Dodo had been obliged to go to church on Sunday morning by way of being in attendance on Princess Albert. She did not in the least mind going to church, in fact she habitually did so, and sang loudly in the choir, but she did not like going otherwise than of her own free-will, for she said that compulsion made a necessity of virtue. Church and a stroll round the hot-houses, where the Prince ate four peaches, accounted for most of the morning, but after lunch, when he retired to his room like a flushed boa-constrictor, and Jack had taken the Princess off in a motor to see the place where something happened either to Isaac Walton or Isaac Newton, Dodo felt she could begin to devote herself to some of the old friends, who had originally formed the nucleus of her party. For this purpose she pounced on the first one she came across, who happened to be Miss Grantham, and took her off to the shady and sequestered end of the terrace. Up to the present moment she had only been able to tell Grantie that she was changed; now she proceeded to enlarge on that accusation. Grantie had accepted (you might almost say she had courted) middle-age in a verydecorous and becoming manner: her hair, fine as floss silk had gone perfectly white, thus softening her rather hard, handsome horse-like face, and she wore plain expensive clothes of sober colours with pearls and lace and dignity.
"You've changed, Grantie," said Dodo, "because you've gone on doing the same sort of thing for so long. Nothing has happened to you."
"Then I ought to have remained the same," said Grantie with composure. She put up a parasol as she spoke, as if in anticipation of some sort of out-pouring.
"That's your mistake, darling," said Dodo. "If you go on doing the same thing, and being the same person, you always deteriorate. I read in the paper the other day about a man whose skin became covered with a sort of moss, till he looked like a neglected tombstone. And going on in a groove has the same effect on the mind: if you don't keep stirring it up and giving it shocks at what you do, it vegetates. Look at that moss between the paving-stones! That's there because the gardeners haven't poked them and brushed them. The terrace has changed because it hasn't been sufficiently trodden on and kicked and scrubbed. It has been let alone. Do you see? Nothing has happened to you."
Miss Grantham certainly preserved the detached calm which had always distinguished her.
"No, it's true that I haven't been kicked andscrubbed," she said. "But all my relations have died. That's happened to me."
"No; that happened to them," said Dodo. "You want routing out. Why do you live in the country, for instance? I often think that doctors are so misunderstanding. If you feel unwell and consult a doctor, he usually tells you to leave London at once, and not spend another night there. But for most ailments it would be far more useful if he told you to leave the country at once. It's far more dangerous to get mossy than to get over-done. You can but break down if you get over-done, but if you get mossy you break up."
Dodo had a mistaken notion that she was putting Grantie on her defence. It amused Grantie to keep up that delusion for the present.
"I like a life of dignity and leisure," she said, "though no doubt there is a great deal in what you say. I like reading and thinking, I like going to bed at eleven and looking at my pigs. I like quiet and tranquillity——"
"But that's so deplorable," said Dodo.
"I suppose it is what you call being mossy. But I prefer it. I choose to have leisure. I choose to go to bed early and do nothing particular when I get up."
Dodo pointed an accusing finger at her.
"I've got it," she said. "You are like the poet who said that the world was left to darkness and to him. He liked bossing it in the darkness, and so do you. You train the village choir, Grantie,and it's no use denying it. You preside at mother's meetings, and you are local president of the Primrose League. You have a flower-show in what they call your grounds, just as if you were coffee, on August bank-holiday, and a school-feast. You have a Christmas-tree for the children, and send masses of holly to decorate the church. At Easter, arum lilies."
Miss Grantham began to show that she was not an abject criminal on her defence.
"And those are all very excellent things to do," she said. "I do not see that they are less useful than playing bridge all night, or standing quacking on a stair-case in a tiara, and calling it an evening party."
"Yes, we do quack," conceded Dodo.
"Or spending five hundred pounds on a ball——"
"My dear, that wouldn't do much in the way of a ball," began Dodo.
