by A. A. Milne
What about Betty Baxter? She’s pretty in a way. But do I get any sort of kick out of talking to her? Not the slightest. I suppose she’s not my species. Not a lapwing. Grace Hildersham? Lena? Lena—it’s different, you see. Yet if Lena died to-night, I shouldn’t have one pang, except for Tom. So I can’t be in love with her. Well, of course not. Yet if I knew she were going to be leaning over that gate to-morrow I’d walk out this way, wouldn’t I? If I didn’t feel too self-conscious about it. And there you are: why on earth should I feel self-conscious, if I’m not—if——
And why do I mind telling Sylvia about this six hundred? Well, of course I needn’t tell her. Why on earth shouldn’t I tell her? Well, I needn’t just yet . . . oh, well, of course I will . . . But then if I weren’t just the tiniest bit in love with Lena—no, not in love. In what, then? He walked on through Beevors Wood, wonder-ing . . . .
‘Hallo, darling, I came to meet you.’
She wore a pale-gold jumper and a tobacco-brown skirt; was bareheaded; she was golden-yellow and brown, a wood-nymph, not clothed in this or that fashion, not clothed at all, but herself; this was how she was born you would have said, and lived immortally. This was how she had come drifting through the woods a thousand years ago. . . .
Lena! How ridiculous!
Reginald took a deep breath and called out, ‘Stay there!’
She waited, a little smile on her lips, as if it did not matter whether she stayed or moved, now or for ever. He came closer and stood looking at her.
‘You did marry me, didn’t you?’ he said at last.
She nodded.
‘You do belong to me, absolutely and always? You’re mine, aren’t you?’
She nodded again, shyly.
‘It’s incredible, incredible. Has anybody ever told you that you’re the most utterly lovely thing that has ever been created?’
‘Only you, darling.’
‘Do I tell you often enough? Do I tell you day and night, day after day and night after night?’
Her little shining head went quickly from side to side, as if to make sure that they were alone.
‘Do you like my telling you?’
She nodded again, quickly, up and down, up and down.
‘Then I tell you now,’ said Reginald, and took her in his arms, and kissed her mouth; and then turned her round, and slipped her hand in his arm, and walked off with her quickly, talking quickly.
‘I’ve just been buying a field, back along the lane just below Redding Farm. Langley was going to put up cottages, horrid little things, like those other ones of his. So I bought the field to stop him. Lena told me about it—I met her. Do you mind? Say you don’t mind, Sylvia Wellard. It’s rather expensive, six hundred pounds. But, you see, we’ve got the book, that’s all extra. And they’d have seen the washing from the Farm. I keep forgetting about the book, I mean the money side of it, so let’s go up to London and spend it, I mean really spend it. You see, when you have in your house the most utterly lovely thing that has ever been invented, you must set it off properly, so do you mind if we spend a lot of money on the most adorable clothes in London?’
It seemed that Sylvia didn’t mind.
Chapter Ten
I
BUT before they settled down to London, they had a preliminary taste of it at Seven Streams.
‘We’ve got the Effinghams coming down. Do you know Sir Roger? He’s just come back from the Malay States or somewhere like that. Governing. Bertie says that if he’s seen nothing but his wife and black women with rings through their noses for six years, it would be a kindness to show him the real thing. Meaning you, dear. I do think I’m the most unjealous woman in Sussex. If it had been any one but you, I should have suggested that even I might be a change after black women with rings through their noses. But of course we understand each other. I shall flirt desperately with your charming husband, and that will leave Sir Roger free to talk to you. I hope he won’t be too free. You never know with these hot climates, and the restraint they have to practise. The white man’s prestige. So important. Eight-thirty, and wear that gold dress, Sylvia. There, that shows you, I wouldn’t say that to any other woman.’
‘We’d love to come,’ said Sylvia, speaking hopefully for her husband.
‘There will be one or two other amusing people,’ said Betty, also hopefully. ‘The Voles woman and Mr. Cox. You know Mr. Cox, of course. The Mr. Cox. How lovely your garden’s looking. That’s your clever husband. One wants the personal touch in a garden. Saturday, eight-thirty, don’t forget.’
