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Book Cover]
DODO'S DAUGHTER
DODO'SDAUGHTER
A SEQUEL TO DODO
* * * * *
BYE. F. BENSON
* * * * *
NEW YORKTHE CENTURY CO.1914
Copyright, 1913, byTHE CENTURY CO.
DODO'S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER I
Nadine Waldenech's bedroom was a large square apartment on the groundfloor at her mother's cottage at Meering in North Wales. It was rather alarge cottage, for it was capable of holding about eighteen people, butDodo was quite firm in the subject of its not being a house. In the dayswhen it was built, forty years ago, this room of Nadine's had been thesmoking-room, but since everybody now smoked wherever he or she chose,which was mostly everywhere, just as they breathed or talked whereverthey chose, Nadine with her admirable commonsense had argued uselessnessof a special smoking-room, for she wanted it very much herself, and hermother had been quite convinced. It opened out of the drawing-room, andso was a convenient place for those who wished to drop in for a littlemore conversation after bed-time had been officially proclaimed.Bed-time, it may be remarked, was only officially proclaimed in order toget rid of bores, who then secluded themselves in their tiresomechambers.
The room at this period was completely black with regard to the colorof carpet and floor and walls and ceiling. That was Nadine's last planand since it was the last, of necessity, a very recent one. She hadobserved that when it was all white, people looked rather discolored,like mud on snow, whereas against a black background they seemed to beof gem-like brilliance. But since she always looked brilliant herself,the new scheme was prompted by a wholly altruistic motive. She liked herfriends to look brilliant too, and she would have felt thus even if shehad not been brilliant herself, for out of a strangely compoundednature, anything akin to jealousy had been certainly omitted. There hadbeen a good many friends in her bedroom lately, and there were a certainnumber here to-night. She expected more. Collectively they constitutedthat which was known as the clan.
The bed was an enormous four-poster with mahogany columns at the cornersof it. At present it was occupied by only three people. She herself layon the right of it with her head on the pillow. She had already takenoff her dinner-dress when her first visitor arrived, and had on aremarkable dressing-gown of Oriental silk, which looked like a family ofintoxicated rainbows and, leaving her arms bare, came down to her feet,so that only the tips of her pink satin shoes peeped out. In the middleof the bed was lying Esther Sturgis, and across it at the foot BertieArbuthnot the younger, who was twenty-one years old and about the samenumber of feet in height. In consequence his head dangled over one sidelike a tired and sunburnt lily, and his feet over the other. He and hishostess were both smoking cigarettes as if against time, the ash ofwhich they flicked upon the floor, relighting fresh ones from a silverbox that lay about the center of the bed. They neither of them had theslightest idea what happened to the smoked-out ends. Esther Sturgis onthe other hand was occasionally sipping hot camomile tea. What she didnot sip she spilt.
"Heredity is such nonsense," said Nadine crisply, speaking with thatprecision which the English-born never quite attain. "Look at me, forinstance, and how nice I am, then look at Mama and Daddy."
Esther spilt a larger quantity of camomile tea than usual.
"You shan't say a word against Aunt Dodo," she said.
"My dear, I am not proposing to. Mama is the biggest duck that everhappened. But I don't inherit. She had such a lot of hearts--it soundslike bridge--but she had, and here am I without one. First of all shemarried poor step-papa--is it step-papa?--anyhow the Lord Chesterfordwhom she married before she married Daddy. That is one heart, but Ithink that was only a little one, a heartlet."
"Rhyme with tartlet," said Bertie, as if announcing a great truth.
"But we are not making rhymes," said Nadine severely. "Then she marriedDaddy, which is another heart, and when she married him--of course youknow she ran away with him at top-speed--she was engaged to the otherLord Chesterford, who succeeded the first."
"Oh, 'Jack the Ripper,'" said Esther.
Bertie raised his head a little.
"Who?" he asked.
"Jack Chesterford, because he is such a ripper," said Nadine. "And he'scoming here to-morrow. Isn't it a thrill? Mama hasn't seen himsince--since she didn't see him one day when he called, and found shehad run away--"
"Did he rip anybody?" asked Bertie, who was famed for going on askingquestions, until he completely understood.
"No, donkey. You are thinking of some criminal. Mama was engaged to him,and she thought she couldn't--so _she_ ripped--let her rip, is itnot?--and got married to Daddy instead. He was quite mad about darlingMama, but recovered very soon. He made a very bad recovery. Don'tinterrupt, Berts: I was talking about heredity. Well, there's Mama, andDaddy, well, we all know what Daddy is, and let me tell you he is thebest of the family, which is poor. He is a gentleman after all, whateverhe has done. And he's done a lot. Indeed he has never had an idlemoment, except when he was busy!"
Esther gave a great sigh: she always sighed when she appreciated, andappreciation was the work of her life. She never got over thewonderfulness of Nadine and was in a perpetual state of deep-breathing.She admired Bertie too, and they used often to talk about gettingengaged to each other some day, in a mild and sexless fashion. But theywere neither of them in any hurry.
