The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [51]
To do Mr. Hawkins justice, he, though equally ill-treated by fate, rose superior to his disappointment. After his encounter with Miss Mullen he settled confidentially down in the corner beside Pamela, and amused himself by pulling Dinah’s short, fat tail, and puffing cigarette smoke in her face, while he regaled her mistress with an assortment of the innermost gossip of Lismoyle.
On board the Daphne, the aspect of things was less comfortable. Although the wind was too much in her teeth for her to make much advance for home, there was enough to drive her through the water at a pace that made the long tacks from side to side of the lake seem as nothing, and to give Francie as much as she could do to keep her big hat on her head. She was sitting up on the weather side with Lambert, who was steering; and Christopher, in the bows, was working the head sails, and acting as movable ballast when they went about. At first, while they were beating out of the narrow channel of Ochery, Francie had found it advisable to lie in a heap beneath a tarpaulin, to avoid the onslaught of the boom at each frequent tack, but now that they were out on the open lake, with the top-sail hoisted, she had risen to her present position, and, in spite of her screams as the sharp squalls came down from the mountains and lifted her hat till it stood on end like a rearing horse, was enjoying herself amazingly. Unlike Miss Hope-Drummond, she was pre-eminently one of those who come home unflagging from the most prolonged outing, and to-day’s entertainment, so far from being exhausting, had verified to the utmost her belief in the charms of the British officer, as well as Miss Fanny Hemphill’s prophecies of her success in such quarters. Nevertheless she was quite content to return in the yacht; it was salutary for Mr. Hawkins to see that she could do without him very well, it took her from Charlotte’s dangerous proximity, and it also gave her an opportunity of appeasing Mr. Lambert, who, as she was quite aware, was not in the best of tempers. So far her nimble tongue had of necessity been idle. Christopher’s position in the bows isolated him from all conversation of the ordinary pitch, and Lambert had been at first too much occupied with the affairs of his boat to speak to her, but now, as a sharper gust nearly snatched her hat from her restraining hand, he turned to her.
“If it wasn’t that you seem to enjoy having that hat blown inside out every second minute,” he said chillingly, “I’d offer to lend you a cap.”
“What sort is it?” demanded Francie. “If it’s anything like that old deerstalker thing you have on your head now, I wouldn’t touch it with the tongs!”
Lambert’s only reply was to grope under the seat with one hand, and to bring out a red knitted cap of the conventional sailoring type, which he handed to Francie without so much as looking at her. Miss Fitzpatrick recognised its merits with half a glance, and, promptly putting it on her head, stuffed the chef d’æuvre of the night before under the seat among the deck-swabs and ends of rope that lurked there. Christopher, looking aft at the moment, saw the change of head-gear, and it was, perhaps, characteristic of him that even while he acknowledged the appropriateness of the red cap of liberty to the impertinence of the brilliant face beneath it, he found himself reminded of the extra supplement, in colours, of any Christmas number— indubitably pretty but a trifle vulgar.
In the meantime the object of this patronising criticism, feeling herself now able to give her undivided attention to conversation, regarded Mr. Lambert’s sulky face with open amusement, and said:
“Well, now, tell me what made you so cross all day. Was it because Mrs. Lambert wasn’t out?”
Lambert looked at her for an instant without speaking. “Ready about,” he called out. “Mind your head! Lee helm!”
The little yacht hung and staggered for a moment, and then, with a diving plunge, started forward,