Reginald was surprisingly calm about it, when the news was broken to him.
‘This means a white waistcoat,’ he said. ‘I’ve never driven a car in a white waistcoat before. It will be a new experience. Also it will get me ready for London, where I shall live in a white waistcoat.’
‘Darling, you are being nice about it.’
‘I know.’
‘You always used to pretend you didn’t like the Baxters.’
‘Away with pretence. I adore the Baxters. And I’ve always longed to meet the Boffinghams.’
‘Effingham I think she said, darling.’
‘But pronounced Boffingham. It’s a very old family. Sweetheart, we’re going into Society, and I left a spanner in the tail pocket of my evening coat five years ago. Could you get the bulge out between now and Saturday?’
‘Darling, of course I’ll look after your things for you.’
‘Bless you. If it’s too late to get the white waistcoat washed, india-rubber and bread-crumbs might help. But anything that occurs to you, sweetheart.’
Sir Roger was small and neat and brown and precise. His eyes behind his pince-nez were pale blue. At Eton (you would have guessed, and guessed rightly) he won a prize for Greek iambics, though not otherwise, noticeably, a poet; at Oxford he won a medal for a Greek epigram, though not otherwise, noticeably, a wit. Whether the ancient Greeks would have been as moved and convulsed as, presumably, the examiners were, will never be known. He gave the impression, quietly, without affectation, of being in all the secrets of the world, which in reality were only one secret: the secret of the conspiracy against British prestige. Everything which happened either had ‘a very good effect’ or ‘a very bad effect’ on this or that part of the Empire. Test matches and the fall of the Bank Rate had a good effect; jazz and naval agreements a bad effect. The decline of the classics in our public schools, trade with Russia, the latest crash in the City, the modern novel, dirt-track racing, the death penalty, the Prince of Wales, lengthened skirts and the reported agreement of the University golf captains to waive stymies—each fell into this or that side of the balance, and made Sir Roger’s task the more or the less difficult. ‘Ask Charlie Winter, ask Lulu,’ said Sir Roger quietly, ‘they’ll tell you the same.’
‘I always say’, said Mr. Cox, ‘that the Bank Rate is the Barometer of Empire.’
Fancy always saying that, thought Reginald.
Sir Roger looked across the table at plump little Mr. Cox (the Mr. Cox) and considered him thoughtfully for a moment. A friend. ‘Yes, in a sense, yes,’ said Sir Roger. ‘You in the City bear a great responsibility.’
‘When you say prestige,’ put in Reginald, feeling that something must be done about this, ‘what you mean is impressing the native with the importance of the Englishman?’
‘The White Man’s Burden,’ explained The Mr. Cox.
Sir Roger looked across his hostess at Mr. Wellard, and considered him thoughtfully for a moment. An enemy?
‘I should say the integrity of the Englishman,’ he corrected.
‘Well, put it that way if you like——’
‘That is how I do put it,’ said Sir Roger quietly.
‘Though I don’t see what a large Navy and a low Bank Rate have to do with integrity.’
‘Financial integrity,’ murmured Mr. C
ox.
‘Anyway, what it comes to is that you want to impress inferior races, as you naturally consider them, with the mental or moral or material superiority of the British.’
‘There are only two ways of governing, Mr. Wellard. By respect or by fear. The British way is by respect.’
‘Yes, but is the respect of one’s inferiors a very great prize? If I made it my life-work to impress my gardener, or, let us say, to win his respect, no doubt I should have to show certain good qualities, but I should have a ridiculously restricted life. And if God said to me on Judgement Day, “What have you done with the talents I gave you?” and I said, “Impressed my gardener, Lord,” well—I wonder.’ After saying which, Reginald drank half a glass of champagne and wondered if he had impressed Sylvia. He also wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake in introducing God to Betty Baxter.
Sir Roger stopped chewing his lips, and said, ‘I hope I shall be able to answer that I have done what I conceived to be my duty.’
