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."
But there is a limit set to human misery, and the end had nearly come.
It was about a fortnight after Jack had gone. Maud and Mr. Spencer had
gone too, but Mrs. Vivian was with them still. Dodo had more than once
thought of telling her what had happened, but she could not manage it.
When Mrs. Vivian had spoken of going, Dodo entreated her to stop, for
she had a great fear of being left alone with Chesterford.
They had been out hunting, and Dodo had got home first. It was about
three in the afternoon, and it had begun to snow. She had had lunch,
and was sitting in the morning-room in a drowsy frame of mind. She was
wondering whether Chesterford had returned, and whether he would come
up and see her, and whether she was not too lazy to exert herself. She
heard a carriage come slowly up the drive, and did not feel interested
enough to look out of the window. She was sitting with her shoes off
warming her feet at the fire, with a novel in her lap, which she was
not reading, and a cigarette in her hand. She heard the opening and
shutting of doors, and slow steps on the stairs. Then the door opened
and Mrs. Vivian came in.
Dodo had seen that look in her face once before, when she was riding in
the Park with Jack, and a fearful certainty came upon her.
She got up and turned towards her.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
Mrs. Vivian drew her back into her seat.
"I will tell you all," she said. "He has had a dangerous fall hunting,
and it is very serious. The doctors are with him. There is some
internal injury, and he is to have an operation. It is the only chance
of saving his life, and even then it is a very slender one. He is quite
conscious, and asked me to tell you. You will not be able to see him
for half an hour. The operation is going on now."
Dodo sat perfectly still. She did not speak a word; she scarcely even
thought anything. Everything seemed to be a horrible blank to her.
"Ah God, ah God!" she burst out at last. "Can't I do anything to help?
I would give my right hand to help him. It is all too horrible. To
think that I--" She walked up and down the room, and then suddenly
opened the door and went downstairs. She paced up and down the
drawing-room, paused a moment, and went into his study. His papers were
lying about in confusion on the table, but on the top was a guide-book
to the Riviera. Dodo remembered his buying this at Mentone on their
wedding-tour, and conscientiously walking about the town sight-seeing.
She sat down in his chair and took it up. She remembered also that he
had bought her that day a new volume of poems which had just come out,
and had read to her out of it. There was in it a poem called "Paris and
Helen." He had read that among others, and had said to her, as they
were being rowed back to the yacht again that evening, "That is you and
I, Dodo, going home."
On the fly-leaf of the guide-book he had written it out, and, as she
sat there now, Dodo read it.
As o'er the swelling tides we slip
That know not wave nor foam,
Behold the helmsman of our ship,
Love leads us safely home.
His ministers around us move
To aid the westering breeze,
He leads us softly home, my love,
Across the shining seas.
My golden Helen, day and night
Love's light is o'er us flung,
Each hour for us is infinite,
And all the world is young.
There is none else but thou and I
Beneath the heaven's high dome,
Love's ministers around us fly,
Love leads us safely home.
Dodo buried her face in her hands with a low cry. "I have been cruel
and wicked," she sobbed to herself. "I have despised the best that
any man could ever give me, and I can never make him amends. I will
tell him all. I will ask him to forgive me. Oh, poor Chesterford, poor
Chesterford!"
She sat there sobbing in complete misery. She saw, as she had never
seen before, the greatness of his love for her, and her wretched,
miserable return for his gift.
"It is all over; I know he will die," she sobbed. "Supposing he does
not know me--supposing he dies before I can tell him. Oh, my husband,
my husband, live to forgive me!"
She was roused by a touch on her shoulder. Mrs. Vivian stood by her.
"You must be quick, Dodo," she said. "There is not much time."
Dodo did not answer her, but went upstairs. Before the bedroom door she
stopped.
"I must speak to him alone," she said. "Send them all out."
"They have gone into the dressing-room," said Mrs. Vivian; "he is
alone."
Dodo stayed no longer, but went in.
He was lying facing the door, and the shadow of death was on his face.
But he recognised Dodo, and smiled and held out his hand.
Dodo ran to the bedside and knelt by it.
"Oh, Chesterford," she sobbed, "I have wronged you cruelly, and I can
never make it up. I will tell you all."
"There is no need," said he; "I knew it all along."
Dodo raised her head. "You knew it all?" she asked.
"Yes, dear," he said; "it was by accident that I knew it."
"And you behaved to me as usual," said Dodo.
"Yes, my darling," said he; "you wouldn't have had me beat you, would
you? Don't speak of it--there is not much time."
"Ah, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "How could I have done it?"
"It was not a case of forgiving," he said. "You are you, you are Dodo.
My darling, there is not time to say much. You have been very good to
me, and have given me more happiness than I ever thought I could have
had."
"Chesterford! Chesterford!" cried Dodo pleadingly.
"Yes, darling," he answered; "my own wife. Dodo, I shall see the boy
soon, and we will wait for you together. You will be mine again then.
There shall be no more parting."
Dodo could not answer him. She could only press his hand and kiss his
lips, which were growing very white.
It was becoming a fearful effort for him to speak. The words came
slowly with long pauses.
"There is one more thing," he said. "You must marry Jack. You must make
him very happy--as you have made me."
"Ah, don't say that," said Dodo brokenly; "don't cut me to the heart."
"My darling," he said, "my sweet own wife, I am so glad you told me.
It has cleared up the only cloud. I wondered whether you would tell
me. I prayed God you might, and He has granted it me. Good-bye, my own
darling, good-bye."
Dodo lay in his arms, and kissed him passionately.
"Good-bye, dear," she sobbed.
He half raised himself in bed.
"Ah, my Dodo, my sweet wife," he said.
Then he fell back and lay very still.
How long Dodo remained there she did not know. She remembered Mrs.
Vivian coming in and raising her gently, and they left the darkened
room together.