Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The ball went on and on, and Dodo seemed to gather fresh strength and brilliance with each hour. Extra dances were added and still added, and many who were tired with dancing stayed and watched her. The princes went away, and nobody noticed their departure. If Cleopatra herself had suddenly entered the ballroom, she would have found herself at a discount. It was the culmination of Dodo’s successes. She seemed different in kind, as well as in degree, from the crowd around her. Pretty women seemed suddenly plain and middle-aged; well-dressed women looked dowdy beside her, and when at length, as the electric light began to pale perceptibly before the breaking day, Dodo asked her partner to take her to Lady Bretton, the dancers stopped, and followed Dodo and Prince Waldenech, for she was dancing with him, to where Lady Bretton was standing.

  “It has been heavenly,” said Dodo. “It’s a dreadful bore to have people come and say how much they have enjoyed themselves, but I’ve done it now. Tell Lucas I wish he would come of age every year; he really is a public benefactor.”

  She took Prince Waldenech’s arm, and stood waiting with him, while her carriage detached itself from the others which lined the square, and drove up to the door. And, as they stood there, the crowd followed her slowly out of the ballroom, still silent, and still watching her, and lined the stairs, as she passed down to the front door.

  Then, when she had got into her carriage, and had driven off, they looked at each other as if they had all been walking in their sleep, and no one knew exactly why they were there. And a quarter of an hour later the rooms were completely empty.

  Meanwhile, as Dodo drove back through the still, cool, morning air, she threw down the windows of her carriage, and drew in deep satisfied breaths of its freshness. She thought of the crowds who had followed her down to the door, and laughed for pleasure. “It’s life, it’s life,” she thought. “They followed me like sheep. Ah, how I love it!”

  It was nearly six when she reached home; “Decidedly it would be too absurd to go to bed,” she thought. “I shall go for a glorious gallop, and come back to breakfast with Chesterford. Tell them to saddle Starlight at once,” she said to the footman: “I sha’n’t want a groom. And tell Lord Chesterford, when he wakes, that I shall be back to breakfast.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  Chesterford did not let Dodo see how strongly he had felt on the subject of the ball. He argued to himself that it would do no good. Dodo would not understand, or, understanding, would misunderstand the strength of his feeling, and he did not care that she should know that he thought her heartless. He was quite conscious that matters were a little strained between them, though Dodo apparently was sublimely unaware, of it. She had a momentary nervousness when they met at breakfast, on the morning after the ball, that Chesterford was going to make a fuss, and she could not quite see what it would end in, if the subject was broached. But he came in looking as usual. He told her how matters had gone with him on the previous day, and had recounted, with a certain humour, a few sharp words which an old lady in his railway carriage had addressed to him, because he didn’t help her to hand out two large cages of canaries which she was taking home.

  Dodo welcomed all this as a sign of grace, and was only too happy to meet her husband half-way. He had been a trifle melodramatic on the previous evening, but we are all liable to make mountains out of molehills at times, she thought. Personally her inclination was to make molehills out of mountains, but that was only a difference in temperament; both implied a judgment at fault, and she was quite willing to forgive and forget. In a word, she was particularly nice to him, and when breakfast was over she took his arm, and led him away to her room.

  “Sit down in that very big chair, old boy,” she said, “and twiddle your thumbs while I write some notes. I’m going to see Mrs. Vivian this morning, and your lordship may come in my ladyship’s carriage if it likes. Is lordship masculine, feminine, or neuter, Chesterford? Anyhow, it’s wrong to say your lordship may come in your carriage, because lordship is the nominative to the sentence, and is in the third person — what was I saying? Oh, yes, you may come if it likes, and drop me there, and then go away for about half an hour, and then come back, and then we’ll have lunch together at home.”

  “I’ve got to go to some stupid committee at the club,” said Chesterford, “but that’s not till twelve. I’ll send your carriage back for you, but I sha’n’t be able to be in at lunch.”