"Well, a thousand pounds then, if you wish to argue about irrelevancies. All the Christmas-trees and Easter decorations and school-feasts don't cost that——"
"Grantie dear, how marvellously cheap," said Dodo enthusiastically. "What a good manager you must be, and it all becomes more appalling every minute. You know that you don't boss it in the darkness because of the good you do, and the pleasure you give, but because it gives you the impression of being busy, and makes so littletrouble and expense. Now if you ran races, things in sacks, at the school-feasts yourself, and pricked your own delicious fingers with the holly for the Christmas decorations, and watered your flowers yourself for the flower-show, there might be something in it. But you don't do anything of that kind: you only give away very cheap prizes at the school-feast, and make your gardeners cut the holly, and take the prizes yourself at the flower-show. You like bossing it, darling: that's what's the matter, and it's that which has changed you. You don't compete, except at the flower-show, and then it's your gardeners who compete for you. You ought to run races at the school-feast, if you want to be considered a serious person."
"I couldn't run," said Miss Grantham. "If I ran, I should die. That would make a tragic chord at the school-feast, instead of a cheerful note."
"It would do nothing of the sort," said Dodo. "The school-children would remember the particular school-feast when you died with wonderful excitement and pleasure. It would be stored for ever in their grateful memories. 'That was the year,' they would say, 'when Miss Grantham fell dead in the sack-race, and such a lovely funeral.' They wouldn't think it the least tragic, bless them."
To Miss Grantham's detached and philosophic mind this conclusion, when she reflected on it, seemed extremely sound. She decided to pursuethat track no further, for it appeared to lead nowhere, and proceeded violently upwards in a sort of moral lift.
"And then I happen to like culture and knowledge," she said. "I just happen to, in the same way as you like princes. I know you won't agree about the possible advantage of educating yourself. Last night at dinner I heard you say that you had probably forgotten how to read, as you hadn't read anything for so long. That made me shudder. You seem to think that, because I live in the country, I vegetate. You call me mossy, and I am nothing of the kind. I read for three hours a day, wet or fine. I do wood-carving, I play the piano."
Dodo gave a long sigh.
"I know; it sounds lovely," she said. "So does suicide when you have to get up early in the morning. Sometimes Jack and I think we should like to live in a cottage by a river with a bee-hive and a general servant, and nine rows of beans like Mr. Yeats, and lead the simple life. But moral scruples preserve us from it, just as they preserve one from suicide. When I feel that I want to live in the country, I know it is time to take a tonic or go to Ascot. I don't believe for a moment that I was meant to be a 'primrose by the river's brim.' If you go in for being a primrose by the river's brim, you so soon become 'nothing more to him' or to anybody else. If Nature had intended meto be a vegetable, she would have made me more like a cabbage than I am."
Miss Grantham was hardly ever roused by personal criticism, partly because she hardly ever was submitted to it, and partly because it seemed to her to matter so singularly little what anyone else thought of her. But when Dodo began again, "You're a delicious cow," she interrupted firmly and decisively, dropped any semblance of defence and attacked.
"And now it's my turn," she said, "and don't interrupt me, Dodo, by any smart repartees, because they don't impress me in the least. I may be a cabbage—though as a matter of fact, I am not—but I would far sooner be a cabbage than a flea."
"A flea?" asked the bewildered Dodo.
"Yes, dear, I said 'flea.' All the people who live the sort of life which you have deliberately adopted as your own, are precisely like fleas. You hop about with dreadful springs, and take little bites of other people, and call that life. If you hear of some marvellous new invention, you ask the inventor to lunch and suck a little of his blood. Then at dinner you are told that everybody is talking about some new book, so you buy a copy next morning, cut the first fifty pages, leave it about in a prominent place, and ask the author to tea. Meanwhile you forget all about the inventor. Then a new portrait-painter appears, or a new conjuror at the music-halls or a new dancer, and off you hop again and have another bite. Forsome obscure reason you think that that is life, whereas it is only being a flea. I don't in the least mind your being a flea, you may be precisely what you choose. But what I do object to is your daring to disapprove of my way of life, about which you know nothing whatever. You called me narrow——"
"Never!" said Dodo.