The dam fellow makes me respect him, thought Reginald, that’s the trouble. He’s so admirable and so absurd. English, in fact.
‘What do you consider to be your duty, Mr. Wellard?’ asked Betty, beginning to feel a little anxious.
‘Mine are all negatives, I’m afraid.’
‘Come on, Wellard,’ said his host, ‘give us a lead, and we’ll all try and follow you. The whole duty of man in a negative. Needn’t be too all-embracing or too true.’
Well done, Bertie, thought his wife. Now we’re safe.
‘Well, for a start,’ smiled Reginald, ‘here’s one. Not to acquiesce in ugliness.’
‘Good. Here’s mine. Not to set a higher standard for others than one sets for oneself. Now, Lady Effingham?’
‘Not to speak without knowledge,’ said her ladyship, and Reginald realized that he had been given notice.
‘Not to do things just because other people do,’ said the Voles woman.
Everything seems so terribly personal, thought Reginald. I wonder what Sylvia will say.
‘Whole duty of man, I mean woman. Go on, Sally,’ said an Unknown Young Man, nudging the Unknown Young Woman next to him.
‘To make your own mistakes.’
‘Negative, you idiot.’
‘All right, then. Not to let other people make them for you.’
‘Mine’s, not to wait for things to come to you. Because they don’t.’
‘Nor people,’ said Sally.
‘Well done, children,’ said Baxter. ‘Go on, Betty.’
‘Not to miss anything.’
Not bad, thought Reginald. I wonder what Sylvia will say.
‘Not to expect anything,’ said The Mr. Cox.
And I didn’t expect anything nearly so good, thought Reginald. So that’s all right. Oh, Sylvia, think of something!
‘Mine’, said Sir Roger, ‘is the converse of our host’s. Not to set a lower standard for others than we set for ourselves.’
‘Good,’ said Baxter. ‘Now, Mrs. Wellard.’
Every one looked at Sylvia. Oh, Sylvia darling! The wild-rose deepened.
‘Not to be afraid,’ said Sylvia.
II
Reginald went into the drawing-room feeling very proud. It was not only that the Unknown Young Man had whispered to him, ‘Who was the Sheikh’s Dream of Paradise sitting next to the Black Man’s Burden?’ It was that in that game they played she had given the best answer of all of them. ‘Not to be afraid.’ I’m always being afraid, he thought. Sir Roger spends his whole life being terrified. Terrified of anybody thinking differently from the regulation way. Betty is perpetually afraid of doing the wrong thing. Baxter—what is Baxter afraid of? Come to think of it, I hardly know Baxter at all. I’ve thought of him as just a stockbroker. Stupid of me.
In the drawing-room somebody had turned the wireless on.
‘They’re playing all the old waltzes,’ said Betty. ‘Lady Effingham and I can hardly bear it. Of course Sylvia and Sally hardly know what a waltz is like.’
‘The collars I used to ruin,’ said The Mr. Cox. ‘It takes me back to those collars. I always used to say that I was a three-collar-man.’
‘Bertie, I’m sure we used to dance this one together. Come and hold my hand. I feel quite sentimental.’
‘There is something about them,’ conceded Sally. ‘Waltzes.’
Sir Roger moved across to his wife. They smiled at each other. Perhaps that tune had some private memory for them. He sat down next to her. Holding her hand, thought Reginald; or no—her hand in his arm, as he leads her to the conservatory.
‘Bertie, wake up!’
Baxter was standing in the middle of the room, his head on one side, listening to the whisper of old-fashioned frocks on a polished floor. Somewhere.
‘Bertie!’
Baxter woke up, walked across the room and turned off the wireless as a new waltz began.
‘It’s rather a divine tune,’ said .Sally. ‘Anybody know its name?’
‘Gracious, no,’ said Betty.
‘Sizilietta.’
‘How much?’ asked the Unknown Young Man.
‘Fancy your remembering, Bertie. What is it again?’
‘Sizilietta,’ grunted Baxter. He walked round with a box of cigars; then lit one for himself, giving it all his attention.
