CHAPTER VIII.
LALLY’S NEW EXISTENCE.
After their triumphant departure from Sandy Lands, and from the presence of the utterly discomfited Mr. and Mrs. Blight, Mrs. Wroat, accompanied by Lally, and attended by the faithful Peters, proceeded without molestation to the Canterbury railway station. The up express was due in some ten minutes, and Mrs. Peters found opportunity to send a telegraphic message to Mrs. Wroat’s housekeeper in town announcing the immediate return of her mistress with a young lady guest, and ordering that suitable preparations be made for their reception.
This duty had scarcely been fulfilled, when the train came puffing into the station, and the party took their seats in a first-class coach, securing a compartment to themselves.
On alighting at the London station Peters procured a cab.
“This is my last journey, Peters,” sighed Mrs. Wroat, leaning back her head, as the cab rolled out of the station and into the streets. “My traveling days end here!”
“So you always say, ma’am,” said Peters cheerfully. “But you’ve no call to travel any more. You’ve found what you’ve been searching for so long,” and she glanced at Lally. “You should stay at home now and take comfort.”
“The end is near!” sighed the old lady—“very near!”
Peters and Lally looked at the old lady with a sudden keenness of vision. Her hooked nose and pointed chin seemed sharper than usual. Her black eyes were more piercing and lustrous than was their wont; her features were pinched; and over all her face was spread an ominous gray pallor that told to the experienced eyes of Peters that the diseased heart was not properly performing its functions.
Peters turned and looked from the window with tears in her eyes. Her heart echoed those sad words: “The end is near!”
In due time the cab came to a halt in Mount street, Grosvenor Square, before the stately and somewhat old-fashioned mansion which had been the home of Mrs. Wroat for more than half a century. It was a double house, with parlors on either side of a wide hall, and was built of brick with stone copings and lintels, and possessed a pretentious flight of steps guarded by stone lions, and a great oriel window projecting from the drawing-room.
The front door of this house opened as the cab drew up, and a footman and a boy came down the steps and assisted their aged mistress to alight and enter the house. Lally and Peters came after, and Mrs. Wroat was taken to her own room, one of the rear parlors on the first floor, which she had appropriated twenty years before as her bed-chamber.
Out of doors the September air was mild, but in this room of Mrs. Wroat a sea-coal fire was burning in the grate, and its genial heat in that great house was not unpleasant. A crimson carpet covered the floor; crimson damask curtains half draped the wide windows that looked out upon a small square garden; and crimson-hued easy chairs and couches were scattered about the room in profusion.
Mrs. Wroat sank down upon one of the couches, and Peters bent over her, removing her huge scuttle-shaped bonnet and her Indian shawl. The footman and the boy were bringing in the luggage. Lally stood apart, not knowing what to do, when the housekeeper, an elderly, plain-featured Scottish woman, appeared. Mrs. Wroat beckoned the woman to come nearer to her.
“Mrs. Dougal,” she said, in a clear, loud voice, and looking affectionately at the slender, black-robed figure of Lally, “I have brought home with me my great-niece, Miss Lalla Bird, who is also my adopted daughter and heiress. I desire you to consider her as your future mistress.”
Mrs. Dougal bowed low to the young lady, and Mrs. Wroat continued:
“Let the best room in the house be prepared for her use, Mrs. Dougal—the amber room. Ah, it is ready! Show Miss Bird to it then, and see that her trunk is sent up to her. And have luncheon ready for us in half an hour or less, Mrs. Dougal. We are nearly famished.”
The housekeeper again bowed, and conducted Lally into the hall and up the broad stairs to a front chamber, one of the state apartments of the house. Here, soon after, she left the young girl to renovate her toilet, going again to her aged mistress.
“This is a wonderful change for me!” murmured Lally. “I must be dreaming. So lately I slept in a barn with tramps and thieves, glad of even that shelter, and now I am housed in a palace. I am afraid I shall wake up presently to find myself in the barn. Ah, I never even dreamed of such magnificence!”
She examined her surroundings with the delighted curiosity of a child. There was a fire behind the silvered bars of the low, wide grate, and its red gleams streamed out over the rich blue velvet carpet with its bordering of amber arabesques on a blue ground, and one long red spike of dancing light fell upon the amber silk curtains of the low canopied bedstead. The square pillows were covered with the daintiest of linen, frilled with real lace. The coverlet was of amber satin, embroidered with a great medallion in blue silk. The curtains were of amber satin, with blue fringe, over white lace drapery, and the couches and chairs were upholstered in amber relieved with blue.
