The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [48]
“Fran-cie!”
Christopher shrank lower behind a mossy stone, and wildly hoped that his unconcealable white flannels might be mistaken for the stem of a fallen birch.
“Fran-cie!”
It had come nearer, and Christopher anticipated the inevitable discovery by getting up and speaking.
“I’m afraid she’s not here, Miss Mullen. She has not been here for half an hour at least.” He did not feel bound to add that when he first sat down by the pool, he had heard Miss Fitzpatrick’s and Mr. Hawkins’ voices in high and agreeable altercation on the opposite side of the island to that taken by the rest of the party.
The asperity that had been discernible in Miss Mullen’s summons to her cousin vanished at once.
“My goodness me! Mr. Dysart! To think of your being here all the time, ‘Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife!’ Here I am hunting for that naughty girl to tell her to come and help to make tea, instead of letting your poor sister have all the trouble by herself.”
Charlotte was rather out of breath, and looked hot and annoyed, in spite of the smile with which she lubricated her remark.
“Oh, my sister is used to that sort of thing,” said Christopher, “and Miss Hope-Drummond is there to help, isn’t she?”
Charlotte had seated herself on a rock, and was fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief; evidently going to make herself agreeable, Christopher thought, with an irritability that lost no detail of her hand’s ungainly action.
“I don’t think Miss Hope-Drummond is much in the utilitarian line,” she said, with a laugh that was as slighting as she dared to make it. “Hers is the purely ornamental, I should imagine. Now, I will say for poor Francie, if she was there, no one would work harder than she would, and, though I say it that shouldn’t, I think she’s ornamental too.”
“Oh, highly ornamental,” said Christopher politely. “I don’t think there can be any doubt about that.”
“You’re very good to say so,” replied Charlotte effusively; “but I can tell you, Mr. Dysart, that poor child has had to make herself useful as well as ornamental before now. From what she tells me I suspect there were few things she didn’t have to put her hand to before she came down to me here.”
“Really!” said Christopher, as politely as before, “that was very hard luck.”
“You may say that it was!” returned Charlotte, planting a hand on each knee with elbows squared outwards, as was her wont in moments of excitement, and taking up her parable against the Fitzpatricks with all the enthusiasm of a near relation. “Her uncle and aunt are very good people in their way, I suppose, but beyond feeding her and putting clothes on her back, I don’t know what they did for her.”
Charlotte had begun her sentence with comparative calm, but she had gathered heat and velocity as she proceeded. She paused with a snort, and Christopher, who had never before been privileged to behold her in her intenser moments, said, without a very distinct idea of what was expected of him:
“Oh, really, and who are these amiable people?”
“Fitzpatricks!” spluttered Miss Mullen, “and no better than the dirt under my poor cousin Isabella Mullen’s feet. It’s through her Francie’s related to me, and not through the Fitzpatricks at all. I’m no relation of the Fitzpatricks, thank God! My father’s brother married a Butler, and Francie’s grandmother was a Butler too—”
“It’s very intricate,” murmured Christopher; “it sounds as if she ought to have been a parlour-maid.”
“And that’s the only connection I am of the Fitzpatricks,” continued Miss Mullen at lightning speed, oblivious of interruption; “but Francie takes after her mother’s family and her grandmother’s family, and your poor father would tell you if he was able, that the Butlers of Tally Ho were as well known in their time as the Dysarts of Bruff!”
“I’m sure he would,” said Christopher feebly, thinking as he spoke that his conversations with his father had been wont to treat of more stirring and personal topics than the bygone glories of the