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DODO

A DETAIL OF THE DAY

BY

E.F. BENSON


IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I


FOURTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO

LONDON

1893



        And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, I
        saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And my
        guide said to me, 'Some call the sea "Falsehood," and that
        boat "Truth," and others call the sea "Truth," and the boat
        "Falsehood;" and, for my part, I think that one is right as the
        other.'--The Professor of Ignorance.




CHAPTER ONE


Poets of all ages and of all denominations are unanimous in assuring
us that there was once a period on this grey earth known as the Golden
Age. These irresponsible hards describe it in terms of the vaguest,
most poetic splendour, and, apart from the fact, upon which they are
all agreed, that the weather was always perfectly charming, we have to
reconstruct its characteristics in the main for ourselves. Perhaps if
the weather was uniformly delightful, even in this nineteenth century,
the golden age might return again. We all know how perceptibly our
physical, mental and spiritual level is raised by a few days of really
charming weather; but until the weather determines to be always golden,
we can hardly expect it of the age. Yet even now, even in England, and
even in London, we have every year a few days which must surely be
waifs and strays from the golden age, days which have fluttered down
from under the hands of the recording angel, as he tied up his reports,
and, after floating about for years in dim, interplanetary space,
sometimes drop down upon us. They may last a week, they have been known
to last a fortnight; again, they may curtail themselves into a few
hours, but they are never wholly absent.

At the time at which this story opens, London was having its annual
golden days; days to be associated with cool, early rides in the
crumbly Row, with sitting on small, green chairs beneath the trees
at the corner of the Park; with a general disinclination to exert
oneself, or to stop smoking cigarettes; with a temper distinctly above
its normal level, and a corresponding absence of moods. The crudeness
of spring had disappeared, but not its freshness; the warmth of the
summer had come, but not its sultriness; the winter was definitely
over and past, and even in Hyde Park the voice of the singing bird was
heard, and an old gentleman, who shall be nameless, had committed his
annual perjury by asserting in the _Morning Post_ that he had heard a
nightingale in the elm-trees by the Ladies' Mile, which was manifestly
impossible.

The sky was blue; the trees, strange to say, were green, for the leaves
were out, and even the powers of soot which hover round London had not
yet had time to shed their blackening dew upon them. The season was in
full swing, but nobody was tired of it yet, and "all London" evinced
a tendency to modified rural habits, which expressed themselves in
the way of driving down to Hurlingham, and giving water parties at
Richmond.

To state this more shortly, it was a balmy, breezy day towards the
middle of June. The shady walks that line the side of the Row were full
of the usual crowds of leisurely, well-dressed people who constitute
what is known as London. Anyone acquainted with that august and
splendid body would have seen at once that something had happened; not
a famine in China, nor a railway accident, nor a revolution, nor a
war, but emphatically "something." Conversation was a thing that made
time pass, not a way of passing the time. Obviously the larger half
of London was asking questions, and the smaller half was enjoying its
superiority, in being able to give answers. These indications are as
clear to the practised eye as the signs of the weather appear to be to
the prophet Zadkiel. To the amateur one cloud looks much like another
cloud: the prophet, on the other hand, lays a professional finger on
one and says "Thunder," while the lurid bastion, which seems fraught
with fire and tempest to the amateur, is dismissed with the wave of a
contemptuous hand.

A tall, young man was slowly making his way across the road from the
arch. He was a fair specimen of "the exhausted seedlings of our effete
aristocracy"--long-limbed, clean-shaven, about six feet two high,
and altogether very pleasant to look upon. He wore an air of extreme
leisure and freedom from the smallest touch of care or anxiety, and it
was quite clear that such was his normal atmosphere. He waited with
serene patience for a large number of well-appointed carriages to
go past, and then found himself blocked by another stream going in
the opposite direction. However, all things come to an end, even the
impossibility of crossing from the arch at the entrance of the Park to
the trees on a fine morning in June, and on this particular morning I
have to record no exception to the rule. A horse bolting on to the Row
narrowly missed knocking him down, and he looked up with mild reproach
at its rider, as he disappeared in a shower of dust and soft earth.

