Chapter III: Where the Pigeons Go to Die

I

Now it is as much as their jobs are worth for the authorities responsible for the amenities of the town not to employ a man on the clear understanding that every once in a while he climbs to the very top of Lord Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square to cleanse away such refuse as might have collected about the immortal sailor’s feet. And it is to the good man who undertakes this perilous task that we owe a piece of information which cannot fail to interest gentles and simples. He tells how he never but finds numerous pigeons lying dead about the feet of our sailor hero. Sometimes there will be not more than a score or so, sometimes there may be close on an hundred, and he relates on oath how he once removed, in a bag which he takes up with him for that purpose, the bodies of pigeons to the number of one-hundred-and-thirty-four: among which, he tells with awe, there was the corpse of a pretty white dove.

That was on the evening of the first of May of the year of grace 1924, and the reason why the good man tells with awe of the dove among the pigeons is because it was on that very evening that he was vexed by a strange phenomenon. The facts may interest the curious.

The prodigious number of the dead pigeons had kept him at his task much later than usual; and as he picked up the dove he chanced to look up at Lord Nelson, who stood at that moment in the light and shadow of the sun as it set beyond Admiralty Arch, and the good man fancied that the stern face of my Lord Nelson frowned.

Unseemly though it is to doubt any man’s word, the sceptical sort may be permitted to question whether the fellow was at that moment seeing straight, and whether it was not the fanciful light of twilight that had set him thinking that Lord Nelson had indulged in a passing frown.

But to more kindly folk the good man’s fancy will not present such marvellous features when they know that it was on the evening of that first of May that Miss Pamela Wych came upon an event beneath Lord Nelson’s eyes that completely changed the course of her whole life.

II

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!”

III

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.

IV

“I was born,” said Miss Wych, “in a small town in the north of England which would have been the ugliest town in the world if there hadn’t been uglier ones all round it. My mother died when I was quite young, and when I was nineteen my father died; but I did not mind being alone half so much as you might think, because I was very ambitious. So, with the few pounds my father had left, I came to London to try my fortune on the stage. I had an aunt who was once an actress in Birmingham, and that was why I thought first of all of the stage. And people said I was pretty.

“In that ugly town there was a boy who loved me. His name was George and he was a clerk in an auctioneer’s office, but he wanted to be a farmer. When my father died George asked me to marry him, but I said I couldn’t do that and explained about my ambitions and how I would first of all like to have a try at being _something_ in the world. You see, it isn’t only grown-ups who have dreams. Besides, George was poor, and however would we live if we did get married?

“He came to see me soon after I had settled in London. I told him I was studying acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, and also I told him that I loved him. Of course, I wouldn’t have told him that if he hadn’t asked me. But I thought I did. I was only nineteen and a bit, and he was so strong and serious, and as fair as you are dark, and when he was almost too serious to speak the tip of his nose would quiver in a lovely funny way.

“That was the last time I saw George, but this evening I am to see him again. You see, that was on the first of May five years ago, and George and I swore a great oath. George said he was off to America to make his fortune, but that in five years to the day he would be waiting for me at the Savoy Hotel at eight o’clock to give me dinner and hear me say that I would marry him. We chose a grand place like the Savoy Hotel because of course George would have made his fortune by then. George added that he had no ambitions for himself, he wouldn’t mind being just a farmer, but that he would work for me. I said that was a very good idea, for men should be ambitious and imperious, marching into history with clear heads and brave thoughts and clean eyes.

“I said I would keep myself free for him. I promised him that just as he was going away, and you should have seen how happy his eyes were and how the tip of his nose quivered! And now I have to see him in a few minutes’ time, and what shall I say to him?

“I was a failure on the stage. I am a failure even as a girl in a shop. I am a failure in everything but my dreams. My childish ambitions have withered, and you would think I had learnt such a lesson that I wouldn’t have any more, but now I have the largest ambition in the world. I would like very much to be happy. That is why I have been wondering all to-day and for how many days what I would say to George this evening. You see, I wasn’t really in love with him even when I made my promise, I knew that in my heart even then. My promise was just one of those important-looking flowers that are wrung out of the soil of pity. And my business in life from now onwards, dear stranger, will be to keep that hidden from my husband. But of course I will get used to disenchantment, just like everyone else, and the time will come when I will wonder at myself for talking to you like this, and the time will come when I, like everyone else, will die with the sick heart of one who has never fulfilled herself. And now I must go, for it is close on eight o’clock.”

“Of course,” said the lean young man thoughtfully, “he might, for some reason we can’t tell, not keep his appointment. And then----”

“And then, and then, and then!” sang Miss Wych, but she added gravely: “But oh, he will! George is a good man and a determined man. Failure or success, he will be there.”

The fires burnt low in the west. They walked towards the gates of the Park. Miss Wych counted four stars in the sky.

“Love,” said the lean young man, “knows every emotion but that of patience. Mayn’t I come with you, Pamela Wych? Mayn’t we go together to this George man? Could he do anything but release you?”

