THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
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all the afternoon. You might read the second lesson for us; no, I think I shall read both. Yes, Edith, I'll come in a few minutes. I don't know of any musical footmen. You might have them up one by one and make them sing scales, and Jack can try the housemaids' voices. I'm awfully glad Herr Truffen is coming. He's a tremendous German swell, Mrs. Vivian, and conducts at the Crystal Palace, and St. James's, and St. Paul's and everywhere."
"That will be charming," said Mrs. Vivian. "I shall certainly avail myself of it, Dodo, if I may, only I think I shall go to church first with Lord Chesterford. He has promised to show me all his schemes for the village. I think Maud means to go too. But if you will let me, I will go to my room, and write a few letters, and then you will be free to practise. It will be a great pleasure to hear your Mass, Miss Staines; I am very fortunate in coming just in time."
"Really, Dodo," said Edith, "you ought to cultivate the musical talents of your establishment. Last winter I was in the Pyrenees, and there was only an old sexton, who was also a charcoal burner, and my maid, and Charlie and his valet and his wife, but we had magnificent music, and a midnight service on New Year's Eve. Charlie took tenor, and Sybil treble, and I alto, and the sexton bass. You have no idea of the trouble it was to get the sexton to learn his part. I had to hunt him up in those little brutal sheds, and thrust the book into his hand, and forbid him to eat chestnuts, and force him to drink porter and Spanish liquorice. Come on; let's begin."
The practice went off satisfactorily, and Edith expressed herself as pleased. She and Dodo then had a talk to arrange what Dodo called the "Play-bill." Dodo had arranged to read the lessons, and wished to make a small selection of prayers, but there Edith put her foot down.
"No, Dodo," she said, "you're taking a wrong idea of it. I don't believe you're serious. Now I am. I want to do this Mass because I believe we can do it well, but I haven't the least confidence in your reading prayers well, or caring at all about them. I am rather in doubt about the lessons, but I suppose we can have those."
It was distinctly news to Dodo that Edith was serious. For herself she had only wished to have a nice little amusement for Sunday morning, which, in Dodo's experience, was rather a tiresome time if you stopped at home, but on the whole preferable there than at a country church. But Edith was really in earnest whatever she did, whether it was shooting, or music, or playing lawn-tennis. Frivolity, was the one charge she could not brook for a moment. Her amusements might, indeed, be frivolous, but she did them with all her heart. So the service was arranged to consist of a lesson, a Mass, and another lesson. The choice of lessons was left to Dodo. Accordingly, next morning Lord Chesterford and Mrs. Vivian drove off with Maud to eleven o'clock church, leaving the others still at breakfast. After that meal was over Dodo announced she was going to get the drawing-room ready.
"We must move all the sofas out of the room, because they don't look religious," she said; "and I shall cover up the picture of Venus and Adonis. I have got the sweetest little praying-table upstairs, and a skull. Do you think we'd better have the skull, Edith? I think it makes one feel Sunday-like. I shall put the praying-table in the window, and shall read the lessons from there. Perhaps the skull might frighten old Truffler. I have found two dreadfully nice lessons. I quite forgot the Bible was such a good book. I think I shall go on with it. One of them is about the bones in Ezekiel, which were very dry—you know it—and the other is out of the Revelation. I think——"
"Dodo," broke in Edith, "I don't believe you're a bit serious. You think it will be rather amusing, and that's all. If you're not serious I sha'n't come."
"Dear Edith," said Dodo demurely, "I'm perfectly serious. I want it all to be just as nice as it can be. Do you think I should take all the trouble with the praying-table and so on, if I wasn't?"
"You want to make it dramatic," said Edith decidedly. "Now, I mean to be religious. You are rather too dramatic at times, you know, and this isn't an occasion for it. You can be dramatic afterwards, if you like. Herr Truffen is awfully religious. I used to go with him to Roman Catholic services, and once to confession. I nearly became a Roman Catholic."
"Oh, I should like to be a nice little nun," said Dodo; "those black and white dresses are awfully becoming, with a dear trotty rosary, you know, on one side, and a twisty cord round one's waist, and an alms-box. But I must go and arrange the drawing-room. Tell me when your conductor comes. I hope he isn't awfully German. Would he like some beer first? I think the piano is in tune. I suppose he'll play, won't he? Make him play a voluntary, when we come in. I'm afraid we can't have a procession though. That's a pity. Oh, I'm sorry, Edith. I'm really going to be quite serious. I think it will be charming."
Dodo completed her arrangements in good time, and forebore to make any more frivolous allusions to the service. She was sitting in the drawing-room, regarding her preparations with a satisfied air, when Herr Truffen was announced. Dodo greeted him in the hall as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be called upon to accompany Edith's Mass.
"We're going to have service directly, if you're ready. We want you to accompany Miss Staines's Mass in G flat, but you mustn't take the Kyrie too quick, if you don't mind. Bertie Arbuthnot's singing tenor, and he's not very quick—are you, Bertie? Oh, by the way, this is Bertie. His other name is Mr. Arbuthnot."
Herr Truffen was most gratified by so charming an arrangement, and so great a musical treat. When Edith came down she greeted him effusively.
"My dear Professor, this is delightful," she said. "It's quite like old times, isn't it? We're going to do the Mass in G flat. I wanted the one in A, only there are no French horns in the village—isn't that benighted? And would you believe it, Lady Chesterford has positively got not one musical footman."
Herr Truffen was a large, spectacled German, who made everyone else look unnecessarily undersized.
He laughed and fitted his fingers together with great nicety.
"Are we to begin at once?" he asked. "The congregation—haf they arrived?"
"Oh, there's no congregation," explained Dodo; "we are all performers. It is only a substitute for going to church. I hope you aren't shocked; it was such a disgusting morning."
"Lady Chesterford is surely a congregation in herself," remarked Herr Truffen, with elephantine elegance.
"Lord Chesterford is coming by-and-by," continued Dodo. "He has gone to church. I don't know whether he will be in time for the Mass."
"Then you haf all the service in a little chapel here, no doubt," said the Professor.
"Oh, no," said Dodo; "we're going to have two lessons and the Mass, and there isn't a chapel, it's only in the drawing-room. I'm going to read the lessons."
Herr Truffen bowed with undiminished composure, and Dodo led the way back into the drawing-room.
Miss Grantham and Jack were introduced, and Dodo took her place at the praying-table, and Herr Truffen at the piano. Dodo gave out the lesson, and read the chapter through..
"Oh, it is nice!" she exclaimed. "Sha'n't I go on to the next chapter? No, I think I won't."
"It would spoil the delightful impression of the very dry bones?" interrogated Herr Truffen from the piano. "Ah, that is splendid; but you should hear it in the Fatherland tongue."
"Now, Dodo, come here," said Edith. "We must go on with this. You can discuss it afterwards. On the third beat. Will you give us the time, Professor?"
The Mass had scarcely begun when Lord Chesterford came in, followed by Mrs. Vivian and Maud. The Professor, who evidently did not quite understand that he was merely a sort of organist, got up and shook hands all round with laboured cordiality. Edith grew impatient.
"Come," she said, "you mustn't do that. Remember you are practically in church, Professor. Please begin again."
"Ah, I forgot for the moment," remarked the Professor; "this beautiful room made me not remember. Come—one, two. We must begin better than that. Now, please."
This time the start was made in real earnest. Edith's magnificent voice, and the Professor's playing, would alone have been sufficient to make it effective. The four performers knew their parts well,