menu_book Chapter 6

chapter six of dodo wonders by e f benson this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by crow girl chapter six a waterloo ball on this sunday evening the day before her ball dodo had been engaged to dine at the german embassy but just as she was on her way upstairs to dress a message had come putting off the dinner owing to the ambassador's sudden indisposition jack was dining elsewhere so dodo not at all ill-pleased to have an evening at home secured edith arbuthnot to keep her company she had caught edith on her return from her golf at midsuri and she soon arrived in large boots with three golf balls and a packet of peppermint bull's-eyes in her pocket and an amazing appetite as dodo had not waited to hear her mass at st paul's that morning edith consoled her after dinner by playing the greater part of it on the piano singing solo passages in a rich hoarse voice that ranged from treble to baritone with a bull's-eye tucked away in her cheek where it looked like some enormous abscess on a tooth when no solo was going on she imitated the sounds of violin and bassoon and cello with great fidelity and when it was over she arranged round her cigarettes bull's-eyes and a mug of beer put her feet up on a chair of genoese brocade and lamented the frivolous complications of life

she took as her text the insane multiplicity of balls since the beginning of june they had been like the stars on a clear night for multitude and every evening from monday till friday three or four had bespangled the firmament in spite of her general modernity edith was laudably victorian in regard to her maternal duties and considered it incumbent on her to chaperone her daughter wherever she went as madge was a firm tireless girl who got no more fatigued with revolving than does the earth and as edith wanted to marry her off wisely and well as soon as possible she had of late seen as many dons as the driver of a night express the whole thing is insane she said we take a girl to balls every night in order that as many young men as possible may see her and give her lobster salad and put their arms round her waist in the hopes that one of them may want to marry her and take her away from her mother you leave out the dancing interrupted dodo dancing takes place at balls to a small extent but the other is the real reason of them besides you can't call it dancing when everybody merely strolls backwards and forwards and yawns

it would be far more sensible to have a well-conducted marriage market at the albert hall under the supervision of a bishop and a countess of unimpeachable morals the girls would sit in rows mending socks and making puddings with tickets round their necks showing what they asked and offered by way of marriage settlements also their age and a medical certificate as to their general health and temper then the boys would go round and each would taste their puddings and see how they sewed and have a little conversation and look at the ticket and find out if miss anna maria was within his means those are the qualities that really make for happy marriages pleasant talk and cooking and needlework the market would be open from ten to one every day except perhaps saturday instead of which concluded edith indignantly i have to sit up till dawn every night with a host of weary hags who are all longing to take off their tiaras and their hair and tumble into bed have a chaperone strike instead said dodo you'll never get boys to go to the albert hall in the morning besides no one ever got engaged in cold blood but i really should recommend a chaperone strike it isn't as if chaperones were the smallest good no girl who wants to flirt is the least incommoded by her chaperone nor does the chaperone take her away till she feels inclined to go

get up an influential committee and arrange a procession to hyde park with banners embroidered with we won't go to more than five balls a week and shorter night shifts for mothers we will go home before morning i'll join that for i do the work of half a dozen mothers who haven't so fine a sense of duty as you or why shouldn't fathers take their turn and chaperone boys instead girls don't want any chaperoning nowadays boys are much more defenceless in a few years chaperones will be as extinct as as dodo's edith refreshed herself in various ways finishing up with a crashing peppermint i shall revolt next year she said for i won't go through another season like this dodo does it ever strike you that we're all mad this year we're behaving as we behave when the ice is breaking up and we will have one minute more skating thank goodness your ball to-morrow is the last and there positively isn't another one the same night there were to have been two so i thought i should have to take madge to three but they have both been cancelled i suppose it was found that every one would stop all night at yours i hope so said dodo greedily it's delicious to make other competitors scratch on your reputation edith pointed an accusing finger at her now you've said competitors she announced what's the competition what's this insane will-o'-the-wisp that's being hunted dodo considered this direct and simple question oh it's an art she said it's a competition to see who can give most pleasure to the greatest number of people

