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 experience 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.
Lord Cookham bowed precisely as a butler bows when a guest presents him
on Monday morning with a smaller token of gratitude than he had
anticipated.
"In the present unhappy state of unrest in India," he resumed, "it is
important that the most rigid etiquette should be observed towards his
Highness, and that he should see, accompanied by every exhibition of
magnificence, not only the might and power of England, but all that is
most characteristic and splendid in the life of English subjects and
citizens."
"I will wear what Jack calls the family fender," said Dodo. "Tiara, you
know, so tall that you couldn't fall into the fire if you put it on the
hearthrug."
Lord Cookham bowed again.
"Exactly," he said. "The fame of the Chesterford diamonds is world-wide,
and you have supplied a wholly apposite illustration of what I am
attempting to point out. But it is not only in material splendour, Lady
Chesterford, that I desire to produce a magnificent impression on our
honoured visitor; I want him to mix with all that is stateliest in
birth, in intellect, in aristocracy of all kinds, of science, of art, of
industrial pre-eminence, of politics, of public service. It was with
this idea in my mind that your name occurred to me as being the most
capable among all our London hostesses of bringing together such an
assembly as will be perfectly characteristic of all that is most
splendid in the social life of our nation."
These well-balanced and handsome expressions did not deceive Dodo for a
moment; she rightly interpreted them as being an amiable doxology which
should introduce the subject of the revision of her list of guests. She
could not help interjecting a remark or two any more than a
highly-charged syphon can help sizzling a little, but she was confident,
now that Lord Cookham was well afloat, that her remarks would not hamper
the majestic movement of his incredible eloquence.
"Daddy will do for industrial pre-eminence," she said, "though perhaps
you would hardly call him stately."
Lord Cookham waved his smooth white hand in assent.
"I see already," he said, "that our list is not likely to cause us much
trouble. Mr. Vane's name occurred to me at once, apart from his felicity
in being your father, for he stands pre-eminent among our masters of
industry as an example of one who has amassed a princely fortune by
wholly admirable methods and is as princely in his public generosity as
in the lavishness of his private hospitality. Your father, in fact, Lady
Chesterford, is typical of the aristocracy of industry. Sprung from the
very dregs--I should say from the very heart of democracy, he has risen
to a position attained by few of those who have been the architects of
their own fortunes. Among such you can be of inestimable assistance to
me in making this gathering truly representative. You are in touch in a
way that I cannot hope to be in spite of my earnest endeavours to make
myself acquainted with our country's industrial pioneers, with the
princes of manufacture, and while it shall be my task, in conjunction of
course with you, to secure the presence of the most representative among
our de Veres and Plantagenets, you will be invaluable in suggesting the
names of those who by their industry, capital and powers of
organisation, have in no less degree than our hereditary aristocracy,
helped to establish on sure foundations the power of England. This ball
of yours is to be like some great naval or military demonstration
designed to set forth the wealth and the might of our country. In the
present state of unrest in India from which as you so rightly observe,
our guest is fortunate in securing a holiday, it must be his
holiday-task, if I may adopt the phraseology of youth, to weigh and
appreciate the power that claims his fidelity. We have no more loyal
prince in India than he, and what he shall see on his visit here must
confirm and strengthen that. Busy though I am this morning (indeed I am
always busy) I was well aware that I could not spend a half-hour more
profitably than in coming personally to see you. It would have been
difficult to convey all this to you so unerringly on the telephone."
Dodo's mouth had long ago fallen wide open in sheer astonishment. She
had shut it again for a moment in order to avoid laughing at the
mention of Daddy as having sprung from the dregs of the people, but
immediately afterwards it had fallen open again and so remained, as she
drank in the superb periods. They soaked in quickly like water on a
parched soil. He paused for only a moment.
"It is in this sense that I have alluded to the honour done to you," he
resumed, "by my tentative selection of you as hostess in what I am sure
will constitute the culminating impression on the Maharajah's mind. You
will be for that evening the representative of England herself. Let us
next consider the question of date, if, as I take it, you are at one
with me on the topic of the list of your guests. Now though you, as
hostess will have gathered together this amazing assembly, and will
therefore be the queen of them all, the more dynastic representatives of
England will, I have reason to hope, honour you with their presence in
unique numbers. The date you propose, namely the sixteenth of July, may,
I hope, be found suitable, but I should like to be in a position to
submit other dates in case it is not. Shall we therefore temporarily fix
on that night or one of the two following?"
This was getting down to business, and Dodo pulled herself together.
"We will fix on nothing of the sort," she said. "My ball is on the
sixteenth. And, do you know, to speak quite frankly, I don't care two
pins whether your Maharajah comes or not. In spite of my humble origin I
have entertained scores of Maharajahs. Last year half a dozen of them
were foisted on to me."
"I have given you some slight sketch of a unique occasion," he reminded
her.
"I know you have. I enjoyed it enormously. But my ball is on the
sixteenth; you don't seem to understand that yet. And if it doesn't suit
anybody he needn't come."
Lord Cookham took a memorandum book from his pocket.
