“I have, miss,” replied the invisible Bid Sal, “an’ Norry says to be hurrying for ‘tis short till Miss Charlotte ‘ll be comin’ in.”
Francie closed the blotter on her half-finished letter, and pursued the vanishing figure to the kitchen. Norry was not to be seen, but on the table were bowls with eggs, sugar, and butter, and beside them was laid a bunch of twigs, tied together like a miniature birch-rod. The making of a sponge-cake was one of Francie’s few accomplishments, and putting on an apron of dubious cleanliness, lent by Louisa, she began operations by breaking the eggs, separating the yolks from the whites, and throwing the shells into the fire with professional accuracy of aim.
“Where’s the egg-whisk, Bid?” she demanded.
“‘Tis thim that she bates the eggs with, miss,” answered Bid Sal in the small, bashful voice by which she indicated her extreme humility towards those in authority over her, handing the birch-rod to Francie as she spoke.
“Mercy on us! What a thing! I’d be all night beating them with that!”
“Musha, how grand ye are!” broke in Norry’s voice from the scullery, in tones of high disdain; “if ye can’t bate eggs with that ye’d betther lave it to thim that can!” Following her words came Norry herself, bearing an immense saucepanful of potatoes, and having hoisted it on to the fire, she addressed herself to Bid Sal. “Get out from undher me feet out o’ this! I suppose it’s to make cakes ye’d go, in place of feedin’ the pigs! God knows I have as much talked since breakfast as’d sicken an ass, but, indeed, I might as well be playin’ the pianna as tellin’ yer business to the likes o’ ye.”
A harsh yell at this point announced that a cat’s tail had been trodden on, but, far from expressing compunction, Norry turned with fury upon the latest offender, and seizing from a corner beside the dresser an ancient carriage whip, evidently secreted for the purpose, she flogged the whole assemblage of cats out of the kitchen. Bid Sal melted away like snow in a thaw, and Norry, snatching the bowl of eggs from Francie, began to thrash them with the birch rod, scolding and grumbling all the time.
“That ye may be happy!” (This pious wish was with Norry always ironical.) “God knows ye should be ashamed, filling yer shtummicks with what’ll sicken thim, and dhraggin’ the people from their work to be runnin’ afther ye!”
“I don’t want you to be running after me,” began Francie humbly.
“Faith thin that’s the thruth!” returned the inexorable Norry; “if ye have thim ofcers running afther ye ye’re satisfied. Here, give me the bowl till I butther it. I’d sooner butther it meself than to be lookin’ at ye doin’ it!”
A loud cough, coming from the scullery, of the peculiarly doleful type affected by beggars, momentarily interrupted this tirade.
“Sha’se mick, Nance! Look at that, now, how ye have poor Nance the Fool waitin’ on me till I give her the empty bottle for Julia Duffy.”
Francie moved towards the scullery door, urged by a natural curiosity to see what manner of person Nance the Fool might be, and saw, squatted on the damp flags, an object which could only be described as a bundle of rags with a cough in it. The last characteristic was exhibited in such detail at the sight of Francie that she retired into the kitchen again, and ventured to suggest to Norry that the bottle should be given as soon as possible, and the scullery relieved of Nance the Fool’s dreadful presence.
“There it is for her on the dhresser,” replied Norry, still furiously whipping the eggs; “ye can give it yerself.”
From the bundle of rags, as Francie approached it, there issued a claw, which snatched the bottle and secreted it, and Francie just caught a glimpse, under the swathing of rags, of eyes so inflamed with crimson that they seemed to her like pools of blood, and heard mouthings and mumblings of Irish which might have been benedictions, but, if so, were certainly blessings in disguise.
“That poor craythur walked three miles to bring me the bottle I have there on the dhresser. It’s yerr’b tay that Julia Duffy makes for thim that has the colic.” Norry was softening a little as the whites of the eggs rose in stiff and silvery froth. “Julia’s a cousin of me own, through the mother’s family, and she’s able to docthor as good as e’er a docthor there’s in it.”
“I don’t think I’d care to have her doctoring me,” said Francie, mindful of the touzled head and dirty face that had looked down upon her from the window at Gurthnamuckla.
