'Finding Neverland' fic (m) - (7 Parts)

[Mistress Quickly]

Ladies and gents, I give you...Chapter 4! I'm sorry this has taken me a while; the muse fairies were NOT playing ball with this one. But I hope it's worth the wait. And amazingly, there IS actually sneezing in this part

Thank you for your patience.

Part 4.

In the main auditorium of the Duke of York's Theatre, located a two shilling cab ride away from the bustling metropolis of Trafalgar Square, five shillings from the nearest train station and as many shillings as one could afford from all the best music halls and wine clubs in the district, the evening's performance was coming to an end, and in the area backstage the corridors and the dressing rooms were already thronged with actors, carpenters, lighting-men and scene-shifters, alternatingly issuing impatiently whispered orders and telling one another to mind their bloody feet. In the wings a number of stage-hands stood silently, waiting for the penultimate act on stage to finish so that they could change the scenery for the final denouement of the performance. Frederick Sotheby picked his way through the darkness and the intermittent gleams of the artificial lights high above in the flies, as onstage Pamela Edgeworth, as Sheridan's Lydia Languish, was about to encounter the greatest revelation of her romantic life, and took his place beside the large iron wheel next to the curtain. He stood there, a slight frown in his narrowed eyes, intermittently checking the time on his watch against the clock that was mounted on the wall above the door leading to the dressing rooms. They were running late. Pamela Edgeworth's voice achieved a strident pitch of fashionable anguish, and the audience shifted restlessly in their seats. Sotheby bit his lip, tapping his fingers against the wheel, his eyes moving back and forth between the actress on stage and his first assistant Mr Wright, poised to give the signal for the curtain to be lowered; he was about to reach for his watch once again when he suddenly heard a whisper beside him.

"Sir," came the small voice from the dim. "Excuse me, Mr Sotheby, sir..."

Sotheby looked around, and then down, locating the indistinct shape of Harry (pronounced by the name's owner with a studiously dropped aitch), a young stage-hand whose under-fed frame and straw-coloured pudding basin of hair could have indicated that he was any age between nine and nineteen, and whose sole feature, particularly in this light, appeared to be a pair of enormous dark eyes.

"We've just had a cable from Mr Willoughby's agent, sir," the apparition continued, gesturing indeterminately behind him in the general direction of the administration office, from where Sotheby could virtually feel Mrs Rose's satisfied emanations of self-vindication. "It reckons he's been taken in under caution. They've actually arrested him, sir!"

Something plummeted downwards inside Sotheby, and he had a sudden mental image of meagre severence cheques and the long, desultory queue at the unemployment agency. He looked through the proscenium to a box at the back of the theatre, where he caught the glint of Mr Frohman's spectacles. A veritable chill ran down Sotheby's spine.

"For God's sake, keep your voice down," he hissed, pulling Harry to one side away from a nearby scene-shifter, who glanced at them curiously. "What else did the cable say? Has Mr Frohman been told yet? Do we know when Willoughby's going to be bailed?"

Harry, evidently having never been confronted by so many demanded queries before, blinked his vast eyes, looking slightly shocked. "I - I don't know, sir," he managed. "The telegram's with Mrs Rose. She just sent me to tell you." This had obviously not been an errand that Harry had relished the prospect of.

Pamela Edgeworth's penetrating cry of dismay concluded the act, the flute in the orchestra trilled once in sympathy, and the audience clapped lethargically. Sotheby's hand went automatically to his pocket-watch, his jaw tightening.

"All right," he said at last. "Go and tell Mrs Rose that she's not to breathe a word of this until she hears from me, or I'll have her job. Now piss off and mind out the way - "

A stage-hand was swinging the great wheel over, and the curtain descended. Amidst the noise of the applause and the rumbling of the pulleys, Sotheby pulled Mr Jaspers the usher to one side, whispered something to him and sent the scrawny youth off on a mission into the audience. The instant the curtain touched the stage, off came the coloured lamps above, flooding the catwalk with white light; down rolled the painted backdrop of an elegant drawing-room; and the men in the wings leapt into activity, lifting onto the stage a mahogany chaise-long and a carved table that seemed oddly manageable for its size, and unrolling a wide Turkey carpet. Sotheby darted forward to straighten the edge of the carpet and held the corner of the projection screen as it was rolled back to reveal the door behind it. It all took less than fifteen seconds to complete. In the ensuing clamour of the actors' flight to their dressing rooms, Sotheby's hand closed firmly around the upper arm of Eugene Willoughby's understudy.

"Mr Jarvis, you are about to experiece the greatest moment of your career so far. Pray prepare yourself; your time in the spotlight has arrived."

The actor goggled at him. Sotheby smoothed back his hair and composed all the muscles in his face into his most ingratiating smile.

"How does a spot of full-time work grab you?"

It might be regarded as one of the unarguable perks of the otherwise wholly ignominous career of the humble writer of fictions, that one could claim to hold a certain degree of sway over mortality, or at least the mortality of those invented beings that writers are fond of calling 'characters'. Desperate illnesses may be recovered from, calamitous threats to life may be vanquished, and the ones that overstay their welcome are readily dispatched, all by the miraculous flick of a pen. There are some cases where even death is no bar to the writer's imagination, nor, it would seem, the strident and relentless demands of the reading public.

In the March of 1903, a London detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead.

James' day had been filled with small frustrations after the abashing of his pride at the hands of Emma du Maurier's sense of properiety. The woman was nothing if not meticulously polite. After the false teeth had been removed from Jack and returned to their rightful place in James' pocket, she had shaken his hand and wished him a good day, a smile thin on her lips, and they had parted, with the knowledge of things unsaid hanging speechlessly between them that left James cursing himself, rather than her. He returned home weary, puzzled, and plagued by the discomfiting sensation that he had forgotten something important.

The rain had caught him, particularly when his pace was slowed as he was overcome by two sneezes, pausing again just at the corner of his street to lean against a wall and sneeze three times more, wet, harsh sneezes that scratched his throat and made his ears ring. The rain against his face made him feel breathless, his nose was streaming, and he pulled out his handkerchief to attend to it, looking miserably up at the grey sky where the rain fell in dismal sheets as he blew his nose. By the time he let himself in through the front door, he was fairly soaked and dripping water on the hall carpet; he handed his coat and hat to a worriedly clucking Sarah and went immediately upstairs to his room, where he changed into dry clothes and put his dressing gown on over his jumper and slacks. He was shivering. Emma brought him tea; he'd had enough for a month, but sipped it gratefully, glad for its comforting heat, even if it did make his nose run abominably. He suspected that she'd slipped some brandy into it; uncanny how women knew these things. He coughed a few times to try and clear his throat but still felt as though his tonsils had been cleaned with sandpaper. As Porthos rested his head on James' knee and gazed at him, drooling casually, James sighed out loud, running a finger delicately against the side of his nose. There was nothing for it, although it was a nuisance like no other. He was getting a cold.

At around four o' clock somebody rang the doorbell, and Porthos lying at James' feet leapt up with a shattering bark that made the playwright's hand jerk, spilling ink across the blotter on his desk. Hurriedly trying to extract the ruined pages before the rest were stained with one hand, trying to tuck his handkerchief up his sleeve with the other, he sighed at the blue streaks he was only spreading further, mainly from the ink on his own hands, half-listening to the muffled voices just audible down in the hallway as Porthos whined at the study door. He detected Emma's voice, politely cheerful, enquiring after health and family with an unusual familiarity that suggested the visitor was known; then the other voice, a man's, softly accented, unmistakeable.

James stood up too quickly, jammed the leg of his chair against the desk, and knocked the inkwell over.

Arthur Conan Doyle had good reason to appreciate the casual Bohemian democracy of the worlds Mr Barrie frequently moved in; an intellectual hybrid of a man, with a writer's heart and a physician's reason, any notions he might have harboured of pursuing the quiet life of a country doctor had been hopelessly dashed when the people of Portsmouth had proved to be an incorrigibly healthy bunch, and such was the level of penury this had inflicted upon Dr Doyle that he had been forced into that most ignoble and dichotomous of professions, authorship, and thence onwards flourished. If he had not made the acquaintance of the Barries he might well have been doomed to forever remain a semi-professional hack, but in the company of artists and auteurs only ability mattered, and Arthur had that in spades. Thus Arthur Doyle had taken his place in the establishment alongside Charles the producer, James the writer, Mary the actress and, occasionally, Peter Pan, the irrepressible spirit of Eternal Youth. Such were the younger, less complex days.

Now James met him at the door to his study, and Arthur was doubly encountered by the enthusiasms of a welcoming Porthos. "Tell the beast I'm friendly," he joked, deftly fending the dog off with his hand.

"Down, Porthos," James said, and at the sound of his voice the great animal sank back onto his haunches, pleased, gazing up at James happily.

Evidently Arthur had had more success with the rain, primarily due to the foresight of an umbrella. He was looking dishelleved, but well, and thus James stepped back away from him when his friend made to take his hand in greeting. "I wouldn't, Arthur, I'm sorry," he said, in guilty apology. "I didn't want to think it, but I've had a damnable cold coming on all day. I would feel terrible if you passed it on to Louisa."

"I am sorry to hear that, James," Arthur said. "In that case, I'll take my welcome as extended and keep my distance. Shall we sit?"

As James persuaded Porthos away from the door, Arthur flung himself down into one of the armchairs by the fireplace and said, "Nice little mystery you've got at the Duke's, James. The papers are full of nothing else down in Chelsea. I was almost tempted to wonder if Charles had finally taken things too far."

James laughed. "You know the habits of your peers, dear boy," he said. "You'll have a sherry?"

As James poured the drinks, Arthur leant forward to light his pipe with a spill from the fire. "I must say, I was rather surprised to see your name in the paper as well," he said. "I didn't realise they were still peddling that old chestnut, poor cods. Slow news day, I think."

