Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Jack, though informed that he needn’t be like Zacharias, had been dumb because there was no vacant moment to speak in. The news had amazed and astounded him.

  “Oh, Dodo!” he said. “Next to yourself, that is the best gift of all. But I’m not sure I forgive you, for suspecting you were ill, and not telling me.”

  “Then I shall get along quite nicely without your forgiveness,” said she. “Forgiveness, indeed! Or will it be twins? Wouldn’t that be exciting? But a boy anyhow: I’ve ordered him, and he shall have one blue eye because he’s yours and one brown eye because he’s mine, and so he’ll be like a Welsh collie, and every one will say: ‘What a pretty little dog; does he bite?’ Jack, I hope he’ll be rather a rip when he grows up and make his love to other people’s wives. I suppose I oughtn’t to wish that, but I can’t help it. I like a boy with a little dash in him. He shall be about as tall as you, but much better looking, and oh, to think that I once had a boy before, and didn’t care! My conscience! I care now, and only yesterday I said I should probably soon be a grandmother, and now I’ve got to leave out the grand, and be just a humble mother first. I’m not humble: I’m just as proud as I can stick together.”

  Suddenly this amazing flood of speech stopped, and Dodo grew dim-eyed, and laid her head on her husband’s shoulder.

  “My soul doth magnify the Lord!” she whispered.

  The night of Dodo’s ball had arrived, and she was going to lead the cotillion, but not dance more than she felt to be absolutely necessary. She had told everybody what was going to happen to her, in strict privacy, which was clearly the best way of keeping it secret for the present. Since she was not going to dance more than a step or two she had put on all the jewels she could manage to attach to herself, including the girdle of great emeralds that Waldenech had given her. This was a magnificent adornment, far too nice to give back to him when she divorced him, and she meant to let Nadine have it, as soon as she could bear to part with it herself, which did not seem likely to happen in the immediate future. It consisted of large square stones set in brilliants, and long pear-shaped emeralds depended from it. Jack had once asked her how she could bear to wear it, and she had said: “Darling, when emeralds are as big as that, they help you to bear a good deal. They make a perfect Spartan of me.” In other respects she wore what she called the “nursery fender,” which was a diamond crown so high that children would have been safe from falling over it into the fire, the famous Chesterford pearls, and a sort of breast-plate of rubies, like the High-priest.

  “I suppose it’s dreadfully vulgar to wear so many jewels,” she said to Jack, as they took their stand at the top of the stairs, where Dodo intended to remain and receive her guests, as long as she could bear not being in the ball-room, “but most people who have got very nice stones like me I notice are vulgar. The truly refined people are those who have got three garnets and one zircon. They also say that big pearls, great eggs like these, are vulgar and seed-pearls tasteful. What a word, ‘tasteful’! And they talk of people’s being very simply and exquisitely dressed. Thank God, no one can say I’m simply dressed to-night. I’m not: I’m the most elaborate object for miles round. Jack, when my baby — Dear Lady Ayr, how nice to see you, and Esther and John. Seymour dined here, and he has been taking notes of our clothes for the new paper called Gowns!”

  As in the old days, when Dodo piped, the world danced, and she was as vital, as charged with that magnetism that spreads enjoyment round itself more infectiously than influenza, to-night as ever. Her beauty, too, was like a rose, full-blown, but without one petal yet fallen: and she stood there, in the glory of her incomparable form, jeweled and superb, a Juno decked for a feast among the high gods. All the world of her friends streamed up the stairs to be welcomed by that wonderful smiling face, and many instead of going in to the ball-room waited round the balustrade at the stair-head watching her. By degrees the tide of arriving guests slackened, and she turned to Jack.

  “Jack dear, the band is turning all my blood into champagne,” she said. “Come and have one turn with me round the ball-room. Why are they all standing about, instead of going to dance? Do they want to be shown how? Just once round, or perhaps twice, and then I will stop quiet until the cotillion.”

