The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [98]
Charlotte was in the dining-room, partaking of a gentlemanly glass of Marsala with Mr. Beattie, and other heads of families.
“Great high jinks they’re having upstairs!” she remarked, as the windows and tea-cups rattled from the stamping overhead, and Mr. Beattie cast many an anxious eye towards the ceiling. “I suppose my young lady’s in the thick of it, whatever it is!” She always assumed the attitude of the benevolently resigned chaperon when she talked about Francie, and Mr. Lynch was on the point of replying in an appropriate tone of humorous condolence, when the young lady herself appeared on Mr. Corkran’s arm, with an expression that at once struck Charlotte as being very unlike high jinks.
“Why, child, what do you want down here?” she said. “Are you tired dancing?”
“I am; awfully tired; would you mind going home, Charlotte?”
“What a question to ask before our good host here! Of course I mind going home!” eyeing Francie narrowly as she spoke; “but I’ll come if you like.”
“Why, what people you all are for going home!” protested Mr. Beattie hospitably; “there was Hawkins that we only stopped by main strength, and Lambert slipped away ten minutes ago, saying Mrs. Lambert wasn’t well, and he had to go and look after her! What’s your reverence about letting her go away now, when they’re having the fun of Cork upstairs?”
Francie smiled a pale smile, but held to her point, and a few minutes afterwards she and Charlotte had made their way through the knot of loafers at the garden gate, and were walking through the empty moon-lit streets of Lismoyle towards Tally Ho. Charlotte did not speak till the last clanging of the Bric-à-brac polka had been left behind, and then she turned to Francie with a manner from which the affability had fallen like a garment.
“And now I’ll thank you to tell me what’s the truth of this I hear from everyone in the town about you and that young Hawkins being out till all hours of the night in the steam-launch by yourselves?”
“It wasn’t our fault. We were in by half-past nine.” Francie had hardly spirit enough to defend herself, and the languor in her voice infuriated Charlotte.
“Don’t give me any of your fine-lady airs,” she said brutally; “I can tell ye this, that if ye can’t learn how to behave yourself decently I’ll pack ye back to Dublin!”
The words passed over Francie like an angry wind, disturbing, but without much power to injure.
“All right, I’ll go away when you like.”
Charlotte hardly heard her. “I’ll be ashamed to look me old friend, Lady Dysart, in the face!” She stormed on. “Disgracing her house by such goings on with an unprincipled blackguard that has no more idea of marrying you than I have—not that that’s anything to be regretted! An impudent little upstart without a halfpenny in his pocket, and as for family—” her contempt stemmed her volubility for a mouthing moment. “God only knows what gutter he sprang from; I don’t suppose he has a drop of blood in his whole body!”
“I’m not thinking of marrying him no more than he is of marrying me,” answered Francie in the same lifeless voice, but this time faltering a little. “You needn’t bother me about him, Charlotte, he’s engaged.”
“Engaged!” yelled Charlotte, squaring round at her cousin, and standing stock still in her amazement. “Why didn’t you tell me so before? When did you hear it?”
“I heard it some time ago from a person whose name I won’t give you,” said Francie, walking on. “They’re to be married before Christmas.” The lump rose at last in her throat, and she trod hard on the ground as she walked, in the effort to keep the tears back.
Charlotte girded her velveteen skirt still higher, and