James smiled a little, sadly, watching the tobacco flare and then catch in the bowl of Arthur's pipe. The divorce had caused as much of a sensation in the papers as the play had, at the time; in the immediate aftermath of Peter Pan's success, Fleet Street had seized with vigour on the scandal that broke once Mrs Barrie's liaison with Gilbert Cannan (not just a Mr Cannan, but the Mr Cannan from the Anti-Censorship Committee) was exposed through a series of lecherous and grubby reports from curtain-twitchers living across the road from Cannan's Maida Vale house. As the papers would have it, Mary Barrie was the subject of many a man's prurient ambitions, not a lady at all, but a woman with a reputation. James couldn't help but recall what she said to him that evening, as they sat like children on the stairs while the servants listened in the next room. The town's esteem was measured by his estimation of her, and nothing more. He would be forgiven a lot, it would seem; she held the card of one mistake, and the ladies in the park would not be giving her sympathetic looks now.

He had thought she could ride it out, enjoy it, even. Heavens, the stock of many a socialite was judged by her ability to outrage after all. She had always been far more at ease than he; she knew the tricks of the game, how to smile while second guessing, trip platitudes effortlessly off the tongue while evaluating the benefits of the recepient's social connections. For James, it had been less of a game, more of a protracted torture. Things that other gentlemen could do easily - make small talk, network shrewdly, flirt with a stranger at a dinner party while unerringly picking up the correct knife and fork - were difficult and embarrassing, as foreign and incomprehensible as English slang had been when he first came to London, and hampered still by the memory of humilating failure. He had disappointed Mary so many times that he had eventually chosen to retreat, to allow her to compliment pleasantly, and to remember the names of all eleven of Lady Hinchingbrooke's children, and to not mention Sir Andrew's ex-wife, and to know whose mistress Mrs Dalgliesh currently was. Mary had found it hard to accept that the man she had married, whose artistic nature made some eccentricity understandable, she conceded, was rendered as awkward and sullen as a schoolboy by the mere presence of the cream of London's elite. What's more, there were subtle complaints that his accent, thickened by nerves, made much of what he said virtually impossible to understand. After that, Mary went so far as to tentatively broach the subject of elocution lessons, but such was the wordless ice of James' restrained fury that even she realised she had gone too far and coolly volunteered an apology. James didn't get angry very often, but when he did he could slam a good door. Mary knew how much having hinges replaced cost.

And still the relentless merry-go-round of claim and counter-claim went on. The last time he had spoken to her had been when he signed the divorce papers just before Christmas. The separation had been amicable; he had insisted on her being given half the estate. There had been no slanging matches or spiteful allegations to incite public speculation, and yet the newspapers were still, apparently, able to find reason to mention the suspicious death of an actor's wife and the breakdown of the Barries' marriage in the same article paragraph. James wondered how long it would be before they were blamed for the fundamental disintegration of society's moral fibre.

Aware that he had been lost for a moment, James handed Arthur the sherry schooner and sat down opposite his old friend. "How's Louisa?"

Arthur tapped the bowl of his pipe to loosen the ash, frowning a little. "Rather low, I fear." His smile, while slight, was warm and uncomplicated, though diffused by a slight hesitancy, a reserve. "The doctor says the TB could be showing signs of returning. I could have told him that myself, but the fellow won't listen...It depresses her spirits terribly."

Genuinely disturbed by the news, James almost leant forward, wanting to touch Arthur's hand, wishing in that moment that he had in his vocabulary the sensitivity of expression that he could so readily apply to the page. "Arthur, I'm sorry." It sounded ridiculously trite, an empty courtesy rattled out automatically in the absence of a better, more delicate sentiment. Trying to cover his sudden, strange awkwardness, he sipped a little of the syrupy, acrid nectar, tongue-tied, but Arthur was shaking his head.

"There's no reason, of course, why she should not make another full recovery with the right treatment. It's Mary and Kingsley that I worry for the most. We're not going to New York anymore, by the way. We cancelled the tickets yesterday."

In the spring, Arthur's daughter Mary had married an American diplomat by the name of Samuel Beauchamp; Arthur and Louisa had been unable to attend the wedding, which had been held on Long Island, due to another lapse in Touie's health, and Arthur had spent the time since trying to secure a cheap enough sea-fare to get them to America and back before the summer was out. Now it was likely that he would not be able to see Mary again until next year.

James did touch him now, leaning forward where he sat to rest the fingers of his hand lightly against Arthur's arm; it seemed the only right thing to do. "If there is anything..." he began softly, but it was useless, really. It was not his place, he knew, he did not have the right to imagine at the pain of an absent child, but he could, maybe just a little, understand the grief of the missing, even though what was missing to him had never existed in the first place. That soul-sickness, what was considered by most people to be a peculiarly female longing...the empty space in the house unfilled by the continuation of flesh and blood, like a death that has never happened. He could understand that, at least.

Arthur was chewing on his pipe thoughtfully. "Of course, I didn't get all my money back. Some nonsense about administration costs." He paused, a twinkling warmth coming into his eyes. "Thieving bastards."

James gave a shout of laughter, as much from relief at the passing of the tension in the room as anything else. Arthur grinned back, the pipe, the smile and the crooked creases at the corners of his eyes giving him a rakish look that James found even more amusing.

But his nose was running, and he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe at it impatiently. Arthur's eyes softened as he watched him.

"It's a rotten shame, old man," he said. "You don't look to be in much shape yourself. Have you seen a doctor?"

James chuckled thickly, nose still buried. "Apart from you, you mean?"

"Be serious, James. A fellow's health is no laughing matter."

"A cold is no cause for a...doc-tor's...assis-assistance..." James' voice rose an octave in his effort to complete the sentence before the sneeze came. This time, he stood up, walking a few paces away from where Arthur was sitting, hunching his shoulders and cupping both hands over his nose and mouth. Each breath in that built the forthcoming sneeze became deeper and deeper as his eyes closed irresistably. His face relaxed, falling as his eyebrows lifted, mouth and jaw dropped open, and went slack. The last breath was a quick and sharp inward gasp, leading straight to the, "Hrrrrsssssshhhhhhh!"

The sneeze exploded wetly into his hands in a painfully relieving spray. It was a deliciously satisfying sneeze, far louder than he'd intended, but almost enjoyable in the relief it brought. It was followed immediately by a second; once more, James sneezed into his cupped hands, this time trying his best to stifle it. He hesitated, hands still covering his nose, eyes still closed, convinced that there was a third sneeze lingering at the back of his nose somewhere. After waiting for several long seconds, he slowly lowered his hands, sniffing cautiously, and then pinched his nose with his thumb ans forefinger, rubbing irritably, trying to rid himself of the infernal tickle.

"Bless you," Arthur's voice said from behind him. "This has just been coming on today, you say?"

Instead of replying, James held up his hand, silently asking him to wait, before turning away again and sneezing, loudly. "HERRR-ISSSHHHHHH!" The force of the sneeze bent him at the waist, and he sniffed several times weakly afterwards. Finally sure that a fourth sneeze was not lurking somewhere, he braved taking his hand away from his face and pulled out his handkerchief. "My apologies, Arthur," he said with a bashful little laugh; his voice now sounded rather congested.

"Don't worry, James." Arthur inspected his friend's face as he sat back down; the skin beneath his eyes was pinched and taut, marked by a faint pinkness; the delicate edges of his nose were starting to become rouged with too much attention from a handkerchief.

"I will have to give you the recipe for my mother's spiced soup," Arthur went on, as James blew his nose again. "Excellent cure-all."

James shook his head, his face flinching. "H'KNXT!" He curled in on himself to stifle the sneeze, directing it into the crook of his arm. Porthos lifted his head and gazed at his master curiously, thumping his tail several times on the floor. If James hadn't known better, he'd have said the dog was laughing at him.

"If it's anything like my mother's homemade cure-alls," he said satirically, "I don't think I will partake, thank you."

Arthur laughed. "You may well be wise," he said. "I shall use my unexpectedly free time constructively, however," he went on, after a pause in which James sipped at his sherry and sniffed politely several times, dabbing at his nose with his handkerchief. "Part of the reason I came today is that I wanted to ask your opinion on a wee matter that's cropped up."

"Ah yes, I knew it couldn't be the lure of my invigorating company."

"Invigorating, my dear friend, is not the word." Arthur sat back in the chair and stretched his legs out, careful to avoid Porthos. "I was wondering if you knew anything about spiritualism."

"Spiritualism?" James raised an eyebrow, thinking that a stranger word had never been uttered by the man he had known for nearly twenty years. "Not a thing, I'm glad to say. Why?"

Arthur moved his shoulders dismissively, not quite a shrug. "Oh, just a chap down at the club asked me to look into a spiritualist affair the other day. Fraud, most likely, although he seemed devilishly convinced of it. Odd sort of fellow; I haven't seen him at the club before..." His voice trailed off as he saw James' expression, the irresistably curling upper lip, delicately inflamed nostrils flaring slightly, and he waited patiently while James turned his head, burying his nose in his handkerchief, eyes flinching shut. An audible inward breath, and "Herrrrr-chhhssssooooo!"; Arthur waited a beat, cautious of another sneeze from James, but when he gauged that a second did not seem forthcoming, he went on breezily, knowing that James did not want attention drawing to his predicament: "Apparently he runs a financial consulting business over in Cheapside, of all places. Not the sort of man you'd expect to be hearing voices from beyond the grave."

James had been listening silently throughout, holding his balled-up handkerchief against his nose, but now he smirked. "So he hears voices?"

"Now, James," Arthur said reprovingly. "You'd be the last person I'd expect to scoff at matters beyond our reckoning. Besides, I don't have to believe the man to wonder about his case. It actually makes it more interesting."

"Arthur," said James, "you will take care, won't you?"

"Oh, come now, James, I thought you'd at least have had something more original to tell me. You sound like Touie."

James smiled, tapping his fingers against his sherry glass.

"The great mystery of the universe," he said, "is that so little of it is known; thank the Lord. Some would say it's best to keep it like that. Now I'd be the first to advocate the pursuit of humanity's Great Truth, but when there's as much cruelty, and sorrow, and money,for that matter, involved as there is in something like spiritualism..." He shook his head, the corners of his mouth turned down in thought. "You need to tread carefully."

Arthur handed him his glass to be refilled. "You think it's poppycock."

"No, I don't," James said as he went to the sideboard and uncorked the sherry bottle. "There's plenty in it, of course." He spoke slowly, his words measured out carefully as he poured the drink. "There's fraud, yes. But there's also fear - not so much fear of death, I think, as fear of there being nothing after death - there's loneliness, there's gullibility, there's greed, there's hope...there's grief, of course, that drives it all...and maybe, yes, maybe somewhere, beneath everything else, there's some truth in it." He came back over to Arthur, handed him the drink. Porthos sat up and made a soft, keening noise at the back of his throat, treacle eyes on James, but the man stooped to run a hand across the velvety dome of the dog's head, shushing gently, and Porthos was quiet again.

