Four Days' Wonder

by A. A. Milne

‘Oh, thank you. Oh yes, please. What a lovely day.’

  ‘Looks like it’s going to be hot. Now what would you like to do, miss? Your brother always has a bathe in the river. He’s just back from his, and he said I was to say if you’d like one too, he’d show you the best place.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Jenny. ‘I—I haven’t got a bathing-dress.’

  ‘Bless you, miss, that doesn’t matter, there’ll be nobody there to see, not at this time. I’ll have some hot water ready for you by the time you get back.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell Mr. Fenton you’ll be ready as soon as you’ve drank your tea.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  Mrs. Bassett bustled out.

  Jenny had so many things to think about that a new problem was almost welcome, since it distracted her mind from the old ones. How did one get to the river if one hadn’t a dressing-gown or anything? And how did one come back? And would Mr. Fenton—Derek—of course he wouldn’t really—but would he——

  There was a whistle from beneath her window —definitely not a starling—and then a call ‘Na-o-mi!’ She got out of bed, took her tea to the window-sill, and looked out.

  ‘Hallo! Good-morning, sister,’ said Derek.

  ‘Good-morning.’

  ‘Have you slept well?’

  ‘Very, thank you.’

  ‘And did you do it in a nightdress or pyjamas?’

  ‘Do you mean what have I got on now?’

  ‘That’s what I’m leading up to.’

  ‘Pyjamas.’

  ‘Good. I was wondering how to get you down to the river. I’ve got Mrs. Bassett’s second-best gum-boots for you, and there’s no disguising the fact that they don’t go with a nightdress. You’re only going to meet two cows and a rabbit, but one must consider everybody. Are you more or less ready?’

  ‘Just on,’ said Jenny, and sipped her tea.

  ‘Right. Then I’ll show you the place, point out the ants’ nest, and leave you to it. Here, wait a bit, I’ll throw up the boots. Got anything breakable just under the window?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then withdraw yourself and cup of tea, and watch.’

  Thump! . . . Thump!

  ‘Well done!’ cried Jenny, returning to the window.

  ‘Tuck your trousers into those and you’ll look like a musical comedy producer’s idea of a midshipman. Have you got two towels?’

  ‘One,’ said Jenny, looking at the towel-horse.

  ‘I’ll have another ready for you. I’ve told Mrs. Bassett over and over again that the secret of a contented life is two towels. Don’t be long.’

  He went into the house, and Jenny finished her tea. This had suddenly become fun. She put on the boots and looked at herself. She had never seen Nancy’s pyjamas in daylight. They looked rather nice. She didn’t at all mind Derek or anybody seeing her like this.

  She took the towel, and went downstairs.

  ‘As I thought,’ said Derek. ‘Midshipman in charge of swabbing party. Here you are.’ He gave her the other towel.

  As they walked through the fields, Jenny said: ‘I think I know the place.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I think I passed it yesterday.’

  ‘You must have done that, but you certainly didn’t bathe there.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Jenny, and had the sudden thought that perhaps he had seen her yesterday. It was funny; now she felt quite different to him again; now she didn’t mind if he had seen her. It was funny that his first question to her yesterday had been ‘Are you an artist’s model by any chance?’ Almost as if he had seen her, and thought her beautiful. ‘How do you know?’ she asked again.

  ‘Intuitive deduction. I depend upon it a good deal, particularly in the wine-trade. As soon as I sip a glass of Burgundy, no matter what the vintage may be, I take one look at the bottle and say to myself “Burgundy”. Sometimes it’s claret, but the principle is the same.’

  They came nearer the river, and Jenny pointed and said ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That is it. Here, then, I leave you, Miss Fenton. A parting word, and I am gone. Can you swim?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny, for her fourth governess had insisted on this.

  ‘It takes a good three strokes to get across the pool, and,’ added Derek, ‘a good three strokes to get back again. So husband your strength. Good-bye. We shall meet at breakfast.’ . . .