This young gentleman, who has been making his slow and somewhat
graceful entrance on to our stage, was emphatically "London," and he
too saw at once that something had happened. He looked about for an
acquaintance, and then dropped in a leisurely manner into a chair by
his side.

"Morning, Bertie," he remarked; "what's up?"

Bertie was not going to be hurried. He finished lighting a cigarette,
and adjusted the tip neatly with his fingers.

"She's going to be married," he remarked.

Jack Broxton turned half round to him with a quicker movement than he
had hitherto shown.

"Not Dodo?" he said.

"Yes."

Jack gave a low whistle.

"It isn't to you, I suppose?"

Bertie Arbuthnot leaned back in his chair with extreme languor. His
enemies, who, to do him justice, were very few, said that if he hadn't
been the tallest man in London, he would never have been there at all.

"No, it isn't to me."

"Is she here?" said Jack, looking round.

"No I think not; at least I haven't seen her."

"Well, I'm----" Jack did not finish the sentence.

Then as an after-thought he inquired: "Whom to?"

"Chesterford," returned the other.

Jack made a neat little hole with the ferrule of his stick in the
gravel in front of him, and performed a small burial service for the
end of his cigarette. The action was slightly allegorical.

"He's my first cousin," he said. "However, I may be excused for
not feeling distinctly sympathetic with my first cousin. Must I
congratulate him?"

"That's as you like," said the other. "I really don't see why you
shouldn't. But it is rather overwhelming, isn't it? You know Dodo is
awfully charming, but she hasn't got any of the domestic virtues.
Besides, she ought to be an empress," he added loyally.

"I suppose a marchioness is something," said Jack. "But I didn't expect
it one little bit. Of course he is hopelessly in love. And so Dodo has
decided to make him happy."

"It seems so," said Bertie, with a fine determination not to draw
inferences.

"Ah, but don't you see----" said Jack.

"Oh, it's all right," said Bertie. "He is devoted to her, and she is
clever and stimulating. Personally I shouldn't like a stimulating wife.
I don't like stimulating people, I don't think they wear well. It would
be like sipping brandy all day. Fancy having brandy at five o'clock
tea. What a prospect, you know! Dodo's too smart for my taste."

"She never bores one," said Jack.

"No, but she makes me feel as if I was sitting under a flaming
gas-burner, which was beating on to what Nature designed to be my
brain-cover."

"Nonsense," said Jack. "You don't know her. There she is. Ah!"

A dog-cart had stopped close by them, and a girl got out, leaving a
particularly diminutive groom at the pony's head. If anything she was a
shade more perfectly dressed than the rest of the crowd, and she seemed
to know it. Behind her walked another girl, who was obviously intended
to walk behind, while Dodo was equally obviously made to walk in front.

Just then Dodo turned round and said over her shoulder to her,--

"Maud, tell the boy he needn't wait. You needn't either unless you
like."

Maud turned round and went dutifully back to the dog-cart, where she
stood irresolutely a few moments after giving her message.

Dodo caught sight of the two young men on the chairs, and advanced to
them. The radiant vision was evidently not gifted with that dubious
quality, shyness.

"Why, Jack," she exclaimed in a loudish voice, "here I am, you see, and
I have come to be congratulated! What are you and Bertie sitting here
for like two Patiences on monuments? Really, Jack, you would make a
good Patience on a monument.

"Was Patience a man? I never saw him yet. I would come and sketch you
if you stood still enough. What are you so glum about? You look as if
you were going to be executed. I ought to look like that much more than
you. Jack, I'm going to be a married woman, and stop at home, and mend
the socks, and look after the baby, and warm Chesterford's slippers
for him. Where's Chesterford? Have you seen him? Oh, I told Maud to go
away. Maud," she called, "come back and take Bertie for a stroll: I
want to talk to Jack. Go on, Bertie; you can come back in half an hour,
and if I haven't finished talking then, you can go away again--or go
for a drive, if you like, with Maud round the Park. Take care of that
pony, though; he's got the devil of a temper."

"I suppose I may congratulate you first?" asked Bertie.

"That's so dear of you," said Dodo graciously, as if she was used to
saying it. "Good-bye; Maud's waiting, and the pony will kick himself
to bits if he stands much longer. Thanks for your congratulations.
Good-bye."

Bertie moved off, and Dodo sat down next Jack.