"Aren't your other people gentlemen?" he asked. "I thought in Austriayou were always all right if you quartered yourself into sixteen parts."
Nadine threw an almost unsmoked cigarette upon the floor with a hugeshow of impatience.
"Of course one has the ordinary number of great-grandparents, else youwouldn't be here at all," she said, "and you quarter anything youchoose. Two quarterings of my great-grandfathers were hung and drawnapart from their quarterings. But really I don't think you understandwhat I mean by gentlemen. I mean people who have brains, and who havetastes and who have fine perceptions. English people think they know thedifference between the _bourgeoisie_ and the aristocrats. How wrong theyare! As if living in a castle like poor Esther's parents had anything todo with it! Look at some of your marquises--Esther darling, I don't meanLord Ayr--what cads! Your dukes? What Aunt Sallys! Always making thefloat-face, don't you call it, the _betise_, the stupidity. Is that thearistocracy? Great solemn Aunt Sallys and the rest brewers! Show me anidea: show me a brain, show me somebody with the distinction thatthoughts and taste bring about. I do not want a mere busy prating monkeythinking it is a man. But I want people: somebody with a man or womaninside it. Ah! give me a grocer. That will do!"
Bertie put down his head again.
"Let us be calm," he said. "I'll find you a grocer to-morrow."
Nadine laughed. She had a curiously unmelodious but wonderfullyinfectious laugh. People hearing it laughed too: they caught it. Butthere was no sound of silvery bells. She gave a sort of hiccup and thengurgled.
"I get too excited over such things," she said. "And when I get excitedI forget my English and talk execrably. I will be calm again. I do notmean that a man is not a gentleman because he is stupid, but much more Ido not mean that quarterings make him one. The whole idea is soobsolete, so Victorian, like the old mahogany sideboards. Who caresabout a grandfather? What does a grandfather matter any more? They usedto say 'Move with the Times.' Now we move instead with the 'Daily Mail.'I am half foreign and yet I am much more English than you all. The worldgoes spinning on. If we do not wish to become obsolete we spin to
o. Ihate the common people, but I do not hate them because they have nograndfathers, but just because they are common. I hate quantities ofyour de Veres for the same reason. Their grandfathers make them no lesscommon. But also I hate your sweet people, with blue eyes, of whom thereare far too many. Put them in bottles like lollipops, and let them sticktogether with their own sugar."
There was a short silence. Bertie broke it.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Going on twenty-two. I am as old as there is any need to be. There isonly one person in the house younger than me, and that is darling Mama.She is twenty."
Esther gave another huge sigh. She appreciated Nadine very much, but shewas not sure that she did not appreciate Aunt Dodo more. It may beremarked that there was no sort of consanguinity between them: therelationship was one of mere affection. She had a mother and Dodo mustbe the next nearest relative. Frankly, she would have liked to changethe relationship between the two. And yet you could say things to anaunt who wasn't an aunt more freely than to a woman who happened to beyour mother. Apart from natural love, Esther did not care for hermother. She would not, that is to say, have cared for her if she hadbeen somebody else's mother, and indeed there was very little reason todo so. She had a Roman nose and talked about the Norman Conquest, whichin the view of her family was a very upstart affair. She had not a kindheart, but she had an immense coronet in her own right, and had marriedanother. Indeed she had married another coronet twice: there was apositive triple crown on her head like the Pope. In other respects alsoshe was like a Pope, and was infallible with almost indecent frequency.Nadine loved to refer to her as "Holy Mother." She felt herselfperfectly capable of managing everybody's affairs, and instead of beingas broad as she was long, was as narrow as she was tall, and resembledan elderly guardsman.
Her degenerate daughter finished her sigh.
"Go on about your horrible family," she said to Nadine. "I think it's soillustrious of you to see them as they are."
The door opened without any premonitory knock, and Tommy Freshfieldentered with a large black cigar in his mouth. He was rather short, andhad the misfortune to look extremely dissipated, whereas he washopelessly, almost pathetically, incapable of anything approachingdissipation. He put down his bedroom candle and lay down on the bed nextEsther Sturgis.
"Have you been comforting Hughie?" she asked.
"Yes, until he went to play billiards with the Bish-dean. He used to bea bishop but subsequently became a dean. I think Aunt Dodo believes heis a bishop still. Lots of bishops do it now, he told me; it is the sameas putting a carriage-horse out to grass: there is no work, but lesscorn. Hughie's coming up here when he's finished his game."
The appreciative Esther sat up.
"It's too wonderful of him," she said. "Nadine, Hugh is coming up heresoon. Do be nice to him."
Nadine sat up also.
"Of course," she said. "Hughie has such tact, and I love him for it.Berts has none: he would sulk if I had just refused to marry him andvery likely would not speak to me till next day."
"You haven't had the chance to refuse me yet," remarked Berts.
"That is mere scoring for the sake of scoring, Berts darling," said she."But Hugh--"
"O Nadine, I wish you would marry him," said Esther. "It would make youso gorgeously complete and golden. Did you refuse him absolutely? Orwould you rather not talk about it?"
Nadine turned a little sideways on the bed.
