by A. A. Milne
Somebody has said—with what authority I do not know—that everything which we see or do or hear, even perhaps think, is recorded somewhere in our brain. There the record remains, locked up, the key, it may be, lost, the secret spring hidden, until the day when chance or an effort of will puts it again into our hands. This may be a comforting thought to some, but to the man with a bad memory it brings small consolation. Yet it consoled Mr. Pim. Indeed, it did more than console him; it assured him that he had an excellent memory. He was continually remembering things. Sometimes it was an address which he had forgotten forty years ago, sometimes a name which he had heard yesterday; and each accidental opening of a secret drawer emphasized for him the value of the treasures still hidden, and gave a new excitement to the next opening.
We catch him up as he stands at the gate, and we see at once that something has happened. He has stood there, one hand on the latch, old eyes to the green roof above him with its pattern of sunlight coming through, ever since we had him first in sight; stood there, thinking, thinking. Suddenly he nods to himself; a happy smile illumines his face. He has remembered. The eyes come down, the hand presses down the latch, the gate begins to swing open before him. He follows it. . . .
But he does not pass through. Step by step he retreats, the gate pressing after him. Now it is shut again, and lie is still on the Marden House side of it. Happiness has gone from his face; other emotions have taken charge of it: Horror, Shame, Doubt. A second time he presses down the latch; Doubt has made way for Relief. The gate begins to open again; then Relief fades out. Doubt returns. Once more the gate urges him back. Doubt has gone. Resolution triumphs in every line of him. The latch clicks . . . and Mr. Pim, turning bravely round, walks back to Marden House.
III
‘May I come in, Mrs. Marden?’
Olivia dropped her curtains, and looked round in astonishment at the windows. Mr. Pim again! He stood on the terrace, nervously waiting permission to enter, and his eyes strayed from her to the door, and then back to her again, and then over his shoulder as if wondering whether a return to the gate would not be the best course after all.
‘Come in, Mr. Pim,’ said Olivia, surprise in her voice.
He still hesitated.
‘Mr. Marden is not here?’
She made a movement as if to get up, and he retreated a step.
‘Do you want to see him?’ she asked. ‘I will——’
‘No, no, no’ he interrupted her hastily. ‘Not for the world.’
She took up her curtains again, and invited him with a smile to come in. He stepped in carefully. As he came opposite the door he stopped, and seemed to be measuring the distance between it and the window.
‘There is no immediate danger of his returning?’ he asked.
‘No, I don’t think so. Why, what is it?’
‘I took the liberty of returning by the window in the hope of coming upon you alone, Mrs. Marden.’
‘Yes. Do sit down, won’t you?’
He drew up a chair, near to her, yet not too far from the window, and sat down on the edge of it.
‘I—er—the fact is——’ He looked down at his hat, with which his fingers played nervously, and then up at her over the top of his spectacles, imploring her aid. She gave him a smile, sympathetic, friendly, comforting.
‘Mr. Marden will be very angry with me,’ he said, shaking his head at her, almost reproachfully, as if she were forgiving him too soon. ‘Quite rightly. Oh, quite rightly. I blame myself entirely. I do not know how I can have been so stupid.’
‘But what is it, Mr. Pim?’ Then with a little laugh, for the danger was past, and seemed so very far away now, she asked, ‘Has my husband come to life again?’
‘Mrs. Marden, I throw myself on your mercy entirely. The fact is’—he bent over his hat until it was close to his eyes, brushed off a speck of dust, and then, straightening himself suddenly, said—‘his name was Polwittle.’
‘Whose?’ said Olivia, trying bravely not to laugh. ‘My husband’s?’
He nodded eagerly.
‘Yes, yes. The name came back to me suddenly just as I reached the gate. Polwittle. Poor fellow!’
‘Mr. Pim,’ said Olivia, in her most soothing voice, yet wondering what it was all about, ‘my husband’s name was Tel worthy.’
