The composed and defiant announcement by Mrs. Wroat that she had
adopted Lally Bird as her daughter and heiress, was like a bombshell
flung into the enemy’s camp. Mrs. Blight stood as if turning to stone,
in an utter panic, her eyes glaring upon Mrs. Wroat and upon Lally
alternately, her chest heaving, her face livid. All her fine schemes
of future grandeur became in an instant “airy visions fading into
nothingness.” She beheld herself and her family upon the brink of
insolvency, which this old lady’s fortune might have averted. She was
convulsed with rage and amazement, and with bitter hatred of her young
governess.
What she might have done or said cannot be known, for Peters, desiring
to spare her aged mistress a scene and expected reproaches, pushed the
bank-notes she held into Mrs. Blight’s hand, and taking her by the arm,
gently forced her out into the hall and closed the door upon her.
This last indignity was too much for the disappointed woman. With a
wild shriek, she fled precipitately down the stairs, and burst into
the drawing-room and into her husband’s presence like an incarnate
whirlwind. And here flinging herself into a chair, she gave way to a
burst of hysterics as violent as terrifying.
The first act of Mr. Blight was to deluge his wife with the contents of
a carafe of water which happened to be at hand. Then bending over her
and chafing her hands, he adjured her to tell him what was the matter,
and if the children were all killed.
“You--you beast!” gasped the wife, with the tones and breathing of
a drowning woman. “You’ve ruined my new dress, and it cost fifteen
shillings a yard, if it cost a penny! The dear knows where I am to get
another. I expect to find myself in the union by this time next year,
on account of that treacherous viper that I warmed in my bosom! Oh, my
poor children--my poor ruined lambs!”
“What do you mean, Laura?” demanded her husband impatiently. “Don’t be
a fool, if you can help it, for once. What has happened?”
“Everything has happened!” wailed Mrs. Blight. “We are wretched,
good-for-nothing beggars. The old wretch up stairs has gone and left
all her money to that jade of a governess--”
“Speak sense, if you can. What do you mean, I ask again? How can Aunt
Wroat have ‘gone and left all her money’ to Miss Bird? Is your mind
wandering?”
“No, I wish it was. I’d rather be a wild maniac of Bedlam than what I
am at this moment,” moaned the unhappy lawyer’s wife. “My governess,
Miss Bird, you know, is hob-nobbing with Aunt Wroat; and who do you
think the artful minx has turned out to be? Why, she says she’s the
daughter of Clara Percy, who married a corn-chandler--the very girl
that Aunt Wroat has been looking for for over a year. And Aunt Wroat
has adopted her, and says the girl is to inherit every penny of her
fifty thousand pounds, except money enough to buy you and me each a
penny whistle, or some such thing. And the girl is to have all of Aunt
Wroat’s splendid diamonds. O dear! O dear! What is life but a trial?
Why was I born?”
“But this is infamous!” gasped the lawyer. “It’s preposterous. The
girl’s an impostor. Why didn’t you tell Aunt Wroat so?”
“I did--I did. But she sneered at me--she did, indeed. And here is the
five pounds I advanced the girl, and Aunt Wroat paid it back to me.
And here is twenty pounds for the expenses we’ve been put to on Aunt
Wroat’s account. They made me take it. But what can pay us for our
blighted hopes? The girl ought to be arrested. If I were only a judge
I’d send her to Botany Bay!”
“Serves you right for taking the jade in! And so she’s the daughter
of Clara Percy. I thought her name seemed familiar,” said the lawyer.
“Aunt Wroat was always uttering that name on her visit to us last year.
What fatality!”
“Must we give up in this way?” sobbed Mrs. Blight. “Is there nothing we
can do?”
The lawyer paced the floor excitedly, his features working. Suddenly he
paused before his wife, and said in a whisper:
“Are you sure the girl is honest?”
“As sure as that I am--the treacherous cat!”
“Are you sure, Laura, that she hasn’t stolen something of yours--a
jewel, a bit of lace, or a trinket?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” answered the obtuse Mrs. Blight. “She’s had no chance
to take anything of mine since she came into this house. Ellen’s been
sewing in my bedroom every day from morning till night.”
“Are you sure--”
“You’re worse than the solicitor-general in the Tichborne case, with
that eternal repetition,” snapped Mrs. Blight angrily. “‘Would you
be surprised to hear?’--‘Are you sure?’--I’m not sure of anything,
Charles, except that we are lost, ruined, and undone. Yes, I am sure
that what you’re thinking of can’t be done. I won’t be dragged into
court; I won’t swear to a lie, for I’d be sure to be caught. I won’t
be publicly disgraced in an attempt to ruin the girl. We shouldn’t
deceive Aunt Wroat, and she’d get a keener lawyer than you are to turn
you and me inside out.”
“You needn’t tell all that to the whole house, servants included,”
exclaimed Mr. Blight. “Our game is up, unless this girl is got rid of.
We can turn her out of the house to-night, and that we will do. But,
first of all, we will go up stairs and argue the case with Aunt Wroat.”
