The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [14]
In spite of his claims upon the sympathy of Lismoyle, Mr. Lambert looked remarkably well able to compete with his lot in life, as he sat smoking his pipe in his dinner costume of carpet slippers and oldest shooting coat, a couple of evenings after Francie’s arrival. As a rule the Lamberts preferred to sit in their dining-room. The hard magnificence of the blue rep chairs in the drawing-room appealed to them from different points of view; Mrs. Lambert holding that they were too good to be used except by “company,” while Mr. Lambert truly felt that no one who was not debarred by politeness from the power of complaint would voluntarily sit upon them. An unshaded lamp was on the table, its ugly glare conflicting with the soft remnants of June twilight that stole in between the half-drawn curtains; a tumbler of whisky and water stood on the corner of the table beside the comfortable leather-covered armchair in which the master of the house was reading his paper, while opposite to him, in a basket chair, his wife was conscientiously doing her fancy work. She was a short woman with confused brown eyes and distressingly sloping shoulders; a woman of the turkey hen type, dejected and timorous in voice, and an habitual wearer of porous plasters. Her toilet for the evening consisted in replacing by a white cashmere shawl the red knitted one which she habitually wore, and a languid untidyness in the pale brown hair that hung over her eyes intimated that she had tried to curl her fringe for dinner.
Neither were speaking; it seemed as if Mr. Lambert were placidly awaiting the arrival of his usual after-dinner sleep; the Maltese terrier was already snoring plethorically on his mistress’s lap, in a manner quite disproportioned to his size, and Mrs. Lambert’s crochet needles were moving more and more slowly through the mazes of the “bosom friend” that she was making for herself, the knowledge that the minute hand of the black marble clock was approaching the hour at which she took her post-prandial pill alone keeping her from also yielding to the soft influences of a substantial meal. At length she took the box from the little table beside her, where it stood between a bottle of smelling-salts and a lump of camphor, and having sat with it in her hand till the half hour was solemnly boomed from the chimney-piece, swallowed her pill with practised ease. At the slight noise of replacing the box her husband opened his eyes.
“By the way, Lucy,” he said in a voice that had no trace of drowsiness in it, “did Charlotte Mullen say what she was going to do to-morrow?”
“Oh, yes, Roderick,” replied Mrs. Lambert a little anxiously, “indeed, I was wanting to tell you—Charlotte asked me if I could drive her over to Mrs. Waller’s to-morrow afternoon. I forgot to ask you before if you wanted the horses.”
Mr. Lambert’s fine complexion deepened by one or two shades.
“Upon my soul, Charlotte Mullen has a good cheek! She gets as much work out of my horses as I do myself. I suppose you told her you’d do it?”
“Well, what else could I do?” replied Mrs. Lambert with tremulous crossness; “I’m sure it’s not once in the month I get outside the place, and, as for Charlotte, she has not been to the Waller’s since before Christmas, and you know very well old Captain couldn’t draw her eight miles there and eight miles back any more than the cat.”
“Cat be hanged! Why the devil can’t she put her hand in her pocket and take a car for herself?” said Lambert, uncrossing his legs and sitting up straight; “I suppose I’ll hear next that I’m not to order out my own horses till I’ve sent round to Miss Mullen to know if she wants them first! If you weren’t so infernally under her thumb you’d remember there were others to be consulted besides her.”
“I’m not under her thumb, Roderick; I’ll beg you’ll not say such a thing,” replied Mrs. Lambert huffily, her eyes blinking with resentment. “Charlotte Mullen’s an old friend of mine, and yours too,