'Compose yourself, for goodness' sake, Miss Palmer, or you will make me ill. You agitate me, and before my footman, too. Pray, miss, be quiet.'
But poor Bryda had lost all self-control, and crying aloud 'Spare me,' she left the parlour.
But her fate pursued her, for Sam opened the door to Mrs Henderson, who came hastily in, brushing past Sam, and saying, as Bryda was hastening upstairs,—
'Stop, Bryda Palmer. Let me at least tell you what I think of you, you minx. To draw my poor son into a mess like this, to ruin his prospects, to turn him into a hunted felon—he who never so much as hurt a worm, he who is my eldest son, like to make his fortune, come in for his uncle's business and his money. Oh, did I not warn him that you were a good-for-nothing hussy, thinking yourself clever, and a wit, and a poetess. Yes, you may well cry and moan.'
'My good woman,' said Mr Lambert, now coming into the hall, 'I can't have any brawling here. You must be so good as to leave the house. My mother is not fit for any agitating scene. Come now, why rage at poor Miss Palmer? Pretty girls like her are sure to get suitors and set them by the ears. I daresay you did the same in your day, may do it now you are a fair widow—eh?'
This soothing flattery had the desired effect. Mrs Henderson calmed down, and the torrent of her abuse was stemmed. Then the mother's love asserted itself, and she said, in a tone of real sorrow,—
'But if I have lost Jack, my fine, handsome boy, no one can give him back to me, and I was so proud of him. But I won't stay here. Why should I?' and then Mrs Henderson, covering her face with her handkerchief was gone.
Bryda felt as if the last straw had been laid on her heavy burden, the last drop in the bitter cup. She went to her room and lay down on her bed, worn out with misery. Should she go home? Was it kind to leave Betty with all this trouble alone, with no one to sympathise? And yet how she dreaded her aunt's tongue and the neighbours' gossip—and how she dreaded to see the Squire's face, the face that haunted her night and day, lying on the road, with the hailstones dancing on it unheeded.
Perhaps, happily for Bryda, she was left no choice in the matter. When she went back to the parlour it was time for tea, of which she was sharply reminded.
Bryda went about the preparations as usual, washed the silver left from dinner, which no one but herself was ever allowed to touch, and listened in dumb patience to Mrs Lambert's tirade against the world in general and herself in particular.