by A. A. Milne
5
Belinda came on in April 1918. It synchronized with the most desperate moments of the war, it lived through the worst air-raid, and it died gamely nine weeks later. In the circumstances it was difficult to regard its ill-fortune as a matter of much importance. I was now in the War Office, wore the green tabs of Intelligence and wrote (horrible word) ‘propaganda.’ I had been marked for Home Service by a succession of medical boards, with the recommendation of ‘sedentary work.’ If there is any work more sedentary than writing I do not know it; moreover, by a happy accident, it was the only work for which I was mentally fit. I had a room to myself and wrote pretty much what I liked. If it were not ‘patriotic’ enough, or neglected to point the moral with sufficient hardihood, then the Major supplied the operative words in green pencil.
Arthur Bourchier saw Belinda and wrote to ask if I had written anything which might suit him. I said ‘No,’ but he insisted on reading The Lucky One and The Boy Comes Home. He sent back the first, and passed on the second to Owen Nares. Nares came to dinner, play in hand, our first actor guest. He wanted to do it at the Victoria Palace as a music-hall turn, but his time was strictly limited to twenty-three minutes, and this would play for twenty seven. He suggested cuts: four minutes: four pages: I didn’t want to cut, and I knew that the Victoria Palace would be too big for it. As it happened, Nigel Playfair had just arranged to put it on at a charity matinée. Somehow I felt that if it were played once in a reasonably sized theatre, I should be content. So, having been told by my agent that I couldn’t expect more than five guineas a week for it, I wrote to him now to say that I insisted on fifteen, feeling that if Nares turned it down, so much the better. I showed the letter to my collaborator, who said indignantly: ‘Fifteen! You ought to have twenty;’ so I added, not really meaning it, ‘P.S. On second thoughts twenty.’ My agent took it seriously, asked twenty and got it. After Nares had played it at the Victoria Palace, it was incorporated in a revue at the Palace. In the spring Godfrey Tearle toured the provincial music-halls with it. After which all the boys in the amateur world came home with it . . . and continue so to come.
AUTHOR
Chapter Fourteen
I
The war would be over any day now—what was I going to do? Duty (I thought) called me back to Punch; inclination to this new life in the theatre. I was certainly not established in the theatre; £311 from Belinda was the most I had made out of a play. Could I be sure of a living as a dramatist? Wasn’t I in a way pledged to Punch, which for the first three years of the war had paid me half my assistant-editor’s salary? The answer to the first question was ‘No,’ to the second ‘Yes.’ I would go back to Punch for three years; then I should feel free. And by that time I hoped to have proved that I could live on the theatre. But on Armistice Day I forgot all this. The war was over and I was going back to my old job. Once more I should sit in that dusty little office sorting out good jokes from bad; once more have fun with the paragraphs, be (oh, so happily) bored at the Wednesday dinners; once more (on Thursdays) take Daphne with me as unofficial secretary to clear up the week’s arrears of work. She loved it; I loved it; and I had promised her to be Editor one day. I was going back.
Demobilization, we were told, would be quicker if we could produce a letter from our employers to say how eagerly they longed for us to return to them. I hurried round to the Punch office for my letter. I burst in on Owen Seaman. He looked up, surprised. ‘Hallo?’ he said. ‘I’ve come back,’ I announced dramatically.
It sometimes happens that a man, being engaged to marry one girl, falls in love with another. Shall he, can he, break his plighted word to Isobel? No, the Montmorencies never break their plighted words. He has an anguished parting from Norah, the lovely girl he met on the boat; she too will make the great sacrifice; whatever the cost to themselves, Isobel’s life must not be wrecked. Manfully he returns to Isobel, is shown into the drawing-room . . . and is told falteringly by the dear girl in his absence she has found happiness with another. Will he be so brave, so noble as to release her?
And what does he say? He says with the utmost indignation, ‘Damn it, she’s jilted me!’
So, when I said ‘I’ve come back,’ and Owen, instead of falling on my neck, said coldly, ‘Oh!’ and when it appeared that the Proprietors had neither expected nor wanted me back, being not only very well satisfied with my elderly substitute, but also a little annoyed that I had written plays, not Punch articles, in my spare time; when, in short, it became clear that I was free to do whatever I liked, which is what I have always wanted to do, I said bitterly and ungratefully to myself, ‘Kicked out!’ But I did know that within a few hours I should be delighted.
We were very considerate with each other. Owen’s one wish was to serve my interests, mine to serve Punch. Of course (he said) my place was open to me, there was no question of that, but it seemed a pity that I should waste my time on the mechanical work of sub-editing when I could write such brilliant plays. Of course (I said) I should like to devote myself exclusively to playwriting, but after Punch’s generosity to me I could not possibly put the paper to any inconvenience. Was he sure—very politely he made it clear that he was. My only doubt, I said—and then stupidly murmured something about Daphne’s ambition for the future. This took him off his guard, and it was not until the third attempt that he found words which made it seem rather a compliment that, whatever happened, I should never be Editor. That settled it. I arranged to send in my resignation to the Proprietors.
