V
Dorothy slept badly that night. Her regret for the mistake she had made in addressing Arthur Lonsdale as esquire magnified itself horribly in the mean little bedroom of the lodgings in Eden Square. All night long she was waking up to reproach herself for her stupidity in not taking the trouble to make sure who he was before she sent back the note. Her blunder was all the more unpardonable because she should have been sufficiently interested in receiving a letter from a namesake to take this trouble. And now suppose Lord Clarehaven were to put her under the necessity of addressing him on the outside of an envelope? How was she to know what to write? "Lord Clarehaven, Christ Church College"? It sounded rather empty. In any case, she should have to ask for him at the lodge to-morrow, and how the porter would sneer behind her back if she should make a mistake! In despair Dorothy wandered into the next room where Sylvia and Lily were sleeping tranquilly.
"Oh dear!" she lamented.
"What's the matter?" asked Sylvia, jumping up in bed.
"Sylvia, I can't sleep. I think there's a rat in my room. I suppose Arthur Lonsdale didn't say if Lord Clarehaven was a marquis, did he?"
"Damn your eyes, Dorothy, did you wake me up to ask that? Go and get hold of Debrett, if you want to know so badly."
Dorothy went back to her bedroom in peace of mind. Of course! How easy it was, really, and she fell into a delicious sleep, from which, notwithstanding her disturbed night, she was early awake to dress and be out of the house by ten o'clock in order to search the Oxford bookshops for a Peerage.
"We have a Baronetage" said one bookseller.
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders compassionately, and went from shop to shop until she found the big red volume of her desire. She paid without a moment's hesitation the price of it, called a cab, and drove back to Eden Square, that she might have plenty of time to devour the contents before going to Christ Church. Her breath came fast when she actually read Clarehaven and began to absorb the wonderful information below:
CLAREHAVEN, EARL OF. (Clare) [Earl U.K. 1816. Bt. E. 1660.]
ANTHONY GILBERT CLARE, 5th Earl, and 10th Baronet; b. Oct. 15, 1882; s. 1896; ed. at Eton and Christ Church; is 2d Lieut, in North Devon Dragoons, and patron of one living.
Arms—Purpure, two flanches ermine, on a chief sable a moon in her complement argent. Crest—A moon in her complement argent, arising from a cloud proper. Supporters—Two angels vested purpure, winged and crined or, each holding in the exterior hand a key or. Motto—Claro non clango.
Seat—Clare Court, Devonshire. Town residence—129 Curzon Street, W. Club—Bachelors'.
SISTERS LIVING
Lady Arabella. b. 1885.
Lady Constantia. b. 1887.
WIDOW LIVING OF FOURTH EARL
Augusta (Countess of Clarehaven) 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield: m. 1880 the 4th Earl who d. 1896. Residence—Clare Court, Devonshire.
PREDECESSORS—[1] Anthony Clare, M.P. for Devon (a descendant of Richard Fitzgilbert, Baron of Clare, a companion of the Conqueror, son of Gilbert Crispin, Earl of Brione in Normandy, who was son of Geoffrey, a natural son of Richard I. Duke of Normandy), was cr. a Bt. 1660; d. 1674; s. by his son [2] Sir Gilbert, 2d Bt.; d. 1710; s. by his son [3] Sir Anthony, 3d Bt.; d. 1747; s. by his nephew [4] Sir William, 4th Bt.; d. 1764; s. by his cousin [5] Sir Anthony, 5th Bt.; cr. Baron Clarehaven (peerage of Great Britain) 1796; d. 1802; s. by his son [6] Gilbert, 2d Baron; cr. Viscount Clare and Earl of Clarehaven (peerage of United Kingdom) 1816; d. 1826; s. by his son [7] Richard Crispin, 2d Earl. b. 1788. m. 1818 Lady Caroline Lacey who d. 1859, 2d dau. of 3d Marquess of Longlan; d. 1864; s. by his son [8] Geoffrey William, P.C., 3d Earl. b. 1820; sometime Lord Lieut. of Devon; M.P. for S. Devon (C); Vice-Chamberlain of H. M. Queen Victoria's Household. m. 1845 the Hon. Louisa Travers, who d. 1890, dau. of the 26th Baron Travers; d. 1867; s. by his son [9] Gilbert Crispin, 4th Earl, b. 1845; Lieut. Royal Horse Guards, 1866-67: m. 1880 Lady Augusta Fanhope, 2d dau. of 9th Earl of Chatfield; d. 1896; s. by his son [10] Anthony Gilbert, 5th Earl and present peer; also Viscount Clare and Baron Clarehaven.
