Miss Wych walked on, in the broken shadows of the Park railings. And her
eyes were turned to the sun, which did not know it was sinking into
Kensington Gardens, for what else was there to look at? Then a bird flew
across Park Lane and sat on a window-sill, and Miss Wych looked at that.
“Please,” said the voice at her shoulder. “You see, Miss Wych, I must.
For I can’t bear it any more, honestly. Don’t be beastly to me, please!”
Miss Wych thought: “This is a fine thing, being spoken to by strange
men! I suppose I look common or flashy or something, else he wouldn’t
dare. What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? What do women do?”
“Look here,” said the voice at her shoulder, “I can’t keep this up any
longer. I’m no good at speaking to people I don’t know. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” said Miss Wych.
“Oh, you’ve spoken!” cried the voice at her shoulder.
Miss Wych thought: “Oh, oh, damn!”
Miss Wych said: “This is very extraordinary behaviour. Please go away.”
Miss Wych had intended to say that icily, but in point of fact she said
it very shyly. There was a girl who worked with her in the millinery
department of Messrs. Come & Go who said: “When I don’t like a boy I
just give him the Once-Over and he’s Off.” Miss Wych envied that girl.
But she called up her courage and tried to give the stranger the
Once-Over. The stranger, however, did not go Off. The stranger was a
lean young man with deep dark eyes that seemed to whirl with the trouble
that was in him.
“You see,” he said, “it’s like this, Miss Wych. I had to meet you
somehow. But how? I did not know what to do. And so I did this. Miss
Wych dear, will you forgive me?”
Miss Wych thought: “There are times when one must placate the devil.
This must be one of those times.”
Then Miss Wych discovered a most extraordinary thing. She discovered
that she was looking deep into the stranger’s dark eyes. She flushed as
red as a tennis-court.
“This is terrible,” she said bitterly. “Terrible! How dare you speak to
me! Please go away at once.”
“I can’t,” said the young stranger. “I would if I could. But I just
can’t. I’m sorry.”
Miss Wych thought: “He says he’s _sorry_, the beast!”
“You are mad,” said Miss Wych indifferently. The sun walked in fire and
glory, but the world was dark, the world was dark, and bold bad men
walked the streets for to be offensive to maids. The young stranger, for
instance, did not go away. He said desperately:
“If you will give me just one look you will see that I don’t mean to
offend you.”
“That may be so,” said Miss Wych bitterly, “but you do.”
“You only think I do,” protested the lean young man. “That’s all it is,
really.”
Then Miss Wych discovered a most extraordinary thing. She discovered
that she was walking slowly, slowly. Instantly she walked on quickly.
The lean young man sighed: “Oh, dear!”
Miss Wych said breathlessly: “I don’t even know your name! And how you
have got to know mine I really can’t imagine! But you don’t look wicked.
Please don’t go on being nasty! Please! Won’t you go away now?”
“Pamela Wych,” the young stranger whispered, “Pamela Wych, Pamela Wych,
Pamela Wych, how the devil was I to meet you except by daring this?
Further, you are my fate, and what sort of a man would I be if I were to
leave my fate in the very second of finding it?”
Miss Wych thought: “This is getting serious.”
“That is all very well,” she said reasonably, “talking about fate and
big things like that. But when you take it as just behaviour you can see
as well as I do that it is all wrong. Sir, there are things one can’t
do, and this is one of them, and so you must please go away at once.”
“That is the one thing I can’t do,” said the young stranger desperately.
“You see, although you won’t show me your face I can see the tip of your
ear peeping out from your hair, and it is as red as a rose.”
Miss Wych thought: “This can’t go on. How would it be if I called a
policeman?”
“It is red,” said the profile of Miss Wych, “for shame that a man can so
insult his manhood.”
“Oh, I do wish people wouldn’t talk like those small leaders in _The
Daily Mail_!” cried the voice at her shoulder. “I’m not insulting my
manhood. I am living up to it for the first time in my life.”
Miss Wych said fiercely: “Go away, go away, go away!”
“Dear,” said the young stranger, “listen to me. You must listen to me. I
am not playing.”
Miss Wych thought: “Our Father which art in Heaven----”
They were in the Park. How they had come to be in the Park Miss Wych
could not imagine. Over Kensington Gardens the sun was marching to
eternity with a cohort of clouds and colours.
“No,” said the lean young man, “I am certainly not playing. Miss Wych
dear, this is not a ‘pick-up’----”
“It’s piracy!” said Miss Wych contemptuously.
“That’s right,” said the lean young man with the eyes of trouble.
“You say you aren’t playing,” Miss Wych bitterly complained, “but you
are upsetting me very much. A little chivalry, sir, would help you to
see how terrified I am.”
“I am terrified, too,” said the young stranger, “of this happiness. It
can’t possibly last, can it? It’s too enormous.”
Miss Wych thought: “He’s gone mad!”
“I really don’t know why you ask me,” she panted spitefully, “whether it
can last or not. How should I know? And it’s perfectly absurd, what we
are doing. It is perfectly absurd. I don’t know you, you don’t know me,
and that’s that. Anyone would think we were babies!”
