. I B R,AR.Y
OF THL
NIVER.5ITY
r ILLINOIS
Bar
V. 16
This edition, printed on Japan paper, is
limited to one hundred and fifty copies
for America and England, of which this is
No. 6 7
J. M. BARRIE
Vol. X
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
http://www.archive.org/details/novelstalessketc10barr
THE NOVELS, TALil^
AND SKETCHES OF
J. x\I. BARRIE ^ ^ 'S
T( .D GRIZEL
$ PUBLISHED IN
NEW YORK BY
CHAHfi^ SCRIBNER'S
yJfy
. . AND CLUNG TO IT, HIS TEETH SEl'
F^vn a Drawing •'■" ^ ■'»""-,/ P,,r-/»-.,Ar^
THE NOVELS, TALES
AND SKETCHES OF
J. M. BARRIE ^ ^ S
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
PART II
2& PUBLISHED IN
NEW YORK BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S
SONS ^ ^ 1900 ig
AUTHOR S EDITION
Copyright, 1900, by Charles Scribner's Sons
/ * /l^ • ^/ ^vxa_«_^
CONTENTS
Part II
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
(•
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
,^"
^
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
^
'^
S
3
C^
PAGE
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN ... i
OF THE CHANGE IN THOMAS . 13
A LOVE-LETTER 30
THE ATTEMPT TO CARRY EL-
SPETH BY NUMBERS .... 54
GRIZEL'S GLORIOUS HOUR ... 70
TOMMY LOSES GRIZEL .... 80
THE MONSTER 95
MR. T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
TO TOWN 114
GRIZEL ALL ALONE 133
GRIZEL'S JOURNEY 152
TWO OF THEM 164
THE RED LIGHT 181
THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HIM 192
*'THE MAN WITH THE GREETIN'
EYES" 211
TOMMY'S BEST WORK 229
THE LITTLE GODS RETURN WITH
A LADY 241
A WAY IS FOUND FOR TOMMY . 254
THE PERFECT LOVER 276
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
PART II
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
AS they sat amid the smell of rosin on that
±\ summer day, she told him, with a glance that
said, "Now you will laugh at me," what had
brought her into Caddam Wood.
" I came to rub something out."
He reflected. " A memory '? "
" Yes."
" Of me ? "
She nodded.
" An unhappy memory ? "
"Not to me," she replied, leaning on him. " I
have no memory of you I would rub out, no, not
the unhappiest one, for it was you, and that makes
it dear. All memories, however sad, of loved ones
become sweet, don't they, when we get far enough
away from them "? "
" But to whom, then, is this memory painful,
Grizel '? "
Again she cast that glance at him. " To her,"
she whispered.
" ' That little girl ' ! "
1
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
" Yes ; the child I used to be. You see, she
never grew up, and so they are not distant memo-
ries to her. I try to rub them out of her mind by
giving her prettier things to think of. I go to the
places where she was most unhappy, and tell her
sweet things about you. I am not morbid, am I,
in thinking of her still as some one apart from my-
self? You know how it began, in the lonely days
when I used to look at her in mamma's mirror, and
pity her, and fancy that she was pitying me and
entreating me to be careful. Always when I think
I see her now, she seems to be looking anxiously
at me and saying, ' Oh, do be careful ! ' And the
sweet things I tell her about you are meant to
show her how careful I have become. Are you
laughing at me for this ? I sometimes laugh at it
myself"
" No, it is delicious," he answered her, speaking
more lightly than he felt. " What a numskull
you make, Grizel, of any man who presumes to
write about women ! I am at school again, and
you are Miss Ailie teaching me the alphabet. But
I thought you lost that serious little girl on the
doleful day when she heard you say that you loved
me best."
" She came back. She has no one but me."
" And she still warns you against me ? "
Grizel laughed gleefully. " I am too clever for
her," she said. " I do all the talking. I allow her
2
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
to listen only. And you must not blame her for
distrusting you; I have said such things against
you to her ! Oh, the things I said ! On the first
day I saw you, for instance, after you came
back to Thrums. It was in church. Do you
remember *? "
" I should like to know what you said to her
about me that day."