He shook his head vigorously.
‘No, no, Polwittle.’
‘But really,’ protested Olivia, laughing, ‘I ought to know.’
‘Polwittle,’ said Mr. Pim, almost fretfully this time. They were trying to muddle him. They had made the whole story very difficult for him, and it was his story. ‘Polwittle! It came back to me suddenly just as I reached the gate. For the moment I—er—I had thoughts of conveying the news by letter. I was naturally disinclined to return in person, and—er—yes, Polwittle.’ Modestly pleased with his astonishing memory, he added, ‘If you remember, I always said it was a peculiar name.’
For once Olivia was a little slow. ‘But who is Polwittle?’ she asked.
‘The man I have been telling you about, of course. The man whom I met on the boat, who came to such a sad end at Marseilles.’
Olivia stared at him, unable to say anything.
‘Henry Polwittle,’ he murmured happily. ‘Henry——’ He stopped, and frowned at the ceiling. ‘Or was it Ernest?’ he wondered. Then his face cleared, and he said with decision, ‘No, Henry, I think. Poor fellow!’
‘But you said his name was Telworthy,’ she burst out. ‘How could you?’
‘Yes, yes, I blame myself entirely.’
‘But how could you think of a name like Telworthy, if it wasn’t Telworthy?’
He shook his finger at her eagerly.
‘Ah, that is the really interesting thing about the whole affair,’ he assured her, now quite happy again, and he nodded his old head in confirmation of it.
‘Mr. Pim,’ she said gravely, a smile hovering, ‘all your visits to-day have been—interesting.’ How absurd, and how absurd, and then again how absurd it was!
The irony passed him by. He went on eagerly. ‘Yes, but you see, on my first appearance here this morning I was received by Miss Diana.’
‘Dinah.’ She would have to laugh soon.
‘Miss Dinah, yes. She was in rather a communicative mood, and she happened to mention, by way of passing the time, that before your marriage to Mr. Marden you had been a Mrs.—er——’
‘Telworthy.’
‘Telworthy, yes. She mentioned also Australia. By some process of the brain, which strikes me as decidedly curious, when I was trying to recollect the name of the poor fellow on the boat, whom, you remember, I had also met in Australia, the fact that this other name was now stored in my memory in conjunction with that same country—this fact, I say—this fact——’
It was obvious that there was no hope of a sentence begun like this ever coming to a respectable end. But its meaning had emerged; and in answer to his appealing look Olivia put it out of its misery.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘I understand.’
So that was it! She was still Mrs. Marden; she had always been Mrs. Marden. Dinah’s chatter, an old man’s elusive memory—from such little causes had sprung the Great Event. But Mr. Pim had paid his fourth visit, and now everything was just as it was before he began to come.
Well, no. Everything was not just as it was. One could not blot out the day as if it had never happened. The position was the same, but the protagonists were different. Olivia was not the Olivia of the morning, nor George the George. What would be the effect of that? Husband and wife were at odds this morning about Dinah’s engagement and other small matters. Would the new Olivia and the new George be in any closer agreement?
Olivia imagined him receiving the news. ‘It’s all right, I am your wife after all. The whole thing was a mistake.’ His wife after all! What could he f
eel but resentment for the fright she had given him, and an increased hardening towards her wishes for her failure to force them upon him? What could she show but an abiding wound caused by his betrayal of her? Neither of them would forget now, nor forgive. The quarrel (hateful word, but there was no other) would remain unfinished. How much better if she had been left to smooth it, and pat it, and round it off in her own way.
‘I blame myself, I blame myself entirely,’ Mr. Pim was murmuring.
She blamed him, too; not for his mistake, but for this attempt to wipe out his mistake. If only he had waited a day or two longer! But this was so unfair that she had to smile at herself, and say, with all her charm, ‘Oh, you mustn’t do that, Mr. Pim. It was really Dinah’s fault for inflicting all our family history on you.’
