It was very still inside the shelter of the old turf quay at Bruff. The
stems of the lilies that curved up through its brown-golden depths were
visible almost down to the black mud out of which their mystery of
silver and gold was born; and, while the water outside moved piquantly
to the breeze, nothing stirred it within except the water spiders, who
were darting about, pushing a little ripple in front of them, and
finding themselves seriously inconvenienced by the pieces of broken rush
and the sodden fragments of turf that perpetually stopped their way. It
had rained and blown very hard all the day before, and the innermost
corners of the tiny harbour held a motionless curve of foam, yellowish
brown, and flecked with the feathers of a desolated moorhen’s nest.
Civilisation at Bruff had marched away from the turf quay. The ruts of
the cart-track were green from long disuse, and the willows had been
allowed to grow across it, as a last sign of superannuation. In old days
every fire at Bruff had been landed at the turf quay from the bogs at
the other side of the lake; but now, since the railway had come to
Lismoyle, coal had taken its place. It was in vain that Thady, the
turf-cutter, had urged that turf was a far handsomer thing about a
gentleman’s place than coal. The last voyage of the turf boat had been
made, and she now lay, grey from rottenness and want of paint, in the
corner of the miniature dock that had once been roofed over and formed a
boat-house. Tall, jointed reeds, with their spiky leaves and stiff
stems, stood out in the shallow water, leaning aslant over their own
reflections, and, further outside, green rushes grew thickly in long
beds, the homes of dabchicks, coots, and such like water people.
Standing on the brown rock that formed the end of the quay, the spacious
sky was so utterly reproduced in the lake, cloud for cloud, deep for
deep, that it only required a little imagination to believe oneself
floating high between two atmospheres. The young herons, in the fir
trees on Curragh Point, were giving utterance to their meditations on
things in general in raucous monosyllables, and Charlotte Mullen, her
feet planted firmly on two of the least rickety stones of the quay, was
continuing a conversation that had gone on one-sidedly for some time.
“Yes, Sir Christopher, my feeling for your estate is like the feeling of
a child for the place where he was reared; it is the affection of a
woman whose happiest days were passed with her father in your estate
office!”
The accurate balance of the sentence and its nasal cadence showed that
Charlotte was delivering herself of a well-studied peroration. Her voice
clashed with the stillness as dissonantly as the clamour of the young
herons. Her face was warm and shiny, and Christopher looked away from
it, and said to himself that she was intolerable.
“Of course--yes--I understand--” he answered stammeringly, her pause
compelling him to speak; “but these are very serious things to say--”
“Serious!” Charlotte dived her hand into her pocket to make sure that
her handkerchief was within hail. “D’ye think, Sir Christopher, I don’t
know that well! I that have lain awake crying every night since I heard
of it, not knowing how to decide between me affection for me friend and
my duty to the son of my dear father’s old employer!”
“I think anyone who makes charges of this kind,” interrupted Christopher
coldly, “is bound to bring forward something more definite than mere
suspicion.”
Charlotte took her hand out of her pocket without the handkerchief, and
laid it for a moment on Christopher’s arm.
“My dear Sir Christopher, I entirely agree with you,” she said in her
most temperate, ladylike manner, “and I am prepared to place certain
facts before you, on whose accuracy you may perfectly rely, although
circumstances prevent my telling you how I learned them.”
The whole situation was infinitely repugnant to Christopher. He would
himself have said that he had not nerve enough to deal with Miss Mullen;
and joined with this, and his innate and overstrained dislike of having
his affairs discussed, was the unendurable position of conniving with
her at a treachery. Little as he liked Lambert, he sided with him now
with something more than a man’s ordinary resentment against feminine
espionage upon another man. He was quite aware of the subdued eagerness
in Charlotte’s manner, and it mystified while it disgusted him; but he
was also aware that nothing short of absolute flight would check her
disclosures. He could do nothing now but permit himself the single
pleasure of staring over her head with a countenance barren of response
to her histrionic display of expression.
“You ask me for something more definite than mere suspicion,” continued
Charlotte, approaching one of the supremest gratifications of her life
with full and luxurious recognition. “I can give you two facts, and if,
on investigation, you find they are not correct, you may go to Roderick
Lambert, and tell him to take an action for libel against me! I daresay
you know that a tenant of yours, named James M‘Donagh--commonly called
Shamus Bawn--recently got the goodwill of Knocklara, and now holds it in
addition to his father’s farm, which he came in for last month.”
