Part 6 (2/2)

”Kate! I don't believe you heard a single word that Mrs. Lambert said! You were calculating how many gallons of tea will be wanted for your school feast.”

”Nonsense, Isabel!” said Mrs. Gascogne hotly, with an indignant and repressive glance at Lady Dysart, ”and how was it-” turning to Mrs. Lambert, ”that he-a-swallowed so much lake water?”

”He was cot under the sail, Mrs. Gascogne. He made a sort of a dash at Miss Fitzpatrick to save her when she was falling, and he slipped someway, and got in under the sail and he was half-choked before he could get out!” A tear of sensibility trickled down the good turkey hen's red beak, ”Indeed, I don't know when I've been so upset, Lady Dysart,” she quavered.

”Upset!” echoed Lady Dysart, raising her large eyes dramatically to the cut gla.s.s chandelier, ”I can well believe it! When it came to ten o'clock and there was no sign of them, I was simply raging up and down between the house and the pier like a mad bull robbed of its whelps!” She turned to Mrs. Gascogne, feeling that there was a biblical ring in the peroration that demanded a higher appreciation than Mrs. Lambert could give, and was much chagrined to see that lady concealing her laughter behind a handkerchief.

Mrs. Lambert looked bewilderedly from one to the other, and, feeling that the ways of the aristocracy were beyond her comprehension, went on with the recital of her own woes.

”He actually went down to Limerick by train in the afternoon-he that was half-drowned the day before, and a paragraph in the paper about his narrow escape. I haven't had a wink of sleep those two nights, what with palpitations and bad dreams. I don't believe, Lady Dysart, I'll ever be the better of it.”

”Oh, you'll get over it soon, Mrs. Lambert,” said Lady Dysart cheerfully; ”why, I had no less than three children-”

”Calves,” murmured Mrs. Gascogne, with still streaming eyes.

”Children,” repeated Lady Dysart emphatically, ”and I thought they were every one of them drowned!”

”Oh, but a husband, Lady Dysart,” cried Mrs. Lambert with orthodox unction, ”what are children compared to the husband?”

”Oh-er-of course not,” said Lady Dysart, with something less than her usual conviction of utterance, her thoughts flying to Sir Benjamin and his bath chair.

”By the way,” struck in Mrs. Gascogne, ”my husband desired me to say that he hopes to come over to-morrow afternoon to see Mr. Lambert, and to hear all about the accident.”

Mrs. Lambert looked more perturbed than gratified. ”It's very kind of the Archdeacon I'm sure,” she said nervously; ”but Mr. Lambert-” (Mrs. Lambert belonged to the large cla.s.s of women who are always particular to speak of their husbands by their full style and t.i.tle) ”Mr. Lambert is most averse to talking about it, and perhaps-if the Archdeacon didn't mind-”

”That's just what I complain of in Christopher,” exclaimed Lady Dysart, breaking with renewed vigour into the conversation. ”He was most unsatisfactory about it all. Of course, when he came home that night, he was so exhausted that I spared him. I said, 'Not one word will I allow you to say to night, and I command you to stay in bed for breakfast to-morrow morning!' I even went down at one o'clock, and pinned a paper on William's door, so that he shouldn't call him. Well-” Lady Dysart, at this turning-point of her story, found herself betrayed into saying ”My dear,” but had presence of mind enough to direct the expression at Mrs. Gascogne. ”Well, my dear, when I went up in the morning craving for news, he was most confused and unsatisfactory. He pretended he knew nothing of how it had happened, and that after the upset they all went drifting about in a sort of a knot till the yacht came down on top of them. But, of course, something more must have happened to them than that! It really was the greatest pity that Miss Fitzpatrick got stunned by that blow on the head just at the beginning of the whole business. She would have told us all about it. But men never can describe anything.”

”Oh, well, I a.s.sure you, Lady Dysart,” piped the turkey hen, ”Mr. Lambert described to me all that he possibly could, and he said Mr. Dysart gave every a.s.sistance in his power, and was the greatest help to him in supporting that poor girl in the water; but the townspeople were so very inquisitive, and really annoyed him so much with their questions, that he said to me this morning he hoped he'd hear no more about it, which is why I took the liberty of asking Mrs. Gascogne, that the Archdeacon wouldn't mention it to him.”