Half a dozen times word for word she read through these magic pages, until she felt that she simply could not make a mistake at lunch. Then a page or two farther on, past Clarendon and Clarina, she came to:
CLEVEDEN, BARON. (Lonsdale) [Baron G.B. 1762.]
CHARLES ARTHUR BRABAZON LONSDALE. G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E. 5th Baron; b. Oct. 10, 1858; s. 1888; ed. at Eton and at Ch. Ch. Oxford. (B.A. 1880); is a J.P. and D.L. for Warwickshire and Verderer of the Forest of Arden; Hon. Col. of Yeo.; sat as M.P. for West Warwick—(C) 1880-1884; was Assist. Private Sec. to the Premier—(M. Salisbury) 1885-6; Gov. and Com. in Ch. of E. Australia. 1893-99; and Gov. of Central India. 1899-1901; K.C.M.G. 1893; G.C.M.G. 1898; G.C.I.E. 1899: m. 1882 Lady Helen Druce (an Extra Woman of the Bed-chamber to H.M. Queen Victoria), dau. of 10th Earl of Monteith and has issue.
Arms—Argent, an oak tree englanté vert. Crest—A bugle horn or, enguiché and stringed vert. Supporters—On either side a forester sounding a horn proper. Motto—J'y serai.
Seat—Cressingham Hall, Warwick. Clubs—Carlton. Travellers'.
SON LIVING
Hon. ARTHUR GEORGE MORNINGTON. b. Feb. 24, 1883.
DAUGHTER LIVING
Hon. Sylvia May. b. 1885.
"Sylvia?" Dorothy said to herself. But she decided to stick to the name Dorothy, and went on reading about her family.
BROTHER LIVING
Rev. the Hon. George, b. 1860; ed. at Eton, and at St. Mary's Coll. Oxford. (B.A. 1883. M.A. 1886); is R. of Bingham-cum-Bingham Monachorum; m. 1894 Mary Alice, dau. of the late Rev. Francis Greville, V. of St. Wilfred's, Tilchester, and Hon. Canon of Tilchester, and has issue living, Arthur Brabazon—b. 1896. Mary—b. 1898. Georgina Maud—b. 1900. Residence—Bingham Rectory, Hants.
SISTERS LIVING
Hon. Frances Louisa, b. 1863. m. 1885 Sir William Honeywood-Greene, 6th Bt. Residence—Arden Towers, Warwick.
Hon. Caroline, b. 1865. m. 1886 Sir Stanley Pinkerton, K.C.V.O. Master of the King's Spaniels. Residence—210 Eaton Square, S.W.
Hon. Horatia. b. 1867.
There followed a couple of pages devoted to collateral branches of the Lonsdales. These were something new: the Clares apparently lacked collaterals. Presently it dawned on Dorothy that these collaterals treated of the more distant relations of the family, and in a fever she began to search for confirmation of the legend in Lonsdale Road that through their grandmother, Mrs. Doyle, the Caffyns were connected with Lord Cleveden. On and on she read through colonels and rectors with their numerous offspring, through consuls and captains and judges and doctors even; but there was no mention of Doyles, still less of Caffyns. The connection must indeed be very remote: perhaps it was hidden among the predecessors.
PREDECESSORS.—[1] George Lonsdale, Verderer of the Forest of Arden; M.P. for Warwickshire 1740-62; cr. Baron Cleveden, of Cressingham, co. Warwick (peerage of Great Britain) 1762; d. 1764; s. by his son [2] Arthur, 2d Baron; d. 1822; s. by his son [3] Charles, 3d Baron; b. 1790: m. 1830 the Hon. Horatia Brabazon, who d. 1851, dau. of 3d Viscount Brabazon; d. 1840; s. by his son [4] George Brabazon, 4th Baron; b. 1832; a Lord-in-Waiting to H. M. Queen Victoria 1858-64: m. 1856 Lady May Mornington, who d. 1895, 3d dau. of 11th Earl of Belgrove; d. 1888; s. by his son [5] Charles Arthur Brabazon, 5th Baron and present peer.
