The Vanity Girl Part 19

"You _are_ successful. In confidence, you'll be encouraged to hear that Richards expects a lot from you. Yes, he told my father. You've not seen Clarehaven lately?" Dorothy shook her head, and Mr. Tufton nodded gravely; behind those solemn indications of cerebral activity two twin souls rubbed noses.

"Of course I haven't seen him just lately. You heard of my little joke?

It had quite a 'varsity success. Yes, I painted the dean's door. Well, somebody had to pull the evening together, and I tossed up with Ulster--the Duke of Ulster--you haven't run across him? No? Awful good chap. Yes. 'Look here, Harry,' he said to me, 'something's got to be done. Which of us two is going to paint d.i.c.kie's door vermilion?' d.i.c.kie is the dean. 'Toss you,' said I. 'Right, said he. 'Woman,' said I, and lost. So I got a bucket of paint and splashed it around, don't you know.

Everybody shouted, 'Jolly old Tuffers,' and the authorities handed me my pa.s.sports. But, after all, what earthly use is a degree to me?"

Dorothy looked a wise negative and brought the conversation back to Clarehaven.

"I suppose you'll be seeing him again very soon now?"

Mr. Tufton nodded. "And I can prophesy that you'll be seeing him again very soon."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"You mustn't be cynical," he warned her.

"Can one help it?"

"You've no reason to be cynical. I suppose Clarehaven is almost my most intimate friend, and I can a.s.sure you that you have no reason to be cynical. Difficulties there have been, difficulties there will be, but always remember that I'm your friend whatever happens."

And most of all her friend, Dorothy thought, if she happened to become a countess.

After this tea-party Sylvia and Lily often came to Halfmoon Mansions; when in July Dorothy and Olive took a cottage at Sonning they were often invited down there for picnics on the Thames. The other girls at the theater could not understand why it was necessary to look beyond Maidenhead for repose and refreshment from singing in a punt every night; and although such of them as were invited to Sonning enjoyed themselves, they always went back to town more firmly convinced than ever that Dolly Lonsdale was a most mysterious girl. Yet it ought not to have been impossible to understand the pleasure of hurrying away from the Vanity to catch the eleven forty-five at Paddington, and of alighting from the hot train about a quarter to one of a warm summer night to be met by a scent of honeysuckle in the station road, to see the white flowers in their garden and the thatched roof of their cottage against the faintly luminous sky, and, while they paused for a moment to fumble in their bags among the powder-puffs and pocket-mirrors for the big key of their door, to listen to the train's murmur still audible far away in the stillness of the level country beyond.

"I ought always to live in the country," said Dorothy, gravely.

But in August rehearsals for "The Duke and the Dairymaid" began, and the cottage at Sonning had to be given up. The new production at the Vanity included a trio between the ducal tenor and two subsidiary dairymaids, to be one of whom Dorothy was chosen by the management. She might fairly consider that her new part was exactly three times as good as that she had played in the s.e.xtet; moreover, her salary was doubled, and by what could only be considered a stroke of genuine luck Queenie Molyneux, who would certainly have been chosen for the other dairymaid, was lured away to the rival production of "My Mistake" at the Frivolity Theater. Millie Cunliffe, who took her place, had a finer mouth than Queenie's, which was too large and expressive for anything except lines like those with which she led the Pink Quartet at the Frivolity; but Millie had not such a beautiful mouth as Dorothy, and it was not nearly so apt at singing or speaking; her ankles, too, were not so slim and shapely as Dorothy's, nor were they made for dancing like hers. So Dorothy enjoyed a vogue with G.o.ds and mortals, and was now plainly visible to the naked eye in the constellation of musical comedy.

IV

The departure of Queenie Molyneux to the Frivolity had a more intimate bearing on Dorothy's future than the mere removal of a rival of the footlights to a safe distance: it gave her back Clarehaven.

