by A. A. Milne
Very few men can resist the attraction of the novice.
Of course. Come as often as you like. There’s a lot to learn.’ And from time to time the great man himself would stroll round to the back of the stalls and say to an uplifted Wellard, ‘You see what I’m getting at? You see how——’ and make embracing gestures with his hands. ‘Rather,’ said Mr. Wellard. ‘It’s wonderful.’
Mr. Venture sat in the middle of the front row of the stalls, smoking his cigar from the middle of his mouth. From time to time he mumbled something. Nobody heard, or, hearing, understood, or, understanding, regarded him. From time to time his secretary hurried across the stage and down the bridge, whispered earnestly in his ear, and was herself unregarded. Filby Nixon sat at the end of the third row of stalls. From time to time he jumped up, hurried after Lattimer, and waved his hands. Lattimer said, ‘Right . . . Right. I’ve got that in mind,’ and went on as before. Meanwhile the players split their infinitives, suspended their nominatives, and said, ‘Just give me that,’ to the prompter.
Then one day Coral came down to talk to Lattimer, found him talking to Reginald, and cried, ‘Why, it’s Mr. Wellard.’
‘Just a moment, darling,’ said Lattimer, and hurried on to the stage.
‘When did you come in?’ said Coral, sitting down next to him.
‘About ten days ago,’ said Reginald, glowing all over.
‘Good gracious, have you been here all the time?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘Why so modest?’
‘Well, what would a conceited man do?’
‘Introduce himself to the company with the words, “Talking of my novel Bindweed, now in its one hundred and fiftieth thousand——” They’re longing to meet you.’
‘That always seems strange to me somehow. In fact, I don’t believe it.’
‘Well, I can’t prove it. But come up afterwards and meet Miss Masters. She’ll amuse you.’
‘Right. How do you like being back?’
‘This is almost as queer to me as it is to you. I wish you could see a musical-comedy rehearsal. I’m a perfect idiot to be doing it really.’
‘You’ll be wonderful.’
‘In the sense that everybody will be full of wonder as to how I had the nerve to take it on, I expect you’re right. How’s Mrs. Wellard?’
‘Well and happy.’
‘Why don’t you bring her along to a rehearsal one day? Or wouldn’t it interest her?’
‘I feel shy enough about coming myself, and as for—— I’d simply never thought of it.’
‘Well, think of it now.’ She got up. ‘I must just speak to Ned. Good-bye.’
There seemed to be a good deal of coming and going at this rehearsal. Lattimer’s ‘Just a moment, darling’ became more frequent. Nixon had a word to say to everybody; he even sat down next to Mr. Venture, and after gesticulating to that immobile man, got up again. The players looked as if they had given up hope of getting on with the play.
‘What’s happening?’ said Reginald, as Nixon came near him for a moment.
‘What? Oh, it’s you, Wellard. Sorry, didn’t see you. The Banks girl has got appendicitis. Or hasn’t. I don’t know. After yesterday she might have anything.’
‘Was she the one—Diana—who was——’
‘Yes. Lattimer’s too fond of that sort of thing. Sarcasm never gets you anywhere. It’s much too easy.’
‘She’s thrown up her part?’
‘Or got appendicitis. I suppose a doctor knows the difference, but I’m damned if I do.’
‘Who are you going to get?’
‘There’s a girl up at Golder’s Green—we’re going to have a look at her to-night. I’ve just been telephoning for a box. It’s the Globe play. You didn’t see it, I suppose?’
Reginald hadn’t.
‘You’d better come along too.’
Reginald was doubtful if he could manage it.
‘Coral’s coming.’
But as a matter of fact he thought that perhaps he could. In fact he’d love to. Thanks awfully.
He went out and telephoned to Sylvia. Later, as the rehearsal went on and on, it was suggested that they should have such dinner as was possible somewhere together.
‘With me,’ said Reginald eagerly.
‘Nonsense, old man.’
‘No, really.’
