to those who had come to the door with him.
Lady Pippinworth was not among them ; he had
not seen her to bid her good-bye, nor wanted to,
for the better side of him had prevailed — so he
thought. It was a man shame-stricken and deter-
mined to kill the devil in him that went down that
long avenue — so he thought.

A tall, thin woman was standing some twenty
yards off, among some holly-trees. She kissed her
hand mockingly to him, and beckoned and laughed
when he stood irresolute. He thought he heard
her cry, " Too stout I " He took some fierce steps

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A WAY IS FOUND FOR TOMMY

towards her. She ran on, looking over her shoul-
der, and he forgot all else and followed her. She
darted into the flower-garden, pulling the gate to
after her. It was a gate that locked when it closed,
and the key was gone. Lady Pippinworth clapped
her hands because he could not reach her. When
she saw that he was climbing the wall she ran far-
ther into the garden.

He climbed the wall, but, as he was descending,
one of the iron spikes on the top of it pierced his
coat, w^hich was buttoned to the throat, and he
hung there by the neck. He struggled as he
choked, but he could not help himself He was
unable to cry out. The collar of the old doctor's
coat held him fast.

They say that in such a moment a man reviews
all his past life. I don't know whether Tommy
did that; but his last reflection before he passed
into unconsciousness was " Serves me right ! "
Perhaps it was only a little bit of sentiment for the
end.

Lady Disdain came back to the gate, by and
by, to see why he had not followed her. She
screamed and then hid in the recesses of the gar-
den. He had been dead for some time when they
found him. They left the gate creaking in the
evening wind. After a long time a terrified woman
stole out by it.



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CHAPTER XXXV

THE PERFECT LOVER

Tommy has not lasted. More than once since
it became known that I was writing his Hfe I have
been asked whether there ever really was such a
person, and I am afraid to inquire for his books at
the library lest they are no longer there. A recent
project to bring out a new edition, with introduc-
tions by some other Tommy, received so little
support that it fell to the ground. It must be
admitted that, so far as the great public is con-
cerned, Thomas Sandys is done for.

They have even forgotten the manner of his
death, though probably no young writer with an
eye on posterity ever had a better send-off. We
really 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 climb-
ing the wall to obtain for Grizel the flowers acci-
dentally left in the garden, and it at once tipped
the tragedy with gold. The newspapers, which
were in the middle of the dull season, thanked

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THE PERFECT LOVER

their gods for Tommy, and enthusiastically set to
work on him. Great minds wrote criticisms of
what they called his life-work. The many persons
who had been the first to discover him said
so again. His friends were in demand for the
most trivial reminiscences. Unhappy Pym cleared

/"ll lOS.

Shall we quote? It is nearly always done at
this stage of the biography, so now for the testi-
monials to prove that our hero was without a flaw.
A few specimens will suffice if we select some that
are 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 he might show
how great he was. " Busy among us of late," says
one, "has been the grim visitor who knocks with
equal confidence at the doors of the gifted and the
ungifted, the pauper and the prince, and twice in
one short month has he taken from us men of an
eminence greater perhaps than that of Mr. Sandys;
but of them it could be said their work was fin-
ished, while his sun sinks tragically when it is yet
day. Not by what his riper years might have
achieved can this pure spirit now be judged, and to
us, we confess, there is something infinitely pathetic
in that thought. We would fain shut our eyes,
and open them again at twenty years hence, with
Mr. Sandys in the fulness of his powers. It is not
to be. What he might have become is hidden

2/7



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

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 'marvel-
lous boy ' indeed ; yet how unlike in character and
in the nobility of his short life, as in the mournful
yet lovely circumstances of his death, to that other
Might-Have-Been who 'perished in his pride.'
Our young men of letters have travelled far since
the days of Chatterton. Time was when a riotous
life was considered part of their calling — when
they shunned the domestic ties and actually held
that the consummate artist is able to love nothing
but the creations of his fancy. It is such men as
Thomas Sandys who have exploded that pernicious
fallacy. . . .

" Whether his name will march down the ages
is not for us, his contemporaries, to determine. He
had the most modest opinion of his own 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 of distinction was abhorrent to
his shrinking nature ; he seldom, indeed, knew that
he was being pointed at, for his eyes were ever
on the ground. He set no great store by the re-
markable popularity of his works. ' Nothing,' he
has been heard to say to one of those gushing
ladies who were his aversion, ' nothing will so cer-
tainly perish as the talk of the town.' It may be
so, but if so, the greater the pity that he has gone

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THE PERFECT LOVER

from among us before he had time to put the cop-
ing-stone upon his work. There is a beautiful pas-
sage in one of his own books in which he sees the
spirits of gallant youth who died too young for
immortality haunting the portals of the Elysian
Fields, and the great shades come to the portal and
talk with them. We venture to say that he is at
least one of these."

