her when they were fierce, and yet she liked them
to be fierce when she re-met them, so few of them
were.
But she said the proper thing. '' I am glad you
have got over it."
Tommy maintained a masterly silence. No
wonder he was a power with women.
"I say I am glad you have got over it," mur-
mured Mrs. Jerry again. Has it ever been noticed
that the proper remark does not always gain in
propriety with repetition ?
It is splendid to know that right feeling still
kept Tommy silent.
Yet she went on briskly as if he had told her
119
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
something : " Am I detaining you ? You were
walking so quickly that I thought you were in
pursuit of someone."
It brought Tommy back to earth, and he could
accept her now as an old friend he was glad to
meet again. " You could not guess what I was in
pursuit of, Mrs. Jerry," he assured her, and with
confidence, for words are not usually chased down
the Row.
But, though he made the sound of laughter, that
terrible face which Mrs. Jerry remembered so well,
but could not give a name to, took no part in the
revelry ; he was as puzzling to her as those irritat-
ing authors who print their jokes without a note of
exclamation at the end of them. Poor Mrs. Jerry
thought it must be a laugh of horrid bitterness, and
that he was referring to his dead self or something
dreadful of that sort, for which she was responsible.
" Please don't tell me," she said, in such obvious
alarm that again he laughed that awful laugh.
He promised, with a profound sigh, to carry his
secret unspoken to the grave, also to come to her
'' At Home " if she sent him a card.
He told her his address, but not his name, and
she could not send the card to " Occupier."
" Now tell me about yourself," said Mrs. Jerry,
with charming cunning. " Did you go away ? "
" I came back a few days ago only."
"Had you any shooting'?" (They nearly
120
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
always threatened to make for a distant land where
there was big game.)
Tommy smiled. He had never " had any
shooting " except once in his boyhood, when he
and Corp acted as beaters, and he had wept pas-
sionately over the first bird killed, and harangued
the murderer.
"No," he replied; " I was at work all the time."
This, at least, told her that his work was of a
kind which could be done out of London. An
inventor ?
" When are we to see the result '? " asked artful
Mrs. Jerry.
" Very soon. Everything comes out about this
time. It is our season, you know."
Mrs. Jerry pondered while she said : " How too
entrancing!" What did come out this month'?
Oh, plays ! And whose season was it '? The
actor's, of course I He could not be an actor with
that beard, but — ah, she remembered now !
"Are they really clever this time'?" she asked
roguishly — "for you must admit that they are
usually sticks."
Tommy blinked at this. " I really believe,
Mrs. Jerry," he said slowly, " it is you who don't
know who I am I "
" You prepare the aristocracy for the stage, don't
you ? " she said plaintively.
"II" he thundered.
121
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
" He had a beard," she said, in self-defence.
- Who ? "
" Oh, I don't know I Please forgive me ! I
do remember, of course, who you are — I remem-
ber too well I " said Mrs. Jerry, generously.
" What is my name ^ " Tommy demanded.
She put her hands together again, beseechingly.
" Please, please I " she said. " I have such a
dreadful memory for names, but — oh, please I "
" What am I '? " he insisted.
" You are the — the man who invents those de-
lightful thingumbobs," she cried with an inspira-
tion.
" I never invented anything, except two books,"
said Tommy, looking at her reproachfully.
" I know them by heart," she cried.
" One of them is not published yet," he informed
her.
" I am looking forward to it so excitedly," she
said at once.
" And my name is Sandys," said he.
" Thomas Sandys," she said, correcting him
triumphantly. " How is that dear, darling little
Agnes — Elspeth?"
'' You have me at last," he admitted.
" ' Sandys on Woman ! ' " exclaimed Mrs. Jerry,
all rippling smiles once more. " Can I ever for-
get it I "
" I shall never pretend to know anything about
122
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
women again," Tommy answered dolefully, but
with a creditable absence of vindictiveness.
" Please, please I " said the little hands again.
" It is a nasty jar, Mrs. Jerry."
" Please ! "
" Oh that I could forget so quickly I "
" Please ! "
" I forgive you, if that is what you want."
She waved her whip. "And you will come
and see me ? "
"When I have got over this. It needs — a
little time." He really said this to please her.
