Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  To-day David had made a most unfortunate choice. The preacher was entertaining for a few minutes merely because he had a high fluty voice that echoed like a siren in the dome, but he said nothing of the smallest interest, and had no idea whatever when to stop. Between his sentences he made long pauses, and Dodo had got briskly to her feet during one of these, thinking that the discourse was now over. So she had to sit down again, and David, trying to swallow his desire to laugh, had hiccupped loudly, which made three people in the row immediately in front of them, turn round all together as if worked by one lever and look fixedly at them, which was embarrassing.

  One of them happened to be Lord Cookham, and it seemed likely that Dodo would hiccup next. Then from a front chair close to the choir, Edith Arbuthnot got up, curtsied low in the direction of the altar before turning her back on it, and began walking towards them down the gangway.

  “Why did she curtsey, mummy? Was Prince Albert there?” asked David in a whisper.

  “Yes,” said Dodo, not feeling capable of explaining it all just then.

  One of Edith’s boots creaked exactly an octave below the pitch of the preacher’s fluty voice. This sounded ever louder and more cheerfully as she got nearer, and she stopped when she came opposite to them.

  “Stop for the second service, Dodo,” she said. “They’re going to sing my mass. I can’t. I’m playing golf at Richmond. Good-bye.”

  Her creaking boot sounded in gradual diminuendo as she tramped away down the nave.

  “Mummy,” began David in a piercing whisper. “If Mrs. Arbuthnot may go out in the middle — —”

  Dodo conjectured what was coming.

  “Because you’re not grown up,” she said. “Hush, David.”

  It was impossible to listen to the flute-like preacher, for his words ran together like ink-marks on blotting-paper, and Dodo gave up all idea of trying to hear what he was saying. But she had not the slightest wish to follow Edith; to sit quiet in this huge church, dim and cool, charged with the centuries of praise and worship which had soaked into it was like coming out of the glare of some noisy noon-day, into the green shelter of trees and moisture. Dodo had already finished saying her prayers, but she tried to say to herself not very successfully, the twenty-third Psalm which seemed to her expressive of her feelings, and then abandoning that, gave herself over to vague meditation. Deep down in her (very effectively screened, it must be allowed, by her passion for the excitements and mundane interests of life) there existed this chamber of contemplation for her soul, a real edifice, quite solid and established. It was not in her nature to frequent it very much, and it stood vacant for remarkably long periods together, but just now she was ecstatically content, with David by her side, to sit there while the voice of the preacher hooted round the dome. There she recaptured the consciousness of the eternal, the secure, the permanent that underlay the feverish motions of her days. They were like some boat tossing on the surface of the waves, yet all the time anchored to a rock that lay deep below all movement and agitation. Thus in such “season of calm weather” she rested in a state of inertia that was yet intense and vivid, and it was from just this power of conscious tranquillity that she drew so much of the indefatigable energy that never seemed to grow less with her advancing years. For her senses it was rest, for her soul it was wordless prayer and concentration.

  “That’s all,” said David suddenly jumping to his feet.

  Dodo came out of her place of rest with no more shock than that with which she awoke in the morning, and observed that the preacher had left the pulpit. Then Lord Cookham passed her with a fixed unconscious expression, which made Dodo think that he was cutting her until she remembered his avowed habit never to recognise even his nearest and dearest in church. On the way down the nave she was filled with consternation to find that her entire financial resources consisted of one shilling, sixpence of which was absolutely necessary to enable her and David to get home on the top of a bus, so what was to be done about the offertory-plate which she knew would be presented to her notice near the west door. She would hardly like to ask the verger for change. In these circumstances she thought she might venture to appeal to Lord Cookham, who was but a yard or two in front of her, and he, still without sign of recognition gave her a new crisp five-pound note. This also out of its very opulence rather than its exiguousness seemed to stand in need of change, but the idea of applying to him again with the confession that she did not want so much as that was clearly unthinkable. She noticed, however, with rapt appreciation that his own alms were not on this magnificent scale, for with silent secrecy, so that his left hand should not know what his right was doing, he slid a half-crown into the dish. It was fearfully and wonderfully like him to hand her the larger sum and reserve for himself the smaller....

