CHAPTER VII.
HOW LALLY TOOK HER DEPARTURE.
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.