It's Too Late Now

by A. A. Milne

  4

  Papa had a great friend called Dr Willis, and in our hearing never called him anything else; but I suppose that, when we were not there, they relaxed and called each other Milne and Willis. Very few Victorians were on Christian name terms with each other; Holmes, after twenty years of intimacy, was still calling his colleague Watson. Dr Willis lived in West End Lane. He was in some sort of partnership with our own Dr Morton, whose wife spoke always of Mr Willis, since her husband was an M.D. and Dr Willis was only a M.R.C.S. He was a man of great enthusiasms, a man, I should say, of great charm to a contemporary; in appearance a little like Trilby’s friend Taffy, and with the same passion for exercise. By an ingenious arrangement of his own invention, he could fix up a horizontal bar in his study, and on Saturday nights a few friends would drop in, say good-evening to Mrs Willis, and follow their host in astonishing ‘up-starts’ and long arm balances. He had a theory, or had made the discovery, that most toadstools, cooked the right way, were good to eat, and in his spare moments would lead expeditions to search for the right ones. A particularly loathsome-looking growth was called ‘inky,’ though not, I suppose, by botanists. It is fair to say that he would never risk the lives of his guests with inky, but only those of his own family.

  It was Dr Willis who taught Papa to ride a bicycle. They discussed life on long bicycle rides together. ‘I remember Dr Willis saying to me once when we were out cycling’–how many times in his old age Father would begin like this; and Ken and I, if we were both there, would catch each other’s eye, and wonder which of the historic sayings this would be. Sometimes Father was the author: ‘I remember saying to Dr Willis.’ One day Dr Willis must have said to Papa ‘More people ought to eat toadstools,’ or Papa must have said to Dr Willis ‘Isn’t Nature wonderful?’–however it was, in a little while Dr Willis had heard of, or was organizing, a series of Botanical Lectures. About twenty very earnest people attended them, as did Papa, Ken and myself. We all met at the appointed place, which might be Edgware or Rickmansworth or Highgate Woods, and trailed after the lecturer, Ken and I trying, whenever possible, to trail at the end.

  There was one tremendous afternoon when we got into the wrong train, or mistook the meeting-place, or the day, or something, and sat happily on the bank of a river, just the three of us, and played and talked, and never heard a word about pistils or stamens; and, after that, since it was now proved possible, we prayed every Thursday that we might miss the party again. Heaven, however, only managed it once more–on a day, as it happened, when Papa couldn’t come. The rendezvous was Highgate Woods, a place in which anybody, even if interested in botany, might get lost, and we lay on our stomach in a ride, and raced caterpillars across it, until the approaching voice of the lecturer warned us that we must move along, quickly, and look for him in some more distant part of the wood.

  It would seem from this that I was not so eager to learn botany as my character-reading suggested. Let us put it down to the dullness of the lecturer. A little later I had another opportunity, for there came to Henley House a young Science Master, the first it had ever had. As he has told in his own autobiography, this was H. G. Wells, no less. On the publication of that great work, a news­paper rang me up to ask if I remembered Wells as school-master, and if he had taught me anything. I said that he had taught me all the botany I never learnt. ‘“Yes,” said Mr Milne, “he taught me all the botany I know”’ was how it appeared in the paper next morning, as if between us we had exhausted the subject. H. G. is a great writer, and a great friend, and I am indebted to him for many things, most of all for the affection which he always felt for my father; but he was not a great schoolmaster. He was too clever and too impatient. He had the complete attention of his class once when vivisecting a frog (kindly provided by a day-boy), but school-life was not lived at that level, and on the lower slopes we lost him. Fortunately we met him again in the school magazine; in which for a year or two he kicked and stretched himself, before jumping, fully waked, into the world of letters.

  Chapter Four

  1

  The best of our life was lived in the summer holidays, and it is only by them that I remember dates. ‘That,’ I think, ‘was the Limpsfield year; it was the Seaford year that I had my hair cut.’

  The first holiday which I remember clearly was the one at Cobham in Kent: Mr Pickwick’s Cobham—or, if you prefer it, Lord Darnley’s. It was in 1888. I was six.