“I haven’t told you all,” said Mrs. Blight, still weeping. “Aunt Wroat
is not deaf at all, and heard you call her an old cat, and an old
nuisance.”
“It was you called her so!”
“It was you! Of course, if we are ruined you’ll lay all the blame on
me. Men are all alike, from Adam down. It’s always the woman did it.
The idea of her pretending to be deaf and listening to what we said!
It’ll do no good to go up stairs to talk with Aunt Wroat, but I’ll make
a last effort for the sake of my dear children.”
The well-mated pair went up to the door of Mrs. Wroat’s chamber, and
knocked loudly for admittance. Peters replied to them through the
key-hole:
“My mistress desires to be excused. She can bear no more excitement
to-night. Besides, she is occupied with her niece.”
The lawyer tried the door fiercely: it was locked. Then he stooped,
applying his mouth to the key-hole.
“Tell your mistress,” he said, in a sort of roar, “that that girl is an
impostor, and no more her niece than she’s her grandfather. The girl is
deceiving her--”
He paused discomfited as he heard the old lady hobble away into the
inner room, followed by Lally.
“You’d better go down stairs,” advised Peters, through the medium Mr.
Blight had employed. “May be you don’t know you are laying yourself
liable to a suit for slander.”
“We had better go down,” said the lawyer. “The servants are collecting
on the basement stairs to learn the cause of the hubbub. We’ll see Aunt
Wroat in the morning, and convince her that she’s been taken in by a
clever adventuress, but the girl goes to-night.”
With this resolve the couple returned to the drawing-room, leaving the
door ajar that they might hear Lally’s return to her room. They waited
hours, but they did not hear it. The servants retired to bed, and the
clocks through the house struck twelve, and still Lally did not emerge
from Mrs. Wroat’s room. The Blights crept up again to their visitor’s
door, but silence reigned within.
“The old thing has gone to sleep,” murmured Mrs. Blight. “I can hear
that odious Peters breathing. Perhaps the girl has slipped to her room
so silently that we did not hear her.”
They stole up to the third floor to see. They found Lally’s room empty
and dark.
“They’ve outwitted us,” said Mr. Blight, with an oath. “The girl is
going to sleep with the old woman to-night. By George, I wish the old
creature would die in her sleep. I’d have the girl arrested for her
murder. We may as well go to bed, Laura. We must be up early in the
morning.”
They retired to their room, but we may safely assert that they did not
sleep. They lamented the failure of their plans, accused each other of
ruining their mutual prospects and the prospects of their children,
and arose soon after daybreak, imbittered, angry, and full of rage and
bitterness.
About seven o’clock they heard Lally come forth from Mrs. Wroat’s
chamber and go up to her room. The young governess had slept with her
aged kinswoman, and now, by Mrs. Wroat’s command, was about to pack
her few effects in her box, ready for departure.
Mr. and Mrs. Blight followed Lally to her room, and entered, without
knocking.
The girl was busy, folding her garments, and her round gipsy face was
all aglow, her black eyes had in them a look of hopefulness of late a
stranger to them, and she was altogether changed from the piteously
sorrowful young creature of the day before. Even the love of her
eccentric kinswoman had served to kindle the spark of new hopes and
new interests in Lally’s lonely life. She regarded her visitors with
something of surprise, but received them courteously.
“Good-morning, madam; good-morning, sir,” she said, bowing. “Will you
be seated?”
“Viper! Ingrate!” cried Mrs. Blight theatrically, but with genuine
anger. “I warmed you in my bosom, as it were; I fed you at my table; I
paid you at the rate of twenty pounds a year; and this is the way you
reward me! Serpent! Base serpent!”
“I don’t understand you, madam. What is it I have done?”
“Hear her!” cried Mrs. Blight, her hands uplifted, apostrophizing
the ceiling. “She asks what she has done!” and the lady’s tones grew
hysterical. “She has taken the bread from my children’s mouths! She has
made me a beggar! She has traduced us and lied about us, and now asks
us what she has done!”
“Madam,” said Lally, her black eyes flashing, “I have not traduced you,
nor lied about you.”
“You have repeated to Mrs. Wroat my unguarded remarks about her, made
to you in confidence.”
“Again you are mistaken, madam,” said Lally sternly. “I have not
repeated those remarks. Mrs. Wroat judged you by words she herself
overheard. I have done nothing to injure you, nor is it my fault that
my great-aunt has chosen to exalt me at your expense. Believe me, Mrs.
Blight, if my aunt had not found me, she would not have left her money
to you.”
“Your aunt?” cried the lawyer. “Seems to me you are getting along fast,
young woman. Your aunt, eh? It is my opinion that you are a clever
adventuress, and I deem it my duty to protect my dear aunt from your
evil machinations. Put your things into that trunk. Laura, ring the
hall bell for Buttons.”
Mrs. Blight complied. Buttons made his appearance.
“Take that trunk down to the street, and call a cab,” commanded Mr.
Blight.
The trunk being locked with a spring catch, Buttons shouldered it and
vanished down the stairs.