‘Tell us about her,’ said Sally.
‘Sally, you’re the limit.’
‘Is it a story, Bertie? You’ve never told me, have you?’
‘Yes to the first, Betty, and No to the second. I’ve never told anybody.’ And then after a pause. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Please Mr. Baxter,’ said Lady Effingham.
‘I shan’t be jealous, Bertie. You know I never am.’
‘I say, that sounds bad,’ said the Unknown Young Man.
‘Don’t be silly, Claude,’ said Betty sharply.
Claude and Sally, thought Reginald. Now I know everybody.
‘There’s nothing to be jealous about. Who ever married the girl he first fell in love with? I mean first thought he was in love with. Bridge, Sir Roger?’
‘Aren’t we to have the story?’
‘Please!’ said Sylvia.
‘It isn’t what you’d call a story, Wellard. Just—oh, nothing. Do you really——? Oh, well. It’s a silly story.’ He lay back in a chair and puffed at his cigar.
If only people would stop drinking just at this point, thought Reginald. Just where Baxter is now. Just at the point where you have lost nothing but self-consciousness.
‘I was about twenty-two. If Betty has given you the idea that I was the nephew of the Duke of Argyle and the grandson of the original Rothschild, forget it. My father was a country G.P. He just managed to send me to Cambridge; I came down and read for the Bar. Later on a sort of cousin took me into his firm in the City, but that was only because his son died and he wanted to keep the name going. At first I knew nobody in London, at least no-body who showed up. One day I was lunching at—what’s the place—Grooms, I was just going when somebody called out “Hallo!” I turned round and saw a face I thought I knew. “It’s Baxter, isn’t it?” he said. I couldn’t place him for the moment; then I remembered. We’d been at a private school together. Fellow called West. I sat down and had a cup of coffee with him. And we talked—what happened to you, what are you doing now, that sort of thing. At least I talked; he didn’t say much. Then he suddenly asked, as if he’d been thinking of it all the time, “Are you a dancer?”
‘In those days dances were dances. Solemn, organized affairs, and no gate-crashing. I’d danced a bit at Cambridge, but I’d really taught myself in London. Saturday nights at the Kensington Town Hall or the Empress Rooms, dancing with shop-girls, and dashed good dancers too, and dashed nice girls. All I could get; I didn’t know anybody. We did weird things called waltz
cotillions, great fun. Well, it turned out that West had promised to bring a man down with him for the Bicester Hunt Ball. Would I be the man? A friend was putting us up for the night, and so on. Of course a Hunt Ball sounded a bit terrifying to me in those days. The impression that Lord Lonsdale and I were boys together in Newmarket, which some of you may have, is a mistaken one. We weren’t. I hardly knew one end of a horse from the other. And of course I knew that I was only a stop-gap; somebody had let West down. But I wasn’t proud, I was very keen on dancing, and I think I had a vague feeling that I should so endear myself to the county that they’d all bring actions against each other, and employ me as their counsel. So I said “Right”, and arranged to meet West at Paddington the next evening.
‘It was winter, of course, January, dark and cold and wet. We were met at Bicester, and driven to the house. Horses; took about an hour and a half. A butler received us, and showed us to our rooms, and we dressed and came down just as they were beginning dinner. Whatever introductions were made meant nothing to me, I didn’t catch a single name. There were about ten or a dozen of us, all the men in pink, except ourselves, and all the girls in pinks and blues and greens, clashing horribly. All except one sensible one in black. My neighbour on the right asked me what pack I hunted with, and, hearing that I didn’t, lost interest in me until the sweet, when she forgot and asked me again. My neighbour on the left also asked me what pack I hunted with, as did my hostess across the table. On hearing that I didn’t, they also lost interest in me. It was rather a dull dinner.’
‘Poor Bertie, I should think so.’
Baxter blew a cloud of smoke from his cigar and watched it form slowly into a grey veil which hung motionless at the level of his eyes. Then he brushed it suddenly away with his left hand, and went back to his story.