that sounds as if it were something to do with a fine moral quantity but i don't claim that for it it's partly a competition in success too and granty the sour old angel would say that it is a competition in imbecile expenditure and just for two minutes i should agree with her dodo gave a great sigh and shifted the subject of the conversation a little and it concerns burning candles at both ends and in the middle she said and seeing how many candles you can keep alight it's squeezing things in and don't you know what a joy that always is even when it concerns nothing more than packing a bag and squeezing in something extra which your maid says won't go in anyhow my lady my maid never says that remarked edith i'm a plain ma'am the principle is the same darling however plain you are life in london is like that we are all trying to squeeze something else into it and to extract the last drop of what life has to give you're just the same with your bull's-eyes and your beer and your golfing boots and your cigarettes you're making the most of it too what will our luggage look like when it comes to be unpacked at the other end i don't care what mine looks like said edith i only do things because i think it's right for me to do them my dear how noble but isn't it faintly possible that you may be mistaken asked dodo

you seem to think it is right to cover that chair with large flakes of mud from your boots but i'm not sure that it is oh my dear don't move your feet i only took that as the first instance that occurred to me naturally we don't deliberately do what we believe to be wrong but then that's because we none of us ever stop to consider whether it is when we want a thing we go and take it and only wonder afterwards whether we should have done so if you wonder afterwards whether you should have done anything said edith austerely it means that you shouldn't oh i don't agree it probably means that you are not certain that you wouldn't have enjoyed yourself more wanting it than getting it nothing is really as nice when you have got it i'm talking of small things of course as you thought it was going to be acquisition always brings a certain disillusionment or if not quite that you very soon get used to what you have got again edith pointed an accusing finger at her that's the worst of you she said you have a fatal facility you have always got what you mean to get you've never had to struggle probably that means that you have never had high enough aims what will the world say about you in forty years darling it may say exactly what it pleases if in forty years time there is anybody left who remembers me at all and he tells the truth he will say that i enjoyed myself quite enormously

but why be posthumous have another peppermint and tell me about your golf edith did not have any more peppermints so she took a cigarette instead i have a feeling that we are all going to be posthumous with regard to our present lives long before we are dead she remarked we can't go on like this i don't see the slightest reason for not doing so said dodo i remember we talked about it one night at winston when you fished in my tea-gown i know and the feeling has been growing on me ever since there have been a lot of straws lately showing the set of the tide which is just what straws don't do said dodo straws float on the surface and move about with any tiny puff of air anyhow what straws do you mean produce your straws she paused for a moment i wonder if i can produce some for you she said as you know i was to have dined with the germans to-night and was put off is that a straw then again jack told me something this evening about an austrian ultimatum to servia do those show the tide you speak of you know it yourself said edith we're on the brink of the stupendous catastrophe and we're quite unprepared and we won't attend even now we shall be swept off the face of the earth and if i could buy the british empire to-day for five shillings i wouldn't pay it

dodo got up darling i seem to feel that you lost your match at golf this afternoon she said you are always severe and posthumous and pessimistic if that happens didn't you lose now it happens that i did but that's got nothing to do with it you might just as well say that if you hit me hard in the face said dodo and i fell down my falling down would have nothing to do with your hitting me and you might just as well say that your dinner was put off this evening because the ambassador really was ill retorted edith dodo woke next morning to a pleasant sense of a multiplicity of affairs that demanded her attention there was a busy noise of hammering in the garden outside her window for though she was the happy possessor of one of the largest ballrooms in london the list of acceptances to her ball that night had furnished so unusual a percentage of her invitations that it had been necessary to put an immense marquee against the end of the ball-room fitted with a swinging floor to accommodate her guests the big windows opening to the ground had been removed altogether and there would be plenty of rhythmical noise for everybody at the other end of the ballroom was a raised dais with seats for the mighty which had to have a fresh length put on to it so numerous had the mighty become then the tables for the dinner that preceded the ball must be rearranged altogether

