The Vanity Girl Part 31

The band of the Loyal North Devon Dragoons (by kind permission of Colonel Budding-Robinson, M.V.O., and officers) will play during the afternoon.

Swings, roundabouts, cocoanut-shies, climbing greasy pole for a side of bacon offered by H. Greenish, Esq., sack-races, egg-and-spoon races, hat-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g compet.i.tion for agricultural laborers.

ILLUMINATIONS AND FIREWORKS

Entrance, one shilling. After five o'clock, sixpence. After eight, threepence. Children free.

REFRESHMENTS

It was a blazing day, one of those typical days when rustic England seems to consist entirely of large cactus dahlias and women perspiring in bombazine. Tony, to Dorothy's annoyance, had declined to open the proceedings with a speech, and with Uncle Chat also refusing, Mr.

Kingdon had to be asked to address the compet.i.tors. He bellowed a number of plat.i.tudes about the true foundations of England's greatness, told everybody that he was a Conservative--a Tory of the old school. He might say amid all this floral wealth a Conservatory. Ha-ha! He had no use for new-fangled notions, and, by Jove! when he looked round at the magnificent display that owed so much to the energy and initiative of Lady Clarehaven, by Jove! he couldn't understand why anybody wanted to be anything else except a Conservative.

"No politics, squire," the village atheist cried from the back of the tent, and Mr. Kingdon, who had been badly heckled by that gentleman at a recent election meeting, descended from the rostrum.

When the time came to distribute the awards Dorothy sprang the little surprise of which only Mr. Greenish was in the secret, by making a speech herself. She spoke with complete self-a.s.surance and, as the _North Devon Courant_ said, "with a gracious comprehension of what life meant to her humbler neighbors."

"Fellow-villagers of the two Cherringtons and of Clarehaven," she began, evoking loud applause from Mr. and Mrs. Bitterplum and Mr. and Mrs.

Smith, who between them had raised the largest marrow, for which they would shortly receive ten shillings as a token of England's grat.i.tude, "in these days when so much is heard of rural depopulation I confess that looking round me at this crowded a.s.sembly I am not one of the alarmists. I confess that I see no signs of rural depopulation among the merry faces of the little children of our healthy North Devon breed. I regret that the committee did not include in its list of prizes another for the best collection of home-grown children." (Loud cheers from the audience, in the middle of which one of the little Smiths of Clarehaven had to be led out of the tent because there was some doubt whether in chewing one of the prize dahlias he had not swallowed an earwig.) "Meanwhile, I can only marvel at the enthusiasm and good will with which you have all worked to make our first agricultural fete the success it undoubtedly has been. I am told by people who understand these things that no finer runner-beans have ever appeared than the collection of runner-beans for which, after long deliberation by the judges, Mr. Isaac Hodge of Little Cherrington has been awarded the prize." (Cheers.) "I will not detain you with eulogies of the potatoes shown by our worthy neighbor, Mr. Blundell of Great Cherrington. Nor shall I detain you by singing the praises of the really n.o.ble beet-roots from the garden of Mr. Adam Crump of Horley Hill. But I should like to say here how much I regret that the collections of flowers fell so far below the standard set by the vegetables. We must remember that without beauty utility is of little use. This autumn I shall be happy to present flower seeds to all cottage gardens who apply for them. Mr. Greenish has kindly consented to act as my distributer. Next year I shall present five pounds and a silver cup for the best exhibit from these seeds. And now nothing remains for me except to congratulate once more the winners on their well-deserved success, and the losers on a failure that only the exceptional quality of the winning exhibits prevented being a success, too."

Amid loud cheers Dorothy pinned rosettes to the lapels of the perspiring compet.i.tors, shook hands with each one, to whom she handed his prize wrapped in tissue-paper, and, bowing graciously, descended from the dais.

"Now if I can make a speech like that at a flower-show," she said to her husband that evening, "why can't you speak in the House of Lords?"

