The Real Charlotte

by Edith Somerville

  Francie’s first instinct was flight, but before she had time to turn, her host had seen her, and changing his tone of fury to one of hideous affability, he called to her to come and speak to him. Francie was too uncertain as to the exact extent of his intellect to risk disobedience, and she advanced tremblingly.

  “Come here, miss,” said Sir Benjamin, goggling at her through his gold spectacles. “You’re the pretty little visitor, and I promised I’d take you out driving in my carriage and pair. Come here and shake hands with me, miss. Where’s your manners?”

  This invitation was emphasised by a thump of his stick on the floor of the chair, and Francie, with an almost prayerful glance round for James Canavan, was reluctantly preparing to comply with it, when she heard Garry’s voice calling her.

  “Miss Fitzpatrick! Hi! Come here!”

  Miss Fitzpatrick took one look at the tremulous, irritable old claw outstretched for her acceptance, and plunged incontinently down a ride in the direction of the voice. In front of her stood a sombre ring of immense pine trees, and in their shadow stood Garry and James Canavan, apparently in committee upon some small object that lay on the thick mat of moss and pine-needles.

  “I heard the governor talking to you,” said Garry with a grin of intelligence, “and I thought you’d sooner come and look at the rat that’s just come out of this hole. Stinking Jemima’s been in there for the last half hour after rabbits. She’s my ferret, you know, a regular ripper,” he went on in excited narration, “and I expect she’s got the muzzle off and is having a high old time. She’s just bolted this brute.”

  The brute in question was a young rat that lay panting on its side, unable to move, with blood streaming from its face.

  “Oh! the creature!” exclaimed Francie with compassionate disgust; “what’ll you do with it?”

  “I’ll take it home and try and tame it,” replied Garry; “it’s quite young enough. Isn’t it, Canavan?”

  James Canavan, funereal in his black coat and rusty tall hat, was regarding the rat meditatively, and at the question he picked up Garry’s stick and balanced it in his hand. “Voracious animals that we hate,

  Cats, rats, and bats deserve their fate,”

  he said pompously, and immediately brought the stick down on the rat’s head with a determination that effectually disposed of all plans for its future, educational or otherwise.

  Garry and Francie cried out together, but James Canavan turned his back unregardingly upon them and his victim, and stalked back to Sir Benjamin, whose imprecations, since Francie’s escape, had been pleasantly audible.

  “The old beast!” said Garry, looking resentfully after his late ally; “you never know what he’ll do next. I believe if mother hadn’t been there last night, he’d have gone on jumping on Kitty Gascogne till he killed her. By the bye, Miss Fitzpatrick, Hawkins passed up the lake just now, and he shouted out to me to say that he’d be at the turfboat pier at four o’clock, and he hoped none of you were going out.”

  Then he had not forgotten her; he was going to keep his word, thought Francie, with a leap of the heart, but further thoughts were cut short by the sudden appearance of Pamela, Christopher, and Miss Hope-Drummond at the end of the ride. The treacherous slaughter of the rat was immediately recounted to Pamela at full length by Garry, and Miss Fitzpatrick addressed herself to Christopher.

  “How sweet your woods are, Mr. Dysart,” she began, feeling that some speech of the kind was suitable to the occasion. “I declare, I’d never be tired walking in them!”

  Christopher was standing a little behind the others, looking cool and lank in his flannels, and feeling a good deal less interested in things in general than he appeared. He had an agreeably craven habit of simulating enjoyment in the society of whoever fate threw him in contact with, not so much from a wish to please as from a politeness that had in it an unworthy fear of exciting displeasure; and so ably had he played the part expected of him that Miss Hope-Drummond had felt, as she strolled with him and his sister through the sunshiny wood, that he really was far more interested in her than she had given him credit for, and that if that goose Pamela were not so officious in always pursuing them about everywhere, they would have got on better still. She did not trouble her brothers in this way, and the idea that Mr. Dysart would not have come at all without his sister did not occur to her. She was, therefore, by no means pleased when she heard him suggest to Miss Fitzpatrick that she should come and see the view from the point, and saw them walk away in that direction without any reference to the rest of the party.

  Christopher himself could hardly have explained why he did it. It is possible that he felt Francie’s ingenuous, unaffected vulgarity to be refreshing after the conversation in which Miss Hope-Drummond’s own especial tastes and opinions had shed their philosophy upon a rechauffé of the society papers, and recollections of Ascot and Hurlingham. Perhaps also, after his discovery that Francie had a soul to be saved, he resented the absolute possession that Hawkins had taken of her the night before. Hawkins was a good little chap, but not the sort of person to develop a nascent intellectuality, thought this sage of seven-and-twenty.

  “Why did you come out here by yourself?” he said to her, some little time after they had left the others.

  “And why shouldn’t I?” answered Francie, with the pertness that seldom failed her, even when, as on this morning, she felt a little uninterested in every subject except one.

  “Because it gave us the trouble of coming out to look for you.”

