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Dodo's Daughter

<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> Nadine enquired at Hugh's door again that night before she went to bed, and found that he was still asleep. She had promised her mother not to sit up, but as she undressed she almost smiled at the uselessness of going to bed, so impossible did it seem that sleep should come near her. After her one outburst of crying, she had felt no further agitation, for something so big and so quiet had entered her heart that all poignancy of anxiety and suspense were powerless to disturb it. As has been said, it was scarcely even whether Hugh lived or died that mattered: the only thing that mattered was Hugh. Had she been compelled to say whether she believed he would live or not, she would have given the negative. And yet there was a quality of peace in her that could not be shaken. It was a peace that humbled and exalted her. It wrapped her round very close, and yet she looked up to it, as to a mountain-peak on which dawn has broken. Despite her conviction that sleep was impossible, she had hardly closed her eyes, when it embraced and swallowed up all her consciousness. This cyclone of emotion, in the center of which dwelt the windless calm, had utterly tired her out, though she was unaware of fatigue, and her rest was dreamless. Then[Pg 288] suddenly she was aware that there was light in the room, and that she was being spoken to, and she passed from unconsciousness back to the full possession of her faculties, as swiftly as they had been surrendered. She found Dodo bending over her. "Come, my darling," she said. Nadine had no need to ask any question, but as she put on her slippers and dressing-gown Dodo spoke again. "He has been awake for an hour and asking for you," she said. "The nurse and the doctor are with him: they think you had better come. It is possible that if he sees you there, he may go off to sleep again. But it is possible—you are not afraid, darling?" Nadine's mouth quivered into something very like a smile. "Afraid of Hughie?" she asked. They went up the stairs, and along the passage together. The moon that last night had been hidden by the tempest of storm-clouds, or perhaps blown away from the sky by the wind, now rode high and cloudlessly amid a multitude of stars. No wind moved across those ample floors: only from the beach they heard the plunge and thunder of the sea that could not so easily resume its tranquillity. The moonlight came through the window of Hugh's room also, making on the floor a shadow-map of the bars. He was lying again with his face towards the door, but now his eyes were vacantly open, and his whole face had changed. There was an agony of weariness over it, and from his eyes there looked out a dumb,[Pg 289] unavailing rebellion. Before they had got to the door they had heard a voice inside speaking, a voice that Nadine did not recognize. It kept saying over and over again, "Nadine, Nadine." As she came across the room to the bed, he looked straight at her, but it was clear he did not see her, and the monotonous, unrecognizable voice went on saying, "Nadine, Nadine." The doctor was standing by the head of the bed, looking intently at Hugh, but doing nothing: the nurse was at the foot. He signed to Nadine to come, and took a step towards her. "You've got to make him feel you are here," he said. Then with his hand he beckoned to the nurse and to Dodo, to stand out of sight of Hugh, so that by chance he might think himself alone with the girl. Nadine knelt down on the floor, so that her face was close to those unseeing eyes, and the mouth that babbled her name. And the great peace was with her still. She spoke in her ordinary natural voice without tremor. "Yes, Hughie, yes," she said. "Don't go on calling me. Here I am. What's the use of calling now? I came as soon as I knew you wanted me." "Nadine, Nadine," said Hughie, in the same unmeaning monotone. "Hughie, you are quite idiotic!" she said. "As if you didn't know in your own heart that I would always come when you wanted me. I always would, my[Pg 290] dear. You need never be afraid that I shall leave you. I am yours, don't you see?" "Nadine, Nadine," said Hugh. Nadine's whole soul went into her words. "Hughie, you are not with me yet," she said. "I want you, too, and I mean to have you. I didn't know till to-day that I wanted you, and now I can't do without you. Hughie, do you hear?" she said. "Oh, answer me, Hughie dear!" There was dead silence. Then Hugh gave a great sigh. "Nadine!" he said. But it was Hugh's voice that spoke then. She bent forward. "Oh, Hughie, you have come then," she said. "Welcome; you don't know how I wanted you!" "Yes, I'm here all right," said Hugh in a voice scarcely audible. "But I'm so tired. It's horrible; it's like death!" Nadine gave her little croaking laugh. "It isn't like anything of the kind," she said. "But of course you are tired. Wouldn't it be a good thing to go to sleep?" "I don't know," said Hugh. "But I do. I'm tired too, Hughie, awfully tired. If I leaned my head back against your bed I should go to sleep too." "Nadine, it is you?" said Hugh. "Oh, my dear! What other girl could be with