The fact of the matter was that Dorothy was beginning to worry herself over Clarehaven's lack of interest in the affairs of his country. Since they had been married the only additional entry in Debrett under his t.i.tle was the record of his being a J.P. for the county of Devon.

Dorothy felt that this was not enough; he should be preparing himself by his demeanor in the House of Lords to be offered at least an under-secretaryship when the Radicals should be driven from power.

"All right," said Tony. "But I can't very well play the hereditary legislator and all that if you insist upon keeping me down in the country."

"When does Parliament rea.s.semble?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Some time in the autumn, I suppose."

"Very well, then, we'll go up to town on one condition, which is that you will make a speech. If you haven't spoken within a week of the opening I shall come back here."

Tony, in order to get away from Devonshire, was ready to promise anything, but at the end of October, on a day also memorable in the history of Clare for the largest battue ever held in those coverts, Dorothy told her husband that she was going to have a baby.

He flushed with the slaughter of hundreds of birds, she flushed with what all this meant to her and him and England, faced each other in the bridal chamber of Clare that itself was flushed with a crimson October sunset.

"Tony, aren't you wildly happy?"

"Why, yes ... of course I am ... only, Doodles, I suppose this means you won't go up to town? Oh well, never mind. Gad! you look glorious this evening." He put his arms round her and kissed her.

"Not that way," she murmured. "Not that way now."

V

The pride and joy that Dorothy felt were so complete that she would take no risk of spoiling them by allowing her husband to intrude upon her at such a time. This boy of hers--there was no fear in her sanguine and circ.u.mspect mind that she might produce a daughter--was the fruit of herself and the earldom. To this end had she let Clarehaven make love to her, and if now she should continue to allow him such liberty she should be cheapening herself like a woman of pleasure. If at first she had rejoiced in her own position as a countess, all that self-satisfaction was now incorporated in this unborn son to be magnified by him into n.o.bility and all that was expressed by n.o.bility in its fullest sense.

The thrill that every woman, however much she may dread or resent it, feels at the first prospect of maternity was for Dorothy heightened beyond any comparison that would not be blasphemous. On this small green earth would walk a Viscount Clare that, having taken flesh from a Vanity girl, should be the savior of his country. It no longer mattered that her husband was blind to the duties of his rank when she held in her womb, not some political p.a.w.n-broker like Disraeli, but an incarnation of the benign genius of aristocracy, a being that would indeed enn.o.ble herself. Yet the father of this prodigy regarded him merely as an unwelcome hindrance to his plan for spending the winter in London. If it were not for the duty she owed to a great house to produce other children, and so by every means in mortal power save the family from extinction, she should never again live with Tony as his wife. What had been all their kisses except the prelude to this event? Did he with his boots and his guns suppose that as a man he counted with this unborn son within her? Poor vain fool, not to have comprehended that every conjugal duty, every social obligation, every movement of her head, every flash of her eye, every offer of her hand since she came to Clare had been consecrated to this great issue. Yet his flimsy imagination, which, were it never so flimsy, might at such a moment have managed to spur his body to kneel in awe of the future, had thought of nothing except to make love as lightly as he had made incessant love to her ever since they were married. Love! What did she care for that kind of love? Only for this result, only because she had believed that perfect fruit comes from perfect blossom, had she yielded to him all of herself with pa.s.sion, sometimes with ecstasy. And now her reward was at hand. The wild autumnal gales might sweep round the ancient house, but at last it was secure; she, Dorothy Lonsdale, had secured it.