  As a child I had a habit of little illnesses, which meant nothing, but kept me out of school; I suspect that they were due either to over-eating or to the fact that I was the Headmaster’s Benjamin. Probably Papa and Mama were only too glad of an excuse to stop me working. I can see myself now, propped in Mama’s big bed, and waiting in great embarrassment for Ken to kiss me good-night. He had no desire at all to do this, nor I that he should, but he had been told to ‘say good-night to Alan and run along,’ and we had realized with a simultaneous horror that a kiss was expected. We delayed it up to the very last second, but there was no escaping. In an agony of unhappiness we kissed; Ken ran out of the room; and an unsuspecting mother took my temperature. It had gone up alarmingly.

  But in 1888 I had been more definitely ill. I had what was to me a lump, but to Dr Morton a glandular swelling on my neck, and I was sent to Margate, with Bee, in search of fresh air. Whether anything more was intended at the time I don’t know; regardless of his doom the little victim played on the sands; and a fortnight later Papa came down and took me to see Dr Treves, brother of the great Sir Frederick. He decided to operate next morning.

  It may interest other parents to hear that

  1.For all Papa’s and Bee’s innocence I knew on that first morning that something dreadful was going to happen, and I was terrified while waiting to see the doctor.

  2.Though now I knew what was going to happen, the rest of the day, picnicking with Papa and Bee on the sands, and going over the North Foreland lighthouse, was (though for Papa, no doubt, complete misery) for me complete happiness.

  3.Next morning I waited, and went into the operating­ room, quite unfrightened.

  4.On the following morning I was terrified again, but didn’t cry when the dressings were taken off; and thereafter was quite happy, and extremely cocky about the whole thing.

  It was now August, and as soon as we could say good-bye to Dr Treves, Bee and I joined the family at Cobham. Barry and Ken were very excited to see me, because they had discovered a wonderful walk which the three of us were to take early next morning. At six o’clock we started off, I very proud and stolid in my bandage, and Barry and Ken running round me in circles, telling me of the wonderful thing we were going to see. It was a castle, and to-morrow we should go into the castle, but to-day we could only look at it from the outside. Even though I had been inside a lighthouse (and they hadn’t) I was thrilled at the idea of seeing this castle from the outside. Was it far away? Yes, a good long way, we should have a long walk first; and Ken looked down suddenly and said that he had swallowed a fly, but it really sounded more like a laugh than a cough, which made me think that perhaps it wasn’t so far away after all. I was wrong. We walked, and we walked, and we walked. . . .

  At last we came to the castle.

  ‘There!’ they said proudly. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’ It had a grey stone tower. It was lovely.

  ‘Couldn’t we go in now?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, we could, but as we’re all going to-morrow, I think we’d better wait.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ I said.

  Ken looked at Barry, and said: ‘I’m rather hungry, aren’t you, Alan?’

  I was always hungry.

  ‘Let’s go into that house and ask them to give us some milk.’

  ‘Don’t let’s,’ I said quickly. (How could we?)

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ said Barry. ‘Are you afraid, Ken?’ Ken, to my surprise, wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ I said.

/>   We knocked at the door. (How silly of them both.) The door opened.

  ‘There you are, darlings,’ said Davis. ‘Just in time for breakfast.’

  This is the most completely successful joke which has ever been played on me. Next day, being Sunday, we all went to the ‘castle.’ I was only six, remember.

  Ken was eight on the 1st of September. One of his presents was a bow and arrows. It was no good putting an apple on my head and expecting me to stand still, I was eating the apple long before they had got to the shooting-mark. So we all shot arrows in the air, they fell we knew not where. In a little while Ken’s birthday-present was dissipated. He was unlucky in that his birthday, coming in the summer holidays, brought useful, outdoor presents which we could all share. It was really a communal birthday. But he was always unlucky. At the school Sports in 1892 (its only Sports meeting) he was second in the open Half Mile Handicap (190 yards) and won the useful present of a whisky-flask. He let me look at it on the way home, I dropped it, and that was the end of Ken’s flask. I offered him my useful aneroid barometer (first prize, also from the 190-yard mark), but he wouldn’t take it. However, as you can’t keep an aneroid barometer private, it was really as much his as mine. Later on, Barry sold my bicycle for a pound, and gave the pound to Ken, so matters evened themselves out in the end. We bore no grudges about that sort of thing.

