Dodo Trilogy - Complete Edition: Dodo, Dodo's Daughter & Dodo Wonders. E. F. Benson
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but I can't be married to you too," remarked Jack.
"You're absurd," said Dodo; "but really, Jack, I wish you'd marry someone else. I sha'n't think you unfaithful."
"I don't flatter myself that you would," said Jack, with a touch of irritation.
Dodo looked up rather surprised at the hard ring in his voice. She thought it wiser to ignore this last remark.
"I never can quite make out whether you are ambitious or not," she said. "Now and then you make me feel as if you would rather like to go and live in a small cathedral town——"
"And shock the canons?" suggested Jack.
"Not necessarily; but cultivate sheer domesticity. You're very domestic in a way. Bertie would do admirably in a cathedral town. He'd be dreadfully happy among dull people. They would all think him so brilliant and charming, and the bishop would ask him over to dine at the palace whenever anyone came down from London."
"I'm not ambitious in the way of wanting to score small successes," said Jack. "Anyone can score them. I don't mind flying at high game and missing. If you miss of course you have to load again, but I'd sooner do that than make a bag of rabbits. Besides, you can get your rabbits sitting, as you go after your high game. But I don't want rabbits."
"What is your high game?" asked Dodo.
Jack considered.
"It's this," he said. "You may attain it, or at any rate strive after it, by doing nothing, or working like a horse. But, anyhow, it's being in the midst of things, it's seeing the wheels go round, and forming conclusions as to why they go round, it's hearing the world go rushing by like a river in flood, it's knowing what everyone thinks about, it's guessing why one woman falls in love with one man, and why another man falls in love with her. You don't get that in cathedral towns. The archdeacon's daughter falls in love with the dean's son, and nobody else is at all in love with either of them. The world doesn't rattle in cathedral towns, they take care to oil it; the world doesn't come down in flood in cathedral towns, there is nothing so badly regulated as that. I don't know why I should choose cathedral towns particularly to say these things about. I think you suggested that I should live in one. If you like you can plunge into the river in flood and go down with it—that's what they call having a profession—but it's just as instructive to stand on the bank and watch it; more instructive, perhaps, because you needn't swim, and can give your whole attention to it. On the whole, that is what I mean to do."
"That's good, Jack," said Dodo; "but you're not consistent. The fact that you haven't been going out lately, shows that you're standing with your back to it, with your hands in your pocket. After all, what you say only conies to this, that you are interested in the problem of human life. Well, there's just as much human life in your cathedral town."
"Ah, but there's no go about it," said he. "It's no more like life than a duck pond is to the river in flood."
"Oh, you're wrong there," said Dodo. "It goes on just the same, though it doesn't make such a fuss. But in any case you are standing with your back to it now, as I said."
"I'm going into details, just at present," said Jack.
"How do you mean?"
"I'm watching a little bit of it."
"I suppose you mean Chesterford and me. Do you find us very interesting?" demanded Dodo.
"Very."
Jack was rather uncomfortable. He wanted to say more, and wished he hadn't said so much. He wondered how Dodo would take it.
Dodo did not take it at all. She was, for the time at any rate, much more interested in Jack's prospects as they concerned him, than as they bore on herself.
"What is the upshot of all your observations?" she asked.
Jack hardly knew whether to feel relieved or slighted. Was Dodo's apparent unconsciousness of the tenor of what he had said genuine or affected? On that he felt a great deal depended. But whether it was genuine or not, the matter was closed for the present. Dodo repeated her question.
"My observations on you, or on the world in general?" he asked.
"Either will do," said Dodo; "we're very normal. Any conclusion you have formed about the rest of the world will apply to us."
"My conclusion is that you are not quite normal," said he.
Dodo laughed.
"Oh, I'm dreadfully normal," she said; "all my inconsistencies lie on the surface—I'm married, I've got a baby, I'm honest, I'm lazy. I'm all I should and shouldn't be. And Chesterford——"
"Oh, then Chesterford's normal too," said Jack.
Chapter Nine
June was drawing to a close in a week of magnificent weather. It was too hot to do much during the middle of the day, and the Park was full of riders every morning from eight till ten. Dodo' was frequently to be seen there, usually riding a vicious black mare, that plunged and shied more than Lord Chesterford quite liked. But Dodo insisted on riding it.
"The risks one runs every moment of one's life," she told him, "are so many, that one or two more really don't matter. Besides, I can manage the brute."
On this particular morning Dodo descended the stairs feeling unusually happy. The period of enforced idleness was over, and she was making up for lost time with a vengeance. They had given a dance the night before, and Dodo had not gone to bed till after four; but for all that she was down again at half-past eight, and her mare was waiting for her. She turned into the dining-room to have a cup of tea before starting, and waited somewhat impatiently for Lord Chesterford to join her. He came in, in the course of a few minutes, looking rather worried.
"You look as if you had not gone to bed for a week," said Dodo, "and your hair is dreadfully untidy. Look at me now. Here I am a weak little woman, and I feel fit to move mountains, and you look as if you wanted quinine and iron. Don't come, if you'd rather not. Stop at home and play with the baby."
"I'm all right," said he, "but I'm rather worried about the boy. The nurse says he's not been sleeping much all night, but kept waking and crying, and he looks rather flushed. I think I'll send for the doctor."
Dodo felt a little impatient.
"He's as right as possible," she said. "You shouldn't worry so, Chesterford. You've wanted to send for the doctor a hundred times in the last month, either for him or me. But don't come if you'd rather not. Vivy is coming to breakfast at half-past nine; I quite forgot that. If you feel inclined to stop, you might give her breakfast, and I'll lengthen my ride. I shall be back at half-past ten. She's going to take me to see Wainwright's new Turner."
"Are you sure you don't mind, Dodo?" said he, still wavering. "If you don't, I really think I will stop, and perhaps see the doctor about him. The nurse says she would like to have the doctor here."
"Just as you like," said Dodo. "You'll have to pay a swinging bill anyhow. Good-bye, old boy. Don't worry your silly old head. I'm sure it's all right."
Dodo went off perfectly at ease in her mind. Chesterford was rather fussy, she thought, and she congratulated herself on not being nervous. "A pretty pair we should make if I encouraged him in his little ways," she said to herself. "We should one of us, live in the nursery." She put her horse into a quick trot, and felt a keen enjoyment in managing the vicious animal. The streets were somewhat crowded even at this hour, and Dodo had her work cut out for her.
However, she reached the Park in safety, and went up the How at a swinging gallop, with her horse tearing at the rein and tossing its head. After a time the brute grew quieter, and Dodo joined a well-known figure who was riding some way in front of her.
"Good old Jack," she cried, "isn't it splendid! I had no idea how I loved motion and exercise and dancing and all that till