“Mr Denville is out, I suppose, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, I don’t want to see him, but just you go and ask Miss Claire to see me, and if she says no, you say I must see her. There!”
The result was that Mrs Barclay was shown into the drawing-room, where Claire rose to meet her with cold dignity, and pointed to a chair.
Instead of taking it, Mrs Barclay caught the girl in her arms, and gave her rapidly some half-dozen hearty kisses.
“There, my dear,” she said, “if every bit as I’ve heard was quite true, I should have come all the same; but as I don’t believe one single synnable of the pack o’ lies, I’ve come to see you. There!”
That there came like an expiration of the breath as she plumped herself down, and the next minute Claire was upon her knees, her arms round the wide waist, and her face buried in the extensive bosom, sobbing violently, and relieving herself in tears of the pressure that had been crushing her down ever since the troubles of that terrible night.
“That’s right, my darling: you cry—cry hard. A good cup o’ tea and a good cry’s the greatest blessings o’ Providence for us poor suffering women. No, no: you needn’t put a hankychy between. My Jo-si-ah never stints me in dresses, and you may spoil a dozen of ’em if that’ll do you any good.”
“Mrs Barclay—Mrs Barclay!”
“No, no, no: you’re going to take and try and explain and a lot more of it; but I won’t hear a word. I tell you I don’t believe nothing of what’s about. I said if Miss Claire Denville did this or that, she had good reason, being like the mother of that family, as even manages her poor father, so I don’t want to hear no lying scandal.”