  Our house was next to what used to be The Leather Bottle and was now The Pickwick Inn. Papa explained to us about that, and we agreed with him that it was a great pity. At the church opposite we had our first sight of a surplice, which was very exciting, and kept our interest until it was time to miss the sermon. Most of our weekdays were spent with Bee in Cobham Park, and, more particularly, at the top of a high wooden erection called The Crow’s Nest, from which there was a wonderful view of the Medway and the Thames. One day, while we were camped there, Lord Darnley brought a friend to admire the view, and seeing from the bottom that there was no room at the top, sent Papa a message through the Vicar to say that he was delighted for us to use The Crow’s Nest as long as he could use it himself sometimes too, and would we mind not nesting there. We were all very sorry; and an uncle who was staying with us, and who spent half the day swimming in one of the ponds in Cobham Woods, went off quickly to Paris to see the Paris Exhibition; but whether from remorse or because he wanted to see the Paris Exhibition, I don’t know.

  It was not until Limpsfield (1890) that Ken and I really found our walking form, but we did go out alone one early morning—he just eight, I six—and walked and walked until we came to the outskirts of Gravesend. We got a little frightened then, and wondered if a press-gang would kidnap us and send us down the river in a sea-going merchantman; and we turned back and talked very quickly about breakfast, to hide, each from the other, that just for a moment something had happened. It never happened again. Together we had no fears of anybody or anything, nor were ever given cause for them.

  2

  Sevenoaks seems now to have granted us our least happy holiday; I don’t know why; perhaps because it was so definitely not a village. We played in Knole Park (but were careful not to camp in the best bedroom); we played in the chalk-pit at Dunton Green, and we found Brownie. The Heaven-sent gift of Brownie may have driven every lesser happiness from my memory. But I remember Penshurst Place.

  Philip Sydney was born at Penshurst Place. Having written this, I thought that I would make sure of it, for very often people are not born in the places expected of them. So I looked for my Life of Philip Sydney, and on the front page I read, in my father’s writing, ‘Alan A. Milne, gymnastics. Under 14.’ I was talking about this in the last chapter, but I had forgotten what the prize was, or that I still had it. In some odd way it gives me the impression (as I hope it gives the reader) that this autobiography is going to be more truthful than most. At any rate we haven’t gone wrong over gymnastics. Well, in 1889 I hadn’t seen a real gymnasium, so we didn’t know much about Philip Sydney, but we did know about the glass of water; and when we heard that we were going to see his house, we shouldn’t have been surprised if next day we had driven in some other direction and seen Hector’s house, or Hereward the Wake’s.

  At Penshurst Place we had arranged to meet an Old Henley House Boy, called Alfred Harmsworth. It was he who had started the Henley House School Magazine in 1881, and he was now starting Answers. This was the first time I met him. The next time, as will be told if I get as far as that, was in 1903, when he was Sir Alfred of the Daily Mail and the Amalgamated Press, and I was just beginning to be (as I hoped) a ‘writer.’ My one vivid memory of him on this occasion was, naturally, concerned with food. We had been over Penshurst Place, we had lunched and, for whatever reason, the grown-ups now wanted to get rid of the children. So we were sent into the village to buy ourselves sweets. And Harmsworth pulled out a great handful of pennies, just as if he had been selling Answers personally round the corner, and poured them into our pockets with an ease of manner which convinced us that he was already the millionaire which after-wards he was to become. ‘Isn’t he rich?’ we said to each other. ‘I say!’

  3

  It is time to introduce Ken as the writer of the family. We were at Limpsfield in 1890, Ken was just ten, I was eight-and-a-half. He wrote an article for the school magazine called ‘My Holidays,’ and I wrote one called ‘My Three Days’ Walking Tour.’ I was all that younger than he, and it is natural that my article should seem childish compared with his. But I am now forty-seven years older than he was then, and I still do not see how, for all the million words I have written, I am to better his description of one of our walks. Here, then, is Ken’s contribution to this book.

