Four Days' Wonder

by A. A. Milne

  Title

  A. A. Milne

  FOUR DAYS’

  WONDER

  Contents

  Contents

  TUESDAY

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  THURSDAY

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  FRIDAY

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To

  E. V. Lucas

  whose company

  now officially an honour

  has always been a delight

  TUESDAY

  Chapter One

  Return of Aunt Jane

  I

  When, on a fine June morning not so long ago, Jenny Windell let herself in with her latch-key at Auburn Lodge, and, humming dreamily to herself, drifted upstairs to the drawing-room, she was surprised to see the body of her Aunt Jane lying on a rug by the open door. It had been known for years, of course, that Aunt Jane would come to a bad end. Not only was her black hair cropped short like a boy’s, but she smoked cigarettes out of a long red holder, and knew the Sitwells. Moreover, she acted on Sundays in plays which either meant nothing at all, which was silly, or meant what you thought they did, which was hardly possible. And it was said that she—but of course that wasn’t true. After all, her father had served his King in India and the Windells had always been gentlefolk.

  It was not surprising, then, that Aunt Jane should have been cut short like this; nor was it surprising that Jenny should drift upstairs and find a body in the drawing-room. Jenny was a well-read girl, and knew that people were continually drifting upstairs and finding bodies in the drawing-room. Only last night Michael Alloway, a barrister by profession, had found the body of a well-dressed woman on his hearthrug, with a note by its side which said ‘A K 17 L P K 29 Friday’. What it meant Jenny would not know until to-night. Flitting from shop window to shop window this morning, or counter to counter, she had let her mind wander over the possibilities of adventure for herself in this romantic setting, so much more easily to be called up, when one was in fact in the Brompton Road, than the saddle-bows of an Arab sheikh. The body . . . the handsome young detective . . . the Old Bailey . . . Jenny Windell in the box: Dramatic Evidence. (‘Oh, good morning! No, I’m just looking round, thank you very much.’)

  No, the surprising thing was that Aunt Jane should be at Auburn Lodge at all. She had not been near them for—let me see, Jenny, it must be nearly eight years. Happy years, had thought to herself Aunt Caroline (the Good One), for it was so much better that Jane should not come near Jenny. Being what she was, she would be bad for Jenny; put all the wrong ideas into her head. It was a great mercy that Jane had left Auburn Lodge for ever eight years ago.

  And now Jane had come back to Auburn Lodge . . . had met Jenny again after eight years . . . was going to be very bad for Jenny, and put all the wrong ideas into her head.

  II

  ‘Oh!’ said Jenny. And then ‘Well!’ And then, in surprise, ‘Why, it’s Aunt Jane!’

  Even after eight years she never had a doubt. The sleek, black head, the absurd gipsy earrings, the ridiculously shaved eyebrows over the Chinese eyes, the sulky, over-red mouth, the notorious cigarette-holder, now lying broken on the floor, all these had been shared so long and so generously with those who read their peerage in the Sunday Papers, that any woman of them would have said at once: ‘Why, it’s Jane Latour!’ The Sunday Papers did not come up to the drawing-room of Auburn Lodge; not the ‘Sunday Papers’. Mr. Garvin of the Observer came up because he was patriotic, and really doing his best for England; but that was different. It was more a National Organ. For the real Sunday Papers one had to go down to the kitchen . . . and wait for Cook to say ‘There’s another little bit about yer aunt, Miss Jenny. I cut it out for you.’ And from Cook’s little bits, and from the illustrated papers over which her fair head drooped for the hairdresser, and from the childish memories of eight years ago, Jenny had now in her mind as complete a picture of her Aunt Jane as any niece could wish.

  It was a picture which, to Jenny, had all the attraction and repulsion of her first, and last, cocktail. That had been called a White Lady, which was something nobody would dream of calling Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane was a Red-and-black Lady. In as far as she was a well-known actress, one could say carelessly: ‘Oh, yes, that’s my aunt,’ and wait for the envious ‘Really?’ In as far as she was notorious in other ways, one could say hurriedly: ‘Well, actually she is a sort of relation, but——’ and wait for the reluctant change of subject. What really irritated Jenny (when she thought about it) was that she was never quite sure what Aunt Jane had done. Aunt Caroline had explained to her once what Jane had not done, but she felt that there should have been more to it than that. After all, anybody might marry a French Count, and then find that he wasn’t a Count, and that you hadn’t married him, and that all that was left of him was that he was undoubtedly (oh, but undoubtedly) French. You wouldn’t go on having bits in the paper about yourself, just because of a mistake like that. Would you, Aunt Caroline?

  ‘My dear,’ said Aunt Caroline, ‘that was not All.’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘It is not a pleasant subject for a sister to discuss; it is not a pleasant subject for a girl of sixteen to discuss. My methods of bringing you up, Jenny, may be old-fashioned, but, to use an old-fashioned word, I want you to grow up a lady. We will now talk of something else.’

  ‘Did Aunt Jane grow up a lady?’

  ‘Aunt Jane’, said Caroline proudly, ‘would always be a lady whatever she did. She is a Windell.’

