THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
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suddenly, and this morning—yes, yes—"
Mrs. Vane started up distractedly.
"Oh, my poor Dodo," she cried, "I never knew! And here I am enjoying myself, when she—Maud, did you hear? Dodo's baby—only this morning. My poor Dodo!"
She began crying in a helpless sort of way.
Maud turned round with a face full of horror.
"How awful! Poor Dodo! Come, mother, we must go."
Mr. Spencer dropped his English and Italian version.
"Let me see you to your carriage," he said. "Let me give you an arm, Mrs. Vane."
Maud turned to Jack, and for once showed some of Dodo's spirit.
"Mr. Broxton," she said, "I have an idea you knew. Perhaps I am wrong. If I am, I beg your pardon; if not, I consider you have behaved in a way I didn't expect of you, being a friend of Dodo's. I think—" she broke off, and followed the others. Jack felt horribly uncomfortable.
He and Edith and Miss Grantham stood in silence for a moment.
"It was horrible of you, Grantie," said Edith, "to let them sit here, and tell them nothing about it."
"My dear Edith, I could do nothing else," said Miss Grantham, in an even, calm voice. "There would have been a scene, and I can't bear scenes. There has been a scene as it is, but you are responsible for that. You are rather jumpy to-night. Where have you been?"
"I have been to see Mrs. Vivian," said Edith. "I wanted to know about this. I told her I was coming back here, and she gave me this for you, Mr. Broxton."
She handed him a note. Then she picked up her big score, and sat down again with her pencil.
The note contained only two lines, requesting Mr. Broxton to come and see her in the morning. Jack read it and tore it up. He felt undecided how to act. Edith was buried in her score, and gave no sign. Miss Grantham had resumed her place, and was gazing languidly, at the box opposite. He picked up his hat, and turned to leave. Edith looked up from her score.
"I think I ought to tell you," she said, "that Mrs. Vivian and I talked about you, and that note is the result. I don't care a pin what you think."
Jack opened his eyes in astonishment. Edith had always struck him as being rather queer; and this statement seemed to him very queer indeed. Her manner was not conciliatory.
He bowed.
"I feel complimented by being the subject of your conversation," he replied with well-bred insolence, and closed the door behind him.
Miss Grantham laughed. A scene like this pleased her; it struck her as pure comedy.
"Really, Edith, you are very jumpy; I don't understand you a bit. You are unnecessarily rude. Why did you say you did not care a pin what he thought?"
"You won't understand, Grantie," said Edith. "Don't you see how dangerous it is all becoming? I don't care the least whether I am thought meddlesome. Jack Broxton is awfully in love with Dodo, anyone can see that, and Dodo evidently cares for him; and that poor, dear, honest fool Chesterford is completely blind to it all. It was bad enough before, but the baby's death makes it twice as bad. Dodo will want to be amused; she will hate this retirement, and she will expect Mr. Broxton to amuse her. Don't you see she is awfully bored with her husband, and she will decline to be entirely confined to his company. While she could let off steam by dancing and riding and so on, it was safe; she only met Mr. Broxton among fifty other people. But decency, even Dodo's, will forbid her to meet those fifty other people now. And each time she sees him, she will return to her husband more wearied than before. It is all too horrible. I don't suppose she is in love with Jack Broxton, but she finds him attractive, and he knows it, and he is acting disgracefully in letting himself see her so much. Everyone knows he went abroad to avoid her—everyone except Dodo, that is, and she must guess. I respected him for that, but now he is playing the traitor to Chesterford. And Mrs. Vivian quite agrees with me."
"Oh, it's awfully interesting if you're right," said Miss Grantham reflectively; "but I think you exaggerate. Jack is not a cad. He doesn't mean any harm. Besides, he is a great friend of Chesterford's."
"Well, he's got no business to play with fire," said Edith. "His sense of security only increases the real danger. If Chesterford knew exactly how matters stood it would be different, but he is so simple-hearted that he is only charmed to see Jack Broxton, and pleased that Dodo likes him."
"Oh, it's awfully interesting," murmured Miss Grantham.
"I could cry when I think of Chesterford," said Edith. "The whole thing is such a fearful tragedy. If only they can get over this time safely, it may all blow over. I wish Dodo could go out again to her balls and concerts. She finds such frantic interest in everything about her, that she doesn't think much of any particular person. But it is this period, when she is thrown entirely on two or three people, that is so dangerous. She really is a frightful problem. Chesterford was a bold or a blind man to marry her. Oh, I can't attend to this opera to-night. I shall go home. It's nearly over. Faust is singing hopelessly out of tune."
She shut her book, and picked up her fan and gloves.
"Dear Edith," said Miss Grantham languidly, "I think you mean very well, but you are rather over-drawing things. Are you really going? I think I shall come too."
Jack meantime was finding his way home in a rebellious and unchristian frame of mind. In the first place, he had just lost his temper, which always seemed to him to be a most misdirected effort of energy; in the second place, he resented Edith's interference with all his heart and soul; and in the third, he did not feel so certain that she was wrong. Of course he guessed what Mrs. Vivian's wish to see him meant, for it had occurred to him very vividly what consequences the death of the baby would have on him and Dodo: and he anticipated another period like that which had followed the birth. Jack could hardly dare to trust himself to think of that time. He knew it had been very pleasant to him, and that he had enjoyed Dodo's undisturbed company during many days in succession, but it was with a certain tingling of the ears that he thought of the events of the morning, and his mad confession to her. "I have a genius for spoiling things," thought Jack to himself. "Everything was going right; I was seeing Dodo enough to keep me happy, and free from that hateful feeling of last autumn, and then I spoilt it all by a stupid remark that could do no good, nor help me in any conceivable way. How will Dodo have taken it?"
But he was quite sure of one thing—he would not go and see Mrs. Vivian. He was, he felt, possessed of all the facts of the case, and he was competent to form a judgment on them—at any rate Mrs. Vivian was not competent to do it for him. No, he would give it another chance. He would again reason out the pros and cons of the case, he would be quite honest, and he would act accordingly.
That he should arrive at the same conclusion was inevitable. The one thing in the world that no man can account for, or allow for, is change in himself. If Jack had been able to foresee, when he went abroad, that he would be acting thus with regard to Dodo, he would have thought himself mad, and it would have been as impossible for him to act thus then, as it was inevitable for him to act thus now. If we judge by our own standards, and our own standards alter, we cannot expect our verdicts to remain invariable. Under a strong attachment a man drifts, and he cannot at any one moment allow for, or feel the force of the current, for he is moving in it, though he thinks himself at rest. The horrible necessities of cause and effect work in us, as well as around us. As Edith had said, his sense of security was his danger, for his standard of security was not the same as it had been.
He sat down and wrote a note to Mrs. Vivian, saying that he regretted being unable to call on her to-morrow, and purposely forebore to give any reason. He had considerable faith in her power of reading between the lines, and the fact, baldly stated, was an unnecessary affront to her intellect.
Mrs. Vivian read the note with very little surprise, but with a good deal of regret. She was genuinely sorry for him, but she had other means at her disposal, though they were not so pleasant to use. They involved a certain raking up of old dust-heaps, and a certain awakening of disagreeable memories. But it never occurred to