Before her like a ladder rose a five-barred gate. At the riding-school in Knightsbridge Dorothy had jumped obstacles quite as high; but those had been obstacles that collapsed conveniently when touched by the heels of her horse.

"I say I don't think you can take that gate," Charlie Fanhope repeated, anxiously. "I'll open it. I'll open it."

But Dorothy in a dream left all to Mignonette; remembering from real life to grip the pommel, to keep her wrists down, and to sit well back, she seemed to be uttering a prolonged gasp that was carried away by the wind as a diver's gasp is lost in the sound of the water. Where was her cousin? Left behind to crackle through one of those gaps he knew of.

Yoicks! Yoicks! Yoicks! They were in a wide, down-sloping meadowland intensely green, and checkered with the black and red riders in groups; hounds were disappearing at the bottom of the slope in a thick coppice.

Nursery pictures of Caldecott came back to Dorothy when she saw the squire with his horn and his mulberry-colored face and his huge bay horse go puffing past to investigate the check, which lasted long enough for Dorothy to receive many felicitations upon her horsewomanship.

"My word! Doodles," said her husband, cantering up to her side. "You really are a wonder, but for the Lord's sake be careful."

"I told you that you didn't yet really know me," she murmured; before he could reply, from the farthest corner of the coppice came the whip's "Viewhalloo." Hounds gave tongue again with high-pitched notes of excitement as of children playing. Forrard away! For-rard! They were off again with the fox gone away toward Maidens' Common, and before the merry huntsmen the prospect of the finest run in Devonshire. Thirty minutes at racing speed and never a check; wind singing; hoofs thudding; a view of the fox; Dorothy always among the first half-dozen riders.

They killed some twelve miles away from Clare in Tangley Bottom, and n.o.body would have accused the master, when he handed Dorothy the brush, of being influenced by the countess's charming company at dinner on Sat.u.r.day night. Best of all in a day of superlatives, Clarehaven had taken a nasty toss; his wife had him in hand as securely as she had Mignonette.

"Glorious day," Connie sighed when at last they were walking through the gates of the park.

"Glorious," echoed Dorothy.

A faint flush low on the western sky symbolized her triumph. And though one or two malicious women said that it was a pity Lord Clarehaven should have married a circus girl, the legend never spread. Besides, they had not been introduced to the Diana of Clare, who soon had the county as securely in hand as her horse and her husband.

Dorothy, tired though she was, felt the need of confiding in somebody the tale of her triumph. She was even tempted to write to Olive. In the end she chose her mother; perhaps the kindness of the dowager had stirred a dormant piety.

She wrote:

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am sorry I could not come and see you before I got married, but you can understand how delicate and difficult my position was, and how much everything depended on myself. No doubt, later on when I am thoroughly at home in my new surroundings, it will be easier for us to meet again. I don't know if father told you that I did explain to him my motives in treating you all rather abruptly. Or did he never refer to a little talk we once had? You will be glad to hear that I am very, very happy. My husband adores me, my mother-in-law has been more than kind, and my sisters-in-law equally so. On Thursday we drove over to Chatfield Hall to see my husband's grandmother, old Lady Chatfield, who is famous for speaking her mind, and of course not at all prejudiced in my favor by my having been on the stage. However, we had a jolly little talk together and everybody is delighted with the impression I made. On Sat.u.r.day we had a small dinner-party. The rector, who is very High Church and would not, therefore, appeal to father, was there. Mr.

Kingdon, the squire, would be more his style. There was also a Mr.

Greenish, who promised to teach me gardening. Quite a jolly evening. Yesterday morning all the villagers cheered when I came out of church, and to-day I hunted with the Horley. I was rather a success. I hope you got the check for 500 I sent you, and that you will buy yourself something nice with it. It isn't exactly a present, but in a way it counts as one, doesn't it? You must try to be a little more firm with father in future. Don't forget that though I may seem heartless I am not really so. I hope you will write to me sometimes. You should address the envelope to The Countess of Clarehaven, but if you speak about me to your friends you should speak about me as Lady Clarehaven.

Your loving daughter,

DOROTHY CLAREHAVEN.

IV

For two years Dorothy's life as a countess went quietly along, gathering in its train a number of pleasant little memories that in after years were to mean something more than pleasure. The major difficulties of her new position were all encountered and defeated in that first week; thenceforward nothing seriously disturbed her for long. In the autumn of the year in which Clarehaven married, the dowager, after consulting Dorothy, decided that his restlessness was finally cured and that the danger of his wanting to tear about the Continent in Lee-Lonsdale cars no longer threatened the family peace. In these circ.u.mstances the dowager thought it would be tactful to move into Clare Lodge with Arabella and Constantia.