"No, we will not talk of it," she said. "What else were we saying? Ah,my family! Yes, it is a wonder that I am not a horror. Daddy is the pickof the bunch, but such a bunch, _mon Dieu_, such wild flowers; and poorDaddy always gets a little drunk in the evening now; and to-night he wasso more than a little. But he is such an original! Fancy his coming tostay with Mama here only a year after she divorced him. I think it istoo sweet of her to let him come, and too sweet of him to suggest it.She is so remembering, too: she ordered him his particular brandy,without which he is never comfortable, and it is most expensive, as wellas being strong. Well, that's Daddy: then there are my uncles: suchhistories. Uncle Josef murdered a groom (there is no doubt whateverabout it) who tried to blackmail him. I think he was quite right; and Idaresay the groom was quite right, but it is a horrible thing toblackmail; it is a cleaner thing to kill. Then there is Uncle Anthonywho ought to have been divorced like Daddy, but he was so mean andcareful and sly that they could do nothing with him. There was neveranything careful about Daddy."
She was ticking off these agreeable relations on her white fingers.
"Then Grandpapa Waldenech committed suicide," she said, "and GrandpapaVane fell into a cauldron at his own iron-works and was utterly burnt.So ridiculous; they could not even bury him, there was nothing left,except the thick smoke, and they had to open the windows. Then theaunts. There was Aunt Lispeth who kept nothing but white rats in herhouse in Vienna, hundreds and hundreds there were, the place crawledwith them. Daddy could not go near it: he was afraid of their not beingreal, whereas I was afraid because they were real. Then there is AuntEleanor who stole many of Daddy's gold snuff-boxes and said the Emperorhad given them her. Of course it was a long time before she was eversuspected, for she was always going to church when she was not stealing;she made quite a collection. Aunt Julia is more modern: she only caresabout the music of Strauss and appendicitis."
Berts gave a sympathetic wriggle.
"I had appendicitis twice," he said, "which was enough, and I went toElectra once which was too much. How often did Aunt Julia haveappendicitis?"
"She never had it," said Nadine. "That is why she is so devoted to it,an ideal she never attains. It is about the only thing she has neverhad, and the rest fatigue her. But she always goes to the opera wheneverthere is Strauss, because she cannot sleep afterwards, and so lies awakeand thinks about appendicitis. I go to the opera too, whenever there isnot Strauss, in order to think about Hugh."
"And then you refuse him?"
"Yes, but we will not talk of it. There is nothing to explain. He islike that delicious ginger-beer I drank at dinner in stone bottles. Youcan't explain! It is ginger-beer. So is Hugh."
"I had a bottle of it too," said Bertie. "More than one, I think. I hatewine. Wine is only fit for old women who want bucking up. There's an oldman in the village at home who's ninety-five, and he never touched wineall his life."
"That proves nothing," said Nadine. "If he had drunk wine he might havebeen a hundred by now. But I like wine: perhaps I shall take afterDaddy."
A long ash off Tommy Freshfield's cigar here fell into Esther's camomiletea. It fizzed agreeably as it was quenched, and she looked enquiringlyinto the glass.
"Oh, that's really dear of you, Tommy," she said. "I can't drink anymore. John always insists upon my taking a glass of it to go to bedwith."
"Your brother John is a prig, perhaps the biggest," said Nadine.
Esther reached out across Tommy, who did not offer his assistance andput down her glass on the small table at the head of the bed.
"I hope there's no doubt of that," she said. "John would be very muchupset if he thought he wasn't considered a prig. He is a snob too, whichis so frightfully Victorian, and thinks about lineage. Of course hetakes after mother. I found him reading Debrett once."
"What is that?" asked Nadine.
"Oh, a red book about peers and baronets," said Esther rather vaguely."You can look yourself up, and learn all about yourself, and see who youare."
"Poor John!" said Nadine. "He had his camomile tea brought into thedrawing-room to-night while he was talking to the bishop about Gothicarchitecture and the, well--the state of Piccadilly. He was asking ifconfirmation was found to have a great hold on the masses. The bishopdidn't seem to have the slightest idea."
"John would make that all right," said his sister. "He would tell him.Nadine, why does darling Aunt Dodo so often have a bishop staying withher?"
Nadine sighed.
"Nobody really understands Mama except me," she said. "I thought per
hapsyou did, Esther, but it is clear you don't. She is religious, that'swhy. Just as artistic people like artists in their house, so religiouspeople like bishops. I don't say that bishops are better than otherpeople, any more than R.A.'s are finer artists, but they are recognizedprofessionals. It is so: you may think I am laughing or mocking. But Iam not. Give me more pillow, and Berts, take your face a little furtherfrom my feet. Or I shall kick it, if I get excited again, withoutintending to, but it will hurt you just the same."
Bertie followed this counsel of commonsense.
"That seems a simple explanation," he said.
Esther frowned; she was not quite so well satisfied.
"But is darling Aunt Dodo quite as religious when a bishop doesn'thappen to be here?" she asked. "I mean does she always have familyprayers?"
"No, not always, nor do you go to your slums if there is anything veryamusing elsewhere."