since prince albert whom dodo had not meant to ask to dine at all had cadged so violently on the telephone through his equerry on sunday afternoon for an invitation that dodo had felt obliged to ask him and his wife but when flushed with this success he had begun to ask whether there would be bisque soup as he had so well remembered it at winston dodo had replied icily that he would get what was given him these arrangements had taken time but she finished with them soon after eleven and was on her way to her motor which had been waiting for the last half-hour when a note was brought her with an intimation that it was from prince albert if he says a word more about bisque soup thought dodo as she tore it open he shall have porridge but the contents of it were even more enraging the prince profoundly regretted in the third person that matters of great importance compelled him and the princess to leave london that day and that he would therefore be unable to honour himself by accepting her invitation and he besieged me for an invitation only yesterday she said to jack and i've changed the whole table darling tell them to alter everything back again to what it was beastly old fat thing really germans have no manners daddy has been encouraging him too much if he rings up again say we're all dead

dodo instantly recovered herself as she drove down piccadilly the streets were teeming with happy busy people and she speedily felt herself the happiest and busiest of them all she had to go to her dressmaker's to see about some gowns for goodwood and others for cows she had to go to lunch somewhere at one in order to be in time for a wedding at two she had to give half an hour to an artist who was painting her portrait and look in at a garden party somehow or other apparently simultaneously she was due at the rehearsal of a new russian ballet and she had definitely promised to attend a lecture in a remote part of chelsea on the development of the subconscious self then she was playing bridge at a house in berkeley square what a pity she could not listen to lecture about the subconscious self while she was being dummy and it was positively necessary to call at carlton house terrace and inquire after the german ambassador this latter errand had better be done at once and then she could turn her mind to the task of simplifying the rest of the day there were entrancing distractions all round she was caught in a block exactly opposite the ritz hotel and cheek to jowl with her motor was that of the prime minister and she told him he would be late for his cabinet meeting

he got out of the block first by showing an ivory ticket and dodo consoled herself for not being equally well equipped by seeing a large flimsy portmanteau topple off a luggage trolley which was being loaded opposite the ritz it had a large crown painted on the end of it in scarlet with an a below and it needed but a moment's conjecture to feel sure that it belonged to prince albert whatever was the engagement that made him leave london so suddenly it necessitated an immense amount of luggage for the trolley was full of boxes with crowns and a's to distinguish them the fall had burst open the flimsy portmanteau and shirts and socks and thick underwear were being picked off the roadway dodo wondered as her motor moved on again if he was going to quarter himself on her father for the remainder of his stay in england a few minutes later she drew up at the door of the german embassy and sent her footman with her card to make inquiries even as he rang the bell the door opened and prince albert was shown out by the ambassador the two shook hands and the prince came down the three steps opposite which dodo's motor was drawn up it was open there could have been no doubt about his seeing her but it struck her that his intention was to walk away without appearing to notice her that of course was quite impermissible

bisque soup she said by way of greeting and me scouring london for lobsters he gave the sort of start that a dramatic rhinoceros might be expected to give if it intended to carry the impression that it was surprised ah lady dodo said he is it indeed you i am heart-broken at not coming to your house to-night but the princess has to go into the country there was no getting out of it so sad also we shall make a long stay in the country i do not know when we shall get back i will take your humble compliments to the princess will i not i will take also your regrets that you will not have the honour to receive her to-night and your amiable papa i was to have lunched with him to-day but now instead i go into the country and also i will step along auf wiedersehen lady dodo suddenly a perfect shower of fresh straws seemed to join those others which she and edith had spoken about last night and they all moved the same way there was the note which she had received half an hour ago saying that the prince could not accept the invitation he had so urgently asked for

there was the fact of those piles of luggage leaving the ritz there was his call this morning at the german embassy above all there was his silence as to where he was going and his obvious embarrassment at meeting her The tide swept them all along together, and she felt she knew for certain what his destination was. "'Good-bye, sir,' she said. "'I hope you'll have a pleasant crossing.' He looked at her in some confusion.