She should not be too far away if her daughter-in-law had need of her, and by moving that little way off she should do much to prevent her son's chafing against the barriers of domesticity. It would be easier for Dorothy to act as hostess of the shooting-parties that were arranged for the autumn if she were apparent as the only hostess. In the administration of the village the two countesses shared equally--the dowager by superintending the making of soup and gruel for sick villagers, Dorothy by a.s.sisting at its distribution. The rector won Dorothy's heart by his readiness to discuss with her the history of the great family into which she had married, and by preparing a second edition of his _Clarehaven and the Clares_ for when it should be wanted, affixing against the fifth earl's name an asterisk, like a second star of Bethlehem, that should direct the wise reader to this foot-note:

...The present Earl in January, 1906, delighted his many friends and well-wishers in the county by wedding the beautiful Miss Dorothy Lonsdale, a distant connection of that Lord Cleveden who is famous as a most capable administrator in the land of the golden wattle and upon "India's coral strand."

She for her part won Mr. Beadon's heart by often attending his services at Clarehaven, and not merely by attending herself, but by insisting upon Mrs. Bitterplum's and Mrs. Smith's attending, too. This arrangement suited everybody, because the dowager at Little Cherrington was able to worship her stained-gla.s.s window without a sense that, whatever she might be before G.o.d's throne, she was now of secondary importance in the church. The step up that the rector had promised himself for Easter was effected without an apoplexy from Mr. Kingdon, possibly because the white stole did not inflame his taurine eye. At Whitsuntide, however, when a red stole appeared, his face followed the liturgical sequence, and there was a painful scene in the churchyard on a hot morning in early June. Dorothy, on being appealed to by the rector, drove over to Cherrington Hall that afternoon and remonstrated with Mr. Kingdon on his inconsiderate behavior. She pointed out that Mrs. Beadon was in an interesting condition at the moment and that if Mr. Kingdon had his prejudices to consider, Mr. Beadon had his conscience; that it was not right for the squire to add fuel to the ancient rivalry between Great and Little Cherrington; and finally that inasmuch as the bishop was shortly coming to stay at Clare for a confirmation, it would be unkind to pain his sensitive diocesan spirit with these parochial disputes.

Dorothy's arguments may not have convinced the squire, but her beauty and condescension penetrated where logic was powerless, and Mr. Beadon was allowed to preach for more than twenty bee-loud Sundays after Trinity wearing a gra.s.s-green stole round his neck and with never a word of protest from the squire. Nor were the Sundays within the octaves of St. Peter or St. James, of St. Lawrence or St. Bartholomew, profaned by the squire's objections to the tribute of red silk that Mr. Beadon paid to the blood of the martyrs. His wife celebrated her husband's victory by producing twins at Lammastide, and everybody in the neighborhood said that the religious tone of Cherrington was remarkably high.

In September Dorothy had her first shooting-party, to which, among others, Arthur Lonsdale and Harry Tufton were invited. Tony had been in camp with his yeomanry regiment during most of August; he seemed glad to be back at Clare; the shooting was good; the visits of his old friends from London did not apparently disturb him. Notwithstanding Connie's lessons, Dorothy never became a good shot; she really hated killing birds. However, she encouraged Clarehaven to go on with his favorite sport, and herself hunted hard all the season. She was much admired as a horsewoman, and the fact that she had not so long ago been a Vanity girl was already as dim as most old family curses are. In early spring Tony suggested that it would be a good idea to go up to town for the season.

"A very good idea," she agreed. "Bella and Connie ought to be presented." Dorothy spoke as calmly as if she had been presented herself. "It's a pity I can't present them," she added, "but I should not like to be presented myself. I don't think that actresses ought to be presented, even if they do retire from the stage when they marry.

Sometimes an individual suffers unjustly; but it's better that one person should suffer than that all sorts of precedents should be started. Of course, your mother will present them."

"But look here, I thought we'd go up alone," Tony argued. "I told you I'd had the house done up very comfortably. I don't think the girls would enjoy London a bit."

"They may not enjoy it," said Dorothy, "but they ought to go."

May and June were spent in town in an unsuccessful attempt to induce many eligible bachelors even to dance with Arabella and Constantia, let alone to propose to them. Dorothy condoled with the dowager on Arthur Lonsdale's bad taste in not wanting to marry Arabella; Arthur himself was lectured severely on his obligations, and she could not understand why he would not stop laughing, particularly as Lady Cleveden herself had been in favor of the match. Dorothy went to the opera twice a week; but she refused to go near the Vanity. Once she drove over to West Kensington to see her mother, whose chin had more hairs than ever, but who otherwise was not much changed. The rest of the family alarmed her with the flight of time. Gladys and Marjorie were the Agnes and Edna of four years ago; Agnes and Edna themselves were getting perilously like the Norah and Dorothy of four years ago; Cecil was a medical student smoking bigger pipes than Roland, who himself had grown a very heavy black mustache. The countess managed to avoid seeing her father, and when her mother protested his disappointment she said that he would understand. Mrs. Caffyn was too much awed by having a countess for a daughter to insist, and she a.s.sured her that not only did she fully appreciate her reasons for withdrawing from open intercourse with her family, but that she approved of them. The countess gave her a sealskin coat for next winter, kissed her on both cheeks, and disappeared as abruptly from West Kensington as Enoch from the antediluvian landscape.

