Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Dodo was turning over the leaves of Edith’s score book.

  “I give it up,” she said at last; “you are such a jumble of opposites. You sit down and write a Sanctus, which makes one feel as if one wants to be a Roman Catholic archbishop, and all the time you are smoking cigarettes and eating grilled bone.”

  “Oh, everyone’s a jumble of opposites,” said Edith, “when you come to look at them. It’s only because my opposites are superficial, that you notice them. A Sanctus is only a form of expression for thoughts which everyone has, even though their tastes appear to lie in the music-hall line; and music is an intelligible way of expressing these thoughts. Most people are born dumb with regard to their emotions, and you therefore conclude that they haven’t got any, or that they are expressed by their ordinary actions.”

  “No, it’s not that,” said Dodo. “What I mean is that your Sanctus emphasises an emotion I should think you felt very little.”

  “I!” said Edith with surprise. “My dear Dodo, you surely know me better than that. Just because I don’t believe that grilled bones are necessarily inconsistent with deep religious feeling, you assume that I haven’t got the feeling.”

  Dodo laughed.

  “I suppose one associates the champions of religion with proselytising,” she said. “You don’t proselytise, you know.”

  “No artist does,” said Edith; “it’s their business to produce — to give the world an opportunity of forming conclusions, not to preach their own conclusions to the world.”

  “Yes; but your music is the expression of your conclusions, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I don’t argue about it, and try to convert the world to it. If someone says to me, ‘I don’t know what you mean! Handel seems to me infinitely more satisfactory, I can understand him,’ I simply say, ‘For Heaven’s sake, then, why don’t you go to hear Handel? Why leave a creed that satisfies you?’ Music is a conviction, but Handel’s music has nothing to do with my convictions, nor mine with Handel’s.”

  Edith sat down sternly, and buried herself in heir convictions.

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  It was a perfect winter’s day, and when, two hours afterwards, Dodo and the others drove off to meet the shooting-party, the grass in the shadow was still crisp with the light, hoar frost, but where the sun had touched it, the fields were covered with a moist radiance. It had just begun to melt the little pieces of ice that hung from the bare, pendulous twigs of the birch-trees, and send them, shivering to the ground. Through the brown bracken you could hear the startled scuttle of the rabbit, or the quick tapping of a pheasant, who had realised that schemes were on foot against him. A night of hard frost had turned the wheel-ruts into little waves and billows of frozen mud, which the carriage wheels levelled as they passed over them.

  They caught up the shooting party shortly before lunch, and, as it was cold, Edith and Dodo got out, leaving Miss Grantham, who preferred being cold to walking under any circumstances, to gather up the extra rugs round her.

  “See that there’s a good fire, Grantie,” called Dodo after her, “and tell them to have the champagne opened.”

  The sight of abundant game was too much for Edith, and, as Lord Chesterford fell out of line to join Dodo, she asked him if she might have a couple of shots.

  The keeper’s face expressed some reasonable surprise when he observed Edith snapping the cartridges into her gun with a practised hand. His previous views with regard to women in connection with guns were based upon the idea that most women screamed, when they saw a gun, and considered it a purely unaccountable weapon, which might go off without the least encouragement or warning, and devastate the country for miles round. He was still more surprised when he saw her pick off a couple of pheasants with precision and deadliness of aim. She gave her gun back to Lord Chesterford as they neared the lodge, and volunteered to join them after lunch for an hour, if they didn’t mind. Chesterford stole an appealing glance, at Dodo, who, however, only gave him a half-amused, half-pitying look, and nodded assent.

  “The worst of it is,” said Edith, “I care for such lots of things. There’s my music, and then there’s any sort of game — have you ever seen me play tennis? — and there isn’t time for everything. I am a musician, and a good shot, and an excellent rider, and a woman, and heaps of other things. It isn’t conceit when I say so — I simply know it.”

  Dodo laughed.