you?" "No, that's true. Nadine, would it bore you to[Pg 291] stop with me a bit? We might talk afterwards, when—when you've had a nap." "That will be ripping," said Nadine, assuming a sleepy voice. There was silence for a little. Then once again, but in his own voice, Hugh spoke her name. This time she did not answer, and she felt his hand move till it rested against her plaited hair. Then in the silence Nadine became conscious of another noise regular and slow as the faint hoarse thunder of the sea, the sound of quiet breathing. After a while the doctor came round the head of the bed. "We can manage to wrap you up, and make you fairly comfortable," he whispered. "I think he has a better chance of sleeping if you stop there." The light and radiance in Nadine's eyes were a miracle of beauty, like some enchanted dawn rising over a virgin and unknown land. She smiled her unmistakable answer, but did not speak, and presently Dodo returned with pillows and blankets, which she spread over her and folded round her. "The nurse will be in the next room," said the doctor; "call her if anything is wanted." Dodo and the doctor went back to their rooms, and Nadine was left alone with Hugh. That night was the birthnight and the bridal-night of her soul: there was it born, and through the long hours of the winter night it watched beside its lover and its beloved, in that stillness of surrender to and absorption in another, that lies beyond and above the unrest of passion amid the snows and sunshine of the uttermost[Pg 292] regions to which the human spirit can aspire. She knew nothing of the passing of the hours, nor for a long time did any thought or desire of sleep come near her eyelids, but the dim room became to her the golden island of which once in uncomprehending mockery she had spoken to Hugh. She knew it to be golden now, and so far from being unreal, there was nothing in her experience so real as it. She could just turn her head without disturbing Hugh's hand that lay on her plaited hair, and from time to time she looked round at him. His face still wore the sunken pallor of exhaustion, but as his sleep, so still and even-breathing, began to restore the low-ebb of his vital force, it seemed to Nadine that the darkness of the valley of the shadow, to the entrance of which he had been so near, cleared off his face as eclipse passes from the moon. How near he had been, she guessed, but it seemed to her that for the present his face was set the other way. She knew, too, that it was she who had had the power to make him look life-wards again, and the knowledge filled her with a sort of abasing pride. He had answered to her voice when he was past all other voices, and had come back in obedience to it. She did not and she could not yet be troubled with the thought of anything else besides the fact that Hugh lived. As far as was known yet, he might never recover his activity of movement again, and years of crippled life were all that lay in front of him; but in the passing away of the immediate imminent fear, she could not weigh or even consider what that[Pg 293] would mean. Similarly the thought of Seymour lay for the present outside the focus of her mind: everything but the fact that Hugh lived was blurred and had wavering outlines. As the hours went on the oblongs of moonshine on the floor moved across the room, narrowing as they went. Then the moon sank and the velvet of the cloudless sky grew darker, and the stars more luminous. One great planet, tremulous and twinkling, made a glory beside which all the lesser lights paled into insignificance. No wind stirred in the great halls of the night, the moans and yells of its unquiet soul were still, and the boom of the surf grew ever less sonorous, like the thunder of a retreating storm. Occasionally the night-nurse appeared at the doorway of the room adjoining, where she sat, and as often Nadine looked up at her smiling. Once, very softly, she came round the head of the bed, and looked at Hugh, then bent down towards the girl. "Won't you get some sleep?" she said, and Nadine made a little gesture of raised eyebrows and parted hands that was characteristic of her. "I don't know," she whispered. "Perhaps not. I don't want to." Then her solitary night vigil began again, and it seemed to her that she would not have bartered a minute of it for the best hour that her life had known before. The utter peace and happiness of it grew as the night went on, for still close to her head there came the regular uninterrupted breathing, and the weight, just the weight of a hand absolutely relaxed, lay[Pg 294] on her hair. Not the faintest stir of movement other than those regular respirations came from the bed, and all the laughter and joy of which her days had been full was as the light of the remotest of stars compared to the glorious planet that sang in the windless sky, when weighed against the joy that that quiet breathing gave her. She did not color her consciousness with hope, she did not illuminate it by prayer; there was no room in her mind for anything except the knowledge that Hugh slept and lived. It was now near the dawning of the winter day; the stars were paling in the sky, and the sky grew ensaffroned