"I have of course been entrusted with all arrangements for his visit,"
he said, "and I see I have fixed nothing for the sixteenth."
"Very well, fix it now," said Dodo, "and let us go back to the question
of the list of guests. There is no such question, let me tell you. I am
asking my own guests. I shall be delighted to see the Maharajah (you
must tell me something about him in a minute), and any other of those
whom just now you called the dynastic representatives of England. I love
having kings and queens and princes at my house, because we all are such
snobs, aren't we? But I believe that this notion of my submitting my
list to you is your own idea. You weren't commanded to do anything of
the sort, were you?"
He drew himself up slightly.
"My conduct in this as in all other such matters," he said, "has been
dictated by my sense of the duties of my position."
"Same here," said Dodo. "I am the hostess and I shall do just as I
please about my ball. Now I'm not going to have it stuffed up with
scarecrows. A dozen fossilised Plantagenets spoil all the fun for yards
round. They look down their noses and wonder who other people are. Of
course there are plenty of Plantagenets who are ducks; they'll be here
all right, but if the angel Gabriel said he wanted to make additions to
my ball, I would pull out all his wing-feathers sooner than allow him.
Worse than that would be the thought of allowing you or him or anybody
to cut out the name of any friend of mine because he wasn't fit to meet
a Maharajah. All my friends are perfectly fit to meet anybody. So, my
dear, you may put that into your own cigarette and smoke it."
Probably Lord Cookham had never been so surprised, so wantonly outraged
in his feelings since the unhappy day when he had been birched at Eton
for telling lies, which subsequently proved to be true. Just as on that
tragic occasion his youthful sense of his own integrity had rendered it
impossible for him to conceive that the head-master should lift up his
hand against his defencelessness, so now, even as Dodo's tongue dared to
lash him with these stinging remarks, he could hardly believe that it
was indeed he who was being treated in so condign a manner. And she had
not finished yet apparently....
On her side Dodo had (quite unexpectedly to herself) lost her temper. It
was a thing extremely rare with her, but when she did lose it, she lost
it with enthusiastic completeness. Up till a few minutes ago she had
been vastly entertained by the glorious speeches of this master-prig,
viewing him objectively and licking her lips at his gorgeousness. But
then as swiftly as by the turning of a screw she viewed him subjectively
and gazed no more at his gorgeousness but felt his impenetrable
insolence. She proceeded:
"I appear to astonish you," she said, "and it is a very good thing for
you to be astonished for once. You must remember that I am sprung, as
you said from the dregs of the people, and when you go away and think
over what I am telling you, you may console yourself by saying that a
fish-wife has been bawling at you. Now who the devil are you to order me
about and invite my guests for me? Are you giving this ball, or am I? If
you, ask your guests yourself, and don't ask me. Try to get together a
wonderful and historic gathering for your Maharajah on the night of the
sixteenth and see who comes to you to make history, and who comes to me.
What you wanted to do was to patronise me, and make yourself Master of
the Ceremonies, and allow me to have this old Indian for my guest as a
great favour. Who is this Maharajah of Bareilly anyway, that for the
sake of getting him into my house I should submit to your insufferable
airs? Who is he?"
After the first awful shock was over, Lord Cookham conducted himself
(even as he had done on that occasion at Eton) with the perfect calm
that distinguished him. He appeared quite unconscious of the outrage
committed on him, and answered Dodo's direct question in his usual
manner.
"As a youth he was sent to Oxford," he said, "where I had the honour of
being a contemporary of his. I had been asked, in fact, to put him in
the way of knowing interesting people and directing his mind, by example
rather than precept, towards serious study. I was asked, in fact, to
look after him and influence him in the way one young man can influence
another slightly his junior. After leaving Oxford he spent several years
in England, and was quite well known, I believe, in certain sections of
London Society. Personally I rather lost sight of him, for he went in
for sport and, in fact, a rather more frivolous mode of life than suited
me. Pray do not think I blame him in any way for that. He succeeded to
his principality only a few weeks ago, on the death of his father----"
Dodo had stood up during her impassioned harangue, but now she sat down
again. All her anger died out of her face, and her eyes grew wide with
the dawning of a stupendous idea.
"It can't possibly be that you are talking about Jumbo?" she asked.
"That I believe was the nickname given him at one time," said Lord
Cookham, "in allusion to the----"
Dodo put both her elbows on the table, and went off into peals of
inexplicable laughter; she rocked backwards and forwards in her chair,
and the tears streamed from her eyes. For a long time she was perfectly
incapable of speech, for at every effort to control her mouth into the
shape necessary for articulate utterance, it broke away again.
"Oh, oh, I must stop laughing!" she gasped. "Oh, it hurts.... My ribs
ache; it's agony! What am I to do? But Jumbo! All this fuss about Jumbo!
Jumbo was one of my oldest friends. How could I guess that he had become
the Maha-ha-ha-rajah of Bareilly? Oh, Lord Cookham, I apologise for all
I've said, and for all I've laughed. It's too silly for anything! But
why didn't you say it was Jumbo at once, instead of being so pomp--no, I
don't mean that. I don't know what I mean."
