It had been said, by Edith Arbuthnot, perhaps unkindly, but with
sufficient humor to neutralize the acidity, that there was always
somebody awake day and night in Dodo's house tending the flame of
egoistic introspection. Edith did not generally use long words, but
chose them carefully when she indulged in polysyllables. She had not
been so careful in the choice of her confidant, for she had fired this
withering criticism at her son Berts, who in the true spirit of an
affectionate nephew instantly repeated it to Dodo, who had roared with
laughter and sent Edith an enormous telegram (costing nine shillings and
a halfpenny, including sixpence for a paid reply in case Edith wanted to
continue the discussion) describing a terrible accident that had just
happened to herself.
"A most extraordinary and tragic affair" (this was all written out in
full) "has just occurred at Meering at the house of Princess Waldenech.
The unfortunate lady has just died of a sudden though not unexpected
attack of spontaneous egoism. Loud screams were heard from her room, and
Mr. Bertie Arbuthnot, son of the celebrated Edith Arbuthnot, the musical
composer, rushed in to find the princess enveloped in sheets of blue
flame. The efforts made to quench her were of no avail and in a few
moments all that was left of her was a small handful of ashes, which
curiously enough, as they cooled, assumed the shape of a capital 'I.'
Fear is felt that this outbreak may prove to be contagious, and all
those who have been in contact with the combusted princess are busy
disinfecting themselves by talking about each other. It is believed that
Mrs. Arbuthnot has begun to write a funeral march for her friend, for
whom she felt an adoring affection amounting almost to worship, in the
unusual key of ten sharps and eleven flats. It is in brisk waltz time
and all the performers will blow their own trumpets. She is sending
copies to nearly all the crowned heads of Europe."
Edith's reply was equally characteristic.
"Dodo, I love you."
The truth in Edith's criticism was certainly exemplified in the night of
which we are speaking, for Hugh did not leave Nadine's room, where she
had been engaged on the self-analysis given in the last chapter till two
o'clock, and at that precise moment Dodo, who had gone to bed more than
an hour before, woke up and began thinking about herself with uncommon
intensity. And indeed there was sufficient to think about in the
circumstances with which she had at this moment allowed herself to be
surrounded. For the last two days, the husband whom she had divorced
with such extreme facility had been staying with her, and to-morrow,
directly on his departure, Jack Chesterford, to whom she had been
engaged when she ran away with the husband she had just divorced, was
arriving. All her life Dodo had liked drama, as long as it occurred
outside the walls of English theaters, but better than the theaters even
of Paris were the dramas which came into real life, especially when you
could not possibly tell (even though you were acting yourself) what was
going to happen next. Best of all she liked acting herself, having a
part to play, without the slightest idea what she or anybody else was
going to do or say.
Dodo's zest for life did not decrease with years, nor did her interest
in it in the least diminish as the time of her youth began to recede
into horizons far behind her. For all the time other horizons were
getting closer to her, and she could imagine herself being quite
old--"as old as Grannie" in fact--without any of the tragic envy of past
years that so often make wormwood of the present. She had indeed settled
the mode of her procedure for those years, which were still far enough
off, with some exactitude, and was quite determined to have a mob-cap
with a blue riband in it, and gold-rimmed spectacles. Also she would
read Thomas à Kempis a great deal,--she had read a little already, and
was now deliberately keeping the rest until she was seventy--and walk
about her garden with a tall cane and pick lavender. She had, moreover,
promised herself to make no attempts at sprightliness or to have her
hair dyed, since one of the few classes of women whom she really
objected to were those whom she called grizzly kittens, who dabbed at
you with their rheumatic old paws, and pretended that they had no need
of spectacles, though it was quite clear they could not read the very
largest print. But she fully intended to remain exceedingly happy when
those years came, for happiness so it seemed to her was a gift that came
from within and could not be taken from you by any amount of external
calamities or accumulation of decades. Certainly in the years that had
passed she had had her share of annoyances, and in support of her theory
with regard to happiness it must be confessed that they had not deprived
her of one atom of it. Her late husband's conduct, for instance, had for
years been of the most disagreeable kind, and she had borne with it not
in the least like a tearful lamb but more like a cheerful lion. It had
not in the least discouraged her with life in general, but only
disgusted her with him. For the last two years before she got her
divorce, he had been, as she expressed it, "too Bacchic for anything,"
and she had sent Nadine away from their homes in Austria to live with a
variety of old friends in England. Eventually Dodo had decided that she
would waste no more time with her husband and got her freedom coupled
with an extremely handsome allowance. She continued to call herself
"Princess Waldenech," because it was still rather pleasant being a
Princess, and Waldenech told her that, as far as he was concerned, she
might call herself "Dowager-Empress Waldenech," or anything else she
chose.
