“Oh, yes, Roderick,” replied Mrs. Lambert a little anxiously, “indeed, I was wanting to tell you—Charlotte asked me if I could drive her over to Mrs. Waller’s to-morrow afternoon. I forgot to ask you before if you wanted the horses.”
Mr. Lambert’s fine complexion deepened by one or two shades.
“Upon my soul, Charlotte Mullen has a good cheek! She gets as much work out of my horses as I do myself. I suppose you told her you’d do it?”
“Well, what else could I do?” replied Mrs. Lambert with tremulous crossness; “I’m sure it’s not once in the month I get outside the place, and, as for Charlotte, she has not been to the Waller’s since before Christmas, and you know very well old Captain couldn’t draw her eight miles there and eight miles back any more than the cat.”
“Cat be hanged! Why the devil can’t she put her hand in her pocket and take a car for herself?” said Lambert, uncrossing his legs and sitting up straight; “I suppose I’ll hear next that I’m not to order out my own horses till I’ve sent round to Miss Mullen to know if she wants them first! If you weren’t so infernally under her thumb you’d remember there were others to be consulted besides her.”
“I’m not under her thumb, Roderick; I beg you’ll not say such a thing,” replied Mrs. Lambert huffily, her eyes blinking with resentment. “Charlotte Mullen’s an old friend of mine, and yours too, and it’s a hard thing I can’t take her out driving without remarks being passed, and I never thought you’d want the horses. I thought you said you’d be in the office all to-morrow,” ended the poor turkey hen, whose feathers were constitutionally incapable of remaining erect for any length of time.
Lambert did not answer immediately. His eyes rested on her flushed face with just enough expression in them to convey to her that her protest was beside the point. Mrs. Lambert was apparently used to this silent comment on what she said, for she went on still more apologetically:
“If you like, Roderick, I’ll send Michael over early with a note to Charlotte to tell her we’ll go some other day.”
Mr. Lambert leaned back as if to consider the question, and began to fill his pipe for the second time.
“Well,” he said slowly, “if it makes no difference to you, Lucy, I’d be rather glad if you did. As a matter of fact I have to ride out to Gurthnamuckla to-morrow, on business, and I thought I’d take Francie Fitzpatrick with me there on the black mare. She’s no great shakes of a rider, and the black mare is the only thing I’d like to put her on. But, of course, if it was for your own sake and not Charlotte’s that you wanted to go to the Waller’s, I’d try and manage to take Francie some other day. For the matter of that I might put her on Paddy; I daresay he’d carry a lady.”