"Now, Jack, we're going to have a talk. In the first place you haven't
congratulated me. Never mind, we'll take that as done. Now tell me
what you think of it. I don't quite know why I ask you, but we are old
friends."

"I'm surprised," said he candidly; "I think it's very odd."

Dodo frowned.

"John Broxton," she said solemnly, "don't be nasty. Don't you think I'm
a very charming girl, and don't you think he's a very charming boy?"

Jack was silent for a minute or two, then he said,--

"What is the use of this, Dodo? What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say what you think. Jack, old boy, I'm very fond of you,
though I couldn't marry you. Oh, you must see that. We shouldn't have
suited. We neither of us will consent to play second fiddle, you know.
Then, of course, there's the question of money. I must have lots of
money. Yes, a big must _and_ a big lot. It's not your fault that you
haven't got any, and it wouldn't have been your fault if you'd been
born with no nose; but I couldn't marry a man who was without either."

"After all, Dodo," said he, "you only say what every one else thinks
about that. I don't blame you for it. About the other, you're wrong. I
am sure I should not have been an exacting husband. You could have had
your own way pretty well."

"Oh, Jack, indeed no," said she;--"we are wandering from the point,
but I'll come back to it presently. My husband must be so devoted to
me that anything I do will seem good and charming. You don't answer
that requirement, as I've told you before. If I can't get that--I have
got it, by the way--I must have a man who doesn't care what I do. You
would have cared, you know it. You told me once I was in dreadfully bad
form. Of course that clinched the matter. To my husband I must never
be in bad form. If others did what I do, it might be bad form, but
with me, no. Bad form is one of those qualities which my husband must
think impossible for me, simply because I am I. Oh, Jack, you must see
that--don't be stupid! And then you aren't rich enough. It's all very
well to call it a worldly view, but it is a perfectly true one for me.
Don't you see I must have everything I want. It is what I live on, all
this," she said, spreading her hands out. "All these people must know
who I am, and that they should do that, I must have everything at my
command. Oh, it's all very well to talk of love in a cottage, but just
wait till the chimney begins to smoke."

Dodo nodded her head with an air of profound wisdom.

"It isn't for you that I'm anxious," said Jack, "it's for Chesterford.
He's an awfully good fellow. It is a trifle original to sing the
husband's praise to the wife, but I do want you to know that. And he
isn't one of those people who don't feel things because they don't show
it--it is just the other way. The feeling is so deep that he can't. You
know you like to turn yourself inside out for your friend's benefit,
but he doesn't do that. And he is in love with you."

"Yes, I know," she said, "but you do me an injustice. I shall be very
good to him. I can't pretend that I am what is known as being in love
with him--in fact I don't think I know what that means, except that
people get in a very ridiculous state, and write sonnets to their
mistress's front teeth, which reminds me that I am going to the dentist
to-morrow. Come and hold my hand--yes, and keep withered flowers and
that sort of thing. Ah, Jack, I wish that I really knew what it did
mean. It can't be all nonsense, because Chesterford's like that, and
he is an honest man if you like. And I do respect and admire him
very much, and I hope I shall make him happy, and I hear he's got a
delightful new yacht; and, oh! do look at that Arbuthnot girl opposite
with a magenta hat. It seems to me inconceivably stupid to have a
magenta hat. Really she is a fool. She wants to attract attention, but
she attracts the wrong sort. Now _she_ is in bad form. Bertie doesn't
look after his relations enough."

"Oh, bother the Arbuthnot girl," said Jack angrily. "I want to have
this out with you. Don't you see that that sort of thing won't do with
Chesterford? He is not a fool by any means, and he knows the difference
between the two things."

"Indeed he doesn't," said Dodo. "The other day he was talking to me,
and I simply kept on smiling when I was thinking of something quite
different, and he thought I was adorably sympathetic. And, besides, I
am not a fool either. He is far too happy for me to believe that he is
not satisfied."

"Well, but you'll have to keep it up," said Jack. "Don't you see I'm
not objecting to your theory of marriage in itself--though I think it's
disgusting--but it strikes me that you have got the wrong sort of man
to experiment upon. It might do very well if he was like you."