"But what have they got to do with religion?" asked Bertie.
"Haven't they something to do with it? I thought they had. I know Estherlooks good when she has been to the slums; though of course, it's quitedelicious of her to go. Still if it makes you feel good, it isn't whollyunselfish. There is nothing so pleasant as feeling good. I felt good theday before yesterday. But after all there are exactly as many ways ofbeing religious as there are people in the world. No one means quite thesame. I feel religious if I drive home just at dawn after a ball whenall the streets are clean and empty and pearl-colored. Darling Daddyfeels religious when he doesn't eat meat on Thursday or Friday,whichever it is, and he has his immediate reward because he has the mostdelicious things instead--truffles stuffed with mushrooms or mushroomsstuffed with truffles. Also he drinks a good deal of wine that day,because you may drink what you like, and he likes tremendously. He has aparticular _chef_ for the days of meager, who has to sit and think forsix days like the creation, and then work instead."
Nadine gurgled again.
"I suppose I shock you all," she said; "but English people are sounexpected about getting shocked that it is no use being careful. Butthey don't get shocked at what they do or say themselves. Whatever theydo themselves they know must be all right, and they take hands and sing'Rule Britannia.' They are the _enfant terrible_ of Europe. They puttheir big stupid feet into everything and when they have spoiled it all,so that nobody cares for it any longer, they ask why people are vexedwith them! And then they go and play golf. I am getting very Englishmyself. Except when I talk fast you would not know I was not English."
Esther, since her camomile tea was quite spoiled, took a cigaretteinstead, which she liked better.
"Well, darling, you know every now and then you are a shade foreign,"she said. "Especially when you talk about nationalities. As a nation Ibelieve you positively loathe us. But that doesn't matter. It's he andshe who matter, not they."
Bertie had sat up at the mention of golf and was talking to Tommy.
"Yes, I won at the seventeenth," he said. "I took it in three. Twosmacks and one put."
"Gosh," said Tommy.
"I wish I hadn't mentioned that damned game," said Nadine verydistinctly. "You will talk about golf now till morning."
"Yes, but you needn't. Go on about Daddy," said Esther.
"Certainly he is more interesting than golf, and gets into just as manyholes. He is a creature of Nature. He falls in love every year, when thehounds of spring--"
A chorus interrupted her.
"Are on winter's traces, the mother of months--"
"Oh, ripping!" said Bertie.
"Yes. How _chic_ to have written that and to have lived at Putney," saidNadine. "Mama once took me to see Mr. Swinburne and told me to kiss hishand as soon as ever I got into the room. So when we got in, there wasone little old man there, and I kissed his hand; but it was not Mr.Swinburne at all, but somebody quite different."
Again the door opened, and a woman entered, tall, beautiful, vital.There was no mistaking her. The others had not been lacking in vitalitybefore, but she brought in with her a far more abundant measure. She wasforty-five, perhaps, but clearly her age was the last thing to bethought about with regard to her. You could as well wonder what was theage of a sunlit wave breaking on the shore, or of a wind that blew fromthe sea. Everybody sat up at once.
"Mama darling, come here," said Nadine, "and talk to us."
Princess Waldenech looked round her largely and brilliantly.
"I thought I should find you all here," she said. "Nadine dear, ofcourse you know best, but is it usual for a girl to have two younggentlemen lying about with her on one bed? I suppose it must be, sinceyou all do it. Are they all going to bed here? Have they brought theirtooth-brushes and nighties? Berts, is that you, Berts? Really one canhardly see for the smoke, but after all this used to be thesmoking-room, and I suppose it has formed the habit. Berts, you fiend,you made me laugh at dinner just when Bishop Spenser was telling meabout the crisis of faith he went through when he was a young man sothat he nearly became a Buddhist instead of a bishop. Or do Buddhistshave bishops, too? Wasn't it dreadful? He's a dear, and he gives all hismoney away to endow other bishops, both black and white--like chess. Ofcourse he isn't a bishop any more, but only a dean, but he keeps hisBible like one. Hugh is playing billiards with him now, and told me in awhisper that he marked three for every cannon he made. Of course Hughiecouldn't tell him it only counted two. It would have seemed unkind. Hughhas such tact."
"What I was saying," said Nadine. "Mama, he proposed to me again thisevening, and I said 'no' as usual. Is he depressed?"
"No, dear, not in the least except about the cannons. Probably you willsay 'yes,' sometime. And I want a cigarette and something to drink, andto be amused for exactly half an hour, when I shall take myself topieces and go to bed. I hate going to bed and it adds to the depressionto know that I shall have to get up again. If only I could be aChristian Scientist I should know that there is no such thing as a bed,and that therefore you can't go there. On the other hand that would befatiguing I suppose."
Tommy gave her a cigarette, and Nadine fetched her mother her bedroombottle of water out of which she drank freely, having refused camomiletea with cigar ash in it.