  A few days afterwards Alan and myself went for a walk. We started about 10.30 a.m. It was a lovely day, and very hot. Nothing occurred until we reached Godstone Church, about three and three-quarter miles. Here we asked for a glass of water which refreshed us and made us ready to start again. Here our adventures began. We started, and when we had gone on a little way we asked a baker’s boy how we could get to a little village called Tandridge, about four miles distant. His answer was this: ‘Go along the road until you pass the gentleman’s house, then you’ll see a stile leading across a field, go along it, round the pond, over a bridge, through the wood, and you will find yourself on the Tandridge High Street.’ Well, we happened to remember this; but we could not carry it out, for when we saw the gentleman’s house we actually went through his garden, and along his paths. Soon we found where we were, and hastening out, we went over the stile, which led to three magnificent ponds, and a gentleman was fishing there. Thinking that it was no use carrying out the baker’s boy’s orders, we asked this gentleman the way to Tandridge. After he had given his answer, we failed to remember it, and we said that we would toss up for it, and it came that we had to find our own way, as there was no one about. We passed through some hop-fields, and came into a potato-field. Here we asked a labourer the way to Tandridge. Luckily, he said that if we went straight along this path we would find ourselves in Tandridge; and we did. Here we felt the heat terribly, and taking off our coats and rolling up our shirt-sleeves we set out. After a great deal of wandering we found ourselves on the Godstone road. Now, if we had liked, we could have gone straight home; but as we were not tired, we thought we would take a longer way; and reading the sign-post, we found that we would get to Limpsfield, only in a longer direction. Here we found the time was one o’clock; and hastening back, we reached home at two o’clock. It was a very enjoyable walk, about twelve miles.

  He was ten when he wrote that–and I was eight when I walked it.

  Limpsfield (to quote Ken again) ‘was a pretty village, small, and with a few shops. We lived about the middle of the village (which was on a slope).’ Later on, in an account of a cycle ride, he says: ‘We pushed our machines up Limpsfield Hill (a very steep hill, and not worth while riding up) and then mounted them.’ Now the parenthesis may make you smile, as
you think to yourself: ‘I know that sort of hill that is “not worth while” riding up; I know many things which are “not worth while” doing, as soon as one finds that one can’t do them.’ But Ken also may have had an ironical smile as he closed his brackets, for in fact we did ride up Limpsfield Hill once, and found that it was not so much worth while as we had hoped.

  We had a tandem tricycle. Ken sat behind, and had the steering, the bell and the brake under his control; I sat in front, and had the accident. Sharing a bed is really nothing compared with sharing a tandem tricycle. Bent double against a head-wind or a hill, the one in front feels, with every labouring breath, more and more certain that the one behind is hanging his feet over the handle-bars and looking at the scenery; and the one behind (according to Ken, but I doubt it) is just as convinced that he is doing all the work himself, and that the one in front is merely going through the motions of an entirely unfounded exhaustion. However, though we quarrelled about it, we remained inseparable. Now, that same uncle who was with us for a little at Cobham before going to the Paris Exhibition, was with us for a little at Limpsfield (before going, I suppose, to the Paris Exhibition); and he had promised us that, if ever we rode the whole way up Limpsfield Hill, he would give us sixpence each. So early one morning, after a period of training, we started out to win this great reward. Even to-day it must be a fairly steep hill, but to us then it seemed almost unscaleable. There were times when we were in danger of going backwards, and Ken had to jam on the brake and give us a moment’s easy; times when we had to stand on the pedals in order to force them round. Slowly we went up, not straight but in serpentine fashion, crossing and re-crossing the road, puffing and blowing, resting again with the brake on (but of course not dismounting), and then putting all of our strength into ‘twenty good ones,’ so as to work up a little momentum for the extra steep corner that was coming. . . . And we did it. We lay on the common at the top of the hill, still panting but profoundly happy, and made plans to spend our shilling. A whole shilling; what a day! What an uncle! Luxuriously we coasted back to the house, put the tricycle away, and went triumphantly in to breakfast. ‘We’ve done it!’