“Oh, Mrs. Leigh!” Bee cried. The situation was so intolerable, the passion of injury and misconception so strong in her that she could only gasp in insupportable anger and dismay.
“Bee! Bee! this feeling is natural but you must not let it carry you away. Have you seen her? Let me come in when she is here and give my opinion.”
“I have seen her three times,” said Bee, solemnly, “once at the Baths, and once at the Academy, and once at Oxford;” and then once more excitement mastered the girl. “Oh, when you know who she is! Don’t smile, don’t smile, but listen! She is Miss Lance.”
“Miss Lance!” Mrs. Leigh repeated the name with surprise, looking into Bee’s face. “You must compose yourself,” she said, “you must compose yourself. Miss——? My dear, you have got over excited, you have mixed things up.”
“No, I am not over-excited! I am telling you only the truth. It is Miss Lance, and they all believe in her as if she were an angel, and she is coming here.”
Mrs. Leigh was very much startled, but yet she would not believe her ears. She had heard Charlie delirious in his fever not so long ago. Her mind gave a little leap to the alarming thought that there might be madness in the family, and that Bee had been seized like her brother. That what she said was actual fact seemed to her too impossible to be true. She soothed the excited girl with all her power. “Whoever it is, my dear, you shall not take any harm. There is nothing to be frightened about. I will take care of you, whoever it is.”
“I do not think you believe me,” said Bee. “I am not out of my mind, as you think. It is Miss Lance—Miss Laura Lance—the same, the very same, that—and I have written, and she will be coming here.”
“This is very strange,” said Mrs. Leigh. “It does not seem possible to believe it. The same—who came between Aubrey and you? Oh, I never meant to name him, I was never to name him; but how can I help it? Laura, who was the trouble of his house—who would not leave him—who went to your father? And now your father! I cannot understand it. I cannot believe that it is true.”
“It is true,” said Bee. “But, Mrs. Leigh, you forget that no one cared then, except myself; they have forgotten all that now, they have forgotten what happened. It was only my business, it was not their business. All that has gone from papa; he remembers nothing about it. And she is a witch, she is a magician, she is a devil—oh, please forgive me, forgive me—I don’t know what I am saying. It has all been growing, one thing after another—first me—and then Charlie—and then papa—and then Betty. And now, after bringing him almost to death and destruction, here is Charlie, in this house, calling for her, raging with me till I wrote to call her—me!” cried Bee, with a sort of indignant eloquence. “Me! Could it go further than that? Could anything be more than that? Me!—and in this house.”
“My dear child,” said Mrs. Leigh, “I don’t wonder, I don’t wonder—it is like something in a tragedy. Oh, Bee! Forgive me for what is first in my thoughts. Was she the reason, the only reason, for your breach with my poor Aubrey? For at first you stood by him—and then you turned upon him.”