"Jack, you sha'n't lecture me," said Dodo; "I shall do precisely as
I like. Have you ever known me make a fool of myself? Of course you
haven't. Well, if I was going to make a mess of this, it would be
contrary to all you or anyone else knows of me. I'm sorry I asked your
opinion at all. I didn't think you would be so stupid."

"You told me to tell you what I thought," said Jack in self-defence.
"I offered to say what you wanted, or to congratulate or condole or
anything else; it's your own fault, and I wish I'd said it was charming
and delightful, and just what I had always hoped."

Dodo laughed.

"I like to see you cross, Jack," she remarked, "and now we'll be
friends again. Remember what you have said to-day--we shall see in time
who is right, you or I. If you like to bet about it you may--only you
would lose. I promise to tell you if you turn out to be right, even if
you don't see it, which you must if it happens, which it won't, so you
won't," she added with a fine disregard of grammar.

Jack was silent.

"Jack, you are horrible," said Dodo impatiently, "you don't believe in
me one bit. I believe you are jealous of Chesterford; you needn't be."

Then he interrupted her quickly.

"Ah, Dodo, take care what you say. When you say I needn't be, it
implies that you are not going to do your share. I want to be jealous
of Chesterford, and I am sorry I am not. If I thought you loved him,
or would ever get to love him, I should be jealous. I wish to goodness
I was. Really, if you come to think of it, I am very generous. I want
this to be entirely a success. If there is one man in the world who
deserves to be happy it is Chesterford. He is not brilliant, he does
not even think he is, which is the best substitute. It doesn't much
matter how hard you are hit if you are well protected. Try to make him
conceited--it is the best you can do for him."

He said these words in a low tone, as if he hardly wished Dodo to hear.
But Dodo did hear.

"You don't believe in me a bit," she said. "Never mind, I will force
you to. That's always the way--as long as I amuse you, you like me well
enough, but you distrust me at bottom. A woman's a bore when she is
serious. Isn't it so? Because I talk nonsense you think I am entirely
untrustworthy about things that matter."

Dodo struck the ground angrily with the point of her parasol.

"I have thought about it. I know I am right," she went on. "I shall
be immensely happy as his wife, and he will be immensely happy as my
husband."

"I don't think it's much use discussing it," said he. "But don't be
vexed with me, Dodo. You reminded me that we were old friends at the
beginning of this extremely candid conversation. I have told you that
I think it is a mistake. If he didn't love you it wouldn't matter.
Unfortunately he does."

"Well, Jack," she said, "I can't prove it, but you ought to know me
well enough by this time not to misjudge me so badly. It is not only
unjust but stupid, and you are not usually stupid. However, I am not
angry with you, which is the result of my beautiful nature. Come, Jack,
shake hands and wish me happiness."

She stood up, holding out both her hands to him. Jack was rather moved.

"Dodo, of course I do. I wish all the best wishes that my nature can
desire and my brain conceive, both to you and him, him too; and I hope
I shall be outrageously jealous before many months are over."

He shook her hands, and then dropped them. She stood for a moment with
her eyes on the ground, looking still grave. Then she retreated a step
or two, leaned against the rail, and broke into a laugh.

"That's right, Jack, begone, dull care. I suppose you'll be
Chesterford's best man. I shall tell him you must be. Really he is an
excellent lover; he doesn't say too much or too little, and he lets me
do exactly as I like. Jack, come and see us this evening; we're having
a sort of Barnum's Show, and I'm to be the white elephant. Come and be
a white elephant too. Oh, no, you can't; Chesterford's the other. The
elephant is an amiable beast, and I am going to be remarkably amiable.
Come to dinner first, the Show begins afterwards. No, on the whole,
don't come to dinner, because I want to talk to Chesterford all the
time, and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
Chesterford to ask me to play my part. That's profane, but it's only
out of the Catechism. Who wrote the Catechism? I always regard the
Catechism as only a half-sacred work, and so profanity doesn't count,
at least you may make two profane remarks out of the Catechism, which
will only count as one. I shall sing, too. Evelyn has taught me two
little <DW65> minstrel songs. Shall I black my face? I'm not at all
sure that I shouldn't look rather well with my face blacked, though I
suppose it would frighten Chesterford. Here are Maud and Bertie back
again. I must go. I'm lunching somewhere, I can't remember where, only
Maud will know. Maud, where are we lunching, and have you had a nice
drive, and has Bertie been making love to you? Good-bye, Jack. Remember
to come this evening. You can come, too, Bertie, if you like. I have
had a very nice talk with Jack, and he has been remarkably rude, but I
forgive him."

