The Real Charlotte Part 6

"Not quite," he called back, his hair hanging in dripping points on his forehead as he took off his cap and shook the water out of it. "I say, Lambert, it's beginning to blow pretty stiff; I'd take that top-sail off her, if I were you."

"She's often carried it in worse weather than this," returned Lambert; "a drop of water will do no one any harm."

Mr. Lambert in private, and as much as possible in public, affected to treat his employer's son as a milksop, and few things annoyed him more than the accepted opinion on the lake that there was no better man in a boat than Christopher Dysart. His secret fear that it was true made it now all the more intolerable that Christopher should lay down the law to him on a point of seamans.h.i.+p, especially with Francie by, ready in that exasperating way of hers to laugh at him on the smallest provocation.

"It'll do him no harm if he does get a drop of water over him," he said to her in a low voice, forgetting for the moment his att.i.tude of disapproval. "Take some of the starch out of him for once!" He took a pull on the main sheet, and, with a satisfied upward look at the top-sail in question, applied himself to conversation. The episode had done him good, and it was with almost fatherly seriousness that he began: "Now, Francie, you were telling me a while ago that I was cross all day. I'm a very old friend of yours, and I don't mind saying that I was greatly put out by the way"-he lowered his voice-"by the way you were going on with that fellow Hawkins."

"I don't know what you mean by 'going on,'" interrupted Francie, with a slight blush. "What's the harm in talking to him if he likes to talk to me?"

"Plenty of harm," returned Lambert quickly, "when he makes a fool of you the way he did to-day. If you don't care that Miss Dysart and the rest of them think you know no better than to behave like that, I do!"

"Behave like what?"

"Well, for one thing, to let him and Garry Dysart go sticking gra.s.s in your stockings that way after luncheon; and for another to keep Miss Dysart waiting tea for you for half an hour, and your only excuse to be to tell her that he was 'teaching you to make ducks and drakes' the other side of the island." The fatherly quality had died out of his voice, and the knuckles of the hand that held the tiller grew white from a harder grip.

Francie instinctively tucked away her feet under her petticoats. She was conscious that the green pattern still adorned her insteps, and that tell-tale spikes of gra.s.s still projected on either side of her shoes.

"How could I help it? It was just a silly game that he and Garry Dysart made up between them; and as for Miss Dysart being angry with me, she never said a word to me; she was awfully good; and she and her brother had kept the teapot hot for me, and everything." She looked furtively at Christopher, who was looking out at the launch, now crossing their path some distance ahead. It was more than you'd have done for me!"

"Yes, very likely it was; but I wouldn't have been laughing at you in my sleeve all the time as they were, or at least as he was, anyhow!"

"I believe that's a great lie," said Francie unhesitatingly; "and I don't care a jack-rat what he thought, or what you think either. Mr. Hawkins is a very nice young man, and I'll talk to him just as much as I like! And he's coming to tea at Tally Ho to-morrow; and what's more, I asked him! So now!"

"Oh, all right!" said Lambert, in such a constrained voice of anger, that even Francie felt a little afraid of him. "Have him to tea by all means; and if I were you I should send down to Limerick and have Miss M'Carthy up to meet him!"

"What are you saying? Who's Miss M'Carthy?" asked Francie, with a disappointing sparkle of enjoyment in her eyes.

"She's the daughter of a George's Street tobacconist that your friend Mr. Hawkins was so sweet about a couple of months ago that they packed him off here to be out of harm's way. Look out, Dysart, I'm going about now," he continued without giving Francie time to reply. "Leehelm!"

"Oh, I'm sick of you and your old 'leehelm'!" cried Francie, as she grovelled again in the c.o.c.kpit to avoid the swing of the boom. "Why can't you go straight like Captain Cursiter's steamer, instead of bothering backwards and forwards, side-ways, like this? And you always do it just when I want to ask you something."

This complaint, which was mainly addressed to Mr. Lambert's canvas yachting shoes, received no attention. When Francie came to the surface she found that the yacht was at a more uncomfortable angle than ever, and with some difficulty she established herself on the narrow strip of deck, outside the coaming, with her feet hanging into the c.o.c.kpit.

"Now, Mr. Lambert," she began at once, "you'd better tell me Miss M'Carthy's address, and all about her, and perhaps if you're good I'll ask you to meet her too."

As she spoke, a smart squall struck the yacht, and Lambert luffed her hard up to meet it. A wave with a ragged white edge flopped over her bows, wetting Christopher again, and came was.h.i.+ng aft along the deck behind the coaming.

"Look out aft there!" he shouted, "She's putting her nose into it! I tell you that top-sail's burying her, Lambert."