‘Oh, but a delightful young woman! I assure you I was very much interested in all that she told me.’ He got slowly to his feet. ‘Well, Mrs. Marden, I can only hope that you will forgive me for the needless distress I have caused you to-day.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t worry about that, please,’ she begged him, smiling her forgiveness.
He looked anxiously at the door.
‘And you will tell your husband? You will—er—break the news to him?’
She gave a little start; wrinkled her brow in a sudden thought; stared at him, lips parted. Then a smile began to peep out of her eyes, adorably mischievous; peeped out and whisked back again on the instant.
‘I will break the news to him,’ she said demurely.
‘You understand how it is that I thought it better to come to you in the first place?’
Again the smile gleamed and was gone.
‘I am very glad you did,’ she said.
He held out his hand, satisfied now that he had done his duty.
‘Then I will say good-bye, Mrs. Marden.’
She was as eager now as he that he should be gone before George came back. But she must be certain that it was really ‘Good-bye’ this time.
‘Just a moment, Mr. Pim,’ she said. ‘Let us have it quite clear this time.’ She looked him straight in the face. ‘You never knew my husband, Jacob Tel worthy. You never met him in Australia. You never saw him on the boat. Nothing whatever happened to him at Marseilles. Is that right?’
Mr. Pim blinked rapidly at each statement, and hurried on after the next. He arrived breathless at the finishing point, having just managed to keep up with her.
‘Yes, yes, that is so.’ They were hurrying him, they were hurrying him again.
She went on inexorably: ‘So that, since he was presumed to have died in Australia six years ago, he is presumably still dead?’
‘Yes, yes, undoubtedly.’
Counsel sat down suddenly, cross-examination finished, and hostess, all smiles and friendliness, stepped forward.
‘Then, good-bye, Mr. Pim,’ she said. ‘And thank you so much for—for all your trouble.’
He was apologizing again, assuring her that it was no trouble at all, but a fresh young voice from the terrace put all that out of his head, and renewed his anxiety to be gone.
‘Hallo, here’s Mr. Pim!’ cried Dinah.
She came in, the faithful Brian attending. ‘He’s just met my second husband,’ she whispered over her shoulder. ‘Be decent about it, Brian.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr. Pim, nervously, trying to get past her before George should come back. ‘I—er——’
‘Oh, but Mr. Pim, you mustn’t run away without even saying how do you do. Such old friends as we are. Why it’s ages since we last met. Are you staying to tea?’
‘No, no, I’m afraid that—er——’ He looked round appealingly to Olivia. A delightful young woman, Miss Diana, but ‘Mr. Pim has to hurry away, dear,’ said Olivia, no less anxious. ‘You mustn’t keep him.’
‘Well, but you will come back again?’
‘I fear that I am only a passer-by, Miss Diana.’
‘Dinah.’
‘Er—Dinah.’
‘You can walk with him to the gate, darling.’
‘Right-o,’ said Dinah. Mr. Pim glanced his thanks to his hostess and went eagerly to the window.
‘Are you coming, Brian?’
‘I’ll catch you up.’
‘Come along then, Mr. Pim.’ She took his arm. ‘Now I want to hear all about your first wife. You really haven’t told me anything yet.’
‘But I’m not married,’ he said, chuckling at her mistake.
‘Oh nonsense,’ protested the smiling Dinah.
Once more Mr. Pim negotiated the steps of the terrace. But quite happily now. Oh, a most delightful young woman.
IV
If one were permitted to generalize about woman—always a dangerous thing to do, and very annoying to woman—one would say that her emotions were less diffused than man’s. She feels what she feels with a more concentrated energy. Brian loved Dinah as deeply as she loved him, but he had room in his heart for emotions which were crowded out of hers by the new happiness which had invaded it. She loved him; he loved her; that was all that there was in her world. He loved her; she loved him; in his world there was everything which had been there before, but, in the new light by which he now saw it, a thousand times more beautiful, a thousand times more pitiful. The more he loved, the more love he had to give; the more she loved, the less love she had to spare. For Dinah Brian was now the only man; for Brian every woman now showed something of Dinah.
