The Real Charlotte

by Edith Somerville

  “That’s his train!” she exclaimed, looking as startled as if the sound had been a sign from heaven, “Oh, go away! He mustn’t meet you coming away from here.”

  “I’ll go if you give me a kiss,” he answered drunkenly. His arms were round her again when they dropped to his side as if he had been shot.

  There was a footstep on the path immediately below the lilac bushes, and Charlotte’s voice called to Francie that she was just starting for home and had come to make her adieux.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XLIX.

  Christopher Dysart drove to Rosemount next morning to see Mr. Lambert on business. He noticed Mrs. Lambert standing at the drawing-room window as he drove up, but she left the window before he reached the hall door, and he went straight to Mr. Lambert’s study without seeing her again.

  Francie returned listlessly to the seat that she had sprung from with a terrified throb of the heart at the thought that the wheels might be those of Hawkins’ trap, and, putting her elbow on the arm of the chair, rested her forehead on her hand; her other hand drooped over the side of the chair, holding still in it the sprig of pink hawthorn that her husband had given her in the garden an hour before. Her attitude was full of languor, but her brain was working at its highest pressure, and at this moment she was asking herself what Sir Christopher would say when he heard that she had gone away with Gerald. She had seen him vaguely as one of the crowd of contemptuous or horror-stricken faces that had thronged about her pillow in the early morning, but his opinion had carried no more restraining power than that of Aunt Tish, or Uncle Robert, or Charlotte. Nothing had weighed with her then; the two principal figures in her life contrasted as simply and convincingly as night and day, and like night and day, too, were the alternative futures that were in her hand to choose from. Her eyes were open to her wrong-doing, but scarcely to her cruelty; it could not be as bad for Roddy, she thought, to live without her as for her to stay with him and think of Gerald in India, gone away from her for ever. Her reasoning power was easily mastered, her conscience was a thing of habit, and not fitted to grapple with this turbulent passion. She swept towards her ruin like a little boat staggering under more sail than she can carry. But the sight of Christopher, momentary as it was, had startled for an instant the wildness of her thoughts; the saner breath of the outside world had come with him, and a touch of the self-respect that she had always gained from him made her press her hot forehead against her hand, and realise that the way of transgressors would be hard.

  She remained sitting there, almost motionless, for a long time. She had no wish to occupy herself with anything; all the things about her had already the air of belonging to a past existence; her short sovereignty was over, and even the furniture that she had, a few weeks ago, pulled about and rearranged in the first ardour of possession seemed to look at her in a decorous, clannish way, as if she were already an alien. At last she heard the study door open, and immediately afterwards, Christopher’s dog-cart went down the drive. It occurred to her that now, if ever, was the time to go to her husband and see whether, by diplomacy, she could evade the ride that he had asked her to take with him that afternoon. Hawkins had sent her a note saying that he would come to pay a farewell visit, a cautiously formal note that anyone might have seen, but that she was just as glad had not been seen by her husband, and at all hazards she must stay in to meet him. She got up and went to the study with a nervous colour in her cheeks, glancing out of the hall window as she passed it, with the idea that the threatening grey of the sky would be a good argument for staying at home. But if it rained, Roddy might stay at home, too, she thought, and that would be worse than anything. That was her last thought as she went into the study.

  Lambert was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the pile of papers and books on the table, and Francie was instantly struck by something unwonted in his attitude, something rigid and yet spent, that was very different from his ususal bearing. He looked at her with heavy eyes, and going to his chair let himself drop into it; then, still silently, he held out his hand to her. She thought he looked older, and that his face was puffy and unattractive, and in the highly-strung state of her nerves she felt a repugnance to him that almost horrified her. It is an unfortunate trait of human nature that a call for sympathy from a person with whom sympathy has been lost has a repellent instead of an attractive power, and if a strong emotion does not appear pathetic, it is terribly near the ludicrous. In justice to Francie it must be said that her dominant feeling as she gave Lambert her hand and was drawn down on to his knee was less repulsion than a sense of her own hypocrisy.

