Four Days' Wonder

by A. A. Milne

  Nancy realized, then, that her letter to Jenny was a public rather than a private communication. Yet it had to answer Jenny’s extremely private letter. It had to make the following points quite clear to Jenny without giving away anything to the police.

  1.I know all about it, Jenny darling, and of course I’ll help you.

  2.It’s perfectly all right about the clothes, and I don’t mind a bit about the extra things.

  3.I quite understand about not wearing the green georgette and hat.

  4.I’ll pawn the watch, and send you most of the money, because it’s much too much just for the things you’ve taken.

  So, with this in mind, Nancy sat down to her typewriter, and after six attempts, achieved the following:

  ‘The Menagerie, Tuesday.

  ‘Darling Gloria,—

  ‘How nice to hear from you. I do hope you will enjoy your holiday. I haven’t much news, except that two new exhibits joined the menagerie yesterday, but I haven’t seen them yet. Sisters. Of course we are all very excited about the Jane Latour Murder, because one of the girls—Bertha Holloway —did you see her that time you came?—glasses and a protruding head like a tortoise—well, Bertha saw her in all those Russian plays, and had rather a crush on her, and of course we’ve all read all sorts of things about her, so it isn’t really surprising, I mean being murdered, but Bertha says they aren’t true. Apparently she wrote for her autograph once, but I don’t see that that proves it. Bertha also says that the “Jenny” the police are looking for is not her illegitimate daughter, I mean Jane Latour’s, as people are saying, but she doesn’t know who she is—and neither does anybody else, not even the police, I mean, not really. But of course they’re bound to find out soon, because of the handkerchief and the footprints, and then, I suppose, they’ll begin to look for her properly.

  ‘Well, that shows what London’s like, with me listening to Miss Bertha Tortoise about a stupid murder, when I long to be out in the open sunshine, like you are, and listening to the birds. I got a new georgette—blue—and a ducky little hat at the sales, but I shan’t be able to wear them yet, so I’ve put them away very carefully, and am sticking to the brown. (Well, really in this weather, almost!) And I’ve been selling one or two things, that stockinette, do you remember, and the undies that I always used to wear with it, but quite good still, and one or two other things, and have got a very good price for them, quite satisfactory in every way. I haven’t actually got the money yet, but it’s coming to-morrow, and what with one thing and another, spare-time work and Aunt Mary sending me a postal order on my birthday, I shall be able to pay you back five pounds of the money you lent me, darling, and possibly more. So this is very important, will you give me an address where I can send it, and where you’re sure to get it safely, because I always say you can’t have too much money on a holiday, particularly the sort of wandering-about holiday you’re having now. So don’t forget.

  ‘Good-bye, Gloria darling, I wish I could be with you, but I expect I’m really better where I am, if you look at it all round. I mean just now.

  ‘Your very loving A. P.

  ‘P.S. Wasn’t I right to insist on your taking pyjamas? I never wear them in London, but I think in the country, and of course if you sleep out, you simply must have them.’

  The best of this letter, thought Nancy as she put it in its envelope, was that, not only was it an absolutely natural one to be waiting for anybody at the Tunbridge Wells Post Office, but that it gave Gloria Harris what Mr. Fenton would have called a Background. It would be safe for her, indeed it would be wise for her, to leave this letter lying about, so that whoever read it would know that Gloria Harris was a real person. With a Background.

  Nancy had achieved the Background with her first six copies. What had made the seventh copy necessary was the problem of the address.

  To put her real address at the head of the letter was to provide a clue. If the letter came into the Wrong Hands, then one of those hands could lay itself on Nancy’s shoulder (if it should so desire) and lead her wherever it willed. But to put no address, as at first she had done, was to make Gloria Harris’s background too indistinct altogether. A genuine letter would surely have some address. A false one then? Easy enough to invent, but also, in the wrong hands, easily proved false. Also, quite possibly, confusing to Jenny. And then, brilliant inspiration, she thought of ‘The Menagerie’. It could refer to so many things. A boardinghouse, a Young Women’s hostel, a shop, a secretarial college, a girls’ school: from any one of these A. P. might be writing in very much the words of this letter. It needed a little alteration here and there; perhaps a slight reference to the Menagerie in the body of it; just enough to make a seventh copy advisable, but so little as to make it absolutely final—the Perfect Work of Art.