So for a year now she had been in England, and had stepped back, or
rather jumped back, into the old relations with almost all that numerous
body of people who twenty years ago had helped to make life so
enchanting. And with the same swiftness and sureness she had established
herself in the hearts of the younger generation that had grown up since,
so that the sons and daughters of her old friends became her nephews and
nieces. Nadine, with the beauty, the high spirits and power of enjoyment
that was hers by birthright, had so it seemed to her mother succeeded to
a place that was very like what her own had been rather more than twenty
years ago. Of course there was a tremendous difference in their modes,
for the manners and outlook of one generation are as divergent from
those of the last, as are the clothes they wear, but the same passionate
love of life, the same curiosity and vividness inspired her daughter's
friends, even as they had inspired her own. And since she herself had
lost not one atom of her own vitality, it was not strange that the years
between them and her were easily bridged over.
* * * * *
There were one or two voices that were silent in the chorus of welcome
with which Dodo's reappearance had been hailed. One of these was Edith
Arbuthnot, who, though she did not desire to put any restrictions on
Berts' intimacy (which was lucky, since Berts was a young gentleman
hideously gifted with the power of getting his way) loudly proclaimed
that she could never be friends with Dodo again. But the answer she had
sent to Dodo's remarkable telegram about combusted egoism a few days
before seemed to indicate that she had surrendered and, though she had
subsequently announced that Dodo was heartless, might be regarded as a
convert, especially since Jack had at last yielded too, and had invited
himself down here. Another fortress hitherto impregnable was Mrs.
Vivian, for whom Dodo in days gone by had felt as solid an affection as
she was capable of. Consequently she regretted that Mrs. Vivian was
invariably unable to come and dine, and never manifested the slightest
desire that Dodo should come to see her. Her regret was slightly
tempered by the fact that Mrs. Vivian had an ear-trumpet in these days,
which she presented to people whose conversation she desired to hear
rather in the manner that elephants at the Zoo hold out their trunks for
refreshments. Somehow that seemed to make her matter less, and Dodo had
not at present made any determined effort to beleaguer her. But she
intended when she went back to town in July to capture what was now
practically the only remaining stronghold of the disaffected.
When Dodo drowsily awoke that night just at the time that Hugh and
Nadine had finished their talk it was the thought of Jack that first
stirred in her mind. Instantly she was perfectly wide-awake. During this
last year, though he was great friends with Nadine, he had absolutely
avoided coming into contact with herself. He never went to a house where
Dodo was expected, and once finding she was staying for a
Saturday-till-Monday with the Granthams, had left within ten minutes of
his arrival. Miss Grantham had conceived this misbegotten plan of
bringing them unexpectedly face to face, with the only result that the
party numbered thirteen, and her father was very uncomfortable for
weeks afterwards. Once again they had been caught in a block in
taxi-cabs exactly opposite each other. Dodo, taking the bull by the
horns, had leaned impulsively toward him with both hands outstretched
and cried, "Ah, Jack, are we never to meet again?" On which the bull, so
to speak, paid his fare, and continued his journey on foot. Dodo had
been considerably disappointed by this rebuff: it had seemed to her that
no man should have resisted her direct appeal. On the other hand, Jack
on seeing her had nailed to his face so curiously icy a mask that his
appearance became quite ludicrous. Also he knocked his hat against the
roof of the closed half of his cab, and it fell into the road, in the
middle of an unusually deep puddle. She noticed that he was not bald
yet, which was a great relief, since she detested the sight of craniums.
And now Jack had yielded, had walked out of his citadel without any
further assault being delivered, and was to arrive to-day. At the
thought, when she woke in the stillness of earliest morning, Dodo's
brain started into fullest activity, and, as always, as much interested
in the motives that inspired actions as in the actions themselves, she
set herself to ponder the nature of the impulse which had caused so
complete a _volte-face_. But the action itself interested and charmed
her also: all this year she had wanted to see Jack again. He had
understood her better than any one, and in spite of the vile way in
which she had used him, she had more nearly loved him than either of the
men she had married. Her first husband had never been more to her than
"an old darling," and often something not nearly that. Of Waldenech she
had simply been afraid: under the fascination of fear she had done what
he told her. But Jack--
Dodo felt for the switch of her electric light: the darkness was too
close to her eyes, and she wanted to focus them on something. Clearly
there were several possibilities any of which would account for this
change in him. He might perhaps merely wish to resume ordinary and
friendly relations with her. But that did not seem a likely explanation,
since, if that was all, he would more naturally have waited till she
returned to town again after this sojourn in the country. There must
have been in his mind a cause more potent than that. Naturally the more
potent cause occurred to her, and she sat up in bed. "It is too
ludicrous," she said to herself, "it cannot possibly be that." And yet
he had remained unmarried all these years, with how many charming girls
about who would have been perfectly willing to share his wealth and
title, not to speak of himself.