  “What’s the matter, Roddy?” she asked, after a second or two of silence, during which she felt the labouring of his breath.

  “I’m done for,” he said, “that’s what’s the matter.”

  “Why! what do you mean?” she exclaimed, turning her startled face half towards him, and trying not to shrink as his hot breath struck on her cheek.

  “I’ve lost the agency.”

  “Lost the agency!” repeated Francie, feeling as though the world with all the things she believed to be most solid were rocking under her feet. “Do you mean he’s after dismissing you?”

  Lambert moved involuntarily, from the twitch of pain that the word gave him. It was this very term that Lismoyle would soon apply to him, as if he were a thieving butler or a drunken coachman.

  “That’s about what it will come to,” he said bitterly. “He was too damned considerate to tell me so to-day, but he’s going to do it. He’s always hated me just as I’ve hated him, and this is his chance, though God knows what’s given it to him!”

  “You’re raving!” cried Francie incredulously; “what on earth would make him turn you away?” She felt that her voice was sharp and unnatural, but she could not make it otherwise. The position was becoming momently more horrible from the weight of unknown catastrophe, the sight of her husband’s suffering and the struggle to sympathise with it, and the hollow disconnection between herself and everything about her.

  “I can’t tell you—all in a minute,” he said with difficulty. “Wouldn’t you put your arm round my neck, Francie, as if you were sorry for me? You might be sorry for me, and for yourself too. We’re ruined. Oh my God!” he groaned, “we’re ruined!”

  She put her arm round his neck, and pity, and a sense that it was expected of her, made her kiss his forehead. At the touch of her lips his sobs came suddenly and dreadfully, and his arms drew her convulsively to him. She lay there helpless and dry-eyed, enduring a wretchedness that in some ways was comparable to his own, but never becoming merged in the situation, never quite losing her sense of repulsion at his abasement.

  “I never meant to touch a farthing of his—in the long run—” he went on, recovering himself a little; “I’d have paid him back every half-penny in the end— but, of course, he doesn’t believe that. What does he care what I say!”

  “Did you borrow money from him, or what was it?” asked Francie gently.

  “Yes, I did,” replied Lambert, setting his teeth; “but I didn’t tell him. I was eaten up with debts, and I had to—to borrow some of the estate money.” It was anguish to lower himself from the pedestal of riches and omnipotence on which he had always posed to her, and he spoke stumblingly. “It’s very hard to explain these things to you—it’s—it’s not so unusual as you’d think—and then, before I’d time to get things square again, some infernal mischief-maker has set him on to ask to see the books, and put him up to matters that he’d never have found out for himself.”

  “Was he angry?” she asked, with the quietness that was so unlike her.

  “Oh, I don’t know—I don’t care—” moving again restlessly in his chair; “he’s such a rotten, cold-blooded devil, you can’t tell what he’s at.” Even at this juncture it gave him pleasure to make little of Christopher to Francie. “He asked me the most beastly questions he could think of, in that d—d stammering way of his. He’s to write to me i
n two or three days, and I know well what he’ll say,” he went on with a stabbing sigh; “I suppose he’ll have it all over the country in a week’s time. He’s been to the bank and seen the estate account, and that’s what’s done me. I asked him plump and plain if he hadn’t been put up to it, and he didn’t deny it, but there’s no one could have known what was paid into that account but Baker or one of the clerks, and they knew nothing about the fines—I mean—they couldn’t understand enough to tell him anything. But what does it matter who told him. The thing’s done now, and I may as well give up.”

  “What will you do?” said Francie faintly.

  “If it wasn’t for you I think I’d put a bullet through my head,” he answered, his innately vulgar soul prompting him to express the best thought that was in him in conventional heroics, “but I couldn’t leave you, Francie—I couldn’t leave you—” he broke down again—”it was for our honeymoon I took the most of the money—” He could not go on, and her whole frame was shaken by his sobs.