"Too delicious!" she said. "Nadine darling, do marry Hugh before you aretwenty-two. Nowadays if girls don't marry before that they take a flator something and read at the British Museum till they are thirty andhave got spectacles, without even getting compromised--"
"Compromised? Of course not," cried Nadine. "You can't get compromisednow. There is no such thing as compromise. We die in the ditch sooner,like poor Lord Halsbury. Being compromised was purely a Victorian sortof decoration like--like crinolines. Oh, do tell us about thosedelicious Victorian days about 1890 when you were a girl and peoplethought you fast and were shocked."
"My dear, you wouldn't believe it," said Dodo; "you would think I wasdescribing what happened in Noah's Ark. Bertie and Tommy, for instance,would never have been allowed to come and lie on your bed."
"Oh, why not?" asked Esther.
"Because you and Nadine are girls and they are boys. That sounds simplenonsense, doesn't it? Also because to a certain extent boys and girlsthen did as older people told them to, and older people would have toldthem to go away. You see we used to listen to older people because theywere older; now you don't listen to them, for identically the samereason. We thought they were bores and obeyed them; you are perfectlysweet to them, but they have learned never to tell you to do anything.You would never do what I told you, dear, unless you wanted to."
"No, Mama, I suppose not. But I always do what you tell me, as it is,because you always tell me to do exactly what I want to."
Dodo laughed.
"Yes, that is just what education means now. And how nicely we getalong. Nobody is shocked now, in consequence, which is much better forthem. You can die of shock, so doctors say, without any other injury atall. So it is clearly wise not to be shocked. I was shocked once, when Iwas eight years old, because I was taken to the dentist without be
ingtold. I was told that I was to go for an ordinary walk with my sisterMaud. And then, before I knew where I was, there was my mouth open asfar as my uvula, and a dreadful man with a mirror and pincers waslooking at my teeth. I lost my trust in human honor, which I have sincethen regained. I think Maud was more shocked than me. I think itconduced to her death. You didn't remember Auntie Maud, Nadine, did you?You were so little and she was so unrememberable. Yes; a quantity ofworsted work. But that's why I always want the bishop to come wheneverhe can."
"I don't see why, even now," said Nadine.
"Darling, aren't you rather slow? Bishop Spenser, you know, who wasAuntie Maud's husband. Surely you've heard me call him Algie. Who evercalled a bishop by his Christian name unless he was a relation? Maudknew him when he was a curate. She fluffed herself up in him, just asshe used to do in her worsted, and nobody ever saw her any more. But Iloved Maud, and I don't think she ever knew it. Some people don't knowyou love them unless you tell them so, and it is so silly to tell yoursister that you love her. I never say I love you, either, and I don'tsay I love Esther, and that silly Berts, and serious Tommy. But what'sthe use of you all unless you know it? Nadine, ring the bell, please. Itall looks as if we were going to talk, and I had no dinner to speak of,because I was being anxious about Daddy. I thought he was going to talkHungarian; he looked as if he was, and so I got anxious, because he onlytalks Hungarian when he is what people call very much on. Certainly hewasn't off to-night; he is off to-morrow. And so I want food. If I ambeing anxious I want food immediately afterwards, as soon as the anxietyis removed. At least I suppose Daddy has gone to bed. You haven't gothim here, have you? Fancy me being as old as any two of you. You are allso delightful, that you mustn't put me on the shelf yet. But just think!I was nice the other day to Berts' sister, and she told her mother shehad got a new friend, who was quite old. 'Not so old as Grannie,' shesaid, 'but quite old!' And all the time I thought we were being girlstogether. At least I thought I was; I thought she was rathermiddle-aged. How is your mother, Berts? She doesn't approve of me, but Ihope she is quite well."
Bertie also was a nephew by affection.
"Aunt Dodo," he said, "I think mother is too silly for anything."
"I knew something was coming," said Dodo; "what's she done now?"
"Well, it is. She said she thought you were heartless."
"Silly ass," said Esther. "Go on, Berts."
Berts felt goaded.
"Of course mother is a silly ass," he said. "It's no use telling methat. Your mother is a silly ass, too, with her coronets and all thatsort of fudge. But altogether there is very little to be said for peopleover forty, except Aunt Dodo."
"Beloved Berts," remarked Dodo. "Go on about Edith."
"But it is so. They're all antiques except you, battered antiques. Let'stalk about mothers generally. Look at Esther's mother. She doesn't wantme to marry Esther because my father is only an ordinary Mister. There'sa reason! And I don't want to marry Esther because her mother is amarchioness. After all, mine has done more than hers, who never didanything except cut William the Conqueror when he came over, and tellhim he was of very poor, new family. But my mother wrote the 'DodsSymphony' for instance. She's something; she was Edith Staines, and whenshe has her songs sung at the Queen's Hall, she goes and conducts them."
"Bertie, in a short skirt and boots with enormous nails," said Esther.
"And why not? She may be a silly ass in some things, but she's donesomething."
Bertie uncoiled all his yards of height and stood up.
"You began," he said. "I'm only answering you back. Lady Ayr has neverdone anything at all except talk about her family. She doesn't thinkabout anything but family: she's the most antiquated and absurd type ofsnob there is. And your ridiculous brother John is exactly the same.You're the most awful family, and make one long for grocers, likeNadine."