Lambert made no answer to either Francie or Christopher. He had as much as he could do to hold the yacht, which was s.n.a.t.c.hing at the tiller like a horse at its bit, and ripping her way deep through the waves in a manner too vigorous to be pleasant, It was about seven o'clock, and though the sun was still some height above the dark jagged wall of the mountains, the clouds had risen in a tawny fleece across his path, and it was evident that he would be seen no more that day. The lake had turned to indigo. The beds of reeds near the sh.o.r.e were pallid by contrast as they stooped under the wind; the waves that raced towards the yacht had each an angry foam-crest, having, after the manner of lake waves, lashed themselves into a high state of indignation on very short notice, and hissed and effervesced like soda-water all along the lee gunwale of the flying yacht. A few seagulls that were trying to fight their way back down to the sea, looked like fluttering sc.r.a.ps of torn white paper against the angry bronze of the clouds, and the pine trees on the point, under the lee of which they were scudding, were tossing like the black plumes of a hea.r.s.e.

Lambert put the yacht about, and headed back across the lake.

"We did pretty well on that tack, Dysart," he shouted. "We ought to get outside Screeb Point with the next one, and then we'll get the wind a point fairer, and make better weather of it the rest of the way home."

He could see the launch, half a mile or so beyond the point, ploughing steadily along on her way to Lismoyle, and in his heart he wished that Francie was on board of her. He also wished that Christopher had held his confounded tongue about the top-sail. If he hadn't shoved in his oar where he wasn't wanted, he'd have had that top-sail off her twenty minutes ago; but he wasn't going to stand another man ordering him about in his own boat.

"Look here, Francie," he said, "you must look out for yourself when I'm going about next time. It's always a bit squally round this point, so you'd better keep down in the c.o.c.kpit till we're well on the next tack."

"But I'll get all wet down there," objected Francie, "and I'd much rather stay up here and see the fun."

"You talk as if it was the top of a tram in Sackville Street," said Lambert, s.n.a.t.c.hing a glance of provoked amus.e.m.e.nt at her unconcerned face. "I can tell you it will take a good deal more holding on to than that does. Promise me now, like a good child," he went on, with a sudden thrill of anxiety at her helplessness and ignorance, "that you'll do as I tell you. You used to mind what I said to you."

He leaned towards her as he spoke, and Francie raised her eyes to his with a laugh in them that made him for the moment forgetful of everything else. They were in the open water in the centre of the lake by this time, and in that second a squall came roaring down upon them.

"Luff!" shouted Christopher, letting go the head sheets. "Luff, or we're over!"

Lambert let go the main sheet and put the tiller hard down with all the strength he was master of, but he was just too late. In that moment, when he had allowed his thoughts to leave his steering, the yacht had dragged herself a thought beyond his control. The rough hand of the wind struck her, and, as she quivered and reeled under the blow, another and fiercer gust caught hold of her, and flung her flat on her side on the water.

Before Christopher had well realised what had happened, he had gone deep under water, come to the surface again, and was swimming, with a vision before him of a white figure with a red cap falling headlong from its perch. He raised himself and shook the water out of his eyes, and swimming a stroke or two to get clear of the mast, with its sails heaving p.r.o.ne on the water like the pinions of a great wounded bird, he saw over the shoulders of the hurrying waves the red cap and the white dress drifting away to leeward. Through the noise of the water in his ears, and the confusion of his startled brain, he heard Lambert's voice shouting frantically he did not know what; the whole force of his nature was set and centred on overtaking the red cap to which each stroke was bringing him nearer and nearer as it appeared and reappeared ahead of him between the steely backs of the waves. She lay horribly still, with the water was.h.i.+ng over her face; and as Christopher caught her dress, and turned, breathless, to try to fight his way back with her to the wrecked yacht, he seemed to hear a hundred voices ringing in his ears and telling him that she was dead. He was a good and practised swimmer, but not a powerful one. His clothes hung heavily about him, and with one arm necessarily given to his burden, and the waves and wind beating him back, he began to think that his task was more than he would be able to accomplish. He had up to this, in the intensity of the shock and struggle, forgotten Lambert's existence, but now the agonised shouts that he had heard came back to him, and he raised himself high in the water and stared about with a new anxiety. To his intense relief he saw that the yacht was still afloat, was, in fact, drifting slowly down towards him, and in the water not ten yards from him was her owner, labouring towards him with quick splas.h.i.+ng strokes, and evidently in a very exhausted state. His face was purple-red, his eyes half starting out of his head, and Christopher could hear his hard breathing as he slowly bore down upon him.

"She's all right, Lambert!" Christopher cried out, though his heart belied the words. "I've got her! Hold hard; the yacht will be down on us in a minute."

Whether Lambert heard the words or no was not apparent. He came struggling on, and as soon as he got within reach, made a s.n.a.t.c.h at Francie's dress. Christopher had contrived to get his left arm round her waist, and to prop her chin on his shoulder, so that her face should be above the water, and, as Lambert's weight swung on him, it was all he could do to keep her in this position.