with the indescribable hue that heralds day. Footfalls, muffled and remote, began to stir in the house, and far away there came the sound of crowing cocks, faint but exultant, hailing the dawn. About that time, Nadine looked round once more at Hugh, and saw in the pallid light of morning that the change she had noticed before was more distinct. There had come back to his face something of the firm softness of youth, there had been withdrawn from it the droop and hardness of exhaustion. And turning again, she gave one sigh and fell fast asleep. Lover and beloved they lay there sleeping, while the dawn brightened in the sky, she leaning against the bed where he was stretched, he with his hand on her hair. And strangely, the moment that she slept, their positions seemed to be reversed, and Hugh in his sleep appeared unconsciously to keep watch over and guard her, though all night she had been awake for him. Once her head slipped an inch or two, so[Pg 295] that his hand no longer lay on her hair, but it seemed as if that movement reached down to him fathom-deep in his slumber and immediately afterwards his hand, which had lain so motionless and inert all night, moved, as if to a magnet, after that bright hair, seeking and finding it again. And dawn brightened into day, and the sun leaped up from his lair in the East, and still Nadine slept, and Hugh slept. It was as if until then the balance of vitality had kept the girl awake to pour into him of her superabundance: now she was drained, and sleep with the level stroke of his soft hand across the furrows of trouble and the jagged edges of injury and exhaustion comforted both alike. It had been arranged after these events of storm that the party should disperse, and Dodo went to early breakfast downstairs with her departing guests, who were leaving soon after. But first she went into the nurse's room, next door to where Hugh lay, to make enquiries, and was taken by her to look into the sick-room. With daylight their sleep seemed only to have deepened: it was like the slumber of lovers who have been long awake in passion of mutual surrender, and at the end have fallen asleep like children, with mere effacement of consciousness. Nadine's head was a little bowed forward, and her breath came not more evenly than his. It was the sleep of childlike content that bound them both, and bound them together. Dodo looked long, and then with redoubled precaution moved softly into the nurse's room again, with mouth quivering between smiles and tears. [Pg 296] "My dear, I never saw anything so perfectly sweet," she said. "Do let them have their sleep out, nurse. And Nadine has slept in Hugh's room all night. What ducks! Please God it shall so often happen again!" Nurse Bryerley was not unsympathetic, but she felt that explanations were needed. "I understood the young lady was engaged to some one else," she said. Dodo smiled. "But until now no one has quite understood the young lady herself," she said. "Least of all, has she understood herself. I think she will find that she is less mysterious now." "Mr. Graves will have to take some nourishment soon," said Nurse Bryerley. Dodo considered. "Then could you not give him his nourishment very cautiously, so that he will go to sleep again afterwards?" she asked. "I should like them to sleep all day like that. But then, you see, nurse, I am a very odd woman. But don't disturb them till you must. I think their souls are getting to know each other. That may not be scientific nursing, but I think it is sound nursing. It's too bad we can't eternalize such moments of perfect equilibrium." "Certainly the young lady was awake till nearly dawn," said Nurse Bryerley. "It wouldn't hurt her to have a good rest." Dodo beamed. "Oh, leave them as long as possible," she said.[Pg 297] "You have no idea how it warms my heart. There will be trouble enough when they awake." Seymour was among those who were going by the early train, and when Dodo came down he had finished breakfast. He got up just as she entered. "How is he?" he asked. Dodo's warm approbation went out to him. "It was nice of you to ask that first, dear Seymour," she said. "He is asleep: he has slept all night." Seymour lit a cigarette. "I asked that first," he said, "because it was a mixture of politeness and duty to do so. I suppose you understand." Dodo took the young man by the arm. "Come out and talk to me in the hall," she said. "Bring me a cup of tea." The morning sunshine flooded the window-seat by the door, and Dodo sat down there for one moment's thought before he joined her. But she found that no thought was necessary. She had absolutely made up her mind as to her own view of the situation, and with all the regrets in the world for him, she was prepared to support it. In a minute Seymour joined her. "Nadine came down to the beach just before Hugh went in yesterday morning," he said, "and she called out—called?