The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [130]
“Well, I declare,” she said after a minute or two, “it’s a funny thing that I have to buy eggs, with my yard full of hens! This is a state of things unheard of till you came into the house, my young lady!”
Francie looked up and saw that this was meant as a pleasantry.
“Is it me? I wouldn’t touch an egg to save my life!”
“Maybe you wouldn’t,” replied Charlotte with the same excessive jocularity, “but you can give tea-parties, and treat your friends to sponge-cakes that are made with nothing but eggs!”
Francie scented danger in the air, and having laughed nervously to show appreciation of the jest, tried to change the conversation.
“How do you feel to-day, Charlotte?” she asked, working away at her stocking with righteous industry; “is your headache gone? I forgot to ask after it at breakfast.”
“Headache? I’d forgotten I’d ever had one. Three tabloids of antipyrin and a good night’s rest; that was all I wanted to put me on my pegs again. But if it comes to that, me dear child, I’d trouble you to tell me what makes you the colour of blay calico last night and this morning? It certainly wasn’t all the cake you had at afternoon tea. I declare I was quite vexed when I saw that lovely cake in the larder, and not a bit gone from it.”
Francie coloured. “I was up very early yesterday making that cross, and I daresay that tired me. Tell me, did Mr. Lambert say anything about it? Did he like it?”
Charlotte looked at her, but could discern no special expression in the piquant profile that was silhouetted against the light.
“He had other things to think of besides your wreath,” she said coarsely; “when a man’s wife isn’t cold in her coffin, he has something to think of besides young ladies’ wreaths!”
There was silence after this, and Francie wondered what had made Charlotte suddenly get so cross for nothing; she had been so good-natured for the last week. The thought passed through her mind that possibly Mr. Lambert had taken as little notice of Charlotte as of the wreath; she was just sufficiently aware of the state of affairs to know that such a cause might have such an effect, and she wished she had tried any other topic of conversation. Darning is, however, an occupation that does not tend to unloose the strings of the tongue, and even when carried out according to the unexacting methods of Macadam, it demands a certain degree of concentration, and Francie left to Charlotte the task of finding a more congenial subject. It was chosen with unexpected directness.
“What was the matter with you yesterday afternoon when Louisa brought in the tea?”
Francie felt as though a pistol had been let off at her ear; the blood surged in a great wave from her heart to her head, her heart gave a shattering thump against her side, and then went on beating again in a way that made her hands shake.
“Yesterday afternoon, Charlotte?” she said, while her brain sought madly for a means of escape and found none; “there—there was nothing the matter with me.”
“Look here now, Francie;” Charlotte turned away from her davenport, and faced her cousin with her fists clenched on her knees; “I’m in loco parentis to you for the time being—your guardian, if you understand that better—and there’s no good in your beating about the bush with me. What happened between you and Christopher Dysart yesterday afternoon?”
“Nothing happened at all,” said Francie in a voice that gave the lie to her words.
“You’re telling me a falsehood! How have you the face to tell me there was nothing happened when even that fool Louisa could see that something had been going on to make you cry, and to send him packing out of the house not a quarter of an hour after he came into it!”
“I told you before he couldn’t wait,” said Francie, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.