So, while the girl went off happily with Mr. Pim, her lover waited behind with the beautiful, the pitiful, Olivia. A week ago he would have been sorry, sympathetic, kind. ‘How awful!’ he would have said, not really awed, or no more than he habitually was by a bad picture or a fluke at billiards. But to-day Olivia’s tragedy was Dinah’s tragedy, his tragedy, Love’s universal tragedy. Confronted with it, what lover could be happy?
Awkwardly he went up to her and touched her hand.
‘I just wanted to say,’ he stammered, ‘if—if you don’t think it cheek—that—that’—he could think of no better expression of his feelings than the phrase he had used before—‘that I’m on your side, if I may be.’
She looked at him affectionately, tears almost in her eyes. ‘Oh, Brian,’ she said.
‘Of course, I don’t suppose I can do anything,’ he went on, ‘but if I could help you, I should be awfully proud of being allowed to.’
‘You dear. That’s sweet of you.’ Now a tear did come. She put a handkerchief to it, and said brightly: ‘But it’s quite all right now, you know.’
To Brian this naturally meant that George had at last decided to do ‘the one and only thing.’ His face lit up.
‘Oh, I say, how splendid!’ he said. ‘I’m awfully glad.’
‘Yes, that’s why Mr. Pim came back. He found that he had made a mistake about the name.’
Brian gaped at her.
‘A mistake about the name?’ he stuttered, incredulous.
‘Yes. George is the only husband I have.’
‘You mean that the whole thing—you mean that Pim never—well,’ he ended up with conviction, ‘of all the silly asses!’ He stared through the windows after that disappearing gentleman. ‘You ass!’ he murmured, shaking his head at him. Then, coming back to Olivia, he said eagerly, ‘I say, I’m awfully glad.’
‘Thank you, Brian, dear.’
So Brian knew now. He was bound to know anyhow, if Mr. Pim mentioned it to Dinah, as easily he might. And if Brian and Dinah knew, how could George be kept from knowing?
For George was not to know. Not yet. Olivia was determined to wind up the affair in her own way, just as if Mr. Pim had never come back. George should marry her on her own conditions. He had been prepared to sacrifice her to his prejudices; now he must be prepared to sacrifice his prejudices to her. Only so they could live together as equals, neither of them ashamed, neither
of them resentful. The affair must finish in the grand manner, white flag flying, trumpets blowing, curtains hanging. ‘A good lunch somewhere’ would mark its end. With the good lunch everything would be forgiven and forgotten.
But then, how could George be kept from knowing that the affair was already over? Olivia smiled at the easiness of it. Let the children talk as much as they liked. George would never know, until she told him. She had her plan for that. Oh, but it was easy!
‘Brian,’ she said suddenly, ‘do you know anything about the Law?’
That distinguished young painter admitted, with a certain pride, that he knew nothing about the Law. He detested the Law. But why was Olivia worrying about it?
‘Oh, I was just wondering. Thinking about all the shocks we have been through to-day. Second marriages, you know, and all that sort of thing.’
Brian nodded. ‘It’s a rotten business,’ he agreed.
‘I suppose,’ said Olivia, busy with her curtains, ‘that there’s nothing wrong—legally wrong, I mean—in getting married to the same person twice?’
‘A hundred times if you like, I should think,’ he answered carelessly.
‘The Law is so funny about things.’
‘After all, in France they always go through it twice, don’t they? Once before the Mayor or somebody, and once in Church.’
‘Of course they do! How silly of me!’ She smiled to herself as she went on. ‘I think they ought to do it in England more. I think it’s rather a nice idea.’ Her smile deepened as she saw herself and George inaugurating this nice idea. George not quite realizing what a nice idea it was.
