by A. A. Milne
However, there were impressions which could be developed.
They had wondered whether to go to a play first or to wait quietly at home. If they went to a play first, then the question of ‘tidying up’ arose. It seemed silly to come all the way back to Haywards Grove for a wash and brush-up, yet where else could Sylvia go? But if they stayed at home with a book, then how still more silly to turn out sleepily at eleven o’clock just when they wanted to be going to bed. . . . Much discussion about that. In the end they went to a play.
The Ormsby house. Big, but, surprisingly, not grand. A long, low dining-room with a number of round tables—four? five? six? (what a bad detective he would make)—each table with six (eight?) people at it.
Lady Ormsby. Small, eager, rather wistful. (Eager to please.) A nice little face framed in pale brown hair with threads of grey. (Threads of grey. Bad. Cliché. But anyway I’m not a novelist, thought Reginald, so why bother whether it’s good or bad. It’s true.) Eager to please, but I don’t mean nervously anxious; no, just wanting everybody to be happy; hoping eagerly, and rather afraid they won’t, as if she had hoped so much once for herself, and now knew that it never happened.
Their arrival. Straight into the dining-room. About twenty people at the tables, eating and chattering, half the seats unfilled, no sign of Ormsby, Lady Ormsby getting up to welcome them; rather wistfully, as if saying, ‘I can’t get more enthusiasm into it, because you see, I don’t really know who you are, but you do understand, don’t you, and I hope you’ll have a nice time.’
Introductions at Lady Ormsby’s table, and Sylvia dropped there. Reginald guided to another table—a string of names—-how d’you do, how d’you do, how d’you do—departure of Lady Ormsby—Reginald sits down.
A girl on his left in pale green, dark, sulkily beautiful, mechanically listening to her other neighbour, her thoughts elsewhere. A girl on his right, determined to be pretty, talking with all the assurance of a pretty girl, talking with all the assurance of the life and soul of her circle, obviously not pretty at all, yet giving the air of one who was accepted in her circle as pretty.
‘Good lord, not the Mr. Wellard?’
‘The cricketer?’ said Reginald. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘My dear man, do I look as if I hoped you were a cricketer? You wrote Bindweed. Confess it.’
‘Have you read it?’
‘He asks me if I’ve read it!’
‘Well, you’d have to pretend now, wouldn’t you?’
‘Definitely. And then you would never know. The uncertainty would gnaw at your vitals. It is the vitals they gnaw at, isn’t it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘I suppose you’ve come here for copy for your next book. We are rather a menagerie. Well, do your worst, we’re not afraid. Only do give me black hair. I’ve always wanted black hair.’
‘Of course you’ll have black hair,’ said Reginald. ‘And then when I’m accused of libelling you, I shall say, “But, good Heavens, I wasn’t thinking of her—she’s got fair hair!” ’
‘Oh, definitely,’ said Fair Hair.
And so on. Always the faint assumption that her personality was impressing itself on her companion; the assumption that any exchange of thought must have this personal reference to her.
The distinguished-looking man, who might have been an ex-Cabinet Minister (or still in the Cabinet? Reginald was vague about that body) who was talking to the absent girl in green. Six-foot-three, white hair, white curled moustache—Bismarck with a touch of Bancroft.
‘If the King had sent for me, I should have said, “Very well, sir. Since you put it like that, of course I have no option. But with all respect, sir, I must make it quite clear that, if I am to form a Government——” ’
An ex-Prime Minister apparently. But which one? Reginald wished he could have heard more, but Fair Hair was being vivacious again.
Ah, there was Ormsby, and there had he been, no doubt, when they came in. At the far end of the room, next to that extremely pretty actress whom Sylvia and he had been watching that evening. Was she the latest? So he had heard, but, listening to her across the footlights, had found it hard to believe that sentiments so moral could have been expressed with such morbid enthusiasm by one for whom they must have so little meaning. What a cad the man was to bring her here. What an interesting, likeable cad.
