Complete Works of J. M. Barrie

by Unknown

  It had been very noble of him to try to save me pain by keeping this wretched little trouble from me for so long, and I hope I was a loving wife to him that evening.

  ‘It does seem tragic,’ I said, ‘that such a small thing should stand between us and fame, and my advice is that you abandon the project altogether. After all, the country has the plays it deserves.’ Charles is so tenacious, however, that this proposal brought no comfort to him, and he insisted on continuing the struggle — but not that evening. ‘You are so dogged,’ I said.

  ‘I suppose I am too dogged,’ he admitted, ‘but I can’t change my nature.’

  I — was in his confidence now, and he let me try to think out a beginning. I thought of a lovely one: the curtain to rise on two servants dusting, and telling who the other characters were. But strange to say, I found that this was the only beginning which Charles had thought of himself and that he had abandoned it because he discovered it was the way all the other clerks in the office began their plays. Thus I was no great help, but our thinking of the same beginning is a delightful proof that Charles and I are not twain but one.

  That summer it was so pleasant to be out of doors that Charles was little in the study. Sometimes he thought of writing in the orchard, but there was the danger of the MS. being blown away.

  The winter was such an unusually hard one that his fingers froze if he sat for any length of time at the study table. We often discussed the advisability of pushing the study table near the fire. But it is too heavy for one, and that winter he was specially anxious that I should not overexert myself. So many exquisite evenings we had that winter, crouching over the blazing logs; nothing between us and bliss except that hateful MS.

  For ever and ever and ever was the date to which I now wanted Charles to abandon the work, but he still clung to the idea of resumption at some future time.

  ‘Let us say this day one year hence,’ I suggested.

  He thought that was too definite.

  ‘Well, then, let us say till an idea strikes you.’

  He had some objection to that also; I forget now what it was. We finally decided that he should cease the actual writing of the play ‘until he had had time to look round.’ I don’t know why, but this phrase pleased him very much.

  Never since that happy day has the MS. given us the slightest trouble. The phrase, on the other hand, has been changed several times. It has been ‘until we move into a more convenient house,’ and ‘until we have settled down in the new house,’ and at present it is ‘until the children are older.’ You must not think that Charles has given up the idea of being a dramatist; I have never known him fuller of it than during the last year or two. I notice also that he now speaks of the project cheerily to our friends, which by-the-by I have ceased to do.

  We are now nearly middle-aged, and I love Charles more than ever, perhaps just because I know him better. I also love his little MS. Never again shall I speak slightingly of it. It has been a success to me. Our enormous interest in it was what first brought us together; perhaps but for it our glorious union would never have had a beginning. So you see Charles began my play beautifully though he may not be able to begin his own (but that remains to be seen).”

  THUS do the Gods mock their might-have-beens. This luckless Charles probably never found a beginning for his play, and so far as I can discover not one page exists of his virgin MS. Gone similarly into the waste are nearly all the many hundred MSS. of Anon’s articles, this of ‘My Husband’s Play’ being (for some great end unknown to me) among the few exceptions. In his day if there was such a thing as typewriting he had never heard of it; all the articles he sent to the ‘St. James’s’ and elsewhere were in this same shaky scrawl, and oh, it is ill to read. I suppose there were other contributors who wrote no better, and I marvel how Greenwood found time to decipher us and yet edit his paper. It has taken me half an hour to stumble through this article, and even then I leapt some of the words. How much more fortunate the editors of to-day with their demand for typing.

  In my schooldays I wrote the most boastful copperplate; sometimes of an evening I still gaze at it with proud bewilderment. It went, I think, not gradually with over-writing, but suddenly like my smile. If the two ever meet in whatever Valhalla such things go to when they leave us, one would like to think that they quaff a goblet to Anon.

