THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
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happy, for he told me, you know, it was the last thing he said—that I was to marry you. It is a long time ago, oh, how long ago, though I say it to my shame. Besides, if you are to pull down or put away all that reminds me of that dreadful young woman"—Dodo put out her tongue and made a face at her own picture—"you will have to pull down the house and drink up the lake and cut down the trees. Ah, how lovely the garden looks! I was never here in the summer before: we only came for the shooting and hunting and the garden invariably consisted of rows of blackened salvias and decaying dahlias. But it is summer now, Jack."
There was no mistaking the figurative sense in which she meant him to understand the word "summer." It had been winter, winter of discontent—so the glance she gave him inevitably implied—when she was here before, and she rejoiced in and admired this excellent glory of summer-time. And yet but a moment before the picture in the hall had "hurt" her, until she remembered that even on his death-bed her first husband had bidden her marry the man who had brought her back here to-day. She had neglected to do as she was told for about a quarter of a century, and had married somebody else instead, and yet this amazing variety of topics that concerned her heart, any one of which, you would have expected, was of sufficient import to fill her mind to the exclusion of all else, but bowled across it, as the shadows of clouds bowl across the fields on a day of spring winds, leaving the untarnished sunshine after their passage. It was not because she was heartless that she touched on this series of somewhat tremendous topics: it was rather that her vitality instantly reasserted itself: it was undeterred, impervious to discouraging or disturbing reflections.
Dodo ate what may be termed a good tea, and smoked several cigarettes. Then noticing that a small golf links had been laid out in the fields below the garden, she rushed indoors to change her dress, and play a game with her husband.
"It won't be much fun for you, darling," she said, "because my golf is a species of landscape gardening, and I dig immense hollows with my club and alter the lie of the country generally. Also I sometimes cheat, if nobody is looking, so admire the beauties of nature if you hear me say that I have a bad lie, because if you looked you would see me pushing the ball into a pleasanter place, and that would give you a low opinion of me. But a little exercise would be so good for us both after being married: the Abbey was terribly stuffy."
The fifth hole brought them near the memorial chapel in the Park, where her first husband was buried.
"Darling, that puts you five up," she said, "and would you mind waiting here a minute, while I go in alone? I don't want even you with me: I want to go alone and kneel for a minute by his grave, and say my prayers, and tell him I have come back again with you. Will you wait for a minute, Jack? I shan't be long."
Dodo wasn't long: she said her prayers with remarkable celerity, and came out again wiping her eyes.
"Oh, Jack," she said, "what a beautiful monument: it wasn't finished, you know, when I went away and I hadn't seen it. And it's so touching to have just those three words, 'Lead, kindly Light': the dear old boy was so fond of that hymn. It's all so lovely and peaceful, and if ever there was a saint in the nineteenth century, it was he. Somehow I felt as if he knew about us and approved, and I remember we had 'Lead, kindly Light' on the very last Sunday evening of all. I am so glad I went in."
Dodo gave a little sigh.
"Where are we?" she said. "Am I one hole up or two? Two, isn't it? Do let it be two. And what a lovely piece of marble. It looks like the most wonderful cold cream turned to stone. It must be Carrara. Oh, Jack, what a beautiful drive! It went much faster than the legal limit."
The flames of the summer-sunset were beginning to fade in the sky when they got back to the house, and it was near dinner-time. Dodo's spirits and appetite were both of the most excellent order, and all the memories that this house brought back to her, so far from causing any aching resuscitation of past years, were, owing to the incomparable alchemy of her mind, but transformed into a soft and suitable background for the present. Afterwards, they sat on the terrace in the warm dusk.
"I must telegraph to Nadine to-morrow," she said, "and tell her how happy I am. Jack, sometimes Nadine seems to me exactly what I should expect a very attractive aunt to be. Do you know what I mean? I feel she could have warned me of all the mistakes I have made in my life, before they happened, if she had been born. And she approves of you and me; isn't it lucky? I wonder why I feel so young on the very day on which I should most naturally be thinking what a lot of life has passed. Jack, I don't want any more events. Some people reckon life by events, and that is so unreasonable. Events are thrust upon you; what counts is what you feel."
He moved his chair a little nearer to hers.
"I am satisfied with what I feel," he said. "And though I have felt it for very many years, it has never lost its freshness. I have always wanted, and now I have got."
Suddenly Dodo's mood changed.
"Oh, you take a great risk," she said. "Who is to assure you that I shan't disappoint you, disappoint you horribly? I can't assure you of that, Jack. It is easy to understand other people, but the silly proverb that tells you to know yourself, makes a far more difficult demand. If I disappoint you, what are we to do?"
"You can't disappoint me if you are yourself," he said.
"You say that! To me, too, who have outraged every sort of decency with regard to you?"
He was silent a moment.
"Yes, I say that to you," he said.
Dodo gave a little bubbling laugh.
"You are not very polite," she said. "I say that I have outraged every sort of decency and you don't even contradict me."
"No. What you say is—is perfectly true. But the comment of you and me sitting here on our bridal night is sufficient, is it not? Dodo, there is no use in your calling yourself names. Leave it all alone: we are here, you and I. And it is getting late, my darling."
The same night Lady Ayr was giving one of her awful dinner-parties. Her family, John, Esther and Seymour were always bidden to them, and went in to dinner in exactly their proper places as sons and daughters of a marquis. Before now it had happened that Seymour had to take Esther in to dinner, and it was so to-night. But in the general way they saw so little of each other, that they did not very much object. They usually quarreled before long, but made their differences up again by their unanimity of opinion about their mother. That had already happened this evening.
"Mother is bursting with curiosity about Aunt Dodo's wedding," said Esther. "She wasn't asked. I told her it was a very pretty wedding."
"I went," said Seymour, "and I am going to write an account of it for The Lady. If you will tell me how you were dressed, I will put it in, that is supposing you were decently dressed. Mother asked me about it, too, and I think I said the bridesmaids looked lovely."
"But there weren't any," said Esther.
"Of course there weren't, but it enraged her. By the way, there is some awful stained glass put up in the staircase since I was here last. A ruby crown has apparently had twins, one of which is a sapphire crown and the other a diamond crown. I shouldn't mind that sort of thing happening, if it wasn't so badly done. I shall try to break it by accident after dinner. Did you design it? My dear, I forgot: we had finished quarreling. Let us talk about something else. Nadine came to see me the other day, and if you will not tell anybody, I think it quite likely that I shall marry her. She likes jade. And she looks quite pretty to-night, doesn't she?"
Esther had already alluded to Nadine, who was sitting opposite, as the dream of dreams, and further appreciation was unnecessary.
"You don't happen to have asked her yet?" she said, with marked neutrality.
"No, one doesn't ask that sort of thing until one knows the answer," said he. "That is, unless you are one of the ridiculous people who ask for information. I hate the information I get by asking, unless I know it already."
"And then you don't get it."
"No. Esther, that is a charming emerald you are wearing but it is atrociously set. If you will send it round to-morrow,