Four Days' Wonder

by A. A. Milne

  ‘I’m not worrying about the wind-screen, because of course that must go anyhow. That’s all right, I can do that with a niblick. And dents in the mudguard, obviously. But when we get down to the finer details——’

  ‘I’m damned if I’m going to let you smash up my car.’

  ‘Entirely for you to say, Hippo. Only do let’s have a story that hangs together. Like’, he added kindly, ‘Lovely Lady or any of your major works.’

  Archibald grunted. The car stopped.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Derek. ‘Do I come in and help you with the story?’

  ‘All you’ve got to do is to leave my car alone. Do you understand?’

  ‘Perfectly. I won’t even clean it.’

  His brother was silent for a moment, and then said, as if grudging the information: ‘I was standing in the road when I was knocked down by another car.’

  ‘What were you standing in the road for?’

  ‘Anything you like,’ said Archibald impatiently. ‘What the devil does it matter? The engine was missing, and I’d got down to look at it.’

  ‘Would you do that just outside the house you were going to stop at? You know, this is what The New Statesman complained about when it said that Mr. Fenton seemed to have no idea of probability.’

  ‘Hell, how can I think with a head like this?’

  ‘Then let me suggest that the gate into Bassetts was shut, and you had got down to open it.’

  ‘Oh . . . All right . . . Anything you like.’

  ‘Thank you. Then that will be all to-day. Good-bye.’

  As he drove away Derek’s thoughts were back again with Jenny. Only once did Archibald come into his mind; and that was when he wondered vaguely, and in no particular connexion, whether weddings were ever so quiet that brothers didn’t get invited to them.

  III

  He stopped the car and called up to her bedroom.

  ‘Naomi!’

  Her head came out of the window.

  ‘Derek!’

  ‘I say, have you had any tea?’

  ‘Mrs. Bassett left it all ready, I’ve got the kettle on.’

  ‘Good. I’ll just put all these cars away and join you.’

  ‘Was he all right?’

  ‘Perfectly. I left him sipping a whisky and soda, and telling his housekeeper how he won the battle of Waterloo.’

  ‘Why did you——’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say. Why didn’t I drive him down in his own car?’

  ‘Well, I wondered.’

  ‘The answer is that I didn’t want to walk back all by myself. And I wanted my tea. Do you really think you were prettier before you cut your hair?’

  ‘Before I——? Oh! Oh, but it’s cut so frightfully. It looks awful.’

  ‘If you could see it from down here, you wouldn’t think so. Are you alone in the house?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Jenny.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. I’m practising. In a little while I shall have to think of you seriously as Jenny. It’s much the best name we’ve had so far.’

  ‘Oh, Derek.’

  ‘Now I’d better go back to Naomi again, I suppose, in case we get overheard. It’s very confusing. Well, Naomi, did you read the papers?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Exciting, aren’t they?’

  She nodded again, smiling mysteriously.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘One of them’s very exciting.’

  ‘Oh? They all seemed to hold the attention quite comfortably. Well——’ he switched on the engine—‘let’s have tea. Farewell, Miss Jenny Windell. If I had been trained in a circus, I should now drive these two cars off simultaneously, a foot on either running-board. As it is, I shall take the safer, if less spectacular course, of driving them one by one. Make the tea, there’s a good sister.’

  Jenny went downstairs and made the tea. She carried it into the apple orchard, thinking as she went: I might have been in London now. If I hadn’t hidden behind the curtains, I might have been pouring out tea for Uncle Hubert. She looked back through a lifetime of growth, of experience, of knowledge, to the child who had knelt behind the curtains two days ago. When she had arranged the table, she went upstairs and gazed earnestly at herself in the glass. Why did he like her hair so much? She thought: I shall never know what I really look like. I suppose I am pretty in a way.

  With his first cup Derek said: ‘Well, what’s the news? I mean the very exciting news.’

  ‘I’ve heard from Nancy! I mean again.’

  ‘Again? But how does she know you’re here?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was in the paper. Look!’