  She stamped the letter and took it for a walk to South Kensington. South Kensington was so safe, and so full of menageries. As she walked, she wondered about A. P. Not Acetylene Pitt, which you couldn’t really be called nowadays, but Alice Pitman. Thirty-five, she thought; good, earnest, slightly perspiring; half governess (without certificate) half matron at a large kindergarten with resident mistresses. The mistresses were young enough to think of themselves as ‘the girls’, and Bertha Holloway was the English mistress and taught the children to act plays, and Alice Pitman (secretary, of course, to the Head, as well as the other things, because of using a typewriter) was really called Miss Pitman, but she liked to think that they called her Alice and thought of her as one of the girls too; and Gloria Harris——

  But how would Miss Pitman have a friend like Gloria Harris? Oh, well, that was easy. An old pupil . . .

  It was really quite a story . . .

  Might write a story one day, thought Nancy. I know most of the tricks . . .

  Why not dye the green georgette? Why ever not?

  Why not? . . .

  She would . . .

  The letter went into the box, but, before it came to Gloria Harris, Jenny had got a new background altogether.

  Chapter Six

  Jenny at Tunbridge Wells

  I

  With two brown-paper parcels under her arm and mixed emotions in her bosom, Miss Gloria Harris left Tunbridge Wells by omnibus.

  It was five o’clock in the afternoon, such a mellow, gracious June afternoon as Jenny had never known. In one of her parcels were a green set of underclothes, a pair of blue pyjamas, a pair of beige stockings, two handkerchiefs and a lipstick. In the other were a knapsack, a small towel, a cake of soap, a comb, a pair of scissors, a toothbrush, a small sponge, a tube of toothpaste, a pair of pink garters, some cold cream, a large slab of chocolate, a box of dates, and Watson’s Wonderful Combination Watch-dog-and-Water-pistol. The first parcel contained all that she had taken away from Nancy’s flat; the second contained all that little Mr. Sandroyd, of Sandroyd’s Stores and General Depository, had sold her as soon as he heard the magic word ‘knapsack’.

  ‘A knapsack? Certainly, madam,’ said Mr. Sandroyd, brushing up the cascade of his moustache with the back of his hand, as if to make himself more audible. ‘Going hiking, if I may be permitted the phrase?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Ah!’ He beamed at her through his glasses. ‘Then perhaps you will allow me to bring to your notice this list which I have compiled for the convenience of our customers.’ He handed her a gaudily printed bill headed: ‘HIKERS. BEWARE!’

  ‘Beware of what?’ said Jenny a little nervously.

  ‘A little ruse of mine, madam,’ said Mr. Sandroyd reassuringly, ‘for calling the attention of ladies and gentlemen to the articles which they so often forget to take with them. You will notice’—he leant over the counter and jabbed at the list with a stubby and reflexed thumb—‘that I have ventured to divide the articles into two columns headed Optional and Obligatory. Far be it from me’, said Mr. Sandroyd kindly, ‘to dictate to ladies and
gentlemen what they should take and what they should not. My only purpose—if you will allow me one moment’—he swooped down on the list, made a mark with a finger-nail against one item, and leant back complacently—‘there! Soap!’ He twinkled at her. ‘I am not going too far in suggesting that soap as an article for a young lady’s toilet . . .? Even in the give-and-take of camp life . . .? Well, one wouldn’t quite say “optional”, would one?’ He put his head on one side and looked at her comically over his glasses.

  Jenny nodded confidingly at him.

  ‘I do want some,’ she said.

  ‘A dainty cake of freshly scented soap,’ he agreed. ‘Verbena, lemon, rose, sandal-wood—a matter of personal choice for the customer, but we have them all——’

  ‘Verbena,’ nodded Jenny.

  ‘Dainty and distinguished,’ said Mr. Sandroyd approvingly. ‘Now suppose we decide upon the knapsack first, and then place each article as bought into its proper receptacle. I have here —excuse me one moment’—he disappeared behind the counter and came back almost at once —‘I have here’, said Mr. Sandroyd, holding it up and turning it this way and that, ‘a superb specimen of the knapsacker’s art.’

  Jenny gasped.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ she began, ‘I mean—— You see, I haven’t really very much money.’

  ‘Ah!’

  He put the knapsack down, and looked at her commiseratingly, holding his elbow with one hand, and scratching his ear with the other. ‘Well now, let me think.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Yes. How would this be? We buy the soap and other articles first, and then we know how much money we have over? We can then suit the knapsack to our means. How would that be?’

