by A. A. Milne
‘The girl in black. How does one describe anybody? She was tall and slender, and she had a look as if she were waiting eagerly for somebody or something; expecting something to happen. She had—it sounds absurd—a sort of arched nose, and a very short upper lip. It was that upper lip being so short which made her look expectant, I think; made her mouth almost come open, and show the smallest, whitest teeth. And her face didn’t come down straight as most faces do, but was at an angle; and she had high cheek-bones, freshly coloured but with the colour seeming to be underneath the skin, and not laid on outside with the wind and rain. You could watch the colour coming and going. . . . You see, Sally, this was before the days when everybody’s colour came and went. Only actresses made up then, and other immoral women.
‘I’m sorry I can’t describe her better. I was frightened of her. She looked so proud and so eager and so thoroughbred. All the other girls were prettier, I dare say, but, to use their own language, she was out of a different stable altogether. I kept looking across at her at dinner and wondering if I should dare to ask her to dance with me.
‘As soon as dinner was over, we were hurried into carriages, a carriage and an omnibus. I was in the omnibus with my hostess and a couple of pinks and blues and two men. We drove back to Bicester, I suppose, an endless drive anyway, and engaged ourselves on the way for various dances. When we had unpacked ourselves and got on to the floor, I looked about for the girl in black. She seemed to know everybody. When I reached her, she had only one dance left. The last. Number twenty on the programme. We had programmes then, Sally.
‘It was an appalling dance. There wasn’t a girl in Derry and Toms who couldn’t have wiped the floor with the lot of them. As for the men . . . I suppose they weren’t actually wearing their spurs, but they seemed to be. They kept raking you down the ankle. Ghastly. Every now and then I missed a dance, and had to hang about with a cigarette as if I was waiting for somebody; well, anyway, I wasn’t trodden on then. Luckily I had a supper partner—my hostess; I suppose somebody had let her down. She was some sort of relation of West’s, and kept asking me about him—I didn’t like to say that I hadn’t seen him since he was twelve. Once or twice she asked me what pack I hunted with, and said “Oh, no, you don’t, of course, you told me”; I suppose I ought to have worn a placard on my chest to make it quite clear.
‘We came to the last dance, and I found the girl in black. I was utterly tired and bored by then, and I should think she was too. Anyway, we danced like it. We went wearily round and round the room until at last the music stopped. Then we stood and clapped wearily, and I hoped to God that the band was equally sick of it and would play the National Anthem and let us get away. But it didn’t. It started a new waltz—Sizilietta. . . .
‘That was the first time I had heard it played; probably the first time it had ever been played at a dance. Perhaps the conductor wrote it himself and tried it out on us just at the end, to see how it went. It was one of the well-known London bands. We began to dance again, and this time we danced. You couldn’t help it. There was never a more beautiful dancer than that girl; there were never two people in more complete harmony. Our faces were almost on a level, and whenever I looked at her, I looked into her eyes, and there was a sort of rapt expression in them, as if at last it had happened what she had been expecting so long. . . .
‘They must have played that tune for nearly an hour. It made even the spurs dance decently, and they wouldn’t let it go. She and I went on and on and on, too happy to say a word to each other, just giving each other a little smile now and then, as if to say, “You understand.” Then it was over, and our host was bustling up to say that the horses couldn’t be kept waiting any longer and we’d better get back the same way as we came. Which meant that I was with the pinks and blues again.
‘We got back to the house about four. The carriage had been ahead of us, everybody had gone straight to bed and we followed them. West had to get back early, which apparently meant that he and I were having breakfast at seven. It was the first I had heard of it. When I said good night and thank you to my hostess, I waited hopefully, but with no result. If she had asked me to stay for a later train, of course I should have stayed, but I suppose she thought West and I were inseparable. Once more we made that journey to Bicester in the cold and dark and wet, half-asleep this time; we slept and woke and slept again to Paddington, and then West said, “So long, old boy,” and hurried into a hansom. I went back to my rooms and thought of the girl in black.
