Dodo Wonders Part 11

"My dear, what fun!" she said. "How are you, Jumbo? You're ever so welcome, though I did tell you to come in half-an-hour and not three minutes. Oh, it's all been too killing! I'll tell you every word as soon as I'm ready. Go into my room, and wait. I'm ever so glad to see you."

Dodo was an admirable mimic. Jumbo, rolling about on the sofa almost fancied he was back at Oxford again being influenced by Lord Cookham.

CHAPTER V

A MAN'S HAND

Whenever Dodo was in London for a Sunday, as was the case on the day preceding her ball, she always gave up the hours until teatime, inclusive, to David's uninterrupted society. They breakfasted together at half-past nine, and immediately afterwards, usually before Jack had put in an appearance at all, set off on the top of a bus, if the weather made that delightful form of progress possible, to attend service in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. A mere sprinkle of rain did not matter, because then they crouched underneath an umbrella, and played at being early Christians in a small cave, while if the inclemency was too severe for any reasonable Christian to remain in a small cave, they dashed to the tube-station at Down Street, and after traversing an extremely circuitous route, like early Christians in an enormous rabbit-burrow, emerged at Post Office Station, where another dash took them into shelter. It was in fact only on the most tempestuous Sundays of all that they were reduced to the degradation of ordering the motor, and going there in dull dignity.

They did not always wait for the sermon; David had the option of going away or remaining, for Dodo considered that a tired boy listening or not listening to a sermon was likely to get a gloomier view of religious practices than if he had been allowed to go away when he had had enough and play early Christians in a cave again. But he had to decide whether they should remain or go away while the preacher was being conducted to the pulpit, and it was stipulated that if he decided to stop he must abide by his choice and not retire in the middle of the sermon, since it was not polite to interrupt people when they were talking to you.

To-day David had made a most unfortunate choice. The preacher was entertaining for a few minutes merely because he had a high fluty voice that echoed like a siren in the dome, but he said nothing of the smallest interest, and had no idea whatever when to stop. Between his sentences he made long pauses, and Dodo had got briskly to her feet during one of these, thinking that the discourse was now over. So she had to sit down again, and David, trying to swallow his desire to laugh, had hiccupped loudly, which made three people in the row immediately in front of them, turn round all together as if worked by one lever and look fixedly at them, which was embarra.s.sing.

One of them happened to be Lord Cookham, and it seemed likely that Dodo would hiccup next. Then from a front chair close to the choir, Edith Arbuthnot got up, curtsied low in the direction of the altar before turning her back on it, and began walking towards them down the gangway.

"Why did she curtsey, mummy? Was Prince Albert there?" asked David in a whisper.

"Yes," said Dodo, not feeling capable of explaining it all just then.

One of Edith's boots creaked exactly an octave below the pitch of the preacher's fluty voice. This sounded ever louder and more cheerfully as she got nearer, and she stopped when she came opposite to them.

"Stop for the second service, Dodo," she said. "They're going to sing my ma.s.s. I can't. I'm playing golf at Richmond. Good-bye."

Her creaking boot sounded in gradual diminuendo as she tramped away down the nave.

"Mummy," began David in a piercing whisper. "If Mrs. Arbuthnot may go out in the middle----"

Dodo conjectured what was coming.

"Because you're not grown up," she said. "Hush, David."

It was impossible to listen to the flute-like preacher, for his words ran together like ink-marks on blotting-paper, and Dodo gave up all idea of trying to hear what he was saying. But she had not the slightest wish to follow Edith; to sit quiet in this huge church, dim and cool, charged with the centuries of praise and wors.h.i.+p which had soaked into it was like coming out of the glare of some noisy noon-day, into the green shelter of trees and moisture. Dodo had already finished saying her prayers, but she tried to say to herself not very successfully, the twenty-third Psalm which seemed to her expressive of her feelings, and then abandoning that, gave herself over to vague meditation. Deep down in her (very effectively screened, it must be allowed, by her pa.s.sion for the excitements and mundane interests of life) there existed this chamber of contemplation for her soul, a real edifice, quite solid and established. It was not in her nature to frequent it very much, and it stood vacant for remarkably long periods together, but just now she was ecstatically content, with David by her side, to sit there while the voice of the preacher hooted round the dome. There she recaptured the consciousness of the eternal, the secure, the permanent that underlay the feverish motions of her days. They were like some boat tossing on the surface of the waves, yet all the time anch.o.r.ed to a rock that lay deep below all movement and agitation. Thus in such "season of calm weather" she rested in a state of inertia that was yet intense and vivid, and it was from just this power of conscious tranquillity that she drew so much of the indefatigable energy that never seemed to grow less with her advancing years. For her senses it was rest, for her soul it was wordless prayer and concentration.

"That's all," said David suddenly jumping to his feet.