  “To see I didn’t get into mischief, I suppose!”

  “That hadn’t occurred to me. Do you always get into mischief when you go out by yourself?”

  “I would if I thought you were coming out to stop me!”

  “But why should I want to stop you?” asked Christopher, aware that this class of conversation was of a very undeveloping character, but feeling unable to better it.

  “Oh, I don’t know; I think everyone’s always wanting to stop me,” replied Francie with a cheerful laugh; “I declare I think it’s impossible for me to do anything right.”

  “Well, you don’t seem to mind it very much,” said Christopher, the thought of how like she was to a typical “June” in a Christmas Number striking him for the second time; “but perhaps that’s because you’re used to it.”

  “Oh, then, I can tell you I am used to it, but, indeed, I don’t like it any better for that.”

  There was a pause after this. They scrambled over the sharp loose rocks, and between the stunted fir-trees of the lake shore, until they gained a comparatively level tongue of sandy gravel, on which the sinuous line of dead rushes showed how high the fretful waves had thrust themselves in winter. A glistening bay intervened between this point and the promontory of Bruff, a bay dotted with the humped backs of the rocks in the summer shallows, and striped with darkgreen beds of rushes, among which the bald coots dodged in and out with shrill metallic chirpings. Outside Bruff Point the lake spread broad and mild, turned to a translucent lavender grey by an idly-drifting cloud; the slow curve of the shore was followed by the woods, till the hay fields of Lismoyle showed faintly beyond them, and, further on, the rival towers of church and chapel gave a finish to the landscape that not even conventionality could deprive of charm. Christopher knew every detail of it by heart. He had often solaced himself with it when, as now, he had led forth visitors to see the view, and had discerned their boredom with a keenness that was the next thing to sympathy; he had lain there on quiet Autumn evenings, and tried to put into fitting words the rapture and the despair of the sunset, and had gone home wondering if his emotions were not mere self-conscious platitudes, rather more futile and contemptible than the unambitious adjectives, or even the honest want of interest, of the average sight-seer. He waited rather curiously to see whether Miss Fitzpatrick’s problematic soul would here utter itself. From his position a little behind her he could observe her without seeming to do so; she was looking down the lake with a more serious ex
pression than he had yet seen on her face, and when she turned suddenly towards him, there was a wistfulness in her eyes that startled him.

  “Mr. Dysart,” she began, rather more shyly than usual; “d’ye know whose is that boat with the little sail, going away down the lake now?”

  Christopher’s mood received an unpleasant jar.

  “That’s Mr. Hawkins’ punt,” he replied shortly.

  “Yes, I thought it was,” said Francie, too much preoccupied to notice the flatness of her companion’s tone.

  There was another pause, and then she spoke again.

  “Mr. Dysart, d’ye think—would you mind telling me, was Lady Dysart mad with me last night?” She blushed as she looked at him, and Christopher was much provoked to feel that he also became red.

  “Last night?” he echoed in a tone of as lively perplexity as he could manage; “what do you mean? why should my mother be angry with you?” In his heart he knew well that Lady Dysart had been, as Francie expressed it, “mad.”

  “I know she was angry,” pursued Francie. “I saw the look she gave me when I was getting out of the brougham, and then this morning she was angry too. I didn’t think it was any harm to sit in the brougham.”

  “No more it is. I’ve often seen her do it herself.”

  “Ah! Mr. Dysart, I didn’t think you’d make fun of me,” she said with an accent on the “you” that was flattering, but did not altogether please Christopher. “You know,” she went on, “I’ve never stayed in a house like this before. I mean—you’re all so different—”

  “I think you must explain that remarkable statement,” said Christopher, becoming Jonsonian as was his wont when he found himself in a difficulty. “It seems to me we’re even depressingly like ordinary human beings.”

  “You’re different to me,” said Francie in a low voice, “and you know it well.”

  The tears came to her eyes, and Christopher, who could not know that this generality covered an aching thought of Hawkins, was smitten with horrified self-questioning as to whether anything he had said or done could have wounded this girl, who was so much more observant and sensitive than he could have believed.

  “I can’t let you say things like that,” he said clumsily. “If we are different from you it is so much the worse for us.”

  “You’re trying to pay me a compliment now to get out of it,” said Francie, recovering herself,; “isn’t that just like a man!”

  She felt, however, that she had given him pain, and the knowledge seemed to bring him more within her comprehension.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXII.

  There are few things that so stimulate life, both social and vegetable, in a country neighbourhood as the rivalry that exists, sometimes unconfessed, sometimes bursting into an open flame, among the garden owners of the district. The Bruff garden was a little exalted and removed from such competition, but the superiority had its depressing aspect for Lady Dysart in that it was counted no credit to her to excel her neighbours, although those neighbours took to themselves the highest credit when they succeeded in excelling her. Of all these Mr. Lambert was the one she most feared and respected. He knew as well, if not better than she, the joints in the harness of Doolan the gardener, the weak battalions in his army of bedding-out plants, the failures in the ranks of his roses. Doolan himself, the despotic and self-confident, felt an inward qualm when he saw Mr. Lambert strolling slowly through the garden with her ladyship, as he was doing this very afternoon, his observant eye taking in everything that Doolan would have preferred that it should not take in, while he paid a fitting attention to Lady Dysart’s conversation.