‘I would write and ask her to marry me. No, that would be absurd, of course, but I would write and ask her to meet me, and then later, a day later, a week later, I would ask her to marry me. Anyhow we must meet again, soon, very soon.
‘I sat down to write to her. Dear—— And then I remembered that, absurdly enough, I didn’t know her name. Well, I should have to get it from our hostess. But how? I couldn’t just say that I liked that girl in black, and who was she? I thought of all sorts of excuses, and finally decided that this girl and I had talked about a book, which I had promised to send to her; so would she very kindly give me the name and address? And then I thought that this would be rather a good way of writing to the girl herself, sending her, not a book, of course, but the music we had danced to—Sizilietta. I had found out its name from the conductor.
‘So I sat down to write to my hostess. Of course I had to write to her anyhow, a bread-and-butter letter. This was Wednesday, I ought to get an answer by Friday, and if I wrote at once, then I might get a letter from the girl in black by Monday. Maddening to lose those three days, but it couldn’t be helped. Dear—— And then I remembered that I didn’t know the name or the address of my hostess.
‘More delay. But still, it was easy now. I had to write to her anyway, so it was only natural that I should ask West for her name and address. I sat down and wrote to him; said how much I’d enjoyed the dance, and that I felt I wanted to say “Thank you” to our hostess, but didn’t quite know how to address the letter. Sorry to bother him, and I hoped we’d meet again soon.’
Baxter got slowly up and stood for a moment in front of his chair, whistling the first few notes of Sizilietta gently to himself. Then, with a sigh, as he moved across to the fireplace, he said, ‘That’s all. That’s the end of the story.’
There was a sudden gasp from his audience. ‘But how——’ cried Sally.
Baxter threw the end of his cigar into the fireplace.
‘I didn’t know West’s address. I couldn’t remember his initials, I didn’t know his profession or anything. I never saw West or my hostess or the girl in black again. Now then, Sir Roger, what about Bridge?’
Betty got up and put her arm in Bertie’s, and gave it a squeeze.
‘Poor old boy,’ she said. ‘Still I’m glad you didn’t. Now who’s going to play?’
III
The Baxters and the Effinghams were playing Bridge, the children had gone off together to the billiard-room, and Mr. Cox was telling Sylvia the story of his life. Reginald moved across to Miss Voles.
‘Let’s go outside,’ she said. ‘It’s stifling in here.’
They sat on that of the many Baxter verandas which Betty called the loggia and looked out on to the sweet stillness of the night. ‘Do you mind?’ said Reginald, holding up his pipe, and she shook her head. He filled and lit it.
‘Aren’t people stupid?’ she said suddenly.
‘I’m wondering whether I’m just a complete ass or——’
‘Or very clever?’
‘Well, moderately intelligent.’
‘How are you going to find out?’
‘By asking you a question.’
‘Well?’
‘If I am a complete ass, will you forgive me?’
‘Well?’
‘Oh, well, I’ll risk it. Here it is.’ He glanced at her and looked away again. ‘Do you always wear black?’
For a moment there was no answer. Reginald wondered if she had heard, or, hearing, had understood. He smoked and told himself he had been a fool.
‘Baxter,’ she murmured. ‘Fancy waiting for nearly thirty years to find out the name, and then it’s only Baxter.’
‘You weren’t waiting all the time,’ suggested Reginald.
‘Oh, no!’
‘How long? I beg your pardon. Do you mind my asking questions?’
‘I’d always wondered how it was. I felt certain he couldn’t just have left it like that.’
‘I don’t see what he could have done, do you?’
‘No . . . How did you guess?’
‘I saw that the tune meant something to you too. And then—but, of course, his description. It seems incredible to me that he wasn’t describing you as you sat there.’
‘Thirty years ago,’ said Miss Voles with a scornful little laugh.
Compliments chased themselves through Reginald’s mind and left him silent.
‘He hadn’t an idea, of course,’ Miss Voles said.
‘Oh, no. Had you, until he began?’
‘No. Not until he said the Bicester Hunt Ball. Then I felt certain suddenly.’
‘It must have been uncanny listening to the story after all those years.’
‘Uncanny. Yes. I felt that you had guessed. I think you were the only one. Unless——’ She went back into her thoughts.
