CHAPTER III
A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
OH! to think that fortune should have given its knock at the door of No.45 after all! To think that this is how it should have happened! Of allthe unexpected thunderbolts! And after that irresponsible talk aboutmoney and legacies and wishes this evening in the kitchen, and to thinkthat Destiny had even then shuffled the cards that she has just dealt!
It was ten minutes after the postman had been that we heard a flurriedtap on the drawing-room door, and Million positively burst into theroom. She was wide-eyed, scarlet with excitement. She held a letter outtowards us with a gesture as if she were afraid it might explode in herhand.
"What is this, Million?" demanded my aunt, severely, over the top of her"Rambles."
"Oh, Miss Lovelace!" gasped our little maid. "Oh, Miss Beatrice! I don'trightly know if I'm standing on my head or my heels. I don't know ifI've got the right hang of this at all. Will you--will you please readit for me?"
I took the letter.
I read it through without taking any of it in, as so often happens whensomething startling meets one's eyes.
Million's little fluttered voice queried, "What do you make of that,Miss?"
"I don't know. Wait a minute. I must read it over again," I gasped inturn. "May I read it aloud?"
Million, clutching her starched white apron, nodded.
I read it aloud, this letter of Destiny.
It bore the address of a lawyer's office in Chancery Lane, and it began:
"_To_ MISS NELLIE MILLION.
"Dear Madam:--I am instructed to inform you that under the will of your late uncle, Mr. Samuel Million, of Chicago, U.S.A., you have been appointed heiress to his fortune of one million dollars.
"I shall be pleased to call upon you and to await your instructions, if you will kindly acquaint me with your present address----"
"That was sent to the Orphanage," whispered Million.
"or I should be very pleased to meet you if you would make it convenient to come and call upon me here at my offices at any time which may suit you. I am, Madam,
"Yours obediently, "JOSIAH CHESTERTON."
There was silence in our drawing-room. Million's little face turned,with a positively scared expression, from Aunt Anastasia to me.
"D'you think it's true, Miss?"
"Have you ever heard of this Mr. Samuel Million before?"
"Only that he was poor dad's brother that quarrelled with him forenlisting. I heard he was in America, gettin' on well----"
"That class," murmured my Aunt Anastasia with concentrated resentment,"always gets on!"
That was horrid of her!
I didn't know how to make it up to Million. I put out both hands andtook her little roughened hands.
"Million, I do congratulate you. I believe it's true," I said heartily,finding my voice at last. "You'll have heaps of money now. Everythingyou want. A millionaire's heiress, that's what you are!"
"Me, miss?" gasped the bewildered-looking Million. "Me, and not you,that wanted money? Me an heiress? Oh, lor'! whatever next?"
The next morning--the morning after that startling avalanche of news hadbeen precipitated into the monotonous landscape of our daily lives--Iaccompanied Million to the lawyer's office, where she was to hearfurther particulars of her unexpected, her breath-taking, her epiclegacy.
A million dollars! Two hundred thousand pounds! And all for the littlegrey-eyed, black-haired daughter of a sergeant in a line regiment,brought up in a soldiers' orphanage to domestic service at L20 a year!To think of it!
I could see my Aunt Anastasia thinking of it--with bitterness, withenvy.
It was she who ought to have taken Million to that office in ChanceryLane.
But she--the mistress of the house--excused herself by saying it was hermorning for doing the silver.
We left her in the kitchen surrounded by what I am irreverent enough tocall the relics of our family's grandeur--the Queen Anne tea service,the Early Georgian forks and spoons that have been worn and polishedfragile and thin. Indeed, one teaspoon is broken. Aunt Anastasia took toher bed on the day of that accident. And the maid we had before Millionscoured my grandfather's Crimean medal so heartily that soon there wouldhave been nothing left to see on it. Since then my aunt has tended therelics with her own hands.
We left her brooding darkly over the injustice that had brought fortuneto a wretched little maid-of-all-work and poverty to our family; wehailed the big white motor-'bus at the top of the road by thesubscription library, and dashed up the steps to the front seat.
"There! Bit of all right, this, ain't it, Miss Beatrice!" gasped Millionecstatically.
Stars of delight shone in each grey eye as she settled herself down onthe tilted seat. I thought that this change of expression was becauseshe had thought over her marvellous good fortune during the night, andbecause she had begun to realise a little what it would all mean to her.But I was quite wrong. Million, peering down over the side of the 'bus,exclaimed gleefully, "Look at 'em! Look at 'em!"
"Look at what?"
"At all the girls down our road, there," explained Million, with a waveof her tightly gloved hand.
At almost every house in Laburnum Grove a maid, in pink or lilac print,with pail and floor-cloth, was giving the steps their matutinal wash.One was polishing the knocker, the bell-handles, and the brass plate ofthe doctor's abode.
"And here am I, as large as life, a-ridin' on a 'bus the first thing inthe morning!" enlarged Million, clenching her fists and sitting boltupright. "At half-past nine o'clock, if you please--first time I've everdone such a thing! I've often wondered what it was like, top of a 'buson a fine summer's morning! I'll know now!"