" You shall talk to me of the new book," she
said, confident that this would fetch him, for he
was not her first author. " By the way, what is it
about ^"
" Can you ask, Mrs. Jerry ? " replied Tommy,
passionately. " Oh, woman, woman, can you
ask?"
This puzzled her at the time, but she under-
stood what he had meant when the book came
out, dedicated to Pym. " Goodness gracious ! "
she said to herself as she went from chapter to
chapter, and she was very self-conscious when she
heard the book discussed in society, which was
not quite as soon as it came out, for at first the
ladies seemed to have forgotten their Tommy.
But the journals made amiple amends. He had
invented, they said, something new in literature, a
123
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
story that was yet not a story, told in the form of
essays which were no mere essays. There was no
character mentioned by name, there was not a Une
of dialogue, essays only, they might say, were the
net result, yet a human heart was laid bare, and
surely that was fiction in its highest form. Fiction
founded on fact, no doubt (for it would be ostrich-
like to deny that such a work must be the out-
come of a painful personal experience), but in
those wise and penetrating pages Mr. Sandys called
no one's attention to himself; his subject was an
experience common to humanity, to be borne this
way or that; and without vainglory he showed
how it should be borne, so that those looking into
the deep waters of the book (made clear by his
pellucid style) might see, not the author, but them-
selves.
A few of the critics said that if the book added
nothing to his reputation, it detracted nothing from
it, but probably their pen added this mechanically
when they were away. What annoyed him more
was the two or three who stated that, much as they
liked " Unrequited Love," they liked the "Letters "
still better. He could not endure hearing a good
word said for the " Letters " now.
The great public, I believe, always preferred
the " Letters," but among important sections of it
the new book was a delight, and for various rea-
sons. For instance, it was no mere story. That
124
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
got the thoughtful public. Its style, again, got
the public which knows it is the only public that
counts.
Society still held aloof (there was an African
traveller on view that year), but otherwise every-
thing was going on well, when the bolt came, as
ever, from the quarter whence it was least expected.
It came in a letter from Grizel, so direct as to be
almost as direct as this : " I think it is a horrid
book. The more beautifully it is written the
more horrid it seems. No one was ever loved
more truly than you. You can know nothing
about unrequited love. Then why do you pre-
tend to know? I see why you always avoided
telling me anything about the book, even its title.
It was because you knew what I should say. It
is nothing but sentiment. You were on your
wings all the time you were writing it. That is
why you could treat me as you did. Even to the
last moment you deceived me. I suppose you
deceived yourself also. Had I known what was
in the manuscript I would not have kissed it, I
would have asked you to burn it. Had you not
had the strength, and you would not, I should
have burned it for you. It would have been a
proof of my love. I have ceased to care whether
you are a famous man or not. I want you to be a
real man. But you will not let me help you. I
have cried all day. Grizel."
125
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
Fury. Dejection. The heroic. They came in
that order.
" This is too much ! " he cried at first. " I can
stand a good deal, Grizel, but there was once a
worm that turned at last, you know. Take care,
madam, take care. Oh, but you are a charming
lady; you can decide everything for everybody,
can't you ! What delicious letters you write, some-
thing unexpected in everyone of them ! There
are poor dogs of men, Grizel, who open their let-
ters from their loves knowing exactly what will
be inside — words of cheer, words of love, of
confidence, of admiration, which help them as
they sit into the night at their work, fighting for
fame that they may lay it at their loved one's
feet. Discouragement, obloquy, scorn, they get in
plenty from others, but they are always sure of her,
— do you hear, my original Grizel *? — those other
dogs are always sure of her. Hurrah ! Grizel, I
was happy, I was actually honoured, it was helping
me to do better and better, when you quickly put
an end to all that. Hurrah, hurrah ! "
I feel rather sorry for him. If he had not told
her about his book it was because she did not and
never could understand what compels a man to
write one book instead of another. " I had no say
in the matter; the thing demanded of me that I
should do it, and I had to do it. Some must
write from their own experience, they can make
126
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
nothing of anything else; but it is to me like a
chariot that won't budge; I have to assume a
character, Grizel, and then away we go. I don't
attempt to explain how I write, I hate to discuss
it; all I know is that those who know how it
should be done can never do it. London is
overrun with such, and everyone of them is as
cock-sure as you. You have taken everything
else, Grizel; surely you might leave me my
books."