  Jenny agreed that that would be a very good idea, and said that she did want a tube of Kolynos, and in fact—er—well, perhaps a——

  Mr. Sandroyd held up a kindly hand. He understood perfectly. Having the—how should he put it?—the publicity of camp life in their minds, many young ladies took this opportunity of renewing certain of their toilet accessories. A sponge, for instance, after quite a short use which had in no way impaired its properties, frequently proved to have lost its air of freshness when brought, as it were, into competition with a more newly purchased article . . . Quite a small sponge? Certainly . . . And the next?

  Jenny told him . . .

  ‘And that really is all,’ she said at last.

  Mr. Sandroyd held up a finger, and shook his head. ‘Food, madam. What in the Army we used to call the emergency rations. My own recommendation to my clients is a packet of chocolate and a box of dates. Dates,’ said Mr. Sandroyd, lovingly stroking a box, ‘from Tunis. A most sustaining food, as many travellers can attest who have crossed the desert on no more than a handful of dates.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, yes,’ said Jenny. ‘I did want something. And that really is all, thank you. How much does all that come to?’

  Mr. Sandroyd pushed his spectacles on to his forehead, and involved himself in the necessary addition. He emerged, after a short struggle, with a total of 18s. 4½d.

  ‘I see,’ said Jenny, but without much hope.

  ‘Now what would that leave us for the knapsack?’

  ‘What is the very cheapest you have?’ asked Jenny anxiously.

  ‘I shouldn’t care to let you have one for less than five and sixpence.’

  Jenny tried not to show her relief, and, having asked to see a five-and-sixpenny one, said that that would do beautifully. ‘That’s one pound three and tenpence halfpenny, isn’t it, so if I give you one pound four——’ She took out her purse.

  ‘Excuse me a moment, miss.’ Mr. Sandroyd disappeared into the western recesses of his counter, and came back a little mysteriously, one hand hidden. ‘Now, madam,’ he went on solemnly, ‘I feel bound to ask you and I trust you will forgive the liberty, are you making this pleasure-jaunt in a large company of both sexes, or, as I might say, more intimately?’

  ‘I—I’m meeting somebody,’ stammered Jenny. ‘I—I mean I shall be with somebody,’ and told herself that she would always be with her dear Hussar whatever happened.

  ‘Far be it from me to intrude,’ said Mr. Sandroyd, holding up his free hand. ‘All I wish to bring home to you, madam, is that there will be times, there must be times, when you will be separated from your companion. He—or she— or she,’ he said again, to show how little he wished to intrude, ‘will have gone to a neighbouring farm for eggs, while you remain in camp and boil the kettle. Or you yourself will have gone down to the stream to fill the kettle, while she—or, as it might be, he—remains in camp. However it is, you will be separated. You will be alone. Am I not right?’ He waited anxiously.

  Jenny agreed that there would be times when she would be alone.

  ‘Ah!’ He gave a sigh of relief. ‘Then in that case I must insist on selling you a Watson’s Wonderful Combination Watch-dog-and-Water-pistol.’ With which words, he whipped it out from behind his back and presented it at an imaginary enemy in the doorway.

  Jenny screamed, thinking that a gang was breaking in, thinking that he was going to fire. Mr. Sandroyd, taking the scream as a tribute to the alarming appearance of Watson’s Wonderful Combination Watch-dog-and-Water-pistol, turned to her with a happy smile. ‘Only five and six,’ he said, ‘the same price as the knapsack,’ as if, in some way, this made it more of a bargain.

  ‘Oh, but I daren’t,’ said Jenny. ‘I should be afraid—why, I might——’ She remembered that she was already being held responsible for one body, and she couldn’t, she simply couldn’t, take the risk of having to explain another.

  ‘It is not a real pistol, madam,’ he said delightedly.

  ‘Oh, I thought it was.’

  ‘Precisely! Now allow me to explain.’ Without waiting for permission he brushed up his moustache, took a deep breath and launched himself on his favourite recitation.