"In effect, you called me narrow. Didn't you?" asked Grantie calmly.
"Yes."
"Very well then. When you talk about narrowness, you seem unaware that there is no greater narrowness possible than to adopt that cocksure attitude. You think you are competent to judge modes of living about which you are quite ignorant. What do you know about me?"
Dodo surged out of her chair.
"Grantie dear, we don't understand each other one bit," she said, kissing her. "How sad it all is!"
Grantie remained unmoved and calm.
"I understand you perfectly," she said. "Though I am quite aware you don't understand me."
Dodo suddenly ceased to attend, and held up a silencing finger.
"Listen!" she said.
From the open window of a bedroom just above their seat came a sound sonorous and rhythmical. Dodo had not meant to have the war carried intoher own country, and she was rather glad of an interruption.
"Albert!" she said rapturously. "Albert snoring."
Any text would have done for Grantie's sermon that moment.
"Yes, I hear," she said. "We can all snore, but that particular snoring amuses you, in some odd way, because he's a prince. I don't love you any the less because you are a snob and a flea."
Dodo burst into a peal of laughter.
"Grantie, you're perfect!" she said. "Oh, how little did I think when I began calling you a vegetable, quite conversationally, that you would turn round and hustle me like this. And the worst of it is that you are right. You see, you arrange your ideas, you think what you mean to say, and then say it, whereas I say anything that comes into my head, and try to attach some idea to it afterwards if it's challenged. Usually it isn't, and we talk about something else, and everyone thinks 'What clever conversation!' But really you wrong me: I am something more than a snobbish flea."
"Yes; you're a parody," said Miss Grantham thoughtfully. "That is the deplorable thing about you. You have always made a farce out of your good qualities, and a tragedy out of your bad ones. What a waste! You need never have been either a farce or a tragedy, but just a decent, simple, commonplace woman like me."
Dodo knew perfectly well what Grantie meant by this considered indictment. It needed but the space of an astonished gasp, as this cold hose was sluiced on her, to understand it entirely, and recognise the basic truth of it. She knew to what Grantie alluded as her good points, namely her energy, her quickness, her vivacity, her kindliness. Of these, so said Grantie, she made a farce, used them to cause laughter, to rouse admiration, to make a rocket of herself. And there was no more difficulty in identifying the bad points, out of which tragedies had come. They were just the defects of her qualities, and could easily be grouped together under the general head of egotism.
Quite suddenly, then, there came a deepening in the import of the conversation which had begun so superficially. At first Dodo had used the lightness of touch, in discussing Grantie's mode of life, which, to her mind, befitted such subjects. But now she found herself gripped; something had caught her from below. For some reason—perhaps from having lived so long in the country—Grantie took matters like tastes and conduct and character quite seriously. Dodo did not mind that in the least; it was still she who was being talked about, and thus her egotism was fed. Even if it was being fed with 'thorns and briars of the wilderness,' it was still being attended to.
"Go on," she said. "Explain."
"It's hardly worth while," said Grantie, "becauseyou know it already. But just think of your telling me with disapproval that I have changed! So much the better for me, though you think it is a matter for regret."
"Darling, I never said you weren't quite delightful as you are," said Dodo.
"I wasn't aware that there was any such complimentarynuancein your criticisms," said Grantie. "Anyhow there is none in mine. I find that you have not changed in the least: you are in essentials precisely the same as you always were, and I could weep over you. I talked to Edith last night, when you were taking off the Princess's shoes or something, and she quite agreed with me. She said that you were amazing in the way that you had retained your youth. But she thought that was lovely, and there I disagreed. I find it tragic. It's an awful thing, Dodo, to be youthful at your age, which is the same as mine. If you were worth anything, if you had ever got out of yourself, your life would have changed you. You say that there is a man covered with moss: well, there is a tortoise covered with its bony shell. You remain the same marvellous egotist that you were when you dazzled us all thirty years ago, and it is just because I have changed that I see through you now. You have thought about yourself for fifty-four long years. Aren't you tired of the subject yet?"