"Either way," Arthur said, watching the shifting amber lights in the sherry glass, "it's just out of interest. And who knows, there may well be something worth writing about."

"And that," said James, "is never an opportunity to be trifled with. Cheers."

"Your good health." They clinked their glasses together with a high crystal sound. Arthur sipped his sherry thoughtfully.

"As for your problem, Jim," he said, "I'm not sure what I can suggest. The English upper classes have always been something of a closed book to me."

""A handicap we share. But listen, Arthur, you couldn't come with me to this investors' party Charles has going on at the theatre tonight, could you? I never know where to stand at these things, or who to stand by for that matter, and you can at least point out Lord This and Lady That. Are you busy this evening?"

"No, and I'd be pleased to come, if only to keep an eye on you. But investors..." Arthur shook his head, clicking his tongue. "They're a tricky lot. Think there'll be a stooshie? Should I take a pistol?"

James blinked at him, his eyes widening slightly, then he put down his glass and roared with laughter. "Dear Arthur," he said helplessly. "God forbid I ever underestimate you. You don't catch eagles with birdlime."

"I should hope not," Arthur said. "Scottish birds don't go in cages. But by tonight we'll know who's the real fraudsters, your investors or my spiritualists."

"Touche," said James, grinning. Then he sneezed.

finis

"Stooshie" - in Scottish vernacular, meaning 'A little bit of trouble'.

"Touie" was the nickname by which Arthur Conan Doyle's first wife, Louisa (or Louise) Hawkins, whom he married in 1885, was known.

I have evilly fabricated the marriage of Mary Conan Doyle, along with the character of Samuel Beauchamp, for my own ends.

Random Interesting Tidbit (or maybe not that interesting, however one looks at it): I mention spiritualism at this point, connected with Conan Doyle, not only because it is a phenomena that will play a large part in the story, but also because in his later years, and particularly after the death of his son Kingsley in the First World War, Conan Doyle became heavily involved with spiritualism, to the extent that he wrote a Professor Challenger novel on the subject, The Land of Mist. One of the odder aspects of this period of his life was his book The Coming of the Fairies (1921). He was apparently totally convinced of the veracity of the Cottingley Fairies photographs, which he reproduced in the book, together with theories about the nature and existence of fairies and spirits. In his The History of Spiritualism (1926) Conan Doyle highly praised the psychic phenomena and spirit materializations produced by Eusapia Palladino and "Margery," (Mina Crandon), based on the investigations of scientists who refused to listen to well-informed conjurers.

I also allude to Conan Doyle being involved in Holmesian investigative work of his own, as he was himself a fervent advocate of justice, and personally investigated two closed cases, which led to two imprisoned men being released. The first case, in 1906, involved a half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who had allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were set on Edalji's conviction, even though the mutilations continued even after their suspect was jailed.

As ever, any comments, suggestions, opinions are welcome.

[tma]

I was LONGING for more. And this totally delivered. Sir Arthur- how absolutely terrific! And I'm Loving the plot- I'm such a geek for historical fiction. The banter was wonderful, I could Completely see every line. This story is absolutely lovely just as a story without even getting to the "icing".

But... not to neglect the "icing"... the buildups and your way of describing James' feelings and the look on his face and the sounds..... *I don't know... something about an "r" in there seems to totally fit and melt me at the same time.

Oh... and I can't Wait to see how the meeting goes and I hope that he runs into the former Mrs. sometime soon (but I know that whenever it happens that your timing with be wonderful).

Thank you so much *off to re-read*

[Triosk1]

Ok, *sits and fans herself for a moment*. Ok, nearly calm now. Arthur Conan Doyle!! Squeeeeeeee! Not only do I love Sherlock Holmes (or rather Dr Watson) with a white-hot passion, but Ian Hart is a rather sexy personage of the acting persuasion, and you have got....him...in...this...fic. *Fans once more*.

Loving the description, and the sneezes, and the just general period-drama ness, and the foreshadowing. Anyway, amazing stuff. Can't wait for more.

Oh, one thing, I've always heard TB referred to as consumption in things about that time, but I don't know about when TB started coming into usage. I never knew Mr Doyle's wife had it either poor her.

And Ian Hart is a very sexy man, in my humble opinion, sneezing or not. Playing sympathetic friend/doctor is equally marvellous.

[Mistress Quickly]

OMG! You love Ian Hart too? I have NEVER met another person who thinks he's sexy. I had a total squeeing fan-girly moment when I realised that he and Johnny Depp were in the same film together. Sadly, Ian's Arthur won't be sneezing in this story, but he IS delish.

You two are wonderful. Your praise is just... Thank you so much.

[count tiszula]

This is getting better all the time. Those sneezy buildups are even getting to me, even when I see Barrie as a moustachioed Scottish nutter.

Oh, and the period detail is nice , too.

As you know, Wilde and Doyle had a lunch with Lippincottt that produced both Dorian Grey and mmm.. The Hound, was it?

Purely in the spirit of historical research, the cab fares sound a bit steep; I mean, I remember travelling a certain distance for five bob, and that wasn't even in Edwardian times [unless I was being the Count at the time]. Perhaps it depended on whether you blew your cab whistle once or twice. My usual source for such matters is E Nesbit, but though I know the cabbie drove off with their sovereign, I can't recall what he asked.

[Mistress Quickly]

Ah, yes. The TB and the cab fares. I've been so caught between trying to make this as historically accurate as possible, then thinking...well, it's only a fanfic/sneezefic...that I think I've been rather clumsy in some respects. I do genuinely appreciate you pointing out these errors, you two; I think people worry about giving constructive criticism sometimes, but I always want to know where I've gone wrong.

[matilda3948]

Awww, it's so good! Thank you so much for spending the time to really develop this story. I love it!

[Mistress Quickly]

Thank you all so much for your kind and incisive comments. On your recommendation, sneezeadorer, I've posted this story on the sf group board. We'll see how it goes down there...not that I'm nervous, or anything...

[sneezeadorer]

I actually just posted on there, but I'll say it again here - I'm really glad you put it on the SF site, it deserves to be read by everybody! Again, the fourth part was wonderful, thankyou so much and for continuing it so fast, loads of stories on here seem to be started and then seem to get lost...

Thankyou again

[Mistress Quickly]

I actually just posted on there, but I'll say it again here - I'm really glad you put it on the SF site, it deserves to be read by everybody! Again, the fourth part was wonderful, thankyou so much and for continuing it so fast, loads of stories on here seem to be started and then seem to get lost...

Thankyou again

It's no problem, luv. Because it's the only fiction I'm working on at the moment, I'm able to give it all my spare time, aside from uni work and life and other stuff. This story is very important to me, because it is more than 'just a sneezefic' but rather a complex writing excercise that I'm enjoying very much, so I won't abandon it. I just never imagined people would like it so much; it seems to be going down OK at the SF board. Your praise, your comments, are just superlative and so encouraging; I'm incredibly glad you're enjoying it as much as I am

Thank you. Part 5 is in the pipeline.

[tma]

YAY!!!!!!!

And I wanted to say how much I absolutely Adore and admire the fact that this is plot driven but yet the "sf" part doesn't feel forced into the story. Which can sometimes happen. The flow is brilliant and natural.

This is the type of thing that I aspire towards with writing. And since I know that this story really is more than about a way to release fetish muses I definately want you to know that it is your abilities as an author that are the first captivation for me. *Although I will admit that your descriptions and sounds and way that you write the sneezing parts is definately an extra added yummy bonus. *

[Mistress Quickly]

Anyone remember this story? Really sorry to everyone who was reading it, after I had JUST promised not to abandon it... Mainly family problems, also computer trouble, but I had to check out of this forum for a while. I'm hoping to get back to writing this fic pretty soon, so if anyone's still interested keep an eye open. Again, I'm very sorry; I always hate it when I'm reading a fic and the author just buggers off and leaves it with no explanation. Anyway... It's nice to be back.

[tma]

You totally scared me there. lol! I'm sorry to hear about past problems. Glad that things seem to be more at a place where you can pop back in.

I am most Definately still interested in this. So you can't get off that easily.

[Mistress Quickly]

Hurrah! Good to know there's at least one fan still out there. Thanks, tma I'm working on tidying up the next bit virtually as I speak, so it shouldn't be too long before it's up. Once again, many apologies for the abandoning.

[sneezeadorer]

Oh yay, you're still writing it! That's so great, it's a fantastic story so far! Sorry to hear about your problems though, and I can't wait to read any more!

[matilda3948]

I am so glad you're going to keep writing this now that things are back to normal for you!

THANKS!

[Mistress Quickly]

Sneezeadorer and Matilda! I'm thrilled that you're both still interested. And thanks to all three of you for your thoughts re: the various problems. It was nothing terribly serious, just enough to keep me well away from anything 'normal' for a while. Families, eh? Anyway, as I keep saying, Part 5 is on its way, so never fear.

Love ya all

[Triosk1]

There's at least one more fan out here, Mistress Quickly, I'm so glad you want to continue with it. Good luck with your return to 'normality', and I hope it all sorts out for you. It is a fab story...*goes off to reread*...

[Mistress Quickly]

Well, after an unexpected and far too long hiatus, I'm finally able to get this story moving again. Real Life can be a resoundingly inconvenient bitch sometimes. Apologies to and many thanks for the patience of everyone who has been waiting for the next instalment (and many, many thanks to tma, sneezeadorer, matilda and kastrel for their sweetness). I just hope that this chapter doesn't disappoint, after how long it's taken to get here. I can't say exactly when the next part will be, but we are definitely talking weeks rather than months this time

A/N: I will just emphasise here that there will be NO, that is categorically NO OC-related romance in this story. Any excessively beautiful female Original Characters are merely used as plot devices, and not Mary Sue-shaped Trojan horses. *shudder*

There is sneezing in this chapter, honest; it's just a little way in.

Part 5.

