The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [156]
“For the love o’ God, woman!” she whispered, “is it Miss Francie?”
“Now ye have it,” said Mary Holloran.
Norry clasped her hands, poker and all, and raised them in front of her face, while her eyes apparently communed with a familiar spirit at the other end of the kitchen. They puzzled Mary Holloran, who fancied she discerned in them a wild and quite irrelevant amusement, but before further opinions could be interchanged, a dragging step was heard at the back door, a fumbling hand lifted the latch, and Billy Grainy came in with the post-bag over his shoulder and an empty milk-can in his hand.
“Musha, more power to ye, Billy!” said Mary Holloran, concealing her disgust at the interruption with laudable good breeding, and making a grimace of lightning quickness at Norry, expressive of the secrecy that was to be observed; “‘tis you’re the grand post-boy!”
“Och thin I am,” mumbled Billy sarcastically, as he let the post-bag slip from his shoulders to the table, “divil a boot nor a leg is left on me with the thravelling!” He hobbled over to the fireplace, and, taking the teapot off the range, looked into it suspiciously. “This is a quare time o’ day for a man to be atin’ his breakfast! Divil dom the bit I’d ate in this house agin’ if it wasn’t for the nathure I have for the place—”
Norry banged open a cupboard, and took from it a mug with some milk in it, and a yellow pie-dish, in which were several stale ends of loaves.
“Take it or lave it afther ye!” she said, putting them down on the table. “If ye had nathure for risin’ airly out o’ yer bed the tay wouldn’t be waitin’ on ye this way, an’ if ourselves can’t plaze ye, ye can go look for thim that will. ‘Thim that’s onaisy let thim quit!’” Norry cared little whether Billy Grainy was too deaf to take in this retort or no. Mary Holloran and her own self-respect were alike gratified, and taking up the post-bag she proceeded with it to the dining-room.
“Well, Norry,” said Charlotte jocularly, looking round from the bookshelf that she was tidying, “is it only now that old thief’s brought the post? or have ye been flirting with him in the kitchen all this time?”
Norry retired from the room with a snarl of indescribable scorn, and Charlotte unlocked the bag and drew forth its contents. There were three letters for her, and she laid one of them aside at once while she read the other two. One was from a resident in Ferry Lane, an epistle that began startlingly, “Honored Madman,” and slanted over two sides of the note-paper in lamentable entreaties for a reduction of the rent and a little more time to pay it in. The other was an invitation from Mrs. Corkran to meet a missionary, and tossing both down with an equal contempt, she addressed herself to the remaining one. She was in the act of opening it when she caught sight of the printed name of a hotel upon its flap, and she suddenly became motionless, her eyes staring at the name, and her face slowly reddening all over.
“Bray!” she said between her teeth, “what takes him to Bray, when he told me to write to him to the Shelbourne?”
She opened the letter, a long and very neatly written one, so neat, in fact, as to give to a person who knew Mr. Lambert’s handwriting in all its phases the idea of very unusual care and a rough copy.
“My dear Charlotte,” it began, “I know you will be surprised at the news I have to tell you in this letter, and so will many others; indeed I am almost surprised at it myself.” Charlotte’s left hand groped backwards till it caught the back of a chair and held on to it, but her eyes still flew along the lines. “You are my oldest and best friend, and so you are the first I would like to tell about it, and I would value your good wishes far beyond any others that might be offered to me, especially as I hope you will soon be my relation as well as my friend. I am engaged to Francie Fitzpatrick, and we are to be married as soon as possible.”
The reader sat heavily down upon the chair behind her, her colour fading from red to a dirty yellow as she read on. “I