The Real Charlotte. Ross Martin

her flushed face with just enough expression in them to convey to her that her protest was beside the point. Mrs. Lambert was apparently used to this silent comment on what she said, for she went on still more apologetically:

      “If you like, Roderick, I’ll send Michael over early with a note to Charlotte to tell her we’ll go some other day.”

      Mr. Lambert leaned back as if to consider the question, and began to fill his pipe for the second time.

      “Well,” he said slowly, “if it makes no difference to you, Lucy, I’d be rather glad if you did. As a matter of fact I have to ride out to Gurthnamuckla to-morrow, on business, and I thought I’d take Francie Fitzpatrick with me there on the black mare. She’s no great shakes of a rider, and the black mare is the only thing I’d like to put her on. But, of course, if it was for your own sake and not Charlotte’s that you wanted to go to the Waller’s, I’d try and manage to take Francie some other day. For the matter of that I might put her on Paddy; I daresay he’d carry a lady.”

      Mr. Lambert’s concession had precisely the expected effect. Mrs. Lambert gave a cry of consternation:

      “Roderick! you wouldn’t! Is it put that girl up on that mad little savage of a pony! Why, it’s only yesterday, when Michael was driving me into town, and Mr. Corkran passed on his tricycle, he tore up on to his hind heels and tried to run into Ryan’s public-house! Indeed, if that was the way, not all the Charlottes in the world would make me go driving to-morrow.”

      “Oh, all right,” said Lambert graciously; “if you’d rather have it that way, we’ll send a note over to Charlotte.”

      “Would you mind—” said Mrs. Lambert hesitatingly. “I mean, don’t you think it would be better if—supposing you wrote the note? She always minds what you say, and, I declare, I don’t know how in the world I’d make up the excuse, when she’d settled the whole thing, and even got me to leave word with the sweep to do her drawing-room chimney that’s thick with jackdaws’ nests, because the family’d be from home all the afternoon.”

      “Why, what was to happen to Francie?” asked Lambert quickly.

      “I think Charlotte said she was to come with us,” yawned Mrs. Lambert, whose memory for conversation was as feeble as the part she played in it; “they had some talk about it, at all events. I wouldn’t be sure but Francie Fitzpatrick said first she’d go for a walk to see the town—yes, so she did, and Charlotte told her what she was going for was to try and see the officers, and Francie said maybe it was, or maybe she’d come and have afternoon tea with you. They had great joking about it, but I’m sure, after all, it was settled she was to come with us. Indeed,” continued Mrs. Lambert meditatively, “I think Charlotte’s quite right not to have her going through the town that way by herself; for, I declare, Roderick, that’s a lovely girl.”

      “Oh, she’s well able to take care of herself,” said Lambert, with the gruff deprecation that is with some people the method of showing pleasure at a compliment. “She’s not such a fool as she looks, I can tell you,” he went on, feeling suddenly quite companionable; “the Fitzpatricks didn’t take such wonderful care of her that Charlotte need be bothering herself to put her in cotton wool at this time of day.”

      Mrs. Lambert crocheted on in silence for a few moments, inwardly counting her stitches till she came to the end of the row, then she withdrew the needle and scratched her head ruminatingly with it.

      “Isn’t it a strange thing, Roderick, what makes Charlotte have anyone staying in the house with her? I never remember such a thing to happen before.”

      “She has to have her, and no thanks to her. Old Fitzpatrick’s been doing bad business lately, and the little house he’s had to take at Bray is a tight fit for themselves and the children; so, as he said to me, he thought it was time for Charlotte to do something for her own cousin’s child and no such great thanks to her either, seeing she got every halfpenny the old woman had.”

      Mrs. Lambert realised that she was actually carrying on a conversation with her husband, and nervously cast about in her mind for some response that should be both striking and stimulating.

      “Well, now, if you want my opinion,” she said, shutting both her eyes and shaking her head with the peculiar arch sagacity of a dull woman, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Charlotte wasn’t so sorry to have her here after all. Maybe she thinks she might snap up one of the officers—or there’s young Charley Flood—or, Roderick!” Mrs. Lambert almost giggled with delight and excitement—“I wouldn’t put it past Charlotte to be trying to ketch Mr. Dysart.”

      Roderick laughed in a disagreeable way.

      “I’d wish her joy of him if she got him! A fellow that’d rather stick at home there at Bruff having tea with his sister than go down like any other fellow and play a game of pool at the hotel! A sort of chap that says, if you offer him a whisky and soda in a friendly way, ‘Th—thanks—I don’t c—care about anything at this t—t—time of day.’ I think Francie’d make him sit up!” Mr. Lambert felt his imitation of Christopher Dysart’s voice to be a success, and the shrill burst of laughter with which Mrs. Lambert greeted it gave him for the moment an unusual tinge of respect for her intelligence. “That’s about the size of it, Lucy—what?”

      “Oh, Roderick, how comical you are!” responded the dutiful turkey hen, wiping her watery eyes; “it reminds me of the days when you used to be talking of old Mr. Mullen and Charlotte fighting in the office till I’d think I was listening to themselves.”

      “God help the man that’s got to fight with Charlotte, anyhow!” said Lambert, finishing his whisky and water as if toasting the sentiment; “and talking of Charlotte, Lucy, you needn’t mind about writing that note to her; I’ll go over myself and speak to her in the morning.”

      “Oh, yes, Roderick, ’twill be all right if you see herself, and you might say to her that I’ll be expecting her to come in to tea.”

      Mr. Lambert, who had already taken up his newspaper again, merely grunted an assent. Mrs. Lambert patiently folded her small bony hands upon her dog’s back, and closing her eyes and opening her mouth, fell asleep in half a dozen breaths.

      Her husband read his paper for a short time, while the subdued duet of snoring came continuously from the chair opposite. The clock struck nine in its sonorous, gentlemanlike voice, and at the sound Lambert threw down his paper as if an idea had occurred to him. He got up and went over to the window, and putting aside the curtains, looked out into the twilight of the June evening. The world outside was still awake, and the air was tender with the remembrance of the long day of sunshine and heat; a thrush was singing loudly down by the seringa bush at the end of the garden; the cattle were browsing and breathing audibly in the field beyond, and some children were laughing and shouting on the road. It seemed to Lambert much earlier than he had thought, and as he stood there, the invitation of the summer evening began to appeal to him with seductive force; the quiet fields lay grey and mysterious under the pale western glow, and his eye travelled several times across them to a distant dark blot—the clump of trees and evergreens in which Tally Ho Lodge lay buried.

      He turned from the window at last, and coming back into the lamplit room, surveyed it and its unconscious occupants with a feeling of intolerance for their unlovely slumber. His next step was the almost unprecedented one of changing his slippers for boots, and in a few minutes he had left the house.

CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      Norry the Boat toiled up the back stairs with wrath in her heart. She had been listening for some minutes with grim enjoyment to cries from the landing upstairs; unavailing calls for Louisa, interspersed with the dumb galvanic quiver of a bell-less bellwire, and at last Francie’s voice at the angle half-way down the kitchen stairs had entreated her to find and despatch to her the missing Protestant orphan. Then Norry had said to herself, while she