VI
Dorothy had not been entirely insincere with Lonsdale in comparing marriage with success to the detriment of marriage. Success is a wonderful experience for the young, in spite of the way those who obtain it too late condemn it as a delusion; few girls of twenty-one, luxuriously independent and universally flattered, within two years of going on the stage would have seen marriage even with an earl in quite such wonderful colors as formerly. Fame may have its degrees; but when Dorothy, traveling in her car, heard errand-boys upon the pavement whistling "Dolly and her Collie" she had at least as much right to feel proud of herself as some wretched novelist traveling by tube who sees a young woman reading a sixpenny edition of one of his works, or a mother whose dribbling baby is prodded by a lean spinster in a tram, or a hen who lays a perfectly ordinary egg and makes as much fuss over it as if it were oblong.
It was certain that if Dorothy chose she could have one of the two principal parts in the next Vanity production and be earning in another couple of years at least £60 a week. There was no reason why she should remain in musical comedy; there was no reason why she should not take to serious comedy with atmosphere and surreptitious curtains at the close of indefinite acts; there was no reason why some great dramatist should not fall in love with her and invert the usual method of sexual procedure by laying upon her desk the offspring of their spiritual union. The possibilities of the future in every direction were boundless.
At the same time even as a countess her starry beams would not necessarily be obscured. As Countess of Clarehaven she might have as many pictures of herself in the illustrated papers as now; she could not give her name to face-creams, but she might give it to girls' clubs: one countess had even founded a religious sect, and another countess had ... but when one examined the history of countesses there was as much variety as in the history of actresses. And yet as a Vanity countess would it not be most distinguished of all not to appear in the illustrated papers, not to found sects and dress extravagantly at Goodwood? Would it not be more distinguished to live quietly down in Devonshire and make no more startling public appearances than by sometimes opening a bazaar or judging a collection of vegetables? Would it not be more distinguished to be the mother of young Lord Clare and Lady Dorothy Clare, and Lady Cynthia Clare, and the Honorable Arthur Clare.... Dorothy paused; she was thinking how improper it was that the younger sons of an earl should be accorded no greater courtesy than those of a viscount or a baron, when his daughters were entitled to as much as the daughters of a duke or a marquess. And after all, why shouldn't Tony be created a marquess? That was another career for a countess she had omitted to consider—the political hostess, the inspiration and amanuensis of her husband's speeches to the House of Lords. Some infant now squalling in his perambulator would write his reminiscences of a great lady's salon in the early years of the twentieth century, when the famous Dorothy Lonsdale stepped out of the public eye, but kept her hold upon the public pulse as the wise and beautiful Marchioness of Clarehaven. The second Marquess of Clarehaven, she dreamed; and beneath this heading in a future Debrett she read below, "Wife Living of the First Marquess. Dorothy (Marchioness of Clarehaven)"; if Arthur Lonsdale married well, that marchioness might not object to one of her younger daughters marrying his eldest son. Dorothy started. How should she herself be recorded in Debrett? "Dorothy, daughter of Gilbert Caffyn"? Even that would involve a mild falsification of her birth certificate, and if her sister Dorothy married that budding young solicitor from Norbiton they might take action against her. She hurriedly looked up in Debrett and Who's Who all the other actresses who had married into the peerage. In Debrett their original names in their stark and brutal ugliness were immortally inscribed; but in Who's Who their stage names were usually added between brackets. "The Earl of Clarehaven, m. 1905 Norah d. of G. Caffyn (known on the stage as Dorothy Lonsdale)." Ugh! At least she would not advertise the obvious horror of her own name so blatantly. She would not be more conspicuous than "Norah (Dorothy) d. of G. Caffyn." But how the girls at the theater would laugh! The girls at the theater? Why should the girls at the theater be allowed any opportunity of laughter—at any rate in her hearing? No, if she decided to accept Tony she should obliterate the theater. There should be no parade about her marriage; she would be married simply, quietly, and ruthlessly.
At the Vanity, Dorothy and her collie were a ravishing success; but she was a better actress off the stage than she was on, and she had soon persuaded herself that she really was still uncertain whether to accept Clarehaven's hand or not. The minor perplexities of stage name and real name, of town and country life, of publicity and privacy as a countess, magnified themselves into serious doubts about the prudence of marrying at all, and by the month of December Clarehaven was nearly distracted by her continuous refusals of him. The greater favorite she became with the public the more he desired her; and she would have found it hard to invent any condition, however flagrantly harsh, that would have deterred him from the match. Tufton almost went down on his knees to implore her to marry the lovesick young earl, his greatest friend; and even Lonsdale talked to Dorothy about her cruelty, and from having been equipped a month ago with invincible arguments against the match, now told her that in spite of everything, he thought she really ought to make the poor lad happy.
