Mrs. Bond’s face turned rather defiant. “You told me to come down for it, ma’am.”
“I thought I could have given it to you. I am very sorry. I must trouble you to come when Mr. George Godolphin shall have returned home.”
“Is he going to return?” asked Mrs. Bond in a quick, hard tone. “Folks is saying that he isn’t.”
Maria’s heart beat painfully at the words. Was he going to return? She could only say aloud that she hoped he would very soon be home.
“But I want my money,” resumed Mrs. Bond, standing her ground. “I must have it, ma’am, if you please.”
“I have not got it,” said Maria. “The very instant I have it, it shall be returned to you.”
“I’d make bold to ask, ma’am, what right you had to spend it? Warn’t there enough money in the Bank of other folks’s as you might have took, without taking mine—which you had promised to keep faithful for me?” reiterated Mrs. Bond, warming with her subject. “I warn’t a deposit in the Bank, as them folks was, and I’d no right to have my money took. I want to pay my rent to-day, and to get in a bit o’ food. The house is bare of everything. There’s the parrot screeching out for seed.”
It is of no use to pursue the interview. Mrs. Bond grew bolder and more abusive. But for having partaken rather freely of that cordial which was giving out its scent upon the atmosphere, she had never so spoken to her clergyman’s daughter. Maria received it meekly, her heart aching: she felt very much as did Thomas Godolphin—that she had earned the reproaches. But endurance has its limits: she began to feel really ill; and she saw, besides, that Mrs. Bond appeared to have no intention of departing. Escaping out of the room in the midst of a fiery speech, she encountered Pierce, who was crossing the hall.
“Go into the dining-room, Pierce,” she whispered, “and try to get rid of Mrs. Bond. She is not quite herself this morning, and—and—she talks too much. But be kind and civil to her, Pierce: let there be no disturbance.”
Her pale face, as she spoke, was lifted to the butler almost pleadingly. He thought how wan and ill his mistress looked. “I’ll manage it, ma’am,” he said, turning to the dining-room.