"Darling, what do you want a grocer for?" asked Dodo.
But Berts had not finished yet.
"And as for your brother Seymour, all that can be said about him is thathe is a perfect lady," he said, "but he ought to have been drowned whenhe was a girl, like a kitten."
Esther shouted with laughter.
"Oh, Berts, I wish you would be roused oftener," she said; "I absolutelyadore you when you are roused. But you aren't quite right about Seymour.He isn't a lady any more than he's a gentleman. And after all he has gota brain, a real brain."
"Well, it takes all sorts to make a world," said Dodo, "and, Estherdear, I'm often extremely grateful to Seymour. He will always come todinner at the very last moment--"
"That's because nobody else ever asks him," said Bertie, still fizzingand spouting a little. "That's one of the objections to marrying you,Esther, you will always be letting him come to dinner."
"Be quiet, Berts. As I say, he never minds how late he is asked, and heinvariably makes himself charming to the oldest and plainest womanpresent. Here, for instance, he would be making himself pleasant to me."
"Poor chap!" said Berts, lighting another cigarette, and lying downagain.
A tray with some cold ham, a plate of strawberries, and a small jug oficed lemonade which had been ordered by Nadine for her mother was herebrought in by a perfectly impassive footman, and placed on the bedbetween her and Nadine. No servants in Dodo's house ever felt thesmallest surprise at anything which was demanded of them, and if Nadinehad at this moment asked him to wash her face, he would probably havemerely said, "Hot or cold water, miss?"
Nadine had not contributed anything to this discussion on Seymour,because she was almost inconveniently aware that she did not know whatshe thought about him. Certainly he had brains, and for brains she hadan enormous respect.
"Seeing things to eat always makes me feel hungry," said Nadine,absently taking strawberries, "just as the sight of a bed makes me verywide-awake. It is called suggestion. Really the chief use of going tobed is that you are alone and have time to think."
"And that is so exhausting that I instantly go to sleep," remarkedTommy.
"You get--how do you call it--into training, if you practise, Tommy,"said Nadine. "People imagine that because they have a brain they canthink. It isn't so: you have to learn to think. You have a tongue, butyou must learn to talk: you have arms and yet you must learn how to playyour foolish golf."
"You don't learn it, darling," said Dodo.
"Mama, you are eating ham and have not been following. Really it is so.Most people can't think. Esther can't: she confesses it."
"It's quite true," said Esther. "I felt full of ideas this morning, andso I went away all alone along the beach to think them out. But Icouldn't. There were my ideas all right, and that was all. I couldn'tthink about them. There they were, ideas: just that, framed and glazed."
Tommy rose.
"I'm worse than that," he said. "I never have any ideas. In some waysit's an advantage, because if we all had ideas, I suppose we should wantto express them. As it is I am at leisure to listen."
Dodo took a long draught of lemonade.
"I have one idea," she said, "and that is that it's bed-time. I shall goand exhaust myself with thought. The process of exhaustion does not takelong. Besides, if I sit up much later than twelve, my maid always pullsmy hair, and whips my head with the brush instead of treating mekindly."
"I should dismiss her," said Nadine.
"I couldn't, dear. She is so imbecile that she would never get anothersituation. Ah, there's Hugh! Hugh, did poor Algie Balearic-isles beatyou?"
A very large young man had just appeared in the doorway. He held in hishand a sandwich out of which he had just taken an enormous semi-circularbite. The rest of it was in his mouth, and he spoke with the mumblingutterance necessary to those who converse when their mouths are quitefull.
"Oh, is that where he comes from?" he asked.
"No, my dear, that is where he went to; then of course since he is herehe did come from them in a sense. Dear me, if he had been bishop thereabout fifty years earlier, he might ha
ve copied Chopin. How thrilling!"
"Yes, the Isles won," said Hugh, his voice clearing as he swallowed."Oh, Aunt Dodo"--this again was a relationship founded only onaffection--"he said your price was beyond rubies. So I said 'What pricerubies?' and as he didn't understand nor did I, we parted. What a lot ofpeople there seems to be here! I came to talk to Nadine. Oh, there sheis. Or would it be better taste if I didn't? Perhaps it would. I shallgo to bed instead."
"Then what you call taste is what I call peevishness," said Nadinesuccinctly.
"I don't understand. What is better peevishness, then?"
"You take me at the foot of the letter," said she. "You see what Imean."
"Yes. I see that you mean 'literally.' But in any case there are toomany people, chiefly upside down from where I am. That's Esther, isn'tit, and Berts? Tommy is the right way up. Nadine upside down also."
Esther got up.
"Why, of course, if you want to talk to Nadine, we'll go," she said.
Bertie gave a long sigh.
"I shall lie here," he said, "like the frog-footman on and off for daysand days--"
"So long as you lie off now," said Hugh.
Bertie got up.
"You can all come to my room if you like," he said, "as long as youdon't mind my going to bed. Good-night, Nadine; thanks awfully forletting me lie down. It has made me quite sleepy."