Jack went with her to her dog-cart, and helped her in.

"This pony's name is Beelzebub," she remarked, as she took the reins,
"because he is the prince of the other things. Good-bye."

Then he went back and rejoined Bertie.

"There was a scene last night," said Bertie. "Maud told me about it.
She came home with Dodo and Chesterford, and stopped to open a letter
in the hall, and when she went upstairs into the drawing-room, she
found Dodo sobbing among the sofa cushions, and Chesterford standing
by, not quite knowing what to do. It appeared that he had just given
her the engagement ring. She was awfully-pleased with it, and said it
was charming, then suddenly she threw it down on the floor, and buried
her face in the cushions. After that she rushed out of the room, and
didn't appear again for a quarter of an hour, and then went to the
Foreign Office party, and to two balls."

Jack laughed hopelessly for a few minutes. Then he said,--

"It is too ridiculous. I don't believe it can be all real. That was
drama, pure spontaneous drama. But it's drama for all that. I'm sure I
don't know why I laughed, now I come to think of it. It really is no
laughing matter. All the same I wonder why she didn't tell me that. But
her sister has got no business to repeat those kind of things. Don't
tell anyone else, Bertie."

Then after a minute he repeated to himself, "I wonder why she didn't
tell me that."

"Jack," said Bertie after another pause, "I don't wish you to think
that I want to meddle in your concerns, and so don't tell me unless you
like, but was anything ever up between you and Dodo? Lie freely if you
would rather not tell me, please."

"Yes," he said simply. "I asked her to marry me last April, and she
said 'No.' I haven't told anyone till this minute, because I don't
like it to be known when I fail. I am like Dodo in that. You know
how she detests not being able to do anything she wants. It doesn't
often happen, but when it does, Dodo becomes damnable. She has more
perseverance than I have, though. When she can't get anything, she
makes such a fuss that she usually does succeed eventually. But I do
just the other thing. I go away, and don't say anything about it. That
was a bad failure. I remember being very much vexed at the time."

Jack spoke dreamily, as if he was thinking of something else. It was
his way not to blaze abroad anything that affected him deeply. Like
Dodo he would often dissect himself in a superficial manner, and act as
a kind of showman to his emotions; but he did not care to turn himself
inside out with her thoroughness. And above all, as he had just said,
he hated the knowledge of a failure; he tried to conceal it even from
himself. He loved to show his brighter side to the world. When he was
in society he always put on his best mental and moral clothes, those
that were newest and fitted him most becomingly; the rags and tatters
were thrown deep into the darkest cupboard, and the key sternly turned
on them. Now and then, however, as on this occasion, a friend brought
him the key with somewhat embarrassing openness, and manners prevented
him from putting his back to the door. But when it was unlocked he
adopted the tone of, "Yes, there are some old things in there, I
believe. May you see? Oh, certainly; but please shut it after you, and
don't let anyone else in. I quite forget what is in there myself, it's
so long since I looked."

Bertie was silent. He was on those terms of intimacy with the other
that do not need ordinary words of condolence or congratulation.
Besides, from his own point of view, he inwardly congratulated Jack,
and this was not the sort of occasion on which to tell him that
congratulation rather than sympathy was what the event demanded. Then
Jack went on, still with the air of a spectator than of a principal
character,--

"Dodo talked to me a good deal about her marriage. I am sorry about it,
for I think that Chesterford will be terribly disillusioned. You know
he doesn't take things lightly, and he is much too hopelessly fond of
Dodo ever to be content with what she will grant him as a wife. But we
cannot do anything. I told her what I thought, not because I hoped to
make any change in the matter, but because I wished her to know that
for once in her life she has made a failure--a bad, hopeless mistake.
That has been my revenge. Come, it's after one, I must go home. I shall
go there this evening; shall I see you?"




