“Lord ha’ mercy! You don’t go for to say it,” she exclaimed at last, “that you are a lost woman already, and you a mere chit of a girl? Why did Madam Siddons take me in vilely?—though it might have been looked for from a play-actress. What company for Master Charles to have been tricked into!”
Lady Bell sprang to her feet.
“Miss Kingscote, you are not thinking of what you are saying, else you would not dare to speak—you would not have the heart to speak such cruel words; yes, they are cruel, cruel,” she cried again, and sobbed in her pain and distress. “Have you no pity on a poor girl’s misery, which she was confiding to you solely to re-assure you and guard you against a foolish fancy which was troubling your peace? You have been poor yourself, and put upon by a wicked uncle, as you’ve often told me, and I thought you were good-natured and kind-hearted, but you are as bad to me as the rest. I am as good a woman as you are, Miss Kingscote. I defy my worst enemy to prove me otherwise. I shall rid you of my presence this very night. Yes, I shall sooner face the howling, dark night, and go on foot to Lumley, weak girl that I am, than stay and receive another hour’s shelter from a woman who suspects me of being the basest of my kind.”
“Hoity-toity,” muttered Miss Kingscote, fanning herself, in her agitation, with a bunch of peacock’s feathers, which she had snatched from the chimney-piece.
“But I must free Mrs. Siddons from your aspersions,” said Lady Bell more calmly, “she knew nothing of what I have told you, madam; she never sought to know. Her natural nobility and candour believed in me and trusted in me from the moment that we chanced to travel together. That was the beginning and end of our acquaintance.”
“Ay, like draws to like,” commented Miss Kingscote, with a smothered groan, for she was cowardly as well as slow, and Lady Bell’s combined volubility and fire swept away and consumed Miss Kingscote’s halting indignation.
“I can guess,” continued Lady Bell, paying no heed to the interruption, “that she told you as much—that she had not been acquainted with my friends; that she had taken me on credit, and had not been disappointed in me, an orphan striving to earn her bread.”
Lady Bell had raged on without interruption, till the flame was spent.
“What’s all this to do, miss?” questioned Miss Kingscote. “Do you expect me to be mightily pleased with your queer story? Bless the girl! even if it were true, it wants looking into, that it do; wait till Master Charles comes back.”
In reality Miss Kingscote’s forces were already beginning to hang fire. Her dense stupidity and softness of temper, however goaded, were not equal to the occasion.