  “Well, you know, Edith, you’re not modest. Your worst enemies don’t accuse you of that. I don’t mean to say that I am, for that matter. Did you ever play, the game of marking people for beauty, and modesty, and cleverness, and so on? We played it here the night before you came, and you didn’t get a single mark from anybody for modesty. I only got eleven, and five of those were from Chesterford, and six from myself. But I don’t believe your husband will ever give you five. You see, Bertie didn’t give you any, if you’re thinking of marrying him.”

  “Oh, I’m not going to marry anybody,” said Edith. “You know I get frightfully attached to someone about three times a week, and after that never think of any of them again. It isn’t that I get tired of them, but somebody else turns up, and I want to know him too. There are usually several good points about everyone, and they show those to new acquaintances first; after that, you find something in them you don’t like, so the best thing is to try somebody else.”

  “Oh, that depends on the people,” said Dodo, meditatively. “Some people wear well, you know, and those improve on acquaintance. Now I don’t. The first time a man sees me, he usually thinks I’m charming, and sympathetic, and lively. Well, so I am, to do myself justice. That remains all through. But it turns out that I’ve got a bad temper, that I smoke and swear, and only amuse myself. Then they begin to think they rated me too high at first, and if they happen to be people who wear well themselves, it is just then that you begin to like them, which is annoying. So one goes on, disgusting the people one wants to like, and pleasing people whom one doesn’t like at all. It’s fate, I suppose.”

  Dodo plucked a piece of dead bracken, and pulled it to bits with a somewhat serious air.

  “You oughtn’t to complain, Dodo,” said Edith. “You’re married to a man who, I am sure, wears well, as you call it, though it’s a dreadfully coarse expression, and he doesn’t seem to get tired of you. I always wonder if it’s really worth while trotting oneself out or analysing one’s nature in this way. I don’t think it is. It makes one feel small and stupid.”

  “Ah, but it’s better to do it yourself, than to feel that other people think you small and stupid,” said Dodo. “That’s disagreeable, if you like. Wait till Mrs. Vivian comes, and she’ll do it for you. She’s the only person who makes me feel really cheap — about three-halfpence a dozen, including the box.”

  “Oh, but she won’t make me feel small,” said Edith coolly, “because I’m not small really. It’s only myself that makes me feel small.”

  “I don’t think I should call you morbidly modest,” said Dodo. “But here’s the keeper’s cottage. I’m awfully hungry. I hope they’ve brought some pâté, Don’t you like pâté? Of course one’s very sorry for the poor, diseased goose with a bad inside, but there are so many other things to think about besides diseased geese, that it doesn’t signify much. Come on, Chesterford, they can count the dead things afterwards. Grantie’s waiting. Jack, pick up that pheasant by you. Have you shot well? Look at the sun through those fir-trees — isn’t it lovely? Edith, why aren’t we two nice, little simple painters who could sit down, and be happy to paint that, instead of turning ourselves inside out? But, after all, you know, one is much more interesting than anybody or anything else, at least I am. Aren’t you? What a blessing it is one didn’t happen to be born a fool!”

  Dodo was sitting alone late in the afternoon. The shooting-party had come back, and dispersed to their rooms to wash and dress. “You all look remarkably dirty and funny,” Dodo had said when they came in, “and you had better have tea sent up to you. Does shoot
ing bring on the inspiration, Edith? Take a bath.”