CHAPTER TWO


Jack went home meditating rather bitterly on things in general. He
had a sense that Fate was not behaving very prettily to him. She
had dealt him rather a severe blow in April last, which had knocked
him down, and, having knocked him down, she now proceeded in a most
unsportsmanlike way to kick him. Jack had a great idea of fair play,
and Fate certainly was not playing fair. He would have liked to have
a few words with her on the subject. The world had been very kind on
the whole to him. He had always been popular, and his life, though
perhaps rather aimless, was at least enjoyable. And since the world had
been kind to him, he was generous to the world in general, and to his
friends in particular. It had always held a high opinion of him, as a
thoroughly healthy-minded and pleasant companion, and he was disposed
to hold a similar opinion of it. Consequently, when Dodo had refused
him that spring, he had not thought badly of her. He did not blame
her, or get bitter about it; but though he had flattered himself that
he was used to Dodo's ways, and had always recognised her capabilities
in the way of surprising her friends, he had not been quite prepared
for the news of her engagement. In fact, he was surprised, and also
rather resentful, chiefly against the general management of mundane
affairs, but partly also against Dodo herself. Dodo had not told him
of her engagement; he had been left to find it out for himself. Then,
again, she was engaged to a man who was hopelessly and entirely in
love with her, and for whom, apart from a quiet, unemotional liking,
she did not care two straws, except in so far as he was immensely rich
and had a title, two golden keys which unlocked the most secret doors
of that well-furnished apartment known as Society, which constituted
Dodo's world. Hitherto her position had been precarious: she had felt
that she was on trial. Her personality, her great attractiveness
and talents, had secured for herself a certain footing on the very
dais of that room; but she had always known that unless she married
brilliantly she would not be sure of her position. If she married a
man who would not be always certain of commanding whatever money and
position--for she would never have married a wealthy brewer--could
command, or, worst of all, if in her unwillingness to accept anything
but the best she could get, she did not marry at all, Dodo knew that
she never would have that unquestioned position that she felt was
indispensable to her. Jack knew all this perfectly well--in fact Dodo
had referred to it that morning--and he accepted it philosophically as
being inevitable. But what he did not like was being told that he would
not have done on general grounds, that he was too fond of his own way,
that he would not have given Dodo rein enough. He had known Dodo too
long and too well, when he proposed to her, to have any of a lover's
traditional blindness to the faults of his love. He knew that she was,
above all things, strongly dramatic, that she moved with a view to
effect, that she was unscrupulous in what she did, that her behaviour
was sometimes in questionable taste; but this he swallowed whole, so to
speak. He was genuinely attached to her, and felt that she possessed
the qualities that he would most like to have in his wife. Bertie had
said to him that morning that she was stimulating, and would not wear
well. Stimulating she certainly was--what lovable woman is not?--and
personally he had known her long, and she did wear well. The hidden
depths and unsuspected shallows were exactly what he loved her for;
no one ever fell in love with a canal; and though the shallows were
commoner than the depths, and their presence was sometimes indicated
by a rather harsh jarring of the keel, yet he believed, fully and
sincerely, in the dark, mysterious depths for love to lose itself
in. Besides, a wife, whose actions and thoughts were as perfectly
calculable and as accurately calculated as the trains in a Bradshaw,
was possessed of sterling qualities which, however estimable, were more
suited to a housekeeper than a mistress.

These reflections were the outcome of an intimate knowledge of Dodo in
the mind of a man who was in the habit of being honest with himself
and the object of his love, a quality rare enough whether the lover is
rejected or accepted.

He had had time to think over the matter quietly to himself. He knew,
and had known for many weeks, that Dodo was out of his reach, and he
sat down and thought about the inaccessible fruit, not with the keen
feelings of one who still hoped to get it, but with a resignation which
recognised that the fruit was desirable, but that it must be regarded
from a purely speculative point of view.

And to do him justice, though he was very sorry for himself, he was
much more sorry for Chesterford. Chesterford was his cousin, they had
been brought up together at Eton and Oxford, and he knew him with that
intimacy which is the result of years alone.

Chesterford's old friends had all a great respect and liking for
him. As Dodo had said, "He was an honest man if you like." Slight
acquaintances called him slow and rather stupid, which was true
on purely intellectual grounds. He was very loyal, and very much
devoted to what he considered his duty, which consisted in being an
excellent landlord