”Oh, yes, yes,” said Mrs. Gascogne very politely, recalling herself with difficulty from the mental excursion on which she had started when Lady Dysart's unrelenting eye had been removed. ”I am sure he will-a-be delighted. I think, you know, Isabel, we ought-”

Lady Dysart was on her feet in a moment. ”Yes, indeed, we ought!” she responded briskly. ”I have to pick up Pamela. Good-bye, Mrs. Lambert; I hope I shall find you looking better the next time I see you, and remember, if you cannot sleep, that there is no opiate like an open window!” Mrs. Lambert's exclamation of horror followed her visitors out of the room. Open windows were regarded by her as a necessary housekeeping evil, akin to twigging carpets and whitewas.h.i.+ng the kitchen, something to be got over before anyone came downstairs. Not even her reverence for Lady Dysart would induce her to tolerate such a thing in any room in which she was, and she returned to her woolwork, well satisfied to let the July suns.h.i.+ne come to her through the well-fitting plate-gla.s.s windows of her hideous drawing-room.

”The person I do pity in the whole matter,” remarked Lady Dysart, as the landau rolled out of the Rosemount gates and towards Lismoyle, ”is Charlotte Mullen. Of course, that poor excellent little Mrs. Lambert got a great shock, but that was nothing compared with seeing the sail go flat down on the water, as the people in the launch did. In the middle of all poor Pamela's own fright, when she was tearing open one of the luncheon baskets to get some whisky out, Charlotte went into raging hysterics, and roared, my dear! And then she all but fainted on to the top of Mr. Hawkins. Who would ever have thought of her breaking down in that kind of way?”

”Faugh!” said Mrs. Gascogne, ”disgusting creature!”

”Now, Kate, you are always saying censorious things about that poor woman. People can't help showing their feelings sometimes, no matter how ugly they are! All that I can tell you is,” said Lady Dysart, warming to fervour as was her wont, ”if you had seen her this afternoon as I did, with the tears in her eyes as she described the whole thing to me, and the agonies she was in about that girl, you would have felt sorry for her.”

Mrs. Gascogne shot a glance, bright with intelligence and amus.e.m.e.nt, at her cousin's flushed handsome face, and held her peace. With Mrs. Gascogne, to hold her peace was to glide into the sanctuary of her own thoughts, and remain there oblivious of all besides; but the retribution that would surely have overtaken her at the next pause in Lady Dysart's harangue was averted by the stopping of the carriage at Miss Mullen's gate.

Francie lay back on her sofa after Pamela Dysart had left her. She saw the landau drive away towards Bruff, with the sun twinkling on the silver of the harness, and thought with an ungrudging envy how awfully nice Miss Dysart was, and how lovely it would be to have a carriage like that to drive about in. People in Dublin, who were not half as grand as the Dysarts, would have been a great deal too grand to come and see her up in her room like this, but here everyone was as friendly as they could be, and not a bit stuck-up. It was certainly a good day for her when she came down to Lismoyle, and in spite of all that Uncle Robert had said about old Aunt Mullen's money, and how Charlotte had feathered her own nest, there was no denying that Charlotte was not a bad old thing after all. Her only regret was that she had not seen the dress that Miss Dysart had on this after-noon before she had got herself that horrid ready-made pink thing, and the s.h.i.+rt with the big pink horse-shoes on it. f.a.n.n.y Hemphill's. .h.i.therto unquestioned opinion in the matter of costume suddenly tottered in her estimation, and, with the loosening of that b.u.t.tress of her former life, all her primitive convictions were shaken.