  Edith had gone up to her room, after insisting on having two of Dodo’s bottles of eau-de-cologne in her hot bath. “There is nothing so refreshing,” she said, “and you come out feeling like a goddess.” Certainly Edith looked anything but a goddess just now. Her hat was pushed rakishly on to the side of her head, there was a suggestion of missing hair-pins about her hair; she wafted with her about the room a fine odour of tobacco and gunpowder; she had burned her dress with a fusee head that had fallen off; her boots were large and unlaced, and curiously dirty, and her hands were black with smoke and oil, and had a sort of trimming in the way of small feathers and little patches of blood. Decidedly, if she came out feeling or looking like a goddess, the prescription ought to want no more convincing testimonial. But she insisted she had never enjoyed herself so much, she talked, and screamed, and laughed as if nothing serious had occurred since breakfast. As Dodo sat in the drawing-room, opening a few letters and skipping all except the shortest paragraphs in the Times, she heard the noise of wheels outside, and hurried into the hall to meet Mrs. Vivian. Somehow she looked forward to Mrs. Vivian’s coming with a good deal of pleasure and interest. She was aware that another strain in the house might be advisable. Bertie and Jack, and Miss Grantham and Edith, were all somewhat on the same lines. Personally, she very much preferred those lines; and it was chiefly for her husband’s sake that she wanted the new arrival. Lord Chesterford had done his duty nobly, but Dodo’s observant eye saw how great an effort it was to him; at lunch he had been silent, at tea even more so. Dodo acknowledged that Edith had relieved the party from any sense of the necessity of supporting conversation, but it was obvious to her that Chesterford was hopelessly out of his element, and she felt a keen desire to please him. She had sat by him after lunch, as they smoked and talked, before resuming the shooting, and Dodo had patted his hand and called him a “dear old darling” when nobody happened to be listening, but she had a distinct sense of effort all day in attending to him, and enjoying the company of the others as much as she wished. There was certainly a want of balance in the party, and Mrs. Vivian’s weight would tend to keep things even. Dodo had even aroused herself to a spasmodic interest in the new curate, but Lord Chesterford had exhibited such unmistakable surprise at this new departure, that she at once fell back on the easier and simpler expedient of blowing smoke rings at him, and drinking out of the same glass by mistake.

  Mrs. Vivian was extremely gracious, and apparently very much pleased to see Dodo. She kissed her on both cheeks, and shook both her hands, and said what a pleasant drive she had had with dear Maud, and she hoped Lord Chesterford was as well and happy as Dodo appeared to be, and they both deserved to be.

  “And you must have a great talk with me, Dodo,” she said, “and tell me all about your honeymoon.”

  Dodo was pleased and rather flattered. Apparently Mrs. Vivian had left off thinking she was very small. Anyhow, it was a good thing to have her. Lord Chesterford would be pleased to see her, and he was building some charming almshouses for old women, who appeared to Dodo to be supremely uninteresting and very ugly. Dodo had a deep-rooted dislike for ugly things, unless they amused her very much. She could not bear babies. Babies had no profiles, which seemed to her a very lamentable deficiency, and they were not nearly so nice to play with as kittens, and they always howled, unless they were eating or sleeping. But Mrs. Vivian seemed to revel in ugly things. She was always talking to drunken cabmen, or workhouse people, or dirty little boys who played in the gutter. Dodo’s cometic interest in the East End had been entirely due to her. That lady had a masterly and efficient way of managing, that won Dodo’s immediate admiration, and had overcome for the moment her distaste for the necessary ugliness. Anything masterly always found a sympathetic audience in Dodo. Success was of such paramount importance in her eyes, that even a successful organiser of days in the country for match-girls was to be admired, and even copied, provided the other circumstances of success were not too expensive.

  Mrs. Vivian was a complete and immediate success on this occasion. Dodo made a quantity of mental notes on the best way to behave, when you have the misfortune to become middle-aged and rather plain. Everyone who already knew her seemed to consider her arrival as the last drop in their cup of happiness. Lord Chesterford, on entering the room, had said, “My dear Mrs. Vivian, this is too delightful of you. We are all charmed to see you,” and he had sat down by her, and quite seemed to forget that Dodo was sitting on the other side of the fire. Jack also had, so to speak, flown into her arms. Dodo immediately resolved to make a friend of her; a person who could be as popular among the aristocracy as she was among cabmen was distinctly a person to cultivate. She decidedly wanted the receipt.

  “It is so good of you, Dodo, to ask me like this,” said Mrs. Vivian, when Dodo went and sat by her. “It always seems to me a great compliment to ask people quietly to your house when only a few friends are there. If you have a great houseful of people, it does not matter much whom you ask, but I mean to take this as a sign that you consider me an old friend.”

