The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [177]
Francie shaped her lips to a thin and tremulous smile of disdain, but her hands clutched each other under the book in her lap with the effort necessay to answer him. “Oh, yes, I am sorry for you; I’d be sorry for anyone that would behave the way you did,” she said, with a laugh that would have been more effective had it been steadier; “but I can’t say you look as if you wanted my pity.”
Hawkins turned abruptly away and walked towards the door, and then, as quickly, came back to her side.
“They’re coming across the lawn now,” he said; “before they come, don’t you think you could forgive me—or just say you do, anyhow. I did behave like a brute, but I never thought you’d have cared. You may say the worst things about me you can think of, if you’ll only tell me you forgive me.” His voice broke on the last words in a way that gave them irresistible conviction.
Francie glanced out of the window, and saw her husband and Charlotte slowly approaching the house. “Oh, very well,” she said proudly, without turning her head; “after all there’s nothing to forgive.”
* * *
CHAPTER XLV.
Lambert and Francie were both very silent as they drove away from Gurthnamuckla. He was the first to speak.
“I’ve asked Charlotte to come over and stay with you while I’m away next week. I find I can’t get through the work in less than a fortnight, and I may be kept even longer than that, because I’ve got to go to Dublin.”
“Asked Charlotte!” said Francie, in a tone of equal surprise and horror. “What on earth made you do that?”
“Because I didn’t wish you should be left by yourself all that time.”
“I think you might have spoken to me first,” said Francie, with deepening resentment. “I’d twice sooner be left by myself than be bothered with that old cat.”
Lambert looked quickly at her. He had come back to the house with his nerves still strained from his fright about the open gate, and his temper shaken by his financial difficulties, and the unexpected discovery of Hawkins in the drawing-room with his wife had not been soothing.
“I don’t choose that you should be left by yourself,” he said, in the masterful voice that had always, since her childhood, roused Francie’s opposition. “You’re a deal too young to be left alone, and—” with an involuntary softening of his voice—”and a deal too pretty, confound you!” He cut viciously with his whip at a long-legged greyhound of a pig that was rooting by the side of the road.
“D’ye mean me or the pig?” said Francie, with a laugh that was still edged with defiance.
“I mean that I’m not going to have the whole country prating about you, and they would if I left you here by yourself.”
“Very well, then, if you make me have Charlotte to stay with me I’ll give tea-parties every day, and dinners and balls every night. I’ll make the country prate, I can tell you, and the money fly too!”
Her eyes were brighter than usual, and there was a fitfulness about her that stirred and jarred him, though he could hardly tell why.
“I think I’ll take you with me,” he said, with the impotent wrath of a lover who knows that the pain of farewell will be all on his side. “I won’t trust you out of my sight.”
“All right! I’ll go with you,” she said, becoming half serious. “I’d like to go.”
They were going slowly up hill, and the country lay bare and desolate in the afternoon sun, without a human being in sight. Lambert took the reins in his right hand, and put his arm round her.
“I don’t believe you. I know you wouldn’t care a hang if I never came back—kiss me!” She lifted her face obediently, and as her eyes met his she wondered at the unhappiness in them. “I can’t take you, my darling,” he whispered; “I wish to God I could, I’m going to places you couldn’t stay at, and—and it would cost too much.”
“Very well; never say I didn’t make you a good offer,” she answered, her unconquerable eyes giving him a look that told she could still flirt with her husband.
“Put my cloak on me, Roddy; the evening’s getting cold.”
They drove on quickly, and Lambert felt