The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [150]
“No, Lady Dysart, they never do,” said Hawkins, getting very red, and feebly trying to rise to the occasion; “they’re always very nice and kind to me.”
“Oh, I daresay they are!” replied Lady Dysart archly, with a glance at Pamela like that of a naughty child who glories in its naughtiness. “And is it fair to ask when the wedding is to come off? We heard something about the spring!”
“Who gave you that interesting piece of news?” said Hawkins, trying not to look foolish.
“A bridesmaid,” said Lady Dysart, closing her lips tightly, and leaning back with an irrepressible gleam in her eye.
“Well, she knows more than I do. All I know about it is, that I believe the regiment goes to Aldershot in May, and I suppose it will be some time after that.” Mr. Hawkins spoke with a singularly bad grace, and before further comment could be made he turned to Pamela. “I saw a good deal of Miss Hope-Drummond in the north,” he said, with an effort so obvious and so futile at turning the conversation that Lady Dysart began to laugh.
“Why, she was the bridesmaid—” she began incautiously, when the slackening of the engines set her thoughts flying from the subject in hand to settle in agony upon the certainty that Doyle would forget to put her scent-bottle into her dressing-bag, and the whole party went up on deck.
It was dark, and the revolving light on the end of the east pier swung its red eye upon the steamer as she passed within a few yards of it, churning a curving road towards the double line of lamps that marked the jetty. The lights of Kingstown mounted row upon row, like an embattled army of stars, the great sweep of Dublin Bay was pricked out in lessening yellow points, and a new moon that looked pale green by contrast, sent an immature shaft along the sea in meek assertion of her presence. The paddles dropped their blades more and more languidly into the water, then they ceased, and the vessel slid silently alongside the jetty, with the sentient ease of a living thing. The warps were flung ashore, the gangways thrust on board, and in an instant the sailors were running ashore with the mail bags on their backs, like a string of ants with their eggs. The usual crowd of loafers and people who had come to meet their friends formed round the passengers’ gangway, and the passengers filed down it in the brief and uncoveted distinction that the exit from a steamer affords.
Lady Dysart headed her party as they left the steamer, and her imposing figure in her fur-lined cloak so filled the gangway that Pamela could not, at first, see who it was that met her mother as she stepped on to the platform. The next moment she found herself shaking hands with Mr. Lambert, and then, to her unbounded astonishment, with Miss Fitzpatrick. The lamps were throwing strong light and shadow upon Francie’s face, and Pamela’s first thought was how much thinner she had become.
“Mr. Lambert and I missed our train back to Bray,” Francie began at once in a hurried deprecating voice, “and we came down to see the boat come in just to pass the time—” Her voice stopped as if she had suddenly gasped for breath, and Pamela heard Hawkins’ voice say behind her:
“How de do, Miss Fitzpatrick? Who’d have thought of meetin’ you here?” in a tone of cheerfully casual acquaintanceship.
Even Pamela, with all her imaginative sympathy, did not guess what Francie felt in that sick and flinching moment, when everything rung and tingled round her as if she had been struck; the red had deserted her cheek like a cowardly defender, and the ground felt uneven under her feet, but the instinct of self-control that is born of habit and convention in the feeblest of us came mechanically to her help.
“And I never thought I’d see you either,” she answered, in the same tone; “I suppose you’re all going to Lismoyle together, Miss Dysart?”
“No, we stay in Dublin to-night,” said Pamela, with sufficient consciousness of the