"'But what crossing do you mean?' he said. "'There is no crossing except the road which now I cross. Ha! There is a good joke, Lady Dodo.' Dodo made her face quite blank.

"'Is it indeed?' she said. "'I should call it a bad fib.' she turned to her footman who was standing by the carriage door well she said his excellency is quite well again this morning my lady he said that too was rather straw-like drive on she said just as impulse rather than design governed the greater part of dodo's conduct so intuition rather than logic was responsible for her conclusions she had not agreed last night with edith's reasonings but now with these glimpses of her own she jumped to her deduction and landed so to speak by edith's side as yet there was nothing definite except the unpublished news of an austrian ultimatum to serbia and the hurried meeting of the cabinet this morning to warrant grounds for any real uneasiness as to the european situation generally nor as far as dodo knew anything definite or indefinite to connect germany with that

But now, with the fact that her dinner had been put off last night, and the ambassador was quite well this morning, coupled with her own sudden intuition that the Allensteins were going back post-haste to Germany, she leaped to a conclusion that seemed firm to her landing. In a flash, she simply found herself believing that Germany intended to provoke a European war. And then, characteristically enough, instead of dwelling for a moment on the menace of this hideous calamity, or contemplating the huge, unspeakable nightmare thus unveiled, she found herself exclusively and entrancedly interested in the situation as it at this moment was.

She expected the entire diplomatic world, German and Austrian included, at her ball that night, already the telegraph wires between london and the european capitals must be tingling and twitching with the cipher messages that flew backwards and forwards over the austrian ultimatum and her eyes danced with anticipation of the swift silent current of drama that would be roaring under the conventional ice of the mutual salutations with which diplomatists would greet each other this evening at her house hands unseen were hewing at the foundations of empires others were feverishly buttressing and strengthening them and all the hours of to-night until dawn brought on another fateful day those same hands smooth and polite would be crossing in the dance and the voices that had been dictating all day the messages with which the balance of peace and war was weighted would be glib with little compliments and airy with light laughter she felt no doubt that germans and austrians alike would all be there she felt also that the very strain of the situation would inspire them with a more elaborate cordiality than usual she felt she would respect that it would be like the well-bred courtesies that preceded a duel to the death between gentlemen

prince albert it is true in his anxiety to get back without delay to his fortressed fatherland had failed in the amenities but surely germany the romantic the chivalrous the mother of music and science would now and henceforth whatever the issue might be prove herself worthy of her traditions once more dodo was caught in a block at the top of st james street and she suddenly made up her mind to stop at the hotel and say good-bye to princess albert two motives contributed to this the first being that though she and he alike had been very rude throwing her over with so needless an absence of ceremony and politeness she had better not descend to their level the second which it must be confessed was far the stronger being an overwhelming curiosity to know for certain whether she was right in her conjecture that they were going to get behind the rhine as soon as possible dodo found the princess sitting in the hall exactly opposite the entrance hatted cloaked umbrellaed and jewel-bagged with a short-sighted but impatient eye on the revolving door towards which whenever it moved she directed a glance through her lorgnette as dodo came towards her the princess turned her head aside as if like her husband seeking to avoid the meeting but next moment even while dodo paused aghast at those intolerable manners she changed her mind and dropping her umbrella came waddling towards her with both hands outstretched

ah dear dodo she said i was wondering just now i was wondering what you thought of me i would have written to you but albert said no positively he forbade me to write to you he called on me as his wife not to do so instead he wrote himself and such a letter too for he showed it me all in the third person after he had asked for bisque soup only yesterday and i may not say good-bye to your good father or any one you will all think i do not know how to behave but i know very well how to behave it is albert who is so i am crying look i am crying and i do not easily cry we have said good-bye and thank you to nobody we are going away like burglars on the tiptoe for fear of being heard and it is all albert's fault in five minutes had our luggage to be packed and there was albert's new portmanteau of which he was so proud of for its cheapness and made in germany bursting and covering piccadilly with his pants is it that you call them it was too screaming i could have laughed at how he was served right all albert's pants and his new thick vests and his bed-socks being brought in by the porter and the valets and the waiters covered with the dust from piccadilly yes ma'am i saw it myself said dodo when i was passing half an hour ago

