It's Too Late Now

by A. A. Milne

  We had a book called Common Objects of the Sea Shore, but there were not many to be found at Seaford. Ken had taken tempor-arily to spectacles. He would remove these before bathing, and put them on a breakwater. Next day, when the tide had gone down, we would look for them. They were about all we ever found.

  Chapter Five

  I

  The Johnstons were very old friends of the family. David Johnston had been a colleague of Father’s at Wellington, his wife had been a mistress at Mother’s school, his brother, Jim, was a master at Henley House. The brothers had adorable Scottish accents and an adorable Scots twinkle in the eye; David could do conjuring tricks; and Jim was very nearly a first-class cricketer. We felt that Papa had done surprisingly well in choosing them as friends. I can see Jim’s burly back now, next to mine. It is the first day of the Christmas holidays, and we are kneeling side by side at after-breakfast prayers. All through this long last prayer I have been eyeing that back through my fingers. I have a great joke in mind. ‘Amen,’ says, with great solemnity, Papa; ‘Amen,’ echoes my neighbour reverently; ‘Amen,’ I flash, and jump on Uncle Jim’s broad back with a merry laugh. The joke goes about as well in the Milne family as it would have gone in the Swiss Family Robinson. I am a very naughty little boy.

  Uncle Jim often spent a few days of the holidays at Henley House, and in term-time he spent a good many hours with us in the Kids’ Room. We remained unsuspecting, however; and it was a great shock to us when we heard that he, not Barry, was marrying our beloved Bee. They went off together to South Africa, leaving us, as near as might be, orphans.

  David Johnston had a school in Buxton, and at Buxton we spent one delightful Christmas holiday. ‘It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire,’ as a greater writer has said. ‘A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern.’ Nowadays winter-sport is almost an obligatory subject in a child’s education, but to a Victorian child who only knew of Switzerland as a good subject for map-drawing if a brown pencil were available for mountains, Buxton gave all the sport in winter which seemed possible. There was no pretence in those days of keeping roads open for traffic. The Manchester road was handed over without any fuss to the tobogganists. I suppose I have never been happier than I used to be on the Manchester road. For at Buxton one never lacked for seasonable weather. It was here that we learnt to skate­ and, as far as I was concerned, stopped learning to skate. I was speeding along with Ken in pursuit, and very skilfully (as I thought) stopped dead, so that he should shoot past me. When I came round, I was lying on the bank with an anxious Papa hanging over me, a sensible Mama telling him that there was nothing to worry about, and an embarrassed Ken longing to be assured that I should live, and, as a consequence, that he could go on skating. I lived, but still have the scar on my chin, token of the perfect knock-out. Luckily it was a Saturday, which made it easy to postpone a complete recovery until Sunday morning–after the others had gone to church.

  The long, unlovely hours we laboured through in church, the golden hours we wasted. What were we doing there? Even if men believe that the Incomprehensible Being which created this incomprehensible universe is morbidly anxious that little atoms on one of his million worlds should praise him for it in set phrases on every seventh day, is it likely that he should wish them to do so in words which reach no higher than a child’s mind? And if the words are beyond a child’s mind, what is the child doing there? How were Papa’s soul and mine to be uplifted, our spiritual difficulties to be resolved, by the same teaching? The lovely hours which were torn from us that we might be told not to covet our neighbour’s wife. God (and we stopped skating to hear the good news) was not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible. It still left him something a little less than friend.

  There was a Sunday in Buxton when even Papa, if told not to covet his neighbour’s daughter, would have thought the command unnecessary. Rose, the youngest Johnston, was about our age. We were on our way to church in our stiffest and best clothes. Papa bent down to tie up his lace, and Rose, with no desire but to amuse, put a handful of snow down his back. There were really no words for the situation: Sunday—the threshold of the church—his host’s little daughter—the quickly melting snow. There were no words to say, and he said none. In silence we entered the church, Ken and I looking back at Rose and her tight-lipped father, and wondering if girls ever got spanked, and if so where. Papa went on to his knees, forgetting, in that moment, everything but his God. But when he rose from them, and sat back, then he must have remembered his host’s little daughter again. Bless her.

  This was Christmas 1891. I date it, a little uncertainly, by the Duke of Clarence’s death. I know that we were at Buxton when he died, but he may not have died when­ I think he did. What I remember very well is the Limps­field uncle telling us (many months earlier) that the Duke of Clarence would never come to the throne, because there would be a revolution if he did. When the news of the death came to us, and the church-bells were tolled, and everybody was very sorry, Ken and I shared a secret solemnity which meant, ‘If only Buxton knew.’ The Limpsfield uncle was very much more a man-about-town than Papa. He had a velvet smoking-jacket, and had been (as I may have said) to the Paris Exhibition. He could be relied upon in these matters.