  About fifteen years ago a great change for the better came over my handwriting. Even proofreaders, so cunning at their job, had at times asked me to translate, but I was saved by an attack of writer’s cramp to which, once abhorred, I now make a reverential bow, though it is as ready as ever to pounce if thoughtlessly I take up the pen in my right hand. I had to learn to write with the left, not so irksome to me as it would be to most, for I am naturally left-handed (and still kick with the left foot). I had never from infancy written with the left hand, however, and progress was slow. I now write as easily with this hand as once with the other, and if I take any pains the result is almost pleasing to the eye. The hope of my friends is that I shall never recover my facility with the other. Nevertheless, there is not the same joy in writing with the left hand as with the right. One thinks down the right arm, while the left is at best an amanuensis. The right has the happier nature, the left is naturally sinister. I write things with the left, or to put the matter I think more correctly, it writes things with me, that the right would have expressed more humanely. I never, so far as I can remember, wrote uncomfortable tales like ‘Dear Brutus’ and ‘Mary Rose’ till I crossed over to my other hand. I could not have written these, as they are, with my right hand any more than I could have written ‘Quality Street’ with my left. Anon of course was right-handed. If he had written this little sketch ‘My Husband’s Play’ with the left it would probably have ended quite differently, say with the wife leaving her husband in disdain, or even writing his play herself.

  CHAPTER XXII

  “THE CLUB GHOST” — WHAT DOES ONE DO IN CLUBS? — HENRY JAMES — THE ADELPHI BY NIGHT

  “THE club library is a pleasantly gloomy room overlooking St. James’s Street, and its walls are reported by some to be lined with books. Others, however, think they are only dummies, and as glass doors separate them from members, no one will perhaps ever know for certain.

  Though I have been a member of the club for a year I do not even now know a soul in the ancient place. If any other member were to address me, so surely have I fallen into the club ways that I should probably complain to the committee, and I presume he would behave similarly if I addressed him. I, who was once sociable, go from door to door in the club looking for a room in which I can be alone. When I find it I either sit motionless in the window or slumber by the fire, vaguely conscious that other members, also seeking clubable facilities, have, now and again, peeped in and finding me in possession have departed petulantly. It is the cosiest club in London, but I am still young, and after my disturbing experience of to-day I contemplate removing my name from the books.

  I woke, dimly conscious that I was in the library and that the servants must have forgotten to light the gas. Perhaps I shifted my position a little, for an ash-tray fell off the arm of my chair. I did not know for certain (I now speak as one giving evidence in a Court of Law) that it was an ash-tray. I will not swear on oath that it was an ash-tray. I believe it was an ash-tray. I swear, however, that I heard something fall, and immediately a voice growled ‘Sh-sh.’ I paid no attention, but presently I remembered that of course when I fell asleep I was alone in the room. Had I heard ‘Sh-sh’P The fire gleamed for a moment, but I opened my eyes too late. I was almost slumbering in a sleeping again, but not quite, for I could hear myself breathing heavily. Then it struck me that what I heard was not my own breathing. Evidently the intruder was in the chair by the window. The fire brightened, and I looked at the chair drowsily. There was no one there. I looked at the other chairs. They were empty. Still I heard heavy breathing, followed by a yawn as if the man was stretching himself. I yawned myself, and my yawn w
as an echo of his. Or was his an echo of mine? They were strangely similar. Who was he, and how did he get into the room without my knowledge? But, stop — where was he? I fixed my eyes, now wide open, on the chair by the window, from which those sounds seemed to proceed. The room was again in dusk. I stretched out my foot gently to where his legs ought to have been, but it encountered nothing. I drew my foot back in some surprise, and, leaning forward, felt for him with my hands. They slid down an arm of the chair, and then into space. Had I not been a clubman I would have risen in agitation. Evidently the fellow was awake, wherever he had bestowed his limbs, and I made no scruple, therefore, of for the first time addressing a fellow-member. ‘Very careless of these servants,’ I began, ‘not lighting the—’

