Works of e f benson, p.176
Works of E F Benson, page 176
Meanwhile Dodo and Jack were sitting before the fire in the smoking-room. He still retained Dodo’s hand, and it lay; unresistingly in his. Dodo was the first to speak.
“We must make the best of it, Jack,” she said; “and you must help me. I cannot trust myself any longer. I used to be so sure of myself, so convinced that I could be happy. I blame myself for it, not him; but then, you see, I can’t get rid of myself, and I can of him. Hence this plan. I have been a fool and a beast. And he, you know, he is the best of men. Poor, dear old boy. It isn’t his fault, but it isn’t mine. I should like to know who profits by this absurd arrangement. Why can’t I love him? Why can’t I even like him? Why can’t I help hating him? Yes, Jack, it has come to that. God knows there is no one more sorry than I am about it. But this is only a mood. I daresay in half an hour’s time I shall only feel angry with him, and not sorry at all. I wonder if this match was made in heaven. Oh, I am miserable.”
Jack was really to be pitied more than Dodo. He knelt by her with her hand in his, feeling that he would have given his life without question to make her happy, but knowing that he had better give his life than do so. The struggle itself was over. He felt like a chain being pulled in opposite directions. He did not wrestle any longer; the two forces, he thought, were simply fighting it out over his rigid body. He wondered vaguely whether something would break, and, if so, what? But he did not dream for a moment of ever reconsidering his answer to Dodo. The question did not even present itself. So he knelt by her, still holding her hand, and waiting for her to speak again.
“You mustn’t desert me, Jack,” Dodo went on. “It is easier for Chesterford, as well as for me, that you should be with us often, and I believe it is easier for you too. If I never saw you at all, I believe the crash would come. I should leave Chesterford, not to come to you, for that can’t be, but simply to get away.”
“Ah, don’t,” said Jack, “don’t go on talking about it like that. I can’t do what you asked, you know that, simply because I love you and am Chesterford’s friend. Think of your duty to him. Think, yes, think of our love for each other. Let it be something sacred, Dodo. Don’t desecrate it. Help me not to desecrate it. Let it be our safeguard. It is better to have that, isn’t it? than to think of going on living, as you must, without it. You said so yourself when you asked me to be with you often. To-night a deep joy has come into my life; let us keep it from disgrace. Ah, Dodo, thank God you love me.”
“Yes, Jack, I believe I do,” said Dodo. “And you are right; I always knew I should rise to the occasion if it was put forcibly before me. I believe I have an ideal — which I have never had before — something to respect and to keep very clean. Fancy me with an ideal! Mother wouldn’t know me again — there never was such a thing in the house.”
They were silent for a few minutes.
“But I must go to-morrow,” said Jack, “as I settled to, by the disgusting early train. And the dressing-bell has sounded, and the ideal inexorably forbids us to be late for dinner, so I sha’n’t see you alone again.”
He pressed her hand and she rose..
“Poor little ideal,” said Dodo. “I suppose it would endanger its life if you stopped, wouldn’t it, Jack? It must live to grow up. Poor little ideal, what a hell of a time it will have when you’re gone. Poor dear.”
Dinner went off as usual. Dodo seemed to be in her ordinary, spirits. Chesterford discussed parochial help with Mrs. Vivian. He glanced at Dodo occasionally through the little grove of orchids that separated them, but Dodo did not seem to notice. She ate a remarkably good dinner, and talked nonsense to Mr. Spencer who sat next her, and showed him how to construct a sea-sick passenger out of an orange, and smoked two cigarettes after the servants had left the room. Maud alone was ill at ease. She glanced apprehensively at Jack, as if she expected him to begin kissing Dodo’s hand again, and, when he asked her casually where she had been since tea, she answered; “In the smoking-room — I mean the drawing-room.” Jack merely raised his eyebrows, and remarked that he had been there himself, and did not remember seeing her.
In the drawing-room again Dodo was in the best spirits. She gave Mr. Spencer lessons as to how to whistle on his fingers, and sang a French song in a brilliant and somewhat broad manner. The ladies soon retired, as there was a meet early on the following morning, and, after they had gone, Jack went up to the smoking-room, leaving Chesterford to finish a letter in his study. Shortly afterwards the latter heard the sound of wheels outside, and a footman entered to tell him the carriage was ready.
