Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Slowly and calmly, like the light of morning, the fact of these manœuvres made to match his own dawned on him, and he unblushingly proposed an abandonment of these tactics.

  “Also, as it is,” he said, “first I cheat, and then you cheat. I do not gain if we do so, so where is the use? Always there is a wire when I hit at your ball, and then I go bump, and I do not gain. So no longer will I move my ball, and no longer shall you. Shall that be a bargain, an agreement? There is no gain if we both do so. I did not know that in England you played so.”

  Dodo had returned by this time, with David holding on to her hand, and heard the ratification of this infamous bargain.

  “Oh, Grantie, how I despise you,” she said, “and how comfortable that makes me feel. You have lowered yourself, darling; you have come down from your pedestal.”

  The game had got to an exciting stage, and a loud hoarse voice interrupted.

  “Also my ball skipped,” cried the Prince. “It ran and rolled and then it did skip over the other ball. It is no game on such a carpet. It is madness to have marks on the game when my ball skips like that. It ran and it rolled and then it skipped. I play for nothing if my ball skips. If again my ball skips, I will pay no marks.”

  Edith had joined Dodo on the edge of the lawn.

  “That’s Berlin all over,” she observed.

  David lifted up a shrill treble.

  “Mummie, I don’t understand this game,” he said very distinctly. “May I cheat when I play croquet? First he cheated and then she cheated: I watched them from the nursery. And what are marks?”

  Dodo devoted her entire attention to David.

  “They are slipper-marks,” she said brilliantly. “You shall get them if ever I catch you cheating at croquet.”

  “But has he got — —” began David.

  “Quantities! Shut up, darling!”

  This international event was protracted till dressing-time was imminent, and during the last half-hour of it the Prince was the prey of the most atrocious anxieties. If the game was abandoned, no decision would be reached, and he would not get his five marks, of which he, in the present state of affairs, felt that he was morally possessed. On the other hand, if they fought it out to the bitter stump, dinner must either be put off, which in itself made a tragedy of this pleasant day, or he would be late for dinner, which was almost as terrible. By way of saving time he debated these contingencies very slowly to his wife.

  “If I stop I do not win,” he said, “and if I do not stop, I may yet be beaten, and also it will be after dinner-time. I am puzzled. I do not know what I shall do. I do not win if I stop — —”

  “Dearest, you must stop talking,” said she briskly, “and go to hit your ball. Dodo will put off dinner till half-past eight, but we cannot all starve because of your five marks.”

  “But it is not five marks alone,” said he. “It is also glory. Ha! I have thought, and I will tell you what I shall do. I shall play till half-past eight and then if it is not finished, I will come to dinner in my white pantaloons, and I will not clean myself. So!”

  “But you cannot dine in your white pantaloons,” said she. “It would be too screaming!”

  “But I will dine in my white pantaloons, whether they scream, or whether they do not scream. Often have I at Allenstein dined in my white pantaloons, and if I do not clean myself, I am still clean. So do not talk any more, Sophy, for I shall do as I please, and I shall please to dine in my white pantaloons if the game is not over. See! I strike! Ach! I did not stoop. I did not look. But I will not be hurried.... But look, I have hit another ball. That is good! My ball did not skip that time, and I will have five marks. Now you shall see what I do!”

  The game came to an end while there was yet time for him to change his white pantaloons, even though there was considerable delay in convincing him that a half-crown, a florin and a sixpence were a true and just equivalent for five marks of the Fatherland. Victory, and the discovery that there was bisque soup for dinner put him into an amazingly good humour which blossomed into a really vivacious hilarity of a certain sort. Incidentally, some racial characteristics emerged.

  “Also I am very happy to-night, Lady Dodo,” he said. “Not ever have I felt so much hungry, and it is happy to be hungry when soon I shall not any longer be hungry. I will take again of the beef, and I will take also again of the long vegetable with the butter. It is good to be at dinner, and it is good to be in England. All Chermans like to be in England, for there is much to eat and there is much to study. I also study; I look and I observe and again I look and I study. We are great students and all good Chermans are students when they come to England.”

  Quite suddenly, so it seemed to Dodo, Princess Albert, seated next Jack on the middle of the other side of the table, caught something of what he was saying. In any case, she broke off in the middle of a sentence and leaned across to him.

  “Dearest, you are keeping everybody waiting,” she said. “Do not talk so much, but attend to your good dinner.”

  He nudged Dodo with his fat elbow.

  “You see, I am a hen-peck,” he said. “That is a good term. I am a hen-peck. Good! So I will myself peck the long sprouts with the butter.”

  He devoted himself to doing so for the next few minutes, and regretfully sucked his buttery fingers.

  “I talked of study,” he said, “and it is croquet I study, and I have five marks. Chermany is poor compared to rich England, and in Allenstein I play only for three marks when I play croquet. But we Chermans have industry, we have perseverance, also nothing distracts us, but we go on while others stop still. I am very content to be a poor Cherman in rich England.... No.... I will have no ice! If I am warm inside me, why should I make cold inside me? But soon I will have some port, and I am happy to be here. I could sing, so happy am I.”

