But there is another class here into which it is very difficult for a man without position to get, and even there I have met him.”
“And well received?”
“Sometimes I have thought not, and then at other times I have seen him received with such marked attention, with almost more than is usual.”
“Do you know any of his intimate friends?”
“Not one. But I think—at least I have an impression, that they belong to an inferior class. I remember one day in particular—we had been driving in the Bois de Boulogne, and for some reason Robert ordered the coachman to go home through some streets I did not know, and so we passed him. He was standing talking and laughing with two villanous-looking men, and had his hand on the shoulder of one of them—they were evidently low persons.”
“Bertha, you know what I said he had told me about your servant.”
“Yes,” said Bertha, uneasily. “It is not so.”
“It is not what, dear?”
“He said—or hinted—at least, you understood him to say that I was in some way in her—her power. You could not have understood him rightly. It is not so.”
“Whether it is so or not,” said Mrs. Lygon, “and we will speak of that presently—whether it is so or not, that girl is in his power.”
“No, no,” said Bertha, hastily. “It is entirely without foundation—I mean your idea. She is a very good, honourable girl, and much attached to me, because I know her goodness.”
“Bertha,” said Mrs. Lygon, calmly, “I fear we shall not be able to work together. You are deceiving me.”
“How? I deceive you, Laura! What do you mean?”
“You are a bad dissembler, Bertha, and I am glad of it. But you are very false to me now. I know that it is so—why not spare me the pain of proving it to you? I can.”
“I do not understand you in the least,” said Bertha, reddening.
“I suppose that my faculties are sharpened by danger,” replied Mrs. Lygon, still preserving her calmness, “or I might not have noticed the uneasy looks which you have been casting that way,”—and she pointed—“while we have been speaking about him.”
Bertha coloured, painfully, to her very hair.
“There,” said her sister, “there ought to be nothing unkind between us. His spy is concealed in that wardrobe. Call her out.”
Mrs. Urquhart burst into tears, and hid her face in her fair hands. Mrs. Lygon rose, and would have opened one of the wings of the piece of furniture in question, when the other opened, and Henderson stepped out.
She did not say a word upon the subject of her concealment, but, dropping a respectful curtsey to Mrs. Lygon, went over to the toilette-table, took a bottle of perfume, and brought it to her mistress, at the same time giving her a handkerchief, and, in short, tending her in as orderly a manner as if it were in obedience to a regular summons. Having done this, the girl was about to leave the room, when Mrs. Lygon stopped her.
“I wish to speak to you, with your mistress’s permission,” said Laura.
Henderson was all respectful attention.
“In an English village,” said Mrs. Lygon, addressing her in a grave, kind tone, “there live an old couple who gave their daughter an education above her station, because they loved her better than she deserved. They had her taught French, and otherwise made her fit to be a lady’s trusted attendant. They hope, some day, to see her again in their village, and to kiss her as the wife of some good, honest man—perhaps they hope to see her children growing up around them. It will be bad news for the old father, and worse for the old mother, when they hear that their daughter has become a street-walker in France.”
Henderson’s black eyes flashed out with fire at the last words, and her plebeian face became elevated in expression by the manifestation of her genuine indignation.
“It is false, Madame,” she said, passionately.
Mrs. Lygon took her seat, and, sorely constraining her nature, forced her beautiful mouth into a smile of as much contempt as she could manage to assume.
The smile stung the girl to the quick, as it was intended to do.
“It is false,” she repeated, “wickedly false. You may sit there smiling, Madame, but it is false.”
Mrs. Lygon remained silent.
It was the best course, for in a moment or two the girl flung herself upon her knees in a passion of tears.
“You will not go and say that in Brading, Madame. I am sure you will not. For you do not believe it, though you say it. Perhaps it has been told you,” she added, her eyes again flashing through her tears. “You have seen somebody who has told you that, and he is a villain incarnate.”
A throb of pleasure—no, of hope—passed through Mrs. Lygon’s frame, and sent the blood to her forehead. But she retained her self-command.
Henderson continued to sob.
“It is false, false,” she repeated, swaying herself about.
“You had better leave the room,” said Laura. “I have said all that I wish to say to you.”
“Never, Madame,—I swear that I will not go from the room, nor rise from this floor, until you tell me that you will not carry such a story as that with you to England. Say you do not believe it, and indeed you may.”
Mrs. Lygon pointed to the closet whence Henderson had come.
“Yes, yes, Madame—dear Mrs. Lygon—yes, that was bad, wickedly bad in me, and you must despise and loathe me for it, and you are right to do it. But not the other—it is not true. I swear it is not true,” she said, clasping her hands with energy.
Need it be said that the Laura of England would have long since raised the girl from her knees, comforted her for the terrible word, and said what woman should say to woman, wrongfully accused.