The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [116]
Her voice had become wilder and louder, and Christopher, uncomfortably aware that Francie could hear this indictment of Miss Mullen as distinctly as he did, intervened again.
“Look here, Miss Duffy,” he said in a lower voice, “it’s no use talking like this. If I can help you I will, but it would be a good deal better if you went home now. You—you seem ill, and it’s a great mistake to stay here exciting yourself and making a noise. Write to me, and I’ll see that you get fair play.”
Julia threw back her head and laughed, with a venom that seemed too concentrated for drunkenness.
“Ye’d better see ye get fair play yerself before you talk so grand about it!” She pointed up at Francie. “Mrs. Dysart indeed!”—she bowed with a sarcastic exaggeration, that in saner moments she would not have been capable of—”Lady Dysart of Bruff, one of these days I suppose!”—she bowed again. “That’s what Miss Charlotte Mullen has laid out for ye,” addressing herself to Christopher, “and ye’ll not get away from that one till ye’re under her foot!”
She laughed again; her face became vacant and yet full of pain, and she staggered away down the avenue, talking violently and gesticulating with her hands
* * *
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CHAPTER XXXII.
Mrs. Lambert gathered up her purse, her list, her bag, and her parasol from the table in Miss Greely’s wareroom, and turned to give her final directions.
“Now, Miss Greely, before Sunday for certain; and you’ll be careful about the set of the skirt, that it doesn’t firk up at the side, the way the black one did—”
“We understand the set of a skirt, Mrs. Lambert,” interposed the elder Miss Greely in her most aristocratic voice; “I think you may leave that to us.”
Mrs. Lambert retreated, feeling as snubbed as it was intended that she should feel, and with a last injunction to the girl in the shop to be sure not to let the Rosemount messenger leave town on Saturday night without the parcel that he’d get from upstairs, she addressed herself to the task of walking home. She was in very good spirits, and the thought of a new dress for church next Sunday was exhilarating; it was a pleasant fact also that Charlotte Mullen was coming to tea, and she and Muffy, the Maltese terrier, turned into Barrett’s to buy a teacake in honour of the event. Mrs. Beattie was also there, and the two ladies and Mrs. Barrett had a most enjoyable discussion on tea; Mrs. Beattie advocating “the one and threepenny from the Stores,” while Mrs. Barrett and her other patroness agreed in upholding the Lismoyle three-and-sixpenny against all others. Mrs. Lambert set forth again with her teacake in her hand, and with such a prosperous expression of countenance that Nance the Fool pursued her down the street with a confidence that was not unrewarded.
“That the hob of heaven may be yer scratching post!” she screamed, in the midst of one of her most effective fits of coughing, as Mrs. Lambert’s round little dolmaned figure passed complacently onward, “that Pether and Paul may wait on ye, and that the saints may be surprised at yer success! She’s sharitable, the craythur,” she ended in a lower voice, as she rejoined the rival and confederate who had yielded to her the right of plundering the last passer-by, “and sign’s on it, it thrives with her; she’s got very gross!”
“Faith it wasn’t crackin’ blind nuts made her that fat,” said the confidante unamiably, “and with all her riches she didn’t give ye the price of a dhrink itself!”
Mrs. Lambert entered her house by the kitchen, so as to give directions to Eliza Hackett about the teacake, and when she got