  “Oh, very good,” remarked Dodo. “I’m sorry I married you. I might be a lone lorn widdy for all you care. He prefers lunching at his club,” she went on, dramatically, addressing the black virgin, “to having his chop at home with the wife of his bosom. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless Chesterford!”.

  Dodo proceeded to write her notes, and threw them one by one at her husband as he sat contentedly by the window, in the very big chair that Dodo had indicated.

  Dodo’s correspondence was as varied as the collection of photographs on her mantelpiece. The first note was to her groom at Winston, telling him to have another riding-horse sent up at once, as her own particular mare had gone lame. It missed Chesterford’s head, and fell with an ominous clatter among some bric-à-brac and china.

  “That’ll be a bill for you to pay, darling,” said Dodo sweetly. “Why didn’t you put your silly old head in the light?”

  The next was a slightly better shot, and fell right side upwards on to Chesterford’s knee, but with the address upside down to him. He looked at it vaguely.

  “His Serene Highness who?” he asked, spelling it out.

  “That’s not grammar,” said Dodo. “It’s only to Prince Waldenech. He is Serene, isn’t he? He looks it, anyhow. He was at the Brettons’ last night. Austrian but amiable.”

  Chesterford was fingering the envelope.

  “He’s an unmitigated blackguard,” he said, after a little consideration. “I wish you’d let me tear it up, Dodo. What on earth have you got to say to him?”

  “I-shall have to write it again, dear, if you do,” said she, conscious of bridling a rising irritation.

  “He really is an awful brute,” he repeated.

  “Oh, my dear Chesterford, what does that matter?” asked Dodo, impatiently tapping the floor with the toe of her shoe. “It isn’t my business to go raking up the character of people I’m introduced to.”

  “You mean you don’t mind what a man’s character is as long as he’s agreeable.”

  “It isn’t my business to be court inquisitor,” she said. “Half of what one hears about people isn’t true, and the other half — well, all you can say is, that it isn’t exactly false.”

  Dodo could lose her temper very quickly on occasions, especially when she was in a hurry, as she was now.

  “My dear Dodo, do you happen to know the story of—”

  “No, I don’t,” she said vehemently. “Shall I seem rude if I say I don’t want to? I really think you might find something better to do than tell scandalous stories about people you don’t know.”

  “I know all I want to know about Prince Waldenech,” said Chesterford, rising.

  “You’ll know more about him soon,” remarked Dodo, “because I’ve asked him to stay at Winston. I suppose you think I wanted to make a secret about it. I have no such intention, I assure you.”

  “Is this note to ask him to come?” he inquired.

  “Certainly it is,” said Dodo defiantly.

  “I may as well tear it up,” said he. “I don’t mean him to be asked, Dodo. I don’t wish to have him in the house.”

  Dodo had lost her temper thoroughly.

  “His being asked to Winston is immaterial,” she said, with scorn in her voice. “You certainly have the power to prevent his coming to your house. Your power I must regard, your wishes I shall not. I can see him in London with perfect ease.”

  “You mean you attach no weight to my wishes in this matter?” said Chesterford.

  “None.”

  “Will no knowledge of what the man is really li
ke, stop you holding further intercourse with him?” he asked.

  “None whatever, now!”

  “I don’t wish it to be known that my wife associates with such people,” he said.

  “Your wife does not regard it in that light,” replied Dodo. “I have no intention of proclaiming the fact from the housetops.”

  To do Chesterford justice he was getting angry too.

  “It’s perfectly intolerable that there should be this sort of dispute between you and me, Dodo,” he said.

  “That is the first point on which we have not differed.”

  “You entirely decline to listen to reason?”

  “To your reason, you mean,” said Dodo.

  “To mine or any honest man’s.”.

  Dodo burst out into a harsh, mirthless laugh.

  “Ah, you’re, beginning to be jealous,” she said. “It is very bourgeois to be jealous.”

  Chesterford coloured, angrily.