‘Oh, I’m sure I was the only one,’ said Reginald confidently and rather proudly. He imagined himself adding, ‘But then I’m a novelist, it’s my job to study people,’ and shuddered to think of the things that one might say. Instead he asked, ‘Did it mean very much—anything—to you at the time? I often used to wonder, when I went to dances and got rather keen about somebody, whether girls get keen like that too. You know what I mean; interested. At first sight.’
‘Oh yes, I expect so. Not so often, I imagine. Men are so much more alike, aren’t they? I mean one man is just like another so often. Types. Particularly in a hunting country. Mr. Baxter wasn’t—then. He’s a stockbroker now, isn’t he—to look at? The sort of setness, and the careful little moustache and everything. He used to be—more like you.’
‘My type in fact,’ laughed Reginald.
‘Well, but it’s rarer . . . in a hunting country.’
They were silent again. I suppose if I were really a writer, thought Reginald, I should make a story of this. She must be—what? Forty-five, anyway. And yet I could see her as the girl in black all the time Baxter was talking.
Miss Voles began to speak, almost as if she had forgotten that Reginald was there; as if she were the girl in black again, telling middle-aged sympathetic Miss Voles just what had happened.
‘I watched him at dinner. Our eyes never met, but I was conscious of him. I knew he was different from the others; I thought I was different from the others too . . . until I found that I wasn’t. I suppose he was right about my waiting for something to happen. If you live in that set, and—and are different, you’re bound to feel that it can’t go on for ever. That there’s a way of escape . . . when you’re young.
‘I didn’t mean to look proud . . .
‘I tried to keep some dances in case he asked me. I did mean to. And then it was only the last one. I was terribly tired when it came, and it was a stupid tune. I didn’t think he danced very well, and he didn’t talk. I kept wanting to say something, to see what he was really like, but everything seemed so obvious and futile. I felt that if I opened my mouth I should ask him what pack he hunted with. . . .
‘Then they played that tune, and it was as if we both came to life again. I felt I knew him suddenly and it was all right. He was different; I was different; we had met at last. Can you fall in love like that? Not really, I suppose. Just sentiment.
‘Or perhaps . . . I don’t know . . .
‘Of course I thought I should see him in the morning. I wondered what we should say to each other. You see, we hadn’t said anything. Just looked at each other, and I had been in his arms for a second . . . for an eternity. That’s silly, of course. I know. The whole thing was silly.
‘I said at dinner not to do things because other people did them. Girls used to wait in those days, didn’t they? Doing nothing, just waiting. So I did nothing. Just waited for him to come back, to write to me. And he didn’t.
‘Then I thought I had imagined it all.’
She was silent again. Then very gently she began to croon that ridiculous tune to herself. Silly sentimental stuff, thought Reginald, and yet—— He could just see the glimmer of her face, he could imagine her eighteen again, waiting so eagerly for something to happen, all the romance in her, all that she had read and thought and imagined in that alien country stirred suddenly into life. Would she have stayed happy with him? Not this one, the settled, comfortable one, but the one that might have been?
‘I don’t see what you could have done,’ he said prosaically.
She broke off her crooning to say, ‘Written to Mr. West. Easy,’ and picked up the tune again.
‘Did it—did it make much difference to you?’
She stopped her music, laughed and said, ‘Oh, don’t let’s be sentimental about it. In a way I suppose it did. I was more afraid to let myself go, to trust my instinct. I never thought of marriage as just a thing you did, it had to be just everything to me. I suppose we all have one chance and miss it, and then have to put up with the second-best. Well, I couldn’t. I felt I’d missed the best and that was the end of it for me.’
‘But was it the best if he—— I mean you must have felt that he’d failed you.’ Baxter the best!
‘I felt that he was very shy and very modest about himself, and in strange country. It was I who ought to have done something.’ Baxter very shy!
‘Let’s go in, it’s cold out here,’ said Miss Voles. ‘I’m not so young as I was.’ But before she got up, she said, ‘Did you love your wife absolutely and completely the first time you met her—even before you spoke to her?’