  Derek looked, and naturally asked: ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Am at Castle Hotel with money for you Alice Pitman,’ translated Jenny.

  ‘But however—— You’re sure Alice Pitman is Nancy Fairbrother?’

  ‘Must be, mustn’t she?’

  ‘You would know, Miss Windell-Fenton-Harris. But how could she write in my paper?’

  ‘You didn’t stop and talk to anybody—or anything?’

  ‘No. Except the hairdresser. You like my hair like this? Good. Oh, but wait a moment. I bumped into somebody when I was asking for your letter. She must have heard me . . . and then . . . still I don’t see—— Oh well, never mind.’

  ‘Is there a Castle Hotel at Tunbridge Wells?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose we’d better collect her, and then she can tell us all about it.’

  Jenny said: ‘Oh, I never thanked you for all those lovely things. Oh, thank you! It was lovely of you.’

  ‘I meant to get a lot of other things, and then I hadn’t any money.’

  ‘I do want—well, one or two things. And now Nancy’s got some money for me, so could we perhaps—I mean I haven’t even got a hairbrush.’

  He looked across at her and said: ‘What do you want a hair-brush for? I thought I told you——’

  ‘Oh, but one must!’

  ‘All right, you shall have a hair-brush.’

  ‘You see I have got some money now, I mean when I see Nancy, because of my watch. Why are you frowning so?’

  The frown went as Derek began to laugh.

  ‘You are a couple, you two. You realize that the police know all about your watch, and are now looking for the young woman who pawned it?’

  ‘I expect she’s disguised all right,’ said Jenny confidently.

  ‘Alice Pitman.’

  ‘Yes. But she really would be Alice Pitman. She’s wonderful like that.’

  ‘And you think the police will never find her?’

  ‘Nancy? Of course they won’t,’ said Jenny scornfully. Was this not the girl who had baffled Napoleon himself on more than one occasion?

  Derek laughed again, and said: ‘Shall we go and help with the haymaking after tea?’

  ‘Oh, do let’s.’

  ‘I’m thinking of that fellow Parracot. If the police are really after him—but we shan’t know that till to-morrow. I mean the inquest. I’ll ring up Miss Pitman to-night, and tell her to expect me to-morrow morning, and we’ll come back with the papers, and when we’ve read them, we’ll decide what to do. Which gives us the rest of the day to ourselves. So let’s make hay while we can, because by to-morrow we may all be in prison.’

  ‘Yes, Derek,’ said Jenny happily. There was a prison at Maidstone, and she seemed to remember that, in touching upon this aspect of life there, her third governess had mentioned casually that the Maidstone prison was a mixed one.

  IV

  Miss Pitman went into the book-shop in the High Street, and asked one of the assistants for a nice book.

  ‘Yes, madam. Any particular sort of book?’

  ‘A nice one,
’ said Miss Pitman patiently.

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ He looked round the crowded shelves in a bewildered sort of way. ‘Have you any particular——’

  ‘Is this nice?’ asked Miss Pitman, picking up The A.B.C. of Horsemanship.

  ‘That’s very good,’ said the assistant, brightening. ‘But I have another very good book just come in, if you are interested in the Horse——’

  ‘Not specially,’ said Miss Pitman. ‘I like a nice horse,’ she added.

  ‘Now this is really the latest text-book on the care and management of Horses——

  Miss Pitman fluttered the pages, and said ‘It doesn’t look very exciting. Are all your books about horses?’

  ‘But I understood you to say, madam——’

  ‘Haven’t you anything not about a horse at all?’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ He handed her a book with a flourish. ‘Archibald Fenton’s masterpiece.’

  Nancy opened A Flock of Sheep at page 576 and read the top paragraph.

  ‘Is this nice?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, very, madam. That is his last published book. His new book is not out until next week, but if you haven’t read that one, you should certainly read it first, because many of the characters——’

  ‘Haven’t you anything smaller?’

  ‘Smaller?’

