by A. A. Milne
‘Of course we are! There’s more in Mr. Pim than you think. He knows Brian, too. Brian, did you say “How do you do?” again?’ Brian grinned. ‘That’s right. You will stay to lunch, won’t you?’
Mr. Pim turned to Olivia.
‘It’s very kind of you to ask me, Mrs. Marden,’ he said, ‘but I am afraid I am lunching with the Trevors.’
‘Oh, well, you must come to lunch another day.’
‘Thank you, thank you.’ Should he explain that he was going back to London on the morrow? Perhaps no. After all, he would be in this part of the country again some day.
Meanwhile Dinah was chattering on.
‘The reason why we like Mr. Pim so much is that he was the first person to congratulate us. We feel that he is going to have a great influence on our young lives. What is it, Brian?’ She turned severely to her young friend, who looked very grave suddenly and said that it was nothing.
Mr. Pim explained courteously to Olivia.
‘I—er—so to speak, stumbled upon the engagement this morning, and—er—I ventured——’
‘Oh, yes. Children, you must go and tidy yourselves up. Run along.’
Brian explained with great dignity that Sir Brian and Lady Strange never ran; they walked. With a graceful bow he offered his arm to her ladyship. She curtsied deeply. Then, as they passed Mr. Pim, she threw him a condescending ‘Au revoir!’
He got up, chuckling.
‘Good morning, Miss Marden.’
Dinah bent her head, and with a hand to her mouth whispered dramatically, ‘We—shall—meet—again!’ And so out of the room on Brian’s arm to the changing of that pinafore.
Mr. Pim loved it. He chuckled and nodded his head. ‘What youth, what youth!’ his eyes said through his spectacles to the loving, indulgent eyes of Olivia.
‘You must forgive them,’ said Olivia. ‘They are such children. And you can understand that they are a little excited just now.’
‘But, of course, Mrs. Marden, of course.’
‘Naturally,’ she went on casually, ‘you won’t say anything about their engagement. We only heard about it ourselves five minutes ago, and of course nothing has been settled yet.’
Out of the corner of her eyes she looked at him a little anxiously. Suppose some of the Trevors turned up at tea-time with congratulations! Poor George! She smiled a little at the idea, but it would be very awkward. Fortunately, Mr. Pim reassured her that he would not dream of saying anything to anybody.
‘Thank you, Mr. Pim.’ The door opened. ‘Ah, here is my husband. George, this is Mr. Pim.’
George held out his hand with a smile of welcome.
Chapter Seven
A Voice from the Past
I
THE little pigs had called to George, but he did not hear them. Important business with Lumsden called him, the estate clamoured for him, but he did not answer. He sat in the library, pretending to read the paper; he stood up and filled his pipe; he lit it and let it go out; he strode up and down the room, lit his pipe again, sat down, stood up, looked out of the window, and came back once more to his chair.
‘That must be regarded as my last word on the subject.’
But was it?
He went over and over in his mind all that he had said. And thrice he routed all his foes and thrice he slew the slain . . . but Olivia’s face, calm, undisturbed, was still before him. What would she do?
Just suppose for a moment—never mind this stupid boy and girl engagement business—just suppose for a moment that Olivia put those curtains up. Impossible, of course; he had definitely forbidden it; but just suppose. What would he do? Give orders to Anne that they should be taken down again? Then all the servants would know that he and she had quarrelled, and that she had disobeyed him. Impossible! Leave them up, then? Impossible, too. That would be the end of everything. But what could he do?
Poor George! He was realizing for the first time that, once you begin to ask yourself what is the basis of moral authority, you find that it has none. ‘I forbid you to do that,’ says husband to wife. So long as the wife concedes him the authority, all is well. But should he question it, his power is gone. ‘I forbid you to do that’ means no more than ‘I shall be very much annoyed if you do that.’ To which the answer may be, ‘Well, I shall be very much annoyed if I don’t.’ The wife, in fact, can say ‘I forbid’ to her husband with no less meaning and no less authority. The penalty in either case is a frown and a cold cheek. Which of them minds it more?
