J. M. Barrie

“ Rogers are but passing shadows in the play, and even nice Laura is only to flit across its few pages for a moment on her way to happier things. We scarcely notice them in the presence of Mrs. Don, the gracious, the beautiful, the sympathetic, whose magnetic force and charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. ”

“ ROGER. ‘He’s making fun of you again, mater.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I shouldn’t wonder. Here are some overalls. One is leather and one fur, and this one is waterproof. The worst of it is that they are from different shops, and each says that the others keep the damp in, or draw the feet. They have such odd names, too. There are new names for everything nowadays. Vests are called cuirasses. Are you laughing at me, Rogie?’
MR. TORRANCE, sharply, ‘If he is laughing, he ought to be ashamed of himself.’
ROGER, barking, ‘Who was laughing?’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘John!’
Emma cuffs her father playfully. ”

“ MRS. DOWEY. ‘Me!’
DOWEY. ‘Come, come, ladies,’ in the masterful way that is so hard for women to resist; ‘if you say another word, I’ll kiss the lot of you.’
There is a moment of pleased confusion.
MRS. MICKLEHAM. ‘Really, them sodgers!’
THE HAGGERTY WOMAN. ‘The kilties is the worst!’
[Pg 51]
MRS. TWYMLEY. ‘I’m sure,’ heartily, ‘we don’t grudge you your treats, Mrs. Dowey; and sorry we are that this is the end.’
DOWEY. ‘Yes, it’s the end,’ with a troubled look at his old lady; ‘I must be off in ten minutes.’
The little soul is too gallant to break down in company. ”

“ KARL. ‘You have an eye for a pretty girl still, sir!’
COLONEL. ‘Yes, I have; yes, I have!’
BARBARA. ‘I do believe I see it all. Granny has been talking to you about Billy boy and me, and you haven’t been able to wait; you have hurried on the wedding!’
BILLY. ‘Bravo, Barbara, you’ve got it.’
COLONEL, doubtfully, ‘That may be it. Because I am sure you were to be there, Barbara.’
BARBARA. ‘Our wedding, Billy!’
[Pg 114]
KARL. ‘It doesn’t explain those other people, though.’
The Colonel moves about in agitation. ”

“ She says with thin lips, ‘I daresay they knew.’
‘Billy boy and Karl!’
She tells him some more gossip. ‘John, I had Barbara married from here because she has no people of her own. I think Billy would have liked it.’
‘That was the thing to do, Ellen. Nice of you. I remember everything now. It’s Dering she has married. He was once my gardener!’
‘The world is all being re-made, dear. He is worthy of her.’
He lets this pass. He has remembered something almost as surprising. ‘Ellen, is Barbara a nurse?’
‘Yes, John, and one of the staidest and most serene. ”

“ When they are gone and he is alone, the Colonel still addresses them. ‘It’s Barbara’s wedding. Billy boy, why are you not at Barbara’s wedding?’
Soon the bells stop. He knows that he is alone now, but he does not understand it. The sun is shining brightly, but he sits very cold in his chair. He shivers. He is very glad to see his wife coming to him through the open window. She is a dear old lady, and is dressed brightly, as becomes one who has been to a wedding. Her face beams to match her gown. She is really quite a happy woman again, for it is several years since any deep sorrow struck her ”

“ Dering told me he heard nothing.’
‘Dering?’
‘Our gardener, you know.’ His voice becomes husky. ‘Haven’t I been talking with him, Ellen?’
‘It is a long time since we had a gardener, John.’
‘Is it? So it is! A war! That is why there is no more cricket on the green.’
‘They have all gone to the war, John.’
‘That’s it; even the little shavers.’ He whispers, ‘Why isn’t Billy boy fighting, Ellen?’
[Pg 119]
‘Oh, John!’
‘Is Billy boy dead?’ She nods. ‘Was he killed in action? Tell me, tell me!’ She nods again. ‘Good for Billy boy. I knew Billy boy was all right. Don’t cry, Ellen. ”

“ The Colonel is very gay. ‘Tell me all about it, Ellen. Did Billy boy lose the ring? We always said he would lose the ring.’
She looks straight into his eyes. ‘You have forgotten again, John. Barbara isn’t married to Billy boy.’
He draws himself up. ‘Not marry Billy! I’ll see about that.’
She presses him into his chair. ‘Sit down, dear, and I’ll tell you something again. It is nothing to trouble you, because your soldiering is done, John; and greatly done. My dear, there is war again, and our old land is in it. Such a war as my soldier never knew.’
[Pg 118]
He rises. He is a stern old man. ”