Chesterford was writing when the man entered, and did not look up.
“I did not order the carriage,” he said.
“Her ladyship ordered it for half-past ten,” said the man. “She gave the order to me.”
Still Lord Chesterford did not look up, and sat silent so long that the man spoke again.
“Shall I tell her ladyship it is round?” he asked. “I came to your lordship, as I understood her ladyship had gone upstairs.”
“You did quite right,” he said. “There has been a mistake; it will not be wanted. Don’t disturb Lady Chesterford, or mention it to her.”
“Very good, my lord.”
He turned to leave the room, when Lord Chesterford stopped him again. He spoke slowly.
“Did Lady Chesterford give you any other orders?”
“She told me to see that Mr. Broxton’s things were packed, my lord, as he would go away to-night. But she told me just before dinner that he wouldn’t leave till the morning.”
“Thanks,” said Lord Chesterford. “That’s all, I think. When is Mr. Broxton leaving?”
“By the early train to-morrow, my lord.”
“Go up to the smoking-room and ask him to be so good as to come here a minute.”
The man left the room, and gave his message. Jack wondered a little, but went down.
Lord Chesterford was standing with his back to the fire. He looked up when Jack entered. He seemed to find some difficulty in speaking.
“Jack, old boy,” he said at last, “you and I have been friends a long time, and you will not mind my being frank. Can you honestly say that you are still a friend of mine?”
Jack advanced towards him.
“I thank God that I can,” he said simply, and held out his hand.
He spoke without reflecting, for he did not know how much Chesterford knew. Of course, up to this moment, he had not been aware that he knew anything. But Chesterford’s tone convinced him. But a moment afterwards he saw that he had made a mistake, and he hastened to correct it.
“I spoke at random,” he said, “though I swear that what I said was true. I do not know on what grounds you put the question to me.”
Lord Chesterford did not seem to be attending.
“But it was true?” he asked.
Jack felt in a horrible mess. If he attempted to explain, it would necessitate letting Chesterford know the whole business. He chose between the two evils, for he would not betray Dodo.
“Yes, it is true,” he said.
Chesterford shook his hand.
“Forgive me for asking you, Jack,” he said. “Then that’s done with. But there is something more, something which it is hard for me to say.” He paused, and Jack noticed that he was crumpling a piece of paper he held in his hand into a tight hard ball. “Then — then Dodo is tired of me?”
Jack felt helpless and sick. He could not trust himself to speak.
“Isn’t it so?” asked Chesterford again.
Jack for reply held out both his hands without speaking. There was something horrible in the sight of this strong man standing pale and trembling before him. In a moment Chesterford turned away, and stood warming his hands at the fire.
“I heard something I wasn’t meant to hear,” he said, “and I know as much as I wish to. It doesn’t much matter exactly what has happened. You have told me you are still my friend, and I thank you for it. And Dodo — Dodo is tired of me. I can reconstruct as much as is necessary. You are going off to-morrow, aren’t you? I sha’n’t see you again. Good-bye, Jack; try to forget I ever mistrusted you. I must ask you to leave me; I’ve got some things to think over.”
But Jack still lingered.
“Try to forgive Dodo,” he said; “and forgive me for saying so, but don’t be hard on her. It will only make things worse.”
“Hard on her?” asked Chesterford. “Poor Dodo, it is hard on her enough without that. She shall never know that I know, if I can help. I am not going to tell you what I know either. If you feel wronged that I even asked you that question, I am sorry for it, but I had grounds, and I am not a jealous man. The whole thing has been an awful mistake. I knew it in July, but I shall not make it worse by telling Dodo.”
Jack went out from his presence with a kind of awe. He did not care to know how Chesterford had found out, or how much. All other feelings were swallowed up in a vast pity for this poor man, whom no human aid could ever reach. The great fabric which his love had raised had been shattered hopelessly, and his love sat among its ruins and wept. It was all summed up in that short sentence, “Dodo is tired of me,” and Jack knew that it was true. The whole business was hopeless. Dodo had betrayed him, and he knew it. He could no longer find a cold comfort in the thought that some day, if the difficult places could be tided over, she might grow to love him again. That was past. And yet he had only one thought, and that was for Dodo. “She shall never know I know it.” Truly there is something divine in those men we thought most human.