  Ten minutes later, with a towel round her waist and another over her shoulders, Jenny sat drying in the sun. If only she could let herself be quite, quite happy, how happy she would be! ‘True happiness’, one of her governesses had said, quoting possibly from some other thinker, ‘lies only in memory or anticipation.’ In Jenny’s case it was memory and anticipation which were troubling her present happiness.

  Memory: Mr. Watterson.

  Anticipation: Mrs. Bassett.

  Present Happiness: Derek.

  Mr. Watterson was eighty, but even at eighty you could be anxious. Besides, he was her Guardian by Law, so he was responsible for her, and would get into trouble if he lost her. She must let him know that she was safe . . .

  Mrs. Bassett was—fifty? But even at fifty you wanted money for rooms. Jenny had nine-and-threepence left. Next Wednesday Mrs. Bassett would want—how much? Well, more than nine-and-threepence . . .

  Derek was thirty. And she was safe with him, and he understood things . . .

  It was so lovely here. If only it could go on for ever . . .

  He couldn’t let her go now, could he? Not even if she told him everything?

  She dropped the towel from her shoulders and stood up. He couldn’t let her go now? . . .

  It was a happy midshipman who came across the fields to the house, singing a little French nursery-song.

  Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,

  Dormez-vous, dormez-vous?

  Sonnez la patine,

  Sonnez la patine,

  Bim, bom, boom!

  After breakfast Derek said: ‘In half an hour I am going to fish.’

  ‘Oh, are there fish in the river?’ said Jenny.

  ‘That is what I am trying to find out.’

  ‘What do you fish for? I mean what sort of fish?’

  ‘There again we are in the dark. It might be mermaids and it might be eels. But I like sitting on the bank and watching nothing happen, and if you like it too, we should be certain of not missing anything.’

  Jenny liked it too. She lay on the bank and watched the gay little float twisting in the eddies, and told herself that as soon as it was quite still, she would say ‘Derek’ . . . But it wasn’t quite still . . . Not yet . . . nor yet . . . nor——

  ‘Derek.’

  ‘Naomi.’

  She had called him Derek. The worst was over. She gulped down her nervousness, and said: ‘Would you mind very much if you got mixed up in something?’

  He understood that this was the end of the day’s fishing.

  ‘Do you mean something like marmalade?’ he asked. ‘Or more like a wasp’s nest?’

  ‘Murder,’ said Jenny bravely.

  ‘You mean you want me to murder somebody?’ said Derek. ‘I suppose’, he went on wistfully, ‘it couldn’t be Archibald?’

  Jenny shook her head.

  ‘You see,’ she said simply, ‘I’m Jenny Windell.’

  ‘Not Gloria Naomi Harris?’

  ‘No.’

  Derek nodded.

  ‘I felt certain that there was some mistake. I know all the Harrises—there are only seventeen thousand of them left now—and you aren’t in the least like any of them.’

  ‘You see, it was my handkerchief.’

  Derek frowned.

  ‘Your handkerchief,’ he said.

  ‘Jenny,’ she explained.


  ‘Jenny.’

  ‘Because of Conway Castle.’

  ‘Conway Castle,’ nodded Derek. ‘Leave nothing out, however unimportant it seems. Once I have all the facts, then I can fit them together.’

  ‘Well, of course I oughtn’t to have been there at all. That’s why I hid, you see.’

  ‘That’s why you hid. I must now interrupt, in order to narrate a sad story about a relation by marriage. Many years ago, before he became famous, Archibald wrote a long blank-verse poem. Or anyhow a long poem. Or anyhow,’ said Derek, ‘it was long. He forgot, however, to number the pages, and it so happened that they were dropped two or three times before they got to the printer. The printer then dropped them again, and the printer’s boy, who was given the job of searching for, and collecting them, abstracted a page here and there so that he might make paper darts. The residue was published under the title Ariadne in Stoke Newington, and, I am bound to say, received high praise from Archibald’s fellow-critics. But,’ said Derek emphatically, ‘and this is the point, Archibald’s poem was not what it was. So now, Jenny Windell, could you get the pages of your murder story in the right order, and begin, unoriginal as it may seem, at the very beginning?’

  ‘But haven’t you read the papers?’ cried Jenny.

