CHAPTER III.
A damp winter and a chilly spring had passed in their usual mildly disagreeable manner over that small Irish country town which was alluded to in the beginning of the last chapter. The shop windows had exhibited their usual zodiacal succession, and had progressed through red comforters and woollen gloves, to straw hats, tennis shoes, and coloured Summer Numbers. The residents of Lismoyle were already congratulating each other on having “set” their lodgings to the summer visitors; the steamer was plying on the lake, the militia was under canvas, and on this very fifteenth of June, Lady Dysart of Bruff was giving her first lawn-tennis party.
Miss Charlotte Mullen had taken advantage of the occasion to emerge from the mourning attire that since her aunt’s death had so misbecome her sallow face, and was driving herself to Bruff in the phæton that had been Mrs. Mullen’s, and a gown chosen with rather more view to effect than was customary with her. She was under no delusion as to her appearance, and, early recognising its hopeless character, she had abandoned all superfluities of decoration. A habit of costume so defiantly simple as to border on eccentricity had at least two advantages; it freed her from the absurdity of seeming to admire herself, and it was cheap. During the late Mrs. Mullen’s lifetime Charlotte had studied economy. The most reliable old persons had, she was wont to reflect, a slippery turn in them where their wills were concerned, and it was well to be ready for any contingency of fortune. Things had turned out very well after all; there had been one inconvenient legacy—that “Little Francie” to whom the old lady’s thoughts had turned, happily too late for her to give any practical emphasis to them—but that bequest was of the kind that may be repudiated if desirable. The rest of the disposition had been admirably convenient, and, in skilled hands, something might even be made of that legacy. Miss Mullen thought a great deal about her legacy and the steps she had taken with regard to it as she drove to Bruff. The horse that drew her ancient phæton moved with a dignity befitting his eight and twenty years; the three miles of level lake-side road between Lismoyle and Bruff were to him a serious undertaking, and by the time he had arrived at his destination, his mistress’s active mind had pursued many pleasant mental paths to their utmost limit.
This was the first of the two catholic and comprehensive entertainments that Lady Dysart’s sense of her duty towards her neighbours yearly impelled her to give, and when Charlotte, wearing her company smile, came down the steps of the terrace to meet her hostess, the difficult revelry was at its height. Lady Dysart had cast her nets over a wide expanse, and the result was not encouraging. She stood, tall, dark and majestic, on the terrace, surveying the impracticable row of women that stretched, forlorn of men, along one side of the tennis grounds, much as Cassandra might have scanned the beleaguering hosts from the ramparts of Troy; and as she advanced to meet her latest guest, her strong, clear-eyed face was perplexed and almost tragic.
“How do you do, Miss Mullen?” she said in tones of unconcealed gloom. “Have you ever seen so few men in your life? and there are five and forty women! I cannot imagine where they have all come from, but I know where I wish they would take themselves to, and that is to the bottom of the lake!”
The large intensity of Lady Dysart’s manner gave unintended weight to her most trivial utterance, and had she reflected very deeply before she spoke, it might have occurred to her that this was not a specially fortunate manner of greeting a female guest. But Charlotte understood that nothing personal was intended; she knew that the freedom of Bruff had been given to her, and that she could afford to listen to abuse of the outer world with the composure of one of the inner circle.
“Well, your ladyship,” she said, in the bluff, hearty voice which she felt accorded best with the theory of herself that she had built up in Lady Dysart’s mind, “I’ll head a forlorn hope to the bottom of the lake for you, and welcome; but for the honour of the house, you might give me a cup o’ tay first!”
Charlotte had many tones of voice, according with the many facets of her character, and when she wished to be playful she affected a vigorous brogue, not perhaps being aware that her own accent scarcely admitted of being strengthened.
This refinement of humour was probably wasted on Lady Dysart. She was an Englishwoman, and, as such, was constitutionally unable to discern perfectly the subtle grades of Irish vulgarity. She was aware that many of the ladies on her visiting list were vulgar, but it was their subjects of conversation and their opinions that chiefly brought the fact home to her. Miss Mullen, au fond, was probably no less vulgar than they, but she was never dull, and Lady Dysart would suffer anything rather than dulness. It was less than nothing to her that Charlotte’s mother was reported to have been in her youth a national schoolmistress, and her grandmother a bare-footed country girl. These facts of Miss Mullen’s pedigree were valued topics in Lismoyle, but Lady Dysart’s serene radicalism ignored the inequalities of a lower class, and she welcomed a woman who could talk to her on spiritualism, or books, or indeed on any current topic, with a point and agreeability that made her accent, to English ears, merely the expression of a vigorous individuality. She now laughed in response to her visitor’s jest, but her eye did not cease from roving over the gathering, and her broad brow was still contracted in calculation.
“I never knew the country so bereft of men or so peopled with girls! Even the little Barrington boys are off with the militia, and everyone about has conspired to fill their houses with women, and not only women but dummies!” Her glance lighted on the long bench where sat the more honourable women in midge-bitten dulness. “And there is Kate Gascogne in one of her reveries, not hearing a word that Mrs. Waller is saying to her—”