* * * * *
Dodo got out of bed altogether; and went across the room to where a big
looking-glass set in the door of her wardrobe reflected her entire
figure. She wished to be quite honest in her inspection of herself, to
see there not what she wanted to see but what there was to be seen. The
room was brightly lit, and through her thin silk nightdress she could
see the lines of her figure, molded in the soft swelling curves of her
matured womanhood. Yet something of the slimness and firm elasticity of
youth still dwelt there, even as youth still shone in the smooth
unwrinkled oval of her face and sparkled in the depths of her dark eyes.
Right down to her waist hung the thick coils of her black hair, still
untroubled by gray, and slim and shapely were her ankles, soft and rosy
from the warmth of her bed her exquisite feet. And at the sight of
herself her mouth uncurled itself into a smile: the honesty of her
scrutiny had produced no discouraging revelations. Then frankly laughing
at herself she turned away again, and wholly unconsciously and
instinctively took half a dozen dance-steps across the Persian rugs that
were laid down over the polished floor. She could no more help that
impulse of her bubbling vitality than she could help the fact that she
was five feet eight in height.
The coolness and refreshment of the two hours before dawn streamed in
through her open window, and she put on the dressing-gown with its
cascades of lace and blue ribands that lay on the chair by her
dressing-table. Supposing it was the case that Jack was coming for her,
that he wanted her now as in the old days when she had thrown his
devotion back at him like a pail of dirty water, what answer would she
make him? Really she hardly knew. Neither of her marriages had been a
conspicuous success, but for neither of her husbands had she felt
anything of that quality of emotion which she had felt for the man she
had treated so infamously. She gave a great sigh and began ticking off
certain events on her fingers.
"First of all I refused him before I married poor darling Chesterford
the first," she said to herself. "Secondly, having married Chesterford
the first, I asked Jack to run away with me. But that was in a moment of
great exasperation: it might have happened to anybody. Thirdly, as soon
as Chesterford I. was taken, I got engaged to Jack which I ought to have
done originally; and fourthly, I jilted him and married Waldenech."
Dodo had arrived at her little finger and held her other hand poised
over it.
"What the devil is fifthly to be?" she said aloud.
She got out of her chair again.
"It is very odd but I simply can't make up my mind," she thought, "and I
usually can make it up without the slightest trouble; indeed it is
usually already made up, just as one used to find eggs already boiled in
that absurd machine that always stood by Chesterford at breakfast. I
hate boiled eggs! But I wonder if I owe it to Jack to marry him if he
wants me to? Supposing he says I have spoiled his life, and he wants me
to unspoil it now? Is it my duty apart from whatever my inclination may
be, and I wish I knew what it was?"
Dodo felt herself quite unable to make up her mind on this somewhat
important point. She felt herself already embarked on an argument with
Jack, as she had been so often embarked in the old days, and on how
pleasant and summery a sea. She would certainly tell him that nobody
ought to let his life be spoiled by anybody else, and she would point to
herself as a triumphant instance of how she had refused to let her joy
of life get ever so slightly tarnished by the really trying experiences
in her partnership with Waldenech. Here was she positively as good as
new. And then unfortunately it occurred to her that Jack might say "But
then you didn't love him." And the ingenious Dodo felt herself unable to
frame any reply to this very bald suggestion. It really seemed
unanswerable.
There was a further reason which might account for Jack's coming:
Nadine. Dodo knew that the two were great friends. She had even heard it
suggested that Jack had serious thoughts with regard to her. Very likely
that was only invented by some friend who was curious to know how she
herself would take the suggestion, but clearly this was not an
improbable, far less an impossible, contingency. But that Nadine had
serious thoughts with regard to Jack was less likely. Dodo felt that her
daughter took after herself in emotional matters and was probably not at
that age seriously thinking about anybody. Yet after all she herself had
married at that age (though without serious thought) and the experiment
which seemed so sensible and promising had been a distinct
disappointment. Ought she to warn Nadine against marrying without love?
Or would that look as if, for other reasons, she did not wish her to
marry Jack? That would be an odious interpretation to put on it, and the
worst of it was that she was not perfectly certain whether there was not
some sort of foundation for it. Something within her ever so faintly
resented the idea of Jack's marrying Nadine.
Dodo's thought paused and was poised over this for a little, and she
made an eager and a conscious effort to root out from her mind this
feeling of which she was genuinely ashamed. Then suddenly all her
meditations were banished, for from outside there came the first faint
chirrupings of an awakening bird. Deep down in her, below the
trivialities and surface-complications of life, below all her
warm-heartedness and her egoism there lay a strain of natural untainted
simplicity, and these first flutings of birds in the bushes roused it.
She went to the window and drew up the blind.
The dusk still hovered over the sea and low-lying land, and in the sky
already turning dove-colored a late star lingered, remotely burning. The
bird that had called her to look at the dawn had ceased again, and a
pause holy and sweet and magical brooded over this virginal meeting of
night and day. But far off to the right the hill-tops had got the
earliest news of what was coming and were flecked with pale orient
reflections and hints of gold and scarlet and faint crimson. But here
below the dusk lay thick still, like clear dark water.
