The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [107]
When Francie went up a few minutes later to put on her habit, Christopher did not seem disposed to continue the small talk in which his proficiency had been more surprising than pleasing to Mr. Lambert.
He strolled over to the window, and looked meditatively out at Mrs. Bruff and a great-grandchild or two embowered in a tangle of nasturtiums, and putting his hands in his pockets began to whistle sotto voce. Lambert looked him up and down, from his long thin legs to his small head, on which the light brown hair grew rather long, with a wave in it that was to Lambert the height of effeminacy. He began to drum with his fingers on the table to show that he too was quite undisturbed and at his ease.
“By the bye, Dysart,” he observed presently, “have you heard anything of Hawkins since he left?”
Christopher turned round. “No, I don’t know anything about him except that he’s gone to Hythe.”
“Gone to hide, d’ye say?” Lambert laughed noisily in support of his joke.
“No, Hythe.”
“It seems to me it’s more likely it’s a case of hide,” Lambert went on with a wink; he paused, fiddled with his teaspoon, and smiled at his own hand as he did so. “P’raphs he thought it was time for him to get away out of this.”
“Really?” said Christopher, with a lack of interest that was quite genuine.
Lambert’s pulse bounded with the sudden desire to wake this supercilious young hound up for once, by telling him a few things that would surprise him.
“Well, you see it’s a pretty strong order for a fellow to carry on as Hawkins did, when he happens to be engaged.”
The fact of Mr. Hawkins’ engagement had, it need scarcely be said, made its way through every highway and by-way of Lismoyle; inscrutable as to its starting-point, impossible of verification, but all the more fascinating for its mystery. Lambert had no wish to claim its authorship; he had lived among gentlemen long enough to be aware that the second-hand confidences of a servant could not creditably be quoted by him. What he did not know, however, was whether the story had reached Bruff, or been believed there, and it was extremely provoking to him now that instead of being able to observe its effect on Christopher, whose back was to the light, his discoveries should be limited to the fact that his own face had become very red as he spoke.
“I suppose he knows his own affairs best,” said Christopher, after a silence that might have meant anything, or nothing.
“Well,” leaning back and putting his hands in his pockets, “I don’t pretend to be straight-laced, but d—n it, you know, I think Hawkins went a bit too far.”
“I don’t think I have heard who it is that he is engaged to,” said Christopher, who seemed remarkably unaffected by Mr. Hawkins’ misdemeanours.
“Oh, to a Yorkshire girl, a Miss—what’s this her name is—Coppard. Pots of money, but mighty plain about the head, I believe. He kept it pretty dark, didn’t he?”
“Apparently it got out, for all that.”
Lambert thought he detected a tinge of ridicule in the voice, whether of him or of Hawkins he did not know; it gave just the necessary spur to that desire to open Christopher’s eyes for him a bit.
“Oh, yes, it got out,” he said, putting his elbow on the table, and balancing his teaspoon on his fore-finger, “but I think there are very few that know for certain it’s a fact,—fortunately for our friend.”
“Why fortunately? I shouldn’t think it made much difference to anyone.”
“Well, as a rule, girls don’t care to flirt with an engaged man.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Christopher, yawning with a frankness that was a singular episode in his demeanour towards his agent.
Lambert felt his temper rising every instant. He was a man whose jealousy took the form of reviling the object of his affections, if, by so doing, he could detach his rivals.
“Well, Francie Fitzpatrick knows it for one; but perhaps she’s not one of the girls who object to flirting with an engaged man.”
Lambert got up and walked to the window;