The clear cool eyes of Miss Wych were clouded that spring evening. Miss
Wych was thinking. All about her the London of Oxford Street marched and
screamed and hooted, but Miss Wych walked unheeding, alone as a tulip in
a wild garden. The London of Oxford Street was like a soiled silk
handkerchief waving frantically to the evening sun but the genius of
thought draped the young lithe figure with a rare calm dignity. Now Miss
Wych was nearly always calm, for such was her nature. But she was not
always dignified, for dignity comes very rarely to youth, dignity is a
gentle blossom that grows with the years, and when dignity comes to
youth it comes always unconsciously, it is fleeting, frail, sad. We are
not speaking of the dignity of anger, but of the dignity of sorrow. Miss
Wych was sad that evening.
All that day, whilst she was at her allotted tasks in the millinery
department of Messrs. Come & Go, Miss Wych had been saying to herself:
“I must think. I will think this evening. One doesn’t think nearly
enough. I will think a lot this evening. I will walk home, thinking. I
do hope it keeps fine.”
That is what Miss Wych had thought, for she was very conscientious in
the fulfilment of her duties in the millinery department, and she always
did her best not to intrude her private concerns into her service of
Messrs. Come & Go. Not that either Mr. Come or Mr. Go could possibly
have noticed it if she had, since her service was but an atom among the
service of one thousand and five hundred _employées_; for Messrs. Come &
Go’s was advertised as the largest store in London, and why should
anyone doubt the verity of such beautiful advertisements as those of
Messrs. Come & Go, which tell unceasingly of the divers bargains that
can be bought for next to nothing by Mr. Everyman and Mrs. Everywoman
merely by entering within and being smiled at affectionately by either
Mr. Come or Mr. Go in person, and all delivered at Mr. Everyman’s door
within twenty-four hours in plain motors. Anyone can see by their
advertisements that Mr. Come and Mr. Go have got all other men beat on
philanthropy, and how they manage to live at all is very puzzling, but
no doubt they have private incomes of their own and don’t rely on making
any money out of their store.
Miss Wych had never so much as set eyes on her great employers, but she
would wonder a great deal about them, and she would wonder particularly
about the great men’s youth. Now Miss Wych admired success above all
things. Those clear cool eyes looked at life, this teeming chaotic life
in which she was an atom of service, and as she looked at life a prince
in shining armour of gold and sapphire stepped forth from the boiling
ranks, brave with triumph, flaming with youth, indeed a very prince of
princes. And the name of this prince was Success. That is how Miss Wych
thought of success, like a glorious lover. She loved success, like a
glorious lover. And once upon a time she had tried to win him for
herself, Miss Wych had once tried her fortune on the stage, but
unfortunately the glorious lover had looked very coldly on her, for, as
the producer had said: “Miss Wych is a nice girl but a bum actress.”
The gentle circumstance of evening transmuted the trumpeting and soiled
machines on the road into shining caravans, but never a glance at these
wonders did Miss Wych give. Of the passers-by, one and all hurrying to
the assault of tubes and omnibuses, maybe one here and there forfeited
his place through looking twice at Miss Wych. Miss Wych was a very
pretty girl. Her eyes were grey. Her nose would have looked absurd on
anyone’s else face, because it was so small. Her face was as white as
the moon.
Since she had made up her mind to walk to her boarding-house in South
Kensington she did not join the people waiting for omnibuses at the
corner of Marble Arch and Park Lane. They who had been in such haste a
moment before now waited so quietly, so uneagerly, as though they didn’t
care whether they were going home or not. The stillness of Park Lane
seemed to Miss Wych very refreshing after the din of the panting hosts
of Oxford Street. She walked in the broken shadows of the Park railings.
A young man on a black horse cantered by, looking as though he had
bought the world for tuppence and wanted his money back. Now and then an
omnibus rolled by, rolled on, and on, and on, the red-and-white monster
born of man’s divine gift for making his life intolerable. A young lady
with a bright red hat in a little silver car tore by like a jewel in a
hurry. Huge limousines sped, sped swiftly by, like shining insects
whispering to Miss Wych of a grander world than the world of Miss Wych.
The people in Hyde Park walked slowly to and fro listening to each
other. When the sun lit their faces they looked brown and gold and
copper-red, but otherwise they looked tired. Through the railings the
sun fell in bars of gold about her feet and kissed the dark hair that
waved over her ears, so that the dark hair shone in a way that was a
wonder to behold. Miss Wych, of course, was always wishing that her hair
was fair, but she was quite wrong about that. The thoughts of Miss Wych
as she walked roughly: “The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into
Kensington Gardens. The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into
Kensington Gardens. The sun is....”
And a voice at her shoulder said:
“Excuse me! Please excuse me. I say, you _must_ excuse me!”
Miss Wych thought: “And such things can happen in sunlight! O our
Father, why _won’t_ You watch Your world more carefully!”