  It occurred to Jenny that she also was a Windell and would therefore always be a lady whatever she did, even if she did all that Aunt Jane had done, whatever that was, so why——

  ‘Touch the bell, please, and we will have tea. Is that a ladder coming in your stocking? Let me look. Yes. You had better go and change them now, and then you can mend them afterwards.’

  So it was left to Jenny and her great friend Nancy to decide (over a box of chocolates) what Aunt Jane was doing. Jenny decided that she took Snow in Large and Increasing Quantities. Nancy decided that she played the harp with nothing on before All the Crowned Heads of Europe. Then they talked about something else.

  And now, two years later, Aunt Jane was in the drawing-room of Auburn Lodge, and Jenny still didn’t know what she was doing.

  III

  Jenny’s first thought was ‘How exciting!’—and then remorsefully ‘Oh, but poor Aunt Jane!’—and then, being a sensible girl, she thought that, if it were really all true, all that was said, perhaps it was as well that Aunt Jane should be cut off before she could take still more snow, and play the harp before still more Crowned Heads, and perhaps even Presidents, with nothing on. And she thought that, since neither of these could be nice things to do, because anything up the nose was rather sickish, and the other would be very, very embarrassing, particularly if Presidents looked like their photographs in the papers, why, even Aunt Jane must be glad that it was now all over. So, feeling a little excited again, she looked about the floor to see if th
ere were any messages in cipher from the heads of any of the Greatest Criminal Organizations in Europe. Because, if so . . .

  But there were none. Worse than that (or, as one would say, fortunately) there was no evidence of any sort of crime. Aunt Jane’s high heels had slipped on the parquet floor, she had fallen to the ground, and her head had hit heavily against a valuable old brass door-stop. Nobody was to blame.

  Jenny’s next thought was to pick up the door-stop and restore it to its usual place upon the grand piano. The door-stop, which Aunt Caroline had previously picked up in Whitstable, was a representation of a slice of Conway Castle, and, though not actually beautiful, bore enough resemblance to a slice of Conway Castle to be ostensibly attractive rather than useful, and, as such, entitled to a place upon the piano, where it could be appreciated in comfort, rather than upon the floor, where it could only be appreciated when lying down. Jenny, then, picked this up; but noticing that it was a little stained, she did not immediately return it to its place between the General and Lord Roberts (under whom he had, at one time, served), but wiped it carefully first with her pocket-handkerchief. Then, since the handkerchief was also stained now, she made a little face at it and dropped it for the moment upon a chair, while she wondered what next she ought to do.

  She had no time to wonder. There was a noise of a door opening below; there was a noise of voices on the stairs; and suddenly the awful realization swept over Jenny Windell, leaving her hot and cold, and red and white, sending her heart hotly up into her throat and then coldly down into her stomach, the awful realization that she had no business to be here at all—that six months ago she, too, had left Auburn Lodge for ever.

  Chapter Two

  Beginnings of Jenny

  I

  General Sir Oliver Windell, K.C.B., and so forth, was too good a Victorian to wish to survive his Queen. He had died, therefore, in March 1901; a little to the relief of the War Office (which had had him on its hands all through the Boer War) and greatly to the relief of his three children. Their attitude must have appealed strongly to the General, who had always deprecated damned sentimental nonsense.

  The eldest child, and presumably the most relieved, was Caroline. She was twenty-seven, and for the last four years had been chatelaine of Auburn Lodge, thus enjoying not only the privileges of a daughter, but the daytime benefits of a wife. The second child was Young Oliver, who had had the advantage of attending a boarding-school during the greater part of those four years. He was now seventeen. The third child was Jane. She was seven, an age at which one can take refuge in the nursery and be damned by proxy.

  This recurring interval of ten years between their births, which gave them the air of an Arithmetical Progression, and, as such, seemed to evidence some profound, but slightly unreasonable, military design on the part of the General, was in fact inevitable. When Caroline was one, she and her mother, in accordance with precedent, were returned to England. Here they settled down at Auburn Lodge, and waited anxiously for the General to join them on leave. Their anxiety was unnecessary. His unique capacity for provoking, and subsequently quelling, outbreaks of religious enthusiasm, kept him so occupied that it was not until eight years later that he could resume family life. Even now it was not safe for him to leave the country: Elaine was ordered to put Caroline out to school and join him at Chukrapoota. She obeyed; and within two years was able to escape again to England, this time with Young Oliver. Feeling more satisfied with her now, for the thought of some future India without a Windell was repugnant to him, the General returned to duty. Another eight years of religious enthusiasm followed, and Young Oliver was of age to be put out. But Fate intervened. The General was ordered home to receive the rewards due to him. He and her ladyship spent the winter together in the South of France; and when at last the uncanny quiet of India summoned him urgently back, it was obviously unwise for her ladyship to accompany him. She remained at Auburn Lodge; she died at Auburn Lodge four years later; and a General whose genius for provoking outbreaks had outlived his capacity for quelling them hastened home to protect his motherless children.