‘That doesn’t mean from the Table, of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll still be on the staff and write every week.’
But that was what I wouldn’t do. What I wanted was just the opposite: the mechanical work and the salary, coupled with a free mind for the theatre.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, ‘and let the Proprietors know.’ But I had no doubts. I wrote and resigned from the Table. They were very nice about it. They told me to drop in to dinner when I liked, and drop in to the pages of Punch when I liked. For six months or so I dropped in occasionally. Then I dropped out.
It happened that we were dining that night with W. L. George and his wife. Daphne was dressing when I got back and in no mood for conversation. It was not until we were in the taxi that I told her that I was not going back to Punch. She burst into tears. She was still crying quietly to herself when I paid off the taxi. We walked round the dark and silent square, beneath a rain-laden sky which threatened to fall at any moment, while she tried to get control of herself. I promised her that we shouldn’t starve, I promised to make a success of the theatre. It was a little like telling a woman whose loved cottage has been burnt down that you will build a more expensive one on the ruins. It doesn’t really comfort her at the time.
There was one other guest at the Georges,’ and we didn’t need an introduction to tell us that it was beautiful Lillah McCarthy. When the five of us sat round the dinner-table the talk was general. Naturally I had Miss McCarthy on one side of me. We left a few minutes after her, and caught her up again at High Street Station. We travelled to Sloane Square together.
Three days later I had a letter from her. She said that she was just starting in management, and that Barrie had suggested that she should ask me for a play. Would I have tea with her on Tuesday to discuss it?
We were very much excited about this. It seemed possible that we shouldn’t starve after all.
‘Why didn’t she ask you the other night?’ wondered my collaborator.
‘Not in front of the Georges.’
‘Well, when we were alone afterwards.’
‘Not with the train making all that row.’
Daphne agreed that you couldn’t shout at a man across an Underground carriage, ‘Will you write me a play?’
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘she probably hadn’t seen Barrie then.’
‘Yes, that’s possible.’
‘Also it’s more than possi
ble that she never heard my name.’
‘Oh, I think she knew who you were. It must have come out somehow.’
‘If you want a bet, I’ll bet she didn’t.’
‘All right, I bet she did.’
‘I’ll ask her on Tuesday, and let you know.’
‘Rather fun if she didn’t. Think of her surprise when she sees you!’
This was Friday morning. We had all been given six weeks’ leave from the War Office, after which we had to rejoin our regiments for demobilization. I retired to my room to think of a play for Lillah McCarthy. It was wonderful to be thinking in the morning again. By Tuesday afternoon I had written the first act of a comedy which was to be called Mr Pim Passes By. I could now definitely promise Miss McCarthy a play. I went round to tea with her, full of hope.
She was charming. I told her about the play, and she asked me to send it to her manager, A. E. Drinkwater, as soon as it was finished.
We talked, we had tea. . . .
I said good-bye.
She said how delightful it had been to meet me.
I said: ‘Well, of course, we did meet last Tuesday.’
She said: ‘Oh–did we?’
Since then I have never expected my name or my face to mean anything to anybody. It saves a lot of anxiety.
2
Demobilization was not difficult. I rejoined the regiment at Crowborough, where, as a sedentary soldier, I not only lived comfortably at the Beacon Hotel, but found a comfortable stool in the demobilization office from which I could call attention to the hard case of Lieut. A. A. Milne. In little more than a week I was in respectable clothes again. Mr Pim Passes By was finished and under consideration by Drinkwater. A children’s play, Make Believe, had opened Nigel Playfair’s management of the Lyric, Hammersmith. In the summer, I had written a play called The Great Broxopp which was now being sent round. The future of the English theatre seemed assured, but our own present needs demanded some sort of regular weekly income. I had re-established relations with The Sphere—but was six guineas a week enough? Luckily at this moment Lord Lee bought The Outlook, engaged E. V. Lucas as a contributor, and asked him to suggest a dramatic critic.
He suggested me; and I, when asked, suggested six guineas a week again. It seemed a nice reasonable sum.
Lee had not yet presented Chequers to the nation but lived there himself, and to Chequers my collaborator and I went for a week-end. Just what Daphne was doing there I don’t know; we were supposed to be discussing the opening number of The Outlook, but I took a verbal ‘you’ as plural, and said that ‘we’ should be delighted to come. If now I happen to mention that I once spent a week-end at Chequers and anybody assumes that a Prime Minister was my host, no doubt it adds to the interest of the conversation.
I was dramatic critic of The Outlook for six weeks before I discovered that the position was impossible. One could not damn a manager’s play and then send him a play of one’s own; still less could one praise it and then send him a play of one’s own; least of all could one tell other dramatists how to write plays when one’s own imperfect plays were available for comparison. So I resigned–I was getting good at this–but still wrote occasional essays for the paper.