What was the individuality behind the work *?
They discussed it in leading articles and in the
correspondence columns, and the man proved to
be greater than his books. His distaste for admira-
tion is again and again insisted on and illustrated
by many characteristic anecdotes. He owed much
to his parents, though he had the misfortune to
lose them w^hen he was but a child. "Little is
known of his father, but we understand that he
was a retired military officer in easy circumstances.
The mother was a canny Scotchw^oman of lowly
birth, conspicuous for her devoutness even in a
land where it is everyone's birthright, and on their
marriage, which was a singularly happy one, they
settled in London, going little into society, the
world forgetting, by the world forgot, and devoting
themselves to each other and to their two children.
Of these Thomas was the elder, and as the twig
was early bent so did the tree incline. From his
earliest years he was noted for the modesty which
those who remember his boyhood in Scotland

279



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

(whither the children went to an uncle on the death
of their parents) still speak of with gUstening eyes.
In another column will be found some interesting
recollections of Mr. Sandys by his old schoolmaster,
Mr. David Cathro, M.A., who testifies with natural
pride to 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 from his father, who was of a
very sweet disposition, and some instances of this
modesty are given. They are all things that
Elspeth did, but Tommy is now represented as the
person who had done them. " On the other hand,
his strong will, singleness of purpose, and enviable
capacity for knowing what he wanted to be at
were a heritage from his practical and sagacious
mother." '' I think he was a little proud of his
strength of will," writes the R.A. who painted his
portrait (now in America), "for I remember his
anxiety that it should be suggested in the picture."
But another acquaintance (a lady) replies : " He
was not proud of his strong will, but he liked to
hear it spoken of, and he once told me the reason.
This strength of will was not, as is generally sup-
posed, inherited by him; he was born without it,
and acquired it by a tremendous effort. I believe I
am the only person to whom he confided this, tor
he shrank from talk about himself, looking upon

280



THE PERFECT LOVER

it as a form of that sentimentality which his soul
abhorred."

He seems often to have warned ladies against
this essentially womanish tendency to the senti-
mental. " It is an odious onion, dear lady," he
would say, holding both her hands in his. If men
in his presence talked sentimentally to ladies he was
so irritated that he soon found a pretext for leav-
ing the room. " Yet let it not be thought," says
One Who Knew Him Well, " that because he was
so sternly practical himself he was intolerant of the
outpourings of the sentimental. The man, in short,
reflected the views on this subject which are so ad-
mirably phrased in his books, works that seem to me
to found one of their chief claims to distinction on
this, that at last we have a writer who can treat inti-
mately of human love without leaving one smear of
the onion upon his pages."

On the whole, it may be noticed, comparatively
few ladies contribute to the obituary reflections,
" for the simple reason," says a simple man, " that he
went but little into female society. He who could
write so eloquently about women never seemed to
know what to say to them. Ordinary tittle-tattle
from them disappointed him. I should say that to
him there was so much ot the divine in women
that he was depressed when they hid their wings."
This view is supported by Clubman, who notes
that Tommy would never join in the somewhat

281



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

free talk about the other sex in which many men
indulge. " I remember," he says, " a man's dinner
at which two of those present, both persons of emi-
nence, started a theory that every man who is
blessed or cursed with the artistic instinct has at
some period of his life wanted to marry a barmaid.
Mr. Sandys gave them such a look that they at
once apologized. Trivial, perhaps, but significant.
On another occasion I was 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 how long men can be together with-
out talking gamesomely of women ? ' Before any
answer could be given Mr. Sandys strolled in, and
immediately the atmosphere cleared, as if someone
had opened the windows. When he had gone the
member addressed turned to him who had pro-
pounded the problem and said, ' There is your
answer — as long as Sandys is in the room.' "

" A fitting epitaph, this, for Thomas Sandys," says
the paper that quotes it, " if we could not find a
better. Mr. Sandys was from first to last a man
of character, but why when others falter was he
always so sure-footed '? It is in the answer to this
question that we find the key to the books, and to
the man who was greater than the books. He was
the Perfect Lover. As he died seeking flowers for
her who had the high honour to be his wife, so he
had always lived. He gave his affection to her, as