Poor George! He liked to be comfortable. All his life there had been a conspiracy among the gods to make him comfortable. They had got him born in Marden House; they had removed Roger at the right moment; they had sent him Olivia. Olivia had made him very comfortable. That, thought George, was the woman’s mission in life. The woman made things easy for the man, so that he could devote his great mind undisturbed to the business of earning a living for them both, or, in some cases, looking after the living which other people earned for them. But how could he be comfortable if Olivia turned against him? If she flouted his orders, and encouraged Dinah to rebel? Even if she obeyed, with a frown and a cold cheek, would he be comfortable then?
But, of course, it was ridiculous to think such uncomfortable things. Olivia was Olivia, the woman he loved, the perfect wife. She had been foolish to-day; well, these last few days; not herself. The weather, perhaps, had been a trifle too hot—one must make allowances. And she was right about those curtains; it would be stupid to waste the material. He would suggest that they should be put up in Dinah’s bedroom. Dinah would like it, and Olivia would feel that her curtains had not been wasted. And then, as soon as that damned fellow Strange was out of the house, they could all be happy again.
But now another uncomfortable thought came creeping into his mind. Telworthy a convict! This was the first he had heard of it; well, the first time he had had to listen to it. A Marden had married the widow of a convict!
Until that morning Telworthy had been little more than an unfortunate. Luck had been against him; he had had to go to Australia—like many another younger son. Very conveniently he had died in Australia. Since he was dead, there was no need to think about him. George never thought about him. But now—a convict! Damn the fellow! Why couldn’t he have been more careful?
‘So, you see, we need not be too particular about our niece.’
What on earth possessed Olivia to make her talk like that? What had Telworthy got to do with it? Olivia was a Marden now; Dinah had always been a Marden. What did it matter what Telworthy had done? Olivia was a Marden now—his wife. There was no tarnish on the Marden name. Why should Dinah marry any Tom, Dick or Harry who came along, just because Olivia—but there was no need to think about that; the fellow was dead.
‘Mr. Pim, sir; he is in the morning-room.’
George came out of his thoughts with a start. ‘Who? Oh, of course, Mr. Pim. Thank you.’ He wanted a letter. Ask him to stay to lunch. Aunt Julia was coming, too. Make things easier. By to-morrow, when that fellow Strange had gone, they would all be comfortable again. . . . And—yes—the curtains should go up in Dinah’s room. Then they would all be happy.
II
‘Well, Mr. Pim, we meet at last. Sorry to have kept you waiting before.’
‘The apology should come from me, Mr. Marden, for having trespassed in this way on your good nature.’
‘Not at all,’ said George, with his pleasant smile. ‘Any friend of Brymer’s——’
Olivia looked at her husband, and thought what a nice, good, clean, handsome husband he was. She always liked him thus, the Englishman in his castle, welcoming the stranger by the way. There was an air about him. She felt that Mr. Pim felt it; that he was impressed by George’s ease, his sureness, even his physical well-being. What matter if George had no right to be so sure? The effect was the same. She felt suddenly that it was fun hav
ing disagreements with him, because there he was always, her husband who loved her, whom she loved (nothing could alter that), and they had the joy of making it up again. If you never went away, you never had, the pleasure of coming back.
‘Let’s see, you want a letter to this man Fanshawe?’ said George, sitting down at his desk.
‘Shall I be in the way?’ asked Olivia, half getting up.
‘Oh no, no, please don’t,’ said Mr. Pim.
‘It’s only a question of a letter, dear.’ He saw the curtains again, but he did not frown now. They were going up in Dinah’s room. She was quite right to get on with them.
‘Fanshawe will put you in the way of seeing all that you want to see,’ went on George. ‘My brother Roger and he were great friends.’
He began to write, but looked up to say, ‘You’ll stay to lunch, of course?’
‘It is very kind of you, but I am lunching with the Trevors.’
George was disappointed. Fortunately there was still Aunt Julia.