There was no hunting, of course, for Dorothy this season, not even in so mild a form as cubbing, and, amorous of solitude, she often used to walk by herself to Clarehaven; there, on one of those green headlands that had withstood the sea when the fortifications of Clare had crumbled in the foaming tide, she would sit by the hour, drinking in from the salt blast strength and endurance for this son of hers dedicate from the womb to his country and to his order. On those wild days the little church, which belonged to the dim origins of the family and had been built by sea-rovers to abide in their hearts while they were seafaring, became a true shrine for her. She would take refuge there from the fury of the storm, and there sit in an ancient chair bleached and worm-eaten, her eyes fixed upon that east window stained by nothing save spindrift and scud from the sea. The wind would howl and shriek, would rattle at the hasps of the narrow windows like hands entreating shelter, would drum and whistle and moan by the old oaken doors, while Dorothy sat in a stillness of gray light, herself radiant with that first beauty of coming motherhood before the weary months of waiting have begun to drag the cheeks. There for hours she would sit, her eyes shining, her neck blue-veined with blood coursing to reinforce the second life that was in the making, her complexion not paragoned by the petal of any rose in all the roses that ever had or ever would bloom at Clare.

Everything in the little church had taken on a luminous gray from the open s.p.a.ce of light by which it was surrounded. The altar was of granite; the candlesticks of pewter; the crucifix of silver. Wise with all his follies, the rector had chosen this church to express whatever, still untainted by expediency or sn.o.bbery, was left of his inmost aspirations, and here he had allowed nothing to affront the stark simplicity of such architecture. Here there were no chrysanthemums in brazen vases, only sprigs of sea-holly gathered by children on the salt edge of the downs, sea-holly from the fled summer that preserved the illusion of having been gathered yesterday. The benches had not been varnished; year by year they had slowly a.s.sumed that desiccated appearance of age which gives to wood thus mellowed a strangely immaterial look, a lightness and a grace, rough-hewn though it be, that varnished wood never acquires. In this building, wrought, it seemed, by labor of wind and cloud, of air and rain, Dorothy's coloring exceeded richness; when the yellow winter sun shone through the landward windows the effulgence mingled with the hue of her cheeks to incarnadine the very air around her and blush upon the stones beyond. How often had she sat thus in meditation upon nothing except the power and strength of her unborn son! Could her husband wait beside her in this church where his pirate ancestors, dripping with sea-water, had thanked G.o.d for their deliverance and for booty stacked upon the beach below? Not he! He would be trying to play with her wrist all the time, pecking at her with kisses like a canary at a lump of sugar.

Dorothy had no desire to make a secret of her condition; she was only too anxious that everybody who could appreciate its importance should be made aware of it. Yet there was nothing in her of the gross femininity that takes a pleasure in accentuating the outward signs of approaching motherhood and, as if it had done something unusual, rejoices in a physical condition that is attainable by all women. Dorothy's pride lay in giving an heir to a great family, not in adding another piece of carnality to the human race. Compared with most women, the grace and beauty with which she expressed her state was that of a budding daffodil beside a farrowing sow. So little indeed did Tony realize her condition that in January, on the anniversary of their wedding, he half jestingly rallied her on simulating it to keep him down in Clare. He added other reasons, which offended her so deeply that for the rest of these months she demanded a room to herself. Dorothy knew that by loosening the physical hold she had over him she was taking a risk, but she staked everything in the future upon the birth of this son, and she declined to imperil his perfection upon earth by unpleasant thoughts in these crucial months of his making. Perhaps, if she had been patient and taken a little trouble to explain her point of view more fully to Tony, he might have understood, but she was so intent upon aiding this other life within her that she could not spare a moment to educate her husband.

