Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

  As she moved towards the bay window, she was considering whether she would decide to have her say first, or whether she would let Ronnie begin. Her wonderful news was so all-important. Having made up her mind that the time had come when she might at last share it with Ronnie, it seemed almost impossible to wait one moment before telling him. On the other hand, it would be so absorbing to them both, that probably Ronnie's subject would be allowed to lapse, completely forgotten and unmentioned. Nothing which was of even the most transitory interest to Ronnie, ever met this fate at his wife's hands. Therefore the very certainty that her news would outweigh his, inclined her to let him speak first.

  She was spared the responsibility of decision.

  Ronald, turning quickly, faced his wife. Hesitation seemed futile; promptness, essential. In hoc vince!

  "Helen," he said, "I want to go to Central Africa."

  Helen looked at him in silence, during a moment of immense astonishment.

  Then she lifted his hat and gloves, laid them upon a table, seated herself in her easy-chair, and carefully flicked some specks of dust from her riding-habit.

  "That is a long way to want to go, darling," she said, quietly. "But I can see you think something of imperative importance is calling you there. Sit down and tell me all about it, right from the beginning. It is a far cry from our happy, beautiful life here, to Central Africa. You have jumped me to the goal, without any knowledge of the way. Now suppose you take me gently along your mental route."

  Ronald flung himself, with a sigh of relief, into the deep basket-work chair opposite Helen's. His boyish face cleared visibly; thenbrightened into enthusiasm. He stretched out his legs, put his hands behind his head, and looked admiringly across at his wife.

  "Helen, you are so perfectly splendid in always understanding, always making it quite easy for a fellow to tell you things. You have a way of looking past all minor details, straight to the great essentials. Most women would stand——"

  "Never mind what most women would do, Ronnie. I never stand, if I can sit down! It is a waste of useful energy. But you must tell me 'the great essentials,' as they appear to you, if I am to view them properly. Why do you want to go to Central Africa?"

  Ronald leapt up and stood with his back to the mantel-piece.

  "Helen, I have a new plot; a quite wonderful love-story; better than anything I have done yet. But the scene is laid in Central Africa, and I must go out there to get the setting vivid and correct. You remember how thrilled we were the other day, by the account of that missionary chap, who disappeared into the long grass, thirteen feet high, over twenty years ago; lived and worked among the natives, cut off from all civilisation; then, at last, crawled out again and saw a railway train for the first time in twenty-three years; got on board, and came home, full of wonderful tales of his experiences? Well—you know how, after he had been out there a few years, he found he desperately needed a wife; remembered a plucky girl he had known when he was a boy in England, and managed to get a letter home, asking her to come out to him? She came, and safely reached the place appointed, at the fringe of the wild growth. There she waited several months. But at last the man who had called to her in his need, crawled out of the long grass, took her to himself, and they crawled in again—man and wife—and were seen no more, until they reappeared many years later. Well—that true story has given me the idea of a plot, which will, I verily believe, take the world by storm! So original and thrilling! Far beyond any missionary love-stories."

  Helen's calm eyes looked into the excited shining of his.

  "Dear, why shouldn't a missionary's love-story be as exciting as any other? I don't quite see how you can better the strangely enthralling tale to which we listened."

  "Ah, don't you?" cried Ronald West. "That's because you are not a writer of romances! My dear girl, two men crawled out of the long grass thirteen feet high, at the place where the woman was waiting! Two men—do you see? And the man who crawled out first was not the man who had sent for her! He turned up just too late. Now, do you see?"

  "I see," said Helen. "Thirteen is always apt to be an unlucky number."

  "Oh, don't joke!" cried Ronald. "I haven't time to tell you, now, how it all works out. But it's quite the strongest thing I've thought of yet. And do you see what it means to me? Think of the weird, mysterious atmosphere of Central Africa, as a setting for a really strong love-interest. Imagine three quite modern, present-day people, learning to know their own hearts and each other's, fighting out the crisis of their lives according to the accepted rules and standards of twentieth century civilisation—yet all amongst the wild primitive savagery of uncivilised tribes, and the extraordinary primeval growths of the unexplored jungles, where plants ape animals, and animals ape men, and all nature rears its head with a loose rein, as if defying method, law, order and construction! Why, merely to walk through some of the tropical houses at Kew gives one a sort of lawless feeling! If I stay long among the queer gnarled plants—all spiky and speckled and hairy; squatting, plump and ungainly on the ground, or spreading huge knotted arms far overhead, as if reaching out for things they never visibly attain—I always emerge into the ordinary English atmosphere outside, feeling altogether unconventional. As I walk across the well-kept lawns, I find it almost difficult to behave with decorum. It takes me quite a long time to become really common-place and conventional once more."

  Helen smiled. "Darling," she said, "I think you must have visited the tropical plants in Kew Gardens more frequently than I realised! I shall have to forbid Kew, when certain important County functions are pending."

  "Oh, bother the County!" cried Ronnie. "I never went in for a French dancing-master to bid me mind my P's and Q's! But, seriously, Helen, don't you understand how much this means to me? Both my last novels have had tame English settings. I can't go on forever letting my people make love in well-kept gardens!"