the princess was momentarily diverted from the main situation on to this thrilling topic ach albert would turn purple with shame she said if he knew you had seen his pants and yet he is not at all ashamed of running away like a burglar that is his german delicacy your new bedsocks i said to him and your winter vests and your pants you must have made of them another package they will not go in your new portmanteau there is not room for them and it is weak it has to go in the train and again it has to go on the boat and also again in the train it is not as if we but went to winston ah that nice winston but we go to germany that is what i said but albert would not hear by the two o'clock train we go he said and my new vests and my socks and my pants go in my new german portmanteau which was so cheap and strong but now they cannot go like that and they will have to go in my waterproof sheet which was to keep me dry on the boat from the spray for if i go in the cabin i am ill it is all too terrible and there was no need for us to go like this we should have waited till to-morrow and said good-bye or perhaps if we had gone to-morrow we should not go at all what has germany to do with serbia or what has england either but no we must go to-day just because there have been telegrams and cousin willie says come back to allenstein and here am i so rude seeming to all my friends

but one thing i tell you dearest dodo we chiefly go because albert is in a funk he is a funk but what is he frightened of asked dodo the princess was letting so many cats out of the bag that she had ceased counting them he is frightened of everything he is frightened that he will be pelted in the london streets for being a german prince just as if anybody knew or cared who he was he is frightened of being put in prison he is frightened that the german fleet will surround england and destroy her ships and starve her he is frightened of being hungry and thirsty he is as a pig in a poke that squeals till it gets out this remarkable simile was hardly out of the princess's mouth before she squealed on her own account ach and here he is she said now he will scold me and you shall see how i also scold him he came lumbering up the passage towards them with a red furious face and what did i tell you sophy he said did i not tell you to sit and wait for me and speak to no one and here are you holding the hand of lady dodo to whom already i have said good-bye and so now i do not see her it is done also it is finished and it is time we went to the station you are for ever talking though i have said there shall be no more talking what have you been saying princess albert still held dodo's hand

i have been saying that your new portmanteau burst and i must take your vests and your socks and your pants in my waterproof sheet also i have been saying but your waterproof sheet how will your waterproof sheet hold all that was in my portmanteau it is impossible where is your waterproof sheet show it me you will see it at charing cross and if it is wet on the boat i will take out again your vests and your socks and your pants and they may get wet instead of me so then i tell you that if it is wet on the boat you will go to your cabin and if you are sick you will be sick you shall not take my clothes from your waterproof sheet we will see to that also i have been saying good-bye to dearest dodo and i have been saying to her that it was not i who was so rude to her but also that it was you albert and i say now that i beg her pardon for your rudeness but that i hope she will excuse you because you are in a funk and when you are in a funk you no longer know what you do and in a funk you will be till you are safe back in germany all that i say dearest albert and if you are not good i will tell it to the mob at charing cross i will say this is the prince of allenstein and he is a prussian soldier and therefore he is running away from england do not provoke me hearts dearest you will now get them to send for a cab and we will go because you are a funk

there will be no special train for us there will be no one of our cousins to see us off there will be no red carpet and it is all your fault and as for dearest dodo i kiss her on both cheeks and i thank her for her kindness and i pray for a happier meeting than is also our parting that afternoon there began to be publicly felt the beginning of that tension which grew until the breaking point came in the first days of august and but for dodo's shining example and precept her ball that night might easily have resolved itself into a mere conference again and again at the beginning of the evening the floor was empty long after the band had struck up while round the room groups of people collected and talked together on one subject but dodo seemed to be absolutely ubiquitous and whenever she saw earnest conversationalists at work she plunged into the middle of them and broke them up like a dog charging a flock of sheep to-morrow would do for talk to-night it was her ball her special prey was any group which had as its centre an excited female fount of gossip who began her sentences with they tell me whenever that fatal phrase caught dodo's remarkably sharp ears she instantly led the utterer of it away to be introduced to some one on the great red dais