‘Oh, well, we can settle that afterwards,’ said Nixon.
Reginald telephoned to Sylvia again.
III
As he let himself into Number 6, Hayward’s Grove, that night, he was feeling remorseful. He had nothing to apologize for, but he wanted to apologize. Sylvia had had dinner alone, had spent the evening alone, at the shortest possible notice. No time had been given to ask Margaret, or some other friend, to keep her company. Well, he was sorry, terribly sorry, darling, but it wasn’t his fault. You know what things are like in the theatre. At rehearsals. Your time simply isn’t your own. You can’t just go out in the morning and say ‘Back at five’, as an ordinary husband can. It may be five in the morning for all you know. Something goes wrong, you know how it is, and you have to see this person, talk to that one, dash off to Golder’s Green, or wherever it may be, and then where are you?
Yes. All very well for Nixon to talk like that to his wife (had he a wife? How little one knew about these people), but for Wellard it was absurd. He was a spectator, not a performer; with nothing but his own pleasure to consider. Well, he had considered his own pleasure. He couldn’t drag Sylvia about with him everywhere—particularly in this new world where wives and husbands were so seldom mentioned, and nobody ever seemed quite certain who, at any given moment, was married to whom. Suppose he had said to Nixon, ‘Yes, I should like to come, but I must bring my wife.’ It would sound too ghastly, as though he were afraid of her, or she were jealous. Trailing round after him, so that he shouldn’t be alone with the pretty actresses. Horrible! Sordid! Like one of those terrible films. No. And if he had said ‘Sorry, I’m afraid I’m engaged——’
Well, he had said it. At first. And then when he had heard that Coral Bell——
She’s such good company, that’s what it is. Stimulating. Clever, and makes the other person feel clever too. I know that if I say anything, she’ll see what I mean at once. Same with Lena. And that Miss Voles. Well, it’s just—naturally a man likes—I mean it’s only natural.
All the same . . .
Well, look here, what about doing what Coral Bell said? Taking her to the theatre to-morrow? And introducing her to Lattimer, and Venture, and perhaps that Miss Masters, and, well, all of them. Jove, she’d knock spots off them! Now they really would see what a lovely woman was like. Yes, that was it. That would make it all right. . . .
He went into the drawing-room, the words on his lips. (‘I say, I’ve got rather an idea.’) Nobody there. Sylvia gone to bed, poor darling. Finished her book, and gone to bed. Sandwiches and drinks on the table. Two glasses, both unused. Funny. She must have gone very early. Still, she’d hardly be asleep yet.
He listened outside her bedroom door. No sound. He tapped gently. No answer. He went in on tiptoe. Still no sound. He turned on the light. No Sylvia.
He tried the bathroom; the morning-room, since the drawing-room fire was out, and she might have gone there for the gas-fire. Outside each room he called gently ‘Sylvia’—and went in. She was not in the house.
‘My God,’ he thought in one sudden icy moment of fear, ‘supposing she’s left me!’
The next moment he remembered that that was the sort of thing which happened on the stage, and would not be likely, therefore, to happen in real life. He laughed as he found himself thinking this, and then thought, but with less fear now, ‘All the same, people run away in real life.’ He remembered somebody who had . . . but of course that was different. Not like Sylvia and him.
Supposing she had?
He didn’t really suppose she had, because he knew that she hadn’t, but he let his mind run on. Supposing she had, how ‘impossible’ would it seem to him? Was it now entirely inconceivable? He walked up and down, eating sandwiches, and wondering. . . .
Running away with another man meant (horrible!) loving him. Could Sylvia love another man like that? Love is much more personal to a woman, he thought, than to a man; physical love. Any decent man could contemplate spending the night with any decent woman, even a stranger, without alarm or disgust. But most women would have to have some strong feeling for the man first. A man could leave his wife and take a mistress, any mistress, just because he was bored with his home. A woman couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She might run away, but not to a man. Sylvia loves only me; she couldn’t, she couldn’t, love any one else. . . . Not as she loves me.