  "Dear Ronnie, you have a good precedent. The first couple on record made love in a garden."

  "Nonsense, darling! Eden was a quite fascinating jungle, in which all the wild animals conversed with intelligence and affability. You don't suppose Eve would have stood there alone, calmly listening while the serpent talked theology, unless conversations with animals had been an every-day occurrence. Think how you'd flee to me, if an old cow in the park suddenly asked you a question. But do let's keep to the point. I've got a new plot, and I must have a new setting."

  "Why not be content to do as you have done before, Ronnie; go on writing, simply and sincerely, of the life you live and know?"

  "Because, my dear girl, in common with the Athenians, people are always wanting either to tell or to hear some new thing. I've got hold of a jolly new thing, and I'm going to run it for all it's worth."

  Helen considered this in silence.

  Ronald walked over to the window, and beat a tattoo upon the In hoc vince pane.

  "Do you see?" he asked.

  "Yes," she answered, slowly. "I see your point, but I also see danger ahead. I am so anxious that, in your work, you should keep the object and motive at the highest; not putting success or popularity in their wrong place. Let success be the result of good work well done—conscientiously done. Let popularity follow unsought, simply from the fact that you have been true to yourself, and to your instinctive inspiration; that you have seen life at its best, and tried to portray it at its highest. To go rushing off to Central Africa in order to find a startling setting, is an angling after originality, which will by no means ensure doing really better work. Oh, Ronnie, my advice is: be content to stay at home, and to write truly and sincerely of the things you know."

  Ronald came back to his chair; sat down, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and looked earnestly into the troubled eyes of his wife.

  "But, Helen," he said, "that really is not the point. Can't you see that I am completely possessed by this new plot? Also, that Central Africa is its only possible setting? It is merely a satisfactory side-issue, that it varies my mi
se-en-scène."

  "Must you go off there, Ronnie, in order to write it? Why not get all the newest and best books on African travel, and read up facts——"

  "Never!" cried Ronald, on his feet again, and walking up and down the room. "I must be steeped in the wonderful African atmosphere, before I can sub-consciously work it into my book. No account of other men's travels could do this for me. Besides, one might get all the main things correct, yet make a slip in some little unimportant detail. Then, by-and-by, some Johnny would come along, who could no more have written a page of your book than he could fly, but who happens to be intimately acquainted with the locality. He ignores the plot, the character-study, all the careful work on the essentials; but he spots your trivial error concerning some completely unimportant detail. So off he writes to the papers, triumphantly airing his little tit-bit of superior information; other mediocre people take it up—and you never hear the end of it."

  Helen laughed, tender amusement in her eyes.

  "Ronnie dear, I admit that not many Johnnies could write your books. But most Johnnies can fly, now-a-days! You must be more up-to-date in your similes, old boy; or you will have your wife writing to the papers, remarking that you are behind the times! But, seriously, Ronnie, you should be grateful to anybody who takes the trouble to point out an error, however small, in one of your books. You are keen that your work should be perfect; and if a mistake is mentioned, it can be set right. Why, surely you remember, when you read me the scene in the manuscript you wrote just after our marriage, in which a good lady could not sit down upon a small chair, owing to her toupet, I—your admiring and awestruck wife—ventured to point out that a toupet was not a crinoline; and you were quite grateful, Ronnie. You did not consider me an unappreciative Johnny, nor even a mediocre person! Who has, unknown to me, been trampling on your susceptibilities?"

  "Nobody, thank goodness! I have never written a scene yet, of which I had not carefully verified every detail of the setting. But it has happened lots of times to people I know. Unimportant slips never seem to me to matter in another fellow's work, but they would matter desperately, horribly, appallingly in one's own. Therefore, nothing will ever induce me to place the plot of a novel of mine, in surroundings with which I am not completely familiar. Helen—I must go to Central Africa."

  The Sob Of The Woman

  Helen took off her riding-hat, and passed her fingers through the abundant waves of her hair.

  "How long would it take you, Ronnie?" "Well—including the journey out, and the journey back, I ought to have a clear seven months. If we could get off in a fortnight, we might be back early in November; anyway, in plenty of time for Christmas."

  "Why do you say 'we,' darling?"

  "Why not say 'we'? We always do, don't we?"

  "Yes, dear. For three happy years it has always been 'we,' in everything. We have not been parted for longer than twelve hours at a time, Ronnie. But I fear Central Africa cannot be 'we.' I do not feel that I could go out there with you."

  "Helen! Why not? I thought you would be keen on it. I thought you were game to go anywhere!" Amazement and dismay were in his eyes.

  She rose slowly, went over to the mantel-piece, moved some little porcelain figures, then put them back again.

  When at length she spoke, she steadied her voice with an effort.

  "Ronnie dear, Central Africa is not a place for a woman."

  "But, my dearest girl, a woman arrives there in my story! She crawls into the long grass with the man she loves, and disappears. Our missionary's bride did it. Where a woman could not go, I must not go for my local colour. Oh, I say, Helen! You won't fail me?"

  He walked over to the window, and drummed again, with restless, nervous fingers, upon the In hoc vince pane.

