But not so the Laura of France. She had her own to hold against a deadly enemy.
“Do you think,” she said, coldly, “that the word of a bad servant girl is to be taken against the word of a gentleman?”
Fire to powder. The girl sprang to her feet, clenched her hands, and was impotent to speak, through the potency of her rage.
Mrs. Lygon eyed her with a stern satisfaction. As for Bertha, she merely sat with her handkerchief to her face. It was one of the situations in which very weak people are simply out of court.
“The word of a gentleman,” repeated Henderson, as soon as she could find utterance. “The word of a gentleman. No, Mrs. Lygon, he may wear fine clothes and go among fine people, as Madame has said” (she was far too frantically in earnest to think of affecting hesitation to use what she had heard) “but he is not a gentleman, and you gave him his rightful name when you called him by the blackest name you could put your tongue to. And yet you would believe him sooner than me because he is called a gentleman by those who do not know him. No, you will not, Mrs. Lygon, I know you will not!”
Henderson, thoroughly roused, came over to Mrs. Lygon, and again fell on her knees beside Laura’s chair—actually ventured lightly to touch her hand. Had Laura played out her part thoroughly, she would have snatched away her hand as from contamination, but she did not do it, and the girl uttered a cry of triumph.
“Ah! you don’t believe it—you do not, Madame, or you would not have let me do that; and if you ought to have believed it, never would I have dared. God bless you, Mrs. Lygon! God bless you! though it is not for me to say such a word.”
And then came more tears.
“Mary Henderson,” said Mrs. Lygon, and then the impetuous girl interrupted her, rising, however, and retreating to a decorous distance.
“Thank you, Madame, for letting me hear my own rightful name again. My name is Mary, and it was a bad time when I was fool enough to change it.”
“Listen, then, Mary. You assure me, on the solemn word of a girl of character, that there is no ground for my believing you worse than you have shown yourself to-day?”
The girl clasped her hands together, and assented with a vehement oath, which, it being in the nature of an ordeal, might perhaps be pardoned, but need not be set down.
“I shall return to England almost immediately, and I shall visit Brading soon after. I should have been glad to carry back an account of you which would make the hearts of your parents rejoice. But that you have made impossible.”
“But I will make it possible, Madame,” cried Henderson, eagerly. “If you will let me, Madame, I will make it quite possible,—I mean if you will graciously let bye-gones be bye-gones. I know it is a bold thing to ask; but when a girl has been called a dreadful name—and I know, Madame, that it was put into your mouth, and let him that put it there look well to his comings and goings—”
Mrs. Lygon held up a finger.
“I beg your pardon, Madame,” said Henderson, humbly, “for my low and dirty action. That is its right name.”
“It is of your mistress that you should ask pardon,” said Mrs. Lygon, watching earnestly the effect of the words, and pained, though not surprised, to see that the idea of Bertha’s displeasure did not seem to impress the mind of her servant.
“And I do so, I’m sure,” said Mary Henderson, but far less submissively than Mrs. Lygon deemed proper.
“I do not wish to hear anything,” said Bertha, overcome by the whole scene, and helplessly shaking her handkerchief, as if to wave away all appeal.
“And as I say, Madame,” continued Henderson, again addressing herself to Mrs. Lygon, “if bye-gones might be bye-gones, and never shall they be repeated by me, and you would let me make amends, I can do something, and may be more than a little, in bringing to you some knowledge which you wish to have.”
“What kind of knowledge?” asked Mrs. Lygon, quietly.
“Ah! yes, Madame. That is indeed like a lady—that is truly good in you to take me at my word, and let byegones be byegones at once, and forget what I was doing just now. But it is me that must remember them against myself,” said the girl, with a more softened expression of face than her features had seemed capable of wearing. “I won’t say more than becomes me, but you ladies wish to know something about a man whom you hate, as I was going to say, but that I ought not to say to ladies. But I hate him,” she added, with a look that left no doubt of her meaning, “and if I can do anything to bring a house upon his head, down it comes. And if I may not do it on account of others, I will do it on my own.”
“I cannot say that your anger is wrong, Mary,” said Mrs. Lygon.
“Indeed it is not, Madame,” returned the girl, “and when I think what might have been the consequences, if you had gone back to England believing that wicked lie”—
[Which, it will be remembered, Ernest Adair had never uttered.]
“I could drive my nails into my hands, Madame. But I will have my revenge for my good name.”
“I can hear nothing about your revenge, Mary. Try to live so that all who know you may discredit anything that may be said against you.”
“And I will, Madame. But I will have my revenge first, begging your pardon for naming it again.”
“Well, now, Mary, suppose you go down stairs. I shall have something to say to you presently, but I must first have some conversation with your mistress.”
“Certainly, Madame.”
And Mary withdrew, with a look which, while directed towards Laura, was chiefly expressive of a sort of grim gratitude, but which, as the girl