Just below her window lay the lawn, garlanded round with sleeping and
dew-drenched flower-beds and the incense of their fragrant buds and
folded petals still slept in the censer, till in the East should rise
the gold-haired priest and swing it, tossing high to heaven the
fragrance of its burning. And then from out of the bushes beyond there
scudded a thrush, perhaps the same as had called Dodo to the window. He
scurried over the shimmering lawn with innumerable footfalls, and came
so close underneath her window that she could see his eyes shining. Then
he swelled his throat, and sang one soft phrase of morning, paused as if
listening and then repeated it. All the magic of youth and joy of life
was there: there was also in Dodo's heart the indefinable yearning for
days that were dead, the sense of the fathomless well of time into which
forever dropped beauty and youth and the soft sweet days. But that
lasted but a moment, for as long as the thrush paused. Another voice and
yet another sounded from the bushes; there were other thrushes there,
and in the ivy of the house arose the cheerful jangling of sparrows.
Fresh-feathered forms ran out upon the lawn, and the air was shrill with
their pipings. Every moment the sky grew brighter with the imminent day,
the last star faded in the glow of pink translucent alabaster, and in
the green-crowned elms the breeze of morning awoke, and stirred the
tree-tops. Then it came lower, and began to move in the flower-beds, and
the wine of the dew was spilled from the chalices of new-blown roses,
and the tall lilies quivered. There was wafted up to her the
indescribable odor of moist earth and opening flowers, and on the moment
the first yellow ray of sunlight shot over the garden.
Dodo stood there dim-eyed, unspeakably and mysteriously moved. She
thought of other dawns she had seen, when coming back perhaps from a
ball where she had been the central and most brilliant figure all night
long; she thought of other troubled dawns when she had wakened from some
unquiet dream and yet dreaded the day. But here was a perfect dawn and
it seemed to symbolize to her the beginning of the life that lay in
front of her. She looked forward to it with eager anticipation, she gave
it a rapturous welcome. She was in love with life still, she longed to
see what delicious things it held in store for her. She felt sure that
God was going to be tremendously kind to her. And in turn (for she had a
certain sense of fairness) she felt most whole-heartedly grateful and
determined to deserve these favors. There were things in her life she
was very sorry for: such omissions and commissions should not occur
again. She felt that the sight of this delicious dawn had been a sort of
revelation to her. And with a great sigh of content, she went back to
bed, and without delay fell fast asleep and did not awake till her maid
came in at eight o'clock with a little tray of tea that smelt too good
for anything, and a whole sheaf of attractive-looking letters, large,
stiff square ones, which certainly contained cards that bade her to
delightful entertainments.
She always breakfasted in her room, and when she came downstairs about
half-past ten, and looked into the dining-room, she found to her
surprise that Waldenech was there eating sausages one after the other.
This was a very strange proceeding for him, since in general he adopted
slightly shark-like hours and did not breakfast till at least
lunch-time. Time, or at any rate, his habits and method of spending it,
had not been so kind to him as to Dodo and though it had not robbed him
of that look of distinction which was always his it had conferred upon
him the look of being considerably the worse for wear. He seemed as
much older than his years as Dodo appeared younger than hers, and she
was no longer in the least afraid of him. Indeed it struck her that
morning as she came in, with a sense of wonder, that she had ever found
him formidable.
"Good-morning, my dear," she said, "but how very surprising. Has
everybody else finished and gone out? Waldenech, I am so glad you
suggested coming here, and I hope you haven't regretted it."
"I have not enjoyed any days so much since you left me," he said.
"How dear of you to say that! Every one thought it so extraordinary that
you should want to come here or that I should let you, but I am
delighted you did."
He left his place, and came to sit in a chair next her. The remains of
Nadine's breakfast were on a plate opposite: half a poached egg, some
melon rind, marmalade and a cigarette end. He pushed these rather
discouraging relics away.
"It is not extraordinary that I should want to come here," he said, "for
the simple reason that you are the one woman I ever really cared about.
I always cared for you--"
"There are others who think you occasionally cared for them," remarked
Dodo.
"That may be so. Now I should like to stop on. May I do so?"
"No, my dear, I am afraid that you certainly may not," she said. "Jack
comes to-day and the situation would not be quite comfortable, not to
say decent."
"Do you think that matters?" he asked.
"It certainly is going to matter. You haven't really got a European
mind, Waldenech. Your mind is probably Thibetan. Is it Thibet where you
do exactly as you feel inclined? The place where there are Llamas."
"I do as I feel inclined wherever I am," said he.
Dodo remembered, again with wonder, the awful mastery that that sort of
sentence as delivered by him used to have for her. Now it had none of
any kind: his personality had simply ceased to be dominant with regard
to her.
"But then you won't be here," said she. "You will go by that very
excellent train that never stops at all; I have reserved a carriage for
you."
He lit a cigarette.