  She came behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder.

  "Darling, it will break my heart if you think I am failing you. But, while you have been talking, I have faced the matter out, and—I must tell you at once—I cannot feel it either right or possible to go. I could not be away just now, for seven months. This place must be looked after. Think of the little church we are building in the village; the farms changing tenants this summer; the hundred and one things I, and I only, must settle and arrange. You never see the bailiff; you hardly know the tenants; you do not oversee the workpeople. So you can scarcely judge, dear Ronnie, how important is my presence here; how almost impossible it would be for me suddenly to go completely out of reach. My darling—if you keep to it, if you really intend to go, we must face the fact that it will mean, for us, a long parting."

  The tension of suspense held the stillness of the room.

  Then: "It is my profession," said Ronald West, huskily. "It is my career."

  She moved round and faced him. They stood looking at one another, dumbly.

  She knew all that was in his mind, and most that was in his heart.

  He knew nothing of that which filled her mind at the moment, and only partly realised the great, unselfish love for him which filled her heart.

  He was completely understood. He rested in that fact, without in the least comprehending his own lack of comprehension.

  Moving close to him, she laid both hands upon his shoulders, hiding her face in silence against his breast.

  He stroked her soft hair—helplessly, tenderly.

  With his whole heart he loved her, leaned upon her, needed her. She had done everything for him; been everything to him.

  But he meant to carry his point. He intended to go to Central Africa, and it was no sort of good pretending he did not. You never pretended with Helen, because she saw through you immediately, and usually told you so.

  He had not spent a single night away from her since that wonderful day when, calm and radiant, she had moved up the church in presence of an admiring crowd, and taken her place at his side.

  He was practically unknown then, as a writer. No one but Helen believed in him, or understood what he had it in him to accomplish. Whereas Helen herself was the last representative of an ancient County family, owner of Hollymead Grange, and of a considerable income; courted, admired, sought after. Yet she gave herself to him, in humble tenderness. Helen had a royal way of giving. The very way she throned you in her heart, dropped you on one knee before her footstool.

  He had fully justified her belief in him; but he well knew how much of his success he owed to her. Their love had taught him lessons, given him ideals which had not been his before.

  But there was nothing selfish or sentimental about Helen. When the most sacred of their experiences crept into his work, and stoodrevealed for all the world to read; when his art transferred to hard type, and to the black and white of print and paper, the magic thrill of Helen's tenderness, so that all her friends could buy it for four shillings and sixpence, and discuss it at leisure, Helen never winced. She only smiled and said: "The world has a right to every beautiful thing we can give it. I have always felt indignant with the people who collect musical instruments which they have no intention of playing; who lock up Strads and Cremonas in glass cases, thus holding them dumb for ever to the eager ear of a listening world."

  Only once, when he had put into a story a tender little name by which Helen sometimes called him, unable to resist giving his hero the bliss he, on those rare occasions, himself felt—he found a firm pencil line drawn through the words, when he looked at the proof sheets, after Helen had returned them to his desk. She never mentioned the matter to him, nor did he speak of it to her; but his hero had to forego that particular thrill, and it was a long time before Ronald himself heard again the words Helen had deleted.

  He heard them now, however—murmured very softly; and he caught her to him with sudden passion, kissing her hair.

  Yet he meant to go. In hoc vince. He must conquer his very need of her, if it came between him and the best thing he had yet done in his work.

  He could not face the thought of the parting; but there was no need to face that as yet. A whole fortnight int
ervened. It is useless to suffer a pang until the pang is actually upon you. Besides, every experience—however hard to bear—is of value. How much more harrowing and vivid would be his next description of a parting——

  Then, suddenly, Ronald felt ashamed. His arms dropped from around her. He knew himself unworthy—in a momentary flash of self-revelation he knew himself utterly unworthy—of Helen's generous love, and noble womanhood.

  "My wife," he said, "I won't go. It isn't worth it."

  Her arms strained around him, and he heard her sob; and, alas—it was the sob of the woman in the long grass, when she clung to the man who had crawled out first. His plot stood out to him once more as the supreme thing.

  "At least," he added, "it wouldn't be worth it, if it costs you so much. It is my strongest plot, but I will give it up if you would rather I stayed at home."

  Then Helen loosed her detaining arms, and lifting a brave white face, smiled at him through her tears.

  "No, Ronnie," she said. "I promised, when we married, always to help you with your work and to make it easy. I am not going to fail you now. If the new book requires a parting, we will face it bravely. At the present moment we both need luncheon, and I must get out of my habit. Ring, and tell them we shall not be ready for a quarter of an hour, there's a dear boy! And think of something really funny to tell me at lunch. Afterwards we will discuss plans."

  She had reached the door when Ronald suddenly called after her: "Helen! Hadn't you something to tell me, too?"

  She turned in the doorway. Her face was gay with smiles.

  "Oh, mine must wait," she said. "Your new plot, and the wonderful journey it involves, require our undivided attention."

  The sun shone very brightly just then. It touched the halo of Helen's soft hair, turning it to gold. In hoc vince gleamed upon the pane.