" Would you ? " Grizel asked merrily. " Well,
let me see. She was not at church — she never
went there, you remember; but of course she was
curious to hear about you, and I had no sooner got
home than she came to me and said, ' Was he
there ?' ' Yes,' I said. ' Is he much changed? '
she asked. ' He has a beard,' I said. ' You know
that is not what I really mean,' she said, and then I
said, ' I don't think he is so much changed that it
is impossible to recognize him again.' "
Tommy interrupted her : " Now what did you
mean by that ? "
" I meant that I thought you w^ere a little an-
noyed to find the congregation looking at Gavinia's
baby more than at you I "
"Grizel, you are a wretch, but perhaps you were
right. Well, what more did the little inquisitor
want to know *? "
"She asked me if I felt any of my old fear
of you, and I said No, and then she clapped her
hands with joy. And she asked whether you
3
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
looked at me as if you were begging me to say I
still thought you a wonder, and I said I thought
you did "
" Grizel ! "
" Oh, I told her ever so many dreadful things as
soon as I found them out. I told her the whole
story of your ankle, sir, for instance."
" On my word, Grizel, you seem to have
omitted nothing ! "
'' Ah, but I did," she cried. " I never told her
how much I wanted you to be admirable ; I pre-
tended that I despised you merely, and in reality
I was wringing my hands with woe every time you
did not behave like a god."
" They will be worn away, Grizel, if you go on
doing that."
" I don't think so," she replied, " nor can she
think so if she believes half of what I have told
her about you since. She knows how you saved
the boy's life. I told her that in the old Lair be-
cause she had some harsh memories of you there ;
and it was at the Cuttle Well that I told her about
the glove."
" And where," asked Tommy, severely, " did
you tell her that you had been mistaken in think-
ing me jealous of a baby and anxious to be con-
sidered a wonder '^ "
She hid her face for a moment, and then looked
up roguishly into his. " I have not told her that
4
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
yet ! " she replied. It was so audacious of her
that he took her by the ears.
" If I were vain," Tommy said reflectively, " I
would certainly shake you now. You show a
painful want of tact, Grizel, in implying that I am
not perfect. Nothing annoys men so much. We
can stand anything except that."
His merriness gladdened her. " They are only
little things," she said, " and I have grown to love
them. I know they are flaws; but I love them
because "
" Say because they are mine. You owe me
that." '
" No ; but because they are weaknesses I don't
have. I have others, but not those, and it is sweet
to me to know that you are weak in some matters in
which I am strong. It makes me feel that I can
be of use to you."
"Are you insinuating that there are more of
them '? " Tommy demanded, sitting up.
" You are not very practical," she responded,
"and I am."
" Go on."
"And you are — just a little — inclined to be
senti "
" Hush ! I don't allow that word ; but you
may say, if you choose, that I am sometimes car-
ried away by a too generous impulse."
"And that it will be my part," said she, "to
5
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
seize you by the arm and hold you back. Oh,
you will give me a great deal to do ! That is one of
the things I love you for. It was one of the things I
loved my dear Dr. McQueen for." She looked up
suddenly. " I have told him also about you."
" Lately, Grizel ? "
" Yes, in my parlour. It was his parlour, you
know, and I had kept nothing from him while he
was alive ; that is to say, he always knew what I
was thinking of, and I like to fancy that he knows
still. In the evenings he used to sit in the arm-
chair by the fire, and I sat talking or knitting at
his feet, and if I ceased to do anything except sit
still, looking straight before me, he knew I was
thinking the morbid thoughts that had troubled
me in the old days at Double Dykes. Without
knowing it I sometimes shuddered at those times,
and he was distressed. It reminded him of my
mamma."
" I understand," Tommy said hurriedly. He
meant : " Let us avoid painful subjects."
" It is years," she went on, "since those thoughts
have troubled me, and it was he who drove them
away. He was so kind! He thought so much
of my future that I still sit by his arm-chair and
tell him what is happening to his Grizel. I don't
speak aloud, of course ; I scarcely say the words
to myself even; and yet we seem to have long
talks together. I told him I had given you his coat."
6
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
" Well, I don't think he was pleased at that,
Grizel. I have had a feeling for some time that
the coat dislikes me. It scratched my hand the
first time I put it on. My hand caught in the
hook of the collar, you will say; but no, that is
not what I think. In my opinion, the deed was
maliciously done. McQueen always distrusted
me, you know, and I expect his coat was saying,
' Hands off my Grizel.' "
She took it as quite a jest. " He does not dis-
trust you now," she said, smiling. " I have told
him what I think of you, and though he was sur-
prised at first, in the end his opinion was the same
as mine."
" Ah, you saw to that, Grizel ! "
" I had nothing to do with it. I merely told
him everything, and he had to agree with me.