Yes, everything else, or nearly so. He put
upon the table all the feathers he had extracted
since his return to London, and they did make
some little show, if less than it seemed to him.
That little adventure in the park ; well, if it started
wrongly, it but helped to show the change in him,
for he had determinedly kept away from Mrs.
Jerry's house. He had met her once since the
book came out, and she had blushed exquisitely
when referring to it, and said : " How you have
suffered ! I blame myself dreadfully." Yes, and
there w^as an unoccupied sofa near by, and he had
not sat down on it with her and continued the
conversation. Was not that a feather? And
there were other ladies, and, without going into
particulars, they were several feathers between
them. How doggedly, to punish himself, he had
stuck to the company of men, a sex that never in-
terested him !
127
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
" But all that is nothing. I am beyond the pale.
I did so monstrous a thing that I must die for it.
What was this dreadful thing? When I saw you
with that glove I knew you loved me, and that
you thought I loved you, and I had not the heart
to dash your joy. You don't know it, but that
was the crime for which I must be exterminated,
fiend that I am I "
Gusts of fury came at intervals all the morning.
He wrote her appalling letters and destroyed them.
He shook his fist and snapped his fingers at her,
and went out for drink (having none in the house),
and called a hansom to take him to Mrs. Jerry's,
and tore round the park again and glared at every-
body. He rushed on and on. " But the one
thing you shall never do, Grizel, is to interfere
with my work; I swear it, do you hear? In all
else I am yours to mangle at your will, but touch
it, and I am a beast at bay."
And still saying such things, he drew near the
publishing offices of Goldie & Goldie, and circled
round them, less like a beast at bay than a bird
that is taking a long way to its nest. And about
four of the afternoon what does this odd beast or
bird or fish do but stalk into Goldie & Goldie's
and order "Unrequited Love " to be withdrawn
from circulation.
" Madam, I have carried out your wishes, and
the man is hanged."
128
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
Not thus, but in words to that effect, did Tommy
announce his deed to Grizel.
" I think you have done the right thing," she
wrote back, " and I admire you tor it." But he
thought she did not admire him sufficiently for it,
and he did not answer her letter, so it w^as the last
that passed between them.
Such is the true explanation (now first pub-
lished) of an affair that at the time created no small
stir. "Why withdraw^ the book?" Goldie &
Goldie asked of Tommy, but he would give no
reason. "Why ?" the public asked of Goldie &
Goldie, and they had to invent several. The pub-
lic invented the others. The silliest were those
you could know only by belonging to a club.
I swear that Tommy had not foreseen the result.
Quite unwittingly the favoured of the gods had
found a way again. The talk about his incompre-
hensible action was the turning-point in the for-
tunes of the book. There were already a few
thousand copies in circulation, and now many
thousand people wanted them. Sandys, Sandys,
Sandys ! where had the ladies heard that name be-
fore ? Society woke up, Sandys was again its hero;
the traveller had to go lecturing in the provinces.
The ladies I Yes, and their friends, the men.
There was a Tommy society in Mayfair that win-
ter, nearly all of the members eminent or beautiful,
and they held each other's hands. Both sexes
129
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
were eligible, married or single, and the one rule
was something about sympathy. It afterwards be-
came the Souls, but those in the know still call
them the Tommies.
They blackballed Mrs. Jerry (she was rather
plump), but her married stepdaughter, Lady Pip-
pinworth (who had been a Miss Ridge-Fulton),
was one of them. Indeed, the Ridge-Fultons are
among the thinnest families in the country.
To Sandys was invited to join the society, but
declined, and thus never quite knew what they did,
nor can any outsider know, there being a regula-
tion among the Tommies against telling. I be-
lieve, however, that they were a brotherhood, with
sisters. You had to pass an examination in unre-
quited love, showing how you had suffered, and
after that either the men or the women (I forget
which) dressed in white to the throat, and then
each got some other's old love's hand to hold, and
you all sat on the floor and thought hard. There
may have been even more in it than this, for one
got to know Tommies at sight by a sort of care-
worn halo round the brow, and it is said that the
House of Commons was several times nearly
counted out because so many of its middle-aged
members were holding the floor in another place.