Lally observed two doors at one side of the room, and crossing the floor softly, she opened them successively. The first door opened upon a large and handsomely fitted bath-room, with marble basin and marble floor, half covered by a Turkish rug. The other door opened into a beautiful little dressing-room, furnished to match the bed-chamber. A massive armoire of carved ebony, with doors formed of plate-glass mirrors, completely covered one side of the wall, and a long swing mirror, framed in ebony, stood opposite. A gasolier depended from the middle of the ornate ceiling, and in three of the globes a mellow light was burning.
“It is like fairy-land!” thought the girl. “All this for me—for me! I can hardly believe it.”
There were ivory-handled brushes on the low dressing bureau, and Lally handled them carefully, almost afraid to use them. Her poor garments seemed out of place in these beautiful rooms, but she had no better dress, and with a smothered sigh she bathed her face and hands in the bath-room, and brushed her hair and dress in the dressing-room. She tied anew the bow in her hair and her black sash, and her toilet was complete. She gave a last look to her new quarters, and hastened down stairs to the chamber of her benefactress.
She found Mrs. Wroat comfortably ensconced in an easy chair by her fire. The parrot’s cage swung by a stout silver chain from the ceiling; the ugly little dog lay dozing upon a cushion near the fender; and a general atmosphere of delicious warmth and coziness prevailed.
“Come here, my dear, and kiss me,” said Mrs. Wroat, not looking around, but recognizing Lally’s step.
The girl obeyed, and sat down upon a stool at the old lady’s feet. Mrs. Wroat smiled upon her and talked to her, and when Peters came in, announcing that luncheon waited, Lally and her great-aunt were in the midst of a confidential talk, and their friendship had already deepened into a mutual affection.
Luncheon was served in the dining-room, across the hall from Mrs. Wroat’s chamber. The windows of the dining-room opened into a small conservatory overlooking the garden, and the room itself, lofty and handsome, seemed to Lally the realization of one of her long-ago girlish dreams. Mrs. Wroat sat at one end of the oval table, Peters at the other, and Lally took a place at one side. The footman waited at table, but was soon dismissed, and the three were left to themselves and the enjoyment of the dainties plentifully displayed before them.
After the luncheon, Peters assisted her aged mistress back to her own room, Lally lending an arm to the support of the old lady.
“Ring the bell, Peters,” said Mrs. Wroat, as she again ensconced herself in her favorite chair. “But stay! Bring me my little desk. I want to write a note.”
Peters brought a portable malachite writing-desk, and placed it upon a table before her mistress. Mrs. Wroat, with an unsteady hand, penned a brief note to her lawyer, demanding his immediate attendance upon her, upon a matter of the utmost moment.
“Read it, Peters,” she said, when she had appended her name and the date. “It must be sent immediately. I feel, somehow, as if I had no time to waste. Let the footman take the letter to Mr. Harris and wait for an answer.”
Peters read and sealed the missive, removed the desk and went out upon her errand.
Some two hours later, Mr. Harris, Mrs. Wroat’s lawyer, arrived and was shown into the old lady’s presence. He was an old man, sharp-witted, business-like, and reticent, but honest, kindly, and devoted to the interests of his client, whose personal friend he had been for over a third of a century.
Mrs. Wroat welcomed him with outstretched hands and exclaimed:
“My friend, I have a surprise for you. You have sought, at my request, for my great-niece, Lally Bird, and failed to find her, even with a detective officer to assist you. I am neither lawyer nor detective, but I am more clever than you both. I have found my niece, and here she is. Lally, come nearer. Mr. Harris, this is Lally Bird, the daughter of my niece Clara Percy.”
Lally bowed. Mr. Harris stared at the girl in surprise.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wroat,” he exclaimed, “but your great-niece, Lally Bird, is dead. Our detective discovered the facts some weeks ago, but I feared to communicate them in your present state of health. I cannot, however, permit you to be imposed upon by a possible adventuress. Miss Lally Bird committed suicide last July. She sprang from London Bridge, and struck upon a passing boat, killing her instantly. I have a newspaper in my pocket—”
“Never mind your paper,” interrupted Mrs. Wroat vivaciously. “Look at the girl. Has she not my black eyes? Can you not remember when I had hair like hers, and that dear olive skin? You are too suspicious, my friend. Where do you suppose I found her? Why, down at Blight’s, at Canterbury. She was governess to the Blight children. Now sit down, and I’ll tell you the whole story. Stay, I am tired, and Lally will tell it. Question her, and be convinced of the truth of my assertions. Sit down, Lally, dear, and tell Mr. Harris all about yourself.”