How could he doubt when he saw that you had
made me so happy I Even mamma does not
doubt."
" You have told her I All this is rather eerie,
Grizel."
" You are not sorry, are you ^ " she asked, look-
ing at him anxiously. " Dr. McQueen wanted
me to forget her. He thought that would be
best for me. It was the only matter on which we
differed. I gave up speaking of her to him. You
are the only person I have mentioned her to since
I became a woman; but I often think of her. I am
7
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
sure there was a time, before I was old enough to
understand, when she was very fond of me. I was
her baby, and women can't help being fond of
their babies, even though they should never have
had them. I think she often hugged me tight."
" Need we speak of this, Grizel ? "
" For this once," she entreated. " You must
remember that mamma often looked at me with
hatred, and said I was the cause of all her woe ;
but sometimes in her last months she would give
me such sad looks that I trembled, and I felt that
she was picturing me growing into the kind of
woman she wished so much she had not become
herself, and that she longed to save me. That is
why I have told her that a good man loves me.
She is so glad, my poor dear mamma, that I tell
her again and again, and she loves to hear it as
much as I to tell it. What she loves to hear most
is that you really do want to marry me. She is so
fond of hearing that because it is what my father
would never say to her."
Tommy was so much moved that he could not
speak, but in his heart he gave thanks that what
Grizel said of him to her mamma was true at last.
" It makes her so happy," Grizel said, " that when
I seem to see her now she looks as sweet and pure
as she must have been in the days when she was
an innocent girl. I think she can enter into my
feelings more than any other person could ever do.
8
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
Is that because she was my mother ? She under-
stands how I feel just as I can understand how
in the end she was wiUing to be bad because he
wanted it so much."
" No, no, Grizel," Tommy cried passionately,
" you don't understand that I "
She rocked her arms. " Yes, I do," she said ;
" I do. I could never have cared for such a man;
but I can understand how mamma yielded to him,
and I have no feeling for her except pity, and I
have told her so, and it is what she loves to hear
her daughter tell her best of all."
They put the subject from them, and she told
him what it was that she had come to rub out in
Caddam. If you have read of Tommy's boyhood
you may remember the day it ended with his
departure for the farm, and that he and Elspeth
walked through Caddam to the cart that was to
take him from her, and how, to comfort her, he
swore that he loved her with his whole heart, and
Grizel not at all, and that Grizel was in the wood
and heard. And how Elspeth had promised to
wave to Tommy in the cart as long as it was visi-
ble, but broke down and wxnt home sobbing, and
how Grizel took her place and waved, pretending
to be Elspeth, so that he might think she was
bearing up bravely. Tommy had not known
what Grizel did for him that day, and when he
heard it now for the first time from her own lips,
9
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
he realized afresh what a glorious girl she was and
had always been.
" You may try to rub that memory out of little
Grizel's head," he declared, looking very proudly
at her, "but you shall never rub it out of mine."
It was by his wish that they went together to
the spot where she had heard him say that he
loved Elspeth only — "if you can find it," Tommy
said, " after all these years " ; and she smiled at his
mannish words — she had found it so often since I
There was the very clump of whin.
And here was the boy to match. Oh, who by
striving could make himself a boy again as Tommy
could I I tell you he was always irresistible then.
What is genius? It is the power to be a boy
again at will. When I think of him flinging off
the years and whistling childhood back, not to
himself only, but to all who heard, distributing it
among them gaily, imperiously calling on them to
dance, dance, for they are boys and girls again
until they stop — when to recall him in those wild
moods is to myself to grasp for a moment at the
dear dead days that were so much the best, I can-
not wonder that Grizel loved him. I am his slave
myself; I see that all that was wrong with Tommy
was that he could not always be a boy.
" Hide there again, Grizel," he cried to her, little
Tommy cried to her, Stroke the Jacobite, her cap-
tain, cried to the Lady Griselda ; and he disappeared,
lO
THE GIRL SHE HAD BEEN
and presently marched down the path with an
imaginary Elspeth by his side. " I love you both,
Elspeth," he was going to say, " and my love for
the one does not make me love the other less " ;
but he glanced at Grizel, and she was leaning for-
ward to catch his words as if this were no play,
but life or death, and he knew what she longed to
hear him say, and he said it : " I love you very
much, Elspeth, but however much I love you, it
would be idle to pretend that I don't love Grizel
more."
