Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia ScarlettMacKenzie, Compton
General
Sylvia & Michael: The later adventures of Sylvia Scarlett
MacKenzie, Compton
Fiction
"Yes, I think I do; in fact, I'm sure I do. I remember that at the time
I was reminded of our first meeting in Brompton Cemetery." He blinked
once or twice very quickly, and coughed in his old embarrassed way.
"Well, that's the girl for whom I want a passport."
Sylvia told him Queenie's story in detail from the time she met her
first in Granada to the present moment under the shadow of Zozo's
return.
"But, my dear Sylvia, I can't possibly procure an English passport for
her. She's not English."
"I want her to be my sister," Sylvia pursued. "I'm prepared to adopt her
and to be responsible for her. Any difference in the name she has been
generally known by can easily be put down to the needs of the stage. I
myself want to take once more my own name, Sylvia Snow, and I thought
you could issue two passports, one to Sylvia Snow, professionally known
as Sylvia Scarlett, and the other to Queenie Snow, known professionally
as Queenie Walters. Surely you won't let mere pedantry interfere with a
deed of charity?"
"It's not a question of pedantry. This is war-time. I should render
myself liable to--to--a court martial for doing a thing like that.
Besides, the principle of the thing is all wrong."
"But you don't seem to understand."
"Indeed I understand perfectly," Philip interrupted. "This girl was born
in Germany."
"Of an Italian father."
"What papers has she?" he asked.
"None at all. That's the whole point. She couldn't get even a German
passport if she wanted to. But she doesn't want one. She longs to be
English. It's the solitary clear ambition that she has. She was living
in England before war broke out, and she only came away to help this
girl who was kind to her. Surely the most rigid rule can be unbent to
fit a special case?"
"I could not possibly assume the responsibility," Philip declared.
"Then you mean to say you'll condemn this child to damnation--for that's
what you're doing with your infernal rules and regulations? You're
afraid of what will happen to you."
"Excuse me, even if I were certain that nothing could possibly be known
about the circumstances in which this passport was issued, I should
still refuse the application. Everybody suffers in this war; I suffer
myself in a minor degree by having to abandon my own work and masquerade
in this country as what you well call a U.V.W.X.Y.Z."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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