Dodo collected herself, wiped her eyes, drank a little tea, choked in
the middle and eventually pulled herself together.
"Jumbo!" she said faintly. "Is it possible that you never knew that
Jumbo used to be absolutely at my feet! I suppose that belonged to the
time when he was frivolous, and you lost sight of him. My dear, he used
to send me large pearls, which I was obliged to send back to him, and
then he sent them again. What they cost in registered parcel post
baffles conjecture. What's his address? I must write to him at once. He
would think it too odd for words if I gave a dance and didn't ask him.
I wonder he has not been to see me already. When did he get to London?"
"Last night only," said Lord Cookham. "He's staying at----"
At that moment the telephone bell rang.
"I believe in miracles," said Dodo rushing to it.
* * * * *
"Yes, who is it?" she said. "You're talking to Lady Chesterford."
There was a second's pause, and the miracle came off.
"Jumbo darling," she said. "How delicious of you to ring me up on your
very first morning. I should have been furious if you hadn't. Oddly
enough I've been talking about you for the last hour without knowing it,
because you've been and gone and changed your name to Bareilly. What?
Yes, of course, my dear. Come round in half-an-hour, and I'll take you
out, and you shall write your name wherever you please, and then you'll
come back and have lunch with me. What a swell you've become. Where's
Bareilly? I don't believe you know. Shall I have to curtsey when I see
you? This evening? No, dear, I can't dine with you this evening, because
I'm engaged, and I never throw anybody over. Yes, afterwards if you
like. Alhambra? Yes, take a box there, and I'll come on there as soon as
ever I can. We'll make more plans when we meet. Oh, by the way, put down
at once that you're dining with me on the sixteenth, and I've got a
ball afterwards in honour of you. What?"
Dodo glanced at Lord Cookham.
"Yes, Lord Cookham has told me that he hasn't made any engagements for
you that night," she said. "He'll put it down in his book, so there
won't be any mistake. What?"
Dodo paused a moment, gave a little gasp, and spoke in a great hurry.
"Yes, Lord Cookham is here with me now," she said. "In this very room I
mean, close by me. Do you want to speak to him? All right then. Now I
shall rush and have my bath, and then I'll be ready for you.... Jumbo,
don't be frivolous. I'm not alone. Hush!"
During this remarkable conversation Lord Cookham's long practise in
dignity and self-possession had enabled him to appear quite unconscious
that anything was going on. By the expression on his face he might have
been sitting on the slopes of Hymettus, contemplating the distant view
of the Acropolis, and hearing only the hum of the classical bees, so
detached did he seem from anything that Dodo happened to be saying to
the telephone. Being without the sense of humour, especially where he
himself was concerned, and being also pleasantly encased in the armour
of his own importance, it actually did not occur to him as possible that
he was being spoken about from the other end of the telephone with
anything but the deepest respect. Perhaps the instrument was not
working well; that was why Dodo had said so very plainly that he was
sitting in the room with her.
She put the receiver back on its hook, tried to be grave and once more
broke down.
"I must send you away," she said, "because I'm beginning to laugh again,
and I must have my bath. And it's all settled quite satisfactorily,
isn't it? Oh, dear me, what a funny morning we are having."
Dodo made an heroic effort with herself and gave a loud croak as she
swallowed the laughter that was beginning to make her mouth twitch
again. Lord Cookham disregarded that, even as he had disregarded the
telephone, but, though he would never have admitted either to himself or
others that Dodo had failed in respect to him, some faint inkling that
she had done so must have percolated into his inner consciousness, for
when he spoke, he permitted himself to speak with irony, his deadliest
and most terrific punishment for those who had been impertinent to him.
When he addressed anyone with irony, he supposed that their souls popped
and shrivelled up like leaves cast into a furnace.
"Good-bye, Lady Chesterford," he said. "Your instructions to me then are
that His Highness will dine with you and go to your dance on the
sixteenth. I will have the honour of conveying them to the proper
quarter."
He did not look at her as he spoke, but addressed the air about a foot
above her head. For a moment's silence, in which, no doubt, her soul
shrivelled, his austere gaze remained there. When she answered him, her
voice trembled so much, that he felt he had been almost unnecessarily
severe.
"Yes, that's it," she said. "What a nice talk we've had. Delicious of
you to have spared me half-an-hour."
She went out into the hall with him. Even as her footman opened the door
for his exit, a motor drew up, and a huge and gorgeous figure stepped
out. She saw Lord Cookham bow low, hat in hand, and next moment Jumbo
caught sight of her, and bounded up the steps into her house.
"My dear, what fun!" she said. "How are you, Jumbo? You're ever so
welcome, though I did tell you to come in half-an-hour and not three
minutes. Oh, it's all been too killing! I'll tell you every word as soon
as I'm ready. Go into my room, and wait. I'm ever so glad to see you."
Dodo was an admirable mimic. Jumbo, rolling about on the sofa almost
fancied he was back at Oxford again being influenced by Lord Cookham.