“How Evelyn can discuss such things with her maid, I cannot imagine,” said Pamela, with unwonted heat; “and Davis is such a particularly detestable woman.”
“I do not care in the least what sort of woman she is, she does hair beautifully, which is more than I can say for you,” replied Lady Dysart, with an Uhlan-like dash into the enemy’s country.
“I suppose it was by Davis’ advice that Evelyn made a point of ignoring Miss Fitzpatrick this whole morning,” continued Pamela, with the righteous wrath of a just person.
“It was quite unnecessary for her to trouble herself,” broke in Lady Dysart witheringly; “Christopher atoned for all her deficiencies—taking advantage of Mr. Hawkins’ absence, I suppose.”
“If Hawkins had been there,” said Christopher, with the slowness that indicated that he was trying not to stammer, “it would have saved me the trouble of making c—conversation for a person who did not care about it.”
“You may make your mind easy on that point, my dear!” Lady Dysart shot this parting shaft after her son as he turned away towards the smoking-room. “To do her justice, I don’t think she is in the least particular, so long as she has a man to talk to!”
It is not to be wondered at, that, as Francie drove through Lismoyle, she felt that the atmosphere was laden with reprobation of her and her conduct.
Her instinct told her that the accident to Captain Cursiter’s launch, and her connection with it, would be a luscious topic of discourse for everyone, from Mrs. Lambert downwards; and the thought kept her from deriving full satisfaction from the Bruff carriage and pair. Even when she saw Annie Beattie standing at her window with a duster in her hand, the triumph of her position was blighted by the reflection that if Charlotte did not know everything before the afternoon was out, full details would be supplied to her at the party to which on this very evening they had been bidden by Mrs. Beattie.
The prospect of the cross-examination which she would have to undergo grew in portentousness during the hour and a half of waiting at Tally Ho for her cousin’s return, while, through and with her fears, the dirt and vulgarity of the house and the furniture, the sickly familiarities of Louisa, and the all-pervading smell of cats and cooking, impressed themselves on her mind with a new and repellent vigour. But Charlotte, when she arrived, was evidently still in happy ignorance of the events that would have interested her so profoundly. Her Dublin dentist had done his spiriting gently, her friends had been so hospitable that her lodging-house breakfasts had been her only expense in the way of meals, and the traditional battle with the Lismoyle car-driver and his equally inevitable defeat had raised her spirits so much that she accepted Francie’s expurgated account of her sojourn at Bruff with almost boisterous approval. She even extended a jovial feeler in the direction of Christopher.
“Well, now, after all the chances you’ve had, Francie, I’ll not give tuppence for you if you haven’t Mr. Dysart at your feet!”