Christopher assented. “Jim M‘Donagh paid one hundred and eighty pounds
fine on getting Knocklara. I ask you to examine your estate account, and
you will see that the sum credited to you on that transaction is no more
than seventy.”
“May I ask how you know this?” Christopher turned his face towards her
for a moment as he asked the question, and encountered, with even more
aversion than he had expected, her triumphing eyes.
“I’m not at liberty to tell you. All I say is, go to Jim M‘Donagh, and
ask him the amount of his fine, and see if he won’t tell you just the
same sum that I’m telling you now.”
Captain Cursiter, at this moment steering the _Serpolette_ daintily
among the shadows of Bruff Bay, saw the two incongruous figures on the
turf quay, one short, black, and powerful, the other tall, white, and
passive, and wondered, through the preoccupation of crawling to his
anchorage, what it was that Miss Mullen was holding forth to Dysart
about, in a voice that came to him across the water like the gruff
barking of a dog. He thought, too, that there was an almost ship-wrecked
welcome in the shout with which Christopher answered his whistle, and
was therefore surprised to see him remain where he was, apparently
enthralled by Miss Mullen’s conversation, instead of walking round to
meet him at the boat-house pier.
Charlotte had, in fact, by this time, compelled Christopher to give her
his whole attention. As he turned towards her again, he admitted to
himself that the thing looked rather serious, though he determined, with
the assistance of a good deal of antagonistic irritability, to keep his
opinion to himself. This feeling was uppermost as he said: “I have
never had the least reason to feel a want of confidence in Mr. Lambert,
Miss Mullen, and I certainly could not discredit him by going privately
to M‘Donagh to ask him about the fine.”
“It’s a pity all unfaithful stewards haven’t as confiding a master as
you, Sir Christopher,” said Charlotte, with a laugh. She felt
Christopher’s attitude towards her, as a man in armour may have felt the
arrows strike him, and no more, and it came easily to her to laugh.
“However,” she went on, correcting her manner quickly, as she saw a very
slight increase of colour in Christopher’s face, “the burden of proof
does not lie with James M‘Donagh. Last November, as you may possibly
remember, my name made its first appearance on your rent-roll, as the
tenant of Gurthnamuckla, and in recognition of that honour,”--Charlotte
felt that there was an academic polish about her sentences that must
appeal to a University man--“I wrote your agent a cheque for one hundred
pounds, which was duly cashed some days afterwards.” She altered her
position, so that she could see his face better, and said deliberately:
“Not one penny of that has been credited to the estate! This I know for
a fact.”
“Yes,” said Christopher, after an uncomfortable pause, “that’s
very--very curious, but, of course--until I know a little more, I can’t
give any opinion on the matter. I think, perhaps, we had better go round
to meet Captain Cursiter--”
Charlotte interrupted him with more violence than she had as yet
permitted to escape.
“If you want to know more, I can tell you more, and plenty more! For the
last year and more, Roddy Lambert’s been lashing out large sums of ready
money beyond his income, and I know his income to the penny and the
farthing! Where did he get that money from? I ask you. What paid for his
young horses, and his new dog-cart, and his new carpets, yes! and his
honeymoon trip to Paris? I ask you what paid for all that? It wasn’t his
first wife’s money paid for it, I know that for a fact, and it certainly
wasn’t the second wife’s!”
She was losing hold of herself; her gestures were of the sort that she
usually reserved for her inferiors, and the corners of her mouth bubbled
like a snail. Christopher looked at her, and began to walk away.
Charlotte followed him, walking unsteadily on the loose stones, and
inwardly cursing his insolence as well as her own forgetfulness of the
method she had laid down for the interview. He turned and waited for her
when he reached the path, and had time to despise himself for not being
able to conceal his feelings from a woman so abhorrent and so
contemptible.
“I am--er--obliged for your information,” he said stiffly. In spite of
his scorn for his own prejudice, he would not gratify her by saying
more.
“You will forgive me, Sir Christopher,” replied Charlotte with an
astonishing resumption of dignity, “if I say that that is a point that
is quite immaterial to me. I require no thanks. I felt it to be my duty
to tell you these painful facts, and what I suffer in doing it concerns
only myself.”
