It's Too Late Now

by A. A. Milne

  The fiver arrived next morning, and to my dismay another one followed it a few days later. Rudie Lehmann, who was in a way responsible for my coming to London as a writer, took a delightfully friendly interest in my struggles and had to be given the latest bulletins. I wrote what no doubt I thought was a humorous account of the bank incident, and he replied with a cheque for £٥ ‘to be repaid when your balance is on its legs again.’ It was extraordinarily kind, but I didn’t want the money, and I hated the idea of borrowing from anybody. So I waited a week or two, by which time a balance might be considered capable of getting on its legs, and then repaid it. From now on I had nothing but what I earned each month. I wanted £١٠٠ a year: eight guineas a month: say three from Punch, two from The News, one from The St James’—that ought to be possible. It left another two guineas to come from all the other publications in London, except The Hibbert Journal in which I had now lost interest. Well, that also ought to be possible. What about The Evening News to which I had never sent anything? I sent something to The Evening News. C. E. Burton, the Literary Editor and most prolific verse-writer in London, asked me to come and see him.

  ‘I liked your article, it’s going in to-morrow.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘It was funny without really trying.’

  ‘That’s what it tried to be,’ I confessed.

  ‘How would you like to write us an article like that every week?’

  ‘I should love it.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  I waited. Nothing happened.

  ‘Er—what would the—I mean, what do you—’

  ‘Oh, a guinea.’ He said it cheerfully. I said nothing. Doing his best for it he added, ‘Every week.’

  ‘It isn’t very much.’

  ‘But how re-assuring to have one every week. Think how glad Amelia would be.’

  Amelia was the girl I took into The St James’ Gazette with me from time to time. Also for a guinea. I blushed; not with embarrassment at the thought of Amelia, who didn’t exist just then, but with pride to think that she had become real to somebody else.

  ‘Couldn’t you possibly make it thirty shillings, so that we could feel that I wasn’t like the ordinary contributor?’

  ‘I see your point. So let’s say twenty-five. You could feel like that quite easily on twenty-five.’

  ‘Yes, rather. Thanks very much.’

  It didn’t need three years at the Mathematical Tripos to tell me that I now had £٦٥ a year. I had already decided that I was going to get £٣5 or more from Punch. So what? Obviously a dash to Somerset House to catch Ken before he left, and a cheap dinner together. My £١٠٠ a year was assured. We must celebrate.

  2

  Father was sixty in March. At sixty he would retire. He was doing this for Mother’s sake: ‘You know what your mother is. As long as there is any work which she can do, she has to do it. Look at the way she still does the carving! It’s too much for her at her age. She has had a very hard life. Now I want her to have a rest.’ And Mother said: ‘It’s all a lot of nonsense, dear. You know what your father is. I’ve never had a day’s illness in my life. But your father isn’t really strong. He has had a very hard life, he’s earned a rest, and I shan’t say any more about it.’

  Father looked forward to their years of leisure more than Mother did. Except in the arts there was almost nothing, or so it seemed to him, which he could not have done, no position of responsibility which he would have been afraid to fill. Sometimes he would tell us of his plans in the event of finding himself Prime Minister, Lord Roberts, or the President of Marylebone Cricket Club: flights of imagination which borrowed reality from the fact that the conversations between Father and the necessary executive were always in oratio recta. ‘I should send for the Chief of Staff and I should say, “Now look here” . . .’ One heard the click of heels in response and the prompt ‘Very good, sir.’ Though unlikely to be offered any of these posts, he was now at least available for them. He was only sixty: there were many ways in which he might discover himself. At any rate he could hear good music at last.