Hugh Graves went to the window as soon as they had gone and threw itopen.
"The room smells of smoke and stale epigrams," he said in explanation.
"That's not very polite, Hugh," said she, "since I have been talkingmost, and not smoking least. But I suppose you will answer that youdidn't come here to be polite."
In a moment, even as the physical atmosphere of the room altered, soalso did the spiritual. It seemed to Nadine that she and Hugh took handsand sailed through the surface foam and brightnesses in which they hadbeen playing into some place which they had made for themselves, whichwas dim and sub-aqueous. The foam and brightness was all perfectlysincere, for she was never other than sincere, but it had no more thanthe sincerity of soap-bubbles.
"No. I didn't come here to be polite," said Hugh, "though I didn't comehere to be rude. I came to ask you a couple of questions."
Nadine had lain down on the bed again, having put all the pillows behindher, so that she was propped up by them. Her arms were clasped behindher head, and the folds of her rainbow dressing-gown fell back from themleaving them bare nearly to the shoulder. The shaded light above her bedfell upon her hair, burnishing its gold, and her face below it was dimand suggested rather than outlined. The most accomplished of coquetteswould, after thought, have chosen exactly that attitude and lighting, ifshe wanted to appear to the greatest advantage to a man who loved her,but Nadine had done it without motive. It may have been that it was aninstinct with her to appear to the utmost advantage, but she would havedone the same, without thought, if she was talking to a middle-ageddentist. Hugh had seated himself at some little distance from her, andthe same light threw his face into strong line and vivid color. He hadstill something of the rosiness of youth about him, but none of youth'sindeterminateness, and he looked older than his twenty-five years. Whenhe was moving, he moved with a boy's quickness; when he sat still he satwith the steadiness of strong maturity.
"You needn't ask them," she said. "I can answer you without that. Theanswer to them both is that I don't know."
"How? Do you know the questions yet?" said he.
"I do. You want to know whether my answer to you this evening is final.You want also to know why I don't say 'yes.'"
His eyes admitted the correctness of this: he need not have spoken.
"After all, there was not much divination wanted," he said. "I am asobvious as usual. And you understand me as well as usual."
She shook her head at this, not denying it, but only deprecating it.
"I always understand you too well," she said. "If only I didn'tunderstand you, just as I don't understand Seymour, you have suggested areason for why I don't say 'yes.' I think it is correct. Ah, don't quotesilly proverbs about love's being complete understanding. Most of theproverbs are silly; Solomon was so old when he wrote them."
His mouth uncurled from its gravity.
"That wasn't one of Solomon's," he said.
"Then it might have been. In any case exactly the opposite is true. Iflove is anything at all beyond the obvious physical sense of the word,it is certainly not understanding. It is the not-understanding--"
"Mis-understanding?"
"No. The not-understanding, the mysterious, the unaccountable--" Nadinegathered her legs up under her and sat clasping them round the knees,and her utterance grew more rapid. Her face, young and undeveloped, andwhite and exquisite, was full of eager animation.
"That is what I feel anyhow," she said. "Of course I can't say 'this islove' and 'this is not love,' and label other people's emotions. Thereis one way of love and another way of love, and another and another.There are as many modes of love, I suppose, as there are people who arecapable of it. And don't tell me everybody is capable of it. At least,tell me so if you like, but allow me to disagree. All I am certain of isthat I look for something which you don't give me. Perhaps I amincapable of love. And if I was sure of that, Hughie, I would marry you.Do you see?"
She, as was always the case with her, made him forget himself. When hewas with her, she absorbed his consciousness: his only desire was tofollow her, not caring where she led. This desire to apprehend hercorrugated his forehead into the soft wrinkles of youth, and narrowedhis eyes.
"Tell me why that is not a bad reason," he said.
"Because I should see that the highest would be denied me," she said."Look what quantities of people marry quite without love. I don't referto the obvious reason of marrying for position or wealth, but to thepeople who marry from admiration or from fear. Mama, for instance: shemarried Daddy because she was afraid of him. Then she learned he was abogey with a brandy bottle."
"I am neither," said he.
Nadine gave a little sigh, and he saw his stupidity.
"I am supplying the answer to my own question," he said. "Another answeris that I don't understand you."
Somehow to Nadine this was unexpected, but almost instantly sherecognized the truth of it.
"That is true," she said. "I want to be the inferior, mentally,spiritually, of the man I marry. I am just the opposite of thoseterrible people who want a vote, and say they are the equal of men. Thatis so _bourgeois_ an idea. What woman with any self-respect could standbeing her husband's equal if she felt herself capable of loving? It isthat. You are too easy, Hugh. I understand you, and you don't understandme. I wish it was the other way round."
"Oh, you do wish that?" he asked.
"Yes, of course, my dear."
"Then you have answered the other question. Your answer to me to-day isnot final. I'll puzzle you yet."
"You speak of it all as if it was a conjuring trick," she said. "Don'tmake conjuring tricks. Don't let me see your approaching engagement tosomebody else be announced. That would not puzzle me at all. I shallsimply see that it was meant to. Conjuring tricks don't mystify you: youknow you have been cheated and don't care."