That Savoy supper-party last Easter had not seemed likely at the time to lead to a situation even as much complicated as Dorothy's ambition to marry an earl. When Arthur Lonsdale escorted Queenie home afterward, he had probably counted upon such a climax to the entertainment; but he must have been astonished to hear from his friend next morning that Dorothy was not to be won lightly by a Savoy supper nor kept with the help even of the tolerably large income that friend enjoyed. From the moment that the immediate gratification of Clarehaven's pa.s.sion was denied him, Lonsdale must have divined a danger of the affair's turning out serious, and he had obviously done all he could to discourage him from frequenting Dorothy's unresponsive company; she learned, indeed, from various sources that he was devoting his leisure to curing Clarehaven. Then suddenly the melody of Queenie's Pink Quartet enchained him, and he was always to be seen at the Frivolity. Long days cramming for the Foreign Office were followed by long evenings at the Frivolity and ... anyway, Queenie seemed to have decided she liked Lonsdale better than wealth. But if the melody of the Pink Quartet in "My Mistake" was an eternal joy, so, too, was the melody of the trio in "The Duke and the Dairymaid"; henceforth Clarehaven from his stall could nightly feed his pa.s.sion for Dorothy without being subjected to the mockery and tutelage of his former companion. What between lunches at Verrey's and suppers at the Savoy it was not surprising that before the leaves had fallen from the London plane-trees he should have hung a necklace of pearls round her neck. Unfortunately, though Clarehaven showed his appreciation of Dorothy by figuratively robbing his coronet of its pearls, he did not go so far as to offer her the coronet itself; and when he suggested that she should leave Halfmoon Street for an equally pleasant flat round the corner, she was naturally very indignant and asked him what kind of a girl he thought she was.

"You don't care twopence about me," he said, woefully.

"How can I let myself care about you?" she countered. "You ought to know me well enough by this time to be sure that I would never accept such an offer as you've just made me. I know that you can't marry me. I know that you have your family to consider. In the circ.u.mstances, isn't it better, my dear Tony, that we should part? I'm dreadfully sorry that our parting should come after your proposal rather than before it. But horribly as you've misjudged me, somehow I can't bear you any ill will, and in token of my forgiveness I shall always wear these pearls. Pearls for tears, they say. I'm afraid that sometimes these old sayings come only too true."

"Yes, but I can't get along without you," protested Clarehaven.

She smiled sadly.

"I'm afraid you can get along without me in every way except one, only too easily."

"Why did you lead me on, if you weren't in earnest?"

"Lead you on?"

"You asked me back to the flat. You gave me every encouragement.

Obviously somebody is paying for this flat, so why shouldn't I?"

"Lord Clarehaven!" exclaimed Dorothy, with the stern grandeur of an Atlantic cliff rebuffing a wave. "You have said enough."

She rang the bell and asked Effie, the maid whose attentions she shared with Olive, to show his lordship the door. His poor lordship left Halfmoon Mansions in such perturbation that he forgot to slip the usual sovereign into Effie's hand, and she cordially agreed with her mistress when he was gone that kind hearts are indeed more than coronets.

Dorothy's simple faith in her own abilities had received such a shock that she began to cry; but it was restored by a sudden suspicion that she possessed a latent power for tragedy that might take her out of the squalid world of the Vanity into the ether of the legitimate drama. She had never suspected this inner fountain that grief had thus unsealed, and she let her tears go trickling down her cheeks with as much pleasure as a small boy who has found a watering-can on a secluded garden path.

"Don't carry on so, miss," Effie begged. "Men are brutes, and that's what all us poor women have to learn sooner or later. Don't take on about his lordship. A fine lordship, I'm sure. Give me plain Smith, if that's a lordship. Look at your poor eyes, miss, and don't cry any more."

Dorothy did look at her poor eyes, and immediately compromised with her emotions by going out and ordering a new dress. When she came back Olive, who had been given a heightened account of the scene by Effie, was exquisitely sympathetic; and the great man, when he was informed of Clarehaven's disgraceful offer, was full of good worldly advice and consolation.

"I think you can rely upon your powers of catalysis, Dorothy," he said.

She did not think her failure to understand such a strange word reflected upon her education, and asked him what it meant.

"In unchemical English, as unchemical as your own nice light-brown hair, _you_ won't change; but if I'm not much mistaken you'll play the very deuce with Master Clarehaven's mental const.i.tution."

This was encouraging; if Dorothy's faith in her beauty and abilities had been slightly shaken by Clarehaven's omission to marry her, the loss was more than made up for by an added belief in her own importance and in the beauty of her character.