—shouted out, 'Not you, Hughie: Seymour, Berts, anybody, but not you!' There was no need for me to think what that meant." Dodo looked at him straight. "No, my dear, there was no need," she said. [Pg 298] "Then I have been a—a farcical interlude," said he, not very kindly. "You managed that farcical interlude, you know. You licensed it, so to speak, like the censor of plays." "Yes, I licensed it, you are quite right. But, my dear, I didn't license it as a farce; there you wrong me. I licensed it as what I hoped would be a very pleasant play. You must be just, Seymour: you didn't love her then, nor she you. You were good friends, and there was no shadow of a reason to suppose that you would not pass very happy times together. The great love, the real thing, is not given to everybody. But when it comes, we must bow to it.... It is royal." All his flippancy and quickness of wit had gone from him. Next conversation remained only because it was a habit. "And I am royal," he said. "I love Nadine like that." "Then you know that when that regality comes," she said quickly, "it comes without control. It is the same with Nadine; it is by no wish of hers that it came." "I must know that from Nadine," he said. "I can't take your word for it, or anybody's except hers. She made a promise to me." "She cannot keep it," said Dodo. "It is an impossibility for her. She made it under different conditions, and you put your hand to it under the same. And Nadine said you understood, and behaved so delightfully yesterday. All honor to you, since behind[Pg 299] your behavior there was that knowledge, that royalty." "I had to. But don't think I abdicated. But she was in terrible distress, and really, Aunt Dodo, the rest of your guests were quite idiotic. Berts looked like a frog; he had the meaningless pathos of a frog on his silly face—" "Nadine said he looked like a funeral with plumes," Dodo permitted herself to interpolate. "More like a frog. Edith kept pouring out glasses of port to take to Nadine, but I think she usually forgot and drank them herself. It was a lunatic asylum. But Nadine felt." "Ah, my dear," said Dodo, with a movement of her hand on to his. Seymour quietly disengaged his own. "Very gratifying," he said, "but as I said, I take nobody's word for it, except Nadine's. She has got to tell me herself. Where is she? I have to go in five minutes, but to see her will still leave me four to spare." Dodo got up. "You shall see her," she said. "But come quietly, because she is asleep." "If she is only to talk to me in her sleep—" began he. "Come quietly," said Dodo. But all her pity was stirred, and as they went along the passage to Hugh's room, she slipped her arm into his. She knew that her coup was slightly theatrical, but there seemed no better way of showing him. It[Pg 300] might fail: he might still desire explanations, but it was worth trying. "And remember I am sorry," she said, "and be sure that Nadine will be sorry." "Riddles," said Seymour. "Yes, my dear, riddles if you will," said she. "But you may guess the answer." Dodo quietly turned the handle of the door into the nurse's room, and entered with her arm still in his. She made a sign of silence, and took Seymour straight through into the sick-room. All was as she had left it a quarter-of-an-hour ago; Nadine still slept and Hugh, in that same attitude of security and love. Her head was drooped; she slept as only children and lovers sleep. But Dodo with all her intuition did not see as much as Seymour, who loved her, saw. The truth of it was branded into his brain, whereas it only shone in hers. She saw the situation: he felt it. Then with a signal of pressure on his arm, she led him out again. "She has been there all night," she said. "She only fell asleep at dawn." They were in the passage again before Seymour spoke. "There is no need for me to awake her or talk to her," he said. "You were quite right. And I congratulate you on your ensemble. I should have guessed that it required most careful rehearsal. And I should have been wrong. And now, for God's sake, don't be kind and tender—" He took his arm away from hers, feeling for her[Pg 301] then more resentment than he might feel against the footman who conveyed cold soup to him. He did not want the footman's sympathy, nor did he want Dodo's. "And spare me your optimism," he said. "If you tell me it is all for the best, I shall scream. It isn't for the best, as far as I am concerned. It is damned bad. I was a Thing, and Nadine made a man of me. Now she is tired of her handiwork, and says that I shall be a Thing again. And don't tell me I shall get over it. The fact that I know I shall, makes your information, which was on the tip of your tongue, wanton and superfluous. But if you think I shall love Hugh, because he loves Nadine, you are utterly astray. I am not a child in a Sunday school, letting the teacher smack both sides of my face. I hate Hugh, and I am not the least touched by the disgusting spectacle you have taken me on tiptoe to see. They looked like two amorous monkeys in the monkey-house." Seymour suddenly paused and gasped. "They didn't," he said. "At any rate Nadine looked as I have often pictured her looking. The difference is that it was myself, not Hugh, beside whom I imagined her falling asleep. That makes a lot of difference if you happen to be the person concerned. And now I hope the motor is ready to take me away, and many thanks for an absolutely damnable visit. Don't look pained. It doesn't hurt you as much