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 a
voluntary 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 the gloom settling down upon him
again. He hated going away and leaving Francie; he hated his financial
difficulties, and their tortuous, uncertain issues; and above all, he
hated Hawkins. He would have given the whole world to know how things
had been between him and Francie last year; anything would be less
intolerable than suspicion.
The strip of grass by the roadside widened as they left the rocky
country, and the deep dints of galloping hoofs became apparent on it.
Lambert pointed to them with his whip, and laughed contemptuously.
“If I had a thick-winded pony like your friend Mr. Hawkins, I wouldn’t
bucket her up hill in that sort of way. She’d do well enough if he had
the sense to take her easy; but in all my knowledge of soldiers--and
I’ve seen a good few of them here now--I’ve never seen a more
self-sufficient jackass in the matter of horses than Hawkins. I wouldn’t
trust him with a donkey.”
“You’d better tell him so,” said Francie indifferently. Lambert chose to
suspect a sneer in the reply.
“Tell him so!” he said hotly. “I’d tell him so pretty smart, if I
thought there was a chance of his getting outside a horse of mine. But I
think it’ll be a long day before that happens!”
“Maybe he wouldn’t thank you for one of your horses.”
“No, I’ll bet he wouldn’t say thank you,” said Lambert, a thrill of
anger darting to his brain. “He’s a lad that’ll take all he can get, and
say nothing about it, and chuck it away to the devil when he’s done with
it.”
“I’m sure I don’t care what he does!” exclaimed Francie, with excusable
impatience. “I wonder if he’s able to get into a passion about nothing,
the way you’re doing now!”
“It didn’t look this afternoon as if you cared so little about what he
does!” said Lambert, his breath coming short. “May I ask if you knew he
was coming, that you were in such a hurry back to the house to meet him?
I suppose you settled it when he came to see you on Saturday.”
“Since you know all about it, there’s no need for me to contradict you!”
Francie flashed back.
One part of Lambert knew that he was making a fool of himself, but the
other part, which was unfortunately a hundred times the stronger, drove
him on.
“Oh, I daresay you found it very pleasant, talking over old times,” he
retorted, releasing the thought at last like a long caged beast; “or was
he explaining how it was he got tired of you?”
Francie sat still and dumb; the light surface anger startled out of her
in a moment, and its place taken by a suffocating sense of outrage and
cruelty. She did not know enough of love to recognise it in this hideous
disguise of jealousy; she only discerned the cowardly spitefulness, and
it cut down to that deep place in her soul, where, since childhood, had
lain her trust in him. She did not say a word, and Lambert went on:
“Oh, I see you are too grand to answer me; I suppose it’s because I’m
only your husband that you think I’m not worth talking to.” He gave the
horse a lash of the whip, and then chucked up its head as it sprang
forward, making the trap rock and jerk. The hateful satisfaction of
taunting her about Hawkins was beginning to die in him like drunkenness,
and he dimly saw what it was going to cost him. “You make me say these
sort of things to you,” he broke out, seeing that she would not speak.
“How can I help it, when you treat me like the dirt under your feet, and
fight with me if I say a word to you that you don’t like? I’d like to
see the man that would stand it!”
He looked down at her, and saw her head drooping forward, and her hand
up to her face. He could not say more, as at that moment Mary Holloran
was holding the gate open for him to drive in; and as he lifted his wife
out of the trap at the hall door, and saw the tears that she could no
longer hide from him, he knew that his punishment had begun, and the
iron entered into his soul.