Dorothy sighed her disappointment, but resolved that she would adopt the family crest and motto as her own. J'y serai underneath a bugle-horn: how well it would look on her note-paper. Fired by its inspiration, she began to dress herself for lunch with the Earl of Clarehaven, and when, an hour later, she ushered Sylvia into the Christ Church lodge with a hardihood that contrasted strongly with the reluctance she had shown when Sylvia had dragged her into St. Mary's on Sunday, there was no need to inquire for Lord Clarehaven by his correct title, because the host was there himself to meet his guests and escort them across the spaciousness of Tom Quad to his rooms in Peckwater. It appeared that at the last minute an urgent summons to play cricket for the Eton Ramblers had prevented Lonsdale from coming. Dorothy, notwithstanding her knowledge of the Lonsdale collaterals, was not sorry, for she did not wish to discuss the relationship with one of the family, especially before Sylvia, to whom she now turned with a hint of patronage.
"My dear, you will be disappointed. Mr. Lonsdale is not coming to lunch."
Sylvia said she would try to put up with the disappointment and hoped that an equally entertaining substitute had been provided.
"I've asked a fellow called Tufton," said Clarehaven. "His father's a sleeping partner or something of jolly old John Richards at the Vanity, and I thought he might be useful. Besides, he's not at all a bad egg. We elected him to the Bullingdon this term."
Dorothy looked at her host gratefully and admiringly.
"How awfully sweet of you!" she murmured, with the lightest, briefest touch of her fingers on his wrist, and thinking how well the people who mattered knew how to do things.
They had reached Peckwater by now, the architecture of which, brightened by many window-boxes in full bloom, reminded Dorothy of streets in Mayfair. Her morning with Debrett had in fact turned her head so completely that she sought everywhere for illustrations of grandeur in the life around her; in this regard Clarehaven's rooms, by conforming perfectly to her notions of what they should be, made her want to kiss herself with satisfaction. To begin with, the door of his bedroom, slightly ajar, allowed a glimpse of numerous pairs of boots running up the scale from brogues to waders, which somehow spoke more eloquently of riches and leisure than if the luncheon-table had been laid with gold. Dorothy was contemplating the tints of these boots like a poet in an autumnal glade when Clarehaven presented Mr. Tufton, who, to do him justice, looked as well turned out as one of his host's hunting-tops and in a chestnut-colored suit with extravagantly rolled collar maintained his personality against the boots and the cigars and the brown sherry and the old paneling and the studies of grouse by Thorburn that gave this room its air of mellow opulence.
Dorothy told Mr. Tufton brightly that he had missed a wonderful afternoon yesterday.
"I was playing polo," he explained.
Dorothy, having an idea that polo was nearly as dangerous as bull-fighting, shuddered.
"I say, do you feel a draught?" inquired the host, anxiously.
"Oh no, it's delicious here."
A voice from the quad was shouting "Tony," and Dorothy, remembering Anthony from Debrett, could not resist telling Clarehaven that he was being called. Clarehaven was moving over to the window to discourage whoever was demanding his presence, when another voice came clearly up through the June air.
"Shut up, Ridgway! Tony's lunching some does, you silly ass!"
Dorothy could not help thinking that Sylvia ought to have pretended not to hear this allusion instead of bursting out into what was really a vulgar peal of laughter.
"I think there is a draught," said Mr. Tufton, closing the windows so gravely that one felt much of his inmost meditation was devoted to the tactful handling of moments like this.
"Are these your sisters?" Dorothy asked, picking up a photograph of two girls, each holding a foxhound.
"Yes, those are my sisters Bella and Connie," Clarehaven replied. "They're awful keen on puppy-walking."
Perhaps, after all, abbreviations were sometimes tolerable, and names like Arabella and Constantia were rather long.