“But that’s just what I am! For,” said the young stranger, “I am exactly
one week old.”
Miss Wych thought: “And he talks like it!”
Miss Wych said: “Really! How interesting.”
“I am one week old,” the stranger said, “because it was exactly a week
ago that I first saw you. And you needn’t laugh!”
“I’m not laughing,” said Miss Wych.
They were sitting on two chairs in the Park. How they had come to be
sitting on two chairs in the Park Miss Wych could not imagine. The sun
was red in the face with trying to get to Australia through Kensington
Gardens.
The young stranger said: “Now!”
His eyes were deep and dark and shy, and Miss Wych thought: “He is one
of those unhappy young men. There are a lot of them about. He is
probably used to burning people with those eyes of his. But he won’t
burn me.”
The lean young man was saying: “Miss Wych, may I tell you something
most important? I love you.”
“That is what you say,” said Miss Wych, and was surprised at herself,
for she had intended to say something quite different.
“Love,” said Miss Wych severely, “is a shy word. It should not be thrown
about just anyhow. That’s quite apart from it’s being cheek.”
The lean young man’s eyes burnt angrily, and he said: “I have been in
hell for a week, and you talk to me of cheek!”
“Well, it _is_ cheek,” said Miss Wych sulkily.
Now because the young stranger’s deep dark eyes were whirling with the
trouble that was in him Miss Wych suddenly thought to close hers tight,
for she did not want to let herself be sorry for him. She thought: “If
this is what they call Romance--well, oh, dear, give me a nice bus ride
in a hurricane! It would be much less uncomfortable.”
“One day,” the voice was saying, “I happened to go with a friend into
that shop where you work, and I saw you, and my life fell down like a
tin soldier with a broken leg. That was a week ago, and since then I
haven’t picked it up, I haven’t known what to do. I have often heard
that a man can go mad with love, but I did not know before that a man
could go sane with love. All the people in the world who are not madly
in love, Miss Wych dear, are in some degree insane, for it is insane not
to have a proper perspective of life, and a proper perspective of life
is to be quite certain that the world is well lost for the love of one
person. It is insane to work from grubby birth to grubby death with
never an attempt to chain a star, with never a raid on enchantment, with
never a try to kiss a fairy or to live in a dream. Dear, only dreams
make life real, all of life that is not touched and troubled by our
dreams is not real, does not exist. I could not have lived until now if
I had not dreamed that one day I would meet you. I have worked, I have
been what is called successful, but always I was under the spell of a
miracle that was to happen, and when I saw you I knew that miracle had
happened. I just wanted to tell you that. I believe in miracles and
magic and my love for you. That is my testament. And if it is cheek to
say I love you, then cheek must be as beautiful a thing as chastity. And
now I am going away, for your eyes are closed, and that must be because
my talk of love bores you. I have tried the impossible, just to be
certain that nothing is impossible until one has tried it. And I have
learnt another thing: I know now that when I am not looking at you I
shall be blind, when I am not listening to you I shall be deaf, and
always I shall find no delight in the world but in thoughts of you. And
now I will go away.”
Miss Wych opened her eyes and said: “Don’t go away.” That is all she
said, but it was quite enough for the lean young man, who caught his
breath and threw down his hat and pinched himself. Now all the colours
in the world and in the heavens had met over Kensington Gardens in a
conference to discuss ways and means for putting the sun to sleep, and a
few of them came quickly and lit Miss Wych’s face as she said:
“There is something very silly about me. It has landed me into a lot of
trouble in my time. I always believe what people say. I believe in
fairies. I believe in God. I believe that moonlight has a lovely smell.
I believe in men.”
“Please believe in me!” said the lean young man.
“But why shouldn’t I!” cried Miss Wych with wide eyes. “What a funny
world this is, isn’t it? We always believe people straight away when
they say beastly things to us, but we don’t if they say lovely
things----”
“We will change all that!” the young stranger whispered.
All this while the world was standing quite still as a special treat for
the sylphs and spirits, so that they could dart about the sky and never
lose their way back to the friends who had stayed at home. It was
curious, Miss Wych thought, how she could feel the silence of the world.
It was as though the wings of a darting bird brushed her cheek, scented
her thoughts, sang in her heart. It was as though the world was still
with reverence. Before her very eyes a fairy tripped over a blade of
grass, and Miss Wych thought: “I must be dreaming.”
“Talking of cheek,” said the lean young man.
“Yes?” said Miss Wych.
“Look here,” said the lean young man, and you could have blown his voice
away with a breath, “if I have the cheek to ask you to marry me, will
you have the cheek to say yes?”
He had a stick with an ivory top that was as yellow and cracked with age
as an old charwoman’s face. She looked at it for a long time, and then
she looked at him.
“Why,” she cried, “your eyes are wet!”
“I know,” said the lean young man fiercely. “And I don’t give a damn.
For the love of God, am I such a fool that I wouldn’t be crying for the
happiness of knowing you are in the world!”
“Well,” said Miss Wych, “I shall probably be crying myself at any
moment. But first of all I must tell you a story.”
“Won’t you marry me instead?” pleaded the young stranger.
“I will tell you a story,” said Miss Wych gravely, and she began at
once.