  According to Sunday usage David had filled one of his pockets with maize to give the pigeons that bowed and strutted about the pavement outside the west door, and it was not till the early Christians had boarded their bus (there was no need to-day for any cave beyond that afforded by a parasol) that he could seek the solution of such theological difficulties as had occurred during the service. The first was as to why his spirit should long and faint for the converse of the Saints. Didn’t “converse” mean opposite? In this case his spirit longed and fainted for wicked people.... Then there was the knotty point of “special grace preventing us.” David could only suppose that it meant a very long grace, such as the bishop used when he stayed at Winston, which prevented you from sitting down to dinner....

  The “converse” of the early Christians drifted away to the more mundane question of what was to be done after lunch. Here Dodo had the privilege of suggesting though not of deciding, but her suggestion of the Zoological Gardens led to an immediate decision.

  “And I shall see the blue-faced mandrill,” said David, “which you said was so like Prince Albert. I shall stand in front of the cage and say ‘Good-morning, Prince Albert.’”

  Dodo had forgotten that she had made this odious comparison.

  “You mustn’t do anything of the sort, darling,” she said. “The mandrill wouldn’t be at all pleased. Monkeys hate being told they are like people, just as people hate being told they are like monkeys.”

  David considered this.

  “It’ll have to hate it then,” he observed. “Does it cheat at croquet, too?”

  “There’s the Salvation Army,” said Dodo, skilfully changing the subject. “And the lions in Trafalgar Square. We’ll see the lions fed this afternoon.”

  “Yes. And we’ll see the mandrill fed. Does the mandrill eat as much as — —”

  “No, not so much as the lions,” said she.

  “I wasn’t going to say that, I was going to say ‘does it eat as much as Prince — —’ Oh, mummy, look. There’s Jumbo! Hi! Uncle Jumbo!”

  Their bus was just moving on again after stopping opposite the Carlton Hotel, and there on the pavement, majestic and jewelled and turbanned was that potentate who had already won so honourable a place in David’s heart that he had been promoted to the brevet-rank of an uncle. He looked up at his nephew’s shrill salutation, saw him and Dodo, and with a celerity marvellous in one of his bulk, skipped off the pavement and bounced and bounded along the street after them, presenting so amazing an appearance that the conductor, instead of stopping the bus, stared open-mouthed at this Oriental apparition. After a few seconds the Maharajah giving up all thought of further hopeless pursuit stood in the middle of the road waving his arms like a great brown jewelled windmill, and blowing handfuls of kisses after them.

  “Well run, Uncle Jumbo!” screamed David. “What a pity!”

  A thin middle-aged lady, like a flat-fish (probably the person who tells the public who was in the Park looking lovely) sitting on the seat next Dodo peered over the side of the bus, and turned to her with an air of haughty reproof.

  “You should teach your little boy better manners,” she said, “than to go shouting such names at the Maharajah of
Bareilly.”

  “Yes, David,” said Dodo with a glance that he completely understood. “Sit down at once, and don’t be so rude, shouting names at people in the street. And was that really the Maharajah, ma’am?”

  This very proper behaviour appeared to mollify the flat-fish.

  “Dear me, yes,” she said. “That’s the Maharajah of Bareilly. And he’s so good-natured, I’m sure he won’t mind. He wears pearls valued at half a million sterling.”

  “Indeed!” said Dodo. “That would make you and me very good-natured too, wouldn’t it?”

  The flat-fish fingered a very brilliant cairngorm brooch, which she wore to great advantage at her throat, in case Dodo hadn’t noticed it. (She had).

  “So affable and pleasant too,” said she. “Dear me, yes!”

  “Oh, is he a friend of yours?” asked Dodo, thrillingly interested, with a side glance of approval at David, who was holding himself in, and biting his lips like a good boy.

  “The dear Maharajah of Bareilly!” exclaimed the flat-fish, not quite committing herself. “Very full of engagements he is during his brief visits here. To-morrow he dines with the Marchioness of Chesterford. Lady Dodo, as her friends call her.”

  Dodo gave an awful jump as her name came out with such unexpectedness, but pretended to sneeze so promptly that the effect might easily have been confused with the cause.

  “Where does she live?” she asked.