"He's as pale as a fellow I bumped in the back last Thursday, cutting round Woburn Square on the wrong side," he declared.
"No, he's not so sunburnt as he was," Dorothy agreed.
"Sunburnt? He's moonburnt—half-moonburnt—starburnt! But sunburnt! My dear Doodles, you're indulging in irony. That's what you're doing."
"I don't see why I should marry him when his mother hasn't even written me a letter. I don't want his family to feel that he's disgracing them by marrying me. If Lady Clarehaven will tell me with her own lips that she'll be proud for her son to marry me, why, then I'll think about it."
"No, really, dash it, my dear girl," Lonsdale expostulated. "You're being unreasonable. You're worse than a Surrey magistrate. Let the old lady alone until you're married and she has to make the best of a bad bargain."
"Thanks very much," Dorothy said. "That's precisely the attitude I wish to guard myself against."
Lonsdale's failure to soften Dorothy's heart made Clarehaven hopeless; he reached Devonshire to spend Christmas with his family in a mood so desperate that his mother began to be nervous. The head-keeper at Clare Court spoke with alarm of the way his lordship held his gun while getting over stiles.
"Maybe, my lady, that after lions our pheasants seem a bit tame to his lordship, though I disremember as I ever saw them wilder than what they be this year—but if you'll forgive the liberty, my lady, a gun do be as dangerous in Devonshire as in Africa, and 'tis my belief that his lordship has summat on his mind, as they say."
A shooting accident upon a neighboring estate the very day after this warning from the keeper determined Lady Clarehaven to put her pride in her pocket and write to Dorothy.
CLARE COURT, DEVON,
January 2, 1906.
DEAR MISS LONSDALE,—I fear you must have thought me most remiss in not writing to you before, but you will, perhaps, understand that down here in the country the notion of marrying an actress presents itself as a somewhat alarming contingency, and I was anxious to assure myself that my son's future happiness was so completely bound up in such a match that any further opposition on my part would be useless and unkind. Our friend Arthur Lonsdale spoke so highly of you and of the dignity of your attitude that I was much touched, and I must ask you to forgive my lack of generosity in not writing before to tell you how deeply I appreciated your refusal to marry my son. I understand now that his departure from England a year ago was due to this very cause, and I can only bow before the strength of such an affection and withdraw my opposition to the marriage. I am assuming, perhaps unjustifiably, that you love Tony as much as he loves you. Of course, if this is not so, it would be an impertinence on my part to interfere in your private affairs, and if you write and tell me that you cannot love Tony I must do my best as a mother to console him. But if you do love him, as I can't help feeling that you must, and if you will write to me and say that no barrier exists between you and him except the old-fashioned prejudice against what would no doubt be merely superficially an ill-assorted union, I shall welcome you as my daughter-in-law and pray for your happiness. I must, indeed, admit to being grievously worried about Tony. He has not even bothered to keep up the shooting-book, and such extraordinary indifference fills me with alarm.
Yours sincerely,
AUGUSTA CLAREHAVEN.
Dorothy debated many things before she answered this letter; but she debated longest of all the question of whether she should write back on crested note-paper or simple note-paper. Finally she chose the latter.
7 HALFMOON MANSIONS,
HALFMOON STREET, W
January 6, 1906.
DEAR LADY CLAREHAVEN,—Your letter came as a great joy to me. I don't think I have ever pretended that I did not love Tony with all my heart, and it was just because I did love him so much that I would not marry him without his mother's consent.
My own Puritan family disowned me when I went on the stage, and I said to myself then that I would never again do anything to bring unhappiness into a family. I should prefer that if I marry Tony the wedding should be strictly quiet. I cannot bear the way the papers advertise such sacred things nowadays. Having had no communication with my own family for more than two years, I do not want to reopen the painful memories of our quarrel. My only ambition is to lead a quiet, uneventful life in the depths of the country, and I hope you will do all you can to persuade Tony to remain in Devonshire. You will not think me rude if I do make one condition beforehand. I will marry him if you will promise to remain at Clare Court and help me through the difficult first years of my new position. Please write and let me have your promise to do this. You don't know how much it would help me to think that you and his sisters will be at my side. Perhaps you will think that I am assuming too much in asking this. I need not say that if you find me personally unsympathetic I shall not bear any resentment, and in that case Tony and I can always live in Curzon Street. But I do so deeply pray that you will like me and that his sisters will like me. Your letter has given me much joy, and I only wait for your answer to leave the stage (which I hate) forever.