282



THE PERFECT LOVER

our correspondent Miss (or Mrs.) Ailie McLean
shows, in his earliest boyhood, and from this, his
one romance, he never swerved. To the moment
of his death all his beautiful thoughts were flowers
plucked for her; his books were bunches of them
gathered to place at her feet. No harm now in
reading between the lines of his books and culling
what is the common knowledge of his friends in
the north, that he had to serve a long apprentice-
ship before he w^on her. For long his attachment
was unreciprocated, though she was ever his loyal
friend, and the volume called ' Unrequited Love '
belongs to the period when he thought his life
must be lived alone. The circumstances of their
marriage are at once too beautiful and too painful
to be dwelt on here. Enough to say that, should
the particulars ever be given to the world, with
the simple story of his life, a finer memorial will
have been raised to him than anything in stone,
such as we see a committee is already being formed
to erect. We venture to propose as a title for his
biography, ' The Story of the Perfect Lover.'"

Yes, that memorial committee was formed; but
so soon do people forget the hero of yesterday's
paper that only the secretary attended the first
meeting, and he never called another. But here,
five and twenty years later, is the biography,
with the title changed. You may w^onder that I
had the heart to write it. I do it, I have some-

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TOMMY AND GRIZEL

times pretended to myself, that we may all laugh
at the stripling of a rogue, but that was never my
reason. Have I been too cunning, or have you
seen through me all the time ? Have you discov-
ered that I was really pitying the boy who 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 with unnecessary scorn in the
hope that I might goad you into crying : " Come,
come, you are too hard on him I"

Perhaps the manner in which he went to his
death deprives him of these words. Had the
castle gone on fire that day while he was at tea,
and he perished in the flames in a splendid attempt
to save the life of his enemy (a very probable
thing), then you might have felt a little liking for
him. Yet he would have been precisely the same
person. I don'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 of ob-
taining the lost manuscript that she went to see
her. Then Lady Pippinworth told her all. Are
you sorry that Grizel knew^? I am not sorry — I
am glad. As a child, as a girl, and as a wife, the
truth had been all she wanted, and she wanted it
just the same when she was a widow. We have
a right to know the truth; no right to ask anything
else from God, but the right to ask that.

284



THE PERFECT LOVER

And to her latest breath she went on loving
Tommy just the same. She thought everything
out calmly for herself; she saw that there is no
great man on this earth except the man who con-
quers self, and that in some the accursed thing
which is in all of us may be so strong that to
battle with it and be beaten is not altogether to
fail. It is foolish to demand complete success of
those we want to love. We should rejoice when
they rise for a moment above themselves, and sym-
pathize with them when they fall. In their hey-
day young lovers think each other perfect; but a
nobler love comes when they see the failings also,
and this higher love is so much more worth at-
taining to that they need not cry out though it
has to be beaten into them w^ith rods. So they
learn humanity's limitations, and that the ac-
cursed thing to me is not the accursed thing to
you; but all have it, and from this comes pity for
those who have sinned, and the desire to help each
other springs, for knowledge is sympathy, and sym-
pathy is love, and to learn it the Son of God
became a man.

And Grizel also thought anxiously about her-
self, and how from the time when she was the
smallest girl she had longed to be a good woman
and feared that perhaps she never should. And as
she looked back at the road she had travelled, there
came along it the little girl to judge her. She

285



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

came trembling, but determined to know the truth,
and she looked 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 was too strong and fine a na-
ture to succumb. Even her brightness came back
to her. They sometimes wondered at the serenity of
her face. Some still thought her a little stand-offish,
for, though the pride had gone from her walk, a
distinction of manner grew upon her and made her
seem a finer lady than before. There was no other
noticeable change, except that with the years she
lost her beautiful contours and became a little an-
gular — the old maid's figure, I believe it is some-
times called.

No one would have dared to smile at Grizel
become an old maid before some of the young
men of Thrums. They were people who would
have suffered much for her, and all because she
had the courage to talk to them of some things
before their marriage-day came round. And for
their young wives who had tidings to whisper to
her about the unborn she 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 God could hae haen the
heart."

"Life's a queerer thing," Gavinia replied, sadly
286



THE PERFECT LOVER

enough, " than we used to think it when we was
bairns in the Den."

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

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

Grizel smiled at him.

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

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

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

She was still smiling at him, but her eyes were
wet now, and she drew him on to talk of the days
when Tommy was a boy. It was sweet to Grizel
to listen while Elspeth and David told her of the
thousand things Tommy had done for her when

287



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

she was ill, but she loved best to talk with Corp
of the time when they were all children in the
Den. The days of childhood are the best.

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

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



288