  “At Chesterford House, to be sure, close to Hyde Park Corner. I will point it out to you if you go as far. Dear me, fancy not knowing Chesterford House and its beautiful ballroom, but I daresay it’s very pleasant living in the country. It’s a strange thing now, but for the moment when I came up on to the bus — though I seldom go by a bus — you reminded me of the Marchioness.”

  Dodo could not resist pursuing this marvellous conversation. David seemed safe, he was looking at the sky with blank frog-like eyes, and quivering slightly.

  “Oh, how lovely for me!” she said, as the bus slowed down in Piccadilly Circus. “And do you know her too?”

  They drew up a few yards down Piccadilly, and the conversation was interrupted by the exit down the gangway of dismounting passengers. During this pause the flat-fish was probably saved from direct perjury by the violent hooting of a motor immediately behind them. Looking round, Dodo saw Jumbo dismounting from his car, having evidently pursued them up Lower Regent Street. Her new friend looked round too, and beamed with excitement.

  “Here’s the Maharajah again!” she exclaimed. “Now you be quiet, little boy, and we’ll have a good look at him.”

  Dodo rapidly considered this dramatic situation. It seemed highly probable that Jumbo would board the bus, as soon as its outgoing passengers permitted him to do so. She decided on instant flight in order to spare the flat-fish unimaginable embarrassment.

  “We’ve got to get down here,” she said hurriedly, “and we must keep seeing Chesterford House for a treat some other day. Come along, David.”

  Jumbo’s mission was to insist on Dodo and David coming back to lunch with him at the Carlton, where he expected Lord Cookham, but Dodo first of all hurried him away from the bus, over the top of which the face of the flat-fish appeared gaping and wide-eyed.

  “Jumbo, dear, we must get round a corner quickly,” she said, “or David will burst. There’s a woman looking over the edge of it, who — —”

  David’s pent-up emotion mastered him, and he staggered after them yelling and doubled up with laughter. There had never been so marvellous a Sunday morning, and the joy of it was renewed next day when a paragraph appeared in a certain journal with an admittedly large circulation.

  “The omnibus is becoming quite a fashionable mode of conveyance for the aristocracy. I saw the Marchioness of Chesterford with her son, Lord Harchester, now grown quite a big boy, dismounting from one at Piccadilly Circus yesterday morning, where they stood chatting with the Maharajah of Bareilly who will be the guest of Lady Dodo (as her friends call her) at Chesterford House this evening.”

  At lunch Dodo vehemently defended her conduct on the bus.

  “I could do nothing else,” she said. “The other lady began. She rolled over us like a tidal wave, didn’t she, David, and told me to stop your shouting at the Maharajah of Bareilly. I couldn’t have explained that we really knew you, and that David actually does call you Uncle Jumbo, because she wouldn’t have believed me. And what was I to do when she said that I had reminded her of myself? I couldn’t have said that I was myself. She would never have believed that I wasn’t somebody else. I almost thought I was somebody else, too.”

  Lord Cookham condescendingly unbent to this frivolous conversation.

  “A humorous situation,” he said, “and one that reminds me of a similar experience, though with a different ending, that once happened to me at Corinth, where I arrived one day after a tour in the Peloponnese. My courier had gone on ahead, but he was out on some errand when I found my way to the home of the Mayor — the Demarch, as they still call him — where quarters were prepared for me. He and his family, very worthy people, and a few of the leading local tradesmen were awaiting my arrival. And I arrived on foot, dishevelled, dusty and in my shirt-sleeves. For a moment they positively refused to believe that I was myself.”

  Dodo’s face had assumed a rapt air.

  “How did you convince them?” she asked.

  He made a conclusive little gesture with his hand.

  “I did nothing,” he said. “I did not even put on my coat, but lit a cigarette, perfectly prepared to wait till the return of my courier. But somehow they saw their mistake, and were profuse in apologies, which I assured them were unnecessary.”

  “It’s like clumps,” said Dodo. “We’ve got to guess what it was that convinced them. I believe you gave them five pounds for a local charity, just as you gave me five pounds this morning. Or did they see the coronet on your cigarette case?”

  The impenetrable man smiled indulgently.

  “Scarcely,” he said, “I imagine they just realised who I was.”