  ‘Not one. We get nothing but the Sunday papers. So begin by telling me who Jenny Windell is.’

  Jenny told him . . .

  When she had finished, Derek said ‘Gosh!’

  Jenny said: ‘It is rather awful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Awful? Not a bit. It’s terrific.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ asked Jenny timidly.

  ‘Mind? O Robert Louis Stevenson, O Arthur Conan Doyle, O Freeman Hardy and Willis, I mean Freeman Wills Croft, I thank thee. I mean ye.’

  ‘Have I been terribly silly?’

  ‘You have been enchantingly wise. If there is one thing which stands out more than another in this world—and of course,’ said Derek, ‘one thing always does stand out more than another—it is that there are some things which you cannot explain to a policeman. To make it clear to a policeman, an inspector, a coroner, a solicitor, a barrister and a judge, one after the other, that you and Hussar were so wrapped up in each other’s conversation that you went into the wrong house without looking, would take about nineteen years, and then leave you just where you were at the start. Far, far better a life of exile.’

  ‘Yes, I thought it would be difficult.’

  ‘Impossible. Another anecdote of the Fenton family occurs to me. When I was a small boy I had an Aberdeen terrier. One day I lost it, and my father asked the local policeman to let him know if anybody found it. Next day the policeman came up to the house, saluted and said: “Sir, I have to report that the animal in question was last observed proceeding in the direction of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.” If you can imagine to yourself the back-view of an Aberdeen terrier doing this, you will realize how very matter-of-fact we are in the police force.’

  But it was not at an Aberdeen terrier proceeding in the direction of Chorlton-cum-Hardy that Jenny was looking; she was trying to see Derek as a small boy, unhappy because he had lost his friend . . .

  ‘And now’, said Derek, ‘to business.’

  ‘Business?’ said Jenny, waking up with a start.

  ‘Yes. What are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought perhaps you’d know.’

  ‘Then let me think.’

  Jenny let him think. She wanted to think, too. Just of how lovely it was to let somebody else think for you like this . . .

  ‘Obviously the first thing’, said Derek, ‘is to find out what’s happening in London. This afternoon, therefore, I shall be observed proceeding in the direction of Maidstone, where I shall get all the morning papers.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Jenny suddenly.

  ‘Why “Oh!” ?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered! I asked Nancy to write to me at the Tunbridge Wells post office.’

  ‘Oh! Very well then, I shall proceed in the direction of Tunbridge Wells, and get all the morning papers.’

  ‘And my letter?’

  ‘And your letter.’

  ‘Will they give it to you?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Couldn’t I come with you?’

  ‘Safer not. Sleuths may have tracked you to Tunbridge Wells.’

  ‘I do look different. Really. I mean my hair—it makes a tremendous difference.’

  Derek looked at her.

  ‘I should know you anywhere, Jenny Windell, Gloria Harris, Naomi Fenton, Dryad, Naiad and Oread. No matter what you did to your hair.’

  ‘Oh, you,’ said Jenny, as if that were natural.

  ‘Yes, me. Or, as Archibald would say, I. No, what you shall do is to give me a note saying that your brother Wilbraham Harris, of Wilbraham Harris Ltd., preserved fruit importers, is calling for a letter for you. I will bring the letter and the papers back here, and we will spend a long evening with them. That all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Good. Now then, what about the Wattersons?’

  ‘Oh, please!’

  ‘However old they are, they must have noticed that you have left St. John’s Wood.’

  ‘Oh, I know. They must be anxious.’

  ‘Well, they ought to be told that you’re safe. Shall I ring Mr. Watterson up? Anonymously?’

  ‘But then, wouldn’t he go to the police? He’s a solicitor, you know. He’d find out where the call came from—they always do——’

  ‘Yes.’ Derek thought this over. ‘A telegram would be safer.’

  ‘Oh, but they trace telegrams! Always! They get an authorization from the Postmaster-General——’

  ‘What a lot you know, Naomi. All right, then, let’s think of something else.’

  He thought. Jenny frowned. Between them they were baffling the police. . .

