The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
in Tristan is absolute child's play. I could perform it myself with a week's practice."
Dodo had been engaged in a small incendiary operation among the heather, with the match with which she had lit her cigarette. For the moment it seemed that her incendiarism was going to fulfil itself on larger lines than she had intended.
"Jack, I have set fire to Wales, like Lloyd George," she cried. "Stamp on it with your great feet. What great large strong feet! How beautiful are the feet of them that put out incendiary attempts in Wales! About Bertie, Edith, if you will stop playing that lamentable flute for a moment—"
"Flute?" asked Edith.
"Trombone, if you like. The point is that your vitality hasn't inspired Bertie; it has only drained him of his. You set out to give him life, and you have become his vampire. I don't say it was your fault: it was his misfortune. But Berts is calm enough to keep your family going. The real question is about mine. Yes, Jack, that was where Hughie went into the sea, when the sea was like Switzerland. And those are the reefs, before which, though it's not grammatical, he had to reach the boat. He swam straight out from where your left foot is pointing. A Humane Society medal came for him yesterday, and Nadine pinned it upon his bed-clothes. He says it is rot, but I think he rather likes it. She pinned it on while he was asleep, and he didn't know what it meant. He thought it was the sort of thing that they give to guards of railway trains. The dear boy was rather confused, and asked if he had joined the station-masters."
Jack shaded his eyes from the sun.
"And a big sea was running?" he asked.
"But huge. It broke right up to the cliffs at the ebb. And into it he went like a duck to water."
Edith got up.
"I have heard enough of Hugh's trumpet blown," she said.
"And I have heard enough of the cor anglais," said Dodo. "Dear Edith, will you go away and play it there? You see, darling, Jack came out this morning to talk to me, and I came out to talk to him. Or we will go away if you like: the point is that somebody must."
"I shall go and play golf," said Edith with dignity. "I may not be back for lunch. Don't wait for me."
Dodo was roused to reply to this monstrous recommendation.
"If I had been in the habit of waiting for you," she said, "I should still be where I was twenty years ago. You are always in a hurry, darling, and never in time."
"I was in time for dinner last night," said Edith.
"Yes, because I told you it was at eight, when it was really at half past."
Edith blew a melancholy minor phrase.
"Leit-motif," she said, "describing the treachery of a friend."
"Tooty, tooty, tooty," said Dodo cheerfully, "describing the gay impenitence of the same friend."
Edith exploded with laughter, and put the cor anglais into its green-baize bag.
"Good-by," she said, "I forgive you."
"Thanks, darling. Mind you play better than anybody ever played before, as usual."
"But I do," said Edith passionately.
Dodo leaned back on the springy couch of the heather as Edith strode down the hillside.
"It's not conceit," she observed, "but conviction, and it makes her so comfortable. I have got a certain amount of it myself, and so I know what it feels like. It was dear of you to come down, Jack, and it will be still dearer of you if you can persuade Nadine to go back with you to Winston."
"But I don't want to go back to Winston. Anyhow, tell me about Nadine. I don't really know anything more than that she has thrown Seymour over, and devotes herself to Hugh."
"My dear, she has fallen head over ears in love with him."
"You are a remarkably unexpected family," Jack allowed himself to say.
"Yes; that is part of our charm. I think somewhere deep down she was always in love with him, but, so to speak, she couldn't get at it. It was like a seam of gold: you aren't rich until you have got down through the rock. And Hugh's adventure was a charge of dynamite to her; it sent the rock splintering in all directions. The gold lies in lumps before his eyes, but I am not sure whether he knows it is for him or not. He can't talk much, poor dear; he is just lying still, and slowly mending, and very likely he thinks no more than that she is only sorry for him, and wants to do what she can. But in a fortnight from now comes the date when she was to have married Seymour. He can't have forgotten that."
"Forgotten?" asked Jack.
"Yes; he doesn't remember much at present. He had severe concussion as well as that awful breakage of the hip."
"Do they think he will recover completely?" asked Jack.
"They can't tell yet. His little injuries have healed so wonderfully that they hope he may. They are more anxious about the effects of the concussion than the other. He seems in a sort of stupor still; he recognizes Nadine of course, but she hasn't, except on that first night, seemed to mean much to him."
"What was that?"
"He so nearly died then. He kept calling for her in a dreadful strange voice, and when she came he didn't know her for a time. Then she put her whole soul into it, the darling, and made him know her, and he went to sleep. She slept, or rather lay awake, all night by his bed. She saved his life, Jack; they all said so."
"It seems rather perverse to refuse to marry him when he is sound, and the moment he is terribly injured to want to," said Jack.
"My darling, it is no use criticizing people," said Dodo, "unless by your criticism you can change them. Even then it is a great responsibility. But you could no more change Nadine by criticizing her, than you could change the nature of the wildcat at the Zoo by sitting down in front of its cage, and telling it you didn't like its disposition, and that it had not a good temper. You may take it that Nadine is utterly in love with him."
"And as he has always been utterly in love with her, I don't know why you want me to take Nadine away. Bells and wedding-cake as soon as Hugh can hobble to church."
"Oh, Jack, you don't see," she said. "If I know Hughie at all, he wouldn't dream of offering himself to Nadine until it is certain that he will be an able-bodied man again. And she is expecting him to, and is worrying and wondering about it. Also, she is doing him no good now. It can't be good for an invalid to have continually before him the girl to whom he has given his soul, who has persistently refused to accept it. It is true that they have exchanged souls now—as far as that goes my darling Nadine has so much the best of the bargain—but Hugh has to begin the—the negotiations, and he won't, even if he sees that Nadine is a willing Barkis, until he knows he has something more than a shattered unmendable thing to offer her. Consequently he is silent, and Nadine is perplexed. I will go on saying it over and over again if it makes it any clearer, but if you understand, you may signify your assent in the usual manner. Clap your great hands and stamp your great feet: oh, Jack, what a baby you are!"
"Do you suppose she would come away?" said Jack, coughing a little at the dust his great feet had raised from the loose soil.
"Yes, if you can persuade her that her presence isn't good for Hugh. So you will try; that's all right. Nadine has a great respect for Papa Jack's wisdom, and I can't think why. I always thought a lot of your heart, dear, but very little of your head. You mustn't retort that you never thought much of either of mine, because it wouldn't be manly, and I should tell you you were a coward as the Suffragettes do when they hit policemen in the face."
"And why should it be I to do all this?" asked Jack.
"Because you are Papa Jack," said Dodo, "and a girl listens to a man when she would not heed a woman. Oh, you might tell her, which is probably true, that Edith is going away to-morrow, and you want somebody to take care of you at Winston. I think even Nadine would see that it would not quite do if she was left here alone with Hughie. At least it is possible she might see that: you could use it to help to