A time would come in the future when truth would be forced onto the English stage, though not for want of energetic resistence. Prior to the Restoration, London had been relatively luvvie-free, but with the turn of 1660 the rafters of many a coffee-house were soon ringing with the sound of air-kissing as actors swamped the capital. London in 1905 was no more theatrical than it was then; though it was not less theatrical, the thespian pursuit being nothing short of sport in the upper echelons of British society. Theatreland would always have its unknowable fascination.

This fascination was the primary reason for the crush of traffic on St Martin's Lane, and it was this spectacle that made James want to tell the cab driver to turn the horses around and take them back to Kensington, Charles be damned and all the rest of this nonsense with him. It was, however, only a fleeting temptation; disappointing Charles was one thing, flat-out hurting him was another, and James was well acquainted with his conscience. He knew that even if he were on his deathbed he would still drag his sorry self to stand beside the man who Mary had once called 'that ghastly American'. Casual prejudices were a speciality of hers. He had taken a dose of aspirin before he left the house; the very sight of the rain made him shiver and he had a nasty suspicion that he was beginning to run a fever, not that he was admitting anything. It had been enough of a struggle convincing Arthur that he wouldn't be rendered bronchial by the sly wind that was now cutting its way through North London. Just after he had taken the aspirin James' head had been swimming not unpleasantly, but now a pressure was building in his sinuses and there were the beginnings of a headache somewhere behind his eyes. It did not bode well.

The traffic was backing up with worrying intensity, and within five minutes of trying to maneouvre the victoria into a gap between a coach-and-four and a brougham, the driver had found six of the most imaginative uses for the word 'bugger' that James had ever heard. He was tempted to interrupt, but he knew there would be nothing he could say that would put an end to the man's ripe eloquence now he was on the London subject. By the time the jam had parted sufficiently to allow the victoria to crawl slowly forward, the cabbie was getting into his stride, and the other drivers were being colourfully compared to parts of their own anatomies, parts of other people's anatomies, parts of animals' anatomies, and all interspersed amidst a fluent stream the fruitiest, filthiest, most descriptive language of the East End.

From his seat beside him, Arthur leant over and put his mouth next to James' ear: "I think if we wish to reach our destination any time this evening," he said, "or indeed alive, for that matter, I suggest we walk the rest of the way. In my experience, violence amongst the cab driving fraternity is not unheard of."

"My friend, we have an accord. Do you think we should make a run for it?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't much fancy a broken leg. I wonder if the blighter expects a tip..." Arthur raised his voice, optimistically trying to break across the driver's colourful verbosity. "I say - "

The cabbie's head turned. "What's that, squire?"

"Couldn't just drop us off here, could you?"

"Fare's to the door, mate."

"Doesn't matter. You won't get there by Christmas at this rate."

"I ain't a bleedin' miracle-worker, y'know?"

"I never suggested the like of it. But it's still nearly a block to the theatre and none of us are getting any younger."

"Speak for yourself," James muttered.

"You two's as drown out there," the cabbie was insisting.

Arthur drew himself up splendidly. "Then drown we shall, my good man," he said, with mock valiance; James half-expected him to salute.

The driver cursed and pulled the horses sharply about; James held his breath as they swung dangerously close to a man in a white muffler who leapt out of the way, losing his umbrella in the process. Expletives were exchanged once more, native to two different parts of the city this time. The victoria shot with alarming speed in-between two motors, maneouvering a gap that seemed impossible for its size; the cabbie wrenched at the reins, the victoria tilted precariously, James braced himself as he was flung violently against the side of the cab while Arthur clutched grimly at a strap, and just as James was beginning to consider the ignominy of death in what was to all intents and purposes a jumped-up dog cart, the victoria nipped in front of an approaching hansom and slammed to a halt, an inch away from finding the edge of the pavement with its wheel. One of the horses blew gustily and pawed at the ground, evidently already bored with the evening.

Almost certainly both issuing silent thanks to separate preserving entities, Arthur and James climbed down, somewhat unsteadily, from the cab. James reached into his pocket.

"Here," he said, handing the driver his fare. "You're a virtuoso, you are. I never saw such a talent."

The cabbie accepted the money with a kind of sulky reluctance, counting the coins between grubby fingers, Fagin-like. "And you need to be quicker on yer pins than that," he replied, gimlet-eyed. "Trust a pair of micks to stand like bleedin' pansies in the rain. Cheerio."

The victoria was halfway down the street by the time James realised that the cabbie had got his casual insult to James and Arthur's national pedigree wrong. He straightened his shoulders defiantly.

"Micks may stand in the rain," he said. "Jocks run through it. Onwards, my bonny wee laddie."

~

The theatre was still crowded from the night's performance when they arrived. Running, as it turned out, was not a viable activity in James' present condition, and the block had defeated him halfway, although Arthur found a solution to the problem by offering his arm with more gallantry than could ever have been expected under the circumstances, and together they made the rest of the street, the oddest couple of the night. They presented their invitations to an oblivious footman, paid the discreet charity donation (on behalf of a hospice for unmarried mothers set up by the evening's sponsor, a Lady Margaret Drummond, which seemed to consist mainly, as far as James could ascertain, of the unfortunate creatures being plucked from poverty and subjected to the auspices of evangelical clergymen on a daily basis, with the added disadvantage of having to work unpaid for the pleasure) to a powdered elderly lady who gave them a smile of astonishing sweetness and bid them both a 'jolly evening', and were shown into the overheated Oriel Gallery next to the subs bar where gas lamps and chandeliers blazed, and the light glittered ticklishly off the jewels on the dresses and in the hair of the women, and the studded shirt-fronts and cufflinks of the men. Double doors opened into the ballroom where the floor was polished to a slippery gleam, the intermingling scents of cigar smoke, perfume and sweat hung in the air like an invisible fog, and a small orchestra, playing uncontroversial waltzes behind a clutch of potted plants, was almost drowned out by the bray of aristocratic voices. James could only marvel; Charles had promised a display, but it seemed that tonight he had finally surpassed himself in luring all the most offensively priveliged people in the land, and beyond, to snort and guffaw and dandify all together under one roof, and upon whose various inheritances, ill-gotten gains and vastly accumulative businesses the future of this one theatre depended. It was enough to make a man question his place in the universe. What was he doing here?

Arthur and James tucked themselves into a quieter corner of the gallery, next to a display of sickly geranium, and took glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. James regarded the crowd disbelievingly.

"Which one's Lady Drummond?" he asked. "I suppose I ought to know who she is. Charles has introduced me to her husband often enough; you'd think he had hopes for our future together."

"The old trout with the lorgnette," said Arthur. "Over there by the window talking to Lady Rutland. I wonder if her daughter's here tonight. She's a stunner."

"Whose daughter?"

"Rutland's. The chap by the stairs with the overshot jaw. A racing man. Russian connection, I believe. I won a tenner on his horse at Epsom last year."

"An investor?"

"Naturally. The man owns half of Derbyshire. Ah, now; there she is."

Near Lady Rutland, grand in stature and imperious of glance, sat a dark-haired girl in a blue crepe de chine dress who Arthur identified as Lady Isabella Rutland. A couple of brash young men in rigidly starched evening dress were talking very loudly in the group around her, one standing improperly close, and every now and then she lifted her gaze to acknowledge them with a polite tensing of her mouth, but for most of the time she simply sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes cast downwards, her face quite expressionless, an attitude at once listless and oddly proud, still and separate and dreaming. James had interpreted Arthur's pert description of her to mean that he thought the girl beautiful, but now, James thought, feeling the breath catch in his throat, 'beautiful' seemed to be a strangely transparent, hackneyed word to attribute to her. The girl was startlingly lovely, with a fragility and a grace and a pale, delicate bloom on her cheek that made mere prettiness seem a false spectre, exquisite in a way that made James suddenly long for the talent of the camera or paintbrush, some medium to capture beauty in all its raw, aching, brittle immediacy in a way that words could not, although even they surely would not do justice to the strands of gloaming hair curling waywardly back from a coral ear, or the nervy, sinuous tension in the line of her throat. She was trailing slender fingers along the crisp material of her skirt, idly plucking at an invisible thread; as she did this, James saw one of the blustery young cards falter in his speech, his words somehow losing their way in the conflict between his eyes and his mouth as he watched this single movement, hungrily.

James caught himself, blinked, shook his head. The cold must be affecting his brain as well.

Beside him, Arthur was looking grim.

"It's a damn shame, of course," he said. "Tragedy in the family some years back. They only had one other child, a lad; he was at Sandhurst the same time as Edward Mitchell's son. I'm not too clear on what the scandal was; it might have involved a girl, but he was definitely in with some unsavoury types. Financial problems, too; gambling, no doubt. Either way, the result was that the boy ended up putting a pistol in his mouth. Of all things for a family to cope with... A waste of a young life like that." Arthur shook his head. "Terrible." He sipped his champagne.

James looked back across the room, at Lady Rutland this time. She had the same frozen, conscious grace as her daughter and it was a curiously artificial mark on both women, like the branding stamp on a piece of china; the result of years spent at Alpine finishing schools, ribs cracked and breath stifled beneath whalebone, posture mathematically exact, an aesthete that is practised rather than inherent. No human flesh is naturally a refusal of itself, warmth and movement suffocated by propriety. Nor was it an uncommon characteristic amongst what London's vernacular termed 'the fashionable set'; an apparently invaluable preresquisite of social success for any family with a name to make seemed to be the terrifying reduction of the female waist.

James' contemplation of the oddly sad spectacle that was the two Rutland ladies was beginning to take him on a particularly curmudgeonly train of thought about the sort of company he was being forced to tolerate that evening, when he had a far greater inclination to be somewhere more closely resembling a bed, with the fire well built and a hot brandy, and Porthos sprawled across his legs, when Arthur suddenly interrupted, a frown in his voice: "I didn't know it was scoundrels' night."

James looked at his friend in surprise, a puzzled smile starting to his lips, but then he turned his head and followed Arthur's stony gaze across the room. The doors to the ballroom stood open opposite them, the walnut gleam of the service bar swept away to the left; amidst the crush of lacquered heads, crisp tailoring and clammy, powdered faces, a man in an immaculate jacket and perfectly starched collar stood giving an order to the barman.

"Invitation only, Charles said, did he?" Arthur remarked, as Gilbert Cannan turned towards them. An infinitesimal flicker passed over James' face.

