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THE REAL CHARLOTTE
STORIES AND SKETCHES OF IRISH LIFE.
By E. Œ. SOMERVILLE and MARTIN ROSS.
SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M.
With 31 Illustrations by E. Œ. SOMERVILLE.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M.
With 35 Illustrations by E. Œ. SOMERVILLE.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
IN MR. KNOX’S COUNTRY.
With 8 Illustrations in Colour by E. Œ. SOMERVILLE.
=Crown 8vo, 6s.=
ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE.
With 10 Illustrations by E. Œ. SOMERVILLE.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS.
With 51 Illustrations by E. Œ. SOMERVILLE.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
AN IRISH COUSIN.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
THE REAL CHARLOTTE.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
THE SILVER FOX.
=Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.=
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
THE
REAL CHARLOTTE
BY
E. Œ. SOMERVILLE & MARTIN ROSS
_NEW IMPRESSION_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1915
[Illustration: colophon]
_First published by Ward & Downey, in 3 volumes in 1894, and in one
volume in 1895. Transferred to Longmans, Green & Co. and reprinted by
them in November, 1900, December, 1901, and November, 1903. Reissued in
uniform edition October, 1910; reprinted May, 1911, June, 1915._
THE REAL CHARLOTTE.
CHAPTER I.
An August Sunday afternoon in the north side of Dublin. Epitome of all
that is hot, arid, and empty. Tall brick houses, browbeating each other
in gloomy respectability across the white streets; broad pavements,
promenaded mainly by the nomadic cat; stifling squares, wherein the
infant of unfashionable parentage is taken for the daily baking that is
its substitute for the breezes and the press of perambulators on the
Bray Esplanade or the Kingston pier. Few towns are duller out of the
season than Dublin, but the dullness of its north side neither waxes nor
wanes; it is immutable, unchangeable, fixed as the stars. So at least it
appears to the observer whose impressions are only eye-deep, and are
derived from the emptiness of the streets, the unvarying dirt of the
window panes, and the almost forgotten type of ugliness of the window
curtains.
But even an August Sunday in the north side has its distractions for
those who know where to seek them, and there are some of a sufficiently
ingenuous disposition to find in Sunday-school a social excitement that
is independent of fashion, except so far as its slow eddies may have
touched the teacher’s bonnet. Perhaps it is peculiar to Dublin that
Sunday-school, as an institution, is by no means reserved for children
of the poorer sort only, but permeates all ranks, and has as many
recruits from the upper and middle as from the lower classes. Certainly
the excellent Mrs. Fitzpatrick, of Number 0, Mountjoy Square, as she lay
in mountainous repose on the sofa in her dining-room, had no thought
that it was derogatory to the dignity of her daughters and her niece to
sit, as they were now sitting, between the children of her grocer, Mr.
Mulvany, and her chemist, Mr. Nolan. Sunday-school was, in her mind, an
admirable institution that at one and the same time cleared her house of
her offspring, and spared her the complications of their religious
training, and her broad, black satin-clad bosom rose and fell in
rhythmic accord with the snores that were the last expression of Sabbath
peace and repose.
It was nearly four o’clock, and the heat and dull clamour in the
schoolhouse were beginning to tell equally upon teachers and scholars.
Francie Fitzpatrick had yawned twice, though she had a sufficient sense
of politeness to conceal the action behind her Bible; the pleasure of
thrusting out in front of her, for the envious regard of her fellows, a
new pair of side spring boots, with mock buttons and stitching, had
palled upon her; the spider that had for a few quivering moments hung
uncertainly above the gorgeous bonnet of Miss Bewley, the teacher, had
drawn itself up again, staggered, no doubt, by the unknown tropic
growths it found beneath; and the silver ring that Tommy Whitty had
crammed upon her gloved finger before school, as a mark of devotion, had
become perfectly immovable and was a source of at least as much anxiety
as satisfaction. Even Miss Bewley’s powers of exposition had melted away
in the heat; she had called out her catechetical reserves, and was
reduced to a dropping fire of questions as to the meaning of Scriptural
names, when at length the superintendent mounted the rostrum and tapped
thrice upon it. The closing hymn was sung, and then, class by class, the
hot, tired children clattered out into the road.
On Francie rested the responsibility of bringing home her four small
cousins, of ages varying from six to eleven, but this duty did not seem
to weigh very heavily on her. She had many acquaintances in the
Sunday-school, and with Susie Brennan’s and Fanny Hemphill’s arms round
her waist, and Tommy Whitty in close attendance, she was in no hurry to
go home. Children are, if unconsciously, as much influenced by good
looks as their elders, and even the raw angularities of fourteen, and
Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s taste in hats, could not prevent Francie from looking
extremely pretty and piquante, as she held forth to an attentive
audience on the charms of a young man who had on that day partaken of an
early dinner at her Uncle Fitzpatrick’s house.
Francie’s accent and mode of expressing herself were alike deplorable;
Dublin had done its worst for her in that respect, but unless the reader
has some slight previous notion of how dreadful a thing is a pure-bred
Dublin accent, it would be impossible for him to realise in any degree
the tone in which she said:
“But oh! Tommy Whitty! wait till I tell you what he said about the
excursion! He said he’d come to it if I’d promise to stay with him the
whole day; so now, see how grand I’ll be! And he has a long black
mustash!” she concluded, as a side thrust at Tommy’s smooth, apple
cheeks.
“Oh, indeed, I’m sure he’s a bewty without paint,” returned the slighted
Tommy, with such sarcasm as he could muster; “but unless you come in the
van with me, the way you said you would, I’ll take me ring back from you
and give it to Lizzie Jemmison! So now!”