In the intervals I wrote a detective story. I had read most of those which had been written, admired their ingenuity, but didn’t like their English. Their characters (in as far as they existed as characters, which was anaemically) continually ‘effected egresses,’ instead of ‘going out.’ The detective ‘carefully selected’ a cigarette from his case (something which no human being has ever done) before telling his colleague what his impressions were when he first had ‘cognizance’ of the affair. I wondered if I could write a detective-story about real people in real English. I thought it would be ‘fun to try,’ my only reason for writing anything. The result would have passed unnoticed in these days when so many good writers are writing so many good detective-stories, but in those days there was not such competition, and The Red House Mystery had a surprising success. One eager American editor came over to me and made a contract giving me £٢,٠٠٠ for the serial rights of my next one. I still have that contract somewhere, whether valid now or not I cannot say for my next one was a book of children’s verses, and subsequent works have made as little claim on his bank roll. Sometimes I think it would be fun to try again . . . and then there seem to be so many other things to try. As it might be, autobiography.
3
Daphne was in a nursing home in May. One afternoon I found Irene with her. Dot Boucicault had announced that he wouldn’t put a play on in London until theatre rents had gone down. In the autumn they were having a season at Manchester.
‘Isn’t it about time you wrote me another one?’ said Irene.
‘Dot said he wasn’t going to—’
‘Well, if we had the right play—one can always change one’s mind.’
‘Would he really like to read one?’
‘Of course he would. Part for me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Better than Belinda?’
‘I hope so. You’ll see.’
Drinkwater had been unable to make up his mind about Mr Pim Passes By. A week ago I had made it up for him. That evening I sent the play to Boucicault. He signed an agreement which gave him the right to try it out for a week in Manchester. On January 4th, 1920, it came to London.
I have attended many first nights in the miserable rôle of author, but never one like that. The house was so delighted to see its loved and lovely Irene back again that in sheer happiness it extended its favour to the play. Calls went on continuously, there were continuous cries for ‘Speech!’—the author was pushed on and pushed off; and still Dot and Irene were bowing. As I sat in the wings among the stage-hands wondering if it were true, a very weary voice behind me said: ‘’Ere, go on and give ’em a speech, guv’nor, and let’s all get ’ome.’ So that was all it was. I imagined him when he got home.
‘Late to-night, Bill.’
‘Yus, we ’ad a success.’
And forty million people in England equally stolid.
However, that didn’t prevent us from enjoying it.
4
In August of that year my collaborator produced a more personal work. We had intended to call it Rosemary, but decided later that Billy would be more suitable. However, as you can’t be christened William—at least, we didn’t see why anybody should—we had to think of two other names, two initials being necessary to ensure him any sort of copyright in a cognomen as often plagiarized as Milne. One of us thought of Robin, the other of Christopher; names wasted on him who called himself Billy Moon as soon as he could talk, and has been Moon to his family and friends ever since. I mention this because it explains why the publicity which came to be attached to ‘Christopher Robin’ never seemed to affect us personally, but to concern either a character in a book or a horse which we hoped at one time would win the Derby.
When he was three, we took a house in North Wales for August with the Nigel Playfairs. It rained continuously. In the one living-room every morning there were assembled Five Playfairs, Three Milnes, Grace Lovat-Fraser, Joan Pitt-Chatham, Frederic Austin, and a selection of people to whom Nigel had issued casual invitations in London before starting north for what he supposed to be his Welsh castle. In a week I was screaming with agoraphobia. Somehow I must escape. I pleaded urgent inspiration, took a pencil and an exercise-book and escaped to the summer-house. It contained a chair and a table. I sat down on the chair, put my exercise-book on the table, and gazed ecstatically at a wall of mist which might have been hiding Snowdon or the Serpentine for all I saw or cared. I was alone. . . .
But sooner or later I should be asked what I was writing.
What was I writing?
About six months earlier, while at work on a play, I had wasted a morning in writing a poem called ‘Vespers.’ I gave it to D
aphne, as one might give a photograph or a valentine, telling her that if she liked to get it published anywhere she could stick to the money. She sent it to Frank Crowninshield of Vanity Fair (N.Y.) and got fifty dollars. Later she lent it to me for the Queen’s Doll’s House Library, and later still collected one-forty-fourth of all the royalties of When we Were Very Young, together with her share of various musical and subsidiary rights. It turned out to be the most expensive present I had ever given her. A few months after this, Rose Fyleman was starting a magazine for children. She asked me, I have no idea why, to write some verses for it. I said that I didn’t and couldn’t, it wasn’t in my line. As soon as I had posted my letter, I did what I always do after refusing to write anything: wondered how I would have written it if I hadn’t refused. One might, for instance, have written:
There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red),
And all the day long he’d a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).
After another wasted morning I wrote to Miss Fyleman to say that perhaps after all I might write her some verses. A poem called The Dormouse and the Doctor was the result. It was illustrated by Harry Rountree; proofs had come to me in Wales; and with them came letters from both illustrator and editor saying: ‘Why don’t you write a whole book of verses like these?’