They walked on in silence between the lake and the wood, with the
bluebells creeping outwards to their feet through the white beech stems,
and as the last turn of the path brought them in sight of Francie and
Hawkins, Charlotte spoke again:
“You’ll remember that all this is in strict confidence, Sir
Christopher.”
“I shall remember,” said Christopher curtly.
An hour later, Pamela, driving home with her mother, congratulated
herself, as even the best people are prone to do, when she saw on the
gravel-sweep the fresh double wheel tracks that indicated that visitors
had come and gone. She felt that she had talked enough for one afternoon
during the visit to old Lady Eyrecourt, whose deaf sister had fallen to
her share, and she did not echo her mother’s regret at missing Miss
Mullen and her cousin. She threw down the handful of cards on the hall
table again, and went with a tired step to look for Christopher in the
smoking-room, where she found him with Captain Cursiter, the latter in
the act of taking his departure. The manner of her greeting showed that
he was an accustomed sight there, and, as a matter of fact, since
Christopher’s return Captain Cursiter had found himself at Bruff very
often. He had discovered that it was, as he expressed it, the only house
in the country where the women let him alone. Lady Dysart had expressed
the position from another point of view, when she had deplored to Mrs.
Gascogne Pamela’s “hopeless friendliness” towards men, and Mrs. Gascogne
had admitted that there might be something discouraging to a man in
being treated as if he were a younger sister.
This unsuitable friendliness was candidly apparent in Pamela’s regret
when she heard that Cursiter had come to Bruff with the news that his
regiment was to leave Ireland for Aldershot in a fortnight.
“Here’s Captain Cursiter trying to stick me with the launch at an
alarming reduction, as the property of an officer going abroad,” said
Christopher. “He wants to take advantage of my grief, and he won’t stay
and dine here and let me haggle the thing out comfortably.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t time to stay,” said Cursiter rather cheerlessly.
“I’ve got to go up to Dublin to-morrow, and I’m very busy. I’ll come
over again--if I may--when I get back.” He felt all the awkwardness of a
self-conscious man in the prominence of making a farewell that he is
beginning to find more unpleasant than he had expected.
“Oh, yes! indeed, you must come over again,” said Pamela, in the soft
voice that was just Irish enough for Saxons of the more ignorant sort to
fail to distinguish, save in degree, between it and Mrs. Lambert’s
Dublin brogue.
It remained on Captain Cursiter’s ear as he stalked down through the
shrubberies to the boat-house, and, as he steamed round Curragh Point,
and caught the sweet, turfy whiff of the Irish air, he thought drearily
of the arid glare of Aldershot, and, without any apparent connection of
ideas, he wondered if the Dysarts were really coming to town next month.
Not long after his departure Lady Dysart rustled into the smoking-room
in her solemnly sumptuous widow’s dress.
“Is he gone?” she breathed in a stage whisper, pausing on the threshold
for a reply.
“No; he’s hiding behind the door,” answered Christopher; “he always does
when he hears you coming.” When Christopher was irritated, his method of
showing it was generally so subtle as only to satisfy himself; it
slipped through the wide and generous mesh of his mother’s understanding
without the smallest friction.
“Nonsense, Christopher!” she said, not without a furtive glance behind
the door. “What a visitation you must have had from the whole set! Had
they anything interesting to say for themselves? Charlotte Mullen
generally is a great alleviation.”
“Oh yes,” replied her son, examining the end of his cigarette with a
peculiar expression, “she--she alleviated about as much as usual; but it
was Cursiter who brought the news.”
“I can’t imagine Captain Cursiter so far forgetting himself as to tell
any news,” said Lady Dysart; “but perhaps he makes an exception in your
favour.”
“They’re to go to Aldershot in a fortnight,” said Christopher.
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed his mother, with an irrepressible look at
Pamela, who was sitting on the floor in the window, taking a thorn out
of Max’s spatulate paw. “In a fortnight? I wonder how Mr. Hawkins will
like that? Evelyn said that Miss Coppard told her the marriage was to
come off when the regiment went back to England.”
Christopher grunted unsympathetically, and Pamela continued her
researches for the thorn.
“Well,” resumed Lady Dysart, “I, for one, shall not regret them. Selfish
and second-rate!”
“Which is which?” asked Christopher, eliminating any tinge of interest
or encouragement from his voice. He was quite aware that his mother was
in this fashion avenging the slaughter of the hope that she had secretly
nourished about Captain Cursiter, and, being in a perturbed frame of
mind, it annoyed him.