“And little shance ye’d have to get her!” retorted Norry; “‘tis little she regards the likes o’ you towards thim that hasn’t a Christhian to look to but herself.” Norry defiantly shook the foam from the birch rod, and proceeded with her eulogy of Julia Duffy. “She’s as wise a woman and as good a scholar as what’s in the country, and many’s the poor craythure that’s prayin’ hard for her night and morning for all she done for thim. B’leeve you me, there’s plinty would come to her funeral that’d be follyin’ their own only for her and her doctherin’.”
“She has a very pretty place,” remarked Francie who wished to be agreeable, but could not conscientiously extol Miss Duffy; “it’s a pity she isn’t able to keep the house nicer.”
“Nice! What way have she to keep it nice that hasn’t one but herself to look to! And if it was clane itself, it’s all the good it’d do her that they’d throw her out of it quicker.”
“Who’d throw her out?”
“I know that meself.” Norry turned away and banged open the door of the oven. “There’s plinty that’s ready to pull the bed from undher a lone woman if they’re lookin’ for it for theirselves.”
The mixture had by this time been poured into its tin shape, and, having placed it in the oven, Francie seated herself on the kitchen table to superintend its baking. The voice of conscience told her to go back to the dining-room and finish her letter, but she repressed it, and, picking up a kitten that had lurked, unsuspected, between a frying-pan and the wall during the rout of its relatives, she proceeded to while away the time by tormenting it, and insulting the cockatoo with frivolous questions.
Miss Mullen’s weekly haggle with the butcher did not last quite as long as usual this Friday morning. She had, in fact, concluded it by herself taking the butcher’s knife, and with jocose determination, had proceeded to cut off the special portion of the “rack” which she wished for, in spite of Mr. Driscoll’s protestations that it had been bespoke by Mrs. Gascogne. Exhilarated by this success, she walked home at a brisk pace, regardless of the heat, and of the weight of the rusty black tourists, bag which she always wore, slung across her shoulders by a strap, on her expeditions into the town. There was no one to be seen in the house when she came into it, except the exiled cats, who were sleeping moodily in a patch of sunshine on the hall-mat, and after some passing endearments, their mistress went on into the dining-room, in which, by preference, as well as for economy, she sat in the mornings. It had, at all events, one advantage over the drawing-room, in possessing a sunny French window, opening on to the little grass-garden—a few untidy flower-beds, with a high, unclipped hedge surrounding them, the resort of cats and their breakfast dishes, but for all that a pleasant outlook on a hot day. Francie had been writing at the dinner-table, and Charlotte sat down in the chair that her cousin had vacated, and began to add up the expenses of the morning. When she had finished, she opened the blotter to dry her figures, and saw, lying in it, the letter that Francie had begun.
In the matter of reading a letter not intended for her eye, Miss Mullen recognised only her own inclinations, and the facilities afforded to her by fate, and in this instance one played into the hands of the other. She read the letter through quickly, her mouth set at its grimmest expression of attention, and replaced it carefully in the blotting-case where she found it. She sat still, her two fists clenched on the table before her, and her face rather redder than even the hot walk from Lismoyle had made it.
There had been a good deal of information in the letter that was new to her, and it seemed important enough to demand much considerati
on. The reflection on her own contribution to the bazaar did not hurt her in the least, in fact, it slightly raised her opinion of Francie that she should have noticed it; but that ingenuous confidence about the evening spent in the gallery was another affair. At this point in her reflections, she became aware that her eye was attracted by something glittering on the green baize of the dinnertable, half-hidden under two or three loose sheets of paper. It was the bangle that she remembered having seen on Francie’s wrist, and she took it up and looked curiously at the double horse-shoes as she appraised its value. She never thought of it as being real—Francie was not at all above an effective imitation—and she glanced inside to see what the mark might be. There was the eighteen-carat mark sure enough, and there also was Francie’s name and the date, July 1st, 189—. A moment’s reflection enabled Charlotte to identify this as the day of the yacht accident, and another moment sufficed for her to determine that the giver of the bangle had been Mr. Hawkins. She was only too sure that it had not been Christopher, and certainly no glimmer of suspicion crossed her mind that the first spendings from her loan to Mr. Lambert were represented by the bangle.