"I must have been insane to behave to you as I did," he said. "It was
most intensely foolish from a purely selfish point of view."
She patted his hand which lay on the table-cloth.
"Certainly it was," she said, "if you wanted to keep me. I told you so
more than once. I told you that there were limits, but you appeared to
believe there were not. That was quite like you, my dear. You always
thought yourself a Czar. I do not think we need to go into past
histories."
He got up.
"Dodo, would you ever under any circumstances come back to me?" he said.
"There is Nadine, you know. It gives her a better chance--"
Dodo interrupted him.
"You are not sincere when you say that. It isn't of Nadine that you
think. As for your question, I have never heard of any circumstances
which would induce me to do as you suggest. Of course we cannot say that
they don't exist, but I have never come across them. Don't let us think
of it, Waldenech: it is quite impossible. If you were dying, I would
come, but under the distinct understanding that I should go away again,
in case you got better, as I am sure I hope you would. I don't bear you
the slightest ill-will. You didn't spoil my life at all, though it is
true you often made me both angry and miserable. As regards Nadine, she
has an excellent chance, as you call it, under the present arrangements.
All my friends have come back to me, except Mrs. Vivian."
"Mrs. Vivian?" said he. "Oh, yes, an English type, earnest widow."
"With an ear-trumpet now," continued Dodo; "and I shall get her some
day. And Jack comes this afternoon. _Voilà_, the round table again! I
take up the old life anew, with the younger generation as well, not a
penny the worse."
"You are a good many pennies the better," said he in self-justification.
"As regards Lord Chesterford: why is he coming here?"
"I suppose because, like you, he wants to see me and Nadine or both of
us."
"Do you suppose he wants to marry you?" he asked. "Will you marry him?"
Dodo got up, reveling in her sense of liberty.
"Waldenech, you don't seem to realize that certain questions from you
to me are impertinent," she said. "My dear, what I do now is none of
your business. You have as much right to ask Mrs. Vivian whether she is
thinking of marrying again. You have been so discreet and pleasant all
these days: don't break down now. I have not the slightest idea if Jack
wants to marry me now, as a matter of fact; and I have really no idea if
I would marry him in case he did. It is more than twenty years since I
spoke to him--oh, I spoke to him out of a taxi-cab the other day, but he
did not answer--and I have no idea what he is like. In twenty years one
may become an entirely different person. However, that is all my
business, and no one else's. Now, if you have finished, let us take a
stroll in the garden before your carriage comes round."
"I ask then a favor of you," he said.
"And what is that?"
"That you be yourself just for this stroll: that you be as you used to
be when we met that summer at Zermatt."
Dodo was rather touched: she was also relieved that the favor was one so
easy to grant. She took his arm as they left the dining-room and came
out into the brilliant sunshine.
"That is dear of you to remember Zermatt," she said. "Oh, Waldenech,
think of those great mountains still standing there in their silly rows
with their noses in the air. How frightfully fatiguing! And they all
used to look as if they were cuts with each other, and there they'll be
a thousand years hence, not having changed in the least. But I'm not
sure we don't have the better time scampering about for a few years,
and running in and out like mice, though we get uglier and older every
day. Look, there is poor John Sturgis coming towards us: let us quickly
go in the opposite direction. Ah, he has seen us!--Dear John, Nadine was
looking for you, I believe. I think she expected you to read something
to her after breakfast about Goths or Gothic architecture. Or was it
Bishop Algie you were talking to last night about cathedrals? One or the
other, I am sure. He said he so much enjoyed his talk with you."
Waldenech felt that Dodo was behaving exactly as she used to behave at
Zermatt. Somehow in his sluggish and alcoholic soul there rose
vibrations like those he had felt then.
"Talk to him or me, it does not matter," he said in German to her, "but
talk like that. That is what I want."
Dodo gave him one glance of extraordinary meaning. This little muttered
speech strangely reminded her of the pæan in the thrush's song at dawn.
It recalled a poignancy of emotion that belonged to days long past, but
the same poignancy of feeling was hers still. She could easily feel and
habitually felt, in spite of her forty and more years, the mere
out-bubbling of life that expressed itself in out-bubbling speech. She
also rather welcomed the presence of a third party: it was easier for
her to bubble to anybody rather than to Waldenech. She buttonholed the
perfectly willing John.
"Bishop Algie is such a dear, isn't he?" she said. "He is accustomed
not to talk at all, and so talking is a treat to him, and he loved you.
He is taking a cinematograph show, all about the Acts of the Apostles,
round the country next autumn to collect funds for Maud's orphanage. The
orphanage is already built, but there are no orphans. I think the money
he collects is to get orphans to go there, scholarships I suppose. He
made all his friends group themselves for scenes in the acts, and he is
usually St. Paul. There is a delicious shipwreck where they are tying up
the boat with rug-straps and ropes. He had it taken in the bay here, and
it was extremely rough, which made it all the more realistic because
dear Algie is a very bad sailor and while he was being exceedingly
unwell over the side, his halo fell off and sank."