  “That is an insult, Dodo,” he said. “Remember that there is a courtesy due even from a wife to her husband. Besides that, you know the contrary.”

  “Really, I know nothing of the sort,” she remarked. “Your whole conduct, both last night and this morning, has been so melodramatic, that I begin to suspect all sorts of latent virtues in you.”

  “We are wandering from the point,” said he. “Do you mean that nothing will deter you from seeing this Austrian?”

  “He is received in society,” said Dodo; “he is presentable, he is even amusing. Am I to tell him that my husband is afraid he’ll corrupt my morals? If people in general cut him, I don’t say that I should continue to cultivate his acquaintance. It is absurd to run amuck of such conventions. If you had approached me in a proper manner, I don’t say that I mightn’t have seen my way to meeting your wishes.”

  “I don’t feel I am to blame in that respect,” said he.

  “That shows you don’t know how far we are apart,” she replied.

  He was suddenly frightened. He came closer to her.

  “Far apart, Dodo? We?”

  “It seems to me that this interview has revealed some astonishing differences of opinion between us,” she said. “I don’t wish to multiply words.. You have told me what you think on the subject, and I have told you what I think. You have claimed the power a husband certainly possesses, and I claim the liberty that my husband cannot deprive me of. Or perhaps you wish to lock me up. We quite understand one another. Let us agree to differ. Give me that note, please. I suppose you can trust me not to send it. I should like to keep it. It is interesting to count the milestones.”

  Dodo spoke with the recklessness of a woman’s anger, which is always much more unwanton than that of a man. A man does not say cruel things when he is angry, because they are cruel, but because he is angry. Dodo was cruel because she wished to be cruel. He gave her the note, and turned to leave the room. Dodo’s last speech made it impossible for him to say more. The only thing he would not sacrifice to his love was his honour or hers. But Dodo suddenly saw the horrible impossibility of the situation. She had not the smallest intention of living on bad terms with her husband. They had quarrelled, it was a pity, but it was over. A storm may only clear the air; it is not always the precursor of bad weather. The air wanted clearing, and Dodo determined that it should not be the prelude of rain and wind. To her, of course, the knowledge that she did not love her husband had long been a commonplace, but to him the truth was coming in fierce, blinding flashes, and by their light he could see that a great flood had come down into his happy valley, carrying desolation before it, and between him and Dodo stretched a tawny waste of water. But Dodo had no intention of quarrelling with him, or maintaining a dignified reserve in their daily intercourse. That would be quite unbearable, and she wished there to be no misunderstanding on that point.

  “Chesterford,” she said, “we’ve quarrelled, and that’s a pity. I hardly ever quarrel, and it was stupid of me. I am sorry. But I have no intention of standing on my dignity, and I sha’n’t allow you to stand on yours. I shall pull you down, and you’ll go flop. You object to something which I propose to do, you exert your rights, as far as having him in the house goes, and I exert mine by going to see him. I shall go this afternoon. Your veto on his coming to Winston seems quite as objectionable to me, as my going to see him does to you. That’s our position; accept it. Let us understand each other completely. C’est aimer.” As she spoke she recovered her equanimity, and she smiled serenely on him. Scenes like this left no impression on her. The tragedy passed over her head; and, though it was written in the lines of her husband’s face, she did not trouble to read it. She got up from her chair and went to him. He was standing with his hands clasped behind him near the door. She laid her hands on his shoulder, and gave him a little shake.

  “Now, Chesterford, I’m going to make it up,” she said. “Twenty minutes is heaps of time for the most quarrelsome people to say sufficient nasty things in, and time’s up. I’m going to behave exactly as usual. I hate quarrelling, and you don’t look as if it agreed with you. Kiss me this moment. No, not on the top of my head. That’s better. My carriage ought to be ready by this time, and you are coming with me as far as Prince’s Gate.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  Lord and Lady Chesterford were sitting at breakfast at Winston towards the end of September. He had an open letter in front of him propped up against his cup, and between mouthfuls of fried fish he glanced at it.