But she could be bored with me, and run away from me—where? Well, just somewhere. Anywhere. That is just the one thing which one will never know—whether one is perhaps boring somebody else. How boring is the other man’s golf story; how interesting seems one’s own. How incapable one is of looking at one’s own story with another’s intolerance. Perhaps I have been boring Sylvia all these years. Have I? Heavens, how bored she must have been at Westaways. . . . Was she?
He looked at his watch—twelve o’clock. This was really rather too bad of her. I mean, twelve o’clock. She couldn’t not be back at twelve. Unless, of course, she’d had an accident.
An accident! Why not? People had accidents every day. Every hour. An accident, Sylvia hurt, Sylvia dead.
Sylvia dead. Westaways without Sylvia. Life without Sylvia. On and on, day after day, night after night. Westaways would have to be sold. He couldn’t possibly live there without Sylvia, not even if Mrs. Hosken and Alice stayed on. . . . As, no doubt, they would. . . . He would sell it, and go abroad, go round the world, explore a bit perhaps. One wouldn’t really mind what happened to one; in a way that would be rather an advantage to an explorer, not minding. . . . Like a man in the condemned cell, having a sudden pain in the place where he thought his appendix was, or breaking a tooth, and knowing that he was the only man in England, literally the only man, who needn’t feel anxious. Who could feel quite gay about it. . . . Almost a short story there, if he were a writer. Really a writer. . . . Of course the man would get reprieved. . . .
Twelve-fifteen. She had had an accident. Nothing else was possible. Oh God, don’t let her have had an accident! I don’t know who you are, but if you are, but whatever you are, oh, God, just this time, let it be all right. I swear I do try to be good. Is it goodness you worry about all the time? Only goodness? Is the difference between Shakespeare and Bunn just one of Faith and Religious Observance to you? Do you realize that Leonardo was a greater painter than Hayley, and does it matter to you at all? Sorry; I’ll believe anything, but don’t let her have an accident.
What should he do? Ring up Margaret? But of course it might not have been Margaret. He could wake up Alice, and ask her if she knew where her mistress had gone. But that would look rather—and Alice mightn’t know—and—— People don’t have accidents. Not people like Sylvia. Look at all the times Sylvia hadn’t had an accident. Suppose they’d all had supper together to-night, as he’d thought of suggesting, only not being dressed—well, if they had been dressed, think how late that would have made him, and he wouldn’t have been having an accident at all. He’d just have been having supper. . . .
Nearly twelve-thirty. Something must have happened. She’s dead, she’s dead. What shall I do? I can’t go on doing nothing. How long do I go on doing nothing? She couldn’t not be back by now, wherever she’d been. Oh, Sylvia, Sylvia!
There was a faint noise from below, a scraping, like that of a mouse. He rushed to the door, and out on to the landing. A key in the front door, a door opening and shutting, a rustling of clothes. Sylvia!
‘Thank God!’ cried Reginald to himself. And then thought angrily because he was so frightened, ‘I say, this really is!’
He went back to the drawing-room as Sylvia came daintily up the stairs.
IV
‘Hooray, darling, you’re back,’ said Sylvia happily.
It wasn’t a very good opening.
‘Back!’ said Reginald. ‘Do you know what the time is?’
‘No, darling. I hadn’t got my watch. Is it very late?’
‘Half-past twelve,’ he said coldly. And added, ‘Just on.’
Sylvia laughed. Adorably, anybody else would have thought, but not, at the moment, Reginald.
‘And all the time I was thinking how late you’d be because of Golder’s Green being such a long way off, and how I’d wait up for you.’
‘Golder’s Green isn’t Manchester, you know.’
‘No, darling. I don’t think I really know where it is. Oh, I must have a sandwich. How nice of Alice.’ She sat on the arm of a chair and began to eat one. ‘Have you been in long, darling?’
‘An hour,’ said Reginald coldly. And added, ‘Nearly.’