“ Boys don’t like that, John.’
‘Is that so, Ellen?’
‘Of course I don’t mind your being sarcastic to me——’
‘Much good,’ groaning, ‘my being sarcastic to you! You are so seldom aware of it.’
‘I am not asking you to be a mother to him, John.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’
She does not know that he is sarcastic again. ‘I quite understand that a man can’t think all the time about his son as a mother does.’
[Pg 66]
‘Can’t he, Ellen? What makes you so sure of that?’
‘I mean that a boy naturally goes to his mother with his troubles rather than to his father. Rogie tells me everything.’
Mr. Torrance is stung. ”

“ Willings that his happy smile always walks in front of him. This smile makes music of his life, it means that once again he has been chosen, in his opinion, as the central figure in romance. No one can well have led a more drab existence, but he will never know it; he will always think of himself, humbly though elatedly, as the chosen of the gods. ”

“ Tod, I’m beginning to look forward to being wakened in the morning by hearing you cry, “Get up, you lazy swine.” I’ve kind of envied men that had womenfolk with the right to say that.’
He is passing to the bathroom when a diverting notion strikes him.
‘What is it, Kenneth?’
‘The theatre. It would be showier if I took a lady.’
Mrs. Dowey feels a thumping at her breast.
‘Kenneth, tell me this instant what you mean. Don’t keep me on the jumps.’
He turns her round. ”

“ He seems to think that he will get the truth if Dering comes closer. ‘Who are all here now, Dering; in the house, I mean? I sometimes forget. They grow old so quickly. They go out at one door in the bloom of youth, and come back by another, tired and grey. Haven’t you noticed it?’
‘No, sir. The only visitors staying here are Miss Barbara and Mr. Karl. There’s just them and yourselves, sir, you and the mistress and Master Will. ”

“ EMMA, indignantly, ‘You can’t expect me to sleep on a night like this.’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘You can try.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘2nd Lieutenant! 2nd Lieutenant!’
MR. TORRANCE, alarmed, ‘Ellen, don’t break down. You promised.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I am not going to break down; but—but there is a photograph of Rogie when he was very small——’
MR. TORRANCE. ‘Go to bed!’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘I happen—to have it in my pocket——’
ROGER. ‘Don’t bring it out, mater.’
MRS. TORRANCE. ‘If I break down, John, it won’t be owing to the picture itself so much as because of what is written on the back.’
She produces it dolefully. ”

“ Have you a bit of chiffon for the neck? It’s not bombs nor Kaisers nor Tipperary that men in the trenches think of, it’s chiffon.’
‘I swear I have, Kenneth. And I have a bangle, and a muff, and gloves.’
‘Ay, ay.’ He considers. ‘Do you think you could give your face less of a homely look?’
‘I’m sure I could.’
‘Then you can have a try. But, mind you, I promise nothing. All will depend on the effect.’
He goes into the pantry, and the old lady is left alone. Not alone, for she is ringed round by entrancing hopes and dreadful fears. They beam on her and jeer at her, they pull her this way and that ”

“ All we know is that she is one of four shapes gathered round a small table. Beyond the darkness is a great ingle-nook, in which is seated on a settle a man of fifty. Him we can discern fitfully by the light of the fire. It is not sufficiently bright to enable him to read, but an evening paper lies on his knee. He seems wistful and meek. He is paying no attention to the party round the table. When he hears their voices it is only as empty sounds. ”

“ A frightened ember in the fire makes an appeal to some one to say something. Mr. Torrance rises. It is now he who is casting eyes at the door. He sits again, ashamed of himself.
‘I like your uniform, Roger,’ he says pleasantly. ”

“ Dowey enters. Perhaps she had seen shadows lurking on the blind, and at once hooked on to Kenneth to impress the visitors. She is quite capable of it.
Now we see what Kenneth saw that afternoon five days ago when he emerged from the bathroom and found the old trembler awaiting his inspection. Here are the muff and the gloves and the chiffon, and such a kind old bonnet that it makes you laugh at once; I don’t know how to describe it, but it is trimmed with a kiss, as bonnets should be when the wearer is old and frail. We must take the merino for granted until she steps out of the astrakhan. ”