  Dodo was always quick at seeing what was required of her.

  “Of course I do,” she answered. “Who are my old friends if you are not?”

  “That is so nice of you,” said Mrs. Vivian. “I want to have a long talk with you, and learn all about you. I am going to stay with your mother next week, and she will never forgive me unless I give a full and satisfactory account of you. Satisfactory it cannot help being.” She looked across to Lord Chesterford, who was talking to Miss Grantham, and laughing politely at her apostolic jokes. “Oh, Dodo, you ought to be very happy!”

  Dodo felt that this was rather like the ten minutes before dinner. She had a vague idea of telling Chesterford to sound the gong, but she was skilled at glances with meaning, and she resorted to this method.

  “Lord Chesterford tells me you have Miss Staines with you,” continued Mrs. Vivian. “I am so anxious to meet her. She has a wonderful gift for music, I hear.”

  At this moment the sound of hurrying feet was heard in the hall. The drawing-room door flew open and Edith entered. Dodo laughed inwardly and hopelessly. Edith began to talk at the top of her voice, before, she was fairly inside the room.

  “Dodo, Dodo,” she screamed, “we must settle about the service at once. I have heard from Herr Truffen, and he, will be here by twelve; and we must have everything ready, and we’d better do my Mass in G flat; on the whole it’s the easiest. I suppose you couldn’t hire four or five French horns in the village. If you could, we might do the one in A; but we must have them for the Gloria. We must have a practice to-night. Have you got any musical footmen or housemaids?”

  “Mrs. Vivian, Miss Edith Staines,” remarked Dodo sweetly.

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Dodo broke down.

  “Oh, Edith, you are a good chap; isn’t she, Mrs. Vivian? Mrs. Vivian was just talking about you, and you came in so opportunely that, until you began talking about Masses, I really thought you must be the other thing. Oh, Chesterford, I haven’t told you. We’re going to have a delicious little service in the drawing-room to-morrow morning, and we are going to sing a Mass. Grantie can’t possibly go to church in this weather, and Jack and Bertie are not as good about it as they might be, so you see it would be really removing the temptation of not going to church if we have church here, and can you sing, Mrs. Vivian? Will you come, Chesterford? You might go to church first, and then come in here afterwards; that will be two services. How dreadfully unbearably conceited you will be all the afternoon. You might read the second lesson for us; no, I think I shall read both. Yes, Edith, I’ll come in a few minutes. I don’t know of any musical footmen. You might have them up one by one and make them sing scales, and Jack can try the housemaids’ voices. I’m awfully glad Herr Truffen is coming. He’s a tremendous German swell, Mrs. Vivian, and conducts at the Crystal Palace, and St. James’s, and St. Paul’s and everywhere.”

&
nbsp; “That will be charming,” said Mrs. Vivian. “I shall certainly avail myself of it, Dodo, if I may, only I think I shall go to church first with Lord Chesterford. He has promised to show me all his schemes for the village. I think Maud means to go too. But if you will let me, I will go to my room, and write a few letters, and then you will be free to practise. It will be a great pleasure to hear your Mass, Miss Staines; I am very fortunate in coming just in time.”

  “Really, Dodo,” said Edith, “you ought to cultivate the musical talents of your establishment. Last winter I was in the Pyrenees, and there was only an old sexton, who was also a charcoal burner, and my maid, and Charlie and his valet and his wife, but we had magnificent music, and a midnight service on New Year’s Eve. Charlie took tenor, and Sybil treble, and I alto, and the sexton bass. You have no idea of the trouble it was to get the sexton to learn his part. I had to hunt him up in those little brutal sheds, and thrust the book into his hand, and forbid him to eat chestnuts, and force him to drink porter and Spanish liquorice. Come on; let’s begin.”

  The practice went off satisfactorily, and Edith expressed herself as pleased. She and Dodo then had a talk to arrange what Dodo called the “Play-bill.” Dodo had arranged to read the lessons, and wished to make a small selection of prayers, but there Edith put her foot down.