A stifled cry of joy came from a clump of whin
hard by, and they were man and woman again.
" Did you not know it, Grizel *? "
" No, no ; you never told me."
" I never dreamed it was necessary to tell you."
" Oh, if you knew how I have longed that it
might be so, yes, and sometimes hated Elspeth
because I feared it could not be ! I have tried so
hard to be content with second place. I have
thought it all out, and said to myself it was natural
that Elspeth should be first."
" My tragic love," he said, " I can see you argu-
ing in that way, but I don't see you convincing
yourself My passionate Grizel is not the girl to
accept second place from anyone. It I know any-
thing of her, I know that."
To his surprise, she answered softly : " You are
wrong. I wonder at it myself, but I had made up
11
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
my mind to be content with second place, and to
be grateful for it."
" I could not have believed it I " he cried.
" I could not have believed it myself," said she.
" Are you the Grizel " he began.
" No," she said, " I have changed a little," and
she looked pathetically at him.
" It stabs me," he said, " to see you so humble."
" I am humbler than I was," she answered
huskily, but she was looking at him with the
fondest love.
"Don't look at me so, Grizel," he implored.
" I am unworthy of it. I am the man who has
made you so humble."
"Yes," she answered, and still she looked at him
with the fondest love. A film came over his eyes,
and she touched them softly with her handkerchief
"Those eyes that but a Httle while ago were
looking so coldly at you ! " he said.
"Dear eyes!" said she.
"Though I were to strike you " he cried,
raising his hand.
She took the hand in hers and kissed it.
"Has it come to this!" he said, and as she
could not speak, she nodded. He fell upon his
knees before her.
" I am glad you are a little sorry," she said; " I
am a little sorry myself"
12
CHAPTER XIX
OF THE CHANGE IN THOMAS
To find ways of making David propose to El-
speth, of making Elspeth willing to exchange her
brother for David — they were heavy tasks, but
Tommy yoked himself to them gallantly and
tugged like an Arab steed in the plough. It
should be almost as pleasant to us as to him to
think that love was what made him do it, for he
was sure he loved Grizel at last, and that the one
longing of his heart was to marry her ; the one
marvel to him was that he had ever longed ar-
dently for anything else. Well, as you know, she
longed for it also, but she was firm in her resolve
that until Elspeth was engaged Tommy should be
a single man. She even made him promise not to
kiss her again so long as their love had to be kept
secret. " It will be so sweet to wait," she said
bravely. As we shall see presently, his efforts to
put Elspeth into the hands of David were appa-
rently of no avail, but though this would have em-
bittered many men, it drew only to the surface
some of Tommy's noblest attributes; as he suffered
^3
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
in silence he became gentler, more considerate, and
acquired a new command over himself. To con-
quer self for her sake (this is in the " Letters to a
Young Man ") is the highest tribute a man can
pay to a woman ; it is the only real greatness,
and Tommy had done it now. I could give you
a score of proofs. Let us take his treatment of
Aaron Latta.
One day about this time Tommy found himself
alone in the house with Aaron, and had he been
the old Tommy he would have waited but a mo-
ment to let Aaron decide which of them should
go elsewhere. It was thus that these two, ever so
uncomfortable in each other's presence, contrived
to keep the peace. Now note the change.
" Aaron," said Tommy, in the hush that had
fallen on that house since quiet Elspeth left it, " I
have never thanked you in words for all that you
have done for me and Elspeth."
" Dinna do it now, then," replied the warper,
fidgeting.
" I must," Tommy said cheerily, " I must " ; and
he did, while Aaron scowled.
" It was never done for you," Aaron informed
him, " nor for the father you are the marrows o'."
" It was done for my mother," said Tommy,
reverently.
" I'm none so sure o't," Aaron rapped out. " I
think I brocht you twa here as bairns, that the re-
OF THE CHANGE IN THOMAS
minder of my shame should ever stand before
me."
But Tommy shook his head, and sat down sym-
pathetically beside the warper. "You loved her,
Aaron," he said simply. " It was an undying love
that made you adopt her orphan children." A
charming thought came to him. " When you
brought us here," he said, with some elation, " El-
speth used to cry at nights because our mother's
spirit did not come to us to comfort us, and I in-
vented boyish explanations to appease her. But
I have learned since why we did not see that
spirit; for though it hovered round this house, its
first thought was not for us, but for him who
succoured us."
He could have made it much better had he been
able to revise it, but surely it was touching, and
Aaron need not have said " Damn," which was
what he did say.