Jack went to his room and thought it all over. He was horribly vexed with himself for having exculpated himself, but the point of Chesterford’s question was quite clear, and there was only one answer to it. Chesterford obviously did mean to ask whether he had been guilty of the great act of disloyalty which Dodo had proposed, and on the whole he would reconstruct the story in his mind more faithfully than if he had answered anything else, or had refused to answer. But Jack very much doubted whether Chesterford would reconstruct the story at all. The details had evidently no interest for him. All that mattered was expressed in that one sentence, “Dodo is tired of me.” Jack would have given his right hand to have been able to answer “No,” or to have been able to warn Dodo; but he saw that there was nothing to be done. The smash had come, Chesterford had had a rude awakening. But his love was not dead, though it was stoned and beaten and outcast. With this in mind Jack took a sheet of paper from his writing-case, and wrote on it these words: —
“Do not desecrate it; let it help you to make an effort.”
He addressed it to Dodo, and when he went downstairs the next morning he slipped it among the letters that were waiting for her. The footman told him she had gone hunting.
“Is Lord Chesterford up yet?” said Jack.
“Yes, sir; he went hunting too with her ladyship,” replied the man.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Dodo was called that morning at six, and she felt in very good spirits. There was something exhilarating in the thought of a good gallop again. There had been frost for a week before, and hunting had been stopped, but Dodo meant to make up all arrears. And, on the whole, her interview with Jack had consoled her, and it had given her quite a new feeling of duty. Dodo always liked new things, at any rate till the varnish had rubbed off, and she quite realised that Jack was making a sacrifice to the same forbidding goddess.
“Well, I will make a sacrifice, too,” she thought as she dressed, “and when I die I shall be St. Dodo. I don’t think there ever was a saint Dodo before, or is it saintess? Anyhow, I am going to be very good. Jack really is right; it is the only thing to do. I should have felt horribly mean if I had gone off last night, and I daresay I should have had to go abroad, which would have been a nuisance. I wonder if Chesterford’s coming. I shall make him, I think, and be very charming indeed. Westley, go and tap at the door of Lord Chesterford’s room, and tell him he is coming hunting, and that I’ve ordered his horse, and send his man to him, and let us have breakfast at once for two instead of one.”
Dodo arranged her hat and stood contemplating her own figure at a cheval glass. It really did make a charming picture, and Dodo gave two little steps on one side, holding her skirt up in her left hand.
“Just look at that, Just look at this, I really think I’m not amiss,”
she hummed to herself. “Hurrah for a gallop.”
She ran downstairs and made tea, and began breakfast. A moment afterwards she heard steps in the hall, and Chesterford entered. Dodo was not conscious of the least embarrassment, and determined to do her duty.
“Morning, old boy,” she said, “you look as sleepy as a d. p. or dead pig. Look at my hat. It’s a new hat, Chesterford, and is the joy of my heart. Isn’t it sweet? Have some tea, and give me another kidney — two, I think. What happens to the sheep after they take its kidneys out? Do you suppose it dies? I wonder if they put india-rubber kidneys in. Kidneys do come from sheep, don’t they? Or is there a kidney tree? Kidneys look like a sort of mushroom, and I suppose the bacon is the leaves, Kidnonia Baconiensis; now you’re doing Latin, Chesterford, as you used to at Eton. I daresay you’ve forgotten what the Latin for kidneys is. I should like to have seen you at Eton, Chesterford. You must have been such a dear, chubby boy with blue eyes. You’ve got rather good eyes. I think I shall paint mine blue, and we shall have a nice little paragraph in the Sportsman. Extraordinary example of conjugal devotion. The beautiful and fascinating Lady C. (you know I am beautiful and fascinating, that’s why you married me), the wife of the charming and manly Lord C. (you know you are charming and manly, or I shouldn’t have married you, and where would you have been then? like Methusaleh when the candle went out), who lived not a hundred miles from the ancient city of Harchester,’ etc. Now it’s your turn to say something, I can’t carry on a conversation alone. Besides, I’ve finished breakfast, and I shall sit by you and feed you. Don’t take such large mouthfuls. That was nearly a whole kidney you put in then. You’ll die of kidneys, and then people will think you had something wrong with your inside, but I shall put on your tombstone, ‘Because he ate them, two at a time.’”