The super-dowager of Chatfield had kissed her grandson's wife on Christmas Eve, and when at Candlemas the old lady died Dorothy was sad to think she had not lived to kiss her son. The manner of her death was characteristic. February had come in with a spell of balmy weather, and Lady Chatfield, according to her habit on fine days, insisted upon going out to sun herself in front of the house. In this occupation she was often annoyed by hens invading the drive; to guard herself against their aggression she used always to be armed with several bundles of f.a.gots, which she kept at her side to fling at the aggressive birds. Her son had often begged that she would allow the hens to be kept far enough away from the house to secure her against their trespa.s.sing; but the old lady really enjoyed the sport and pa.s.sed many contented hours shooting at them like this with f.a.gots. Unfortunately, that Candlemas morning, either she had come out insufficiently provided with ammunition or the birds were particularly venturesome. When the luncheon-bell rang there was not a f.a.got left, and a quant.i.ty of hens were clucking with impunity round her still form. At such a crisis her self-propelling chair must have refused to work for the first time; with ammunition exhausted, transport destroyed, communications cut, and the enemy advancing from every point, the old lady had died of exasperation. The dowager, grieved by what in her heart she felt was an unseemly way of dying and faintly puzzled how to picture her mother in the heavenly courts, spent a good deal of time in Little Cherrington church, praying that she would be humble in Paradise. The dowager's childlike and apprehensive fancy played round an apocalyptic vision of her mother criticizing the sit of a halo, or poking with a palm-branch just men in the eye. She confided some of these fears to Mr. Beadon, who tried to impress upon her his own conceptions of Eternal Life, gently and respectfully rebuking her for the materialism of which she was guilty. Dorothy found something most admirable in the super-dowager's death; she wished her own unborn son might inherit his great-grandmother's pertinacity and defiance for the time when, like intrusive poultry, democracy should invade the privileges of his order.

The dowager's loss of her mother was followed in March by a blow that upset her more profoundly. During a fierce gale a large elm-tree in Little Cherrington churchyard was blown down and in its fall broke the Burne-Jones window that commemorated the fourth earl. It was no great loss to art, but the effect upon the dowager was tremendous. The shock of seeing the irreverent winds of March blowing through that colored screen she had set up between herself and the reality of her husband destroyed the figment of him that her pampered imagination had elaborated, and she remembered him as he was--an ill-tempered gambler, a drunken spendthrift, always with that fixed leer of ataxy for a pretty woman ... she remembered how once she had overheard somebody say that Clarehaven was now a rake without a handle. Her conscience was p.r.i.c.ked; she must warn Dorothy of what the Clare inheritance might include.

"Dorothy dear," she implored. "I don't like to seem interfering, but I do beg you not to leave Tony alone too much. I fear for him. I--" with whispers and head-shakes she poured out the true story of her married life.

But Dorothy, with her whole being concentrated upon that unborn son, had no vigilance to waste on Tony. If he should go to the bad, let him go.

The sins of the fourth earl and the follies of the fifth should all be forgotten in that paragon the sixth. At the same time, the dowager's story left its mark on Dorothy; thenceforward, when she paced the long picture-gallery of Clare, she would often ask herself in affright what pa.s.sions and vices, what weakness, shame, and folly, had been cloaked by those painted forms of ancestors. She would give him her flesh; but he must inherit from them also; from those unblinking eyes he must derive some of the gleams in his own. But it should be from his mother that he derived most ... then she caught her breath. If that were so he would have in him something of Gilbert Caffyn, of that hypocrite her father.

When the dowager's window was broken air was let in upon Dorothy's painted screen as well. She was honest with herself on those mornings when she paced the long gallery; she made no more pretense of romantic origins; the Lonsdale bugle-horn was cracked and useless. By what she was should her son live, not by what she liked to think she might be.

Some of the strength that she had summoned for him during those autumnal hours in the little church by the sea she begged now for herself; while she defied those frigid glances that ever watched her progress up and down, up and down that long gallery, she stripped herself of all sham glories and for the sake of him within her dedicated herself to truth.

Lady G.o.diva, riding naked through the streets of Coventry, was not more heroic than Dorothy riding naked through her own mind for the sake of that Lucius-Clare-to-be called by courtesy Viscount Clare.