"No, I shan't make conjuring tricks," he said.
Nadine unclasped her knees, and got up, and began walking to and froacross the big room.
"Hugh, I wish I was altogether different," she said. "I wish I was likeone of those simple girls whom you never by any chance meet outside thecovers of six-shilling novels. They are quite human, only no human girlwas ever like them. They like music and food and sentiment andsea-bathing and playing foolish games, just as we all do. But there isnobody behind them: they are tastes without character. If only one'scharacter was nothing more than the sum total of one's tastes, howextraordinarily simple it would all be. We should spend our lives inmaking ourselves pleasant and enjoying ourselves. But there is somethingthat sits behind all our tastes, and though those tastes express
it,they do not express it all, nor do they express its essence. I amsomething beyond and back of the things I like, and the people I like.Something inside me says 'I want: I want.' I daresay it wants the moon,and has as much chance of getting it as I have of reaching up into thesky and pulling it down. Oh, Hugh, I want the moon, and what will themoon be like? Will it be hard and cold or soft and warm? I don't care. Ishall slip it between my breasts and hold it close."
She paused a moment opposite him.
"Am I talking damned rot?" she asked. "I daresay I am. I am a rotterthen, because all I say is me. Another thing, too: morally, I am not inthe least worthy of you. I don't know any one who is. I don't really,and I'm not flattering you, because I don't rate the moral qualitiesvery high. They are compatible with such low organizations. Earwigs, Iread the other day, are excellent mothers. How that seems to alter one'sconception of the beauty of the maternal instinct! It does not alter myconception of earwigs in the least, and I shall continue to kill anyexcellent mothers that I find in my room."
Hugh laughed suddenly and uproariously and then became perfectly graveagain.
"Your moral organization is probably extremely low," he said. "But Isettled long ago to overlook that."
"Ah, there we are again," said Nadine. "You deliberately propose tomisconceive me, with the kindest intentions I know, but with how wrong aprinciple. You shut your eyes to me, as if--as if I was a smut! Yousettle to overlook the fact that I have no real moral perception. Couldyou settle to overlook the fact if I had no nose and only one tooth? Iassure you the lack of a moral nature is a more serious defect. But,poor devil that I am, how was I to get one? We were talking aboutheredity before you came in--"
Nadine paused a moment.
"As a matter of fact," she said, "I was telling them that there was notruth in heredity. We will now take the other side of the question. Howwas I, considering my family, to have moral perceptions?"
"Are you being quite consistent?" asked Hugh.
"Why should I be consistent? Who is consistent except those simplepeople whom you buy so many of for six shillings, and they areconsistently tiresome. How, I said, was I to have got moral perception?There is Daddy! If I was a doctor I would certify any one to be insanewho said Daddy was a moral organism. There is darling Mama! I wouldhorse-whip any one who said the same of her, for his gross stupidity andinsolence. The result is me; I am more pagan than Heliogabalus. I do notthink that anything is right or that anything is wrong. I want the moon,but I am afraid you are not the man in it."
"And now you are flippant."
"Flippant, serious, moral, immoral," cried Nadine, "do not label me likeluggage. You will tell me my destination next, shall we call itAbraham's bosom? Dear Hugh, you enrage me sometimes. Chiefly you enrageme because you have such an angelic temper yourself. I am not sure thatan angelic temper is an advantage: it is always set fair, and there areno surprises. Ah, how it all leads round to that: there are nosurprises: I understand you too well. I am very sorry. Do me the justiceto believe that. Really I believe that I am as sorry that I can't marryyou as you are."
Hugh got up.
"I don't think I do quite believe that," he said. "And now as regardsthe immediate future. I think I shall go away to-morrow."
This time he succeeded in surprising her.
"Himmel, but why?" she said.
"If you understood me as well as you say, you would know," he said. "Idon't find my own heart a satisfactory diet. Of course, if I thought youwould miss me--"
Nadine was quite silent for a moment.
"You shall go if you like, of course," she said. "But you do me the mostfrightful injustice: you understand nothing about me if you think Ishould not miss you. You cannot be so dull as not to know that I shouldmiss you more than if everybody else went, literally everybody, leavingme alone. But go if you wish."
She walked across to the window, which Hugh had thrown open, and leanedout. A moon rode high in mid-sky, and to the West a quarter of a mileaway and far below the sea glimmered like a shield of dim silver. Belowthe window the ground sloped sharply away down to the gray tumbled sanddunes that fringed the coast, and all lay blurred and melted under theuncertain light. And when she turned round again Hugh saw that her eyeswere blurred and melted also.
"Do exactly as you please, Hughie," she said.
He laughed.
"Would you be surprised if I did not go?" he asked.
She came towards him with both hands out.
"Ah, that is dear of you," she said. "Look out of the window with me amoment: how dim and mysterious. There is my moon which I want so much,too. I will build altars and burn incense to any god who will give itme. If only I knew what it was. My moon, I mean! Now perhaps as it isnearly two o'clock, we had better go to bed, Hughie. And I am so sorrythat things are as they are."