Of course there were also the Anti-Tommies,
who called themselves (rather vulgarly) the Tum-
mies. Many of them were that shape. They held
130
T. SANDYS HAS RETURNED
that, though you had loved in vain, it was no such
mighty matter to boast of; but they were poor in
argument, and their only really strong card was
that Mr. Sandys was stoutish himself.
Their organs in the press said that he was a man
of true genius, and slightly inclined to embonpoint.
This maddened him, but on the whole his return
was a triumph, and despite thoughts of Grizel he
was very, very happy, for he was at play again.
He was a boy, and all the ladies were girls. Per-
haps the lady he saw most frequently was Mrs.
Jerry's stepdaughter. Lady Pippinworth was a
friend of Lady Rintoul, and had several times visited
her at the Spittal, but that was not the sole reason
why Tommy so frequently drank tea with her.
They had met first at a country house, where, one
night after the ladies had retired to rest. Lady Pip-
pinworth came stealing into the smoking-room
with the tidings that there were burglars in the
house. As she approached her room she had heard
whispers, and then, her door being ajar, she had
peeped upon the miscreants. She had also seen a
pile of her jewellery on the table, and a pistol keep-
ing guard on top of it. There were several men
in the house, but that pistol cowed all of them save
Tommy. " If we could lock them in I " someone
suggested, but the key w^as on the wrong side of
the door. " I shall put it on the right side," Tommy
said pluckily, "if you others will prevent their
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
escaping by the window " ; and with characteristic
courage he set off for her Ladyship's room. His in-
tention was to insert his hand, whip out the key, and
lock the door on the outside, a sufficiently hazard-
ous enterprise ; but what does he do instead ?
Locks the door on the inside, and goes for the
burglars with his fists I A happy recollection of
Corp's famous one from the shoulder disposed at
once of the man who had seized the pistol ; with
the other gentleman Tommy had a stand-up fight
in which both of them took and gave, but when
support arrived, one burglar was senseless on the
floor and T. Sandys was sitting on the other.
Courageous of Tommy, was it not"? But observe
the end. He was left in the dining-room to take
charge of his captives until morning, and by and
by he was exhorting them in such noble language
to mend their ways that they took the measure of
him, and so touching were their family histories
that Tommy wept and untied their cords and
showed them out at the front door and gave them
ten shillings each, and the one who begged for the
honour of shaking hands with him also took his
watch. Thus did Tommy and Lady Pippinworth
become friends, but it was not this that sent him
so often to her house to tea. She was a beautiful
woman, with a reputation for having broken many
hearts without damaging her own. He thought it
an interesting case.
132
CHAPTER XXVI
GRIZEL ALL ALONE
It was Tommy who was the favoured of the gods,
you remember, not Grizel.
Elspeth wondered to see her, after the publica-
tion of that book, looking much as usual. ''You
know how he loved you now," she said, perhaps a
little reproachfully.
" Yes," Grizel answered, " I know ; I knew be-
fore the book came out."
" You must be sorry for him ? "
Grizel nodded.
" But proud of him also," Elspeth said. " You
have a right to be proud."
" I am as proud," Grizel replied, " as I have a
right to be."
Something in her voice touched Elspeth, who
was so happy that she wanted everyone to be
happy. " I want you to know, Grizel," she said
warmly, "that I don't blame you for not being able
to love him; we can't help those things. Nor need
you blame yourself too much, for I have often
133
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
heard him say that artists must suffer in order to
produce beautiful things."
"But I cannot remember," Elspeth had to ad-
mit, with a sigh, to David, " that she made any
answer to that, except ' Thank you.' "
Grizel was nearly as reticent to David himself.
Once only did she break down for a moment in
his presence. It was when he was telling her that
the issue of the book had been stopped.
" But I see you know already," he said. " Per-
haps you even know why — though he has not
given any sufficient reason to Elspeth."
David had given his promise, she reminded
him, not to ask her any questions about Tommy.
" But I don't see why I should keep it," he said
bluntly.
" Because you dislike him," she replied.
*' Grizel," he declared, " I have tried hard to like
him. I have thought and thought about it, and
I can't see that he has given me any just cause to
dislike him."
