by A. A. Milne
‘Did you give me——’
‘I gave you yours. It’s lovely.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Sylvia looked at it happily, turning it this way and that on her finger.
‘It’s very difficult, all that, isn’t it?’ Grace went on. ‘You’re lucky, you haven’t any daughters. Sylvia, did your mother tell you anything?’
‘Very—no—well, just—no. Nothing really.’
‘I know. That’s what I felt afterwards. Well, I suppose I shall have to try. They grow up so quickly nowadays. Agatha goes to boarding-school next May, so I can wait till then, anyhow.’ Sylvia looked at her with wide-open eyes. ‘Well, no, not as it happens. They’ve had Agathas in Fairlie’s family too.’ She laughed comfortably. ‘So let’s hope for the best. What an awful thing to say of one’s own daughter, but you know I don’t mean it.’
Sylvia nodded seriously.
‘You are the loveliest, loveliest thing,’ cried Mrs. Hildersham suddenly, jumping up. ‘Isn’t your husband absolutely mad about you?’
Secrets, secrets, said the wild-rose in Sylvia’s cheeks. She got up and turned away to the open windows. ‘Come on, let’s go out. It’s lovely.’
‘It’s nice the book’s selling so well,’ said Grace Hildersham, following her. ‘It’s really very clever of Mr. Wellard. And the children love him, of course.’
III
‘Fill up, won’t you?’
‘Thanks.’ Gluck-gluck-gluck. ‘Jimmy’s just got his colours, did I tell you?’ He gave the decanter a circular motion back to Reginald.
‘Good man. He’s got another year, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes. They talk of a scholarship, but I’ve got him down for Winchester. Awkward. I don’t suppose he’s good enough for that, and I don’t want him to go anywhere else.’
‘But a scholarship isn’t important, is it?’
‘Financially, I suppose it isn’t vital, but naturally they like getting them. Something to quote.’
‘Yes, but you can’t send your boy to a school you don’t like, just because his private school wants him to get a scholarship for advertisement purposes.’
Hildersham shrugged and drank his port.
‘Or can you?’ asked Reginald, puffing at his pipe.
‘I think the school’s feelings must be considered to some extent.’
Is this natural, thought Reginald, or is he getting back at me over the water?
‘What’s he going to be? Has he decided?’
‘No, I haven’t quite. The Bar, probably, with a view to politics.’
‘Don’t you consult him at all? I’m not a father, I’m just wondering.’
‘My dear Wellard, he’d like to be a pirate.’
‘Well, he’d have plenty of opportunity in the city.’
‘Or a professional cricketer. By the way, have you called on the Tylers?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Who are they?’
‘They’ve taken Monks Cross.’
‘Oh, yes. No; we don’t call very well. My fault, I suppose. I hate knowing people for geographical reasons.’
‘Mightn’t you almost as well say that you hate being an Englishman?’
‘No. But not bad,’ smiled Reginald. ‘I see your idea. As a reward, we will do our good deed for the week and call on the Tylers.’
‘Well, that’s the point,’ said Hildersham, looking at the end of his cigar.
‘Oh! I see.’ Reginald saw, and hid a smile. ‘We don’t like our fellow-Englishman. Why not?’
‘Englishman!’
‘Ah, you have said all.’
‘A little Jew pedlar before the war from God knows where. When the armistice is signed, he’s a millionaire. That’s enough for me.’
‘I feel argumentative this evening,’ said Reginald. ‘I know of a man who was just a little Knight before the war, and as soon as the armistice is signed, he’s a belted Earl. . . . Name of Haig.’
Hildersham gave a short formal laugh, and said that, speaking seriously, he didn’t think Tyler was a desirable neighbour.
‘What have you got against him, besides his religion?’
‘He made money out of the war. That’s enough for me. Technically he may not have made it dishonestly, but he made it. That’s enough for anybody. You or I would be ashamed, if we had come out of the war richer than we went in.’
‘Sorry to keep dragging in Haig, but didn’t he—er—wasn’t there some sort of—er——?’
