Bee said nothing. Rosy, turning round, saw the strange, half-sad look on Bee's face, and it came back into her mind how unhappy her little friend had been, and how little she had deserved to be so. And in her heart, too, Rosy knew that in reality it was owing to her that Beata had suffered, and a sudden feeling of sorrow rushed over her, and, to Miss Pink's and Bee's astonishment, she burst out,
"You may say what you like of me to mamma, Miss Pink. It is true I have done my lessons well for two days, and it is true I did them badly before. But if you can't tell the truth about Bee, it would be much better for you to say nothing at all."
Miss Pink grew pinker than usual, and she was opening her lips to speak, when Beata interrupted her.
"Don't say anything, Miss Pink," she said. "It's no good. I have said nothing, and—and I'll try to forget—you know what. I don't want there to be any more trouble. It doesn't matter for me. O Rosy dear," she went on entreatingly, "don't say anything more that might make more trouble, and vex your mamma with you, just as your aunt's coming. Oh, don't."
She put her arms round Rosy as if she would have held her back, Rosy only looking half convinced. But in her heart Rosy was very anxious not to be in any trouble when her aunt came. She didn't quite explain to herself why. Some of the reasons were good, and some were not very good. One of the best was, I think, that she didn't want her mother to be more vexed, or to have the fresh vexation of her aunt seeming to think—as she very likely would, if there was any excuse for it—that Rosy was less good under her mother's care than she had been in Miss Vincent's.
Rosy was learning truly to love, and what, for her nature, was almost of more consequence, really to trust her mother, and a feeling of loyalty—if you know what that beautiful word means, dear children,—I hope you do—was beginning for the first time to grow in her cross-grained, suspicious little heart. Then, again, for her own sake, Rosy wished all to be smooth when her aunt and Nelson arrived, which was not a bad feeling, if not a very good or unselfish one. And then, again, she did not want to have any trouble connected with Bee. She knew her Aunt Edith had not liked the idea of Bee coming, and that if she fancied the little stranger was the cause of any worry to her darling she would try to get her sent away. And Rosy did not now at all want Bee to be sent away!
These different feelings were all making themselves heard rather confusedly in her heart, and she hardly knew what to answer to Bee's appeal, when Miss Pink came to the rescue.
"Bee is right, Rosy," she said, her rather dolly-looking face flushing again. "It is much better to leave things. You may trust me to—to speak very kindly of—of you both. And if I was—at all mistaken in what I said of you the other day, Bee—perhaps you had been trying more than I—than I gave you credit for—I'm very sorry. If I can say anything to put it right, I will. But it is very difficult to—to tell things quite correctly sometimes. I had been worried and vexed, and then Mrs. Vincent rather startled me by asking me about you, Rosy, and by something she said about my not managing you well. And—oh, I don't know what we would do, my mother and I, if I lost this nice situation!" she burst out suddenly, forgetting everything else in her distress. "And poor mamma has been so ill lately, I've often scarcely slept all night. I daresay I've been cross sometimes"—and Miss Pink finished up by bursting into tears. Her distress gave the finishing touch to Bee's determination to bear the undeserved blame.
"No, poor Miss Pink," she said, running round to the little governess's side of the table, "I don't think you are cross. I shouldn't mind if you were a little sometimes. And I know we are often troublesome—aren't we, Rosy?" Rosy gave a little grunt, which was a good deal for her, and showed that her feelings, too, were touched. "But just then I had been trying. Aunt Lillias had spoken to us about it, and I did want to please her"—and the unbidden tears rose to Bee's eyes. "Please, Miss Pink, don't think I don't know when I am to blame, but—but you won't speak that way of me another time when I've not been to blame." A sort of smothered sob here came from Miss Pink, as a match to Rosy's grunt. "And please," Bee went on, "don't say anything more about that time to Aunt Lillias. It's done now, and it would only make fresh trouble."
That it would make trouble for her, Miss Pink felt convinced, and she was not very difficult to persuade to take Bee's advice.