" And that," said Grizel, " makes you dislike
him more than ever."
" I know that you cared for him once," David
persisted, " and I know that he wanted to marry
you "
But she would not let him go on. "David,"
she said, " I want to give up my house, and I
want vou to take it. It is the real doctor's house
134
GRIZEL ALL ALONE
of Thrums, and people in need of you still keep
ringing me up of nights. The only door to your
surgery is through my passage ; it is I who should
be in lodgings now."
" Do you really think I would, Grizel ! " he
cried indignantly.
"Rather than see the dear house go into an-
other's hands," she answered steadily ; " for I am
determined to leave it. Dr. McQueen won't feel
strange when he looks down, David, if it is only
you he sees moving about the old rooms, instead
of me."
" You are doing this for me, Grizel, and I won't
have it."
" I give you my word," she told him, " that I
am doing it for myself alone. I am tired of keep-
ing a house, and of all its worries. Men don't
know what they are."
She was smiling, but his brows wrinkled in
pain. " Oh, Grizel I " he said, and stopped. And
then he cried, " Since when has Grizel ceased to
care for housekeeping ? "
She did not say since when. I don't know
whether she knew; but it was since she and
Tommy had ceased to correspond. David's words
showed her too suddenly how she had changed,
and it was then that she broke down before
him — because she had ceased to care for house-
keeping.
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
But she had her way, and early in the new year
David and his wife were estabhshed in their new
home, with all Grizel's furniture, except such as
was needed for the two rooms rented by her from
Gavinia. She would have liked to take away the
old doctor's chair, because it was the bit of him
left behind when he died, and then for that very
reason she did not. She no longer wanted him
to see her always. " I am not so nice as I used
to be, and I want to keep it from you," she said to
the chair when she kissed it good-bye.
Was Grizel not as nice as she used to be ?
How can I answer, who love her the more only ^
There is one at least, Grizel, who will never desert
you.
Ah, but was she ?
I seem again to hear the warning voice of
Grizel, and this time she is crying: "You know I
was not."
She knew it so well that she could say it to her-
self quite calmly. She knew that, with whatever
repugnance she drove those passions away, they
would come back — yes, and for a space be wel-
comed back. Why does she leave Gavinia's blue
hearth this evening, and seek the solitary Den ?
She has gone to summon them, and she knows it.
They come thick in the Den, for they know the
place. It was there that her mother was wont to
walk with them. Have they been waiting for you
136
GRIZEL ALL ALONE
in the Den, Grizel, all this time "? Have you
found your mother's legacy at last '?
Don't think that she sought them often. It
was never when she seemed to have anything to
live for. Tommy would not write to her, and so
did not want her to write to him ; but if that bowed
her head, it never made her rebel. She still had
her many duties. Whatever she suffered, so long
as she could say, " I am helping him," she was in
heart and soul the Grizel of old. In his fits of
remorse, which were many, he tried to produce
work that would please her. Thus, in a heroic
attempt to be practical, he wrote a political article
in one of the reviews, quite in the ordinary style,
but so much worse than the average of such things
that they would never have printed it without his
name. He also contributed to a magazine a short
tale, — he who could never write tales, — and he
struck all the beautiful reflections out of it, and
never referred to himself once, and the result was
so imbecile that kindly people said there must be
another writer of the same name. '' Show them
to Grizel," Tommy wrote to Elspeth, inclosing
also some of the animadversions of the press, and
he meant Grizel to see that he could write in his
own way only. But she read those two efforts
with delight, and said to Elspeth, " Tell him I am
so proud of them."
Elspeth thought it very nice of Grizel to defend
V37
TOMMY AND GRIZEL
the despised in this way (even Elspeth had fallen
asleep over the political paper). She did not
understand that Grizel loved them because they
showed Tommy trying to do without his wings.
Then another trifle by him appeared, shorter
even than the others; but no man in England
could have written it except T. Sandys. It has
not been reprinted, and I forget everything about
it except that its subject was love. " Will not the
friends of the man who can produce such a little
masterpiece as this," the journals said, " save him
from wasting his time on lumber for the reviews,
and drivelling tales?" And Tommy suggested
to Elspeth that she might show Grizel this exhor-
tation also.
Grizel saw she was not helping him at all. If