It was now Mrs. Leigh’s turn to change colour. She grew red, looking astonished in the girl’s despairing face.
“A woman to come and see him, here! But your brother would never insult the house and you—— I am talking nonsense,” she said, suddenly stopping herself, “and misconstruing him altogether. It is some lady who has jilted him—or something of that kind.”
Bee had not understood what Mrs. Leigh’s first idea was, and she did not see any cause for relief in the second.
“I don’t know what she did to him, or what she has done to them all,” the girl said, mournfully. “They are all the same. Papa, even, who does not care very much for ladies, generally—— But Charlie, poor Charlie! Oh, I believe he is in love with her still, though she is twice as old as he is and has almost broken his heart.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Leigh, “this must be something very different to what we thought. We thought he had got into some very dreadful trouble about a—an altogether inferior person. But as it seems to be a lady, and one that is known to the family, and who can be asked to come here—if you can tell me a little more clearly what the story is, I shall be more able to give you my advice.”
Bee looked at her questioner helpless, half distracted, not knowing how to speak, and yet the story must be told. She had written that fatal invitation, and it could not be concealed who this possible visitor was. She began with a great deal of hesitation to talk of the lady whom Charlie had raved about at Oxford, and how he was to work to please her; and how he did not work, but failed in every way, and fled from Oxford; and how her father went to inquire into the story; and how the lady had come to Colonel Kingsward at the hotel, to explain to him, to excuse Charlie, to beg his father to forgive him.
“But, my dear, she can’t be so very bad,” said Mrs. Leigh, soothingly. “You must not judge her hardly; if she thought she had been to blame in the matter, that was really the right thing to do.”
“And since then,” resumed Bee, “I think papa has thought of nobody else; he writes to her and tells her everything. He goes to see her; he forgets about Charlie and all of us; he has taken Betty there, and Betty adores her too. And to-night,” cried Bee, the angry tears coming into her eyes, “she is dining in Portman Square, dining with the Lyons as a great friend of ours—in Portman Square.”
Mrs. Leigh drew Bee to her and gave her a kiss of consolation. I think it was partly that the girl in her misery should not see the smile, which Mrs. Leigh, thinking that she now saw through this not uncommon mystery, could not otherwise conceal.
“My poor child,” she said, “my dear girl! This is hard upon you since you dislike her so much, but I am afraid it is quite natural, and a thing that could not have been guarded against. And then you must consider that your father may probably be a better judge than yourself. I don’t see any harm this lady has done, except that perhaps it is not quite good taste to make herself so agreeable both to the father and son; but perhaps in Charlie’s case that was not her fault. And I see no reason, my dear—really and sincerely as your friend, Bee—why you should be so prejudiced against a poor woman whose only fault is that everybody else likes her. Now isn’t it a little unreasonable when you think of it calmly yourself?”