THE LITTLE GODS RETURN WITH A LADY
Grizel's clear, searching eyes, that were always asking for the truth,
came back to her, and I seem to see them on me now, watching lest I
shirk the end.
Thus I can make no pretence (to please you) that it was a new Tommy at
last. We have seen how he gave his life to her during those eighteen
months, but he could not make himself anew. They say we can do it, so
I suppose he did not try hard enough; but God knows how hard he tried.
He went on trying. In those first days she sometimes asked him, "Did
you do it out of love, or was it pity only?" And he always said it was
love. He said it adoringly. He told her all that love meant to him,
and it meant everything that he thought Grizel would like it to mean.
When she ceased to ask this question he thought it was because he had
convinced her.
They had a honeymoon by the sea. He insisted upon it with boyish
eagerness, and as they walked on the links or sat in their room he
would exclaim ecstatically: "How happy I am! I wonder if there were
ever two people quite so happy as you and I!"
And if he waited for an answer, as he usually did, she might smile
lightly and say: "Few people have gone through so much."
"Is there any woman in the world, Grizel, with whom you would change
places?"
"No, none," she said at once; and when he was sure of it, but never
until he was sure, he would give his mind a little holiday; and then,
perhaps, those candid eyes would rest searchingly upon him, but always
with a brave smile ready should he chance to look up.
And it was just the same when they returned to Double Dykes, which
they added to and turned into a comfortable home--Tommy trying to
become a lover by taking thought, and Grizel not letting on that it
could not be done in that way. She thought it was very sweet of him to
try so hard--sweeter of him than if he really had loved her, though
not, of course, quite so sweet to her. He was a boy only. She knew
that, despite all he had gone through, he was still a boy. And boys
cannot love. Oh, who would be so cruel as to ask a boy to love?
That Grizel's honeymoon should never end was his grand ambition, and
he took elaborate precautions against becoming a matter-of-fact
husband. Every morning he ordered himself to gaze at her with rapture,
as if he had wakened to the glorious thought that she was his wife.
"I can't help it, Grizel; it comes to me every morning with the same
shock of delight, and I begin the day with a song of joy. You make the
world as fresh and interesting to me as if I had just broken like a
chicken through the egg shell." He rose at the earliest hours. "So
that I can have the longer day with you," he said gaily.
If when sitting at his work he forgot her for an hour or two he
reproached himself for it afterwards, and next day he was more
careful. "Grizel," he would cry, suddenly flinging down his pen, "you
are my wife! Do you hear me, madam? You hear, and yet you can sit
there calmly darning socks! Excuse me," he would say to his work,
"while I do a dance."
He rose impulsively and brought his papers nearer her. With a table
between them she was several feet away from him, which was more, he
said, than he could endure.
"Sit down for a moment, Grizel, and let me look at you. I want to
write something most splendiferous to-day, and I am sure to find it in
your face. I have ceased to be an original writer; all the purple
patches are cribbed from you."
He made a point of taking her head in his hands and looking long at
her with thoughts too deep for utterance; then he would fall on his
knees and kiss the hem of her dress, and so back to his book again.
And in time it was all sweet to Grizel. She could not be deceived, but
she loved to see him playing so kind a part, and after some sadness to
which she could not help giving way, she put all vain longings aside.
She folded them up and put them away like the beautiful linen, so that
she might see more clearly what was left to her and how best to turn
it to account.
He did not love her. "Not as I love him," she said to herself,--"not
as married people ought to love; but in the other way he loves me
dearly." By the "other way" she meant that he loved her as he loved
Elspeth, and loved them both just as he had loved them when all three
played in the Den.
"He would love me if he could." She was certain of that. She decided
that love does not come to all people, as is the common notion; that
there are some who cannot fall in love, and that he was one of them.
He was complete in himself, she decided.
"Is it a pity for him that he married me? It would be a pity if he
could love some other woman, but I am sure he could never do that. If
he could love anyone it would be me, we both want it so much. He does
not need a wife, but he needs someone to take care of him--all men
need that; and I can do it much better than any other person. Had he
not married me he never would have married; but he may fall ill, and
then how useful I shall be to him! He will grow old, and perhaps it
won't be quite so lonely to him when I am there. It would have been a
pity for him to marry me if I had been a foolish woman who asked for
more love than he can give; but I shall never do that, so I think it
is not a pity.
"Is it a pity for me? Oh, no, no, no!