"We did not talk about the Acts of the Apostles last night," said John
firmly, "we talked about Gothic architecture, and Piccadilly, and
Wagner."
"But how entrancing," said Dodo. "I particularly love Siegfried because
it is like a pantomime. Do you remember when the dragon comes out of his
cave looking exactly like Paddington station, with a red light on one
side and a green one on the other, and a quantity of steam, and
whistlings, and some rails? Then afterwards a curious frosty female
appears suddenly in the hole of a tree and tells Wotan that his spear
ought to be looked to before he fights. Waldenech, we went together to
Baireuth, and you snored, but luckily on the right note, and everybody
thought it was Fafner. John, I was sitting in my window at dawn this
morning, and all the birds in the world began to sing. It made me feel
so common. Nobody ought to see the dawn except the birds, and I suppose
the worms for the sake of the birds."
Waldenech turned to her, and again spoke in German. "You are still
yourself," he said. "After all these years you are still yourself."
Dodo's German was far more expressive than his, it was also ludicrously
ungrammatical, and intensely rapid.
"There are no years," she said. "Years are only an expression used by
people who think about what is young and what is old. Every one has his
essential age, and remains that age always. This man is about sixty, the
age of his mother."
John Sturgis smiled in a kind and superior manner.
"Perhaps I had better tell you that I know German perfectly," he said.
"Also French and Italian, in case you want to say things that I shan't
understand."
Dodo stared for a moment, then pealed with laughter.
"Darling John," she said, "I think that is too nice of you. If you were
nasty you would have let me go on talking. Isn't my German execrable?
How clever of you to understand it! But you are old, aren't you? Of
course it is not your fault, nor is it your misfortune, since all ages
are equally agreeable. We grow up into our ages if we are born old, and
we grow out of them, like missing a train, if our essential age is
young. When you are eighty, you will still be sixty, which will be
delightful for you. I make plans for what I shall be when I am old, but
I wonder if I shall be able to carry them out. When I am old, I shall
be what I shall be, I suppose. The inevitable doesn't take much notice
of our plans, it sits there like the princess on the top of the
glass-hill while we all try, without the slightest success, to get at
it. Ah, my dear Waldenech, there is the motor come round for you. You
will have to start, because I have at last trained my chauffeur to give
one no time to wait at the station, and you must not jilt the
compartment I have engaged you to. It will get to London all alone: so
bad for a young compartment."
He made no further attempt to induce her to let him stop, and Dodo, with
a certain relief of mind, saw him drive off and blew a large quantity of
kisses after him.
"He was such a dear about the year you were born, John," she said, "but
you are too old to remember that. Now I must be Martha, and see the cook
and all the people who make life possible. Then I shall become Mary
again and have a delicious bathe before lunch. Certainly the good part
is much the pleasantest, as is the case always at private theatricals. I
think we must act this evening: we have not had charades or anything for
nearly two days."
* * * * *
John, like most prigs, was of a gregarious disposition, and liked that
his own superiority of intellect, of which he was so perfectly
conscious, should be made manifest to others and, literally, he could
not imagine that Dodo should not seem to prefer burying herself in
household affairs when he was clearly at leisure to converse with her.
He did not feel himself quite in tune with the younger members of the
party, and sometimes wondered why he had come here. That wonder was
shared by others. His tediousness in ordinary intercourse was the
tediousness of his genus, for he always wanted to improve the minds of
his circle. Unfortunately he mistook quantity of information for quality
of mind, and thought that large numbers of facts, even such low facts as
dates, held in themselves the germ of culture. But since, at the present
moment, Dodo showed not the smallest desire to profit by his leisure, he
wandered off to the tennis-courts, where he had reason to believe he
should find companions. His faith was justified, for there was a rather
typical party assembled. Berts and Hugh were playing a single, while
Esther was fielding tennis-balls for them. They were both admirable
performers, equally matched and immeasurably active. At the moment
Esther standing, as before Ahasuerus, with balls ready to give to Berts,
had got in his way, and he had claimed a let.
"Thanks awfully, Esther," he said, as he took a couple of balls from
her, "but would you get a little further back? You are continually
getting rather in my way."
"Oh, Berts, I'm so sorry," she said. "You are playing so well!"
"I know. Esther was in the light, Hugh."
"Oh rather, lot, of course," said Hugh.
Nadine took no active share. She was lying on the grass at the side of
the court with Tommy, and was reading "Pride and Prejudice" aloud. When
Esther had a few moments to spare she came to listen. John joined the
reading party, and wore an appreciative smile.
Nadine came to the end of a chapter.
"Yes, Art, oh, great Art," she said, shutting the book, "but I am not
enchained. It corresponds to Madame Bovary, or the Dutch pictures. It is
beautifully done; none but an artist could have done it. But I find a
great deal of it dull."
John's smile became indulgent.