Dodo felt a keen sense of injustice in this.
"But you don't understand me," she said."After all, I don't know how you could. You haven't got a husband and a son for whom you would do anything. Oh, and a daughter," she added hastily.
"How you enjoyed saying that!" observed Miss Grantham.
Dodo paid no attention to this very just remark, and went on as if nothing had been said.
"Dear Grantie, you only understand things on your own plane. You don't know what marriage and children mean. But I do; I've been married over and over again. Because you pat other people's children on the head, and give tea and shawls to their parents, you think you know something about devotion."
Miss Grantham looked at her watch.
"If Jack or you had to die in a quarter of an hour's time, that is to say at five minutes to four in horrible agony, which would you choose?" she asked.
"But that's impossible," said Dodo in some agitation. "You are putting ridiculous cases."
"They are ridiculous cases, because you know what your choice would be, and don't want to confess it," said Grantie. "I don't press for an answer, but it was your own fault that I asked the question since you talked nonsense about devotion which I can't understand. I merely inquired into its nature. That's all; it is finished."
"Grantie, I hate you," said Dodo. "Why don'tyou make the best of other people, as I always do?"
"Simply because they insist on making the worst of themselves, and it would be rude to disagree with them," said Grantie.
"You are a sour old maid," said Dodo with some heat.
Miss Grantham spoke to the terrace generally in a detached manner.
"'Why don't you make the best of people as I always do?'" she quoted.
Dodo laughed.
"Oh yes, you scored," she said. "But to be serious a moment instead of pea-shooting each other. I allow you have hit me on the nose several times with devilish accuracy and hard, wet peas. What fun it used to be——"
"To be serious a moment——" said Grantie.
"That's another pea; don't do it. To be serious, as I said before, do you really suppose that you can alter your character? It always seems to me the one unchangeable thing. A thoroughly selfish woman can make herself behave unselfishly, just as a greedy person can starve himself, but they remain just as selfish and greedy as before. Oh, Grantie, I've got a dreadful nature, and the only thing to be done is to blow soap-bubbles all over it, so that it appears to be iridescent."
"You don't really believe that about yourself," said Grantie.
Dodo groaned.
"I know I don't," she said. "I know nothing about myself. When David thinks I am adorable, I quite agree with him, and when you tell me that I am a worm, I look wildly round for the thrush that is going to eat me. There's one on the lawn now; it may be that one. Shoo! you nasty bird!" she cried.
The thrush scudded off into the bushes at the sound of Dodo's shrill voice and clapped hands.
"So it isn't that one. What a relief!" said Dodo. "But what's to be done?"
"Knit!" said Miss Grantham firmly. "Sew! Get out of yourself! Play the piano!"
"But I should only think how beautifully I was playing it," said Dodo. "All you say is true, Grantie; that's the beastly thing about you, but it's all no use. Listen at that fortunate Cherman snoring! He isn't thinking about himself; he's not thinking about anything at all. I wish I was eighty. It's better to be in a bath-chair than in a cage. We are all in cages, at least I am, and you are a raven in a cage. You croak, and you peck me if I come near you. Iron bars do make a cage, whatever Lovelace thought about it, if the iron bars are your own temperament. I can't get out, and isn't it awful?"
Dodo gave a great sigh, and lit a cigarette.
"I shall forget all about it in two minutes," she said, "and that's the really hopeless thing about me. I feel deeply for a few seconds, and then I feel equally deeply about something perfectlydifferent. Just now I long for something to happen which will break the bars or open my cage. And yet it is such a comfortable one. That's the matter with all of us, me with my egotism, and you with your school-feasts. We're all far too cosy and prosperous. 'See saw, Margery Daw!' We're all swinging in an apple-tree. The rope has got to break, and we must all go bump, if we hope for salvation. It must be something big, something dreadful. If Jack lost all his property, and went utterly bankrupt, that wouldn't help me. I should get an old wheezy barrel-organ and parade the streets and squares in London, singing in a cracked voice, and have a lovely time. Or I should get a situation at a tea-shop, or I should chaperon climbers, and it would all amuse me, and I shouldn't change one atom. Really I don't think anything would do me any good except the Day of Judgment.... Thank God, here's Hughie; I am getting rather insane. Hughie, what have you been doing, and if so, are you happy, and if so, how dare you be happy? Why are you happy?"