"Is he sorry he did it? At times, is he just a weeny bit sorry?" She
watched him, and decided rightly that he was not sorry the weeniest
bit. It was a sweet consolation to her. "Is he really happy? Yes, of
course he is happy when he is writing; but is he quite contented at
other times? I do honestly think he is. And if he is happy now, how
much happier I shall be able to make him when I have put away all my
selfish thoughts and think only of him."
"The most exquisite thing in human life is to be married to one who
loves you as you love him." There could be no doubt of that. But she
saw also that the next best thing was the kind of love this boy gave
to her, and she would always be grateful for the second best. In her
prayers she thanked God for giving it to her, and promised Him to try
to merit it; and all day and every day she kept her promise. There
could not have been a brighter or more energetic wife than Grizel. The
amount of work she found to do in that small house which his devotion
had made so dear to her that she could not leave it! Her gaiety! Her
masterful airs when he wanted something that was not good for him! The
artfulness with which she sought to help him in various matters
without his knowing! Her satisfaction when he caught her at it, as
clever Tommy was constantly doing! "What a success it has turned out!"
David would say delightedly to himself; and Grizel was almost as
jubilant because it was so far from being a failure. It was only
sometimes in the night that she lay very still, with little wells of
water on her eyes, and through them saw one--the dream of woman--whom
she feared could never be hers. That boy Tommy never knew why she did
not want to have a child. He thought that for the present she was
afraid; but the reason was that she believed it would be wicked when
he did not love her as she loved him. She could not be sure--she had
to think it all out for herself. With little wells of sadness on her
eyes, she prayed in the still night to God to tell her; but she could
never hear His answer.
She no longer sought to teach Tommy how he should write. That quaint
desire was abandoned from the day when she learned that she had
destroyed his greatest work. She had not destroyed it, as we shall
see; but she presumed she had, as Tommy thought so. He had tried to
conceal this from her to save her pain, but she had found it out, and
it seemed to Grizel, grown distrustful of herself, that the man who
could bear such a loss as he had borne it was best left to write as he
chose.
"It was not that I did not love your books," she said, "but that I
loved you more, and I thought they did you harm."
"In the days when I had wings," he answered, and she smiled. "Any
feathers left, do you think, Grizel?" he asked jocularly, and turned
his shoulders to her for examination.
"A great many, sir," she said, "and I am glad. I used to want to pull
them all out, but now I like to know that they are still there, for it
means that you remain among the facts not because you can't fly, but
because you won't."
"I still have my little fights with myself," he blurted out boyishly,
though it was a thing he had never meant to tell her, and Grizel
pressed his hand for telling her what she already knew so well.
The new book, of course, was "The Wandering Child." I wonder whether
any of you read it now? Your fathers and mothers thought a great deal
of that slim volume, but it would make little stir in an age in which
all the authors are trying who can say "damn" loudest. It is but a
reverie about a child who is lost, and his parents' search for him in
terror of what may have befallen. But they find him in a wood singing
joyfully to himself because he is free; and he fears to be caged
again, so runs farther from them into the wood, and is running still,
singing to himself because he is free, free, free. That is really all,
but T. Sandys knew how to tell it. The moment he conceived the idea
(we have seen him speaking of it to the doctor), he knew that it was
the idea for him. He forgot at once that he did not really care for
children. He said reverently to himself, "I can pull it off," and, as
was always the way with him, the better he pulled it off the more he
seemed to love them.
"It is myself who is writing at last, Grizel," he said, as he read it
to her.
She thought (and you can guess whether she was right) that it was the
book he loved rather than the children. She thought (and you can guess
again) that it was not his ideas about children that had got into the
book, but hers. But she did not say so; she said it was the sweetest
of his books to her.
I have heard of another reading he gave. This was after the
publication of the book. He had gone into Corp's house one Sunday, and
Gavinia was there reading the work to her lord and master, while
little Corp disported on the floor. She read as if all the words meant
the same thing, and it was more than Tommy could endure. He read for
her, and his eyes grew moist as he read, for it was the most exquisite
of his chapters about the lost child. You would have said that no one
loved children quite so much as T. Sandys. But little Corp would not
keep quiet, and suddenly Tommy jumped up and boxed his ears. He then
proceeded with the reading, while Gavinia glowered and Corp senior
scratched his head.
On the way home he saw what had happened, and laughed at the humour of
it, then grew depressed, then laughed recklessly. "Is it Sentimental
Tommy still?" he said to himself, with a groan. Seldom a week passed
without his being reminded in some such sudden way that it was
Sentimental Tommy still. "But she shall never know!" he vowed, and he
continued to be half a hero.