  Once again the Princess must have been listening to him.

  “Indeed, dearest, you shall not sing,” she said.

  He looked at her with a grave replete eye.

  “But if I choose, I shall sing,” he said, “and if I do not choose then I shall not sing.”

  Dodo felt that there was something moving below this ridiculous talk, which she could not quite grasp. Some sort of shifting shadow was there, like a fish below water....

  “Don’t be a hen-peck, sir,” she said. “Sing quietly to me.”

  He leaned a little sideways to her, beating the table softly with his hand. Edith, who was sitting on his other side, caught the rhythm of his beat.

  “That’s ‘Deutschland über alles,’” she said, cheerfully.

  He gave her a complicated wink.

  “Also, you are wrong,” he said. “It is ‘Rule Britannia.’”

  He leaned forward across the table.

  “Sophy,” he said. “This is a good joke; you will like this joke. For I thumped with my hand on the table, and this lady here said, ‘Also, that is “Deutschland über alles.”’ And I said to her, ‘You are wrong.’ I said. ‘Also, it is “Rule Britannia.”’ That is a good joke, and you shall tell that to Willie when you write to him. So! We are all pleased. Ach! The ladies are going. I will rise, and then I will sit down again.”

  Edith went straight to the piano in the next room, and without explanation, thumped out “Rule Britannia.” She followed it up with the “Marseillaise.”

  CHAPTER IV

  JUMBO

  Dodo had always firmly believed that boredom was by far the most fruitful cause of fatigue, and since she herself was hardly ever bored, she attributed to that the fact that she was practically indefatigable. Her immunity from boredom was not due to the fact that she, like the great majority of the women of her world, steadily and strenuously avoided anything that was likely to bore her: it was that she brought so intense and lively an interest to whatever she happened to be doing, that her occupation, of whatever kind it might be, became a mental refreshment. Last night, for instance, at dinner she had sat next Lord Cookham at a mournful and pompous banquet, an ex
perience which was apt to prostrate the strongest with an acute attack of nervous depression, but the only effect it had on Dodo was to make her study with the most eager curiosity how it was possible that any one could be so profound a prig, and yet not burst or burn with a blue flame. He spoke in polished and rounded periods, always adapting his conversation to the inferior intellect of his audience, and it was impossible to hold discussion or argument with him, for if you disagreed with any of his dicta, he smiled with withering indulgence, and reminded you that he had devoted constant study to that particular point. Naturally if he had done that it was certain that he had come to the correct conclusion, and there was no more to be said except by him (which he proceeded to do). This table-conversation, moreover, could have been set up into type without any corrections, for he believed, probably with perfect correctness, that everybody, except himself, made occasional grammatical slips either in speaking or writing, and he winced if you used the expression “under these circumstances” instead of “in.” He had never married, having been unable to find a wife of sufficiently fine intellectual calibre. But so far from irritating Dodo, this prodigious creature merely fascinated her, and when after dinner he took his place in the centre of the hearthrug, and recounted to the entire company the talk he had had with the Minister of Antiquities in Athens, and the advice he had given him with regard to the preservation of the sculpture on the Parthenon, Dodo felt that she could have listened for ever in the ecstatic attempt to realise the full complacency of that miraculous mind. Thoroughly refreshed but slightly intoxicated by that intellectual treat she had gone to a party at the Foreign Office, followed by a ball, and was out again riding in the Park with David at eight. She came back a little before ten, and found her husband morosely breakfasting in the sitting-room, with his back to the window.

  “Good morning, darling,” she said. “It’s the divinest day, and you ought to have come out instead of sleeping off your Cookhamitis. There was a blue haze over everything like the bloom on a plum, and a water-cart came down Park Lane just as we got out of the gate, so we followed it for half a mile going very slowly behind it, because it smelt so good. Jack, I am sure Cookham was like that when he was born; he could never have learned to be so marvellous. He probably told his nurse in Greek how to wash and dress him before he could talk. Now don’t say that he couldn’t speak Greek before he could talk, because my suggestion contains an essential truth in spite of its apparent impossibility. ‘You must believe it because it’s impossible,’ as St. Augustine said.”

  Dodo poured herself out some tea.

  “I got home at a quarter to four,” she said, “and I was called at a quarter to eight, and I was out by eight and I shall have my bath after breakfast.”

  “What happened to your prayers?” asked Jack.

  “Forgot them, you old darling. How delicious of you to ask! When I say them I shall pray that you will be less grumpy in the morning. What an unholy lot of letters there are for me! I like a lot of letters really; it shews there were a quantity of people thinking about me yesterday. When I don’t get a lot, I think of the time when I shall be dead, and nobody will write to me any more. Or will they write dead letters? The dead letter office sounds as if it was for that. Oh, here’s one from Lord Cookham in that dreadful neat handwriting which leaves no room for conjecture. Why couldn’t he say what he had to say last night? Oh, it’s something official, and he, being what he is, wouldn’t talk officially at a private house. What beautiful correctness!”

  Dodo turned over the page.

  “Well, of all the pieces of impertinences!” she said. “Jack, listen! He is commanded to ask whether I will give a ball for the Maharajah of Bareilly — —”

  “That’s not impertinent,” said Jack.