Hughie considered these questions, and ticked the answers off on his fingers.
"I've been doing nothing," he said, "and I dare to be happy. I don't know why. But again, why shouldn't I be?"
"But why should you? What have you done to deserve it? Catechise him, Grantie, because it's Sunday afternoon, and make him confess that he's got a horrid nature, and ought to be miserable."
"Go ahead," said Hugh. "But it's no use trying to make me confess that I've got a horrid nature. I haven't. I've got rather a nice one."
"Then you are wrapped up in self-esteem," said Dodo, "and I'm better than you."
Hugh, seated on the terrace, looked up at Dodo with the mild, quiet surprise that he exhibited when his aeroplane engine miss-fired.
"Of course you are," he said. "So why not play croquet? Then I shall be better than you."
"But I want to know what makes you happy. Grantie's been stirring me up, and making me feel muddy. I've been telling her all the good reasons why I lead the life that suits me——"
Grantie gave a loud croak of dissent, like the raven to which Dodo had compared her.
"That bears not the most distant relation to truth," she said. "What you have been doing is to give all sorts of bad reasons why I shouldn't lead the life that suits me."
Dodo paid no attention to this.
"And she's been making me say that the Day of Judgment is the only thing that will do me any good. She has been ferreting me out, like a rabbit, and making me confused. It isn't the real me that she has bolted. When you ferret rabbits, you get rabbits that are fussed and frightened and in a hurry; they aren't normal rabbits. Grantie, you are a mixture between a raven and a ferret and a gadfly—a marvellous hybrid, as yet unknown to books on natural history. You have pink eyes, anda horny beak and a sting. I want Jack. Where is Jack? Oh, he's still out with that dear old Cherman governess. And listen—oh, it has stopped!"
Dodo looked up at the window from which the noises of repose had come, and at the moment a large suffused face looked down.
"Also, your garden-party awoke me," said its injured owner. "I was dreaming a pleasant dream, and then in my dream there came noise. I was in the restaurant at the Ritz, and it was dinner, and then people at the next table began talking and laughing, and I could no more attend to my dinner, and then I awoke, and it was all true except the Ritz and the dinner, for there were people talking and laughing, and so I awoke. And so it was a dream, and yet it was not a dream. Where is the Princess? She is not home yet? I will play croquet, and I will win and I will have my tea."
"Yes, do come down, sir," said Dodo. "It was me talking."
"Also, in English you should say 'I' not 'me,'" said this profound scholar.
"No, sir, you shouldn't," said Dodo. "You say 'I' when you're learning English, because that is correct, and when you've learned it you say 'me.'"
"So! Then me will come and play croquet. Ha! You see I have learned English so quickly.First will me put on my white pantaloons, and then I will play croquet. Auf wiedersehen."
Dodo looked across at Grantie.
"You shall play with him," she said in an encouraging whisper. "Devotion to others, darling! Duty! Change! Expansion of soul and development of character! All that we've been talking about which I haven't got."