"Isn't your second name Gilbert?" she asked.
"Yes. Dreadful infliction, isn't it?"
Dorothy decided not to say that her father's name was Gilbert, to which she had been leading up, and took her seat at table, noticing with pleasure that the full moon of the house of Clare adorned the silver. After lunch they looked at albums of snapshots, during the examination of which Mr. Tufton was most useful, because he was continually saying: "By Jove! Isn't that Lady Connie?" or: "By Gad! Isn't that the covert where Lady Bella got her left and right last October?" or: "Hello! I see Lady Clarehaven has followed my advice about the pergola." If Mr. Tufton could advise countesses as stately as the Countess of Clarehaven and refer to the daughters of an earl as Lady Bella and Lady Connie, what might not Dorothy do with patience and discretion? Meanwhile she took no risks, and if she had to mention the members of her host's family she alluded to them as "your mother" or "your elder sister" or "your younger sister."
"But what a glorious place Clare Court must be!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, I don't know," said the owner of it. "The train service is absolutely rotten."
"You'll have your new car this vac.," Mr. Tufton reminded him. "I wrote the firm a very strong letter yesterday." Then seeing that his friend was growing gloomy at the prospect of Devonshire even with a new car, he suggested a stroll round Meadows, and cleverly arranged to lag behind with Sylvia.
Clarehaven when he was alone with Dorothy did not find much more to say, but he was able to look at her with a more open admiration than when his glances had been disconcerted by Sylvia's monocle.
"You know I'm tremendously quelled by your friend," he avowed. "By Jove! you know, I feel she's always criticizing a fellow. Now with you I feel absolutely at my ease."
"I'm glad," Dorothy murmured. Then for two full moments she let her deep eyes flash into his.
"I say, when you look at me like that," said Clarehaven, solemnly, "you absolutely bring my heart into my mouth. By Gad! I feel it being hooked up like a trout."
"I'm afraid it's a very easy heart to hook," she laughed.
"Oh no, it's not! Oh no, really it's not! I can assure you that I'm not in the least susceptible."
"Ah, you'll forget all about me to-morrow."
"My dear Dorothy! You don't object to my calling you Dorothy? My dear Dorothy, if you knew how unlikely I am to forget all about you to-morrow...."
"Well?"
"Well, I'm not going to forget about you, that's all."
"We shall see."
"Yes, we shall," said Clarehaven, fiercely.
Dorothy was anxious to add still a small touch to his obvious appreciation, and she conceived the daring idea of inviting him back to tea in the lodgings. She felt that there in the dingy little room her grace and beauty would appear more desirable than ever, and if he should fancy from her invitation that she intended to make herself cheap he would soon perceive from her behavior how far removed she was from the average chorus-girl. Clarehaven applauded the suggestion, and though Sylvia looked rather bored by it, Tufton was enthusiastic; so they visited a pastry-cook's and bought lots of expensive cakes and chocolates, for which the guest of honor paid.
"How the poor live!" exclaimed Dorothy, pointing with a dramatic gesture at the drab little houses of Eden Square as if she would comment upon an aspect of Oxford that was hardly credible after Christ Church.
"Yes, this is our quad," chuckled Sylvia. "Old Tom!"
"I've never been here before," said Clarehaven, anxious to convince Dorothy that really he was not susceptible. "I've heard of Eden Square, of course, but this is my first visit. It's where all the theatrical people stay, isn't it, Tuffers?"
"It may be," replied Mr. Tufton, who, having paid for everything he possessed with money his father was making out of the theater, naturally did not wish to show himself too familiar with its domestic life.
"Number ten," said Dorothy, gaily. "Here we are!"
She opened the front door and led the way along a narrow passage to the sitting-room, and, flinging wide open the door, drew back for Clarehaven to enter first.
"You'll have to excuse the general untidiness," she warned him.