Chesterford laughed. Dodo had not behaved like this for months. What did it all mean? But the events of the night before were too deeply branded on his memory to let him comfort himself very much. But anyhow it was charming to see Dodo like this again. And she shall never know.
“You’ll choke if you laugh with five kidneys in your mouth,” Dodo went on. “They’ll get down into your lungs and bob about, and all your organs will get mixed up together, and you won’t be able to play on them. I suppose Americans have American organs in their insides, which accounts for their squeaky voices. Now, have you finished? Oh, you really can’t have any marmalade; put it in your pocket and eat it as you go along.”
Dodo was surprised at the ease with which she could talk nonsense again. She abused herself for ever having let it drop. It really was much better than yawning and being bored. She had no idea how entertaining she was to herself. And Chesterford had lost his hang-dog look. He put her hat straight for her, and gave her a little kiss just as he used to. After all, things were not so bad.
It was a perfect morning. They left the house about a quarter to seven, and the world was beginning to wake again. There was a slight hoar-frost on the blades of grass that lined the road, and on the sprigs of bare hawthorn. In the east the sky was red with the coming day. Dodo sniffed the cool morning air with a sense of great satisfaction.
“Decidedly somebody washes the world every night,” she said, “and those are the soapsuds which are still clinging to the grass. What nice clean soap, all in little white crystals and spikes. And oh, how good it smells! Look at those poor little devils of birds looking for their breakfast. Poor dears, I suppose they’ll be dead when the spring comes. There are the hounds. Come on, Chesterford, they’re just going to draw the far cover. It is a sensible plan beginning hunting by seven. You get five hours by lunch-time.”
None of Dodo’s worst enemies accused her of riding badly. She had a perfect seat, and that mysterious communication with her horse that seems nothing short of magical. “If you tell your horse to do a thing the right way,” she used to say, “he does it. It is inevitable. The question is, ‘Who is master?’ as Humpty Dumpty said. But it isn’t only master; you must make him enjoy it. You must make him feel friendly as well, or else he’ll go over the fence right enough, but buck you off on the other side, as a kind of protest, and quite right too.”
Dodo had a most enjoyable day’s hunting, and returned home well pleased with herself and everybody else. She found Jack’s note waiting for her. She read it thoughtfully, and said to herself, “He is quite right, and that is what I mean to do. My young ideal, I am teaching you how to shoot.”
She took up a pen, meaning to write to him, but laid it down again. “No,” she said, “I can do without that at present. I will keep that for my bad days. I suppose the bad days will come, and I won’t use my remedies before I get the disease.”
The days passed on. They went hunting every morning, and Dodo began to form very high hopes of her new child, as she called her ideal. The bad days did not seem to be the least imminent. Chesterford behaved almost like a lover again in the light of Dodo’s new smiles. He kept his bad times to himself. They came in the evening usually when the others had gone to bed. He used to sit up late by himself over his study fire, thinking hopelessly, of the day that had gone and the day that was to come. It was a constant struggle not to tell Dodo all he knew. He could scarcely believe that he had heard what Maud had said, or that he ever had had that interview with Jack. He could not reconcile these things with Dodo’s altered behaviour, and he gave it up. Dodo was tired of him, and he knew that he loved her more than ever. A more delicately-strung mind might almost have given way under the hourly struggle, but it is the fate of a healthy simple man to be capable of more continued suffering than one more highly developed. The latter breaks down, or he gets numbed with the pain; but Chesterford went on living under the slow ache, and his suffering grew no less. But through it all he looked back with deep gratitude to the chance that had sent Dodo in his way. He did not grow bitter, and realised in the midst of his suffering how happy he had been. He had only one strong wish. “Oh, God,” he cried, “give me her back for one moment! Let her be sorry just once for my sake.”