  ‘Where is Mr. Watterson now?’ asked Derek. ‘Office or Home?’

  ‘He goes to the office every morning.’

  ‘And gets home?’

  ‘One o’clock. Regularly.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Oh, but it used to be a joke how regular he was.’

  ‘Then if I rang up the house now, who would answer it?’

  ‘The cook. Mrs. Price.’

  ‘Is she quick? Intelligent?’

  ‘Not very,’ smiled Jenny. ‘Of course it might be Hilda, the house-parlourmaid.’

  ‘You’re sure it wouldn’t be Mrs. Watterson?’

  ‘It goes to the kitchen first, and then upstairs. Besides, she generally goes out for a drive at eleven.’

  ‘Good.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Half-past ten. Mr. Watterson gone?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s at the office by ten.’

  ‘Then I think that’s fairly safe. Now listen. We go back to the house in a quarter of an hour, and at five minutes past eleven, you ring up.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You. Cook answers—or Hilda. Do you know their voices on the telephone?’

  ‘Oh, yes, easily.’

  ‘What do you call Mr. Watterson?’

  ‘Uncle Hubert.’

  ‘Right. Then you say, “Hallo, is that Mrs. Price?”—or Hilda, or whoever it is. Don’t say who you are, but let her recognize your voice, and if she says: “Well I never, is that Miss Jenny?” you can say “Yes”. But all you’ve really got to say is, “Will you tell Uncle Hubert when he comes back that I’m quite, quite safe?” And then you ring off quickly. And when Uncle Hubert gets the message two hours later, not all the Postmaster-Generals in the world are going to find out where the call came from. At least, not nearer than Tunbridge Wells. How’s that?’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Jenny admiringly. And though Derek didn’t think that it was perfect, he thought it was the
best they could do, and not too bad at that.

  II

  Up till now the one love of Jenny’s life had been Hussar. But just as many grown-up people prefer to concentrate their religious emotion on some material representation of their God, so the child Jenny had found that her passion for Hussar could most easily be worked off on the current governess. The expression of this passion took many strange forms, one of them being an earnest imitation of the handwriting of the loved one. It was with the pen of her fourth governess that she wrote a letter of authorization to the Tunbridge Wells post office.

  ‘Please give the bearer any letters addressed to Miss Gloria Harris, Poste Restante, Tunbridge Wells. Gloria N. Harris.’

  The fourth governess had been the most uncertificated of them all. She didn’t really know anything. Not for her the Greek ‘e’, the modern script, the clerkly, undistinguished style. She wrote home to the vicarage in a round, rolling hand, full of Victorianly feminine curves and flounces, saying that she had a bedroom on the top floor, which looked quite homey now that all the photographs were up, and Jenny was a funny little thing, but sweetly pretty, and they were going to be great friends. Jenny had loved her dearly; and, while waiting for the day when she would save her darling Miss Withers from being run over, and be taken to St. George’s Hospital and have her life despaired of, and be slowly nursed back to health by a more than ever devoted Miss Withers, who would now let Jenny call her Grace, she had occupied herself in adapting to her own needs all of Grace Withers that was accessible: her movements, her speech, her handwriting.

  ‘Do you always write like this?’ asked Derek.

  ‘No,’ said Jenny; ‘look.’ She wrote the message out again, this time in her own hand. Derek compared the two.

  ‘There’s nothing you can’t do. It’s marvellous. We really ought to murder Archibald between us. Think it over. We’d get away with it easily.’

  Derek drove to Tunbridge Wells in his two-seater coupé, and parked his car opposite the Wesleyan Methodist Church. An earnest-faced, spectacled young woman was at the entrance to the post office as he went in. They got in each other’s way, apologized, smiled at each other. For a moment he thought that he recognized her, but perhaps it was only because she seemed for a moment to recognize him. Then she moved away, and he went inside. The combination of Gloria Harris and Grace Withers brought complete conviction to the clerk, and the letter was given to him. As he turned to leave he seemed to feel, rather than to see, that the young woman was now inside the post office, writing at the telegraph-desk. He went out, and walked to the station for the papers.