  His first duty to them was to change the name of the house from Auburn Lodge to Simla. Caroline, lacking as yet the experience of the border tribes, dared to oppose him. She asked Why? The General replied shortly that one was a damned silly name and the other wasn’t. Young Oliver, essaying his first schoolboy joke in the presence of the Indian Empire, murmured that anyhow the other sounded very Simla. When this had been explained to his father and Oliver had been sent to bed, the General announced that all this damned nonsense would now stop, and that Caroline would kindly oblige him by taking down a letter to the Postmaster-General; at that time a Mr. Hanbury. Caroline obliged. The letter, a dignified compromise between the first and third persons, was dispatched; and in due course, and entirely in the third person, Mr. Hanbury regretted that it was impossible to adopt Sir Oliver’s suggestion. The General, who was unaccustomed to having his commands mistaken for suggestions, then dictated a strong letter to The Times, but Mr. Hanbury was again too much for him. The letter was not delivered. Young Oliver, now up and back at school, did what he could for his father, without wasting a stamp, by writing every Sunday to:

  Miss Windell

  Simla

  (née Auburn Lodge)

  Brompton Road, S.W.—

  but this was found not to be helpful. The General, in fact, was defeated.

  Caroline was twenty-three, but not beautiful. The General looked over The Times at her across the breakfast-table, and felt uneasily that her face was familiar in some damned way; as indeed it was, for he had shaved something like it every morning for years. She was a Windell. Jane was not; but Jane was only three, and her future was not yet written on her face. Nurse said she would be a beauty when she grew up, but the General abandoned hope afresh with every inspection of Caroline over The Times. The Providence which had supervised so long and so wisely the suppression of religious enthusiasm on the Frontier had betrayed him now. Here he was, with that damned bloody feller in the Government, and the whole damned country all over the place, and in ten years’ time he’d just be that poor old feller with the two damned ugly daughters.

  Well, he supposed he must provide for them, for God knew no husband was likely to do it. Better leave ’em the house, and they could live in it together, two old maids with a tabby and a damned canary . . .

  He sent for Mr. Watterson, and issued his instructions. True to his tradition of never recognizing defeat, particularly when committing anything officially to paper, he bequeathed Simla to the absolute joint use and benefit of his two daughters, together with a sufficient sum for the proper upkeep of the same. Mr. Watterson was, not unnaturally, surprised at the munificence of the gift, and a little doubtful as to the validity of the title.

  ‘Are you in fact,’ he asked, ‘I mean is it really—I had always understood that Simla——’ and he tried to remember if anything in the lives of Warren Hastings and Clive formed a reliable precedent.

  ‘This house’, said the General coldly, ‘is called Simla.’

  Mr. Watterson, who had thought it was called all that messuage and hereditament known as Auburn Lodge, coughed and said: ‘Quite, quite.’

  ‘Then is that clear?’ asked the General.

  ‘Perfectly, my dear Sir Oliver,’ said a greatly relieved Mr. Watterson.

  So that was how Jenny’s two aunts, Caroline and Jane, came to live together at Auburn Lodge. For the General’s prophecy was correct; no husband ever did provide for them. But it is doubtful if, for that reason, Jane Latour could properly be regarded as an old maid.

  II

  Sir Oliver was not buried in the Abbey. He had expressed a wish to be put away without any of this damned flummery, and his wish was respected. All the obituary notices spoke highly of his services to the country, in some cases instancing what these were. High Commanding Officers had been under a cloud for
the last eighteen months, and it was not difficult to feel enthusiasm for a General who had never been nearer to South Africa than the South of France, and now could never go. Indeed, one of the more patriotic organs said (and truthfully) that it was not generally known that Sir Oliver had been on the verge of taking up an important command in the Transvaal, and implied that any victories gained by the Boers in his now enforced absence were hardly to their credit.

  Caroline was left in charge. Mr. Watterson had told her to be sure to call upon him, if in any difficulty she felt the need of a father. As she felt the need of nothing so little, she thanked him and said that she could manage quite well. She did. Oliver went to Sandhurst and then into the Hussars, where he looked extremely dashing in blue and yellow. Jane went to a succession of schools, and acquired a catholic education; not so obviously in English History (for, as Chance would have it, each school was doing Henry VIII in the term that she was there) but in matters possibly as important. At eighteen she took her bizarre good looks, her cat-like indifference to others, and, of course, her knowledge of Henry VIII (which was by this time considerable) to a French finishing school. At twenty she was finished; and the Great War was beginning . . .

  With the coming of the Great Peace, there were again three Windells at Auburn Lodge.

  First, Caroline. She was now the forty-five which she had always looked to her father, and the old maid which he had always known she would be. She differed from others of her age and Parliamentary status in that she refused to take advantage of the new Cosmetic Era which had arisen. By looking the same in whatever light and (within the limits of a room) from whatever distance, she achieved a distinction which no Victorian could have foretold for her. There was only one Caroline Windell.

  Then Jane. London was full of Jane Windells. She was now the twenty-five which she would have looked in any case. She had entertained the troops during the war; just how much, and in what direction, was not known. But her experiences with a Company of Players at Havre and Rouen had made it clear that the Stage gave her most scope for her natural abilities.