Among the men who sometimes came to the flat was a certain Leopold Hausberg, a financier reputed to be already fabulously rich at the age of thirty-five, but endowed with an unfortunately simian countenance by the wicked fairy not invited to his circ.u.mcision. He possessed in addition to his wealth the superficial geniality and humor of his race, and was not accustomed to find that Englishwomen were better able than any others to resist Oriental domination. Hausberg had not concealed his partiality for Lily, and Dorothy, in her desire to accentuate her own virtue, told Sylvia, soon after Clarehaven's proposal, that it would be useful for Lily to have a rich friend like that. Sylvia flashed at her some objectionable word out of Shakespeare and would not be mollified by Dorothy's exposition of the difference between her character and Lily's, although Dorothy took care to remind her of a remark she had once made when they were on tour together about the inevitableness of Lily's decline.

Dorothy had good reason, therefore, to feel annoyed with Sylvia when she found out presently that Sylvia was apparently working on Leopold Hausberg to do exactly what she herself had been so rudely scolded for suggesting. As much fuss was being made about Lily's behavior as if she had refused the dishonorable attentions of an earl; yet with all this ridiculous pretense Sylvia was taking care to do for Lily what she was either too stupid or too hypocritical to do for herself. If Lily's happiness lay in the devotion of vulgar young men, she might at least get the money she wanted for them out of Hausberg without letting a friend do her dirty work. When the continually cheated suitor approached Dorothy with complaints about the way Sylvia was managing the business she listened sympathetically to his hint that Sylvia was trying to keep Lily from him until she had made enough money for herself, and she took the first opportunity of being revenged upon Sylvia for the horrid Shakespearian epithet by telling her what Hausberg had said.

One Sat.u.r.day night in November Olive and Dorothy came home immediately after the performance to rest themselves in preparation for a long drive in the country with the great man, who seldom had an opportunity for motoring and had made a great point of the enjoyment he was expecting to-morrow. They had not long finished supper when there was a furious ringing at the bell, and Hausberg, in a state of blind anger, was admitted to the flat by the frightened maid.

"By G.o.d!" he shouted to Dorothy. "Come with me!"

She naturally demurred to going out at this time of night, but Hausberg insisted that she was deeply involved in whatever it was that had put him in this rage, and in the end, partly from curiosity, partly from fear, she consented to accompany him. While they were driving along, Hausberg explained that he had at last persuaded Lily to abandon Sylvia and accept an establishment in Lauriston Mansions, St. John's Wood. He had furnished the flat regardless of expense, and this afternoon, when Lily was supposed to have been moving in, he had been sent the latch-key and bidden to present himself at midnight.

"Very well," said Hausberg between his teeth. "Wait until you see what.... You wait...." he became inarticulate with rage.

They had reached Lauriston Mansions and, though it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, a group of figures could be seen in silhouette against the lighted entrance, among which the helmets of a couple of policemen supplied the traditional touch of the sinister.

"Haven't you got it out yet?" Hausberg demanded of the porter, who replied in a humble negative.

"What _are_ you talking about?" Dorothy asked, and then with authentic suddenness she felt the authentic nameless dread clutching authentically at her heart. Why, _it_ must be a dead body; grasping Hausberg's arm and turning pale, she asked if Lily had killed herself.

"Killed herself?" echoed Hausberg. "Not she. I'm talking about this d.a.m.ned monkey that your confounded friends have left in my flat."

The porter came forward to say that there was a gentleman present who had a friend who he thought knew the address of one of the keepers of the monkey-house at the Zoo, and that if Mr. Hausberg would give orders for this gentleman to be driven in the car to his friend's address no doubt something could be done about expelling the monkey. The gentleman in question, a battered and c.r.a.pulous cab-tout, presented himself for inspection, and one of the policemen offered to accompany him and impress the reported keeper with the urgency of the situation. While everybody was waiting for the car to return, the lobby of the flat became like the smoking-room of a great transatlantic steamer where travelers' tales are told, such horrible speculations were indulged in about the fierceness of the monkey.

"So long as it ain't a yourang-gatang," said one, "we haven't got nothing to be afraid of. But a yourang-gatang's something chronic if you can believe all they say."

"A griller's worse," said another.

"Is it? Who says so?"

"Why, any one knows there ain't nothing worse than a griller," declared the champion of that variety. "A griller 'll bite a baby's head off the same as any one else might look at you. A griller's worse than chronic; it's ferocious."

"Would it bite the head off of an yourang-gatang?" demanded the first theorist, truculently.