One knows how most men would have received
so harsh an answer to such gentle words, and we
can conceive how a very holy man, say a monk,
would have bowed to it. Even as the monk did
Tommy submit, or say rather with the meekness
of a nun.
" I wish I could help you in any way, Aaron,"
he said, with a sigh.
" You can," replied Aaron, promptly, " by taking
yourself off to London, and leaving Elspeth here
15
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
wi' me. I never made pretence that I wanted you,
except because she wouldna come without you.
Laddie and man, as weel you ken, you were aye a
scunner to me."
"And yet," said Tommy, looking at him admir-
ingly, " you fed and housed and educated us.
Ah, Aaron, do you not see that your dislike gives
nrie the more reason only to esteem you '? " Car-
ried away by desire to help the old man, he put
his hand kindly on his shoulder. "You have
never respected yourself," he said, " since the night
you and my mother parted at the Cuttle Well,
and my heart bleeds to think of it. Many a year
ago, by your kindness to two forlorn children, you
expiated that sin, and it is blotted out from your
account. Forget it, Aaron, as every other person
has forgotten it, and let the spirit of Jean Myles
see you tranquil once again."
He patted Aaron affectionately; he seemed to
be the older of the two.
" Tak' your hand off my shuther," Aaron cried
fiercely.
Tommy removed his hand, but he continued to
look yearningly at the warper. Another beautiful
thought came to him.
"What are you looking so holy about ^" asked
Aaron, with misgivings.
" Aaron," cried Tommy, suddenly inspired, " you
are not always the gloomy man you pass for being.
16
OF THE CHANGE IN THOMAS
You have glorious moments still. You wake in
the morning, and for a second of time you are in
the heyday of your youth, and you and Jean Myles
are to walk out to-night. As you sit by this fire
you think you hear her hand on the latch of the
door ; as you pass down the street you seem to see
her coming towards you. It is for a moment only,
and then you are a gray-haired man again, and she
has been in her grave for many a year ; but you
have that moment."
Aaron rose, amazed and wrathful. " The de'il
tak' you," he cried, "how did you find out that'?"
Perhaps Tommy's nose turned up rapturously in
reply, for the best of us cannot command ourselves
altogether at great moments, but when he spoke he
was modest again.
"It was sympathy that told me," he explained;
" and, Aaron, if you will only believe me, it tells
me also that a little of the man you were still clings
to you. Come out of the moroseness in which you
have enveloped yourself so long. Think what a
joy it would be to Elspeth."
" It's little she would care."
" If you want to hurt her, tell her so."
" I'm no denying but what she's fell fond o' me."
" Then for her sake," Tommy pleaded.
But the warper turned on him with baleful eyes.
" She likes me," he said in a grating voice, " and
yet I'm as nothing to her; we are all as nothing to
17
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
her beside you. If there hadna been you I should
hae become the father to her I craved to be ; but
you had mesmerized her; she had eyes for none
but you. I sent you to the herding, meaning to
break your power over her, and all she could think
o' was my cruelty in sindering you. Syne you ran
aff wi' her to London, stealing her frae me. I was
without her while she was growing frae lassie to
woman, the years when maybe she could hae made
o' me what she willed. Magerful Tam took the
mother frae me, and he lived again in you to tak'
the dochter."
" You really think me masterful — me 1 " Tommy
said, smiling.
" I suppose you never were I " Aaron replied
ironically.
" Yes," Tommy admitted frankly, " I was mas-
terful as a boy, ah, and even quite lately. How
we change I " he said musingly.
" How we dinna change I " retorted Aaron,
bitterly. He had learned the truer philosophy.
" Man," he continued, looking Tommy over,
"there's times when I see mair o' your mother than
your father in you. She was a wonder at making
believe. The letters about her grandeur that she
wrote to Thrums when she was starving! Even
you couldna hae wrote them better. But she
never managed to cheat hersel'. That's whaur you
sail away frae her."
18
OF THE CHANGE IN THOiMAS
" I used to make believe, Aaron, as you say,"
Tommy replied sadly. "If you knew how I feel
the folly of it now, perhaps even you would wish
that I felt it less.
" But we must each of us dree his own weird,"
he proceeded, with wonderful sweetness, when
Aaron did not answer. "And so far, at least, as
Elspeth is concerned, surely I have done my duty.
I had the bringing up of her from the days when
she was learning to speak."