‘Utterly,’ said Reginald emphatically.
‘Yes. Ah, well, of course you would.’ She got up. ‘You won’t say a word, of course. It’s our secret. Rather fun.’
‘Of course not,’ said Reginald as he followed her into the house. ‘At least, what about Sylvia? I never feel I can promise about her, because—well——’
‘Is she a talker?’
‘No. At least, I don’t think so. How little one knows.’
‘How little,’ Miss Voles looked at him with an odd smile. ‘Tell her to-morrow if you like. Or Monday. After I’ve gone back.’
So Reginald said nothing to Sylvia as he started the car, and nothing as he went cautiously up the drive, but, as he got on to the main road, Sylvia said:
‘She was the girl, wasn’t she?’
‘What girl?’
‘The girl in black.’
‘Who?’
‘Miss Voles.’
‘Who said so?’ asked Reginald sharply.
‘Nobody,’ said Sylvia dreamily. ‘I just sort of knew. I thought she might have told you when you went out. It was all right, wasn’t it, darling? I mean, you did enjoy it?’
IV
Sylvia lay sleeping, her right hand under the pillow, as was her way. The light bed-clothes had taken on her shape, so that in the midnight she seemed to be lying there unclothed. It was, to Reginald, as if nothing could come near her without rejoicing to become part of her; as if her physical beauty were such that it could never cease to express itself. No sound, no movement came from her. She had left her loveliness there to await her return in the morning.
Reginald lay on his back, awake, thinking. Of all men, Baxter! Well, but what had he done? Fallen in love, and been fallen in love with, as a very young man. Was that anything? Weren’t millions of young men doing it every day? But she
was a very special sort of girl, and evidently she thought him a very special sort of young man. Baxter! ‘And one to show a maiden . . .’ what was it? Two faces?—two people?—two souls? Wait a bit . . . ‘One to face the world with’—that’s right. ‘And one to show a woman when he loves her.’ He has two somethings, one to face the world with, and one to show a woman when he loves her. Two faces? But you wouldn’t have face twice—yes, you would if you had two faces. . . . I mustn’t go to sleep before I get this right. Pull yourself together. Isn’t it funny how one can feel one’s brain slipping away at night? What about front, that would do it. He has two faces, one to front the world with, and one to show a woman when he loves her. Got it! . . .
Baxter’s got two faces. We’ve all got two faces. Sylvia has one lovely face, and one I’ve never seen. Or have I? I don’t know. Betty’s got two faces. I liked Betty this evening. Lots of wives would have been jealous of that story, just because it happened before they knew their husbands. Part of the past which they have missed. But she was a dear. Betty, of all people! Three faces really. One to front the world with, one to show a woman—or man, of course—and one which nobody but God ever sees for more than a moment. . . . A three-faced man . . .
But Baxter! Typical man-of-the-world . . . Man-about-town . . . Clubman. What’s the difference between a man-about-town and a man-of-the-world? And a Clubman? I’d sooner be a man-of-the-world. No I wouldn’t. I’d sooner be . . . I’m in a club . . . on a club . . . getting bigger and bigger . . .
Reginald turned on to his side, his hand touched Sylvia’s shoulder, and he fell asleep.
Chapter Eleven
I
SOMEWHERE in the Hinterland north of the Thames, between the settlements of South Kensington and Gloucester Road, there is, on the very edge of modern civilization, a sign-post, one of whose arms points to the Hub of Empire, London, and the other, at right angles, to the uncolonized territory of Hayward’s Grove. Who erected the sign-post is not known; probably Hayward. To the burgesses of South Kensington, and more particularly, to their wives, this mention of London is a source of irritation; for how can they persuade themselves that Town is ‘full’ or ‘empty’, according to whether they are or are not in residence, if Hayward continues to assert that ‘Town’ is, in fact, somewhere else? But to the freemen of Hayward’s Grove it is a source of pride that they should have a sign-post to themselves, and, on a wet night, a satisfaction that it should be so visible to their charioteers. For, left to himself, no cabman would take a gentleman in evening-clothes, a captain possibly, into so unpromising an alley.