  No doubt schoolmasters hear, or overhear, a great deal of bad music, but it is a mistake to suppose that the world of good music is closed to them. For some reason Father assumed that Covent Garden and Queen’s Hall were not available until one had retired from active work and had gone to live in the country. I don’t think that he had ever been, or ever did go, to a good concert: I am sure that he never saw an opera: yet somehow it was all in his mind that all his life he had been starved of music against his will. I have a recurring dream in which I am trying to put on my pads in order to go in to bat, and cannot, cannot, cannot get the buckles to fasten. As in a dream Father saw himself continually making for the Albert Hall and continually being thwarted. Now, at last, he would be able to get there.

  All through that Spring Term members of the family were looking for its new home. Somewhere off the beaten track, so that it would be cheap and the countryside un­spoilt; somewhere not too far from London, so that any of us could come down for week-ends. A combination of these virtues was not easily found. It was left to Ken and me to make the great discovery: in a village with the unsophisticated name of Steeple Bumpstead—Essex, if you liked Essex; on the borders of Suffolk, if you didn’t. Father, who had lived and taught in Essex as a young men, did not wish to be reminded of it. So, at the beginning of April he said good-bye to Streete Court, leaving behind him a name which is still remembered, and the address for any who cared to write to him: ‘Broadgates, Steeple Bumpstead, nr. Haverhill, SUFFOLK.’

  Ken and I went down for Easter. On the Monday Steeple Bumpstead Cricket Club opened its season in the field between our garden wall and the churchyard. The cows were driven off the pitch, anything which they had left behind was removed, and a wicket was marked out. If Bumpstead lost the toss, the bearded and burly owner of the cows would open the bowling with a fast underhand which included everything from a long-hop to a yorker in one ricocheting delivery. To-day being Bank Holiday, and the morning empty, the village had drifted early on to the field with bats and balls, perambulators and dogs, and while the younger members practised unofficially in corners, their seniors stood about between the creases and discussed life. In the course of their discussion a sudden dispute arose between the local policeman, in uniform, and a casual soldier, also in uniform, as to their respective merits in the cricket-field. Mere assertion not seeming enough, however emphatic, it was suggested by partisans that they should settle the argument in a single-wicket match. The soldier thought it unnecessary.

  ‘’Im?’ he said scornfully. ‘Why ’e’d never get me out.’

  ‘Nor ’e wouldn’t get me out neither,’ said the policeman.

  ‘Me? Not get ’im out? I’d do the ’at-trick on him if ’e only ’ad one stump.’

  ‘So would I. That’s what I’d do.’

  ‘I’d knock ’im into the churchyard,’ said the soldier. ‘So I would. Right into the churchyard. Every bloody ball.’

  ‘So would I too,’ said the policeman. ‘Into the church­yard and out of it. And don’t you come swearing at me, when there’s ladies and young children present. That’s obscene language, that is. And I don’t mind telling you, young man, that I’d knock every bloody ball–every ball o’ yours, right into the church and over the church and all, so I would. You!’

  Still talking they were led away by their supporters, and presently the policeman was standing, bat in hand, at one end of the pitch, and the soldier, ball in hand, at the other. ‘Play,’ said the umpire.

  Twenty minutes later the policeman was still at the wicket. His score was ‘o.’ At least three balls had come within his reach, but he had missed his opportunities. Tired of batting he declared his innings closed. Half an hour later the soldier was still at the wicket. His score was ‘o.’ He had not had so many opportunities as the policeman, and he had missed them
. His innings was declared closed by the hysterical spectators. The policeman went in again. Ken and I, equally hysterical, left the garden-wall for the luncheon interval.

  On the way back to London next morning I was thinking of this match. ‘You might make a joke about that,’ said the Gnat at every opportunity, and I was equally on the look-out for articles. Having written this one, I felt that it was worth more than 25/–, more even than the two guineas The News might give me. Why not try, as I never had, The Daily Mail, which was reputed to pay enormous sums? So I tried it. The article was printed, and I was invited to call upon the editor.

  ‘We all liked your article very much,’ said Marlowe.

  I tried to look modest.

  ‘The Chief tells me that your father is one of his oldest friends.’

  I tried not to look cynical.