  “No, dear; don’t interrupt. But he suggests that I should send the proposed list of my guests to him for purposes of revision and addition. Did you ever hear anything like that?”

  Dodo read on, and gave a shrill scream.

  “And that’s not all!” she shouted. “He suggests that I should send him the choice of three dates about the middle of July and he will then inform me in due course which will be the most convenient. Is the man mad? There aren’t three dates about the middle of July, and if there were I wouldn’t send him them.”

  “What are you going to say?” asked Jack.

  “I shall say that I happen to have no vacant dates about the middle of July, but that I am giving a ball on the sixteenth and that I shall be delighted to ask his Indian friend, who may come to dinner first if I can find room for him. About my list of guests I shall say that I should no more dream of sending it to him for revision and addition than I should send it to my scullery-maid, and that if my friends aren’t good enough for a Maharajah, he may go and dance with his own. My guests to be revised by Lord Cookham! Additions to be made by him! Isn’t he quite priceless?”

  “Completely. Mind you don’t ask him.”

  “Certainly I shan’t. The soup gets cold when Cookham comes to dine. Also, as Prince Albert says, when he comes in at the door gaiety flies out of the window.”

  Jack took up the morning paper.

  “The only news seems to be that he and the Princess have come up to town,” he observed. “They are to stay with your Daddy a few days and then their address will be at the Ritz.”

  “Daddy will love that,” said Dodo, recovering her geniality. “Jam for Daddy. They’ll like it too, because it will save a few more days of hotel-bills. What a happy family!”

  Jack turned back on to the middle page of the Times. He usually began rather further on where there were cricket matches and short paragraphs, in order to reawaken his interest in the affairs of the day.

  “Hullo!” he said. “What a horrible thing!”

  Dodo had not noticed that he had left the cricket-page.

  “Has Nottinghamshire got out leg before?” she asked vaguely.

  “No. But the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife have been murdered at Serajevo.”

  Dodo rapidly considered whether this made any difference to her, and decided that it did not matter as much as the letter she was reading.

  “I don’t think I ever heard of him,” she said. “And where’s Serajevo?”

  “In Servia or one of those places,” said Jack. “The Archduke was the heir to the Austrian throne.”

  Dodo put down her letter.

  “Oh, poor man!” she said. “How horrid to be killed, if you were going to be an Emperor! What makes you frown, Jack? Did you know him?”

  “No. But there is always trouble in those states. Some day the trouble will spread.”

  Dodo gathered up her letters.

  “Trouble will now spread for Baron Cookham,” she remarked. “I think I shall telephone to him. He hates being telephoned to like a common person.”

  “May I listen?” asked Jack.

  “Do, darling, and suggest insults in a low voice.”

  Dodo sent a message that Lord Cookham was required in person at the degrading instrument, and having secured his presence talked in her best telephone-voice, slow and calm and clear-cut.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I have received your letter. Yes, isn’t it a lovely day? I have been riding. No, not writing. Riding. Horse. About your letter. I am giving a ball on the sixteenth of July, and I shall be delighted to ask your friend. Of course I shan’t give another ball for him, but if the sixteenth will do, there we are. And what a delicious joke of yours about my sending you a list of my guests! I think I shall ask for a list of the guests when I go to a dance. A lovely idea.”

  Dodo paused a moment, listening.

  “I don’t see the slightest difference,” she said. “And I can’t give you a choice of days, because I haven’t got one to give you.”

  She paused again, and hastily put her hand over the receiver.

  “Jack, he wants to come and talk to me about it,” she whispered, her voice quivering with amusement. Then it resumed its firm telephone-tone
.

  “Yes, certainly,” she cried. “I shall be in for the next half-hour. After that? Let me see; about the same time to-morrow morning. You’ll come at once then? Au revoir.”

  Dodo replaced the instrument, and bubbled with laughter.

  “Oh, my dear, what fun!” she said. “I adore studying him. I shall get a real glimpse into his mind this morning, and if he annoys me as he did in his letter about the list, he shall get a glimpse into mine. He will probably be very much astonished with what it contains.”

  It was not long before Lord Cookham arrived. He was pink and large and sleek, and could not possibly be mistaken for anybody else except some eminently respectable butler, in whose care the wine and the silver were perfectly safe. Dodo had not quite finished breakfast when he was announced, and proceeded with it.

  “So good of you to come and see me at such short notice,” she said. “Do smoke.”

  He waved away the cigarettes she offered him, and produced a gold case with a coronet on it.

  “With your leave, Lady Chesterford,” he said, “I will have one of my own.”

  “Do!” said Dodo cordially. “And light it with one of your own matches. Now about my dance.”

  He cleared his throat exactly as if he was about to make a speech.

  “The suggestion that his Highness should come to a ball given by you,” he said, “originated with myself. Such an entertainment could not fail to give pleasure to him, nor his presence fail to honour you. His visit to this country is to be regarded as that of a foreign monarch, and in the present unhappy state of unrest in India — —”

  “It will be nice for him to get away for a little quiet,” suggested Dodo.