Lally sat down near her great-aunt. She was a little frightened under the searching gaze of the lawyer, but her clear honest eyes met his unflinchingly, and he read in the sad and innocent face how deeply he had wronged her in deeming her a “possible adventuress.” He asked her a few questions in a quiet, careless manner, referring to a note-book which he produced and then his professional spirit stirring itself, he cross-questioned her as if she had been a witness in court whose evidence he was trying to shake, and upon whose impeachment the success of his cause depended.
He asked her her name, age, and date of her birth, and applied the same questions in regard to each of her deceased parents. He demanded where she had been educated, how she had maintained herself after her father’s death, and finally said, in a tone that betrayed how important the question and its answer was to the establishment of the girl’s claims:
“I have discovered—Miss Bird—assuming that you are Miss Bird—that you left your situation as music-teacher, or, to be more exact, that the school in which you were engaged closed, and you were thrown out of a situation, in the spring of this year. Where did you spend the months that passed between last May and this present month of September? And how, I may as well ask here, did your handkerchief happen to be found upon the water at the precise moment when that poor girl who was drowned, and who was supposed to be Lally Bird, was picked up?”
Lally blushed and paled, and looked appealingly at Mrs. Wroat. The old lady stroked the girl’s black hair softly, and said:
“Mr. Harris, you have touched upon a point of which I, as well as my niece, would have preferred not to speak. But you are my personal friend, and the confidence will be safe with you. Lally, tell Mr. Harris your story.”
Thus adjured, Lally, with much embarrassment, told her story with a quiet truthfulness that carried conviction to the mind of the lawyer; after which, at a sign from Mrs. Wroat, Lally withdrew with the maid, who soon returned alone.
“Now,” said the old lady briskly, “I want to come to business. Mr. Harris, I desire to make my will. Have you the necessary form with you? I want a will as strong as a will can be made, for the Blights may choose to question its validity, on the ground that I am infirm, or something of the sort. Peters, wheel up the writing-table.”
The maid obeyed. Mr. Harris drew from his pocket a large note-case, from which he extracted a document, which he silently handed to his aged client.
“Ah,” she said, “it is my will, which I requested you, months ago, to draw up, without date or names, ready for signature when I should be ready to sign it. It begins by declaring that I am of sound mind—ah, yes, that is all right. The property is enumerated, and the legacy to Peters is down. I must have the annuity to her, to be paid out of the estate, doubled.”
She read the document carefully and slowly, weighing every word and sentence. When she had finished, she gave it back into her lawyer’s hand.
“Write in the name of the legatee, Mr. Harris. ‘I give and bequeath all my real estate, bank-stock, consols and personal property to my great-niece Lalla Bird.’ Make it plain and strong, so that no one but Lally can get my money. I want the property settled upon her. She may marry some day, if her first marriage was no marriage at all. I’ll discuss that first marriage with you at some future time, for I want to know whether the child is bound or not. But no husband must have power to squander Lally’s money.”
Mr. Harris did as he was directed, making out the will to the perfect satisfaction of Mrs. Wroat. Peters, at the command of her mistress, called up the household, and in the presence of the housekeeper, the house-maid, the cook and the footman, Mrs. Wroat signed the will. The domestics appended their signatures as witnesses, and were then dismissed; Lally was called back to her great-aunt, and soon after the lawyer took his leave.
The next day Mrs. Wroat was so much better that she insisted on going out with her young relative upon a shopping excursion. She presented Lally with a silver portmonnaie, filled with bank-notes, and early in the day Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters went out in the ancient family carriage, visiting the most celebrated shops in the West End. The old lady did not permit Lally to expend the money she had given her, but bought, and paid for from her own plethoric pocket-book, a magnificent Indian shawl, jewels, rich and costly laces, a set of Russian sables, a dressing-case with gold fittings, odor cases, a jewel case, and a host of costly luxuries of which Lally knew neither the uses nor the names.