Fair Hair talking to the man on her right. Her property. Heavy-shouldered, young, red face, short clipped moustache. Obviously she had brought him with her. He interrupted his eating to say, ‘Sorry,’ when she spoke to him, and ‘Quite,’ when she had finished. So much was demanded by good manners, since she had brought him.
How was Sylvia getting on? Every one at her table looking at her. How natural. Every one listening to her, and apparently laughing. How odd.
Then he was at another table, having fruit salad again. The room was filled up. He had stood for a moment, talking to Raglan, who had just come, and somebody had taken his chair—(the man for whom the girl in green had been waiting?)—and then somebody had found him another chair and some fruit salad. One had to eat something. He was next to a young man now; unpleasant young man. Imagine a subaltern in the Guards, close-cut regulation hair, close-cut regulation whisker, close-cut regulation moustache, who has been out in the rain for a week, and has then stood in a very hot sun and sprouted, so that the hair on scalp and cheek and lip has suddenly got luxuriantly, but genteelly, out of control. The result, thought Reginald, was not so much hairy as an assertion of hairiness. It was as if a maiden lady in a cathedral town had suddenly begun to swear, using language by many degrees less coarse than that of a corporal, but infinitely more revolting.
‘I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Wellard,’ said this young man,’ because I have always wanted to ask you whether you loathed Bindweed as much as I do.’
Reginald gave a little gasp of surprise, and began to think rapidly.
‘Well, it’s really a secret,’ he said, ‘but we’ll exchange confidences. I’ll tell you, if you’ll tell me something.’
‘What is it?’
‘Do you loathe young men with whiskers as much as I do?’
Then the young man was gone, and the large-eyed, large-mouthed, pleasantly comfortable woman on his right was saying:
‘Was Claude Ashmole being as rude as usual?’
‘Who is he, what is he, how rude is he usually? I don’t know anybody.’
‘Well, he used to think he was a poet, and tried to catch the eye by looking like a man-about-town. But now that all his rich relations have died and he has become a man-about-town, he tries to look like a poet. It’s his passion for avoiding the obvious.’
‘Isn’t that rather obvious in itself?’
‘Extremely, I should say. But then where are you to stop? As soon as it becomes rather obvious to avoid the obvious, then it begins to become rather obvious not to avoid it, and so on. Most difficult and circular.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘It’s like the differences in the classes.’
Reginald considered this and said, ‘No, you’re too difficult for me. I’m from the country.’
‘Well, the lower-classes behave in a certain way, and the middle-classes have a whole lot of rules to distinguish them from the lower-classes, and the upper-classes have a whole lot of rules to distinguish them from the middle-classes; the result being that the upper-classes find themselves behaving just like the lower-classes again. Another circle.’
‘Example, please.’
‘Oh, that’s not fair on the spur of the moment—but, well, take family life. The lower-classes simply ooze family. None of them would dare to speak disrespectfully of Uncle Alfred. If Liz marries Bert, she marries Uncle Alfred too. So does Lady Elizabeth, if she marries Lord Herbert. But in the middle-classes you find people becoming more and more independent of the family. Or here’
s an easier one. When one of Bert’s relations drops in, Liz offers her a nice glass of port wine. Middle-class calls it port. But the good old crusted families say “port wine” again.’
‘Good,’ said Reginald. ‘And, taking it a step further, Royalty says “port”.’
‘Probably. Anyhow, Royalty’s definitely middle-class, isn’t it? We’re all terrified of being mistaken for what we’ve just missed being, so we pretend to be something which nobody could mistake us for.’
‘Life seems very difficult,’ sighed Reginald. ‘Couldn’t we, just for this evening, cast away pretence altogether? I am sheer middle-class, called by courtesy upper-middle-class. At least I suppose so.’
‘Right. And I’m definitely a Countess, who went on the stage by way of the beach.’
‘Oh, no! Why, of course, you’re Coral Bell!’
‘Yes. Well, don’t be so surprised. Somebody had to be.’