  Dodo suddenly knit her eyebrows, and looked sharply down into the hall below.

  “I was right, and you were wrong,” she said. “There’s Waldenech just come in. He is not going to come upstairs. Wait here for me.”

  Jack stepped forward.

  “No, that’s for me to do,” he said

  Dodo laid her hand on his arm.

  “Do as I tell you, my dear,” she said. “Wait here: it won’t take me a minute.”

  She went straight down into the hall: all smiles and gaiety had left her face, but its vitality was quite unimpaired. The color that was in her cheeks had left them, but it was not fear that had driven it away, but anger. He was just receiving a ticket for his hat and coat, and she went straight up to him.

  “Waldenech, take your hat and coat, and go away,” she said. “You must have come to the wrong house, you were not asked here.”

  He turned at the sound of her voice, and looked up at her.

  “You incomparable creature,” he said rather thickly. “You pearl!”

  “Give the Prince his hat and coat,” said Dodo. “Now go, Waldenech, before I disgrace you. I mean it: if you do not go quietly and at once, you shall be turned out.”

  His eyes wandered unsteadily from her face to her bosom, and down to her waist where the great girdle gleamed and shone.

  “You still wear the jewels I gave you,” he said.

  Dodo instantly undid the clasp, and the girdle fell on to the carpet.

  “I do not wear them any more,” she said. “Take them, and go.”

  He stood there for a moment without moving. Then he bent down and picked them up.

  “I ask your pardon most humbly,” he said. “I am a gentleman, really. Please let me see you put the girdle on again, before I go; and say you forgive me. If your husband knows I am here, ask his pardon for me also.”

  Some great wave of pity came over Dodo, utterly quenching her anger.

  “Oh, Waldenech, you have all my forgiveness, my dear,” she said. “But take the jewels.”

  “I ask you to give me that sign of your forgiveness,” he said.

  Dodo smiled at him.

  “Fasten it yourself, then,” she said.

  His fingers halted over this, but in a moment he had found and secured the clasp.

  “Good-night,” he said.

  The whole scene had lasted not more than a minute, and scarcely half-a-dozen people had seen her speaking to him, or knew who it was. Berts, who had just arrived, was one of these. Dodo turned to him.

  “Ah, there you are, Berts,” she said. “We are going to begin the cotillion exactly at twelve. Yes, poor dear Waldenech looked in, but he couldn’t stop. You might remember not to tell Nadine. And why wasn’t Edith here for dinner? Or isn’t she staying here now? Now I come to think of it I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “She left you yesterday,” said Berts, “and I’ve just left her at home eating a chop and correcting proofs of a part-song. She was also singing. She’s coming though, and says she will lead the cotillion with me, and she’s sure you oughtn’t to. She didn’t say why.”

  Dodo went up to Jack.

  “He went like a lamb, poor dear,” she said, “though I thought for a moment he was going to stop like a lion. It gave me a little heart-ache, Jack, for, after all, you know — Now we are going twice round the ball-room. It isn’t much of a heart-ache, it’s only a little one, and I expect it will soon stop.”

  This, it may be expected, was the case, for certainly Dodo did not behave as if she had any kind of ache, however little, anywhere, and, whether she danced or sat still, was the sun and center of the brilliant scene. Wall-flowers raised their heads on her approach, and were galvanized into vitality. She ordained that there should
be a waltz in which nobody should take part who was not over forty, led off herself with Lord Ayr, who had not had a wink of sleep all evening, and was far too much surprised to be capable of resistance, and convinced him that his dancing days were not nearly over yet. All manner of women who had hoped that nobody dreamed that they were more than thirty-five at the most followed her, reckless of the antiquity which they had publicly and irrevocably acknowledged, while Edith Arbuthnot, arriving in the middle of this and being quite unable to find a disengaged gentleman of suitable years, pirouetted up and down the room all by herself, until she clawed hold of Jack, who was taking the breathless Lady Ayr to get some strictly unalcoholic refreshment.