  “Dodo.”

  No answer.

  “Dodo,” rather louder.

  Dodo was also reading a letter, which covered two sheets and was closely written. It seemed to be interesting, for she had paused with a piece of fish on the end of her fork, and had then laid it down again. This time, however; she heard.

  “Oh, what?” she said abstractedly. “Jack’s coming to-day; I’ve just heard from him. He’s going to bring his hunter. You can get some cub-hunting, I suppose, Chesterford? The hunt itself doesn’t begin till the 15th, does it?”

  “Ah, I’m glad he can come,” said Chesterford. “Little Spencer would be rather hard to amuse alone. But that isn’t what I was going to say.”

  “What is it?” said Dodo, relapsing into her letter.

  “The bailiff writes to tell me that they have discovered a rich coal shaft under the Par Oaks.” A pause. “But, Dodo, you are not listening.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you know, Jack nearly shot himself the other day at a grouse drive?”

  “I don’t care,” said Chesterford brutally. “Listen, Dodo. Tompkinson says they’ve discovered a rich coal shaft under the Far Oaks. Confound the man, I wish he hadn’t.”

  “Oh, Chesterford, how splendid!” said Dodo, dropping her letter in earnest. “Dig it up and spend it on your party, and they’ll make you a duke for certain. I want to be a duchess very much. Good morning, your grace,” said Dodo reflectively.

  “Oh, that’s impossible,” said he. “I never thought of touching it, but the ass tells me that he’s seen the news of it in the Staffordshire Herald. So I suppose everybody knows, and I shall be pestered.”

  “But do you mean to say you’re going to let the coal stop there?” asked Dodo.

  “Yes, dear, I can’t possibly touch it. It goes right under all those oaks, and under the Memorial Chapel, close to the surface.”

  “But what does that matter?” asked Dodo, in real surprise.

  “I can’t possibly touch it,” said he; “you must see that. Why, the chapel would have to come down, and the oaks, and we don’t want a dirty coal shaft in the Park.”

  “Chesterford, how ridiculous!” exclaimed Dodo. “Do you mean you’re going to leave thousands of pounds lying there in the earth?”

  “I can’t discuss it, dear, even with you,” said he. “The only question is whether we can stop the report of it going about.”

  Dodo felt intensely irritated.

  “Really you are most unreasonable,” she said. “I did flatter
myself that I had a reasonable husband. You were unreasonable about the Brettons’ ball, and you were unreasonable about Prince Waldenech’s coming here, and you are unreasonable about this.”

  Chesterford lost his patience a little.

  “About the Brettons’ ball,” he said, “there was only one opinion, and that was mine. About the Prince’s coming here, which we agreed not to talk about, you know the further reason. I don’t like saying such things. You are aware what that officious ass Clayton told me was said at the club. Of course it was an insult to you, and a confounded lie, but I don’t care for such things to be said about my wife. And about this—”

  “About this,” said Dodo, “you are as obstinate as you were about those other things. Excuse me if I find you rather annoying.”

  Chesterford felt sick at heart.

  “Ah, Dodo,” he said, “cannot you believe in me at all?” He rose and stood by her. “My darling, you must know how I would do anything for love of you. But these are cases in which that clashes with duty. I only want to be loved a little. Can’t you see there are some things I cannot help doing, and some I must do?”

  “The things that you like doing,” said Dodo, in a cool voice pouring out some more tea. “I don’t wish to discuss this either. You know my opinion. It is absurd to quarrel; I dislike quarrelling with anybody, and more especially a person whom I live with. Please take your hand away, I can’t reach the sugar.”

  Dodo returned to her letter. Chesterford stood by her for a moment, and then left the room.

  “It gets more and more intolerable every day. I can’t bear quarrelling; it makes me ill,” thought Dodo, with a fine sense of irresponsibility. “And I know he’ll come and say he was sorry he said what he did. Thank goodness, Jack comes to-day.”