“Good God, 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 cockpit, 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.
“Damn 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 shining 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 dashing 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 shipwrecks 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 glass 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 class of women who are always particular to speak of their husbands by their full style and title) “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 wo
rd 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 assure you, Lady Dysart,” piped the turkey hen, “Mr. Lambert described to me all that he possibly could, and he said Mr. Dysart gave every assistance 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 whitewashing 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 sunshine come to her through the well-fitting plate-glass 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 amusement, 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 shirt with the big pink horse-shoes on it. Fanny Hemphill’s hitherto unquestioned opinion in the matter of costume suddenly tottered in her estimation, and, with the loosening of that buttress 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 h
and 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 advertisement of the anthem at St. Patrick’s for the next day.
The Real Charlotte Page 13