"Don't be ridiculous, Arthur," he said evenly. "Cannan is a good connection; he's supported the arts council for many years now. It would be out of the question for Charles to have not invited him."

"James..." He didn't even have to look at Arthur to be certain that his expression would be annoyingly knowing.

"Arthur." He closed his eyes briefly, smiled, then met Arthur's gaze steadily. "It's fine. Honest. Why would I want to run away from the man anyway? London may be big, but it's a trifle cramped for hiding in, don't you agree?"

Arthur looked into his eyes searchingly for several seconds, as if trying to seek out the lie, the concealed pain, his gaze examining as closely as his touch would one of his patients. James quirked an eyebrow, holding the stare, one corner of his mouth turning up just slightly. Finally, seeming almost taken aback, Arthur's face relaxed into an uncertain smile and he laughed, a little abashedly. A tension had been broken.

"Forgive me for underestimating you, Jim," he said. "A dangerous mistake that I believe I have made before, and most likely will again, and may my hair turn grey with it."

"I'd never wish that on you, Arthur," James said dryly, his eyes soft with a smile. Very slowly, very deliberately, he uncurled the fingers of his right hand from the fist they had somehow tightened into.

It didn't matter; of course not. And he wasn't really watching Cannan as the younger man eased his way past a cluster of animatedly chattering women, pausing to acknowledge them with that same slow, charming smile; he spoke, leaning closer confidentially, daringly, and the group as one dissolved into a cacophony of pealing giggles. The swish and click of their fans was audible even above the roar of voices throughout the rest of the room. With a deft inclination of his head, Cannan moved on from the ladies, and a dozen pairs of eyes ravenously watched his retreat.

James only realised that he was biting the inside of his lip when he tasted copper in his mouth. He curiously explored the small wound he had made with his tongue, deliberately goading the tender sting of pain as he watched Cannan's progress across the room, circulating easily, slowing now and then to exchange remarks, laughter, jocular insults with various acquaintances, utterly at home in his environment, a man instinctual with the codes of his natural territory. James knew that if he turned his head to the right, he would see his own reflection in the mirrored pannelling on the far wall, his eyes very dark in his pale face, hair severely slicked back, a tall, rigid, isolated figure, standing with his back to the wall like a deserter before the shots at dawn. Arthur could have been a hundred miles away. Near the staircase, Cannan half-turned, laughing at something a stout man in tails had said, and for a moment his gaze fell carelessly across the room; his eyes met with James', and locked. Cannan's smile wavered slightly, almost in uncertain recognition, and he made a strange, impulsive movement as if to go forward.

"I need to find Charles," James said thickly, but he suddenly felt a sharp pinch at the back of his nose, and before he could stop himself he sneezed, so taken by surprise by it that he barely had time to lift his hand to his face, feeling the spray against the back of his wrist. "HR'ISSSHH!" A second verged on him immediately; it developed with such intensity and then retreated again with such startling capriciousness that James actually began the sneeze, a sharp, muffled 'Heh-!' against his hand, before hesitating, eyes still closed, finding to his dismay that the sneeze had literally stopped halfway. He was about to lower his hand in frustration when the sensation returned, so powerfully that he gasped a sharp inward breath and cupped both hands to his face, sneezing with a wet, desperate sound that jerked him forward. "Hhrrrcchhsshhooo!" At least it seemed to clear the irritation in his nose for the time being. But when he looked back across the room through watering eyes, Cannan had already turned away. He was instantly seized upon by a man whose complexion ruddily announced high blood pressure who shook his hand with delighted energy, gesturing towards two other men standing further up the stairs, and James began to wonder if Cannan had ever seen him at all.

He noticed Arthur watching him, and a dart of unaccustomed irritation went through him at the concerned expression on his friend's face, hating himself at the same time for feeling it. "You don't sound well," Arthur said.

"I believe sneezing tends to occur with colds." His voice was sharper than he'd intended. "As a doctor, I would have thought you'd know that."

Arthur frowned a little, stung, but he said nothing. Instead, he gestured with his empty champagne flute. "You haven't touched yours."

"No." James' eyes were fixed on the retreating back of Gilbert Cannan as the man ascended the staircase. His mouth suddenly seemed very dry.

Seeing his expression, Arthur's face darkened and he thrust his glass onto the tray of a passing waiter, nearly making the boy over-balance. "It's Cannan, isn't it?" he said fiercely. "Is Mary here? Have you seen her?"

"No. It's only...the last I saw him...it was a difficult time..." James finished uselessly. "Bad memories." He ventured a grin, feeling a warmth gathering at the back of his neck at his own foolishness. He laughed a little, sheepishly.

Arthur let his breath out sharply. "Bad memories?" He sounded almost outraged. "You really do astound me, James. Your powers of understatement are nothing short of enviable."

"Well." James wet his lips, calmly putting his hands behind his back. "It's good to get it over with."

"I didn't know you were so cheerful about it all." Arthur was positively bristling.

James gave him a wise look. "A happy man should have the derision of his friends."

"In your case, certainly. Although I shall save my most blistering contempt for when I hear that you're walking Mary down the aisle at her nuptials to the excellent Mr Cannan."

James laughed, feeling inside his pocket for his handkerchief. "Some would say I gladly gave her away."

Arthur's expression softened, and there was a sadness in his eyes as he watched James blow his nose. "Some would say you didn't see it coming, and that it's a damn shame."

"Ah." James' voice was muffled through the cloth of his handkerchief. "There was a lot I didn't see coming, Arthur." He wouldn't meet Arthur's eyes. For once, he was glad for the arrival of a sneeze. He stifled it hastily, pinching his nose tightly through his handkerchief and holding the tickly explosion at the back of his sore throat. "heh-KNXT!" When he straightened again, he involuntarily found himself giving a weary sigh. His nostrils were already beginning to feel tender with the ministrations of his handkerchief and when he swallowed his throat seemed to grate against itself. He could virtually feel his adenoids swelling as he stood there.

"And I certainly didn't expect this," he croaked.

"Observation never was your strong point," Arthur said darkly.

~

Arthur did, after all, have time for another glass of champagne before the main spectacle of the evening began. James knew very well that these types of affairs were generally designed for covert palm-greasing and the mass consumption of expensive wine, but dear Charles could never resist an opportunity to speechify when it was presented to him so blatantly, and so just before nine the orchestra was discreetly muffled and a small space in the crowd was manfully cleared at the foot of the staircase by a smart fellow in white gloves. The producer himself was introduced with the gravitas of royalty and Charles, resplendent in green velvet and comfortably assured that he had his audience's full attention, began a series of anecdotal jokes about the history of the Duke of York's Theatre and all those misfortunate reprobates who had passed through its doors over the years. The name of the currently most topical reprobate, a Mr Eugene Willoughby, presently languishing in jail, was conspicuously not mentioned. Having presented the theatre's upcoming production in its most appealingly dog-eared light, sparing none of the set designers' blushes in his remarks about their budget, Charles went on thank the infamous New York investors at great length, reeling off a list of half a dozen names that could have belonged to anyone from the King's private secretary to the bootboy for all they meant to James. It mattered not, of course; by that point Charles had worked his mysterious and wonderful alchemy on the assembled crowd and the laughter in the room was genuine, the good feeling infectious and communal. It was entirely likely that, had he asked for it, most of the people present would have gladly offered up their life savings to the cause of Charles' valiant, long-suffering theatrical company. The evening was officially a success.

Afterwards, Charles materialised at James' side as the playwright was attempting to extricate himself from the attentions of an elderly man who was soundly convinced that Peter Pan was a potent metaphor for a Marxist-based governmental process, Arthur having been buttonholed by two medical colleagues. The producer had a glass of champagne in each hand and a cigar in his mouth.

"Splendid turn out, eh, James?" he remarked through the smoke. "I wasn't expecting old Rutland to come along; he's been avoiding me for years after the Knightsbridge debacle." He chuckled richly at what was evidently a particularly amusing memory, and James decided it was probably safest not to enquire as to what exactly the Knightsbridge debacle was. He could see Lord Rutland standing near the fireplace, engaged in what looked to be a rather heated discussion with a man James didn't recognise, a diminutive but forbidding-looking fellow with a sweep of slate grey hair and narrow, slavic eyes. Despite the seemingly intense nature of the conversation, time and again Rutland's eyes flickered tensely across the room to where the slender, ghostly figure of his daughter, Lady Isabella, was sitting by the window, still and pale and silent in her blue evening dress.

"You've certainly outdone yourself, Charles," James said. "Excellent speech, by the way."

The irony in his voice was not lost on Charles. He grinned broadly and pressed one of the champagne flutes into James' hand.

"Excellently insincere, you mean?" he said cheerfully. "Of course one never means these things, dear boy. One always has to butter them up somewhat or the bastards would never cough up a dime." He paused to take an indulgent drag on his cigar. "I believe that part of my job description was the delivering of inane platitudes," he went on with luxurious relish.

"And a fine job you're doing of it," James said mildly.

"Except..." Charles drawled, a knowing glint in his eyes.

"What?"

"There was a qualification behind the praise."

James attempted his most innocent expression. "Of course there wasn't, Charles. I was merely commenting on the remarkable precision of your financial instigations. Positively military, I thought. Calculated, some might even say."

"Arithmetic is just watching the hazel-twig grow longer every day," Charles replied cryptically. James frowned.

"Charles, please don't tell me you've started taking those pink pills again."

Charles straightened in indignation. "Now I won't hear a word said against my pink pills; they came very highly recommended to me by Alma Murray."

"If you insist." James took a sip of champagne, grimacing slightly at its sharpness. His nostrils twitched and he gave his head a quick shake, before turning away with one fluid motion and covering his nose and mouth with his hand. "HR'ISHH!" Powerful, precise.

"Bless you," said Charles, but James held up his hand in warning; a second sneeze was rapidly approaching. One hand swiftly pulling out his handkerchief and shaking it loose, his head turned, eyes cinching shut. The sneeze built, horribly slowly, and James tried not to think about Charles' gaze on him as he waited helplessly, brow flinching with the almost painful tickle, overwhelmed. Just as he was beginning to think that he would never be granted release, his nose twinged sharply and he drew in a sharp breath, handkerchief snapping to his face. "HR'KSSSHHHH!"