“Now, Miss,” said the lawyer, with vindictive triumph, “you must be
off. You cannot be allowed to speak again to the infirm old lady
you have persecuted. March down the stairs quietly, or I’ll call a
policeman and accuse you of stealing.”
“Mr. Blight--”
“Not a word, Miss. On with your bonnet and shawl, and depart. One word
to arouse Mrs. Wroat, and I’ll have you dragged off to jail.”
The color went in and out of the girl’s cheeks, and she was frightened
and confused. Her situation seemed to her indeed terrible. Peters had
confided to her during the previous night, while Mrs. Wroat slept, that
the old lady, in addition to her pulmonary disease, had an affection
of the heart, and her physician had declared that she must not be
unnecessarily excited, for excitement might prove dangerous to her. The
excitement of finding her great-niece for whom she had so long sought
had been almost too much for her, and Lally feared to disturb her
further.
“You need not lay your hands upon me, Mr. Blight,” said the young girl,
drawing herself away from his touch. “I will go from your house, as you
command--but don’t touch me!”
She hastened down the stairs, followed by her late employers, and
paused for a second in the lower hall with her gaze fixed upon Mrs.
Wroat’s door. But the door did not open, and she went on and came into
the yard. The garden door was open, and a cab stood in front of it,
Lally’s box already mounted upon its roof.
“Where shall I tell the cabby to go, Miss?” asked the lawyer, ushering
Lally into the street, and laying hold of the cab door. “Get in,” he
added fiercely, in an under tone, “or I’ll send for a policeman!”
Lally climbed into the cab, not answering. “To the railway station,”
said the lawyer, closing the door softly.
The cab rolled down the street. The Blights, triumphant, reentered
their villa.
“I’ll make it right with the old woman,” muttered the lawyer, rubbing
his hands. “I’ll tell her the girl has run off, after acknowledging
that she was an impostor, and that her real name is Jones. Come in,
Laura. We’re not quite ruined yet.”
If he was not quite ruined, he was certainly nearer ruin than he
thought. Astute as he believed himself, he had not quite understood the
young lady with whom he had to deal. Lally had not gone a block down
the street, when she lowered the front window of the cab, and quietly
touched the driver’s arm.
“We’ll go back to Sandy Lands,” she said, in a tone of command. “I have
no money with me.”
“Forgot your purse, hey?” said the driver. “All right, Miss.”
He turned and drove back.
Lally commanded him to halt in the middle of the road, in full view
of the front windows of the villa. The parlor of Mrs. Wroat faced
the street. The inside blinds were raised, and Lally gazed up at the
windows expectantly.
“Could you throw a pebble to hit those upper windows, driver?” she
asked, of the puzzled cabman.
“Doubtful, Miss. Might break the glass, and have a big bill to pay. Is
there somebody up stairs there you want to call?”
Lally nodded.
The cabman glanced up and down the street; there was no policeman to
be seen; and he then gave utterance to such a yell as brought to the
window not only Mrs. Wroat and Peters, but Mr. and Mrs. Blight at the
drawing-room windows.
Mrs. Wroat at the upper window saw Lally, the cab, and the box upon it,
and comprehended what had occurred. Peters threw up the sash.
“Wait a minute, cabby,” said the old lady, leaning from the window, and
speaking shrilly. “There’s two more of us, and a parrot and a dog and
plenty of luggage. I’ll give you double fare, cabby--wait!”
She disappeared, just as the lawyer bounded out of the house to order
the cabman away. That worthy, obeying Lally’s command, stood his
ground, and offered to fight the lawyer if he received “any more of
his sarce.” Mr. Blight retreated with his wife, and hurried up to Mrs.
Wroat’s chambers. He met her hobbling out of her room leaning upon
the arm of the faithful Peters, who was laden with the parrot’s cage,
the bandbox and umbrella, and was followed by the dog. This latter
immediately conceived a desire to nip the lawyer’s legs, and Mr. Blight
was obliged to keep up a very undignified dance to avoid him, while he
addressed the old lady in terms of expostulation and entreaty, heaping
vituperations upon Lally.
“Send my trunks down, and be lively,” said Mrs. Wroat, paying no heed
to his words. “Don’t act like a Dancing Jack, or your friends will put
you in Bedlam, Blight. Come, Peters, Mr. Blight has kindly ordered a
cab for us, and we must be off. If we’re lively, we can catch the up
express.”
She brushed past the Blights, husband and wife, the latter weeping and
pleading, and descended into the yard. The cabman was induced to go up
after her baggage, the exhibition of a half-crown lending him wonderful
strength and alacrity, and the cab was soon piled high with luggage.
Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters took their places inside, the driver
mounted, and just then the Blights, resolved upon a last despairing
effort to gain the fleeting fifty thousand pounds, came out to the
garden door.
Mrs. Wroat bowed to them mockingly, and said as she waved her hand,
with glowing exultation, her eyes snapping:
“Good-bye, Mr. and Mrs. Blight. My daughter and I will breakfast at the
station, and dine at our house in town. My Blighted friends, if you are
ever in need, write to my heiress, and I dare say she will send you a
half-crown. Driver, to the railway station.”
The cab with its occupants rolled away in triumph.