  ‘I really want something small to read at dinner,’ said Miss Pitman earnestly. ‘Propped up against the cruet. You see, I’m all alone in a big hotel, and one gets so tired of reading the wine-list. Have you any book which you could prop up——’

  ‘We have the small cheap editions, naturally, madam.’ He pointed to a row of shelves. ‘Perhaps you would care to choose something for yourself——’

  ‘Oh, thank you! Then I can tell the size, can’t I?’

  She chose a detective story which she had read happily when it first came out, but since forgotten, and went back to her hotel. ‘Of course,’ said Nancy to herself, as she came in sight of the Tank again, ‘Miss Pitman is not really such a fool as that, but a girl must amuse herself somehow.’

  She dined, as she said, alone. The headwaiter handed her the wine-list, opened, but not very hopefully, at the champagnes. Miss Pitman studied the champagnes carefully; asked if Perrier Jouet 1923 was nice; hesitated long and earnestly between that and Bollinger 1921; and finally chose water. ‘Really,’ thought Nancy, ‘the woman’s being a perfect idiot. I shall lose all control of her directly.’

  She was finishing the caramel pudding and the second chapter when the message came.

  ‘Miss Pitman?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr. Derek Fenton would like to speak to you on the telephone.’

  ‘Uncle Derek!’ said Miss Pitman joyfully, and hurried out. ‘So that’s who he was,’ she thought. ‘Fenton’s brother.’

  ‘Hallo!’

  ‘Miss Alice Pitman?’ (Better be careful, thought Derek, in case Miss Gathers is listening.)

  ‘Speaking.’ (Better be careful, thought Nancy, in case the girl is listening.)

  ‘This is Derek Fenton.’

  ‘Oh, is that Uncle Derek?’ (Bother, thought Nancy. I haven’t really given my mind to this. Now I’m Archibald’s illegitimate daughter.)

  ‘Er—yes.’ (I seem to be collecting relations, thought Derek. This may be awkward.)

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘Naomi told me.’ (Now, will she get on to that or won’t she?)

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Na-om-i.’

  ‘Naomi? Is she with you? How lovely!’

  ‘Staying with me for a few days.’ (You angel!)

  ‘I say, you didn’t really mind my calling you Uncle Derek? You sounded a bit as if you did. Naomi and I call you that for a joke sometimes. (Good. Now I’m legitimate again.)

  ‘Delighted and honoured to be your uncle, Miss Pitman. And, after all, I suppose I am too much of the elder brother to Naomi.’

  ‘Oh, she only does it for a joke. She’s very fond of her brother really.’

  ‘Good.’ (She’s just like lightning, this girl.)

  ‘How is Naomi?’

  ‘Splendid. And are you all right again?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ (Again?)

  ‘Naomi told me about your ankle. Rotten luck.’

  ‘Wasn’t it rotten?’ (The man’s drivelling.)

  ‘Is it all right again now?’

  ‘Well, I have to be careful.’ (And I certainly am being.)

  ‘Well, look here, what I rang up for was— could you come over to-morrow morning and spend the day with us? I’d call for you at ten o’clock. Would that be all right?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘That’s splendid. Ten o’clock then?’

  ‘Thank you so much. Good-bye—Uncle Derek.’

  ‘Good-bye—Alice. ’

  ‘Give my love to your sister. Tell her I’m longing to see her again.’

  ‘I will. Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye.’

  They hung up their receivers.

  Derek thought: So that’s Nancy. What a girl! The vexed question of who writes Archibald’s books for him is now explained.

  Nancy thought: Well done, Jenny darling. I knew you’d do it. The man seems quite intelligent. This must be celebrated in some way.

  She went back to the dining-room, and ordered a crème de menthe with her coffee.

  ‘It is good for the digestion, isn’t it?’ she asked the head waiter. ‘I mean, quite medicinal?’

  The head waiter assured her that it was.

  V

  A similar conversation, but with reference this time to a double brandy, was taking place in the best bedroom of Ferries.

  ‘Not if it was me, I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs. Pridgeon.