She opened the blotter, and read again that part of the letter that treated of Christopher Dysart. “P’yah!” she said to herself, “the little fool! what does she know about him?” At this juncture, the wheezing of the spring of the passage-door gave kindly signal of danger, and Charlotte deftly slipped the letter back into the blotter, replaced the bangle under the sheets of paper, and was standing outside the French window when Francie came into the room, with flushed cheeks, a dirty white apron, and in her hands a plate bearing a sponge-cake of the most approved shade of golden-brown. At sight of Charlotte she stopped guiltily, and, as the latter stepped in at the window, she became even redder than the fire had made her.
“Oh—I’ve just made this, Charlotte—” she faltered; “I bought the eggs and the butter myself; I sent Bid for them, and Norry said—she thought you wouldn’t mind—”
On an ordinary occasion Charlotte might have minded considerably even so small a thing as the heating of the oven and the amount of flour and sugar needed for the construction of the cake; but a slight, a very slight sense of wrong-doing, conspired, with a little confusion, consequent on the narrowness of her escape, to dispose her to compliance.
“Why, me dear child, why would I mind anything so agreeable to me and all concerned as that splendour of a cake that I see there? I declare I never gave you credit for being able to do anything half as useful! ‘Pon me honour, I’ll give a tea-party on the strength of it.” Even as she spoke she had elaborated the details of a scheme of which the motor should be the cake that Francie’s own hand had constructed.
The choir practice was poorly attended that afternoon. A long and heavy shower, coming at the critical moment, had combined with a still longer and heavier luncheon-party given by Mrs. Lynch, the solicitor’s wife, to keep away several members. Francie had evaded her duties by announcing that her only pair of thick boots had gone to be soled, and only the most ardent mustered round Mrs. Gascogne’s organ bench. Of these was Pamela Dysart, faithful, as was her wont, in the doing of what she had undertaken; and as Charlotte kicked off her goloshes at the gallery door, and saw Pamela’s figure in its accustomed place, she said to herself that consistency was an admirable quality. Her approbation was still warm when she joined Pamela at the church door after the practice was over, and she permitted herself the expression of it.
“Miss Dysart, you’re the only young woman of the rising generation in whom I place one ha’porth of reliance; I can tell you, not one step would I have stirred out on the chance of meeting any other member of the choir on a day of this kind, but I knew I might reckon on meeting you here.”
“Oh, I like coming to the practices,” said Pamela, wondering why Miss Mullen should specially want to see her. They were standing in the church porch, waiting for Pamela’s pony-cart, while the rain streamed off the roof in a white veil in front of them. “You must let me drive you home,” she went on; “but I don’t think the trap will come till this downpour is over.”
Under the gallery stairs stood a bench, usually appropriated to the umbrellas and cloaks of the congregation; and after the rest of the choir had launched themselves forth upon the yellow torrent that took the place of the path through the churchyard, Pamela and Miss Mullen sat themselves down upon it to wait. Mrs. Gascogne was practising her Sunday voluntary, and the stairs were trembling with the vibrations of the organ; it was a Largo of Bach’s, and Pamela would infinitely have preferred to listen to it than to lend a polite ear to Charlotte’s less tuneful but equally reverberating voice.
“I think I mentioned to you, Miss Dysart, that I have to go to Dublin next week for three or four days; teeth, you know, teeth—not that I suppose you have any experience of such miseries yet!”
Pamela did not remember, nor, beyond a sympathetic smile, did she at first respond. Her attention had been attracted by the dripping, deplorable countenance of Max, which was pleading to her round the corner of the church door for that sanctuary which he well knew to be eternally denied to him. There had been a time in Max’s youth when he had gone regularly with Pamela to afternoon service, lying in a corner of the gallery in discreet slumber. But as he emerged from puppydom he had developed habits of snoring and scratching which had betrayed his presence to Mrs. Gascogne, and the climax had come one Sunday morning when, in defiance of every regulation, he had flung himself from the drawing-room window at Bruff, and followed the carriage to the church at such speed as his crooked legs could compass. Finding the gallery door shut, he had made his way nervously up the aisle until, when nearing the chancel steps, he was so overcome with terror at the sight of the surpliced figure of the Archdeacon sternly fulminating the Commandments, that he had burst out into a loud fit of hysterical barking. Pamela and the culprit had made an abject visit to the Rectory next day, but the sentence of ex-communication went forth, and Max’s religious exercises were thenceforth limited to the churchyard. But on this unfriendly afternoon the sight of his long melancholy nose, and ears dripping with rain, was too much for even Pamela’s rectitude.