Dodo strolled away with her son-in-law when she had seen Grantie firmly embarked on a game with the Prince, who played with even more deliberation than his opponents found so wearing when he played bridge, and with a thoroughly East Prussian thoroughness. He very soon made up his mind that he was a player of more resource than Grantie, and so arranged to have a stake of five marks on the game. This made it a peculiarly serious business, and one that entailed a great deal of stooping down behind the ball he was playing with, and accurately aligning his mallet in the direction of the object. Having done this he got up with creaks from his stiff white pantaloons, and clinging to the handle of his mallet, as to a life-buoy, while keeping it unmoved, bent down again to pick up his spectacles which had always fallen off. He answered, in fact, perfectly to Edith's definition of the German spirit as the unhurrying and relentless entity which spared no trouble in securing a certain advance towards its appointed end. As exemplified by Prince Albert the efficiency of this industrious labour had to besupplemented by a ruthless system of cheating. The moment he thought that Miss Grantham's eye was occupied in other directions, he rolled his ball by a stealthy movement of his foot into a more advantageous position for his next stroke, and made any little surreptitious adjustment that might tend to confound his adversary. Unfortunately it was a very short time before Miss Grantham awoke to these manœuvres, and proceeded to take counter-offensive measures of a more than neutralising character. For instance, the moment he had aligned his mallet, and bent down for the second time to pick up his spectacles, she shifted the position of the ball at which he had taken his aim, and if possible, put the wire of a hoop between him and it, or if that was not feasible, merely kicked it a foot or two away, for she had observed that on rising again for the second time he paid no more attention to where the object ball was but devoted his mind to hitting in the direction in which he had laid his mallet. He hit his own ball extremely true. Grantie, so far from having any compunction about this, felt that she was merely doing her proper part; if these were the German rules, it was incumbent on her to observe them.... At other times, if she hoped to make a hoop herself, she merely trundled her ball into an easier position.
Slowly and calmly, like the light of morning, the fact of these manœuvres made to match hisown dawned on him, and he unblushingly proposed an abandonment of these tactics.
"Also, as it is," he said, "first I cheat, and then you cheat. I do not gain if we do so, so where is the use? Always there is a wire when I hit at your ball, and then I go bump, and I do not gain. So no longer will I move my ball, and no longer shall you. Shall that be a bargain, an agreement? There is no gain if we both do so. I did not know that in England you played so."
Dodo had returned by this time, with David holding on to her hand, and heard the ratification of this infamous bargain.
"Oh, Grantie, how I despise you," she said, "and how comfortable that makes me feel. You have lowered yourself, darling; you have come down from your pedestal."
The game had got to an exciting stage, and a loud hoarse voice interrupted.
"Also my ball skipped," cried the Prince. "It ran and rolled and then it did skip over the other ball. It is no game on such a carpet. It is madness to have marks on the game when my ball skips like that. It ran and it rolled and then it skipped. I play for nothing if my ball skips. If again my ball skips, I will pay no marks."
Edith had joined Dodo on the edge of the lawn.
"That's Berlin all over," she observed.
David lifted up a shrill treble.
"Mummie, I don't understand this game," he said very distinctly. "May I cheat when I playcroquet? First he cheated and then she cheated: I watched them from the nursery. And what are marks?"
Dodo devoted her entire attention to David.
"They are slipper-marks," she said brilliantly. "You shall get them if ever I catch you cheating at croquet."
"But has he got——" began David.
"Quantities! Shut up, darling!"
This international event was protracted till dressing-time was imminent, and during the last half-hour of it the Prince was the prey of the most atrocious anxieties. If the game was abandoned, no decision would be reached, and he would not get his five marks, of which he, in the present state of affairs, felt that he was morally possessed. On the other hand, if they fought it out to the bitter stump, dinner must either be put off, which in itself made a tragedy of this pleasant day, or he would be late for dinner, which was almost as terrible. By way of saving time he debated these contingencies very slowly to his wife.
"If I stop I do not win," he said, "and if I do not stop, I may yet be beaten, and also it will be after dinner-time. I am puzzled. I do not know what I shall do. I do not win if I stop——"
"Dearest, you must stop talking," said she briskly, "and go to hit your ball. Dodo will put off dinner till half-past eight, but we cannot all starve because of your five marks."
"But it is not five marks alone," said he. "Itis also glory. Ha! I have thought, and I will tell you what I shall do. I shall play till half-past eight and then if it is not finished, I will come to dinner in my white pantaloons, and I will not clean myself. So!"