"Ah, yes," he said, "but what you call dull, I expect I should call
subtle. Surely, Nadine, you see how marvelous."
Esther groaned.
"John, you make me feel sick," she began.
"Balls, please," said Hugh.
Esther sprang up.
"Yes, Hugh, I'll get them," she said. "Aren't those two marvelous?" she
added to Nadine.
"John is more marvelous," said Nadine. "John, I wish you would get drunk
or cheat at cards. It would do you a world of good to lose a little of
your self-respect. You respect yourself far too much. Nobody is so
respectable as you think yourself. We were talking of you last night: I
wish you had been there to hear; but you had gone to bed with your
camomile tea. Perhaps you think camomile tea subtle also, whereas I
should only find it dull."
"I think you are quibbling with words," he said. "But I, too, wish I had
heard you talking last night. I always welcome criticism so long as it
is sincere."
"It was quite sincere," said Nadine, "you may rest assured. It was
unanimous, too; we were all agreed."
John found this not in the least disconcerting.
"I am not so sure that it matters then," he said. "When several people
are talking about one thing--you tell me you were talking about me--they
ought to differ. If they all agree, it shows they only see one side of
what they are discussing."
Nadine sat up, while Tommy buried his dissipated face in his hands.
"We only saw one side of you," she said, "and that was the obvious one.
You will say that it was because we were dull. But since you like
criticism you shall know. We all thought you were a prig. Esther said
you would be distressed if we thought differently. She said you like
being a prig. Do tell me: is it pleasant? Or I expect what I call prig,
you call cultured. Are you cultured?"
Tommy sat up.
"Come and listen, Esther," he shouted. "Those glorious athletes can pick
up the balls themselves for a minute."
Esther emerged from a laurel bush triumphant with a strayed reveler.
"Oh, is Nadine telling John what she thinks?" she asked.
"Nadine is!" said Tommy.
Nadine meantime collected her thoughts. When she talked she ascertained
for herself beforehand what she was going to say. In that respect she
was unlike her mother, who ascertained what she thought when she found
herself saying it. But the result in both cases had the spontaneous
ring.
"John, somehow or other you are a dear," she said, "though we find you
detestable. You think, anyhow. That gives you the badge. Anybody who
thinks--"
Hugh, like Mr. Longfellow with his arrow, flung his racquet into the
air, without looking where it went. He had a moment previously sent a
fast drive into the corner of the court, which raised whitewash in a
cloud, and won him the set.
"Nadine, are you administering the oath of the clan?" he said. "You
haven't consulted either Berts or me."
Nadine looked pained.
"Did you really think I was admitting poor John without consulting you?"
she said. "Though he complies with the regulations."
Hugh, streaming with the response that a healthy skin gives to heat,
threw himself down on the grass.
"I vote against John!" he said. "I would sooner vote for Seymour. And I
won't vote for him. Also, it is surely time to go and bathe."
"I don't know what you are all talking about," said John. "I daresay it
doesn't matter. But what is the clan?"
Hugh sat up.
"The clan is nearly prigs," he said, "but not quite. But you are, quite.
We are saved because we do laugh at ourselves--"
"And you are not saved because you don't," added Nadine.
"And is the whole object of the clan to think?" asked John.
"No, that is the subject. Also you speak as if we all had said, 'Let
there be a clan, and it was so,'" said Nadine. "You mustn't think that.
There was a clan, and we discovered it, like Newton and the orange."
"Apple, surely," said John.
Nadine looked brilliantly round.
"I knew he would say that," she said. "You see you correct what I say,
whereas a clansman would be content to understand what I mean."
"Bishop Algie is clan, by the way," said Hugh. "I went down to bathe
before breakfast, and found him kneeling down on the beach saying his
prayers. That is tremendously clannish."
"I don't see why," said John.
Esther sighed.
"No, of course you wouldn't see," she said.
"Try him with another," said Nadine.
Esther considered.
"Attend, John," she said. "When the last Stevenson letters came out,
Berts bought them and looked at one page. Then he took a taxi to
Paddington and took a return ticket to Bristol."
"Swindon," said Berts.
"The station is immaterial, so long as it was far away. I daresay
Swindon is quite as far as Bristol."
John smiled.
"There you are quite wrong," he said. "Swindon comes before Bath, and
Bristol after Bath. No doubt it does not matter, though it is as well to
be accurate."
Esther looked at him with painful anxiety.
"But don't you see why Berts went to Swindon or Bristol?" she said.
"Poor dear, you do see now. That is hopeless. You ought to have felt. To
reason out what should have been a flash, is worse than not to have
understood at all."
John, again like all other prigs, was patient with those not so gifted
as himself.
"I daresay you will explain to me what it all amounts to," he said. "All
I am certain of is that Berts wanted to read Stevenson's letters and so
got into a train, where he would be undisturbed. Wouldn't it have
answered the same purpose if he had taken a room at the Paddington
hotel?"