“Oh, yes, teeth are horrible things,” she murmured, stealthily patting her waterproof in the manner known to all dogs as a signal of encouragement.
“Horrible things! Upon my word they are! Beaks, that’s what we ought to have instead of them! I declare I don’t know which is the worst, cutting your first set of teeth, or your last! But that’s not what’s distressing me most about going to Dublin.”
“Really,” said Pamela, who, conscious that Max was now securely hidden behind her petticoats, was able to give her whole attention to Miss Mullen; “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Well, Miss Dysart,” said Charlotte, with a sudden burst of candour, “I’ll tell you frankly what it is. I’m not easy in my mind about leaving that girl by herself—Francie y’ know—she’s very young, and I suppose I may as well tell the truth, and say she’s very pretty.” She paused for the confirmation that Pamela readily gave. “So you’ll understand now, Miss Dysart, that I feel anxious about leaving her in a house by herself, and the reason I wanted to see you so specially to-day was to ask if you’d do me a small favour, which, being your mother’s daughter, I’m sure you’ll not refuse.” She looked up at Pamela, showing all her teeth. “I want you to be the good angel that you always are, and come in and look her up sometimes if you happen to be in town.”
The lengthened prelude to this modest request might have indicated to a more subtle soul than Pamela’s that something weightier lay behind it; but her grey eyes met Miss Mullen’s restless brown ones with nothing in them except kindly surprise that it was such a little thing that she had been asked to do.
“Of course I will,” she answered; “mamma and I will have to come in about clearing away the rest of that awful bazaar rubbish, and I shall be only too glad to come and see her, and I hope she will come and lunch at Bruff some day wh
ile you are away.”
This was not quite what Charlotte was aiming at, but still it was something.
“You’re a true friend, Miss Dysart,” she said gushingly, “I knew you would be; it’ll only be for a few days, at all events, that I’ll bother you with me poor relation! I’m sure she’ll be able to amuse herself in the evenings and mornings quite well, though indeed, poor child, I’m afraid she’ll be lonely enough!”
Mrs. Gascogne, putting on her gloves at the top of the stairs, thought to herself that Charlotte Mullen might be able to impose upon Pamela, but other people were not so easily imposed on. She leaned over the staircase railing, and said, “Are you aware, Pamela, that your trap is waiting at the gate?” Pamela got up, and Max, deprived of the comfortable shelter of her skirts, crawled forth from under the bench and sneaked out of the church door. “I wouldn’t have that dog’s conscience for a good deal,” went on Mrs. Gascogne as she came downstairs. “In fact, I am beginning to think that the only people who get everything they want are the people who have no consciences at all.”
“There’s a pretty sentiment for a clergyman’s wife!” exclaimed Charlotte. “Wait till I see the Archdeacon and ask him what sort of theology that is! Now wasn’t that the very image of Mrs. Gascogne?” she continued as Pamela and she drove away; “the best and the most religious woman in the parish, but no one’s able to say a sharper thing when she likes, and you never know what heterodoxy she’ll let fly at you next!”
The rain was over, and the birds were singing loudly in the thick shrubs at Tally Ho as Pamela turned the roan pony in at the gate; the sun was already drawing a steamy warmth from the bepuddled road, and the blue of the afternoon sky was glowing freshly and purely behind a widening proscenium of clouds.
“Now you might just as well come in and have a cup of tea; it’s going to be a lovely evening after all, and I happen to know there’s a grand sponge-cake in the house.” Thus spoke Charlotte, with hospitable warmth, and Pamela permitted herself to be persuaded. “It was Francie made it herself; she’ll be as proud as Punch at having you to—” Charlotte stopped short with her hand on the drawing-room door, and then opened it abruptly.
The Real Charlotte Page 15