  “My dear, what a different ending, as you said, to my adventure on the bus! They all felt your birth and breeding. That was it. With me there was nothing of that kind to be felt. Wasn’t it that you meant?”

  The bland superiority of his face suffered no diminution. He gave his butler-bow.

  “I offer no explanation at all,” he said, “I merely recounted an experience similar in some ways to yours.”

  “And in some ways so different,” said Dodo. “How wonderful the perception of people at Corinth must be!”

  Jumbo gave a loud quack of laughter like a wild goose, and entangled himself with asparagus. Lord Cookham noticed nothing of this, and proceeded.

  “Talking of Greece, Lady Chesterford,” he said, “I should like to remind you that the Queen of the Hellenes, to call her by her more official title, came up to London yesterday. I had the honour of waiting on her, and the fact of your ball to-morrow drifted into our talk.”

  Dodo licked her lips.

  “Who is she?” she asked. “Is she the sort of person I should like my friends to meet?”

  “The German Emperor’s sister,” said Lord Cookham.

  “She shall come to dinner, too,” said Dodo wildly. “There won’t be room, so Jumbo and I will have high tea with David upstairs. I shall paint my face brown, and Jumbo shall paint his face white, and we’ll be announced as the white elephant from the Zoo, and the Maharanee of Bareilly from India. Jumbo, dear, I’m going mad through too much success for one of low birth. I think we won’t have a dance at all, but we’ll mark out the floor of the ballroom into squares, and have a great game of chess with real kings and queens, and two black bishops from the Pan-Anglican Conference, and two white ones from the polar regions. Then Daddy was made a knight the other day, so we’ll try to get three more knights, and we’ll advertise for four respectable people called Castle. Then by hook or crook, probably crook, we’ll entice in sixteen mere commoners
to be the pawns. Lord Cookham, do you think we can get hold of sixteen commoners between us? I shall direct the game from the gallery, and I shall call out ‘White Queen takes Black Bishop,’ and then the Queen of Greece will run across and pick up the Bishop of the Sahara Desert, and put him in the nearest bathroom, where the taken pieces go. No, I think I shall be a pawn myself. I shall divorce Jack in the morning, and so I shall be a commoner again by the evening. And Edith shall sing the ‘Watch by the Rhine,’ to make the Queen of Greece comfortable. Then, we’ll open all the windows and play draughts, and oh, Jumbo, may I go away? As long as Lord Cookham sits opposite me looking pained, I shall continue to talk this awful drivel. Let’s all go to the Zoo, and see if the blue-faced mandrill reminds him of a certain royal personage or not. Oh, there are some delicious ices. I shan’t go away just yet. Jumbo, what a good lunch you’re giving us, and all because David howled at you from the top of a bus. Let me be calm, and see who is here.”

  The difficulty rather was to see who was not here, for that day the clattering restaurant overflowed with the crowds of those who live to see and be seen. Jumbo’s party occupied an advantageous position in the centre of the room, and on all sides the tables teemed with the sort of person whose hours of leisure provide material for small paragraphs in the daily press, and many of them on their way out had a few words with our particular group. Prince Albert of Allenstein was there alone, “looking very greedy,” as a veracious paragraphist might have remarked: here was a Cabinet Minister, Hugo Alford, lunching with a prima-donna, there an Australian tennis-champion with an eclipsed duchess, a French pugilist and a cosmopolitan actress of quite undoubtful reputation dressed in pearls and panther-skins. Then there was old Lady Alice Fane bedizened in bright auburn hair and strings of antique cameos, looking as if she had been given a Sunday off from her case in the British Museum, smoking cigarettes and leaving out her aspirates, and with her a peer, obviously from Jerusalem, the proprietor of a group of leading journals, a sprinkling of foreign diplomatists, and several members of the Russian ballet. Dodo, enjoying it all enormously, had kissings of the hand for some of these, notes scribbled on the backs of menu-cards for others, shrill remarks for nearer neighbours and an astounding sense of comradeship for all the ingredients of this distinguished macédoine. Only an hour ago she had been alone with David in the dim dome of worship, diving down to the secret chamber of her soul; now with equal sincerity and appreciation of the present moment she was a bubble on the froth of life thrilled with the mere sense of the crowd whose chatter drowned the blare of the band.