Edward Benson - Dodo's Daughter - A Sequel to Dodo

Nadine paused a moment, but nobody spoke. Hugh was watching her with the absorption that was always his when she was there. But after a moment she spoke again.

"We talk what you call rot," she said. "But it is not rot. The people who always talk sense arrive at less. There are sparks that fly, as when you strike one flint with another. Your English philosophers – who are they? – Mr. Chesterton I suppose, is he not a philosopher? – or some Machiavelli or other, they sit down soberly to think, and when they have thought they wrap up their thought in paradox, as you wrap up a pill for your dog, so that he swallows it, and his inside becomes bitter. That is not the way. You must start with pure enjoyment, and when a thought comes, you must fling it into the air. They hit a bird, or turn into a rainbow, or fall on your head – but what matter? You others sit and think, and when you have thought of something you put it in a beastly book, and have finished with it. You prigs turn the world topsy-turvy that way. You do not start with joy, and you go forth in a slough of despondent information. Ah, yes: the child who picks up a match and rubs it against something and finds it catches fire removes the romance of the match, more than Mr. Bryant and May and Boots is it? who made the match. Matches are made on earth, but the child who knows nothing about them and strikes one is the person who is in heaven. You are not content with the wonder and romance of the world, you prefer to explain the rainbow away instead of looking at it. It is a sort of murder to explain things away: you kill their souls, and demonstrate that it is only hydrogen."

She looked up at Hugh.

"We talked about it last night," she said. "We settled that it was a great misfortune to understand too well – "

A footman arrived at this moment with a telegram which he handed to Berts, who opened it. He gave a shout of laughter and passed it to Nadine.

"What shall I say?" he asked.

"But of course 'yes,'" she said. "It is quite unnecessary to ask Mama."

Berts scribbled a couple of words on the reply-paid form.

"It's only my mother," he said in general explanation. "She wants to come over for a day or two, and see Aunt Dodo again, but she doesn't feel sure if Aunt Dodo wants to see her. Are you sure there's a room, Nadine?"

"There always is some kind of room," said Nadine. "She can sleep in three-quarters of my bed, if not."

"I'm so glad she is tired of being a silly ass, as we settled she was last night," said Berts. "Perhaps I ought to ask Aunt Dodo, Nadine."

"Pish-posh," said Nadine.

John got up, and prig-like had the last word.

"I see all about the clan," he said. "You have a quantity of vague enthusiasm, and a lack of information. You swim like jelly-fish without any sense of direction, and admire each other."

Nadine considered this.

"I do see what he means," she said.

"And don't live what you mean," added John.

This sojourn at Meering in the month of June, when London and its diversions were at their midmost, was Nadine's plan. Whatever Nadine was or was not, she was not a poseuse , and her contention that it was a waste of time to spend all day in talking to a hundred people who did not really matter, and in dancing all night with fifty of them, was absolutely genuine.

"As long as anything amuses you," she had said, "it is not waste of time; but when you begin to wonder if it really amuses you, it shows that it does not. Darling Mama, may I go down to Meering for a week or ten days? I do not want any one to come, but if anybody likes to come, we might have a little cheerful party. Besides it is Coronation next week, and great corvée ! I think it is likely that Esther would wish to escape and perhaps one or two others, and it would be enchanting at Meering now. It would be a rest cure; a very curious sort of rest, since we shall probably never cease bathing and talking and reading. But anyhow we shall not be tired over things that bore us. That is the true fatigue. You are never tired as long as you are interested, but I am not interested in the Coronation."

Nadine's solitary week had proved in quality to be populous, and in quantity to exceed the ten days, and it was already beginning to be doubtful if July would see any of them settled in London again. Dodo's house in Portman Square had been maintained in a state of habitableness with a kitchen-maid to cook, and a housemaid to sweep, and a footman to wait, and a chauffeur to drive, and an odd man to do whatever the other servants didn't, and occasionally one or two of the party made a brief excursion there for a couple of nights, if any peculiar attraction beckoned. The whole party had gone up for a Shakespeare ball at the Albert Hall, but had returned next day, and Dodo had hurried to St. Paul's Cathedral to attend a thanksgiving service, especially since she, on leaving London, had taken a season ticket, being convinced she would be continuously employed in rushing up and down. Subsequently she had defrauded the railway-company by lending it, though strictly non-transferable, to any member of the party who wished to make the journey, with the result that Bertie had been asked by a truculent inspector whether he was really Princess Waldenech. His passionate denial of any such identity had led to a lesser frequency of these excursions.

Nadine with the same sincerity had mapped out for herself a course of study at Meering, and she read Plato every afternoon in the original Greek, with an admirable translation at hand, from three o'clock till five. During these hours she was inaccessible, and when she emerged rather flushed sometimes from the difficulty of comprehending what some of the dialogues were about, she was slightly Socratic at tea, and tried to prove, as Dodo said, that the muse of Mr. Harry Lauder was the same as the muse of Sir George Alexander, and that she ought to be rude to Hugh if she loved him. She was extremely clear-headed in her reason, and referred them to the Symposium and the dialogue on Lysis, to prove her point. But as nobody thought of contradicting her, since the Socratic mood soon wore off, they did not attempt to find out the Hellenic equivalents for those amazing doctrines.

She was markedly Socratic this afternoon, when the whole party were having tea on the lawn. Esther and Bertie had been down to bathe after lunch, and since everybody was going to bathe again after tea, they had left their clothes behind different rocky screens above the probable high-water level on the beach, and were clad in bathing-dress, moderately dried in the sun, with dressing-gowns above. Berts had nothing in the shape of what is called foot-gear on his feet, since it was simpler to walk up barefoot, and he was wriggling his toes, one after the other, in order to divest them of an excess of sand.

"But pain and pleasure are so closely conjoined," said Nadine, in answer to an exclamation of his concerning stepping in a gorse-bush. "It hurts you to have a prickle in your foot, but the pleasure of taking it out compensates for the pain!"

"That's Socratic," said Hugh, "when they took off his chains just before they hemlocked him. You didn't think of that, Nadine."

"I didn't claim to, but it is quite true. There is actual pleasure in the cessation of pain. If you are unhappy and the cause of your unhappiness is removed, your happiness is largely derived from the fact that you were unhappy. For instance, did you ever have a fish-bone stick in your throat, Hugh?"

"As a matter of fact, never," said Hugh. "But as I am meant to say 'yes,' I will."

"And did you cough?"

"Violently," said Hugh.

"Upon which the fish-bone returned to your mouth?"

"No," said Hugh. "I swallowed it. It never returned at all."

"It does not matter which way it went," said Nadine; "but your feeling of pleasure at its going was dependent on the pain which its sticking gave you."