‘My dear Wellard, if you think that money voted by Act of Parliament for services to the country——’
‘I don’t. But, so far, all that you’ve said about Tyler applies equally to Haig, and a thousand other friends of yours. If soldiers think that war is exclusively a military business, let them run it as a military business, and not come to civilians for help. But if they must call in civilians, then civilians have as much right to profit by it as soldiers have.’
‘Only if they are willing to lose by it. Every soldier risks his life.’
‘Not every one. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you risked yours much more than Haig did, and made much less out of it.’
‘You don’t think my services to the country were greater than Haig’s?’ said a sarcastic Hildersham.
‘I don’t compare anybody’s services with anybody else’s. I don’t even know whether Tyler provided boots or buttons or bayonets. But if he provided something which the country wanted, he was of service to the country. And if the country is spending five millions a day on things which it wants, it is obvious that a good many people will be richer than they were before.’
‘Well, I prefer the company of those who aren’t. Unless they’ve definitely done something to deserve it.’
‘Then have another drink, in case it’s your last.’ Reginald pushed the decanter towards him. ‘I am the supreme example of the war profiteer.’
‘You? Rubbish!’ said Hildersham, feeling a moment of uneasiness.
‘On the contrary. I was existing miserably in a bank when war broke out. I had nothing but that to go back to afterwards. But a distant cousin, the son of a very rich woman, was killed in the last week of the war; his mother slowly died of it, and, dying, left her money to her only surviving relation, whom she had seen once when he was a child. Myself. Here I am. And, but for the war, here I should not be.’
Hildersham, greatly relieved, gave a suggestion of a laugh and said, ‘Oh, that!’ Curious how little one knew of other people. Somehow Wellard had given him the idea of a man accustomed to money. The slightest note of condescension crept into his voice.
‘Seriously, though, I think it would be as well if Mrs. Wellard didn’t call on Monks Cross. I understand that his is a pretty bad case. Please yourself, of course, but as you say you don’t call much anyhow, perhaps it is just as well. How’s the book?’
‘Going strong.’
‘Good.’
‘Shall we——?’
‘Right.’
They got up slowly.
‘I met a fellow the other day who was talking about it. He was very much impressed when I told him you were a neighbour of ours.’
‘Oh?’ (What’s the answer?)
‘Got another on the stocks?’
‘No . . . Let’s go out, shall we? I think I saw them.’
‘Right . . . Thanks . . . Fifty thousand, didn’t I see you’d sold?’
‘About that.’
‘That’s considered pretty good, isn’t it?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes, I told him you were a friend of ours and he was quite interested. . . . Ah, there they are.’
Chapter Nine
I
IN the late autumn they went to London. Life in the country was getting too complicated for Reginald. You stop pulling up weeds for a moment and write a b
ook. The book written, you begin pulling up weeds again. Or so a man would think. Every now and then somebody will say, That’s a good book you’ve written, Wellard,’ and you will say, ‘Oh, do you think so?’—an idiotic question, since he has just told you that he does—and you will add, ‘How nice of you to think so,’ when you really mean, ‘How intelligent.’ Then you go back to your weeds. Or so a man would think.
But it was not so. Carruthers and Sons wanted to photograph Mr. Wellard. Some lack of co-ordination in the office led them to seek the privilege twice in the same morning. In the one letter Mr. Welyard was invited to join their Gallery of Famous Authors, in the other their Gallery of Distinguished Country Gentlemen, lacking Mr. Willard, confessed its incompleteness. ‘Just make up your minds,’ said Reginald in an imaginary conversation which he held with them among the marigolds, ‘and then I shall know which pair of trousers to put on.’
The North Finchley Literary and Debating Society was anxious that Mr. Wellard should take part in a discussion on the tendencies of modern fiction. It was hoped that Mr. Hugh Walpole and Mr. Peake would also take part. ‘Who the devil’s Peake?’ said Reginald to the dahlias, and was comforted by the thought that at that moment Peake was probably saying, ‘Who the devil’s Wellard?’