  Normally we spent the Christmas holidays in London. We didn’t hang up stockings on Christmas Eve. Somebody—at first supposed to be Father Christmas, but at a very early age identified with Papa came into our room at night, and put our presents at the foot of the bed. It was exciting waking up in the morning and seeing what treasures we had got; it was maddening to know that we should not be able to enjoy them properly until we had come back from church. Was it really supposed that a child, with all his Christmas presents waiting for him, could give his mind to the herald angels?

  Hark the herald angels sing

  (I’ve never had a paint-box with tubes in before)

  Glory to the new-born King

  (I’ll paint a little cottage with a green front door)

  Peace on earth and mercy mild

  (My knife’s a jolly good one, they’ve marked it Sheffield steel)

  God and sinners reconciled

  (I’ve got it in my pocket, I can feel it when I feel)

  Hark the herald angels sing

  (I wish it were tomorrow, I must sail my boat)

  Glory to the new-born King

  (I’ll take it to the bathroom and just watch it float)

  One Christmas we decided to put on a play. We had a boy, name of Charles, staying with us. If anybody read the last chapter and thought: ‘What was the other brother doing all this time, when Ken and Alan were so busy? Did he play by himself?’ the answer is that nearly always there was somebody left over from school whose parents were in India. On this occasion it was Charles, whose mother was in America. The three of us (for Charles was illiterate) had just read one of those threepenny novels (Forget-me-not Library) called The Golden Key. It was the most completely moving and exciting story which we had ever read. It was about a poor but lovely governess at Marchmont Towers, who was wooed by young Lord Marchmont (or as he was sometimes called, Lord Robert Marchmont) in spite of the relentless opposition of old Lord Marchmont (or, as he was sometimes called, the Duke of Marchmont) and old Lady Marchmont, the Duchess. But the young couple won through in the end, for Love, as perhaps you have guessed, is The Golden Key which unlocks all gates. It was such a beautiful story that we were impelled to dramatize it. We divided the story into suitable scenes, but left the actual dialogue to the invention of the moment indicating the lines on which it was to be conducted. I was the wistful young governess, and I put my hair up for the occasion. For the first and last time in my life I wore a bustle, this being the mode. I looked sweet. Charles was the hero, for it was thought that he could get more passion into the proposal scene than could either of my brothers. We explained to him, since he had not our wide experience
of literature, the proper method of proposing to a lady: that on no account must she be shocked by a blunt ‘I love you,’ until some preliminary trial had been made of the gentle creature’s feelings. He must lead delicately up to the great moment; a little drawing-room conversation, enlivened, perhaps, by a touch of badinage, then the sounding of a deeper note, then the proposal. Charles promises to give us all of it. Everything seems simple to him now that he is assured of having a burnt-cork moustache. My own part is easier. It is for Lord Marchmont to lead, for me to follow. Any awkwardness which I show, any first-night nervousness, will be in keeping with the character.

  Observe us, then, on the night. The great moment is here. I am seated in the arbour in maiden meditation, yet not unaware, for my womanly intuition so tells me, that I have won his love. Lord Marchmont is announced (thus we preserve the forms at Marchmont Towers), and enters, top-hat in hand. ‘Lord Marchmont?’ I cry, affecting surprise. ‘Pray be seated.’ He sits down. After a pregnant silence a voice is wafted across the arbour from behind a bank of holly. It says, ‘Go on, you fool.’ The exhilaration of the burnt-cork has worn off, and Charles is dumb. He closes his eyes in an agony of thought. I wait. It is all a woman can do.

  ‘Do you like apples?’ says Charles, coming to life suddenly.

  ‘Yes,’ I say wistfully.

  There is another pregnant silence. Charles wrestles with his hat, and looks imploringly at the ceiling for inspiration. Inspiration comes.

  ‘Do you like pears?’ he asks, sounding a deeper note.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur shyly.

  Charles feels that he can now give way to his emotions. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asks, dropping his top-hat and picking it up again.

  ‘Yes,’ I breathe.

  Charles nods triumphantly to himself. He has done it. He puts his top-hat on, and goes passionately out. The curtain comes down.