  “I don’t know how I came to do it,” said this lady to Esther, as she drank her lemonade. “I haven’t danced for years. Somehow I feel as if it was Lady Chesterford’s fault. She has got into everybody’s head, it seems to me. We’re all behaving like boys and girls. Fancy Ayr dancing, too! Ayr, I saw you dancing.”

  Lord Ayr had come in with Dodo, at the end of this, unutterably briskened up.

  “And I saw you dancing, my dear,” he said. “And I hope you feel all the better for it, because I do.”

  “We all do,” said Dodo, “and we’ll all do it again. I want everything at once, a cigarette and an ice and a glass of champagne and Berts. Esther, be angelic and fetch me Berts. Don’t tell him only I want him, but fetch him. Oh, Jack, isn’t it fun: yes, darling, we’re going to begin the cotillion immediately, and I’m going to be ever so quiet. Edith, it was dear of you to offer to take my place, but I wouldn’t give it up to Terpsichore herself or even Salome. Jack dear, go and make every one go and sit down in two rows round the ball-room, and if anybody finds a rather large diamond about, it’s probably mine, though I never wrote my name on it.... Wasn’t it careless? It resembles the Koh-i-noor. Oh, Berts, there you are. Now don’t lose your head, but give all the plainest women the most favors. Then the pretty ones will easily see the plan, and the plain ones won’t. It’s the greatest happiness for the plainest number.”

  Certainly it was the most successful cotillion. As Dodo had arranged, all the more unattractive people got selected first, and all the more attractive, as Dodo had foreseen, saw exactly what was happening. The style was distinctly anti-Leap-year and in the mirror-figure men, instead of women, rejected the faces in the glass, and Lord Ayr had nothing whatever to say to his wife, who was instantly accepted by Jack. And at the end, the band preceding, they danced through the entire house, from cellar to garret. They waltzed through drawing-rooms and dining-room, and up the stairs, and through Dodo’s bedroom, and through Jack’s dressing-room, where his pajamas were lying on his bed (Berts put them on en passant), and into cul-de-sacs, and impenetrable servants’ rooms. And somehow it was Dodo all the time who inspired these childish orgies: those near her saw her, those behind danced wildly after her. There was no accounting for it, except in the fact that while she was enjoying herself so enormously, it was impossible not to enjoy too. Sometimes it was she shrieking, “Yes, straight on,” sometimes it was her laugh-choked voice, saying “No, don’t go in there,” but the fact that she was leading them, with her nursery fender, and her vitality, and her ropes of pearls, and her complete abandon to the spirit of dancing, with Berts for partner in Jack’s pajamas, made a magnet that it was impossible not to follow. They passed through bedroom and attic, they went twice round the huge kitchen, where the chef, at Dodo’s imperious command, laid down his culinary implements (which at the moment meant an ice-pail) and joined the dance with the first kitchen-maid. Then Dodo saw a footman standing idle, and called to him, “Take my maid, William,” and William with a broad grin embraced a perfectly willing Frenchwoman of great attractions, and joined in the dance. Like the fairies in a Midsummer-night’s Dream, they danced the whole hour through, Dodo with Berts, the chef with the kitchen-maid, William with Dodo’s maid, Lord Ayr with Nadine, Lady Ayr with somebody whom nobody knew by sight, who had probably come there by mistake, and the first twenty couples or so finished up in the cellar. This, though it seemed improvised, had been provided for, and there were cane-chairs to rest in, and bottles instantly opened. The rest, following the band, danced their way back to the supper-room, where they were almost immediately joined by the cellar party, who were hungry as well as thirsty, and had nothing to eat down below.

  It was between three and four o’clock that the last guests took their ways. As the dance had been announced to take place from ten till two, the cordial spirit of the invitation had been made good. And at length Dodo found herself alone with Jack.

  “Lovely, just lovely,” she said, as he unclasped her diamond collar. “Oh, Jack, what a darling world it is!”

  “Not tired?”