  ‘Sh-sh,’ came the one familiar club sound. I patted the floor with my foot in the sternest manner, but of course he was within his rights. Then a coal poised improperly on the fire by the library attendant toppled from the grate, with the result that a flicker of flame sprang up. Now I saw him plainly. He was a dog, a grey Skye terrier, looking as old as Skye. It was not his being a dog so much as the very old look that gave me the sinking. I remembered that there was an uncomfortable story about our club, something about shadowy figures on the stair. At the moment, however, emotion of any kind would have been out of place in that room. I twisted myself more comfortably in my chair, for I know the way of being comfortable in our library chairs, however agitated one may be, and when I had done so I caught sight of myself in the mirror. What I saw made me again turn to the dog; this time almost sharply. He was lying in his chair exactly as I lay in mine. Probably I looked at him uneasily now, and then I looked once more in the glass. What a bored face I had; where had I seen such a face recently? I started; I believe I glared at the dog, for an unpleasant suspicion had crossed my mind. Yes, the dreariness of his expression was horribly like mine. He glanced across and scowled as if annoyed because I had intruded on his privacy. ‘Well?’ I said, with affected jocularity, yet cautiously, for I always wonder what a dog will do next. He looked me up and down, and then calmly turned his back on me. ‘On my word,’ I began, when he whisked round, and again I heard that club ‘Sh-sh.’

  From this point I have to confess that I was overstrung, and would have been glad to escape from the room. I suppose I was afraid to move, as I continued to lie back in my chair. My companion was still lolling in his. To assert my manhood I was on the point of coolly trimming my nails, a club privilege, when I heard a scraping, and desisted on seeing that he was doing what I had been about to do. At last he rose, and muttering languidly to himself cautiously stepped on to the floor as one does in clubs. I held my breath when I saw him strolling to the bell. Perhaps he changed his mind, for instead of ringing he yawned again, cast a careless glance at the mirror as if he were wearing a necktie, and with a frown at me walked limply to the door. He left it ajar — his first incorrect action. I bounced after him — mine.

  He descended the stairs stolidly, as we all do, looking neither to right nor left; the bored expression still on his face. I leant over the banisters to see the last of him. He cast an eye on an evening newspaper framed in the hall, but did not read it (none of us do), and paused near the hall-porter as if to ask if there were any letters. Then he stepped prosily to the entrance door. The pageboys, who were of great age, opened it for him, and he courteously inclined his head without regarding them. I waited to give him time, if such was his wish, to hail a cab.

  ‘What dog was that?’ I then asked of the hall-porter.

  He would not have told, or indeed have spoken to, any one else, but of course he had to answer a member. The dog had been owned by a member of many years ago, the Rev. James Spens, a power in the club, and it had usually accompanied him on his daily visits thereto. The hall-porter, who spoke as one not certain that I should like it, said he could remember the dog as a bright, merry creature, but that as he got used to the club he changed. This was specially noticeable after they made him a member, which was some time before his master’s death.

  ‘A member?’ I exclaimed.

  An honorary member, the hall-porter interposed hurriedly, apparently hoping that this might mitigate the offence. It seems that on some great occasion of the past the club members lost their sense of propriety for a night and dined together, instead of at separate tables, with the result that the Skye terrier, on the motion of his master (who was in an odd condition), had been elected an honorary member. The intention was humorous, but was not so taken by the dog. Unexpected results followed. The gaiety went out of the new member. He became crusty, snapped at William if the two pages were not there to throw open the door as he reached the last step, was condescending though quite the gentleman to the servants, and life-weary with members, was very nice about his food and barked if he thought he was in a draught. ‘When we first knew him just as a dog,’ William said with a slight quiver, ‘he was a one to play with an apple, balancing it on his head, like a music-hall, but in the days I speak of he would no more have done tricks with an apple than any other member of the club.’ William never said ‘the club’ without nearly crossing himself.

  The dog now sometimes came to the club before his master and would wander its premises looking for a room devoid of other living ornaments; but this, William assured me, was not done for himself but in the interests of the Rev. Mr. Spens, for whom he kept the room. His affection for his master remained to the last the one unclubable thing about him. On the death of Mr. Spens he would not enter the club for weeks, though sometimes seen looking at it in a daze from across the street. By and by, however, he resumed his attendance and was now a frequent visitor. He considered the library to be his special room, and he had one chair in it between the fire and the window where he was usually to be found. Mr. Mannering and Sir George also liked this chair, and there was such bickering for it among the three of them as William never saw in all his time.

