The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

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The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition) - E. F. Benson

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Nadine ask Jack to be a dear and put off the wedding till to-morrow, since her tears had made her a perfect fright. On which the bridegroom took a card and wrote on it: "I won't put off the wedding, and if you don't come at once, I shall go away. Do be quick: there are millions and millions of people all staring."

      "Oh, Jack, what a brute you are," said Nadine, as she read it, "I don't think I can take it."

      "You can and will," said he. "You will also take Dodo by the hand and bring her here. Bring her, do you understand? Tell her that in twenty minutes from now I shall go."

      Somehow Dodo's marriage had seized the popular imagination, and the Abbey was crammed, so also for half a mile were the pavements. The traffic by the Abbey had been diverted, and all round the windows were clustered with sight-seers. The choir was reserved for the more intimate friends, and Bishop Algie who was to perform the ceremony was endorsed by a flock of eminent clergy. The news that Dodo was in tears, but that Nadine had been sent by the bridegroom to fetch her, traveled swiftly up the Abbey, and a perfect babel of conversation broke out, almost drowning the rather Debussy-like wedding march which Edith had composed for the occasion. She had also written an anthem, "Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine," a highly original hymn-tune, and two chants for the psalms written for full orchestra with percussion and an eight-part choir. She had wanted to conduct the whole herself, and expressed her perfect willingness to wear a surplice and her music-doctor's hood, and keep on her cap or not, exactly as the dean preferred. But the dean preferred that she should take no part whatever, beyond contributing the whole of the music, which annoyed her very much, and several incisive letters passed between them in which the topics of conventionalism, Pharisees and cant were freely introduced. Edith had to give way, but consoled herself by arranging that the whole of the "Marriage Suite" should be shortly after performed at the Queen's Hall, where no dean or other unenlightened person could prevent her conducting in any costume she chose. But temporarily she had been extremely upset by this ridiculous bigotry.

      Dodo arrived before the twenty minutes were over, and she came up the choir on Jack's arm, looking quite superb and singing Edith's hymn tune very loud and occasionally incorrectly. She had just come opposite Edith, who had, in default of conducting, secured a singularly prominent position, when she sang a long bell-like B flat, and Edith had said "B natural, Dodo," in a curdling, sibilant whisper. There were of course no bridesmaids, but Dodo's train was carried by pages, both of whom she kissed when they arrived at the end of their long march up the choir. Mrs. Vivian, who on Dodo's engagement had finally capitulated, was next to Edith, and Dodo said "Vivy, dear!" into her ear-trumpet, as she passed up the aisle. Miss Grantham alone among the older friends was absent: she had said from the beginning that it was dreadfully common of Dodo to marry Jack, as it was a "lived-happily-ever-afterwards" kind of ending to Dodo's unique experiences. She knew that they would both become stout and serene and commonplace, instead of being wild and unhappy and interesting, and to mark her disapproval, made an appointment with her dentist at the hour at which the voice would be breathing over Eden in the exceedingly up-to-date music which Edith had composed. But so far from her dentist finding change and decay, he dismissed her five minutes after she had sat down, and seized by a sudden ungovernable fit of curiosity she drove straight off to the Abbey to find that Dodo had not arrived, and it seemed possible that there was a thrill coming, and everything might not end happily. But when it became known that Dodo was only late for sentimental reasons, she left again in disgust, and ran into Dodo at the west door, and said, "I am disappointed, Dodo."

      Dodo sang Edith's psalm with equal fervor, but thought it would be egoistic to join in the anthem, since it was about herself. But she whispered to Jack, "Jack, dear, it's much the most delicious marriage I ever had. Hush, you must be grave because dear Algie is going to address us. I hope he will give us a nice long sermon."

       The register was signed by almost everybody in the world, and there were so many royalties that it looked at first as if everybody was going to leave out their surnames. But the time of ambassadors and peers came at last, and then it looked as if the fashion was to discard Christian names. "In fact," said Dodo, "I suppose if you were much more royal than anybody else, you would lose your Christian name as well, your Royal Highness, and simply answer to Hie! or to any loud cry—Oh, are we all ready again? We've got to go first, Jack. Darling, I hope you won't shy at the cinematographs. I hear the porch is full of them, like Gatling guns, and to-night you and I will be in all the music-halls of London. Where are my ducks of pages? That's right: one on each side. Now give me your arm, Jack. Here we go! Listen at Edith's wedding march! I wonder if it's safe to play as loud as that in anything so old as the Abbey. I should really be rather afraid of its falling down if Algie hadn't told me not to be afraid with any amazement."

      It took the procession a considerable time to get down the choir, since Dodo had to kiss her bouquet (not having a hand to spare) to such an extraordinary number of people. But in course of time they got out, faced the battery of cameras and cinematograph machines, and got into their car. Jack effaced himself in a corner, but Dodo bowed and smiled with wonderful assiduity to the crowds.

      "They have come to see us," she explained. "So it is essential that we should look pleased to see them. I should so like to be the Queen, say on Saturdays only, like the train you always want to go by on other days in the week. Darling, can't you smile at them? Or put out your tongue, and make a face. They would enjoy it hugely."

      Eventually, as they got further away from the Abbey, it became clear to Dodo that the people in the street were concerned with their own businesses, and not hers, and she leaned back in the carriage.

      "Oh, Jack," she said, "it is you and I at last. But I can't help talking nonsense, dear. I only do it because I'm so happy. I am indeed. And you?"

      "It is morning with me," he said.

      They left town that afternoon, though Dodo rather regretted that they would not see themselves in the cinematograph to make sure that she had smiled and that Jack's hair was tidy, and went down to Winston, Jack's country place, where so many years ago Dodo had arrived before as the bride of his cousin. He had wondered whether, for her sake, another place would not be more suitable as a honeymoon resort, but she thought the plan quite ideal.

      "It will be like the renewal of one's youth," she said, "and I am going to be so happy there now. Jack, we were neither of us happy when you used to come to stay there before, and to go back like this will wipe out all that is painful in those old memories, and keep all that isn't. Is it much changed? I should so like my old sitting-room again if you haven't made it something else."

      "It is exactly as you left it," said he. "I couldn't alter anything."

      Dodo slipped her hand into his.

      "Did you try to, Jack?" she asked.

      "Yes. I meant to alter it entirely: I meant to put away all that could remind me of you. In fact, I went down there on purpose to do it. But when I saw it, I couldn't. I sat down there, and—"

      "Cried?" said Dodo softly, sympathetically.

      "No, I didn't cry. I smoked a cigarette and looked round in a stupid manner. Then I took out of its frame a big photograph of myself that I had given you, in order to tear it up. But I put it back in its frame again, and put the frame exactly where it was before."

      Dodo gave a little moan.

      "Oh, Jack, how you must have hated me!" she said.

      "I hated what you had done: I hated that you could do it. But the other, never. And, Dodo, let us never talk about all those things again, don't let us even think of them. It is finished, and what is real is just beginning."

      "It was real all along," she said, "and I knew it was real all along—you and me, that is to say—but I chose to tell myself that

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