife the story of a perfect lover, after all. The little girl she hadbeen comes stealing back into the book and rocks her arms joyfully,and we see Grizel's crooked smile for the last time.