The latch of the gate clicked again, and she leaned forward to see who was coming. ”What nonsense it is keeping me up here this way!” she said to herself; ”there's Roddy ambert coming in, and won't he be cross when he finds that there's only Charlotte for him to talk to! I will come down to-morrow, no matter what they say, but I suppose it will be ages before the officers call again now.” Miss Fitzpatrick became somewhat moody at this reflection, and tried to remember what it was that Mr. Hawkins had said about ”taking shooting leave for the 12th;” she wished she hadn't been such a fool as not to ask him what he had meant by the 12th. If it meant the 12th of July, she mightn't see him again till he came back, and goodness knows when that would be. Roddy Lambert was all very well, but what was he but an old married man. ”Gracious!” she interrupted herself aloud with a little giggle, ”how mad he'd be if he thought I called him that!” and Hawkins was really a very jolly fellow. The hall-door opened again; she heard Charlotte's voice raised in leave-taking, and then Mr. Lambert walked slowly down the drive and the hall-door slammed. ”He didn't stay long,” thought Francie; ”I wonder if he's cross because I wasn't downstairs? He's a very cross man. Oh, look at him kicking Mrs. Bruff into the bushes! It's well for him Charlotte's coming ups-tairs and can't see him!”

Charlotte was not looking any the worse for what she had gone through on the day of the accident; in fact, as she came into the room, there was an air of youthfulness and good spirits about her that altered her surprisingly, and her manner towards her cousin was geniality itself.

”Well, me child!” she began, ”I hadn't a minute since dinner to come and see you. The doorstep's worn out with the world and his wife coming to ask how you are; and Louisa doesn't know whether she's on her head or her heels with all the clean cups she's had to bring in!”

”Well, I wish to goodness I'd been downstairs to help her,” said Francie, whirling her feet off the sofa and sitting upright; ”there's nothing ails me to keep me stuck up here.”

”Well, you shall come down to-morrow,” replied Charlotte soothingly; ”I'm going to lunch with the Bakers, so you'll have to come down to do your manners to Christopher Dysart. His mother said he was coming to inquire for you to-morrow. And remember that only for him the pike would be eating you at the bottom of the lake this minute! Mind that! You'll have to thank him for saving your life!”

”Mercy on us,” cried Francie; ”what on earth will I say to him?”

”Oh, you'll find plenty to say to him! They're as easy as me old shoe, all those Dysarts; I'd pity no one that had one of them to talk to, from the mother down. Did you notice at the picnic how Pamela and her brother took all the trouble on themselves? That's what I call breeding, and not sitting about to be waited on like that great lazy hunks, Miss Hope-Drummond! I declare I loathe the sight of these English fine ladies, and my private belief is that Christopher Dysart thinks the same of her, though he's too well-bred to show it. Yes, my poor Susan,” fondling with a large and motherly hand the cat that was sprawling on her shoulder; ”he's a real gentleman, like yourself, and not a drop of dirty Saxon blood in him. He doesn't bring his great vulgar bull-dog here to worry my poor son-”

”What did Mr. Lambert say, Charlotte?” asked Francie, who began to be a little bored by this rhapsody. ”Was he talking about the accident?”

”Very little,” said Charlotte, with a change of manner; ”he only said that poor Lucy, who wasn't there at all, was far worse than any of us. As I told him, you, that we thought was dead, would be down to-morrow, and not worth asking after. Indeed we were talking about business most of the time-” She pressed her face down on the cat's grey back to hide an irrepressible smile of recollection. ”But that's only interesting to the parties concerned.”

END OF VOL. I.

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER XVI.

Francie felt an unsuspected weakness in her knees when she walked downstairs next day. She found herself clutching the stair-rail with an absurdly tight grasp, and putting her feet down with trembling caution on the oil-cloth stair covering, and when she reached the drawing-room she was thankful to subside into Charlotte's armchair, and allow her dizzy head to recover its equilibrium. She thought very little about her nerves; in fact, was too ignorant to know whether she possessed such things, and she gave a feeble laugh of surprise at the way her heart jumped and fluttered when the door slammed unexpectedly behind her. The old green sofa had been pulled out from the wall and placed near the open window, with the Dublin Express laid upon it; Francie noticed and appreciated the attention, and noted too, that an arm-chair, sacred to the use of visitors, had been planted in convenient relation to the sofa. ”For Mr. Dysart, I suppose,” she thought, with a curl of her pretty lip, ”he'll be as much obliged to her as I am.” She pushed the chair away, and debated with herself as to whether she should dislodge the two cats who, with faces of frowning withdrawal from all things earthly, were heaped in simulated slumber in the corner of the sofa. She chose the arm-chair, and, taking up the paper, languidly read the list of places where bands would play in the coming week, and the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the anthem at St. Patrick's for the next day.