‘Ah, well, they’ll look after you all right. Good chap, Trevor.’
‘Yes, yes, undoubtedly.’ He turned politely to Olivia. ‘You see, Mrs. Marden,’ he explained, ‘I have only recently arrived from Australia, after travelling about the world for some years, and I am a little out of touch with my fellow-workers in London.’
Olivia was interested. ‘So you’ve been in Australia, Mr. Pim?’ she said.
George did not like it. Surely, after what had come out this morning, the less that was said about Australia the better. Olivia ought to have had more tact. He cleared his throat loudly in a way which would indicate to her the need for tact, and assured Mr. Pim that he would soon have the letter ready for him.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Mr. Pim, with a little bow. ‘Oh yes, Mrs. Marden, I have been in Australia more than once in the last few years.’
‘Really?’ She took a mischievous glance at George’s back, and went on: ‘I used to live at Sydney many years ago. Do you know Sydney at ah?’
George cleared his throat in a manner still more threatening. He turned round to them, pen in hand—officially in order to suggest to Mr. Pim some small point in connexion with the letter he was writing, but unofficially to frown at his wife for her continued tactlessness.
‘Indeed, yes,’ said Mr. Pim. ‘I have often stayed at Sydney. On the last occasion for several months.’
‘Fancy! I wonder if we have any friends in common there?’
This was terrible. In another moment all Telworthy’s shady history would be dragged into the light.
‘Extremely unlikely,’ said George gruffly. ‘Sydney is a very big place.’
‘True,’ said Mr. Pim, in his gentle reproachful voice, ‘but the world is a very small place, Mr. Marden.’ He gazed up at the ceiling, and went on dreamily. ‘I had a remarkable instance of that coming over in the boat on this last occasion.’
‘Ah!’ said George, with a sigh of relief. The conversation was safe now; let the old gentleman babble on. Some dull story of some dull coincidence interesting as a happening at first-hand, but as a story at second-hand, always wearisome; he knew the sort. But safe, safe. With a smile for the old gentleman he went back to his letter.
‘Most remarkable instance,’ meditated Mr. Pim. ‘A man I used to know in Sydney——’
He told his little story, Olivia listening with her encouraging smile. About a man who had been in prison in Sydney—fraudulent company-promoting or something of the sort—and when he came out Mr. Pim gave him employment, but he was a bad character, Mrs. Marden, a bad character. Poor fellow! He took to drink, and was drinking himself into his grave; Mr. Pim gave him another month to live. All this had happened years ago, and yet, oddly enough (showing what a small place the world is), the very first person whom Mr. Pim saw as he stepped on to the boat which had just brought him from Australia was this same poor fellow !
‘Fancy!’ said Olivia. What else could you say to a dull story like that? But she said it just as if it had been the best story which she had heard that year.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr. Pim, nodding his head emphatically. ‘There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in fact; we recognized each other.’
‘Fancy!’ said Olivia again.
‘Yes indeed! As it happened, he was travelling steerage, and we did not come across each other once we were at sea; and unfortunately at Marseilles this poor fellow——’ He broke off and gazed up at the ceiling. ‘Now what was his name?’
George addressed his letter, and got up from his desk with a smile. A dull story.
‘It was a very unusual one,’ said Mr. Pim, still struggling with his memories. ‘A very unusual one. It began with a—with a T, I think.’
Fear, wild unreasoning fear, leapt suddenly into Olivia’s eyes, and flashed its message across to her husband. ‘George, say something! Say it’s impossible. . . . Oh, quick, quick! I’m frightened, dear, I’m frightened. Help me, my husband.’
He was by her side at once. He was holding her hand. ‘Nonsense, dear, nonsense,’ he was saying. He was stroking her hand.
‘Quick, Mr. Pim, quick!’
A quiet satisfaction spread itself over Mr. Pim’s face. What a memory he had for his age! He never forgot a name—never!
‘I’ve got it!’ he said, beaming at them. ‘Telworthy.’ He leant back proudly.