The sentence was out before she had time to realize that the general untidiness included a searing vision of Lily in an arm-chair, imparadised upon the lap of the impossible Tom Hewitt. Sylvia dashed forward to the rescue of Dorothy, who was standing speechless with mortification, and began introducing everybody to one another as fast as she could. Clarehaven's devotion to the stage did not seem impaired by this abrupt manifestation of low life behind the scenes, and Tufton, who in other company would probably have been as much outraged as Dorothy herself by such a reflection upon the source of his wealth, copied his friend's lead. Tom Hewitt with a mumbled excuse about having to see the manager retired as soon as possible. Lily, notwithstanding that her left cheek was flushed and that the hair on the left side of her head was more conspicuously a part of the general untidiness than the hair on the right, seemed utterly unconscious of having as good as torn up the Debrett in which Dorothy had invested this morning, and actually talked away in her languorous style to Clarehaven and Tufton as if Tom Hewitt's lap was the natural place on which to pass a lovely summer afternoon.
For Dorothy that tea-party was a martyrdom from which she began to think that she should never recover. Wherever she looked she saw that horrible picture of Lily and Tom. Once Clarehaven asked for another lump of sugar, and, tormented by the vision, she put two chocolates in his cup. Tufton passed his cup for a little more milk, and she emptied it away into the slop-bowl. Finally in an effort to restore her equanimity she took a chocolate that concealed a sticky caramel within, and when her mouth was all twisted and her teeth felt as if they were being pulled out by the roots Clarehaven asked if she could not spare him a photograph. He was being kind, thought Dorothy, miserably; the Fitzgilberts and Crispins and Clares of all those generations were gathering to help him hide the contempt he must feel for this tea-party; Lacy and Travers and Fanhope were behind him, pleading the obligations of nobility. And if he were not being kind she must suppose that he rather liked Lily, which would be worst of all. But what a lesson she had been given, what a lesson, indeed! If but once it might be granted to her that a folly should be expiated in the pain of the moment, she would never play tricks with fortune again.
When Clarehaven rose to make his farewells Dorothy did not attempt to detain him, but with a sorrowful grace shook his hand and would not even give him the photograph.
"No, no, I'd rather send you one from London."
"But you'll forget," he protested.
"No, I sha'n't. One hundred and twenty-nine Curzon Street. Or will you be at Clare Court?"
"I'll write to you."
"No, no," said Dorothy. It would never do for him to write to Lonsdale Road; besides, he might take it into his head to visit her there, which might be more disastrous than this tea-party. What would he think, for instance, of the misshapen boots that were usually waiting outside Roland's room like two large black-beetles? No, when she had thought out her campaign she would send him a photograph, and if, looking back on this afternoon, he decided that she was not worth while—well, she must put up with it. Dorothy was so sorry for herself that Clarehaven was flattered by her melancholy countenance into supposing that he had made a deep impression. In the narrow passage Tufton slipped behind and whispered to her that she must look her best to-night.
"Why?"
"Stable information," he said, and hurried after his friend, Lord Clarehaven.
When the three girls were alone together in the fatal sitting-room Dorothy's repressed rage with Lily broke out uncontrollably.
"I hope you don't think I'll ever live with you again after that disgusting exhibition. I suppose you think just because you went with me to Walter Keal that you can do as you like. I don't know what Sylvia thinks of you, but I can tell you what I think. You make me feel absolutely sick. That beastly chorus-boy! The idea of letting anybody like that even look at you! Thank Heaven, the tour's over. I'm going down to the theater. I can't stay in this room. It makes me blush to think of it. I'll take jolly good care who I live with in future."
Something in Lily's fragility, something in her still untidy hair and uncomprehending muteness, inflamed Dorothy beyond the bounds of toleration, and in despair of just words to humiliate her sufficiently she slapped her face.
"Hit her back, my lass," cried Sylvia, putting up her eye-glass to watch the fray; but Lily collapsed tearfully into the arm-chair, and Dorothy rushed out of the room.
The sight of Debrett's scarlet and gold upon her dressing-table was enough to reconjure all her mortification, and she was just going to weep her heart out upon the bed as, no doubt, below Lily was weeping hers out upon the shoulders of a ghostly Tom Hewitt, when Tufton's parting advice recurred to her. She had to look her best to-night. Why? He must have some reason to say that.
"J'y serai?" cried Dorothy, mustering all her family pride to keep back her tears.