“ His mother was his chum. All the lovely things which happened in that house in the days when Dick was alive were between him and her; those two shut the door softly on old Don, always anxious not to hurt his feelings, and then ran into each other’s arms.
In the better light Mr. Don is now able to read his paper if he chooses. If he has forgotten the party at the table, they have equally forgotten him.
MRS. DON. ‘You have not gone away, have you? We must be patient. Are you still there?’
ROGERS. ‘I think I felt a movement.’
MRS. DON. ‘Don’t talk, please. Are you still there?’
The table moves. ”

“ Don’t you remember where I told you I was going, John?’
‘Yes, it was to a wedding.’
Rather tremulously, ‘You haven’t forgotten whose wedding, have you?’
‘Tell me, Ellen.’ He is no longer troubled. He knows that Ellen will tell him.
‘I have been seeing Barbara married, John.’
‘Yes, it was Barbara’s wedding. They wouldn’t——Ellen, why wasn’t I there?’
Like one telling him amusing gossip, ‘I thought you might be a little troubled if you went, John. Sometimes your mind—not [Pg 117] often, but sometimes if you are agitated—and then you think you see—people who aren’t here any longer. ”

“ He is depressed because he has spoilt things for her. She is not angry. She knows that he can’t help being as he is, and that there are fine spaces in her mind where his thoughts can never walk with hers. But she would forgive him seventy times seven because he is her husband. She is standing looking at a case of fishing-rods against the wall. There is a Jock Scott still sticking in one of them. Mr. Don says, as if somehow they were evidence against him:
[Pg 137]
‘Dick’s fishing-rods.’
She says forgivingly, ‘I hope you don’t mind my keeping them in the studio, Robert. ”

“ MRS. DON, gently, ‘I won’t ask him, Robert, if you would prefer me not to.’
MR. DON. ‘I’ll go.’
MRS. DON. ‘I’m afraid it is too late now.’ She turns away from earthly things. ‘Do you want me to break off?’
The table moves.
‘Yes. Do you send me your love, Dick? Yes. And to Laura? Yes.’ She raises her eyes to Don, and hesitates. ‘Shall I ask him——?’
MR. DON. ‘No, no, don’t.’
ROGERS. ‘It would be all right, Don.’
MR. DON. ‘I don’t know.’
They leave the table. ”

“ Dowey’s very ill,
Nothing can improve her.’
‘Stop!’ cries clever Kenneth, and finishes the verse:
‘But dressed up in a Paris gown
To waddle through the Louvre.’
They fling back their heads, she points at him, he points at her. She says ecstatically:
‘Hairy legs!’
A mad remark, which brings him to his senses; he remembers who and what she is.
‘Mind your manners!’ Rising, ‘Well, thank you for my tea. I must be stepping.’
Poor Mrs. Dowey, he is putting on his kit. ”

“ Through the greyness we see him very well beyond it in the glow of the fire. He sits on the settle and tries to read his [Pg 139] paper. He breaks down. He is a pitiful lonely man.
In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, ‘Father.’ Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes, and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy. ”

“ Willings up to the mark.
Since the war broke out, his zest for life has become almost terrible. He can scarcely lift a newspaper and read of a hero without remembering that he knows some one of the same name. The Soldiers’ Rest he is connected with was once a china emporium, and (mark my words) , he had bought his tea service at it. Such is life when you are in the thick of it. Sometimes he feels that he is part of a gigantic spy drama. ”

“ We see from his father’s face which is smiling with difficulty that Dick has plopped into the big chair on the other side of the ingle-nook. His legs are probably dangling over one of its arms.
Rather sharply, ‘Got your pipe?’
‘I don’t—I don’t seem to care to smoke nowadays, Dick.’
‘Rot! Just because I am dead! You that pretend to be plucky! I won’t have it, you know. You get your pipe, and look slippy about it.’
‘Yes, Dick,’ the old man says obediently. He fills his pipe from a jar on the mantelshelf. We may be sure that Dick [Pg 144] is watching closely to see that he lights it properly. ”

“ But when one has been at the Front for a bit, you can’t think how thin the veil seems to get; just one layer of it. I suppose it seems thin to you out there because one step takes you through it. We sometimes mix up those who have gone through with those who haven’t. I daresay if I were to go back to my old battalion the living chaps would just nod to me.’
‘Dick!’
‘Where’s that pipe? Death? ”