  ‘How would you like to come in here and edit Page Four?’

  I should have thought that he was being funny, if I had not heard that this was the Harmsworth way. Page Four—the leader page—with the special articles! Arthur Mee had followed out after Philip Gibbs: a vacancy: try some­body young. Quick come, quick go.

  ‘I should like to very much, but I’m afraid I couldn’t until the end of June.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  Well, at the end of April I was going up to the Orkneys for two months, to coach a distant connection of the Limpsfield uncle’s, a boy of fifteen whose health was keeping him out of school for a term. It had seemed a delightful opportunity, giving me all that I wanted just then: a remunerative holiday, new experiences, copy, and an acquaintance, welcome to one who had never been north of Keswick, with my ancestral country. How gladly would I have sacrificed it all now.

  ‘It’s all fixed, is it?’

  ‘Well, yes. I said I would.’

  ‘End of June, what? I daresay we can keep the place warm for you. Can you write up there?’

  ‘Oh, rather. I mean to.’

  ‘Well, send us some more articles, and we’ll keep it open until you come back.’

  I floated out of his room. I floated down Fleet Street. I had got a job! On one article! Incredible! If only I could take it on at once—if only the Limpsfield uncle had never married—if only I hadn’t been such a fool—But never mind. At the end of June I should be an editor. Silly young men would write silly young letters to Harmsworth, and their silly private letters would be ‘handed on to Mr A. A. Milne, to whom the articles you mention should be sent.’ Perhaps I would see them, if their fathers were importunate enough; tell them kindly, with my feet up, that they could send their contributions to me personally and not to the Editor. And every week I should print a brilliant article by myself, just to show them how it should be done.

  None of this happened. I sent an article in as soon as I got to Orkney. My place-warmer wrote that he didn’t think it suitable for The Mail (how wise he was), and that he had handed it on to The Evening News, for whom, he understood, I was writing. This seemed to me such impertinence that I sent in no more articles. Nor did I hear again from Marlowe. My association with The Daily Mail was ended.

  3

  I have said that once every ten years I remember with pride that I am one of the many, or not so many, who have climbed the Napes Needle. Once every twenty years I remember, not exactly with pride, but with a slight lifting of the chin, that I am one of the few, or very few, who have spent a night alone on a desert island.

  There the island was, perhaps a few hundred acres of it, half-a-mile from the mainland, its only inhabitants sea­fowl. We landed one afternoon and walked about it; found an eider-duck’s nest, surprised a few rabbits, and rowed home to tea. At dinner that evening I said that I should like to stay there one night. Nobody knew why; I didn’t know why myself, but I supposed that there ‘might be an article in it.’ Sometimes we fished at night. It was easy for the others to drop me on the island after the fishing and to send somebody over for me next morning. I landed with a rook-rifle, a rug and a flask of brandy.

  There was no shelter anywhere. I wrapped myself in my rug and snuggled down into the heather. As long as I lay still the world was still, but every movement of mine filled the sky with the deep-breathed sound of wings, as if a sudden storm had blown up and died away again. The night was too dark for sight, but the nearness of all that life was faintly menacing. I turned from one cramped position to another as quietly as I could. . . .

  The dawn came early and with it a gentle rain. I drank the brandy. The brandy had been part of the joke; like the rifle, a concession to romance. Now I was glad of it. Rifle under the arm, I walked down to the shore. I followed the coastline until I had caught up my footsteps—how many people, I thought, have done that? I did it again. It didn’t seem so original this time. I sat on a rock and looked out to sea, my rifle on my knees. Nothing happened. . . .

  I decided to shoot a rabbit. Since I was using a rifle I supposed that I should be allowed to shoot it sitting. Well, it was my island and I could make my own laws: I would stalk a rabbit until I got it into a sitting posture, and then we should see. This took time, but time was what I wanted to take just then. It was appreciably nearer breakfast when we got into the required positions: the rabbit sitting up outside its hole, polishing its whiskers, I on my stomach, a suitable distance off, my finger at the trigger. I fired. The rabbit looked up at the noise, noticed me, and trotted into its hole to tell the others. I hadn’t killed it, but I could tell myself proudly that I had distracted it.

