Алан Милн - Happy Days

"You're just in time for tea. Really, we might have it in the garden."

"By Jove, we might," said Ronald, beaming.

However, they had it in the hall, with the doors wide open. Ronald, sitting lazily with his legs stretched out and a cup of tea in his hands, and feeling already on the friendliest terms with everybody, wondered again at the difference which the weather could make to one's happiness.

"You know," he said to the girl on his right, "on a day like this, nothing seems to matter."

And then suddenly he knew that he was wrong, for he had discovered what it was which he had told himself not to forget … what it was which he had indeed forgotten.

And suddenly the birds stopped singing and there was a bitter chill in the air.

And the sun went violently out.

He was wearing only half–a–pair of spats.

Yuletide!

London at Yuletide!

A mantle of white lay upon the Embankment, where our story opens, gleaming and glistening as it caught the rays of the cold December sun; an embroidery of white fringed the trees; and under a canopy of white the proud palaces of Savoy and Cecil reared their silent heads. The mighty river in front was motionless, for the finger of Death had laid its icy hand upon it. Above—the hard blue sky stretching to eternity; below—the white purity of innocence. London in the grip of winter!

(~Editor.~ Come, I like this. This is going to be good. A cold day was it not?

~Author.~ Very. )

All at once the quiet of the morning was disturbed. In the distance a bell rang out, sending a joyous pæan to the heavens. Another took up the word, and then another, and another. Westminster caught the message from Bartholomew the son of Thunder, and flung it to Giles Without, who gave it gently to Andrew by the Wardrobe. Suddenly the air was filled with bells, all chanting together of peace and happiness, mirth and jollity—a frenzy of bells.

The Duke, father of four fine children, waking in his Highland castle, heard and smiled as he thought of his little ones….

The Merchant Prince, turning over in his magnificent residence, heard, and turned again to sleep, with love for all mankind in his heart….

The Pauper in his workhouse, up betimes, heard, and chuckled at the prospect of his Christmas dinner….

And, on the Embankment, Robert Hardrow, with a cynical smile on his lips, listened to the splendid irony of it.

(~Editor.~ We really are getting to the story now, are we not?

~Author.~ That was all local colour. I want to make it quite clear that it was Christmas.

~Editor.~ Yes, yes, quite so. This is certainly a Christmas story. I think I shall like Robert, do you know? )

It was Christmas day, so much at least was clear to him. With that same cynical smile on his lips, he pulled his shivering rags about him, and half unconsciously felt at the growth of beard about his chin. Nobody would recognise him now. His friends (as he had thought them) would pass by without a glance for the poor outcast near them. The women that he had known would draw their skirts away from him in horror. Even Lady Alice―

Lady Alice! The cause of it all!

His thoughts flew back to that last scene, but twenty–four hours ago, when they had parted for ever. As he had entered the hall he had half wondered to himself if there could be anybody in the world that day happier than himself. Tall, well–connected, a vice–president of the Tariff Reform League, and engaged to the sweetest girl in England, he had been the envy of all. Little did he think that that very night he was to receive his congé!

What mattered it now how or why they had quarrelled? A few hasty words, a bitter taunt, tears, and then the end.

A last cry from her, "Go, and let me never see your face again!"

A last sneer from him, "I will go, but first give me back the presents I have promised you!"

Then a slammed door and—silence.

What use, without her guidance, to try to keep straight any more? Bereft of her love, Robert had sunk steadily. Gambling, drink, morphia, billiards, and cigars—he had taken to them all; until now in the wretched figure of the outcast on the Embankment you would never have recognised the once spruce figure of Handsome Hardrow.

(~Editor.~ It all seems to have happened rather rapidly, does it not? Twenty–four hours ago he had been ―

~Author.~ You forget that this is a ~SHORT~ story. )

Handsome Hardrow! How absurd it sounded now! He had let his beard grow, his clothes were in rags, a scar over one eye testified―

(~Editor.~ Yes, yes. Of course, I quite admit that a man might go to the bad in twenty–four hours, but would his beard grow as―

~Author.~ Look here, you've heard of a man going grey with trouble in a single night, haven't you?

~Editor.~ Certainly.

~Author.~ Well, it's the same idea as that.

~Editor.~ Ah, quite so, quite so.

~Author.~ Where was I?

~Editor.~ A scar over one eye was just testifying― I suppose he had two eyes in the ordinary way? )

—testified to a drunken frolic of an hour or two ago. Never before, thought the policeman, as he passed upon his beat, had such a pitiful figure cowered upon the Embankment, and prayed for the night to cover him.

The―

He was―

Er—the―

(~Editor.~ Yes?

~Author.~ To tell the truth, I am rather stuck for the moment.

~Editor.~ What is the trouble?

~Author.~ I don't quite know what to do with Robert for ten hours or so.

~Editor.~ Couldn't he go somewhere by a local line?

~Author.~ This is not a humorous story. The point is that I want him to be outside a certain house some twenty miles from town at eight o'clock that evening.

~Editor.~ If I were Robert I should certainly start at once.

~Author.~ No, I have it. )

As he sat there, his thoughts flew over the bridge of years, and he was wafted on the wings of memory to other and happier Yuletides. That Christmas when he had received his first bicycle….

That Christmas abroad….

The merry house–party at the place of his Cambridge friend….

Yuletide at the Towers, where he had first met Alice!

Ah!

Ten hours passed rapidly thus….

(~Author.~ I put stars to denote the flight of years.

~Editor.~ Besides, it will give the reader time for a sandwich. )

Robert got up and shook himself.

(~Editor.~ One moment. This is a Christmas story. When are you coming to the robin?

~Author.~ I really can't be bothered about robins just now. I assure you all the best Christmas stories begin like this nowadays. We may get to a robin later; I cannot say.

~Editor.~ We must. My readers expect a robin, and they shall have it. And a wassail–bowl, and a turkey, and a Christmas–tree, and a―

~Author.~ Yes, yes; but wait. We shall come to little Elsie soon, and then perhaps it will be all right.

~Editor.~ Little Elsie. Good! )

Robert got up and shook himself. Then he shivered miserably, as the cold wind cut through him like a knife. For a moment he stood motionless, gazing over the stone parapet into the dark river beyond, and as he gazed a thought came into his mind. Why not end it all—here and now? He had nothing to live for. One swift plunge, and―

(~Editor.~ You forget. The river was frozen.

~Author.~ Dash it, I was just going to say that. )