  Dodo faced round, and her brilliance and freshness was a thing to marvel at

  “Look at me!” she said. “Tell me if I look tired!”

  He laid the collar down on her table: her neck seemed to him so infinitely more beautiful than the gorgeous bauble with which it had been covered, a Beauty released from beauteous bonds.

  “Not very. Ah, Dodo, and this is the best of all, when they have all gone, and you are left.”

  She put her face up to his.

  “Why, of course,” she said. “Do you suppose I wasn’t looking forward to this one minute alone with you all the evening? I was, my dear, though if I said I thought of it all the time, I should be telling a silly lie. But it was anchored firmly in my mind all the time. Oh, what pretty speeches for a middle-aged old couple to make to each other! But the fact is that we get on very nicely together. Good-night, old boy. It’s all too lovely. Oh, Daddy! Fancy becoming Daddy! Oh, by the way, did Hugh come? I didn’t see him.”

  “Yes, he sat out a couple of dances with Nadine, and then went away.”

  “Poor old chap!” said Dodo.

  As has been mentioned, Dodo proposed to take her family and a great many other people as well to spend Christmas down at Meering, which at this inclement time of the year often had spells of warm and genial weather. Scattered through the same weeks there were to be several shooting-parties at Winston, but motor-cars, driven at a sufficiently high speed, made light of the difficulty of being in two places at the same time, and on the day after the dance she talked these arrangements over with Nadine.

  “In any case,” she said, “you can be hostess in one house and I, in the other, so that we can be in two places at once quite easily, so Jack is wrong as usual. Jack dear, I said ‘as usual.’”

  Jack got up: it was he who had made the ill-considered remark that you can’t be in two places at once.

  “I heard,” he said, “and you may hear, too, that I will not have you going up to North Wales every other day, and flying down again the next. Otherwise you may settle what you like. Personally, I shall be at Winston almost all the time, as there’s a heap of business to be done, and as Nadine hates shooting-parties—”

  “Oh, a story!” said Nadine.

  “Well, my dear, you always do your best to spoil them by making a large quantity of young gentlemen, who have been asked to shoot, sit round you and talk to you instead.”

  “Papa Jack, if you want to call me a flirt, pray do so. I will forgive you instantly. And to save you trouble, I will tell you what you are driving to—”

  “At,” said Jack.

  “Driving to,” repeated Nadine with considerable asperity, for she was aware she was wrong. “You want me to be at Meering, and Mama to be at Winston. So why not say so without calling me a flirt?”

  “This daughter of Eve—” began Jack.

  “My name is Dorothea,” interrupted Dodo, “but they call me Dodo for short. I was never called Eve either before, during, or after baptism.”

  “All I mean,” said Jack, “is that Dorothea is not going to divide the week into week-ends, and be twenty-four hours at Meering and then twenty-four at Winston. The master of the house has spoken.”

  “What a bully!” said Nadine.
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br />   “Then I shan’t give you a wedding-present,” said Jack.

  “Darling Papa Jack, you are not a bully. Let’s all go down to Meering in a few days, and stop there over Christmas. Then you and Dorothea shall go to Winston, and I shall be left all alone at Meering, and you shall have your horrid shooting-parties and she shall do the flirting instead of me.”

  “Strictly speaking, will you be all alone at Meering?”

  “Not absolutely. I have asked a few friends.”

  “Who is going to chaperone you all, darling?” said Dodo.

  “We shall chaperone each other, as usual.”

  “That you and Dodo can settle,” said Jack. “Good-by: don’t quarrel.”

  “Indeed, that will be all right, Mama,” said Nadine, “or I daresay Edith would come. Anyhow, we were often all together before like that in the summer.”

  “Yes, my dear, but it’s a little different now,” said Dodo. “You are engaged to Seymour, and Hugh is going to be there, too.”

  “Yes, but that makes it all the simpler.”

  Dodo got up.

  “I wonder if you realize that Seymour is in love with you,” she said. “In love with you like Hugh is, I mean.”