‘Telworthy!’ Olivia whispered to herself. She gave a little shudder.
‘Good God!’ cried George.
Pleased with the success of his story Mr. Pim nodded at them.
‘Telworthy. An unusual name, is it not? Certainly not a name which you could forget when once you had heard it.’
‘No,’ said Olivia, in a slow dead voice, ‘it is not a name which you can forget when once you have heard it.’
III
Olivia sat looking into the past. There rose before her the evening when she first discovered what it was she had married.
Her amazed protest.
‘But it’s not honest!’
‘D’you mean it’s illegal?’
‘Naturally, I don’t know anything about the law, but ——’
‘Well, it happens that I do, my dear. You may take it from me that it can be done quite safely. . . . D’you mind if I smoke?’
He lit his cigar.
‘But, Jacob?’
His amused smile.
‘Well, Livvy?’
‘It isn’t honest.’
‘It’s business, my dear.’
‘Aren’t men ever honest in business?’
‘Men aren’t such fools as to take it for granted that the other fellow will be what you call honest. They know what the law allows him to do, and they take their precautions. That’s business.’
‘How horrible!’
His patronizing smile.
‘Well, I didn’t ask you to come into it, did I, Livvy? You look after the house—that’s your job. I’ll look after the money—that’s my job.’
‘But it’s other people’s money. They trust you.’ His amused smile.
‘And my wife doesn’t.’
His amused laugh when she had stood up, saying nothing. His careless kiss on her cheek as he went past her to open the door. His closing of the door as she came up to it, his steady survey of her from head to foot, and his final easy pronouncement before he let her go :
‘You know, Livvy, you’re much too pretty to bother your head about money. Leave it to the ugly devils like me.’
That other evening.
He had come into her bedroom. She was sitting in front of her glass, and he stood behind her, looking at her reflection with that amused smile of his. Then, in admiration:
‘Damn it, Livvy, but you’re a beauty.’
‘Is that what you came in to tell me?’
‘Wel
l, no!’ He laughed. Then, after a pause, ‘How long does it take you to pack?’
‘To pack?’ She hadn’t understood.
‘Yes. Ten minutes—or a week? I’m afraid a week’s too long.’
‘But to go where?’
‘Australia.’
‘Australia? Why?’
‘Well, the fact is, we’ve made the Old Country a bit too hot for us.’
‘We!’
‘Telworthy,’ he explained easily. ‘Your name, too, my dear.’
They were still looking at each other in the glass. Now she turned round to him.
‘You mean that if we stay in England——’
‘I go to prison. Yes. Pleasant country, England. Delightful county, Devonshire. Dartmoor, picturesque spot, they tell me.’
His amused smile again. How she hated it! If he had only been frightened!
‘I knew it would happen.’
‘Oh, come, Livvy! That isn’t worthy of you.’
‘“You may take it from me that it can be done quite safely!” It was the one thing you boasted about.’
‘Yes, but this was something extra. I took the risk and—we’re going to Australia.’
‘Don’t they have prisons there?’
‘We shall discover the habits of the native when we arrive. We sail the day after to-morrow. Can you be ready?’
She had been frightened then.
‘To-morrow, Jacob, to-morrow! It might be too late afterwards.’
His easy laugh.
‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear. He has given us until the end of the week.’
‘Who?’
‘The gentleman whose signature I borrowed.’
‘Forgery!’
‘The last throw of the defeated general. We retreat in good order to Australia. Happy, happy country, in which all the men are good, and all the women beautiful. But none so beautiful as my Livvy.’
And he had come to life again !
IV
‘Telworthy! Good God!’ That, and no more, was the burden of George Marden’s thoughts as he hurried Mr. Pim out of the house, down the drive, out of the gates. ‘Telworthy! Good God!’ he was still saying to himself as he hurried back to Olivia. If once he stopped saying that, he would have to think and he did not dare to think. Thinking would hurt. His mind was numbed by one overpowering confused sense of outrage; he shrank from the pain of its returning struggle to consciousness. ‘Telworthy! Good God!’