‘Darling, you shouldn’t have waited for me.’
‘You realize, don’t you, that I hadn’t the faintest idea where you were?’
‘Well, I couldn’t tell you, darling, because I didn’t quite know where you were. I mean, where you were having dinner.’
‘You might have left a note.’
‘I did think of it, darling, but it was all in rather a hurry, and I was so certain I should be back before you.’ She blushed a little (that faint shyness which she kept for Reginald) and said, ‘I love leaving you notes, and finding notes from you. We don’t seem to have done that so much lately.’ She gave a little sigh.
But Reginald still had his grievance; his two grievances. First, that she had robbed him of that lonely evening which he had been imagining for her so remorsefully; secondly, that she had so frightened him.
‘Where have you been exactly?’ he asked, and even as he asked, thought how absurd it was to say ‘exactly’.
‘The first-night at the Palace, darling,’ said Sylvia; happily, proudly, as if waiting for his excited admiration.
It did not come.
‘The Palace? What on earth—who—how
‘Lord Ormsby took me, darling.’
‘Ormsby! You don’t mean that?’ said Reginald sharply. Ormsby! Going to a first-night with Ormsby!
‘Well, of course I mean it, darling.’
Absurd to have said, ‘You don’t mean that?’ I’m talking like a man in a book, he thought, and felt annoyed again with Sylvia for not overlooking it when he talked like a man in a book.
‘Alone?’ he asked.
‘I suppose so, darling. I mean we just went, and there were people there I knew, and Lord Ormsby introduced me to lots of others. There was a—I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his name, darling, he sat on my left, and was awfully keen on your book, and is longing to meet you.’
Going to a first-night with Ormsby—alone! And then supposing that, in the face of that, it mattered whether some fool was keen on his book or not! What else could the poor devil say?
‘Look here, Sylvia, I suppose you know just what Ormsby is?’
‘How do you mean what he is, darling? He owns all those papers, doesn’t he?’
‘You know perfectly well I don’t mean that. I mean h
is private character. His reputation—with women.’
The moment he said it he realized that he had said something irrevocable. His love for Sylvia, hers for him, this intimate secret love of theirs with each other, her faithfulness to him, these were things about which no words were ever to be said. They were there, they could never be questioned; if they were questioned, then the world was at end. Not for a moment did he question them now; but he had said something which seemed to bring them suddenly, yet however remotely, into the category of things questionable.
Sylvia’s hand, reaching out to the tray, came back slowly. She looked at him; angry, hurt, bewildered? he could not tell. How little he could tell of her. I don’t know the least thing about you, he thought, but I love you so at this moment that my heart aches. Oh, why am I saying all the things I don’t want to say? Don’t look at me like that. Say something. Let’s both lose our tempers.
She gave a little sigh.
‘Well?’ he said doggedly.
‘Darling, am I supposed to know the reputation of all the people you introduce to me?’
He burst out indignantly, ‘I didn’t—I mean it was—— You know quite well that isn’t the point.’
‘I only asked, darling.’
Even in his anger he saw the cleverness of her question, and felt proud of her; and furious with her for being so clever, and for not losing her temper.
‘There’s a difference’, he explained carefully, as if to a child, ‘between going in a crowd to a woman’s house and going out alone at night with that woman’s husband.’
She said nothing. She put her hand back to the tray, poured herself out a little lemonade, and drank it.
‘Darling,’ cried Reginald, in sudden terror at the way irrevocable words kept leaving him, ‘you know I don’t—I mean it’s nothing—it’s not—it would be an insult to you to suggest such a thing. It’s just that Ormsby has this reputation with women, and people seeing you and him together at the Palace to-night—that of all places—will say—people who don’t know you—they’ll say—I mean they’ll wonder who you are. It’s horrible to think of . . . what they’ll think . . . being Ormsby.’ His voice trailed away, as he watched her from lowered lids. For the moment she just looked puzzled.