The Editor of Home: An Exclusive Journal for Women would like to talk over a projected series of articles with Mr. Wellard at any time convenient to him. Mr. Wellard would understand that, while it was obviously impossible just at present to compete financially with more popular journals, it was hoped that Mr. Wellard would be sufficiently interested artistically to welcome this opportunity of putting his views before a select public. It might be added that Home: An Exclusive Journal for Women was entirely independent of the Newspaper Trusts.
The Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers hoped that Mr. Wellard would join the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers. If Mr. Wellard cared to call at the office of the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers, the Secretary of the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers would explain to him the advantages which membership of the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers offered to him. ‘Curious’, said Reginald, musing to himself among the coreopsis, ‘how customs change. It seems that if a new comedy is successful, the excited audience now shouts “Playwright! Playwright!” One would like to be there.’
Mr. Oswald Chudley was conducting a symposium (at the request of a well-known magazine) entitled, ‘How I develop my ideas’. Mr. Chudley would be greatly obliged if Mr. Wellard would let him have 500 words on this subject as soon as possible, together with a signed non-copyright cabinet photograph. ‘How do I develop my ideas?’ said Reginald, gazing up at the senecio. ‘I don’t know . . . but I see now how Mr. Chudley develops his.’
The Vicar of Lower Beeding begged the favour of a signed copy of Mr. Wellard’s latest work to be sold in aid of the Restoration Fund, as the present condition of the Church tower, Mr. Wellard would be distressed to hear, rendered it unsafe to ring the bells for Matins and Evensong.
Minna Redfern was a little girl eight years old. She had read all Mr. Wellard’s books and loved them. She had now started an autograph collection of her favourite authors, and would very much like Mr. Wellard’s autograph.
And so on.
‘I shall go for a walk and think this over,’ said Reginald to a duck and two drakes, and left his castle by the postern gate. . . .
The trouble is, he thought, I’m so out of it down here. I can’t ask anybody anything. I don’t want to be a churl, and I don’t want to be a fool. If I get all these letters just because of one accidental book, it stands to reason that real incorporated authors must be simply smothered with them. What do they do? Just take no notice? Or write and say ‘No’ politely? Or ‘Yes’ eagerly? They couldn’t say ‘Yes’ to everything, of course. Even saying ‘No’—oh, but they have secretaries, I suppose. Really I’m just the man who ought to say ‘Yes’ to everything, because I’m not a professional writer, and my time isn’t valuable. What an idiotic expression. All time is valuable, and the time when you aren’t working is much more valuable than the time when you are. Well, then, my time is valuable, and I’m damned if I’m going to waste any of it indoors, answering these dashed people.
‘That’s just what I think,’ said a lazy voice.
‘Hallo!’ He stopped suddenly and blinked at her.
‘You weren’t calling?’ said Lena Coleby. She had her arms on the top of the gate, her chin on her crossed arms, and was looking at nothing.
‘No. I wasn’t much thinking where I was.’ He looked about him. ‘I suppose I did know you came as far as this? Or don’t you?’
‘Yes and No. We don’t, but we may have to. I was trying to make up my mind.’
‘Why?’
‘My dear man, you’re walking down a nice little lane, and there are no nice little houses on each side of it. So let’s put some up.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘That’s what I say. That’s why I want to buy the field. I don’t like other people’s washing; I see enough of my own. Tom says we can’t afford it. I don’t suppose we can.’
‘What does whoever-it-is—Langley? — what does he want?’
‘Six hundred.’
‘Six?’ said Reginald, incredulous.
‘My dear Reginald—we decided that I called you Reginald—use your brain. It’s building land now. Much more expensive than agricultural.’
‘That’s sheer blackmail.’
‘Possibly.’
Reginald put his elbow on the top of the gate, rested his head on his hand and looked at her thoughtfully.
‘I’m sure Marcus Stone drew us like this once,’ murmured Lena. ‘A long time ago, of course.’