  2

  There was something a little mysterious about Cousin Annie. She was plump, and cheery, and I suppose, but children never know ages, about twenty-six. She worked in a shop in South Audley Street and lived in the flat above it. To-day nothing could be more delightful, but in those days the social degradation of the one was as regrettable as the moral degradation of the other. Cousin Annie, we felt, was full of secrets which only Mama knew. She was Mama’s cousin, not Papa’s; and in some way we had the impression that Papa often pointed this out.

  Cousin Annie was introduced to us a little late in life. One ought to know the full tale of relations from the beginning, so that even if one’s Cousin Annie doesn’t come to the house until one is eight, one can at least think to oneself after meeting her, ‘So that’s Cousin Annie.’ We had always supposed that we had just the two cousins, boys of much our own age at Henley House, and here was an unheard-of person, too young to be Mama’s cousin, too old to be ours, and she was to be called Cousin Annie in future–most myster-ious. However, we accepted her. We had tea at her flat one Sunday afternoon. I seem to remember that there was somebody else there, and that he was explained to us as the gentleman who owned the shop; as no doubt he did. We tried not to think about the shop, but only about the tea. With the help of a very good tea this was easy.

  We went to Ramsgate one Easter holiday, the three of us, in charge of this new cousin, who had now become a sort of tempor-ary governess. Whether this was a way of finding a more respectable job for Annie, or a way of getting us out of the house, or a way of giving us a little fresh air, was none of our business. On Ramsgate beach we were in the full centre of the music-hall world. We listened, rapt, to ‘Hi-tiddly-hi-ti,’ ‘The Brick came Down,’ and ‘I asked Johnny Jones, and I know now.’

  Rolling round the town,

  Knocking people down,

  Having a jolly good time, you bet,

  Tasting every kind of wet—

  Nearly fifty years later the beautiful words sing themselves again into my memory. But what was The Brick? I seem to remember ‘The brick came down, we had our half-a-day,’ which doesn’t lead us anywhere; yet this, or some assonance of phrase, made us shriek with laughter. We also watched, entranced, the Ally Sloper family: including the beautiful young girl with the painted face, who gave me at times a strange choked feeling of happiness, until Benefit Night revealed him as a man. Cousin Annie was right in thinking that none of this would do us any harm; right also in thinking, if she did think so, that we got just as much enjoyment an hour later from Punch and Judy. But she was wrong, perhaps, to make the beach so exclusively a social entertainment; starfish meant nothing to her.

  However, she took us for a sail in the Skylark once. Ken, of course, was sick as soon as we started. Barry survived the voyage out, but gave up at the turn. I landed intact, but unhappy; another wave would have seen the finish; and even now. . . . Again Cousin Annie was wise. She took us straight to a chemist, and gave us all a dose of brandy. It was, she assured us, and how right she was, purely medicinal, but we needn’t tell Papa. We came out feeling grand.

  And then, one morning, the three of us went out for a walk by ourselves. Why weren’t we on the beach listening to ‘Hi-tiddly-hi-ti’? I can only suppose because it was Sunday. Why, then, weren’t we in church? I can only suppose because wise Cousin Annie thought that a walk would do us more good—or, perhaps, that a novel would do her more good. There were some low hurdles by the side of the road along which we were walking. We started jumping them. Barry was in front, I came second, poor old Ken was last. We looked back at him just in time to see him fall. We had to stop and laugh. A doleful voice came from the ground: ‘I’ve broken my arm!’ We laughed more loudly. He struggled up. His right arm was a shape which we had never seen in an arm before. We made a sling for him with his lace collar and mine, and brought him back to an overwhelmed Annie. She hurried him to the doctor. He didn’t cry at all. But was it a Sunday, or wasn’t it? I wish I could remember, for it seems important.

  3

  When we first knew Papa, he rode a tricycle. It had one large wheel on the right and two little ones, joined by a bar, on the left. Sometimes, when he was riding madly to the Bank, or to see Dr Willis, one of us would sit on the bar, legs dangling, and observe the left-hand pavement. Like pillion-riding, this was neither comfortable nor instructive, but its insecurity made it fun. In those days the only bicycle was the ‘ordinary’ or ‘dangerous,’ and it was not until some time after the ‘safety’ bicycle came in that Papa abandoned his tricycle. His first bicycle had pneumatic tyres; it was as if he were waiting for Dunlop to invent something like this before deciding that bicycles were worth his attention. When he got a puncture, he wheeled his machine to the nearest station and went home by train. Mending a ’91 tyre was a day’s job.