as it hurts me. There is a real cliché to finish with." Dodo's coup had been sufficiently theatrical to satisfy[Pg 302] her, but she had not reckoned with the possible savageness that it might arouse. Seymour's temper, as well as his love, was awake, and she had not thought of the two as being at home simultaneously, but had imagined they played Box-and-Cox with each other in the minds of men. Here Box and Cox met, and they were hand-in-hand. He was convinced and angry: she had imagined he would be convinced and pathetic. With that combination she had felt herself perfectly competent to deal. But his temper roused hers. "You are at least interesting," she said briskly, "and I have enjoyed what you call your damnable visit as much as you. You seem to have behaved decently yesterday, but no doubt that was Nadine's mistake." "Not at all: it was mine," he said. "Which you now recognize," said she. "I am afraid you must be off, if you want to catch your train. Good-by." "Good-by," said he. He turned from her at the top of the stairs, and went down a half-dozen of them. Then suddenly he turned back again. "Don't you see I'm in hell?" he said. Dodo entirely melted at that, and ran down the stairs to him. "Oh, Seymour, my dear," she said. "A woman's pity can't hurt you. Do accept it." She drew that handsome tragical face towards her, and kissed him. [Pg 303] "Do you mind my kissing you?" she said. "There's my heart behind it. There is, indeed." "Thanks, Aunt Dodo," he said. "And—and you might tell Nadine I saw her like that. I am not so very stupid. I understand: good-by." "And Hugh?" she asked, quite unwisely, but in that optimistic spirit that he had deprecated. "Don't strain magnanimity," he said. "It's quality is not strained. Say good-by to Nadine for me. Say I saw her asleep, and didn't disturb her. I never thought much of her intelligence, but she may understand that. She will have to tell me what she means to do. That I require. At present our wedding-day is fixed." Seymour broke off suddenly and ran downstairs without looking back. Dodo was quite sincerely very sorry for him, but almost the moment he had gone she ceased to think about him altogether, for there were so many soul-absorbing topics to occupy her, and forgetting she had had no breakfast, she went to Edith's room (Edith alone had not the slightest intention of going away) to discuss them. Her optimism was luckily quite incurable: she could not look on the darker aspect of affairs for more than a minute or two. She found Edith breakfasting in bed, with a large fur cape flung over her shoulders. Her breakfast had been placed on a table beside her, but for greater convenience she had disposed the plates round her, on her counterpane. There were also disposed there sheets of music-paper, a pen and ink-bottle, and a box of cigarettes. The[Pg 304] window was wide open, and as Dodo entered the draught caused the music paper to flutter, and Edith laid hasty restraining hands on it, and screamed with her mouth full. "Shut the door quickly!" she cried. "And then come and have some breakfast, Dodo. I don't think I shall get up to-day. I have been composing since six this morning, and if I get up the thread may be entirely broken. Beethoven worked at the C minor Symphony for three days and nights without eating, sleeping, or washing." "I see you are eating," remarked Dodo. "I hope that won't prevent your giving us another C minor." "The C minor is much over-rated work," said Edith; "it is commonplace melodically, and clumsily handled. If I had composed it, I should not be very proud of it." "Which is a blessing you didn't, because then you would have composed something of which you were not proud," said Dodo, ringing the bell. "Yes, I shall have some breakfast with you. Oh, Edith, everything is so interesting, and Hughie has slept all night, and Nadine with him. They are sleeping now, Nadine on the floor half-sitting up with her head against the bed, looking too sweet for anything. And poor dear Seymour has just gone away. I took him in to see them by way of breaking it to him. Whoever guessed that he would fall in love with her? It is very awkward, for I thought it would be such a nice sensible marriage. And now of course there will be no marriage at all." [Pg 305] At this moment the bell was answered, and Edith in trying to prevent her music-paper from practising aviation, upset the ink-bottle. Several minutes were spent in quenching the thirst of sheets of blotting paper at it, as you water horses when their day's work is over. "One of the faults of your mind, Dodo," said Edith, as this process was going on, "is that you don't concentrate enough. You have too many objects in focus simultaneously. Now my success is due to the fact that I have only one in focus at a time. For instance this Stygian pool of ink does not distress me in the slightest—" "No, darling, it's not your counterpane," said Dodo. "It wouldn't distress me if it was. But if I opened your mind I should find Hugh's recovery, Nadine's future, and your baby in about equally vivid colors, and all in sharp outline. Also you make too many plans for other people. Do leave something to Providence sometimes." "Oh, I leave