‘Look here, Lena, suppose I buy the field?’ said Reginald.
‘Whatever for?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Keep cows in it.’
‘Whose?’
‘Yes, that’s the question. How does one keep somebody else’s cows?’ He was silent, wondering how cow-farmers began.
‘What were you worrying about as you came along? I could almost hear you saying “Damn”.’
‘Oh, silly little bothers. It’s this field I’m worrying about now.’
‘Why?’
‘What does Tom think about it?’
Lena said nothing, made no movement; it seemed as though she hadn’t heard.
‘I suppose he’s right,’ sighed Reginald.
‘Of course he is. We can’t afford luxuries.’ ‘I hate to think that.’
She gave him a glance—and away again. Then she said lazily, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever leant on this gate before. Don’t you love looking over a valley? It’s the most peaceful gate I’ve ever leant on. There are your chimneys.’
‘So they are,’ said Reginald. ‘Thank you. That settles it.’
‘Made up your mind?’
‘Yes. I’m going to buy the field.’
‘Oh, I thought you meant—whatever you were damning about. Don’t bother about the field.’
‘I can’t stand being overlooked. I’m not going to have ugly little cottages looking down on Westaways. I’m not——’
‘They’d only see the chimneys.’
‘That’s quite enough. They’d say “Mr. Wellard’s having a fire in his sitting-room to-day”. Absolutely the ruin of all privacy. No, I’m dashed if I’ll stand it.’
‘Rubbish!’
‘What you mean by rubbish is about the only thing that matters in this world.’
Lena shook her head at the valley. ‘We can’t leave it like that,’ she said.
‘Well, what do you propose to do about it?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the trouble. I can’t do anything.’ After a little she
went on: ‘Saying “Thank-you” seems so silly.’
‘It’s idiotic. I’m doing this for my own sake. Or do I represent the Society for the Preservation of Rural Amenities? I’m not quite sure. Anyway, Colebys mean nothing to me. Who are they? I don’t know them.’
‘Tom would rent it from you. I’m sure he would do that.’
‘He won’t get the chance. It’s my own private field. I suppose I shall have to get some one to cut it for me. Perhaps Tom would do that. I can’t afford to pay him anything, but he can keep the hay. And I shan’t prosecute you, if you lean on the gate, but you must be careful not to bend it. Thank God we’ve saved a bit of England to-day. I feel years younger.’
Lena took a hand away from the gate and, without looking at him, patted his arm once or twice. ‘I like leaning on your gate,’ she said. ‘Give Sylvia a kiss for me and tell her I’m fond of Wellards. Good-bye.’ And she was gone.
II
Six hundred pounds, thought Reginald. I could have got Sylvia a diamond necklace for that. No, emeralds. Sapphires. Or suppose I had given her six hundred pounds to get clothes with. Ridiculous clothes. Good lord, I’ve never even bought her a nightgown. Let’s go shopping in London together and buy pretty things. Soft, pretty, crepe-de-Chiney, lacey things. What fun! . . .
What is it that makes a conversation with a woman so different from a conversation with a man? A pretty woman of course. Yes, she’s got to be pretty. Or—or something. Feminine. But why? Why do I get that sort of—excitement? Not excitement, that’s not quite the word. Why does one get a sort of kick out of it—a tang—a—no, thrill’s too strong. A bite. I’m not in love with Lena. Well, of course not. Perhaps it’s the feeling that she might be in love with me. Oh, no, damn it. I’m not that sort of fool. . . .
I suppose it all comes from a sort of sexual impulse. The urge to attract; to shine. Nature has this passion for reproducing herself, and does it by making the male animal want to shine before the female animal, so that they come together and produce more animals. The lapwing gets himself another crest—and then lots more lapwings. And we’ve eons and eons of all that behind us, and we can never get rid of it. Which means that the real reason why I like talking to Lena across a gate is because there aren’t enough people in the world already. Idiotic. . . . But essentially true, I suppose.
