At such a moment the problem of his younger sister's financial future struck poor Uncle Chat as much more hopelessly insoluble than it would have seemed in those happy days when he had nothing to talk about except cigars and pigs. Bella immediately after the outbreak of war put down the pen and took up the sword, or in other words yearned to join the V.A.D., and it was the imperative need of finding money for Bella to gratify her patriotism in London that drove the dowager into discussing her finances with her brother. Dorothy, who could not bear the suggestion that Tony had heartlessly left for France without any heed of his family obligations, a suggestion that reflected upon herself, at once turned over to the dowager half of the £2,000 in the bank. Actually, she only left herself with something over £600, for extra money had had to be found for Tony's equipment and for the payment of bills he had overlooked. There was no reason to suppose that Uncle Chat was really criticizing her behavior in the least; but his air of general irritation gave her the impression that he was, which preyed upon her mind so much that she began to feel almost on a level with her unfortunate namesake who had lost the Derby. She fancied that everybody was ascribing Tony's mad career to his marriage, and thinking that if he had only married a nice girl in his own class none of these disasters would have happened. She fancied that the disapproval of the family which had been carefully concealed all these years out of deference to Tony's feelings was now making itself known, she was embittered by the imagined atmosphere of hostility, and she made up her mind that as soon as possible she would cut herself off from the Fanhopes and from what was left of the Clares.
Tony in his last letter had proposed that he and she should go on the stage when he came home, which of course would have been ridiculous; but, now that Tony was dead, there was surely nothing to prevent her return to the stage. When she got back to town she might go and ask Sir John Richards if he could not find a part in the autumn production at the Vanity Theater. Whatever was now lacking to her voice, whatever the years had added to her appearance, and notwithstanding the wear and tear that had added very little, would be counterbalanced in the eyes of the British public by the privilege of reading upon the program the name of the Countess of Clarehaven. Nothing was any longer owing to the family name; no, indeed, except Bella still bore it, and if third-rate stories were to appear in third-rate magazines under the signature of Arabella Clare, there was no reason why a bill of the play should not advertise the Countess of Clare. It happened that Harry Tufton had come down to Cherrington to assist at the memorial service which was to be held in Clarehaven church. Dorothy supposed that he was anxious to keep in with the Chatfields, and in speaking to him about her project she was not actuated by any desire for the sympathy of an old friend. She asked his advice in a practical spirit, because he was connected with the theater, and when he tried to discourage her by hinting at the fickleness of public affection, she discerned in his opposition to her plan nothing except the tired anxiety of one who was being importuned by an old friend to give the best advice compatible with the minimum of trouble to himself. Tufton's doubtfulness of her capacity still to attract the favor of an audience had the effect of strengthening her resolve to test his opinion; she asked him with that indifferent smile of hers, which had lost none of its magic of provocation, if he really thought that the British public was as fickle as himself. Tufton protested against the imputation, and excused himself for the evasion of friendship implicit in his attitude by pleading that the War Office kept him so very busy nowadays.
"Of course it was an awful blow when they wouldn't accept me for active service," he said, earnestly. "Heart, don't you know."
"Oh, your heart is weak," she inquired, with a mocking air of concern. "I suppose the very idea of war produced palpitations. Don't strain it going up-stairs in Whitehall."
"Somebody must do the work at home," he said, irritably.
"Yes, I feel so sorry for you poor Cinderellas," she murmured. "But never mind, you'll always be able to feel that if it wasn't for you the poor fellows at the front, don't you know, wouldn't be able to get along. I suppose you call yourselves the noble army of martyrs?"
It had been fun to twist the tail of that ship's rat, Dorothy thought, when she saw him hurry away from Cherrington to catch the first train back to town after the service.
The news of Tony's death had reached Cherrington on the morning of the day that Dorothy was going back to the flat. When she had made over half of her money to the dowager and was clear of the fancied atmosphere of hostility at Chatfield, she had begun to feel penitently that she had misjudged her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It had seemed dreadful to leave them here in this cottage almost within sight and sound of the changes at Clare Court, and she had invited them to come and stay with her in Halfmoon Street until the flat was given up. The dowager had been unwilling to leave the country, and when the news of her son's death arrived was firm in her determination to remain in Cherrington.
"He was born here," she said, "and it is here that I shall always think of him best. I don't think I can afford to put up a window to his memory; he must just have a simple stone slab. I should like to copy that inscription at Rhodes. Do you remember it? 'Anthony, Fifth Earl of Clarehaven. With God. 1914.'"
Dorothy's grief at the death of Tony had for the moment been kept in control by the tremendous effort she had been called upon to make in facing the future; it was the future which had occupied her mind to the exclusion of any contemplation of the past. Now when her mother-in-law spoke these simple words she burst into tears. They linked Tony with so many generations of his house; and they brought home to her almost as a visible fact his death. She had spent so many years perpetually on the verge, as it were, of broken promises, of resolutions never carried out, of little optimisms and extenuations, that when the announcement of his death arrived it was more than usually true in her case that she did not at first realize it. The telegraphic form in which the news had been conveyed to her involuntarily merged itself with so many telegrams in the past which had turned out false, and only when the dowager stated his death like this in terms that admitted of no doubt did Dorothy suddenly confront the reality. She remembered that once a telegram had arrived almost on this very date to say that Tony could not get away from camp in time to be present at the annual show. There was no annual show this year—war had obliterated it—but on the afternoon of this day on which she had meant to return to town she walked, instead, about the field where the show had customarily been held, and so vivid was the familiar scene of hot women and blazing dahlias that she was transported back in imagination and found herself excusing on the ground of his military duties her husband's absence from this spectral exhibition. A farmer, one of her late tenants, passed her while she was wandering over the field, touched his cap, and begged to express his sorrow at the news.