Nose still buried, he met Charles' eyes, a little embarrassed. "Excuse me," he said, and heard the growing congestion in his voice. Frustrated, he blew his nose, hard, until his ears popped. "Ugh." He shook his head, trying to clear the heaviness. "I'm sorry, Charles. I've no idea where I caught this wretched thing."

Charles harrumphed darkly. "Those kids, I shouldn't think. Little devils are always picking infections up."

"Hardly fair, Charles."

"Oh, come on. My sister had nine, not including the one she dropped out the window, and she was always having to deal with various...infestations." There was a comically prim shudder in Charles' voice.

James flinched at what appeared to be a particularly cursory description of a child's death and folded his handkerchief, trying to find a dry portion to blow his nose. "It's not the bubonic plague, you know."

"No, but the way you're sneezing everyone in this room will have double pneumonia within a week."

James looked up, eyes alert. "Is that permission to scarper?" he said hopefully.

"Not until you've kept up your side of the bargain," Charles answered reprovingly. "I've had at least five very fine ladies asking me when they might possibly have a moment with the legendary Mr Barrie."

"I do hope you enlightened them as to the truth about my legendary status," James said.

"Oh, hair shirt time again," Charles said crossly. "You seem to take a perverse sort of pleasure in doing yourself down. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were fishing for compliments."

"Ah. My frail ego has been revealed for what it really is."

Charles pointed his cigar at him. "You, my friend, are a disgrace to the great and ancient tradition of sycophancy that is being splendidly upheld in this fine establishment this evening," he said. "I am thoroughly ashamed of you."

James grinned. "I'm glad to hear it." He put his hand on Charles' arm, squeezing lightly. "Really, though, Charles," he added, voice softening with affection. "Well done. It's a spectacle, but a grand spectacle at that."

He could have sworn that the producer pinkened slightly, but that of course could have just been the wine. Either way, Charles' smile was sweetly boyish in its unconcealed pleasure. "We try, don't we?" he said. "Maybe I should go into event management." He squinted across the room and made a small, disgruntled noise. "There's that useless blowhard Jeffrey Hopkirk. I have five guineas to collect from him." He gave James a conciliatory pat. "Come and find me again before you leave. Now for God's sake, James, circulate." He paused, his eyes taking in James' delicately inflamed nostrils. "And...do me a favour," he added. "Try not to breathe, eh?"

With a small wink, Charles set off with a determined manner towards the ballroom, and James once more found himself deserted with just the geranium for company, which on closer inspection he found to be made from cloth. He had every intention of heeding Charles' instructions, of course he did, but there was not a single face he recognised in the immediate vicinity, not even any of the people he usually spent his time at these events avoiding, and Arthur, the treacherous blighter, appeared to have vanished entirely, or had possibly been trampled underfoot. James considered posing a rescue mission, and immediately decided that he vastly preferred the view of the room from this corner that rapidly appeared to be turning into his second home.

Dabbing at his nose with his damp handkerchief, he turned to his left, towards the table where he had put his champagne, but another hand was also reaching for the glass at the same time, a broad, lightly tanned hand with what looked to be an excellent manicure and a gold signet ring adorning the little finger. James pulled his own hand back sharply, as instinctive as if from a danger, almost horrified at how close he had come to touching him...

"Oh, I'm sorry, is this yours?" said a politely neutral voice. "One is well advised not to put things down around here." A light laugh, then a sudden pause that charged the air around them. "Mr Barrie?" James forced himself to lift his gaze.

Gilbert Cannan's smile was imperturbable, his eyes steady, as he held the champagne glass between them.

finis

'A happy man should have the derision of his friends.'

James deliberately puns on the original quote:

'A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends.'

Job 6:14

Gilbert Cannan was actually employed as secretary by J.M. Barrie, and it wasn't in fact until 1909 that a relationship developed between Cannan and Mary Ansell Barrie. I considered for some time whether or not to include this fact in the story, but then decided it would add a dimension that would ultimately prove too complicated to maintain, and since this is Movieverse and not remotely adhering to reality, thought that I would leave the Barrie-Cannan relationship as it is portrayed in the film.

Alma Murray (1854-1945) was a well-known actress of the time, although there is no record of her having known or worked with Charles Frohman in reality. She was noted for her association with radical theatre experiments, in particular her involvement with the Shelley Society's production of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley's banned play The Cenci.

I hope that wasn't too bad, everyone

[count tiszula]

Fabulous stuff! I hope you will realise that it is a compliment when I say that this is one of those stories that I DON'T skip through looking for the sneezes! The whole conception is magnificent; entertaining, absorbing, fascinating...shall I go on.?

By the by, I don't know what a Mary Sue shaped Trojan Horse is. Is there somewhere that I can find a list of all these rules that I keep on breaking? Is a Russian princess a Mary Sue? Or is she something else if she's crept in from a different fandom?

Having said which, I don't suppose you want me to mention the titles. Still, he should have driven in a stanhope for maximum manoeuvrability.

[sneezeadorer]

Are you kidding??! That was fantastic!!! I love the way that you don't let the sneezefic aspect of the story get in the way of your wonderful narrative, but instead let it flow naturally - I can really see it all happening, it's just great to read, your attention to detail is amazing! And of course the sneezing is sooo good too...

[tma]

Absolutely worth the wait. Brilliant- as is the rest of it. I ADORE this time period and I am absolutely enchanted and spellbound with the way that you weave the characters in and out seamlessly.

I cannot fathom that you would employ a OC/Mary Sue (not sure what the "technical def." of Mary Sue is, but...) to Anything but the best use.

Hmmm... as usual I just ate up SO much this. The desciptions the conversations. But I'll try to pull out some of my Particular fav. parts.

chandeliers blazed, and the light glittered ticklishly off the jewels on the dresses and in the hair of the women, and the studded shirt-fronts and cufflinks of the men. Double doors opened into the ballroom where the floor was polished to a slippery gleam, the intermingling scents of cigar smoke, perfume and sweat hung in the air like an invisible fog, and a small orchestra, playing uncontroversial waltzes behind a clutch of potted plants, was almost drowned out by the bray of aristocratic voices

Brilliant desciption. Extremely evocative.

"HR'ISSSHH!" A second verged on him immediately; it developed with such intensity and then retreated again with such startling capriciousness that James actually began the sneeze, a sharp, muffled 'Heh-!' against his hand, before hesitating, eyes still closed, finding to his dismay that the sneeze had literally stopped halfway. He was about to lower his hand in frustration when the sensation returned, so powerfully that he gasped a sharp inward breath and cupped both hands to his face, sneezing with a wet, desperate sound that jerked him forward. "Hhrrrcchhsshhooo!"

LOVED that! Just such a poetry in your way of descibing it.

Now for God's sake, James, circulate." He paused, his eyes taking in James' delicately inflamed nostrils. "And...do me a favour," he added. "Try not to breathe, eh?"

Loved that too... totally made me grin.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing this!!

[Triosk1]

That was fantastic, as expected And no one here would dream of accusing you of Mary-Sue-ism. To the best of my knowledge, after seeing it crop up interminably on a RP site I'm part of, and eventually looking it up, a Mary-Sue is a character who is too perfect, or too damaged to be realistic. They are either brilliant at everything, pretty, intelligent, adored by all who gaze upon them etc, or they have a totally over-the-top backstory of tragedy and heartbreak, so that they are totally scarred for life, but battle on. Or (in the case of my RP which was fantasy) they have special powers which will always give them the edge over anyone else's characters and are therefore just annoying. Obviously if you can write well, having a character with a tragic past is ok, but it's only when people make them totally perfect, so they are always doing the right thing, and never make mistakes or lose it with anyone. Aaanyway, I am now waffling. Mistress Quickly, you would never be accused of Mary-Sue-ism because all of your characters are great and well-rounded and believable.

To return to the story, I laughed my way through it, and I love your writing style; it fits the era, and James' sarcastic sense of humour, perfectly. And like Count de Tisza, I also don't skip through for the sneezes, which is unusual. My fave bits:

The traffic was backing up with worrying intensity, and within five minutes of trying to maneouvre the victoria into a gap between a coach-and-four and a brougham, the driver had found six of the most imaginative uses for the word 'bugger' that James had ever heard.

Made me laugh a lot.

The cabbie accepted the money with a kind of sulky reluctance, counting the coins between grubby fingers, Fagin-like. "And you need to be quicker on yer pins than that," he replied, gimlet-eyed. "Trust a pair of micks to stand like bleedin' pansies in the rain. Cheerio."

The victoria was halfway down the street by the time James realised that the cabbie had got his casual insult to James and Arthur's national pedigree wrong. He straightened his shoulders defiantly.

"Micks may stand in the rain," he said. "Jocks run through it. Onwards, my bonny wee laddie."

I'd just noted that they weren't 'micks' when I read the next line. It's nice when you see that the author has come up with your thought as well.

"Which one's Lady Drummond?" he asked. "I suppose I ought to know who she is. Charles has introduced me to her husband often enough; you'd think he had hopes for our future together."

A great observation of the etiquette of the time.

James laughed, feeling inside his pocket for his handkerchief. "Some would say I gladly gave her away."

Arthur's expression softened, and there was a sadness in his eyes as he watched James blow his nose. "Some would say you didn't see it coming, and that it's a damn shame."

"Ah." James' voice was muffled through the cloth of his handkerchief. "There was a lot I didn't see coming, Arthur." He wouldn't meet Arthur's eyes. For once, he was glad for the arrival of a sneeze. He stifled it hastily, pinching his nose tightly through his handkerchief and holding the tickly explosion at the back of his sore throat. "heh-KNXT!" When he straightened again, he involuntarily found himself giving a weary sigh. His nostrils were already beginning to feel tender with the ministrations of his handkerchief and when he swallowed his throat seemed to grate against itself. He could virtually feel his adenoids swelling as he stood there.

"And I certainly didn't expect this," he croaked.

"Observation never was your strong point," Arthur said darkly.

So sweet! I am biased from the fact that I loved Ian Hart in this role and am inclined to like him in this story, but it was a very sweet moment.

Afterwards, Charles materialised at James' side as the playwright was attempting to extricate himself from the attentions of an elderly man who was soundly convinced that Peter Pan was a potent metaphor for a Marxist-based governmental process

Nice flashbacks to my poetry analysis days...