Nadine turned to Berts.
"Oh, Berts, that would have been rather lovely," she said.
"Not at all," said he. "I wanted the sense of travel."
John got up.
"Then I should have recommended the Underground," he said. "You could
have gone round and round until you had finished. It would have been
much cheaper."
Nadine waved impotent arms of despair.
"Now you have spoiled it," she said. "There was a possibility in the
Paddington hotel, which sounds so remote. But the Underground! You might
as well say, why do I bathe, I who cannot swim? I can get clean in a
bath, though I only get dirty in the sea, and if I want the salt I can
put Tiddle-de-wink salt or whatever the name is in my bath--"
"Tidman," said John.
"I am sure you are right, though who cares? I am knocked down by cold
waves, I am cut by stones on my soles. I am pinched by crabs and
_homards_, at least I think I am; the wind gnaws at my bones, and my
hair is as salt as almonds. Between my toes is sand, and bits of seaweed
make me a plaster, and my stockings fall into rock-pools, but do I go
with rapture to have a bath in the bathroom? I hate washing. There is
nothing so sordid as to wash my face, except to brush my teeth. But to
bathe in the sea makes me think: it gives me romance. Poor John, you
never get romance. You amass information, and make a Blue Book. But we
all, we make blue mountains, which we never reach. If we reached them
they would probably turn out to be green. As it is, they are always
blue, because they are beyond. It is suggestion that we seek, not
attainment. To attain is dull, to aspire is the sugar and salt of life.
Don't you see? To realize an ideal is to lose the ideal. It is like a
man growing rich: he never sees his sovereigns: when he has gained them
he flings them forth again into something further. If he left them in a
box, the real sovereigns, under his bed, what chance would there be for
him to grow rich? But out they go, he never uses them, except that he
makes them breed. It is the same with the riches of the mind. An idea,
an ideal is yours. Do you keep it? Personally you do. But we, no. We
invest it again. It is to our credit, at this bank of the mind. We do
not hoard it, and spend it piecemeal. We put it into something else.
What I have perceived in music, I put into plays: what I have perceived
in plays I put into pictures. I never let it remain at home. But when I
shall be a millionaire of the mind, what, what then? Yes, that makes me
pause. Perhaps it will all be converted, as they convert bonds, is it
not, and I shall put it all into love. Who knows, La-la."
Nadine paused a moment, but nobody spoke. Hugh was watching her with the
absorption that was always his when she was there. But after a moment
she spoke again.
"We talk what you call rot," she said. "But it is not rot. The people
who always talk sense arrive at less. There are sparks that fly, as when
you strike one flint with another. Your English philosophers--who are
they?--Mr. Chesterton I suppose, is he not a philosopher?--or some
Machiavelli or other, they sit down soberly to think, and when they have
thought they wrap up their thought in paradox, as you wrap up a pill for
your dog, so that he swallows it, and his inside becomes bitter. That is
not the way. You must start with pure enjoyment, and when a thought
comes, you must fling it into the air. They hit a bird, or turn into a
rainbow, or fall on your head--but what matter? You others sit and
think, and when you have thought of something you put it in a beastly
book, and have finished with it. You prigs turn the world topsy-turvy
that way. You do not start with joy, and you go forth in a slough of
despondent information. Ah, yes: the child who picks up a match and rubs
it against something and finds it catches fire removes the romance of
the match, more than Mr. Bryant and May and Boots is it? who made the
match. Matches are made on earth, but the child who knows nothing about
them and strikes one is the person who is in heaven. You are not content
with the wonder and romance of the world, you prefer to explain the
rainbow away instead of looking at it. It is a sort of murder to explain
things away: you kill their souls, and demonstrate that it is only
hydrogen."
She looked up at Hugh.
"We talked about it last night," she said. "We settled that it was a
great misfortune to understand too well--"
A footman arrived at this moment with a telegram which he handed to
Berts, who opened it. He gave a shout of laughter and passed it to
Nadine.
"What shall I say?" he asked.
"But of course 'yes,'" she said. "It is quite unnecessary to ask Mama."
Berts scribbled a couple of words on the reply-paid form.
"It's only my mother," he said in general explanation. "She wants to
come over for a day or two, and see Aunt Dodo again, but she doesn't
feel sure if Aunt Dodo wants to see her. Are you sure there's a room,
Nadine?"
"There always is some kind of room," said Nadine. "She can sleep in
three-quarters of my bed, if not."
"I'm so glad she is tired of being a silly ass, as we settled she was
last night," said Berts. "Perhaps I ought to ask Aunt Dodo, Nadine."
"Pish-posh," said Nadine.
John got up, and prig-like had the last word.
"I see all about the clan," he said. "You have a quantity of vague
enthusiasm, and a lack of information. You swim like jelly-fish without
any sense of direction, and admire each other."
Nadine considered this.
"I do see what he means," she said.
"And don't live what you mean," added John.