Dorothy had chosen Lucius for his name after that other viscount who was Secretary of State to Charles I, that Lucius Cary who was killed at Newbury and whose story she had happened upon while reading tales of the great dead. If Lucius, Viscount Clare, could be like Lucius, Viscount Falkland, what would West Kensington matter? What would the Vanity mean, or that flat round the corner? What would signify the plebeian soul of her father?

The only person at present to whom Dorothy confided the name she had chosen was Arabella. The two girls had been very sympathetic during those winter months, and had entirely devoted themselves to their sister-in-law. At first, when she had withdrawn herself every day to go and meditate in Clarehaven church, they had been shy of intruding upon her; but their interest in family affairs, from those of guinea-pigs to those of cottagers, had become so much a part of their ordinary life that they could not resist trying to obtain Dorothy's permission for them to be interested in hers. Connie, whose main object was to watch over Dorothy's physical well-being, was ready to give it as much devotion as she would have given to a favorite mare in foal or to a litter of blind retriever pups; Arabella, who had inherited some of the dowager's ability to dream, was content to sit for as long as Dorothy wanted her company and talk of nothing except the future greatness of her nephew. Connie brought pillows for Dorothy's back; Arabella brought her books, in one of which Dorothy read about that very n.o.ble gentleman, Lucius Cary.

In February Clarehaven went up to town, partly because shooting was over, partly because he did not want to attend his grandmother's funeral. His behavior was commented upon harshly by Fanhopes and Clares alike; barely two years after her marriage Dorothy found that she, who was supposed to have been going to bring the families to ruin and disgrace, was now regarded as their salvation. Whatever she said was listened to with respect, whatever she did was regarded with approval.

Before her pregnancy, Dorothy's conceit would have been gratified by such deference; now it only possessed a value for her son's sake. She longed more than ever for general esteem; but she coveted it for him, that he might grow up with pride and confidence in his mother.

When primroses lightened the woods of Clare like an exquisite dawn between the dusk of violets and the deep noon of bluebells, Connie exercised her authority over her half of Dorothy, forbade so much reading indoors, and prescribed walks. Dorothy now haunted the recesses of the woodland; when Tony, who had received a number of reproachful letters for staying in town at such a time, came back, she was gentler with him than any of the others were.

Those days spent in watching the deer, already snow-flecked to match the dappled sunlight of the woods, had been so enriched by contemplation of the active grace and beauty of these wild things that Dorothy discovered in herself a new affection for Tony, an affection born of grat.i.tude to him, because it was he who had given her all this. He came back on a murmurous afternoon of mid-May. Dorothy was sitting upon the summit of a knoll where a few tall beeches scarcely troubled the sunlight with their high fans of lucent green. Beneath her ran a meadow threaded with the gold of cowslips, and while she stared into cuckoo-haunted distances she heard above the buzzing of the bees the sound of his car. Starting up, she waved to him, so that he stopped the car and ran up the slope to greet her.

"Why, Doodles, what's the matter?" he exclaimed. "You've been crying."

He was embarra.s.sed by her hot wet cheeks when she pressed them to his.

"No, they're happy tears," she said. "I was thinking of him and that one day all this will be his." She caught the landscape in a gesture. "All the autumn, Tony, I prayed for him to be great and strong, and all the winter that he might be great and good. Now I think I should be happy if he did nothing more remarkable than love this land--his land. Tony, don't you feel how wonderful it is that you and I should give somebody all this?"

Formerly, when Dorothy had talked about their son, the father had not been able to grasp that there would ever be such a person. Now in this month before the birth he experienced a sudden awe in regarding his wife. That embrace she had given him for welcome, her figure, the look in her eyes--they were strange to him; she was strange to him--a new mysterious creature that awed him as an abstraction of womanhood, not as a lovely girl that granted or refused him kisses.

"I say, Doodles, I feel an awful brute for going away like that."

She laughed lightly.

"You needn't. I was happier alone. Don't look so disconsolate. I'm glad you've come now."

"I didn't stay up for the Derby," he pleaded, in extenuation of his neglect.