“I think _your_ friend is the most self-centred, ungenial man I have
ever known,” replied Lady Dysart, in sonorous denunciation, “and if Mr.
Hawkins is not second-rate, his friends are, which comes to the same
thing! And, by the by, how was it that he went away before Captain
Cursiter? Did not they come together?”
“Miss Mullen and Mrs. Lambert gave him a lift,” said Christopher,
uncommunicatively; “I believe they overtook him on his way here.”
Lady Dysart meditated, with her dark eyebrows drawn into a frown.
“I think that girl will make a very great mistake if she begins a
flirtation with Mr. Hawkins again,” she said presently; “there has been
quite enough talk about her already in connection with her marriage.”
Lady Dysart untied her bonnet strings as if with a need of more air, and
flung them back over each shoulder. In the general contrariety of
things, it was satisfactory to find an object so undeniably deserving of
reprobation as the new Mrs. Lambert. “I call her a thorough
adventuress!” she continued. “She came down here, determined to marry
some one, and as Mr. Hawkins escaped from her, she just snatched at the
next man she could find!”
Pamela came over and sat down on the arm of her mother’s chair. “Now,
mamma,” she said putting her arm round Lady Dysart’s crape-clad
shoulder, “you can’t deny that she knew all about the Dublin clergy and
went to Sunday-school regularly for ten years, and she guessed two
lights of an acrostic for you.”
“Yes, two that happened to be slangy! No, my dear child, I admit that
she is very pretty, but, as I said before, she has proved herself to be
nothing but an adventuress. Everyone in the country has said the same
thing.”
“I can scarcely imagine anyone less like an adventuress,” said
Christopher, with the determined quietness by which he sometimes
mastered his stammer.
His mother looked at him with the most unaffected surprise. “And I can
scarcely imagine anyone who knows less about the matter than you!” she
retorted. “Oh, my dear boy, don’t smoke another of those horrid things,”
as Christopher got up abruptly and began to fumble rather aimlessly in a
cigarette-box on the chimney-piece, “I’m sure you’ve smoked more than is
good for you. You look quite white already.”
He made no reply, and his mother’s thoughts reverted to the subject
under discussion. Suddenly a little cloud of memory began to appear on
her mental horizon. Now that she came to think of it, had not Kate
Gascogne once mentioned Christopher’s name to her in preposterous
connection with that of the present Mrs. Lambert?
“Let me tell you!” she exclaimed, her deep-set eyes glowing with the
triumphant effort of memory, “that people said she did her utmost to
capture _you_! and I can very well believe it of her; a grievous waste
of ammunition on her part, wasn’t it, Pamela? Though it did not result
in an _engagement_!” she added, highly pleased at being able to press a
pun into her argument.
“Oh, I think she spared Christopher,” struck in Pamela with a
conciliatory laugh; “‘Poor is the conquest of the timid hare,’ you
know!” She was aware of something portentously rigid in her brother’s
attitude, and would have given much to have changed the conversation,
but the situation was beyond her control.
“I don’t think she would have thought it such a poor conquest,” said
Lady Dysart indignantly; “a girl like that, accustomed to attorneys’
clerks and commercial travellers--she’d have done anything short of
suicide for such a chance!”
Christopher had stood silent during this discussion. He was losing his
temper, but he was doing it after his fashion, slowly and almost
imperceptibly. The pity for Mr. Lambert’s wife, that had been a primary
result of Charlotte’s indictment, flamed up into quixotism, and every
word his mother said was making him more hotly faithful to the time when
his conquest had been complete.
“I daresay it will surprise you to hear that I gave her the chance, and
she didn’t take it,” he said suddenly.
Lady Dysart grasped the arms of her chair, and then fell back into it.
“_You_ did!”
“Yes, I did,” replied Christopher, beginning to walk towards the door.
He knew he had done a thing that was not only superfluous, but savoured
repulsively of the pseudoheroic, and the attitude in which he had placed
himself was torture to his reserve. “This great honour was offered to
her,” he went on, taking refuge in lame satire, “last August,
unstimulated by any attempts at suicide on her part, and she refused it.
I--I think it would be kinder if you put her down as a harmless lunatic,
than as an adventuress, as far as I am concerned.” He shut the door
behind him as he finished speaking, and Lady Dysart was left staring at
her daughter, complexity of emotions making speech an idle thing.