  “I cannot understand why these Victor Verdiers have not better hearts,” she was saying, with the dejection of a clergyman disappointed in his flock “Mrs. Waller told me they were very greedy feeders, and so I gave them the cleanings of the scullery drain, but they don’t seem to care for it. Doolan, of course, said Mrs. Waller was wrong, but I should like to know what you thought about it.”

  Mr. Lambert delivered a diplomatic opinion, which sufficiently coincided with Lady Dysart’s views, and yet kept her from feeling that she had been entirely in the right. He prided himself as much on his knowledge of women as of roses, and there were ultra feminine qualities in Lady Dysart, which made her act up to his calculations on almost every point. Pamela did not lend herself equally well to his theories; “she hasn’t half the go of her mother; she’d as soon talk to an old woman as to the smartest chap in Ireland,” was how he expressed the fine impalpable barrier that he always felt between himself and Miss Dysart. She was now exactly fulfilling this opinion by devoting herself to the entertainment of his wife, while the others were amusing themselves down at the launch; and being one of those few who can go through unpleasant social duties with “all grace, and not with half disdain hid under grace,” not even Lambert could guess that she desired anything more agreeable.

  “Isn’t it disastrous that young Hynes is determined upon going to America?” remarked Lady Dysart presently, as they left the garden; “just when he had learned Doolan’s ways, and Doolan is so hard to please.”

  “America is the curse of this country,” responded Mr. Lambert gloomily; “the people are never easy till they get there and make a bit of money, and then they come swaggering back saying Ireland’s not fit to live in, and end by setting up a public-house and drinking themselves to death. They’re sharp enough to know the only way of making money in Ireland is by selling drink.” Lambert spoke with the conviction of one who is sure, not only of his facts, but of his hearer’s sympathy. Then seeing his way to a discussion of the matter that had brought him to Bruff, he went on, “I assure you, Lady Dysart, the amount of money that’s spent in drink in Lismoyle would frighten you. It’s easy to know where the rent goes, and those that aren’t drunken are thriftless, and there isn’t one of them has the common honesty to give up their land when they’ve ruined it and themselves. Now, there’s that nice farm, Gurthnamuckla, down by the lake-side, all going to moss from being grazed year after year, and the house falling to pieces for the want of looking after; and as for paying her rent—” he broke off with a contemptuous laugh.

  “Oh, but what can you expect from that wretched old Julia Duffy?” said Lady Dysart good-naturedly; “she’s too poor to keep the place in order.”

  “I can expect one thing of her,” said Lambert, with possibly a little more indignation than he felt; “that she’d pay up some of her arrears, or if she can’t, that she’d go out of the farm. I could get a tenant for it to-morrow that would give me a good fine for it and put the house to rights into the bargain.”

  “Of course, that would be an excellent thing, and I can quite see that she ought to go,” replied Lady Dysart, falling away from her first position; “but what would happen to the poor old creature if she left Gurthnamuckla?”

  “That’s just what your son says,” replied Lambert with an almost irrepressible impatience; “he thinks she oughtn’t to be disturbed because of some promise that she says Sir Benjamin made her, though there isn’t a square inch of paper to prove it. But I think there can be no doubt that she’d be better and healthier out of that house; she keeps it like a pigstye. Of course, as you say, the trouble is to find some place to put her.”

  Lady Dysart turned upon him a face shining with the light of inspiration.

  “The back-lodge!” she said, with Delphic finality. “Let her go into the back-lodge when Hynes goes out of it!”

  Mr. Lambert received this suggestion with as much admiration as if he had not thought of it before.

  “By Jove! Lady Dysart, I always say that you have a better head on your shoulders than any one of us! That’s a regular happy thought.”

  Any new scheme, no matter how revolutionary, was sure to be viewed with interest, if not with favour, by Lady Dysart, and if she happened to be its inventor, it was endowed with virtues that only flourished more strongly in the face of opposition. In a few minutes she had estab
lished Miss Duffy in the back-lodge, with, for occupation, the care of the incubator recently imported to Bruff, and hitherto a failure except as a cooking-stove; and for support, the milk of a goat that should be chained to a laurel at the back of the lodge, and fed by hand. While these details were still being expanded, there broke upon the air a series of shrill, discordant whistles, coming from the direction of the lake.

  “Good heavens!” ejaculated Lady Dysart. “What can that be? Something must be happening to the steam-launch; it sounds as if it were in danger!”

  “It’s more likely to be Hawkins playing the fool,” replied Lambert ill-temperedly. “I saw him on the launch with Miss Fitzpatrick just after we left the pier.”