“Much I care!” said Francie, tossing her long golden plait of hair, and
giving a defiant skip as she walked; “and what’s more, I can’t get it
off, and nobody will till I die! and so now yourself!”
Her left hand was dangling over Fanny Hemphill’s shoulder, and she
thrust it forward, starfish-wise, in front of Tommy Whitty’s face. The
silver ring glittered sumptuously on its background of crimson silk
glove, and the sudden snatch that her swain made at it was as much
impelled by an unworthy desire to repossess the treasure as by the pangs
of wounded affection.
“G’long, ye dirty fella’!” screamed Francie, in high good-humour, at the
same moment eluding the snatch and whirling herself free from the
winding embrace of the Misses Hemphill and Brennan; “I dare ye to take
it from me!”
She was off like a lapwing down the deserted street, pursued by the more
cumbrous Tommy, and by the encouraging yells of the children, who were
trooping along the pavement after them. Francie was lithe and swift
beyond her fellows, and on ordinary occasions Tommy Whitty, with all
his masculine advantage of costume and his two years of seniority, would
have found it as much as he could do to catch her. But on this untoward
day the traitorous new side spring boots played her false. That
decorative band of white stitching across the toes began to press upon
her like a vice, and, do what she would, she knew that she could not
keep her lead much longer. Strategy was her only resource. Swinging
herself round a friendly lamp-post, she stopped short with a suddenness
that compelled her pursuer to shoot past her, and with an inspiration
whose very daring made it the more delirious, she darted across the
street, and sprang into a milk-cart that was waiting at a door. The meek
white horse went on at once, and, with a breathless, goading hiss to
hasten him, she tried to gather up the reins. Unfortunately, however, it
happened that these were under his tail, and the more she tugged at them
the tighter he clasped them to him, and the more lively became his trot.
In spite of an irrepressible alarm as to the end of the adventure,
Francie still retained sufficient presence of mind to put out her tongue
at her baffled enemy, as, seated in front of the milk-cans, she clanked
past him and the other children. There was a chorus, in tones varying
from admiration to horror, of, “Oh! _look_ at Francie Fitzpatrick!” and
then Tommy Whitty’s robuster accents, “Ye’d better look out! the
milkman’s after ye!”
Francie looked round, and with terror beheld that functionary in enraged
pursuit. It was vain to try blandishments with the horse, now making for
his stable at a good round trot; vainer still to pull at the reins. They
were nearing the end of the long street, and Francie and the milkman,
from their different points of view, were feeling equally helpless and
despairing, when a young man came round the corner, and apparently
taking in the situation at a glance, ran out into the road, and caught
the horse by the bridle.
“Well, upon my word, Miss Francie,” he said, as Miss Fitzpatrick
hurriedly descended from the cart. “You’re a nice young lady! What on
earth are you up to now?”
“Oh, Mr. Lambert--” began Francie; but having got thus far in her
statement, she perceived the justly incensed milkman close upon her, and
once more taking to her heels, she left her rescuer to return the
stolen property with what explanations he could. Round the corner she
fled, and down the next street, till a convenient archway offered a
hiding-place, and sheltering there, she laughed, now that the stress of
terror was off her, till her blue eyes streamed with tears.
Presently she heard footsteps approaching, and peering cautiously out,
saw Lambert striding along with the four Fitzpatrick children dancing
round him, in their anxiety to present each a separate version of the
escapade. The milkman was not to be seen, and Francie sallied forth to
meet the party, secretly somewhat abashed, but resolved to bear an
undaunted front before her cousins.
The “long black mustash,” so adroitly utilised by Francie for the
chastening of Tommy Whitty, was stretched in a wide smile as she looked
tentatively at its owner. “Will he tell Aunt Tish?” was the question
that possessed her as she entered upon her explanation. The children
might be trusted. Their round, white-lashed eyes had witnessed many of
her exploits, and their allegiance had never faltered; but this
magnificent grown-up man, who talked to Aunt Tish and Uncle Robert on
terms of equality, what trouble might he not get her into in his stupid
desire to make a good story of it? “Botheration to him!” she thought,
“why couldn’t he have been somebody else?”
Mr. Roderick Lambert marched blandly along beside her, with no wish to
change places with anyone agitating his bosom. His handsome brown eyes
rested approvingly on Francie’s flushed face, and the thought that
mainly occupied his mind was surprise that Nosey Fitzpatrick should have
had such a pretty daughter. He was aware of Francie’s diffident glances,
but thought they were due to his good looks and his new suit of clothes,
and he became even more patronising than before. At last, quite
unconsciously, he hit the dreaded point.
“Well, and what do you think your aunt will say when she hears how I
found you running away in the milk-cart?”
“I don’t know,” replied Francie, getting very red.
“Well, what will you say to me if I don’t tell her?”
“Oh, Mr. Lambert, sure you won’t tell mamma!” entreated the Fitzpatrick
children, faithful to their leader. “Francie’d be killed if mamma
thought she was playing with Tommy Whitty!”
They were nearing the Fitzpatrick mansion by this time, and Lambert
stood still at the foot of the steps and looked down at the small group
of petitioners with indulgent self-satisfaction.
“Well, Francie, what’ll you do for me if I don’t tell?”
Francie walked stiffly up the steps.
“I don’t know.” Then with a defiance that she was far from feeling, “You
may tell her if you like!”
Lambert laughed easily as he followed her up the steps.
“You’re very angry with me now, aren’t you? Well, never mind, we’ll be
friends, and I won’t tell on you this time.”