  By 1892 we were all keen bicyclists. In those famous sports when Ken won (and lost) a whisky-flask, there was an Under 14 One Mile Bicycle Handicap. The other competitors had solid tyres, but by some chicanery of argument I managed to persuade Thom III to lend me his new birthday bicycle, the apple of his eye (with which he slept at night), a bicycle with ‘cushion’ tyres. This took me about three weeks, for it was difficult to meet his objection that if one were so callous as to risk a bicycle like that in the hurly-burly of a race, one would ride it oneself. The result was: ‘1. Milne I (100 yards); 2. Milne III (200 yards); 3. Milne II (160 yards),’ which leaves the racing-value of the cushion tyre uncertain but the handicap­ value of being the Headmaster’s son beyond dispute. We were thrilled to be riding on the famous track of the Paddington Recreation Ground, where so often we had watched ‘ordinary’ bicycle races. The competitors of those days seemed to belong exclusively to the Catford B.C. or the Polytechnic B.C. Our hearts were with Catford, and in particular with the champion of Catford, Osmond. Osmond was my only hero. I wondered what he was like when he stopped flashing past you on a bicycle, and you really got to know him; I longed to be Osmond. ‘Osmond, Osmond!’ we shrieked as the bell rang for the last lap of the rac
e, and the mad struggle began which left half a dozen competitors spread-eagled on the ground, but never Osmond. He had a rival in the Polytechnic, whose claims Barry and Ken never ceased to urge on me, wanting Osmond to themselves; a dark unlovely man, soured by the knowledge that he could not be Osmond, and that Osmond would always beat him. Osmond–a beautiful name. I think that as A. A. Osmond I should have written much more dashingly.

  At the end of 1892 the first detachable pneumatic tyre appeared, and a boy could now mend his own puncture by the wayside. Papa took advantage of the occasion to make the most splendid benefaction in history: he gave each of us a new Dunlop-tyred bicycle. There may have been other boys with such bicycles in England, but in our journeys we never came across them. No boy at Henley House could boast one. No boy-driven pneumatic tyre ever met us, ever passed us, on the road. We lived on those bicycles in the holidays. All the early morning streets knew them, which had once known our hoops. We rode behind buses up Park Lane, ringing our bell impatiently and then swinging magnificently past them; we darted between hansom cabs; ‘Look at us! look at us! Did you ever see bicycles like this?’ ‘Two years later they were to become the fashion of the fashionable squares through which as gods we drove our contemptuous way. That Easter we all rode down to Hastings to show our new bicycles to the Limpsfield uncle, for by this time we had forgiven him. It was always our ambition to ride a hundred miles in a day; by ‘ours’ I mean Ken’s and mine, Papa had no ambitions that way. We did not achieve it until 1897. We were living in Thanet then, and spending our summer holiday in North Wales. Father gave us the train fare from Dolgelly to Westgate-on-Sea, which must have been over fifty shillings for the two of us, and told us that we could ride home if we liked. Even if we took four days we could still show a profit, but secretly we hoped to do it in three. Unfortunately we took a road over the mountains which no cartographer should have included in any map, and along which for nearly ten miles we could do no more than push our bicycles. By the time we reached Llwymllpllwgh, if that is what it was called, we were sick of the whole business. An early lunch revived us; an enormous tea, and the discovery that it was two hours earlier than we had guessed it to be, revived us still more; and at ten o’clock that night, tired but happy, we came into Hereford. Over a cup of coffee and a sausage-roll we followed our journey on the map. We had ridden (and pushed) our bicycles ninety-six miles. Only four miles more for the hundred! Such a chance might never come again. We said good-bye to Hereford and rode eastward into the night. At eleven o’clock we reached the fourth milestone. There was no house within sight, no village within miles, and we were certainly not going back to Hereford. We wheeled our bicycles into a field and lay down. The grass was very wet, but we were very tired. I lay there, and thought how lucky Ken was to have fallen asleep so quickly. At two in the morning Ken said, ‘Are you awake too?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Haven’t you slept at all either?’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’m sick of it, aren’t you?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ We mounted our bicycles and rode on. The dawn came, but we couldn’t give our minds to it. The birds began to sing, but we weren’t really listening. At six o’clock we struggled into Cirencester. We rode through the silent town. We came to its last public­-house. It was no good, we could not, we dare not, leave it behind. We sat on a heap of stones outside, and waited for it to open its doors to breakfast. . . . Then we went home by train.