lots," said Dodo. "I only try to touch up the designs now and then. Providence is often rather sketchy and unfinished. But yesterday's design was absolutely wonderful. I can hardly even be sorry for Hugh." Edith shook her head. "You are quite incorrigible," she said. "Providence sent what was clearly intended to be a terrible event, but you see all sorts of glories in it. I don't thing it is very polite. It is like laughing at a ghost story instead of being terrified." [Pg 306] Dodo's breakfast had been brought in, and she fell to it with an excellent appetite. "There is nothing like scenes before breakfast to make one hungry," she said. "Think how hungry a murderer would be if he was taken out to be hanged before breakfast, and then given his breakfast afterwards. I had a scene with Seymour, you know. I am very sorry for him, but somehow he doesn't seem to matter. He lost his temper, which I rather respected, and showed me he had an ideal. That I respect too. I remember the struggles I used to go through in order to get one." "Were they successful?" asked Edith. "Only by a process of elimination. I did everything that I wanted, and found it was a mistake. So, last of all, I married Jack. What a delightful life I have led, and how good this bacon is. Don't you think David is a very nice name? I am going to call my baby David." "It may be a girl," said Edith. "Then I shall call it Bathsheba," said Dodo without pause. "Or do I mean Beersheba? Bath, I think. Edith, why is it that when I am most anxious and full of cares, I feel it imperative to talk tommy-rot? I'm sure there is enough to worry me into a grave if not a vault, between Seymour and Nadine and Hugh. But after all, one needn't worry about Nadine. It is quite certain that she will do as she chooses, and if she wants to marry Hugh with both arms in slings, and two crutches, and a truss and one of those sort of scrapers under one foot she certainly will. I brought[Pg 307] her up on those lines, to know her own mind, and then do what she wanted. It has been a failure hitherto, because she has never really wanted anything. But now I think my system of education is going to be justified. I am also suffering from reaction. Last night I thought our dear Hughie was dying, and I am perfectly convinced this morning that he isn't. So, too, I am sure, is Nadine: otherwise she couldn't have fallen asleep like that. And what Hughie did was so splendid. I am glad God made men like that, but it doesn't prevent my eating a huge breakfast and talking rot. I hope you don't mean to go away. It is so dull to be alone in the house with two young lovers, even when one adores them both." "Aren't you getting on rather quick, Dodo?" asked Edith. "Probably: but Seymour is congédié—how do you say it—spun, dismissed, and quite certainly Nadine has fallen in love with Hugh. There isn't time to be slow, nowadays. If you are slow you are left gasping on the beach like a fish. I still swim in the great waters, thank God." Dodo got up, and her mood changed utterly. She was never other than genuine, but it had pleased Nature to give her many facets, all brilliant, but all reflecting different-colored lights. "Oh, my dear, life is so short," she said, "and every moment should be so precious to everybody. I hate going to sleep, for fear I may miss something. Fancy waking in the morning and finding you had missed something, like an earthquake or suffragette riot! My[Pg 308] days are reasonably full, but I want them to be unreasonably full. And just now Jack keeps saying, 'Do rest: do lie down: do have some beef-tea.' Just as if I didn't know what was good for David! Edith, he is going to be such a gay dog! All the girls and all the women are going to fall desperately in love with him. He is going to marry when he is thirty, and not a day before, and he will be absolutely simple and unspoiled and a wicked little devil on his marriage morning. And then all his energies will be concentrated on one point, and that will be his wife. He will utterly adore her, and think of nobody else except me. I shall be seventy-four, you perceive, at that time, and so I shall be easy to please. The older one gets the easier one is to please. Already little things please me quite enormously, and big ones, as you also perceive, make me go off my head. Oh, I am sure heaven will be extremely nice, if I ever die, which God forbid; but however nice it is, it won't be the same as this. You agree there I know; you want to make all the music you can first—" "As a protest against what seems to be the music of heaven," said Edith firmly, "if we may judge by hymn tunes and chants, and the first act of Parsifal, and I suppose the last of Faust, and Handel's oratorios. It is very degrading stuff; all the changes of key are childishly simple, and the proportion of full closes is nearly indecent. And I want another ink-bottle." Edith whistled a short phrase on her teeth, as a gentle hint to her hostess. [Pg 309] "It's for the flutes," she said, "and the 'cellos take it up two octaves lower." She grabbed at her music-paper. "Then the horns start it again in the subdominant," she said, "and all the silly audience will think they are merely out of