managed to lose her in the crowd and went for the next offender the rumour that the allensteins had left charing cross that afternoon for germany was a dangerously interesting topic and whenever dodo came across it she strenuously denied it regardless of truth and asserted that as a matter of fact they were going down again to-morrow to stay with her father at vane royal then perceiving him not far off looking at the dais with the expression of dante beholding the beatific vision she had dived into the crowd again and told him that if he would assert beyond the possibility of contradiction that this was the case she would presently introduce him to any one on the red dais whom he might select as he pondered on the embarrassment of such richness she was off again to break up another dangerous focus of conversation an hour of wild activity was sufficient to set things really moving and avert the danger of her ball becoming a mere meeting for the discussion of the european situation and presently she found five minutes rest in the window of the music gallery from which she could survey both the ball-room and the marquis adjoining it in all her thirty years experience as hostess or guest she had never been present at a ball which seemed quite to touch the high-water mark here

and she felt that without lord cookham's assistance she had provided exactly the sort of evening that he had designed in honour of jumbo it had happened like that everybody was present in that riot of colour and rhythm that seethed about her and at the moment the dais which stretched from side to side of the huge room was empty for every one of its occupants was dancing and she observed that even lord cookham who had come in an official capacity had deserted his place behind the row of chairs and was majestically revolving with a princess making little obeisances as he cannoned heavily into other exalted personages the whole of the diplomatic corps was there german and austrian included and there was the german ambassador quite recovered from his curious indisposition waltzing with the italian ambassadress the same spirit that had animated dodo in breaking up serious conjectures and conversation seemed now to have spread broadcast all were conspirators to make this ball the last of the year the most brilliant and memorable

from a utilitarian point of view there was no more to be said for it than for some gorgeously plumaged bird that strutted and spread its jewelled wings and yet all the time it was a symbol expressing not itself alone but what it stood for the glory of great names wide world commerce invincible navies all the endorsements of empire lay behind it it glittered and shone like some great diamond in an illumination which at any moment might be obscured by the menace of thunder-cloud but if this was the last ray that should shine on it before the darkness that even now lapped the edge of it enveloped it entirely that gloom would but suck the light from it and not soften nor crush its heart of adamant from the moment that the ball got moving dodo abandoned herself to enjoying it to the utmost wanting as was characteristic of her to suck the last ounce of pleasure from it she had that indispensable quality of a good hostess namely the power of making herself the most fervent of her guests and never had she appreciated a ball so much not until the floor was growing empty and the morning light growing vivid between the chinks of closed curtains did she realize that it was over

jumbo dear she said why can't we double as one does at bridge and then somehow it would be eleven o'clock last night and we should have it all over again are you really going what a pity stop to breakfast my dear what pearls i can't believe they're real and don't let us go to bed at all yes do you know it's quite true though i've been lying about it quite beautifully the allensteins left for germany this afternoon i mean yesterday afternoon oh i don't want to begin again what will the next days bring i wonder she stood at the street-door a moment while he went out into that pregnant and toneless light that precedes sunrise when all things look unreal the pavement and road outside were pearly with dew and the needless headlight of his motor as it purred its way up to the door gleamed with an unnatural redness in the house the floor was quite empty now and the band silent a crowd of men and women eager to get away besieged the cloak-room and in ten minutes more dodo found herself alone but for the servants already beginning to restore the rooms to their ordinary state she felt suddenly tired and going upstairs drew down the blinds over her open windows she wanted to get to sleep at once to shut out the dawning day and all that it might bring

End of chapter 6. Recording by Crow Girl.