"You'll drown us all if you don't let go!" Uttermost exertion and want of breath made Christopher's voice wild and spasmodic. "Can't you tread water till the boat gets to us?"

Lambert still speechlessly and convulsively dragged at her, his breath breaking from him in loud gasps, and his face working.

"Good G.o.d, he's gone mad!" thought Christopher; "we're all done for if he won't let go." In desperation he clenched his fist, with the intention of hitting Lambert on the head, but just as he gathered his forces for this extreme measure something struck him softly in the back. Lambert's weight had twisted him round so that he was no longer facing the yacht, and he did not know how near help was. It was the boom of the Daphne that had touched him like a friendly hand, and he turned and caught at it with a feeling of more intense thankfulness than he had known in all his life.

The yacht was lying over on her side, half full of water, but kept afloat by the air-tight compartments that Mrs. Lambert's terrors had insisted on, and that her money had paid for, when her husband had first taken to sailing on the lake. Christopher was able with a desperate effort to get one knee on to the submerged coaming of the c.o.c.kpit, and catching at its upper side with his right hand, he recovered himself and prepared to draw Francie up after him.

"Come, Lambert, let go!" he said threateningly, "and help me to get her out of the water. You need not be afraid, you can hold on to the boat."

Lambert had not hitherto tried to speak, but now with the support that the yacht gave him, his breath came back to him a little.

"d.a.m.n you!" he spluttered, the loud sobbing breaths almost choking him, "I'm not afraid! Let her go! Take your arm from round her, I can hold her better than you can. Ah!" he shrieked, suddenly seeing Francie's face, as Christopher, without regarding what he said, drew her steadily up from his exhausted grasp, "she's dead! you've let her drown!" His head fell forward, and Christopher thought with the calm of despair, "He's going under, and I can't help him if he does. Here Lambert! man alive, don't let go! There! do you hear the launch whistling? They're coming to us!"

Lambert's hand, with its s.h.i.+ning gold signetring, was gripping the coaming under water with a grasp that was already mechanical. It seemed to Christopher that it had a yellow, drowned look about it. He put out his foot, and, getting it under Lambert's chin, lifted his mouth out of the water. The steam-launch was whistling incessantly, in long notes, in short ones, in jerks, and he lifted up his voice against the forces of the wind and the hissing and das.h.i.+ng of the water to answer her. Perhaps it was the dull weight on his arm and the stricken stillness of the face that lay in utter unconsciousness on his shoulder, but he scarcely recognised his own voice, it was broken with such a tone of stress and horror. He had never before heard such music as Hawkins' shout hailing him in answer, nor seen a sight so heavenly fair as the bow of the Serpolette cutting its way through the thronging waves to their rescue. White faces staring over her gunwale broke into a loud cry when they saw him hanging, half-spent, against the tilted deck of the Daphne. It was well, he thought, that they had not waited any longer. The only question was whether they were not even now too late. His head swam from excitement and fatigue, his arms and knees trembled, and when at last Francie, Lambert, and finally he himself, were lifted on board the launch, it seemed the culminating point of a long and awful nightmare that Charlotte Mullen should fling herself on her knees beside the bodies of her cousin and her friend, and utter yell after yell of hysterical lamentation.

CHAPTER XV.

"Sausages and bacon, Lady Dysart! Yes, indeed, that was his breakfast, and that for a man who-if you'll excuse the expression, Lady Dysart, but, indeed, I know you're such a good doctor that I'd like you to tell me if it was quite safe- who was vomiting lake water for half an hour after he was brought into the house the night before."

"Do you really mean that he came down to breakfast?" asked Lady Dysart, with the flattering sincerity of interest that she bestowed on all topics of conversation, but specially on those that related to the art and practice of medicine. "He ought to have stayed in bed all day to let the system recover from the shock."

"Those were the very words I used to him, Lady Dysart," returned Mrs. Lambert dismally; "but indeed all the answer he made was, 'Fiddle-de-dee!' He wouldn't have so much as a cup of tea in his bed, and you may think what I suffered, Lady Dysart, when I was down in the parlour making the breakfast and getting his tray ready, when I heard him in his bath overhead- just as if he hadn't been half-drowned the night before. I didn't tell you that, Mrs. Gascogne," she went on, turning her watery gaze upon the thin refined face of her spiritual directress. "Now if it was me such a thing happened to, I'd have that nervous dread of water that I couldn't look at it for a week."

"No, I am sure you would not," answered Mrs. Gascogne with the over-earnestness which so often s.h.i.+pwrecks the absent-minded; "of course you couldn't expect him to take it if it wasn't made with really boiling water."

Mrs. Lambert stared in stupefaction, and Lady Dysart, far from trying to cloak her cousin's confusion, burst into a delighted laugh.

"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."