tune. That's because they got what they didn't expect. To be any good, you must surprise the ear. I'll surprise them. But I want another ink-bottle. And may I have lunch in my room, Dodo, if necessary? I don't know when I shall be able to get up." Dodo was not attending in any marked manner. "We will all do what we choose," she said genially. "We will be a sort of harmless Medmenham Abbey. You shall spill all the ink you please, and Nadine shall marry Hugh, who will get quite well, and I shall go and order dinner and see if Nadine is awake. I am afraid I am rather fatuously optimistic this morning, like Mr. Chesterton, and that is always so depressing, both to other people at the time, and to oneself subsequently. Dear me, what a charming world if there was no such thing as reaction. As a matter of fact I do not experience much of it." Edith gave a great sigh of relief as Dodo left the room, and concentrated herself with singular completeness on the horn-tune in the subdominant. She was quite devoted to Dodo, but the horn-tune was in focus just now, and she knew if Dodo had stopped any longer, she would have become barely tolerant of her presence. Shortly afterwards the fresh supply of ink[Pg 310] came also, and Edith proceeded straight up into the seventh heaven of her own compositions, which, good or bad, were perfection itself to their author. Dodo found a packet of letters waiting for her and among them a telegram from Miss Grantham saying, "Deeply grieved. Can I do anything?" This she swiftly answered, replying, "Darling Grantie. Nothing whatever," and went to Nadine's room, where she found Nadine, half-dressed, rosy from her bath, and radiant of spirit. "Oh, Mama, I never had such a lovely night," she said. "How delicious it must be to be married! I didn't wake till half-an-hour ago, and simultaneously Hughie woke, which looks as if we suited each other, doesn't it? And then the doctor came in, and looked at him, and said he was much stronger, much fuller of vitality for his long sleep, and he congratulated me on having made him sleep. And the nurse told me the first great danger, that he would not rally after the shock of the operation, was over. As far as that goes he will be all right." Nadine kissed her mother, and clung round her neck, dewy-eyed. "I'm not going to think about the future," she said. "Sufficient to the day is the good thereof. It is enough this morning that Hughie has got through the night and is stronger. If I had been given any wish to be fulfilled I should have chosen that. And if on the top of that I had been given another, it would have been that I should have helped towards it, which I suppose is the old Eve coming in. I think I had better[Pg 311] finish dressing, Mama, instead of babbling. Have you had breakfast?" "Yes, dear, I had it with Edith. She is in bed making tunes and pouring ink over the counterpane, and not minding." Nadine's face clouded for a moment, in spite of the accomplishment of her wishes. "And then I must see Seymour," she said. "It is no use putting that off. But, oh, Mama, to think that till yesterday I was willing to marry him, with Hugh in the world all the time. Whatever happens to Hugh, I can't marry him, Seymour, I mean, if the ridiculous English pronouns admit of any meaning; and I must tell him." "Seymour left half an hour ago," said Dodo. "But there's no need for you to tell him. I took him into Hugh's room and he saw you asleep. He understands. He couldn't very well help understanding, darling. He told me he understood before, when you called out to Hugh not to attempt the rescue. But he only understood it pretty well, as the ordinary person says he understands French. But when he saw you asleep, not exactly in Hugh's arms, but sufficiently close, he understood it like a real native, poor boy!" "What did he do?" asked Nadine. "He behaved very rightly and properly, and lost his temper with me, just as I lose my temper with the porter at the station if I miss my train. I had been just porter to him. He thanked me for a horrid visit, only he called it damnable, and so I lost my temper, too, and we had a few flowers of speech on the staircase,[Pg 312] not big ones, but just promising buds. And then, poor chap, he came back to me, and told me he was in hell, and I kissed him, and he didn't seem to mind much, and I suppose he caught his train. Otherwise he would have been back by now. I'm exceedingly sorry for him, Nadine, and you must write him a sweet little letter, which won't do any good at all, but it's one of the things you have to do. Darling, I wonder if jilting runs in families like consumption and red faces. You see I jilted my darling Jack, to marry into your family. But you must write the sweet little letter I spoke of, because you are sorry, only you couldn't help it." "Did you write a sweet little letter under—under the same circumstances to Papa Jack?" asked Nadine. "No, dear, because I hadn't got anybody exceedingly wise to give me that good advice," said Dodo. "Also, because I was a little brute there is no reason why you should be." "Perhaps it runs in the family, too," suggested Nadine. "Then the quicker it runs out of the family the better. Besides you are sorry