The responsibility of two plain sisters became too much for Clarehaven; after Ascot he admitted that he should be thoroughly glad to get back to Clare, which was exactly what his wife had hoped.

While Dorothy was studying with the rector the lives of obscure saints and the histories of prominent n.o.blemen, she took lessons with the doctor in natural history and with Mr. Greenish in horticulture. Mr.

Greenish enjoyed sending off on her account large orders to nursery gardeners all over England for rare shrubs that he had neither the money nor the s.p.a.ce to buy for himself. Both at the Temple Show and at Holland House he had been continually at Lady Clarehaven's elbow with a note-book; and the glories of next summer in the Clare gardens made bright his wintry meditations. Mr. Greenish himself looked rather like a tuber, and it became a current joke that one day Dorothy would plant him in a secluded border. The dowager was delighted by her daughter-in-law's hobby, for which, though it ran to the extravagance of ordering the whole stock of a new orange tulip at a guinea a bulb, not to mention twenty roots of sunset-hued _Eremurus warer_ at forty shillings apiece, and a hundred of topaz-hung _Eremurus bungei_ at ten shillings, she had nothing but enthusiasm.

"My golden border will be lovely," Dorothy announced.

"It will be unique," Mr. Greenish added. "Lady Clarehaven is specializing in shades of gold, copper, and bronze," he explained to the dowager.

"These roots oddly resemble echinoderms," said Doctor Lane, looking at the roots of the _Eremurus_.

"I should have said starfish," Mr. Greenish put in.

"Starfish _are_ echinoderms," said the doctor, severely.

"Wonderful!" the dowager exclaimed, with the eyes of a child looking upon the fairies. She herself never rose to the height of her daughter-in-law's Incalike ambitions; but her own j.a.panese tastes (expensive enough) were gratified. Those black-stemmed hydrangeas were ordered by the hundred to bloom by the edge of the pines, and Dorothy presented her with twenty-four of M. Latour-Marlias's newest and most expensive hybrid water-lilies. Nor did the hydrangeas come pink; they knew that they were being employed by a n.o.ble family and preserved the authentic blue of their patrons' blood. As the rector hoped before he died that popular clamor in the Cherringtons would compel him to flout his bishop by holding an open-air procession upon the feast of Corpus Christi, so Dorothy aspired to convert the two villages from vegetables to flowers. She knew, however, that it would be useless to attempt too much at first in this direction, and at Mr. Greenish's suggestion she decided to open her campaign by organizing a grand entertainment for the two Cherringtons, Clarehaven, and the several villages and hamlets in the neighborhood. Uncle Chat was called in to help with his advice, and while Tony was in camp she made her preparations. Marquees were hired from Exeter; the countryside pulsated with the spirit of compet.i.tion.

Dorothy drew up the bills herself with a nice compromise between the claims of age and strict precedence in her list of patrons.

CLAREHAVEN AND CHERRINGTON

AGRICULTURAL FeTE AND

FLOWER SHOW

Sat.u.r.day, August 31, 1907

UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF

The Earl of Chatfield; the Earl and Countess of Clarehaven; Lavinia, Countess of Chatfield; Augusta, Countess of Clarehaven; the Viscount Paignton; the Lady Jane Fanhope; the Lady Arabella Clare; the Lady Constantia Clare; the Lady Mary Fanhope; the Lady Maud Fanhope; George Kingdon, Esq., J.P., M.F.H., and Mrs. Kingdon; the Rev. Claude Conybeare Beadon, M.A., and Mrs. Beadon; Dr. Eustace Lane; Horatio Greenish, Esq.

Prizes for live stock, including poultry, pigeons, and rabbits.

Prizes for collections of mixed vegetables.

A special prize offered by the Earl of Chatfield for the best collection of runner-beans.

A special and very _valuable_ prize offered by the Countess of Clarehaven for the best collection of _flowers_ from a cottage garden.

A special prize offered by the Dowager Countess of Clarehaven for the best collection of wild flowers made by a village child within a four-mile radius of Clare Court.

A special prize offered by Doctor Lane for a collection of insect pests set and mounted by the scholars of Cherrington Church Schools and Horley Board Schools.

The Countess of Clarehaven has kindly consented to give away the prizes.