Now for God's sake, James, circulate." He paused, his eyes taking in James' delicately inflamed nostrils. "And...do me a favour," he added. "Try not to breathe, eh?"

Just hilarious.

Ok I'll stop babbling now.

[Mistress Quickly]

Wow. You know, I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your comments; it's wonderful receiving any kind of feedback, but such glowing praise is actually really unexpected. I am so glad that you are all enjoying this as much I am writing it, and that you were all so patient and supportive enough to wait for such a long time.

Count de Tisza, I certainly do take that as a compliment, and that really reassures any concerns I had about readers here being frustrated with the dense plot overcoming the sneezefic element. Call it a fanfic/sneezefic crossover I also am particularly grateful for the fact that you're taking my story seriously enough to point out the historical facts that I haven't got correct. In the future, I might pick your brains about any Edwardian details I'm uncertain about!

I think Kastrel has eloquently described pretty much what a 'Mary Sue' constitutes; over on Fanfiction.net they are a much-dreaded phenomena in many a story. I was just worried that people might read my description of Isabella Rutland (a character of my invention) and think, hang on, I smell a suspiciously attractive, mysteriously anonymous young thing who is going to waylay our hero with her poignancy, overt beauty and general brilliance and thus hijack the entire tale down a convoluted path of syrupy romance. I just wanted to make sure everyone here knew that I definitely wouldn't be taking this story in that hideous direction, and am really touched by everyone's faith in me that that wouldn't occur.

I'm glad everyone enjoyed the humour; I was trying to balance somewhat precariously between the sardonic ridiculousness and the very real tension of the evening. I'm glad that I've seemingly achieved some of this.

So sweet! I am biased from the fact that I loved Ian Hart in this role and am inclined to like him in this story, but it was a very sweet moment.

Haha, well I'm having a great time writing the relationship between Arthur and James, and as one Ian Hart fan to another, I'm thrilled you're enjoying it too, Kastrel.

The next part WILL NOT take very long. It's refreshing being back to writing it again.

[Mistress Quickly]

How's this for record speed? Anyway, many thanks to the usual suspects: tma, kastrel, sneezeadorer, count de tisza and anyone else who might have been reading. I know one shouldn't write for the reviews, but I think any fanfic author has to admit that it does add a special, lovely glow to the whole experience to have such great readers.

A/N: I must say that this chapter gave me a bit of trouble, even though I wrote it relatively quickly. There are elements of angst and unhappiness in it that I found somewhat difficult to reconcile, to write 'in keeping' with the feel of the film and of the character of Barrie. I think Depp's portrayal of Barrie is noted for its almost subdued quality, a certain stillness; it's difficult to decipher what he may be feeling and this almost seems to suggest a man who has spent a lot of his life refusing his feelings. As I have reiterated multiple times, this is NOT a story that concerns the real Barrie himself, or attempts to portray his true nature in any way; this is Depp's Barrie alone. However, there is a considerable amount of darkness in the man, both in the film and in reality, and it always struck me, through Depp's performance, that there was a lot of unresolved tension inside him, a frustration and almost-despair. Of course, he was known to be plagued by depression, and I think this is definitely suggested at in the movie. I mainly drew my cues for this chapter from the scene in Finding Neverland where Barrie comes home from the country to find his wife alone, in their house at night, with Gilbert Cannan. There is such a look of icy anger in his eyes that I'm surprised she didn't freeze to death, and it's an interesting contrast to the softness and warmth to him the rest of the time. Either way, this chapter troubles me a little, mainly because I'm unsure whether or not I've done the tension justice. This is also the point at which my plot kicks in proper and any remaining vestige of historical fact goes out the window.

I'll stop waffling now. I really hope the sneezes aren't considered too meagre in this part.

(Oh, and I've decided to start titling the chapters, as I'm doing on FF.net. Just for fun )

Chapter 6: The Infernal Device

Three days before James' marriage to Mary, an article had appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette which bore no immediately obvious significance amidst the clamorous other outpourings of bored journalism that always emerged during the summer months, but which had begun one of those insidious whispering campaigns against James' perception of the world that tends to change how one views it forever. The Gazette was a respectable enough journalistic institution for the most part, but under the editorship of the publicity-minded William Taylor Stead had become somewhat prone to exaggeration, particularly when it came to rumours of an American ilk; in 1894, the United States had still enjoyed a vaguely mythic status in the minds of most ordinary, untraveled British folk. As it was, hoaxes had a habit of making it across the Atlantic undetected. The article in question had been one of those mildly hysterical, scientifically-ambiguous ravings that indicated that Jules Verne had a lot to answer for: aside from inducing irrational paranoia, what the article hoped to achieve was unspecified, but the crux of its subject had been the sensational findings of a California scientist of dubious professional merit, who had proposed that the core-structure of the centre of the earth was turning increasingly slowly, a phenomena that would continue until the finely-tuned rhythm that maintained the equilibrium of the planet itself stopped completely and thus rendered all human endeavour ultimately pointless. For the uninitated, who might have been unable to visualise just what this spectacle would look like, the Gazette had provided a helpful illustration to aid the layman reader's full appreciation of global catastrophe, all drawn with a kind of hideous, dribbling relish. To James, about to embark upon one the most uncertain and perilous ventures of anyone's life, this in itself had had a pleasing irony to it. The proposed end to all civilisation was enough to make anyone consider the true implication of 'till death us do part'.

James had allowed his mind to idle upon this for several days afterwards. At first, he had had a rather charming mental image of the centre of the earth being run by clockwork, all gleaming cogs and intricate wheels pleasantly ticking along, an entirely self-contained and efficient little device that kept the tremendous heart of the earth pulsating quite smoothly, thank you very much. But then out of nowhere, rust had begun to spread like a disease; the quaint, ingenious machine faltered, strangling itself as its bolts tightened and its joints ground together, shuddering to a calamitous and agonised halt. The earth's heart failed. Human life assumed its designated pointlessness. Idling as he was, James had amused himself in considering what his own reaction to this situation might be. He imagined that he would seem calm, preternaturally calm, his adrenaline enjoying a converse relationship with this new information; a bit like inverted panic. In a way, this was a digging over of old sensations; it sent him back to childhood, in the months following David's death when he used to wake up every morning convinced that he himself had died in the night and not noticed; could there be any other reason for the way his mother's eyes always seemed to look straight through him as though he didn't exist? It was a dark fantasy, this myth of the apocalpyse, the point at which consequences become obsolete and any action is allowable. At least it had given people something to talk about for a few days. It was somewhat typical that the most intelligible response the article got was from a disgruntled physics professor in Hull who pointed out that the method of geophysical calculation the scientist had used had gone out of date in 1845. And so the earth kept turning. At three o' clock on a Monday afternoon, James Barrie married Mary Ansell.

Standing in that window-stained chapel as the motes of sunlight danced around them like fairy dust, James had expected the event of earthly ruin about as much as he had expected that just over ten years later he would be looking into the calm green eyes of the man who was his wife's lover, as just behind him he could hear his own personal history being clumsily related by two breathless young women who clearly thought that their whispered exclamations would not reach the ears of their subject, the more titillatingly tragic elements embroidered with giddy urgency. Presumably the Pall Mall Gazette would have provided a diagram.

"I thought that I saw you earlier," Cannan said. He paused a moment, his eyes running over James' face, as if uncertain of how to continue. Then, looking almost as though he were choosing his words with great care, he set the champagne glass down on the table and turned back to James with a diplomatic smile. "I suppose it was really only a matter of time before we ran into one another."

"Yes." James barely recognised his own clipped tone. He sniffed and lowered his handkerchief, tucking it carefully into the inside pocket of his jacket. Behind him, eagerly: "And his wife - I heard she just upped and left - just walked out - "

Cannan put his hands behind his back, rocking a little on his heels. "Bane of the profession, really," he went on. Still, still that measured smile, that sickening extended pleasantry. But when he spoke again, his voice was softer, his earnest gaze seemingly intended to convey something of import. "One never can hide from the consequences of one's behaviour."

James felt a muscle beneath his left eye twitch. Every instinct native to his true self wanted to turn around and walk away, out of that place, away from those people with their money and their jarring laughter and their cruel prejudices, away from Charles with his deluded sense of priority, away from the Rutland girl with her haunted stare and lifeless smile, away from the mindlessly chattering socialites and their vacuous preoccupation with the ugliest, most painful secrets of his life. Away from him. And yet even when inside his head he was already turning on his heel and treading that path through the gallery, past the rigid footman and the charity-box lady, out into the rain where breathing was possible again, even as he felt that familiar sensation of his own consciousness expanding somewhere outside of his body, James lifted his chin and returned Cannan's gaze dead-on.

"I assure you that your behaviour has been entirely inconsequential, Mr Cannan."

Cannan blinked, looking - could it be? - almost wrong-footed. Then he caught himself, shook his head; his smile was thinner now. There was something heavy, almost rueful in his expression. "You have every right, of course, Mr Barrie..."

"I am fully aware of my rights, thank you. I had them very clearly explained to me by Richard Sackville." James felt his eyes harden. "You know Mr Sackville, I imagine. Quite an eminent divorce lawyer."

"...she was carrying on with this fellow..."

Cannan looked down at his hands, spreading his fingers like a pianist before commencing a sonata. "I don't want this to sound like too much of a welsher, old man." His tone was almost apologetic. "I suppose what I really wanted to say was that I think you've been a damned good sport about the whole thing. Took it on the chin, really. Admire that in a chap." He lifted a shoulder, almost defensively. "All's fair, they say. Neither of us wanted it to be too much of an ordeal." How quickly he and Mary had been absorbed into the plural pronoun, and how equally quickly James had become the singular.

"...I think she sounds like a devil..."

"I just felt I should tell you." Cannan was insistent now; he seemed to have found some sort of rhythm in his speech, a clear pattern that he could follow, an act to be performed, that of the magnanimous interloper eager to reward the betrayed husband's apparent lack of vengefulness. James considered his own role in this charade carefully; if tradition had its way, he should probably wallop the man. Tradition, however, had never held much attraction for James, and besides, he had the distinct feeling that if he aimed for Cannan's nose he would most likely meet with his ear instead. His ancestors would have been appalled. Still, it was hardly the environment for a rough house. He had two other options left open to him: either give Cannan what he wanted, smile and accept the backhanded compliment like a duellist praised for taking the bullet well...