for Seymour." Nadine opened her hands wide. "Am I? I hope so," she said. "But if you are quite full of gladness for one thing, Mama, it is a little difficult to find a corner for anything else." Dodo turned to leave the room. "Anywhere will do. Just under the stairs," she said. "I don't want to put it in the middle of the[Pg 313] drawing-room. After all, darling, you propose to jilt him." "There's something in that," said Nadine. "Oh, Mama, I used not to have any heart at all, and now that I've got one it doesn't belong to me." "No woman's heart belongs to her," said Dodo. "If it belongs to her, it isn't a heart." "I should have thought that nonsense yesterday," said Nadine. "Oh, wait while I finish dressing; I shan't be ten minutes. What meetings we have had in my lovely back room! One, I remember so particularly. You and Esther and Berts all lay on my bed like sardines in evening dresses, and I had just refused to marry Hugh, who was playing billiards with Uncle Algie. Somehow the things like love and devotion seemed to me quite old-fashioned, or anyhow they seemed to me signs of age. They did, indeed. I thought a clear brain was infinitely preferable to a confused heart, especially if it belonged to somebody else. I'm not used to it, Mama: it still seems to me very odd like a hat that doesn't fit. But it's a fact, and I suppose I shall grow into it, not that any one ever grew into a hat. But when Hugh swam out yesterday morning, something came tumbling down inside me. Or was it that only something cracked, like the shell of a nut? It does not much matter, so long as it is not mended again. But how queer that it should happen in a second, like that. I suppose time has nothing to do with what concerns one's soul. I believe Plato says something about it. I don't think I shall look it up. He wrote wonderfully, but when a thing[Pg 314] happens to oneself, that seems to matter more than Plato's reflections on the subject." There was a short pause as Nadine brushed her teeth, but Dodo sitting on the unslept-in bed did not feel inclined to break it. She wondered whether a particular point in the situation would occur to Nadine, whether her illumination as regards a woman's heart threw any light on that very different affair, a man's heart. She was not left long in doubt. The question of a man's heart was altogether unilluminated, and to Dodo there was something poignantly pathetic about Nadine's blissful ignorance. She came and sat down on the bed close to her mother. "Hughie will see I love him," she said, "because he won't be able to help it. I shall just wait, oh, so happily, for him to say again what he has so often said before. He will know my answer, before I give it him. I hope he will say it soon. Then we shall be engaged, and people who are engaged are a little freer, aren't they, Mama?" Dodo felt incapable of clouding that radiant face, for she knew in the days that were coming, all its radiance would be needed: not a single sparkle of light must be wasted. But it did not seem to her very likely that Hugh, whose joyous strength and splendid activity had been so often rejected by Nadine, would be likely to offer to her again what would be, in all probability, but a crippled parody of himself. But her sense of justice told her that Nadine owed him all the strength and encouragement her eager vitality could give him. It was only fair that she should devote herself[Pg 315] to him, and let him feel all the inspiration to live that her care of him could give him. But it seemed to her very doubtful if Hugh would consent, even if he perceived that it was love not warm friendship that she gave him, to let himself and his crippled body appeal to her. In days gone by, she would not marry him for love, and it seemed to Dodo that a real man, as Hugh was, would not allow her to marry him for pity. He had offered her his best, and she had refused it; it would not be surprising if he refused to offer her his worst. The joy that had inspired Dodo so that she had softly melted over the sight of Nadine asleep by Hugh, and had exultantly mopped up the spilt ink with Edith, suddenly evaporated, leaving her dry and cold. "You must wait, Nadine," she said. "You must make no plans. Give Hughie your vitality, and don't ask more." She got up. "Now, my darling, I shall go downstairs," she said, "and order your breakfast. You must be hungry. And then you can say your prayers, and breakfast will be ready." Nadine, absorbed in her own thoughts, felt nothing of this. "Prayers?" she said. "Why I was praying all night till dawn. At least, I was wanting, just wanting, and not for myself. Isn't that prayers?" Dodo loved that: it was exactly what she meant in her inmost heart by prayers. She drew Nadine to her and kissed her. [Pg 316] "Darling, you have said enough for a week," she said, "if not more. And you said them because you must, which is the only proper plan. If you don't feel you must say your prayers, it is just as well not to say them at all. But you shall have breakfast, whether you feel you must or not. I say you must." <hr class="chap" />[Pg 317] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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