Yours sincerely,
DOROTHY LONSDALE.
The dowager was won. By return of post she wrote:
MY DEAR DOROTHY,—Thank you extremely for your very nice letter. Please do exactly as you think best about the details of your wedding. You will receive a warm welcome from us all.
Yours affectionately,
AUGUSTA CLAREHAVEN.
During these negotiations Olive had been away at Brighton getting over influenza, and Dorothy decided to join her down there and be married out of town to avoid public curiosity. She had telegraphed to Clarehaven to leave Devonshire, and Mr. Tufton was enraptured by being called in to help with advice about the special license.
"My dear Dorothy," he assured her, enthusiastically, "you deserve the best—the very best."
"I don't want any one at the Vanity to know what's going to happen."
Tufton waved his hands to emphasize how right she was.
"It'll be a terrible blow to the public," he said, "and also to John Richards. You were his favorite, you know. Yes. And think of the beautiful women he has known! But you're right, you mustn't consider anybody except yourself."
"It's rather difficult for me to do that," Dorothy sighed.
"I know. I know. But you must do it. Clarehaven and I will come down with the license, and then ... my dear Dorothy, I really can't tell you how pleased I am. Do, do beg the dowager not to change that pergola. But I shall be down, I hope, some time in the spring."
"Of course."
"And what about Olive?" he asked.
"Poor Olive," she sighed. "And only last week she lost dear little San Toy. Yes, she'll miss me, I'm afraid, but she'll be glad I'm going to be so happy."
"All your friends will be glad."
"And now, Harry, please get me a really nice hansom, because I must simply tear round hard for frocks and frills."
Dorothy spent most of the money that Hausberg had made for her on old pieces of family jewelry; she also ordered numerous country tweeds; of frills she had enough.
A few days later Clarehaven, accompanied by Tufton and the special license, reached Brighton, where he and Dorothy were quietly married in the Church of the Ascension. Lady Clarehaven thought, when she drove back to the rooms to break the news to Olive, how few of the passers-by would think that she had just been married. She commented upon this to Tony, who replied with a laugh that Brighton was the last place in England where passers-by stopped to inquire if people were married.
"Tony," she said, with a pout, "I don't like that sort of joke, you know."
"Sorry, Doodles."
"And don't call me Doodles any more. Call me Dorothy."
Olive was, of course, tremendously surprised by her friend's announcement; but she tried not to show how much hurt she was by not having been taken into her confidence beforehand.
"I wanted it to be a complete secret," Dorothy explained. "And I didn't want all the papers in London to write a lot of rubbish about me."
"Darling, you can count on me as a pal to help you all I know. You've only got to tell me what you want."
Dorothy pulled herself together to do something of which she was rather ashamed, but for which she could perceive no alternative.
"Olive, I hate having to say what I'm going to say, and you must try to understand my point of view. I never intend to go near the stage-door of a theater again. I don't want to know any of my friends on the stage any more. If you want to help me, the best way you can help me is not to see me any more."
Clarehaven came into the room at this moment, and Dorothy rose to make her farewells.
"Good-by, Olive," she said. "We're going down to Clare Court to-morrow, and I don't expect we shall see each other again for a long time."
"I say," Clarehaven protested. "What rot, you know! Of course you'll meet again. Why, Olive must come down and recover from her next illness in Devonshire. We shall be pining for news of town by the spring, and—"
Lady Clarehaven looked at her husband, who was silent.
"Have you wired to your mother when we arrive to-morrow?" she asked.
"You're sure you won't drive down?"
"In January?" Dorothy exclaimed.
"Well, I've told the car to meet us at Exeter. That will only mean a seventy-mile drive—you won't mind that—and we'll get to Clare before dark."
"Forgive these family discussions in front of you," said Dorothy to her friend. Then shaking her hand formally, she went out of the room.
During the drive up to town, while Clarehaven was sitting back playing with his wife's wrist and looking fatuously content, he turned to her once and said:
"Dorothy, you were rather brutal with poor old Olive."
She withdrew her hand from his grasp, and not until he ceased condoling with Olive did she let him pick it up again.
"And oh dear, oh lord, oh my!" he exclaimed, "we must have the jolly old collie down at Clare."
"The collie?" she repeated. "What collie?"
"Your collie." He began to whistle the bewitching tune.
"Please don't. One hears it everywhere," she said, fretfully. "Olive will look after the dog. She's just lost her Pekinese."