Mrs. Lygon looked at her even more piercingly than Henderson had done.
“Did Mr. Urquhart himself order you away?” Laura said, turning to the girl.
“Yes, m’m,” she replied, compressing her lips.
“When?”
“This morning, I told you,” interposed Bertha.
“As soon as M. Adair had left the house,” added Henderson.
Laura started—turned deadly pale—and gazed on Bertha without speaking. A pause, and then a thought sent the blood to Mrs. Lygon’s face, and it was almost breathlessly that she asked—
“Whom did M. Adair see?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart, m’m.”
Once more, pale as a marble statue, and as motionless, Laura sat gazing intently upon Bertha.
Neither spoke, but Bertha made convulsive movements with her hands, and gave other evidence that she was fearfully ill at ease.
Laura continued to gaze upon her sister. But the eyes of the latter were averted, and it needed a subtler interpreter than the girl to say what was denoted by that rigid expression on Mrs. Lygon’s beautiful features.
Henderson could bear the suspense no longer.
“I know I ought not to speak until I am spoken to, m’m,” she said, “but those who are at all, ought to be trusted altogether, and though I ought not to give my opinion,” she added, (again using the curious plea by which the inferior classes conceive that they have excused themselves for doing wrong—the avowal of a full knowledge that they know they are not doing right), “between two ladies who are sisters there ought to be no secrets.”
“Henderson,” said Mrs. Lygon, suddenly arousing, “it is not for you to say anything to me which your mistress has not ordered you to say. Remember that.”
“Begging your pardon, m’m, a hundred times, and a thousand at the back of that, if needful, what you say is quite right, and it is a liberty in me to say whether it is right or wrong. But Mrs. Urquhart is not my mistress now, being, as I am, discharged—”
“Mrs. Urquhart is my sister, Henderson,” said Mrs. Lygon, firmly.
“Then let her behave as a sister,” burst out Henderson, breaking through all propriety, and forgetting even her respect for Mrs. Lygon, in the resolve to make a revelation. “Things have happened in our house which you ought to know, m’m, and out of it also.”
Mrs. Lygon rose, and pointed to the door, but the gesture had not its effect.
“And I could run out at that door, and hide my head, m’m, for presuming to speak in such a way, but I feel that I must speak, and I will . Mr. Adair has been in prison, m’m, and master found Mrs. Urquhart in the prison too, and how they have worked upon master I don’t know; but if you’ll take my opinion, the lady that left our house because she was too proud to say that she had a right to stay in it, that lady has been given up to save her sister who won’t even tell her the truth.”
“If we are ever to speak again in this world, Henderson,” said Mrs. Lygon, when the impetuous rush of words ceased, and the girl stood with swelling nostril, yet with eyes ready to run over with tears, “you will instantly ask pardon of Mrs. Urquhart, and of myself, for your having dared to speak as you have done.”
Down, actually on her knees, fell once more the excitable Henderson, and poured out apology, thick and fast, but, (with the pertinacity of her nature,) interwoven and interlaced with her petition for forgiveness, reiterations of the story she had been telling so volubly. There was no escaping from her assurances that Mrs. Lygon had been wronged, or from her prayers to be pardoned for having revealed the wrong; and in the most effectual way she forced her narrative, over and over again, upon the ears of her to whom she seemed to be suing for grace. And when she was almost silenced, Laura knew far more than had passed the lips of the girl.
“Go down-stairs,” said Laura, still preserving her calmness.
“This moment, m’m,” said Henderson, springing to her feet; “and now, m’m, never heed me, or what is going to happen to me and mine, for that’s of no account now. Do justice to yourself, m’m, for the dear love of those who are left behind you in England—do that, m’m,” cried the girl, tearing open the door, and rather plunging from the room than leaving it.
Mrs. Lygon secured the door.
“Now, Bertha, the truth?”
“O, don’t torment me; don’t, don’t,” said the miserable Bertha, wringing her hands, and writhing on her chair.
“Have done with that folly,” returned her sister, almost sternly. “It will not avail you here, to-day. Tell me what you have done, or permitted to be done, with my name and fame.”
“I cannot tell you—you have heard from her—Robert believes that you are not—not good.”
“He believed that when he took my hand from yours, and I, your sister, from sisterly love bore that we should change places, that I should be led away from you for fear I should dishonour you by my touch. I bore that—and now I would know how you have repaid me.”
“What could I do?”
“I ask you what you have done? Did you go to the prison and meet this man?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He sent for me,” gasped Bertha, “at least I thought it was better that I should go.”
“Better than what?”
“Better than you.”
“He sent for me, then? Ah!—I can have the truth by a word to her; but do not you humiliate yourself any more. But I will have the truth.”
“Yes, he sent for you, and I went, and Robert found me there.”
“And you had to give a reason for being in that man’s company in a prison, and you said—”
Bertha was silent, but weeping hysterically.
Her sister took her hands from her face, as one might deal with a rebellious child.