"But you cannot dine in your white pantaloons," said she. "It would be too screaming!"
"But I will dine in my white pantaloons, whether they scream, or whether they do not scream. Often have I at Allenstein dined in my white pantaloons, and if I do not clean myself, I am still clean. So do not talk any more, Sophy, for I shall do as I please, and I shall please to dine in my white pantaloons if the game is not over. See! I strike! Ach! I did not stoop. I did not look. But I will not be hurried.... But look, I have hit another ball. That is good! My ball did not skip that time, and I will have five marks. Now you shall see what I do!"
The game came to an end while there was yet time for him to change his white pantaloons, even though there was considerable delay in convincing him that a half-crown, a florin and a sixpence were a true and just equivalent for five marks of the Fatherland. Victory, and the discovery that there was bisque soup for dinner put him into an amazingly good humour which blossomed into a really vivacious hilarity of a certain sort. Incidentally, some racial characteristics emerged.
"Also I am very happy to-night, Lady Dodo," he said. "Not ever have I felt so much hungry,and it is happy to be hungry when soon I shall not any longer be hungry. I will take again of the beef, and I will take also again of the long vegetable with the butter. It is good to be at dinner, and it is good to be in England. All Chermans like to be in England, for there is much to eat and there is much to study. I also study; I look and I observe and again I look and I study. We are great students and all good Chermans are students when they come to England."
Quite suddenly, so it seemed to Dodo, Princess Albert, seated next Jack on the middle of the other side of the table, caught something of what he was saying. In any case, she broke off in the middle of a sentence and leaned across to him.
"Dearest, you are keeping everybody waiting," she said. "Do not talk so much, but attend to your good dinner."
He nudged Dodo with his fat elbow.
"You see, I am a hen-peck," he said. "That is a good term. I am a hen-peck. Good! So I will myself peck the long sprouts with the butter."
He devoted himself to doing so for the next few minutes, and regretfully sucked his buttery fingers.
"I talked of study," he said, "and it is croquet I study, and I have five marks. Chermany is poor compared to rich England, and in Allenstein I play only for three marks when I play croquet. But we Chermans have industry, we have perseverance, also nothing distracts us, but we go on while othersstop still. I am very content to be a poor Cherman in rich England.... No.... I will have no ice! If I am warm inside me, why should I make cold inside me? But soon I will have some port, and I am happy to be here. I could sing, so happy am I."
Once again the Princess must have been listening to him.
"Indeed, dearest, you shall not sing," she said.
He looked at her with a grave replete eye.
"But if I choose, I shall sing," he said, "and if I do not choose then I shall not sing."
Dodo felt that there was something moving below this ridiculous talk, which she could not quite grasp. Some sort of shifting shadow was there, like a fish below water....
"Don't be a hen-peck, sir," she said. "Sing quietly to me."
He leaned a little sideways to her, beating the table softly with his hand. Edith, who was sitting on his other side, caught the rhythm of his beat.
"That's 'Deutschland über alles,'" she said, cheerfully.
He gave her a complicated wink.
"Also, you are wrong," he said. "It is 'Rule Britannia.'"
He leaned forward across the table.
"Sophy," he said. "This is a good joke; you will like this joke. For I thumped with my hand on the table, and this lady here said, 'Also, that is "Deutschland über alles."' And I said to her,'You are wrong.' I said. 'Also, it is "Rule Britannia."' That is a good joke, and you shall tell that to Willie when you write to him. So! We are all pleased. Ach! The ladies are going. I will rise, and then I will sit down again."
Edith went straight to the piano in the next room, and without explanation, thumped out "Rule Britannia." She followed it up with the "Marseillaise."
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 anyof hisdicta, 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 letteroffice 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. Aboutmy 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 theTimes. 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 glimpseinto 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 morningwith 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 touchin 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 mentionof 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 ofMaharajahs. 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 hostessand 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 extremelyrare 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 onthat 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 wentoff 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 anddidn'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 onthe 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 notworking 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 addressedthe 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.