  “Don’t, Roddy, don’t cry,” she murmured, feeling cold and sick.

  “He knows I took the money,” Lambert went on incoherently; “I’ll have to leave the country—I’ll sell everything—” he got up and began to walk about the room—”I’ll pay him—damn him—I’ll pay him every farthing. He sha’n’t have it to say he was kept waiting for his money! He shall have it this week!”

  “But how will you pay him if you haven’t the money?” said Francie, with the same lifelessness of voice that had characterised her throughout.

  “I’ll borrow the money—I’ll raise it on the furniture;

  I’ll send the horses up to Sewell’s, though God knows what price I’ll get for them this time of year, but I’ll manage it somehow. I’ll go out to Gurthnamuckla this very afternoon about it. Charlotte’s got a head on her shoulders—” He stood still, and the idea of borrowing from Charlotte herself took hold of him. He felt that such trouble as this must command her instant sympathy, and awaken all the warmth of their old friendship, and his mind turned towards her stronger intelligence with a reliance that was creditable to his ideas of the duties of a friend. “I could give her a bill of sale on the horses and furniture,” he said to himself.

  His eyes rested for the first time on Francie, who had sunk into the chair from which he had risen, and was looking at him as if she did not see him. Her hair was ruffled from lying on his shoulder, and her eyes were wild and fixed, like those of a person who is looking at a far-off spectacle of disaster and grief.

  * * *

  CHAPTER L.

  The expected rain had not come, though the air was heavy and damp with the promise of it. It hung unshed, above the thirsty country, looking down gloomily upon the dusty roads, and the soft and straight young grass in the meadows; waiting for the night, when the wind would moan and cry for it, and the newborn leaves would shudder in the dark at its coming.

  At three o’clock Francie was sure that the afternoon would be fine, and soon afterwards she came downstairs in her habit, and went into the drawingroom to wait for the black mare to be brought to the door. She was going to ride towards Gurthnamuckla to meet Lambert, who had gone there some time before; he had made Francie promise to meet him on his way home, and she was going to keep her word. He had become quite a different person to her since the morning, a person who no longer appealed to her admiration or her confidence, but solely and distressingly to her pity. She had always thought of him as invincible, self-sufficing, and possesed of innumerable interests besides herself; she knew him now as dishonest and disgraced, and miserable, stripped of all his pretensions and vanities, but she cared for him to-day more than yesterday. It was against her will that his weakness appealed to her; she would have given worlds for a heart that did not smite her at its claim, but her pride helped out her compassion. She told herself that she could not let people have it to say that she ran away from Roddy because he was in trouble.

  She felt chilly, and she shivered as she stood by the fire, whose unseasonable extravagance daily vexed the righteous soul of Eliza Hackett. Hawkins’ note was in her hand, and she read it through twice while she waited; then, as she heard the sound of wheels on the gravel, she tore it in two and threw it into the fire, and, for the second time that morning, ran to the window.

  It was Christopher Dysart again. He saw her at the window and took off his cap, and before he had time to ring the bell, she had opened the hall door. She had, he saw at once, been crying, and her paleness, and the tell-tale heaviness of her eyes, contrasted pathetically with the smartness of her figure in her riding habit, and the boyish jauntiness of her hard felt hat.

  “Mr. Lambert isn’t in, Sir Christopher,” she began at once, as if she had made up her mind whom he had come to see; “but won’t you come in?”

  “Oh—thank you—I—I haven’t much time—I merely wanted to speak to your husband,” stammered Christopher.

  “Oh, please come in,” she repeated, “I want to speak to you.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she turned quickly from him and walked towards the drawing-room.

  Christopher followed her with the mien of a criminal. He felt that he would rather have been robbed twenty times over than see the eyes that, in his memory, had always been brilliant and undefeated, avoiding his as if they were afraid of him, and know that he was the autocrat before whom she trembled. She remained standing near the middle of the room, with one hand on the corner of the piano, whose gaudy draperies had, even at this juncture, a painful sub-effect upon Christopher; her other hand fidgeted restlessly with a fold of the habit that she was holding up, and it was evident that whatever her motive had been in bringing him in, her courage was not equal to it. Christopher waited for her to speak, until the silence became unendurable.