How remote she felt from it all! How stale appeared these cherished amus.e.m.e.nts! Most people would think the Lismoyle choir a poor subst.i.tute for the ranks of white surplices in the chancel of St. Patrick's, with the banners of the knights hanging above them, but Francie thought it much better fun to look down over the edge of the Lismoyle gallery at the red coats of Captain Cursiter's detachment, than to stand crushed in the nave of the cathedral, even though the most popular treble was to sing a solo, and though Mr. Thomas Whitty might be waiting on the steps to disentangle her from the crowd that would slowly surge up them into the street. A heavy-booted foot came along the pa.s.sage, and the door was opened by Norry, holding in her grimy hand a tumbler containing a nauseous-looking yellow mixture.

”Miss Charlotte bid me give ye a bate egg with a half gla.s.s of whisky in it whenever ye'd come downstairs.” She stirred it with a black kitchen fork, and proffered the sticky tumbler to Francie, who took it, and swallowed the thin, flat liquid which it contained with a shudder of loathing. ”How bad y'are! Dhrink every dhrop of it now! An empty sack won't stand, and ye're as white as a masheroon this minute. G.o.d knows it's in yer bed ye should be, and not shtuck out in a chair in the middle of the flure readin' the paper!” Her eye fell on the apparently unconscious Mrs. and Miss Bruff. ”Ha, ha! thin! how cozy the two of yez is on yer sofa! Walk out, me Lady Ann!”

This courtesy-t.i.tle, the expression of Norry's supremest contempt and triumph, was accompanied by a sudden onslaught with the hearth-brush, but long before it could reach them, the ladies referred to had left the room by the open window.

The room was very quiet after Norry had gone away. Francie took the evicted holding of the cats, and fell speedily into a doze induced by the unwonted half gla.s.s of whisky. Her early dinner, an unappetising meal of boiled mutton and rice pudding, was but a short interlude in the dullness of the morning; and after it was eaten, a burning tract of afternoon extended itself between her and Mr. Dysart's promised visit. She looked out of the window at the sailing shreds of white cloud high up in the deep blue of the sky, at the fat bees swinging and droning in the purple blossoms of the columbine border, at two kittens playing furiously in the depths of the mignonette bed; and regardless of Charlotte's injunctions about the heat of the sun, she said to herself that she would go out into the garden for a little. It was three o'clock, and her room was as hot as an oven when she went up to get her hat; her head ached as she stood before the gla.s.s and arranged the wide brim to her satisfaction, and stuck her best paste pin into the sailor's knot of her tie. Suddenly the door burst unceremoniously open, and Norry's grey head and filthy face were thrust round the edge of it.

”Come down, Miss Francie!” she said in a fierce whisper; ”give over making shnouts at yerself in the gla.s.s and hurry on down! Louisa isn't in, and sure I can't open the doore the figure I am.”

”Who's there?” asked Francie, with flus.h.i.+ng cheeks.

”How would I know? I'd say 'twas Misther Lambert's knock whatever. Sich galloppin' in and out of the house as there is these two days! Ye may let in this one yerself!”

When Francie opened the hall-door she was both relieved and disappointed to find that Norry had been right in the matter of the knock. Mr. Lambert was apparently more taken by surprise than she was. He did not speak at once, but, taking her hand, pressed it very hard, and when Francie, finding the silence slightly embarra.s.sing, looked up at him with a laugh that was intended to simplify the situation, she was both amazed and frightened to see a moisture suspiciously like tears in his eyes.

”You-you look rather washed out,” he stammered.

”You're very polite! Is that all you have to say to me?” she said, slipping her hand out of his, and gaily ignoring his tragic tone. ”You and your old yacht nearly washed me out altogether! At all events, you washed the colour out of me pretty well.” She put up her hands and rubbed her cheeks. ”Are you coming in or going out? Charlotte's lunching at the Bakers', and I'm going into the garden till tea-time, so now you can do as you like.”

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