Coral Bell! That would be twenty-five years ago. He had come up, by special leave, to see a dentist, and by some mistake, not altogether accidental, found the appointment was for the Wednesday after. So there he was in London. Of course one might have got back to school by an earlier train, but of course one didn’t; one preferred to explain that one had spent the afternoon at the Natural History Museum. So he went to see Coral Bell. His house was Coral-mad; he was sixteen, on the verge of his house eleven, and had never seen Coral. . . . He saw her. . . .
What was that song?
There are girls who marry titles,
And a villa down in France,
There are girls who give recitals,
There are girls who act and dance.
I’m a spinster willy-nilly
And the pier is more my style . . .
But—if a thing is silly
Then I simply have to smile.
And then the wordless chorus hummed with closed mouth slowly widening into a ridiculously happy smile.
I know I’m not a lady,
And I’m not a Beauty Queen,
My pedigree is shady,
And my manners can’t be seen.
I haven’t any money,
And my brain is half-and-half. . .
But—if a thing is funny
Then I always have to laugh.
And then the chorus again, her laughter, adorable music in itself, set to this enchanting melody; trills and gurgles and bubbling happiness coming out of this absurdly attractive face—large eyes, large mouth and very little else.
The last verse. Sung very solemnly, with a tremendous effort after each two lines) to keep control.
At a sermon of the Vicar’s
My attention was profound . . .
Till I saw his sister’s knickers
Slipping slowly to the ground . . .
I was grave as Mrs. Grundy
As the first instalment showed . . .
Then, although it was a Sunday,
Well, I couldn’t help explode.
An explosion of helpless laughter, the tune of the chorus abandoned . . . and then magically caught up again into the trills and bubbling happiness of the second verse . . .
Coral Bell. . . .
Then he was at another table, and back to lobster again. Ormsby’s own table.
‘Hallo, Wellard. D’you know Mr. Wellard, Ruth? Reginald Wellard. You’ve read his book. Miss Fairfax.’
A remark of Reginald’s that he had met Miss Fairfax that evening across the footlights. Interest in Mr. Wellard, unroused by mention of his name, now faintly shown. How did he like it? Naturally he liked it enormously. Miss Fairfax charmingly and modestly calls attention to the marvellousness of the leading man—with whom she is not on speaking terms. Reginald agrees that he is marvellous. Miss Fairfax, hiding some slight annoyance, tries again. Isn’t Dolly Perkins divine? Reginald ecstatically agrees that Dolly Perkins, whose scene Miss Fairfax tries nightly to ruin, is indeed divine. Miss Fairfax lets cold eyes wander off him and round the room, and then returns them to Lord Ormsby. So that’s the famous Miss Fairfax. Fancy choosing it when you’re a millionaire. . . .
Supper then becomes a sort of musical chairs. At some time in the game Reginald is back at his old table. Only two people there now: the ex-Prime Minister and his hostess.
‘All right, dear?’ she is asking anxiously.
‘Quite all right, thank you, Maggie.’
‘Ah, here is Mr.–––– You did meet my father, didn’t you?’
‘Wellard,’ he explains.
‘Mr. Wellard, of course. We’ve had your lovely wife at our table. Father dear, this is Mr. Wellard.’ Her face lights up at a sudden achievement of memory. ‘You wrote that book! Father, he wrote that book.’ Then to somebody else, ‘Oh, must you really go?”
‘My name’, says the Elder Statesman with dignity, ‘is Fondeveril. One so rarely hears a name.’
‘Ah!’ says Reginald, wishing that he had taken more interest in politics. (Gladstone’s last Government?)
‘They used to have a silly rhyme about me,’ said the Elder Statesman with a reminiscent chuckle. ‘I dare say you’ve heard it. Let’s see, how did it go? “Always the same, always game, John Fon Deveril.” Something like that.’
Reginald smiled, and tried to look as if he remembered it well.
‘Great organizing power my daughter has. Now a party like this. I doubt if we realize, Mr. Wellard, that in its own way a party like this requires as much organization as—well, let us say a campaign. There are some who think that organizing power is hereditary. No doubt it is to some extent. It’s a question of Having One’s Fingers on the Threads of—er——’ He indicated with his white, long-fingered, deeply veined hands the conclusion of the sentence. ‘You see what I mean?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ says Reginald, and wonders if he could walk in a perfectly straight line to Sylvia, and tell her the time. Half-past three.