  ‘The watch-dog. Now what is the function of the watch-dog? He has, we may say, two functions. To alarm the intruder by his bark, and to arouse the household. Watson’s Wonderful Combination Watch-dog-and-Water-pistol performs these two functions. It alarms the intruder, the marauding tramp, by the volume of its explosion, an explosion of similar volume to that of an ordinary pistol, and at the same time it summons help from the passer-by. But it does more. Let us suppose that some prowling ruffian has demanded a lady’s purse, or—’ Mr. Sandroyd modestly closed his eyes—‘something even dearer to her. She produces her Watson, and says “Leave me or I fire!” He laughs brutally; he realizes that she will never have the courage. She fires! And now comes in the real beauty of the invention, amply meriting in my opinion the word Wonderful. She pulls the trigger again, and a thin stream of water is discharged. Now consider, as Watson has considered it, the psychology of the marauder. He sees the pistol; he hears the explosion; instinctively he closes his eyes; then suddenly he feels something streaming down his brow. Blood! He has been hit! He will be hit again if he stays! He flies! Watson’s Wonderful Combination Watch-dog-and-Water-pistol. Invented,’ added Mr. Sandroyd kindly, the recitation over, ‘by a man called Watson. A Benefactor. With six cartridges and full instructions, five and sixpence.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jenny. ‘I see.’

  ‘No daughter of mine’, said Mr. Sandroyd sternly, ‘should go hiking without it.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of—of tramps and things.’

  Mr. Sandroyd hesitated for a moment, and then risked all his profit from five and sixpence in one large reassuring smile. She was so young and, in spite of her painted lips, so simple.

  ‘And ten to one you won’t need to, miss,’ he said comfortingly. ‘But just in case?’ he pleaded. And, indeed, he was going to sleep happier tonight, if he could think of her under Watson’s protection.

  ‘But where would I carry it? I mean if you had it on your back in your knapsack——’

  ‘In the pocket, madam? As you se
e, it is very small and handy. Or some ladies carry it in the garter, in the Spanish fashion, strapped, as it were, to the leg.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m wearing suspenders!’ said Jenny.

  ‘Allow me, madam.’ He went away and came back with a pair of cheap pink garters.

  ‘Oh, but——’ began Jenny.

  ‘If you will allow me,’ said Mr. Sandroyd with a fatherly beam, ‘we will say nothing about —let me see, it was one pound three shillings and tenpence halfpenny, and five and sixpence for the pistol. That makes one pound nine shillings and fourpence ha’penny altogether. Are we putting the knapsack on now, or shall I wrap them all up?’

  ‘Oh, wrapped up, please. Oh, but I—oh, but are you really? Oh, but it is good of you. Thank you so much. . . Thank you . . . Good afternoon and—and thank you.’

  Mr. Sandroyd accompanied her to the door. At the door he ventured to pat her shoulder gently—two little pats so gentle that they hardly reached her.

  ‘Take care of yourself, my dear young lady,’ he said solemnly. ‘In every way.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Jenny earnestly. ‘I promise I will.’

  II

  Jenny’s one idea now was to escape from Tunbridge Wells. In Tunbridge Wells there were policemen; she had just seen one. In the fields there were none. Was there anything else she wanted before she made for the fields? There was. A shop across the road was calling out CREAM ICES, and this was always a trumpet-call for Jenny. She crossed the road and went into the Olde Kent Kreamery (F. Searle, Proprietor) for what would probably be the last cream ice she would ever eat.

  It was the magic hour of tea, and the Olde Kent Kreamery was full of women who could have refreshed themselves more comfortably, but less noticeably, at home. Jenny shared a table with two friends, May and Nina. May lived in Tunbridge Wells with Aunt Jane— obviously another one; Nina had come in for the day, and was coming in again next week, and would be sure to let May know, so that they could have the whole day together this time. ‘I did ask you how Mrs. Anderson was?’ said May, and Nina said Yes, she had . . . and Mrs. Anderson was left there, so that Jenny never really knew how she was. May said that there was no doubt the busses were awfully convenient, whatever people said about spoiling the country, and Nina said that now that Daddy had had to give up the car, if it wasn’t for the busses—but of course they did spoil the country rather, at least, when you weren’t riding in one yourself. They both laughed at this, and May went into a reverie, her teaspoon idly chasing a stranger round her cup. As soon as her ideas were solidified, she said: ‘Don’t you think Life is rather like that? I mean things seem different according to how you look at them? I mean it’s like looking at two sides of a wall.’ Nina wrinkled her forehead, and said that she saw what May meant, and she supposed it was rather. Like two sides of a penny. ‘Y-yes,’ said May, a little doubtfully, feeling, perhaps, that Nina had not advanced the idea as much as she might have done; and then shook a dozen bangles off her wrist, and looked at her watch, and said: ‘Good gracious, oh but there’s plenty of time. I’ll come down to the bus with you. We needn’t go for five minutes yet.’ Nina, looking at her watch, agreed, and asked for the bills, adding ‘Separately, please,’ just as May was beginning to say: ‘Oh no, dear, you really mustn’t.’