“That wouldn’t be fair,” said Miss Wych. “That wouldn’t be fair at all. Oh, yes, George would release me. But life is not so easy as that. It’s all very nice and easy to talk and dream, but aren’t there duties too? I will go to George and tell him I am ready to marry him. I _must_ do that. But maybe he won’t want to marry me. And then----”

The clock at the Park Gates stood at ten minutes to eight o’clock; and on this strange enchanted evening, said Miss Wych, she would indulge in the extravagance of a taxicab. The lean young man stood by the door and said good-bye, and he said also: “If that George man isn’t there, I shall know. Or if that George man isn’t worthy of your loyalty, I shall know. And I will come to you again.”

“If!” sighed Miss Wych. “If! If the world was a garden, and we were butterflies! If the world was a garden, and God was kind to lovers! Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!”

V

There is an eminent school of thought which insists that there is no such thing in this world as chance. Therefore we may take it that ever since the beginning of creation there was appointed one small wind to lurk nearby the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square for the purpose of blowing an empty paper-bag under a horse’s nose.

The horse belonged to a van, and it was probably bored with the van. It gave a kick at the paper-bag. It missed the paper-bag. “Woa!” cried the driver of the van. That got on the horse’s nerves, and it bolted.

Two men cried: “Ho! Woa! Oi!” An old man selling newspapers by the steps of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields said. “No ’orse can’t bolt far with an ’eavy van.” The driver of the van cried: “----!” An orange-and-banana merchant leapt for his life from the horse’s hooves, and his oranges and bananas fell as manna upon Trafalgar Square, and many little children ran together and gave praise. A large handsome limousine was coming at a good pace up the slope from the Strand. It had to swerve to avoid running over the orange-and-banana merchant. As it swerved it crashed into the side of an ancient taxicab that was bustling round the corner. The ancient taxicab overturned. There was a scream of smashing glass, and the two wheels of the taxicab revolved plaintively in the air.

“Bewty!” said the old man selling newspapers, for he was a connoisseur of accidents. The limousine had stopped. The horse was walking on quite calmly now. A little boy picked up the paper-bag, blew into it, and made a noise. A lot of people came to look at the taxicab.

“Stand back, there! Stand back!” cried a young policeman.

The driver of the taxicab crawled from underneath the wreck. There was blood on his face, and he was so ugly that he looked like several sorts of animals at once. He stared at the chauffeur of the limousine.

“Wotcherdothatfor?” he asked bitterly.

“Come on now, lend a hand!” said the young policeman sternly.

A tall, fair, serious-looking young man had alighted quickly from the limousine, and with him a young lady in a chinchilla coat.

“My, there’s a girl underneath!” she sobbed in a faint American accent.

“There was!” said the taxi-driver bitterly.

“Good God, she’s pinned there!” cried the tall, fair young man.

“George, and on our honeymoon!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat.

“Come on now, give us room!” said the policeman sharply. “Now then, sir, just help me lift this wheel off the young lady.”

It was the lean young man who was helping the policeman. He had followed Miss Wych. As the tall fair young man and his young wife in the chinchilla coat pressed forward through the crowd, the lean young man looked up at him, and his face was very stern. The tall fair young man looked back with bewildered, wretched eyes.

“Don’t say she’s dead!” he whispered.

“Now, sir,” said the young policeman, “I’ll keep this up while you bring her through sharp as you like. Now!”

The lithe young body was broken and still. The crowd pressed round.

“She’s dead orl right!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.

The last flames of sunset over Admiralty Arch lit the peering faces, and they looked as impersonal as gargoyles. Some took off their hats.

“Oh, she’s dead!” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat.

“Such a pretty young lady!” said the taxi-driver bitterly, wiping the blood from his face.

The lean young man and the young policeman knelt beside the still, broken body and tried to find life where no life was. The orange-and-banana merchant took off his hat. The policeman’s helmet fell to the ground and rolled a little way down towards the Strand. The tall fair young man held his silk hat in his hand. The lean young man looked up at him through a blinding mist of tears and stammered: “Aren’t you sorry, aren’t you sorry?”

“George,” sobbed the young lady in the chinchilla coat, “why is he looking at you like that?”

“Blessed if I know!” stammered the tall fair young man.

“By gum, look at the cop!” said the orange-and-banana merchant.

The lean young man darted a look at the policeman kneeling beside him, and he saw that the policeman wept, and he saw that the tip of the policeman’s nose was quivering.

“She died,” stammered the lean young man, “while keeping her promise to you. But you had failed her.”

“I’ve failed at everything in every country,” said the young policeman. “And now I’ll probably get the sack from this job too for crying on my beat.”

“’Ere, give ’im back ’is ’elmet,” said the taxi-driver bitterly. “A cop without a ’elmet don’t look natchral.”

“And who’s goin’ to give me back my oranges and bananas?” said the orange-and-banana merchant. “Isn’t there no justice in this world, that’s wot I want to know?”