  ‘I don’t like it, William,’ I said.

  ‘Nobody likes it, sir,’ said he, ‘but we can’t do anything.’

  ‘It seems to me that as he cannot pay his subscription—’

  ‘An honorary member,’ William pointed out, ‘pays no subscription.’

  ‘Still, after all, he is only a dog.’

  ‘In a way, sir,’ William said guardedly.

  ‘But the committee—’

  ‘I understand, sir, that the subject came up before them years and years ago, and that they took legal advice but they had no case; so the counsels decided. They said that some barrister on the make would take the matter up and perhaps drive the club into bankruptcy. We servants,’ William went on doubtfully, ‘we rather likes the little varmint — the old gentleman as I might say, sir.’

  ‘Has he a name?’

  ‘We call him Mr. Spens, sir — without the “Rev.”’ William now obviously wished me to go away. It determined me to ask him more, though in a lower voice.

  ‘You are sure he is a living dog, William?’

  ‘He was once, sir,’ was all that the loyal servant of the club would reply.

  ‘Do you ever lift him up — or even touch him?’

  ‘A member, sir!’ he said, outraged.

  ‘Answer my question, William.’

  ‘Not of late years, sir,’ he said huskily.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He — he snaps, sir.’

  ‘That is not your real reason. Be a man. Is it because you think he is not there?’

  ‘It might be that, sir.’

  ‘I won’t harass you further, William. But what do you make of it all?’

  ‘It might be,’ the old retainer whispered, ‘that he came here too often, sir, in the days when — when he was a member. Some of the members drop in so often that — that they don’t know where else to go to... after the obsequies, sir.’

  ‘Are those the shadows on the stair that I have heard spoken of?’ I cried, scared. ‘Do you mean that even the Rev. Mr. Spens—’

  ‘Don’t, si
r,’ William implored.

  ‘You yourself, William,’ I could not help saying, ‘though you must be very old, you are real, aren’t you, William?’

  ‘If you please, sir. Thank you, sir,’ he said.

  I desisted, but I don’t like it.

  Signed before witnesses.”

  Never, despite this effort of Mr. Anon’s, can there have been any one more unlike a clubman than I. I daresay I am the only member of clubs who need not take his warning to heart. I ‘belong’ nowadays to at least half a dozen of the stately edifices, but I enter none oftener than, say, quinquennially, and the others less frequently. A canine member is not needed to keep me out but to draw me in.

  I have no ill-will to clubs; indeed I am still sometimes caught momentarily in the webs they weave across Pall Mall; a club hair touches my face as I am passing, just sufficient to remind me that I am a member here; I ascend the steps, then I remember and hasten away. What I remember is that I could never find out what one does in clubs; I know about hanging up my hat; then you sit down on a chair and cross your legs, but what does one do after he has crossed his legs? Anon went to London thinking that clubs were Romance, wondering if ever the glorious day would come when callers at his ‘chambers,’ on finding he was out, would know that therefore he must be at ‘the club.’ He even saw, did Anon (in his mind’s eye, O Thackeray), ladies inquiring for him first at those chambers and next with certainty at that club. So he was ripe for Bohemia; clubs even gave him a thrill (which he was never to get from them again) when he joined his first, the Savage. I remember his elation. A kindly acquaintance, already a member thereof, made the terrific announcement that he believed he could get Anon in. He took the trembling one to the headquarters of the club in Adelphi Terrace, put him into a room on the ground floor with padded seats (which made Anon to glow, they were so obviously the real thing), asked him to look more clubable, and then left him alone for a long time, occasionally sending down various friends to look him over and see if he would do. I often pass that way nowadays, being resident in the Latin Quarter, and seem to see Anon on one of the padded seats with his legs crossed while he tries to look clubable. He little thought, poor soul, that he already knew nearly all he and I were ever to know about what one does in clubs.