  I fetched my rug and went down to the landward side of the island. The grey lifeless air melted into the grey lifeless waters, I could see no land, but soon I should hear the creak of oars, and from the mist would come the rescue for which I waited now as eagerly as any authentic castaway. Soon—in about two hours—it came. I lit a pipe, and went down to the beach to meet it.

  Naturally I made an article out of all this. It was too long for The Evening News, and apparently too bad for every other paper. But the experience was not wholly wasted. At dances that autumn I would tell my partner that I had once spent a night alone on a desert island . . . and get her surprised attention for a moment.

  4

  In April, as I should have said before, I had had my first book published. Rudie, who continued to feel responsible for me, introduced me to Barry Pain. Barry Pain, who thought in little shilling books, said: ‘Why don’t you make a little shilling book out of those St James’ articles?’ I said that there weren’t more than half-a-dozen anyway. ‘Then write some more. You could call it Lovers in London. It would look well on the bookstalls.’ It wouldn’t, I thought, look as well as Eliza, that best of all shilling books, but it would be a good thing to have done. So I did it; Barry Pain’s agent sold it for me; and it was published by Alston Rivers: paper cover 1/–, cloth cover 1/6.

  Owing to the misplaced optimism of somebody I got £١٥ in advance of royalties, which was more money than I had seen for a long time. I also got one or two reviews. The Sheffield Daily Independent said (and I have been interested in the paper ever since): ‘The only readable part of this book is the title,’ which was more damping than it knew. A few years later E. V. Lucas read it, and suggested that I should buy back the publisher’s rights, add some more chapters, and re-publish it at six shillings. So I borrowed Mother’s copy, read it, and hastily bought back all rights in it for £٥. I didn’t want to re-publish it in any form, but I was terrified lest the publishers might. Sometimes now I see it advertised in booksellers’ catalogues. It is marked, thank God, ‘very rare.’

  I had had a dozen contributions in Punch in the first half-yearly volume, and in the autumn I was asked (this time officially) to write a series. I wrote it. It wasn’t very good, and it wasn’t very bad. By the end of the year I had made about £120, and had lived on it. It seemed that the present could take care of itself; but what of the future? Where should I be in five years’ time? Normally I should no
t have wondered; but I was sitting in Battersea Park, in a pair of tight boots, on a mild February day which seemed to make them tighter, and I preferred to think of anything rather than of the walk back to Wellington Square. What could I look forward to—after getting these boots off? At twenty-four one must be certain of fame at thirty. How could I achieve fame at thirty? Only, it seemed, by writing a novel: a real novel: a six­ shilling novel which would be the talk of every dinner-table.

  Sitting in my slippers before the fire I resolved to begin my novel on Monday. I would retire into the country to write it, as many a young writer had retired before. I would give myself up exclusively to my novel. It would be called (this is all I remember of it) Philip’s Wife. Why, I do not know. To prove to myself that this was no empty resolution I wrote to Punch, warning it that it must not expect any contributions for the next few months, as I was retiring into the country to write a novel, a novel to which I was giving myself up exclusively. My letter went, of course, to Owen Seaman, my contacts with Burnand being limited to the one we had so nearly made in the train. A note came back from Rudie: ‘Owen showed me your letter. Don’t come to any decision about leaving London until you hear from him.’

  Two days later, on another mild February day in another pair of boots, I made my way to the Punch office. I had been there once before, to have a few words with Seaman in the Assistant Editor’s room. Probably I had suggested a visit, feeling that this would establish me more firmly in his mind as a contributor. This time the suggestion came from him, and the meeting-place was the Editor’s room. Burnand had finally retired to Ramsgate.