Or, alternatively...

"I'm sure Mary would be very pleased to know that her suitor has such charitable inclinations. And how is she this evening? Keeping well, I hope. She must have quite a fair bit of spare time on her hands nowadays." Even James winced inwardly at that one as he said it; it was a low blow indeed. In that same moment it occured to him just what precisely it was that was thickening his already congested voice, intensifying his accent even to his own ears, hardening the vowel sounds and sharply-biting his pronounciation, turning his usually soft, frank intonation almost guttural. It was anger, a bleak, cold anger, and the realisation marked him. Somewhere inside him, the person who was not the harsh-voiced man standing trapped in a corner registered a distant shock at the hatred he felt for Cannan.

"She's very well," said Cannan, at exactly the same moment as one of the girls standing behind James insisted hotly to her companion, "Of course, her reputation was completely ruined." Cannan's eyes flickered irritably in their direction, as James frowned, his jaw tightening. "She's well," Cannan repeated, more firmly this time. "She would have been here this evening but she had an engagement she couldn't break." It was flannel of course; any clamour for Mary's attention had been virtually extinguished the day she gave up the stage. It had been part of the reason for her subsequent determination to establish herself as a light on the Kensington charity circuit. Existing, in whatever stamped-out form, had always mattered to Mary.

Whereas for James, there would always be newer, more inventive ways for social humiliation. He was almost allowed to speak, almost; he almost began, half a word, not even knowing quite what he was going to say, but a sneeze overwhelmed him, the worst moment possible. He fought it, turning away, panting, the back of his hand pressed against his nose. The act of trying to suppress the sneeze made him splutter, then cough, which in itself acted as a helpless trigger; he pinched his nose and sneezed, hard against the pressure, and the stifled explosion seemed to echo inside his head. "h'KNXT!" He gave his head a shake, trying to clear the ringing in his ears, his free hand feeling inside his jacket pocket for his handkerchief. True to form, a second bloomed at the back of his throat before he could pull his handkerchief out; a deep breath in, his eyebrows lifted, a fraction of a pause, and - "hr'SSHHH!" - a very wet, fiercely stifled sneeze, this time cupping his hand over his nose and mouth and feeling the wet spray of the sneeze in his palm. The third was too powerful to contain; it wrenched him forward with a thunderous "Hrrrrrrssssssshhhhhh!", just containing it in the damp cloth of his handkerchief. So strong had been the sneeze that a bespectacled gentleman passing to James' left muttered an almost absent-minded 'Bless you' as he went by. Some would say it was ironic that the usually softly-spoken, genteel Scot had such loud sneezes.

Feeling the pricklings of dismayed embarrassment at the back of his neck, James blew his nose wetly, wishing that he had possessed the foresight to bring another handkerchief. Cannan had blessed him impeccably with the first two sneezes, but now he stood watching him with an almost concerned flinch in his eyes.

"A cold," he pronounced, unquestioning, as James straightened and forced himself to return the other man's gaze.

"A cold, aye." He nodded, lifting his handkerchief again to dab at his sore nose. "Something else of no particular consequence."

"One should never underestimate the importance of one's health." James found himself unreasonably irritated by Cannan's use of the third person, when the chide was clearly ungeneralised.

But his nose saw fit to disgrace him again. He drew back away from Cannan once more, this time burying his nose in his handkerchief. The sneeze played with him, agonisingly. It started to come out - "heh - " - and then promptly backed away again. "heh..." He sniffed, trying to coax it, but the sneeze was stubborn, content with merely tantalising him, just out of reach of relief. Finally, frustrated, embarrassed, hating himself, and Cannan, and this damned head-cold that was so laying waste to his dignity, James lowered his handkerchief, reached up and pinched his nose tightly at the bridge to bring the sneeze around on his own. "Hh....hrrrssssshhhhhhh!" At last.

Cannan was still watching him, still with that quietness in his eyes. "If Mary had known, I'm sure she would have sent her regards." His tone was openly sincere now; for all the world he sounded like a physician extending condolences. James looked away.

Across the room, someone of apparent consequence was evidently about to leave; hands were being shaken, brittle courtesies exchanged, a footman was arriving with a lady's cloak. Rutland, Arthur's racing man, Charles' investor with half of Derbyshire in his back pocket, was making a conservatively timed departure from the party. Lady Rutland was fussily arranging her shawl about her, skirts plucked fastidiously into place; the cloak was for Isabella. She was toying with a handkerchief in a kind of sulky boredom, while her father stood impassively next to her. He seemed to prompt her, she glanced at him, sighed and put out her hand towards a man who a moment later James recognised as the compact, sly-eyed fellow who had been so troubling Rutland earlier on. He clasped the girl's hand a heartbeat too long; when he let go, James saw her pass her palm swiftly over her skirt, as though to rid herself of the traces, the residue, the sensation of his grasp. Then she was moving with her parents towards the door, a procession, magisterial, still acknowledging and extending farewells as they left.

James turned his head, breathed once, and looked back at Cannan.

The man's eyes were alive with compassion.

James felt as though he had suddenly been stripped naked and plunged into a snowdrift, or saved himself half a stumble away from a fall. He caught his breath and looked away again, his face burning; hotness sprang up inside him, a well of fire which scorched his throat and made his stomach constrict painfully, but even then he felt his own eyes drawn back to Cannan's, and it was true or he couldn't read human emotion at all; there was compassion there, and understanding, and a kind of warming pity that made James feel almost nauseous with the shame. He could have borne anything else; he had wanted, childishly, stupidly, hatefully, to provoke anger, or doubt, or any other kind of disruptive fissure in Cannan's implacable calm, but he couldn't bear that. There was already so little left of himself that he could live with, so much in his own reflection that he could find to despise. Gilbert Cannan's pity flayed him to the bone.

Not entirely trusting himself to speak, James wet his lips and exhaled, slowly. He found it somewhat easier to focus on the white, starched linen of Cannan's collar. He wondered vaguely how many attempts it had taken for him to get the bow so perfectly straight. "I'm glad - " he began, and turned away with perfect fluidity to release another sneeze. "H'rssshhhhhh!" He hesitated a moment, breathing unsteadily, eyes still closed, waiting for a second. When it didn't come, he straightened cautiously and sniffed, his voice roughened when he spoke again: "I'm glad to hear that she's happy enough."

"Happy enough," Cannan echoed, inflecting the words somehow differently, not quite a question. For a moment, James' eyes were held by his.

"It really wasn't personal," Cannan said quietly.

He was standing with one hand on the table, his fingertips resting just lightly against the cloth. James faced him at an angle, but he could still see the arched, night-black windows over Cannan's shoulder. It was still raining. The flickering light from the cab-lamps outside was distorted through the mingling drops on the glass, and it glittered and glimmered and trembled there like a thing of strange, half-living beauty. James thought of Mary, alone on the darkened stairs; of Sylvia, her smiling face in the sunlight, green and gold among the trees...

"I must go," he said numbly.

"Mr Barrie - " Cannan made as if to step forward, but at the same time an eager voice from behind him repeated the words in delight. "Mr Barrie?"

One of the gossiping young chits had clasped his arm, limpid eyes shining. James almost jerked his arm away from her in surprise, looking in confusion from the accosting girl to her friend, virtually identical in their prodigiously ribboned pink tulle dresses. He opened his mouth but the girl rushed on.

"Mr Barrie, I can't begin to tell you how thrilling it is to finally make your acquaintance. Alice and I were just talking about your many great theatrical successes; it is really quite, quite the joy realised, isn't it, Alice?" She was actually breathless by the end, her silly, gauche, plump-cheeked face alight with a flushing wonder; Alice merely clutched her hands together and nodded, a rapt smile strangely immobile on her face.

"I'm sorry - " James began, but again the shrillish voice cut across him.

"If you could allow us just a moment to speak with you. We have both so longed to meet you ever since Peter Pan. I saw it ten times."

"Miss - " James tried again, and the girl thrust out her hand.

"Esther Blount," she said winningly. "I imagine you've met my father, Augustus Blount; he is one of this theatre's most enthusiastic benefactors. We are a very artistically-minded family," she added, with what she presumably thought was an impassioned throb to her voice. "It is something one inherits, of course. I have often dreamt of pursuing the stage myself." There was the gleam of avarice in her eyes, and James knew what was coming.

"Miss Blount." He stepped back away from her, leaving her hand extended, unshaken. The girl's beatific smile wavered. He concentrated on controlling his voice. "My sincerest apologies, but I really must be going."

Esther Blount's smooth, pink forehead puckered in consternation. "Going?" she repeated disbelievingly. "But surely, Mr Barrie, just a word or two... It wouldn't be for long - "

"Ladies," Cannan intercepted placatingly, at the same time as James echoed his refrain of "I'm very sorry'; the girls' heads swiveled uncomprehendingly between the two men. "But Mr Barrie," Esther Blount began again, taking a step towards him; Cannan held up a hand. The Alice creature blinked stupidly. James half-turned, found a crush of heavily-cologned investors blocking his escape, turned back again, almost ready to push the wretched Esther Blount out of the way so that he could just -

His eyes had met with Cannan's again when the explosion came.

The first sound they heard was a muffled crack like the break in the air before a clap of thunder rolls out. Even as the people in the room began to turn towards the noise, puzzlement etched on their faces, it was followed only a second or two later by another, louder boom, and a blast of air that blew the windows open, the panes shattering inwards. Everyone seemed to instinctively duck, hands flying to cover faces as the air was suddenly sharp with fragments of spitting glass. Immediately afterwards, as the rumbles of the explosion died away, there was a moment of perfect stillness, as every person in the room seemed to stand quite frozen and the dust began to gather in a cloud from the obliterated windows, and then the first scream rang out, a panicked wail that rose up inexorably from the wreckage beneath the ruined north wall of the Duke of York's Theatre.

finis

A/N: The Pall Mall Gazette was indeed noted for its familiar tabloid mix of moral outrage and titillation, and many credit William Taylor Stead with virtually pioneering modern British popular journalism. Obviously, however, the story I accuse the Gazette of carrying is my invention.

Of course, nothing like that ever happened to the Duke of York's Theatre. Just my naughty artistic license.