  “I intended to have been here earlier,” he said, saying anything rather than nothing, “but there was a great deal to be got through at the Bench to-day, and I’ve only just got away. You know I’m a magistrate now, and indifferently minister justice—”

  “I’m glad I hadn’t gone out when you came,” she interrupted, as though, having found a beginning, she could not lose a moment in using it. “I wanted to say that if you—if you’ll only give Roddy a week’s time he’ll pay you. He only meant to borrow the money, like, and he thought he could pay you before; but, indeed, he says he’ll pay you in a week.” Her voice was low and full of the bitterest humiliation, and Christopher wished that before he had arraigned his victim, and offered him up as an oblation to his half-hearted sense of duty, he had known that his infirmity of purpose would have brought him back three hours afterwards to offer the culprit a way out of his difficulties. It would have saved him from his present hateful position, and what it would have saved her was so evident, that he turned his head aways he spoke, rather than look at her.

  “I came back to tell your husband that—that he could arrange things in—in some such way,” he said, as guiltily and awkwardly as a boy. “I’m. sorry— more sorry than I can say—that he should have spoken to you about it. Of course, that was my fault. I should have told him then what I came to tell him now.”

  “He’s gone out now to see about selling his horses and the furniture,” went on Francie, scarcely realising all of Christopher’s leniency in her desire to prove Lambert’s severe purity of action. Her mind was not capable of more than one idea—one, that is, in addition to the question that had monopolised it since yesterday afternoon, and Christopher’s method of expressing himself had never been easily understood by her.

  “Oh, he mustn’t think of doing that!” exclaimed Christopher, horrified that she should think him a Shylock, demanding so extreme a measure of restitution; “it wasn’t the actual money question that— that we disagreed about; he can take as long as he likes about repaying me. In fact—in fact you can tell him from me that—he said something this morning about giving up the agency. Well, I—I should be glad if he would keep it.”

  He had stultified himself now ef
fectually; he knew that he had acted like a fool, and he felt quite sure that Mr. Lambert’s sense of gratitude would not prevent his holding the same opinion. He even foresaw Lambert’s complacent assumption that Francie had talked him over, but he could not help himself. The abstract justice of allowing the innocent to suffer with the guilty was beyond him; he forgot to theorise, and acted on instinct as simply as a savage. She also had acted on instinct. When she called him in she had nerved herself to ask for reprieve, but she never hoped for forgivenness, and as his intention penetrated the egotism of suffering, the thought leaped with it that, if Roddy were to be let off, everything would be on the same footing that it had been yesterday evening. A blush that was incomprehensible to Christopher swept over her face; the grasp of circumstances relaxed somewhat, and a jangle of unexplainable feelings confused what self-control she had left.

  “You’re awfully good,” she began half hysterically. “I always knew you were good; I wish Roddy was like you! Oh, I wish I was like you! I can’t help it—I can’t help crying; you were always too good to me, and I never was worth it!” She sat down on one of the high stiff chairs, for which her predecessor had worked beaded seats, and hid her eyes in her handkerchief. “Please don’t talk to me; please don’t say anything to me—” She stopped suddenly. “What’s that? Is that anyone riding up?”

  “No. It’s your horse coming round from the yard,” said Christopher, taking a step towards the window, and trying to keep up the farce of talking as if nothing had happened.

  “My horse!” she exclaimed, starting up. “Oh, yes, I must go and meet Roddy. I mustn’t wait any longer.” She began, as if unconscious of Christopher’s presence, to look for the whip and gloves that she had laid down. He saw them before she did and handed them to her.

  “Good-bye,” he said, taking her cold, trembling hand, “I must go too. You will tell your husband that it’s—it’s all right.”