“Why do you buy an Indian shawl for so young a lady, ma’am?” whispered Peters, in surprise. “And why buy those costly furs in September?”
“I shan’t be here when the cold weather comes, Peters,” answered Mrs. Wroat, in a low voice. “And though I have Indian shawls which she will inherit, I want to buy her one for her own self. She will keep it always, because I bought it for her.”
Lally, as may be supposed, was grateful for her aunt’s kindnesses; she was more than grateful. But in the midst of her pleasure, a pang shot to her heart. She noticed that although this aged relative bought her an abundance of all standard articles, and toilet appurtenances, and dainty personal belongings, she bought but few dresses—a token that she expected Lally soon to put on a mourning garb.
After a visit to the ladies’ outfitter, where Mrs. Wroat purchased for Lally a trousseau fit for a wealthy bride, they returned to Mount street, and to dinner.
The next fortnight passed swiftly both to Lally and her great-aunt. The health of the latter seemed to improve, and Lally and Peters entertained high hopes that their kind friend and benefactress would live many years. The old lady’s physician contracted the habit of calling in daily, but even Mrs. Wroat smiled at his anxiety, and accused him of desiring to increase his fees at her expense without just cause.
These two weeks sufficed to knit the souls of Lally and her aged relative together in a bond which time alone could sever. They grew to entertain a mutual love, which would be to the survivor a sweet and tender memory while life should endure. Lally’s experiences had been very bitter, and she had thought she should never smile again, yet in her aunt’s society she felt a great degree of actual happiness, and waited upon her, and tended her, with the care and love of a daughter. She played and sang to her; she read to her; she listened with keen interest to the old lady’s tales of her youth; and soon Mrs. Wroat was heard to wonder many times each day how she had so long existed without her bright young niece; and Peters grew to love Lally with a protecting tenderness.
During this fortnight, which passed so happily in the great old mansion in Mount street, Mr. Harris had traced out Lally’s history step by step from the hour of her birth until the present moment, not that he doubted her, but that he desired to be supplied with irrefragable proofs of her identity, should the need arise for them.
The lapse of the fortnight indicated brought the time to October. One evening, when the night was wild without, Mrs. Wroat, Lally and Peters sat late in the parlor adjoining the bedroom of the former. Lally played and sang a grand old anthem, while the old lady’s crooked chin was bent forward upon her gold-headed staff, and her bright black eyes filled with tears. Then followed some old-time hymns, such as the Covenanters sang in the lonely Scottish wilds, in their hours of stolen secret worship. When the sweet voice had died away, and the strains of music melted into silence, the old lady called Lally to her. The girl came, and seeing the unwonted emotion of her aged relative, knelt before her and caressed her hand softly. The withered yellow hands were upraised tremblingly, and dropped upon the girl’s dusky head.
“God bless you, even as I bless you, my darling,” said Mrs. Wroat, with a great yearning over the young creature. “Poor orphaned child! You have blessed my last days; may your life be blessed. Peters, when I am gone, stay with Lally. Be everything to her—maid, attendant, nurse, mother—all that you have been to me.”
“I will—I will!” said Peters, as if registering a vow.
“And now, my darling, good-night,” said Mrs. Wroat softly. “Kiss me, Lally! Again! Again! Good-night.”
The girl enfolded the withered form in her arms, and kissed the old lady a hundred times with passionate fervor, and then, sobbing, went up to her own room.
Peters put her mistress to bed. The old lady seemed as well, or better than usual, but there was something unusual in her manner, and Peters sat up to watch by her.
“If she wakes, she’ll find old Peters by her side,” the woman said to herself. “How sweet she sleeps!”
Toward morning the maid dozed. Just at dawn she awakened with a great start, and a sudden chill. She sprang up and leaned over the recumbent figure of her mistress. How pale the thin, sharp features were! One long lock of gray hair lay on the withered cheek; the bony hands were clasped upon the bosom; the hooked nose and the crooked chin almost met, but upon the shrivelled mouth was a smile far more sweet and lovely than any that had played upon those lips in the old lady’s far-past youth—a smile such as angels wear!
Peters thrust her hand upon the sleeper’s heart. It was silent. The heart, clogged or hampered by disease, had ceased to work hours before; all the machinery of life had stopped; and Mrs. Wroat had wakened from her sleep in another world! Lally’s generous and noble friend and protector was dead!