Dodo came out of her place of rest with no more shock than that with which she awoke in the morning, and observed that the preacher had left the pulpit. Then Lord Cookham pa.s.sed her with a fixed unconscious expression, which made Dodo think that he was cutting her until she remembered his avowed habit never to recognise even his nearest and dearest in church. On the way down the nave she was filled with consternation to find that her entire financial resources consisted of one s.h.i.+lling, sixpence of which was absolutely necessary to enable her and David to get home on the top of a bus, so what was to be done about the offertory-plate which she knew would be presented to her notice near the west door. She would hardly like to ask the verger for change. In these circ.u.mstances she thought she might venture to appeal to Lord Cookham, who was but a yard or two in front of her, and he, still without sign of recognition gave her a new crisp five-pound note. This also out of its very opulence rather than its exiguousness seemed to stand in need of change, but the idea of applying to him again with the confession that she did not want so much as that was clearly unthinkable. She noticed, however, with rapt appreciation that his own alms were not on this magnificent scale, for with silent secrecy, so that his left hand should not know what his right was doing, he slid a half-crown into the dish. It was fearfully and wonderfully like him to hand her the larger sum and reserve for himself the smaller....

According to Sunday usage David had filled one of his pockets with maize to give the pigeons that bowed and strutted about the pavement outside the west door, and it was not till the early Christians had boarded their bus (there was no need to-day for any cave beyond that afforded by a parasol) that he could seek the solution of such theological difficulties as had occurred during the service. The first was as to why his spirit should long and faint for the converse of the Saints. Didn't "converse" mean opposite? In this case his spirit longed and fainted for wicked people.... Then there was the knotty point of "special grace preventing us." David could only suppose that it meant a very long grace, such as the bishop used when he stayed at Winston, which prevented you from sitting down to dinner....

The "converse" of the early Christians drifted away to the more mundane question of what was to be done after lunch. Here Dodo had the privilege of suggesting though not of deciding, but her suggestion of the Zoological Gardens led to an immediate decision.

"And I shall see the blue-faced mandrill," said David, "which you said was so like Prince Albert. I shall stand in front of the cage and say 'Good-morning, Prince Albert.'"

Dodo had forgotten that she had made this odious comparison.

"You mustn't do anything of the sort, darling," she said. "The mandrill wouldn't be at all pleased. Monkeys hate being told they are like people, just as people hate being told they are like monkeys."

David considered this.

"It'll have to hate it then," he observed. "Does it cheat at croquet, too?"

"There's the Salvation Army," said Dodo, skilfully changing the subject.

"And the lions in Trafalgar Square. We'll see the lions fed this afternoon."

"Yes. And we'll see the mandrill fed. Does the mandrill eat as much as----"

"No, not so much as the lions," said she.

"I wasn't going to say that, I was going to say 'does it eat as much as Prince----' Oh, mummy, look. There's Jumbo! Hi! Uncle Jumbo!"

Their bus was just moving on again after stopping opposite the Carlton Hotel, and there on the pavement, majestic and jewelled and turbanned was that potentate who had already won so honourable a place in David's heart that he had been promoted to the brevet-rank of an uncle. He looked up at his nephew's shrill salutation, saw him and Dodo, and with a celerity marvellous in one of his bulk, skipped off the pavement and bounced and bounded along the street after them, presenting so amazing an appearance that the conductor, instead of stopping the bus, stared open-mouthed at this Oriental apparition. After a few seconds the Maharajah giving up all thought of further hopeless pursuit stood in the middle of the road waving his arms like a great brown jewelled windmill, and blowing handfuls of kisses after them.

"Well run, Uncle Jumbo!" screamed David. "What a pity!"

A thin middle-aged lady, like a flat-fish (probably the person who tells the public who was in the Park looking lovely) sitting on the seat next Dodo peered over the side of the bus, and turned to her with an air of haughty reproof.

"You should teach your little boy better manners," she said, "than to go shouting such names at the Maharajah of Bareilly."

"Yes, David," said Dodo with a glance that he completely understood.

"Sit down at once, and don't be so rude, shouting names at people in the street. And was that really the Maharajah, ma'am?"

This very proper behaviour appeared to mollify the flat-fish.

"Dear me, yes," she said. "That's the Maharajah of Bareilly. And he's so good-natured, I'm sure he won't mind. He wears pearls valued at half a million sterling."

"Indeed!" said Dodo. "That would make you and me very good-natured too, wouldn't it?"

The flat-fish fingered a very brilliant cairngorm brooch, which she wore to great advantage at her throat, in case Dodo hadn't noticed it. (She had).

"So affable and pleasant too," said she. "Dear me, yes!"

"Oh, is he a friend of yours?" asked Dodo, thrillingly interested, with a side glance of approval at David, who was holding himself in, and biting his lips like a good boy.

"The dear Maharajah of Bareilly!" exclaimed the flat-fish, not quite committing herself. "Very full of engagements he is during his brief visits here. To-morrow he dines with the Marchioness of Chesterford.

Lady Dodo, as her friends call her."

Dodo gave an awful jump as her name came out with such unexpectedness, but pretended to sneeze so promptly that the effect might easily have been confused with the cause.

"Where does she live?" she asked.

"At Chesterford House, to be sure, close to Hyde Park Corner. I will point it out to you if you go as far. Dear me, fancy not knowing Chesterford House and its beautiful ballroom, but I daresay it's very pleasant living in the country. It's a strange thing now, but for the moment when I came up on to the bus--though I seldom go by a bus--you reminded me of the Marchioness."

Dodo could not resist pursuing this marvellous conversation. David seemed safe, he was looking at the sky with blank frog-like eyes, and quivering slightly.