‘That ability to Feel the Pulse of—of whatever it is. To Know by Instinct. Instinct—well, that was what I was saying. It’s hereditary. I suppose I oughtn’t to say it, but others would tell you. Ask them in Whitehall—in the City. Ask them’, said Mr. Fondeveril darkly, ‘in Wall Street. Ask them’, said Mr. Fondeveril, emptying his glass, ‘on the Bourse.’
‘Yes,’ said Reginald.
And almost as soon as he had asked them on the Bourse, it was four o’clock, and Sylvia and he were in the hired car, driving back to Haywards Grove.
‘’Wasn’t it fun?’ said Sylvia, sparkling with excitement.
Reginald agreed sleepily.
III
Coral Bell! Twenty-five years ago none had been so Coral-mad as he. She was in all his day-dreams. When he was batting, she was watching; when he was in his form-room, she was waiting in the Yard outside, and as he crossed it, would ask him the way to the Headmaster’s house. It would appear that she didn’t want to see the Headmaster very much, for when he suggested an afternoon on the river, and tea at the Rose and Crown, she agreed at once. It meant cutting cricket, and perhaps trouble afterwards, but how gladly one would suffer for her sake.
He was sixteen. Legally you could be married at fourteen, but they might have to wait until he was twenty-one. Five years, and everybody else in the house wanting to marry her too. But if they were wrecked on a desert island together . . . If only. He would have to take a sea voyage of some kind these holidays. It could be quite a small one (and his heart leapt, as he realized suddenly that it need only be a small one) because your boat might be run down by an ocean-going liner, to which you would be transferred, and Coral Bell would be looking down as you came up the side, and then the liner could be wrecked properly in the tropics. Really, a cross-Channel trip would do it. He would suggest it to his father . . . something about improving his French. . . . Once he had left the pier at Folkestone, then the palms and the blue sky and the white s
and, and Coral Bell by his side, were easily within reach.
That was twenty-five years ago, thought Reginald, and now I have seen her again. I suppose she’s forty-seven. I wish I’d been funnier last night; I don’t think I made her laugh once. I wonder if she still laughs like that. I was right, you see. She wasn’t just the empty-headed little fool that everybody said. A most interesting, intelligent woman. I wonder if she’s read Bindweed.
It would be rather fun if Sylvia asked her to dinner. Can you just ask a Countess to dinner when you’ve met her once, like that? Oh, but Coral Bell! It’s not like an ordinary Countess. She’d understand. . . .
She doesn’t look forty-seven.
Extraordinary what a lot of interesting, intelligent women there are about, really. Lena . . . and that Miss Voles . . . and Coral Bell.
Chapter Thirteen
I
A MR. FILBY NIXON was to dramatize Bindweed. In fact, he was coming to see Reginald that morning.
‘A play? What fun!’ said Sylvia, when she was told at breakfast. ‘But couldn’t you do it yourself, darling?’
Having wondered for some weeks whether he oughtn’t to try to do it himself, Reginald was naturally annoyed at the suggestion.
‘My dear Sylvia, it’s a very technical job. Not a thing that anybody can do. There’s a lot of craftsmanship and so on wanted. You’ve got to know the theatre from the inside.’ So he had been telling himself for these last few weeks, not believing a word. Now for the first time he began to think that there was something in it.
‘Isn’t there craftsmanship in writing a book, darling?’
‘Of course. But of an entirely different kind. That’s the point. It doesn’t follow that, because a man can write a book, he can write a play.’
‘Yes, I do see that, darling, but I’m sure you could.’
‘Oh, Sylvia, what is the good of saying that?’ he burst out; and then added, ‘Sorry, but–––’ and got up, cup in hand, as if he were bringing it to be refilled, and said, ‘Sorry,’ and kissed the back of her neck while she refilled it.