His name was once more in many mouths. "Come back and be made of more
than ever!" cried that society which he had once enlivened. "Come and
hear the pretty things we are saying about you. Come and make the
prettier replies that are already on the tip of your tongue; for oh,
Tommy, you know they are! Bring her with you if you must; but don't
you think that the nice, quiet country with the thingumbobs all in
bloom would suit her best? It is essential that you should run up to
see your publisher, is it not? The men have dinners for you if you
want them, but we know you don't. Your yearning eyes are on the
ladies, Tommy; we are making up theatre-parties of the old entrancing
kind; you should see our new gowns; please come back and help us to
put on our cloaks, Tommy; there is a dance on Monday--come and sit it
out with us. Do you remember the garden-party where you said--Well,
the laurel walk is still there; the beauties of two years ago are
still here, and there are new beauties, and their noses are slightly
tilted, but no man can move them; ha, do you pull yourself together at
that? We were always the reward for your labours, Tommy; your books
are move one in the game of making love to us; don't be afraid that we
shall forget it is a game; we know it is, and that is why we suit you.
Come and play in London as you used to play in the Den. It is all you
need of women; come and have your fill, and we shall send you back
refreshed. We are not asking you to be disloyal to her, only to leave
her happy and contented and take a holiday."
[Illustration: He heard their seductive voices, they danced around him
in numbers.]
He heard their seductive voices. They danced around him in numbers,
for they knew that the more there were of them the better he would be
pleased; they whispered in his ear and then ran away looking over
their shoulders. But he would not budge.
There was one more dangerous than the rest. Her he saw before the
others came and after they had gone. She was a tall, incredibly slight
woman, with eyelashes that needed help, and a most disdainful mouth
and nose, and she seemed to look scornfully at Tommy and then stand
waiting. He was in two minds about what she was waiting for, and often
he had a fierce desire to go to London to find out. But he never went.
He played the lover to Grizel as before--not to intoxicate himself,
but always to make life sunnier to her; if she stayed longer with
Elspeth than the promised time, he became anxious and went in search
of her. "I have not been away an hour!" she said, laughing at him,
holding little Jean up to laugh at him. "But I cannot do without you
for an hour," he answered ardently. He still laid down his pen to gaze
with rapture at her and cry, "My wife!"
She wanted him to go to London for a change, and without her, and his
heart leaped into his mouth to prevent his saying No; yet he said it,
though in the Tommy way.
"Without you!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Grizel, do you think I could find
happiness apart from you for a day? And could you let me go?" And he
looked with agonized reproach at her, and sat down, clutching his
head.
"It would be very hard to me," she said softly; "but if the change did
you good----"
"A change from you! Oh, Grizel, Grizel!"
"Or I could go with you?"
"When you don't want to go!" he cried huskily. "You think I could ask
it of you!"
He quite broke down, and she had to comfort him. She was smiling
divinely at him all the time, as if sympathy had brought her to love
even the Tommy way of saying things. "I thought it would be sweet to
you to see how great my faith in you is now," she said.
This was the true reason why generous Grizel had proposed to him to
go. She knew he was more afraid than she of Sentimental Tommy, and she
thought her faith would be a helping hand to him, as it was.
He had no regard for Lady Pippinworth. Of all the women he had dallied
with, she was the one he liked the least, for he never liked where he
could not esteem. Perhaps she had some good in her, but the good in
her had never appealed to him, and he knew it, and refused to harbour
her in his thoughts now; he cast her out determinedly when she seemed
to enter them unbidden. But still he was vain. She came disdainfully
and stood waiting. We have seen him wondering what she waited for; but
though he could not be sure, and so was drawn to her, he took it as
acknowledgment of his prowess and so was helped to run away.
To walk away would be the more exact term, for his favourite method of
exorcising this lady was to rise from his chair and take a long walk
with Grizel. Occasionally if she was occupied (and a number of duties
our busy Grizel found to hand!) he walked alone, and he would not let
himself brood. Someone had once walked from Thrums to the top of the
Law and back in three hours, and Tommy made several gamesome attempts
to beat the record, setting out to escape that willowy woman, soon
walking her down and returning in a glow of animal spirits. It was on
one of these occasions, when there was nothing in his head but
ambition to do the fifth mile within the eleven minutes, that he
suddenly met her Ladyship face to face.
We have now come to the last fortnight of Tommy's life.