  ‘Why, my dear Mrs. Pridgeon, brandy is the first thing that a doctor orders in the case of shock. As a matter of fact, it’s the only way of getting it when the pubs are closed.’

  ‘Just as you say, Mr. Fenton. And sees that they drink a whole bottleful of Burgundy first, I dare say.’ She held the bottle up to the light to make sure that Mr. Fenton had obeyed the doctor’s orders.

  ‘Oh, come, there’s no harm in Burgundy.’

  ‘That’s what we’ll know to-morrow, one way or the other. Anything else you’ll be wanting?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Well, don’t sit up reading too long. You want to give your head a rest, I should have said.’

  Archibald screamed to himself, ‘For God’s sake go,’ and said aloud, ‘It shall have it.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you.’

  ‘Good night, Mrs. Pridgeon.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Mr. Fenton was left alone with Plato. Six months ago he had been invited, by somebody who preferred that somebody else should do his writing for him, to contribute to a symposium entitled Books Which Have Influenced Me. Having mentioned The Republic as the principal one of these, Mr. Archibald Fenton had now got into the habit of taking it to bed with him (when alone) with the intention, one night, of seeing if it could justify the distinction which he had given it. Now, propped on pillows, with the last rays of the setting sun lighting up the bandage round his head, heroically he began to read:

  ‘Ib went down yesterday to the Peiraeusc with Glaucon the son of Ariston, to pay my devotionsd to the Goddesse . . .’

  Grand stuff!

  If only his publisher could have seen him . . .

  FRIDAY

  Chapter Sixteen

  Close-up of Miss Julia Treherne

  I

  It was Miss Julia Treherne’s birthday. She was thirty-nine. She sat up in bed, a tray by her side, letters and parcels, some opened, some unopened, on her lap. She looked adorable.

  She felt lazy this morning, bein
g thirty-nine, and proposed to stay in bed until it was time to get ready for a luncheon engagement. Getting ready was always a protracted, if fascinating, business. Half an hour in the bathroom; half an hour in front of the mirror; half an hour deciding upon, and putting herself into, the privileged costume. Luncheon was at one-thirty. She need not get up until half-past eleven. It was only just ten. O blessèd bed!

  She was thirty-nine, and owed it to her toilet-table that nobody believed it. For it is one of the disadvantages of the New Cosmetic Era that the search for youth, however successful, never fails to suggest a corresponding need for search. In her natural purity, as seen only by her husband and her maid, Miss Treherne looked no more than thirty. Made-up for the early twenties, to which, from her professional record, she could not possibly belong, she immediately suggested the middle forties. But the bones of her face were so good that nothing could hide its beauty.

  There was a tap at the door. She picked up a hand-mirror from the bed, pushed at her hair and called: ‘Oh, Henry darling, come in.’

  Her husband came in.

  ‘Hallo, sweetheart, just off?’ said Julia, pitching her voice to reach the upper circle, and giving in this way an air of increased spaciousness to her bedroom. ‘Did you get your scrambled eggs as you liked them this morning?’

  ‘Yes, splendid, thank you.’

  ‘Because I can easily talk about them again.’

  ‘Thank you for talking about them once. It was marvellous of you to remember.’

  ‘Well, darling, if I’m not a good wife, what am I?’

  ‘An angel.’

  ‘No, there you’re wrong, sweetheart. Angels are definitely not good wives. They lack just that something. Or so’, said Julia, fluttering her eye-lashes, ‘I have been told.’ The eyelashes which she would flutter at Our Theatrical Correspondent over the luncheon-table would be longer and of a different colour, but she would flutter them as skilfully.

  ‘Enjoying your birthday?’

  ‘Look!’ She held up the back of a hand to him, and waggled the fingers.

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Adore it. Thank you, my sweetheart. Come and kiss me.’

  ‘Yes, I think I will.’

  Five minutes passed, and Julia said: ‘One of our longer kisses. Won’t you be late?’ She picked up the mirror to see what was left of her.