"You won't ever have to know again," I laughed as I sat there besideher. "You won't be going in any more 'buses or trams or tubes."
"Why ever not, miss?" asked Million, startled.
"Why! Because you'll have your own car to go about in directly, ofcourse," I explained. "Probably two or three cars----"
"Cars?" echoed Million, staring at me.
"Why, of course. Don't you see there's a new life beginning for you now?A Rolls-Royce instead of a motor-'bus, and everything on the same scale.You'll have to think in sovereigns now, Million, where you've alwaysthought in pennies----"
"What? Three pounds for a thrupenny ride to the Bank, d'you mean, miss?"cried Million, with a little shriek. "Oh, my godfathers!"
At that excited little squeal of hers another passenger on the 'bus hadturned to glance at her across the gangway.
I met his eyes; the clear, blue, boyish eyes of the young man from nextdoor.
He looked away again immediately. There was an expression on his facethat seemed meant to emphasise, to underline, the announcement that hehad never seen me before. No. Apparently he had never set eyes on thesmall, chestnut-haired girl (myself) in the shabby blue serge coat andskirt and the straw hat that had been white last summer, and that wasnow home-dyed--rather unsuccessfully--to something that called itselfblack. So evidently Aunt Anastasia had been rude to him about yesterdayevening. Possibly she had forbidden him to speak to her niece and herdear brother's child, and Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter everagain. This made my blood boil. Why must she make us look so ridiculous?Such--such futile snobs? Without any apparent excuse for keepingourselves so aloof, either! To put on "select" airs without anycircumstances to carry them off with is like walking about in amotor-coat and goggles when you haven't got any motor, when you neverwill have any motor! It's Million who will have those.
Anyhow, I felt I didn't want him to think I was as absurd as my aunt. Icleared my throat. I turned towards him. In quite a determined sort ofvoice I said "Good morning!"
Hereupon the young man from next door raised his straw hat, and said"Good morning" in a polite but distant tone.
; He glanced at Million, then away again. In the blue eye nearest to me Ithink I surprised a far-away twinkle. How awful! Possibly he wasthinking, "H'm! So the dragon of an aunt doesn't let the girl out nowwithout a maid as a chaperon to protect her! Is she afraid that somebodymay elope with her at half-past nine in the morning?"
I was sorry I'd spoken.
I looked hard away from the young man all the rest of the ride toChancery Lane.
Here we got off.
We walked half-way up the little busy, narrow thoroughfare, and in at abig, cool, cave-like entrance to some offices.
"Chesterton, Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Third Floor," I read from thenotice-board. "No lift. Come along, Million."
The stars had faded out of Million's eyes again. She looked scared. Sheclutched me by the arm.
"Oh, Miss Beatrice! I do hate goin' up!"
"Why, you little silly! This isn't the dentist's."
"I know. But, oh, miss! If there is one thing I can't bear it's beingmade game of," said Million, pitifully, half-way up the stairs. "ThisMr. Chesterton--he won't half laugh!"
"Why should he laugh?"
"At me, bein' supposed to have come in for all those dollars of meuncle's. Do I look like an heiress?"
She didn't, bless her honest, self-conscious little heart. From herbrown hat, wreathed with forget-me-nots, past the pin-on blue velvettie, past the brown cloth costume, down to the quite new shoes thatcreaked a little, our Million looked the very type of what she was--anice little servant-girl taking a day off.
But I laughed at her, encouraging her for all I was worth, until wereached the third floor and the clerk's outer office of Messrs.Chesterton, Brown, Jones, and Robinson.
I knocked. Million drew a breath that made the pin-on tie surge up anddown upon the breast of her Jap silk blouse. She was pulling herselftogether, I knew, taking her courage in both hands.
The door was opened by a weedy-looking youth of about eighteen.
"Good morning, Mr. Chesterton. Hope I'm not late," Million greeted himin a sudden, loud, aggressive voice that I had never heard from herbefore; the voice of nervousness risen to panic. "I've come about thatmoney of mine from my uncle in----"
"Name, Miss, please?" said the weedy youth.
"Nellie Mary Million----"
"Miss Million," I amended. "We have an appointment with Mr. Chesterton."
"Mr. Chesterton hasn't come yet," said the weedy youth. "Kindly take aseat in here."
He went into the inner office. I sat down. Million, far too nervous tosit down, wandered about the waiting-room.
"My, it doesn't half want cleaning in here," she remarked in a flurriedwhisper, looking about her. "Why, the boy hasn't even taken downyesterday's teacups. I wonder how often they get a woman in. Look atthose cobwebs! A shaving-mirror--well, I never!" She breathed on it,polishing it with her black moirette reticule. "Some notice here about'Courts,' Miss Beatrice. Don't it make you feel as if you was in thedock? I wonder what they keep in this little corner-cupboard."
"The handcuffs, I expect. No, no, Million, you mustn't look at them."Here the weedy youth put in his head again.