Book: In Luck at Last

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"Aha!" He was quite cheerful and mirthful, because he had recovered
his memory. "Aha, my dear, all is well! You are twenty-one, and I am
seventy-five; and Mr. Arbuthnot will go and bring home the--the
inheritance. And I shall sit here all day long. It was a good dream
that came to me this morning, was it not? Quite a voice from Heaven,
which said: 'Get up and write down the letter while you remember it.'
I got up; I found by the--by the merest accident, Mr. Arbuthnot on the
stairs, and we have arranged everything for you--everything."




CHAPTER IX.

DR. WASHINGTON.


Arnold returned to his studio, sat down and fell fast asleep.

He was awakened about noon by his Cousin Clara.

"Oh, Arnold," she cried, shaking him wrathfully by the arm, "this is a
moment of the greatest excitement and importance to me, and you are my
only adviser, and you are asleep!"

He sprung to his feet.

"I am awake now, Clara. Anxiety and trouble? On account of our talk
yesterday?"

He saw that she had been crying. In her hands she had a packet of
letters.

"Oh, no, no; it is far more important than that. As for our talk--"

"I am engaged to her, Clara."

"So I expected," she replied coldly. "But I am not come here about
your engagement. And you do not want my congratulations, I suppose?"

"I should like to have your good wishes, Clara."

"Oh, Arnold, that is what my poor Claude said when he deserted me and
married the governess. You men want to have your own way, and then
expect us to be delighted with it."

"I expect nothing, Clara. Pray understand that."

"I told Claude, when he wrote asking forgiveness, that he had my good
wishes, whatever he chose to do, but that I would not on any account
receive his wife. Very well, Arnold; that is exactly what I say to
you."

"Very well, Clara. I quite understand. As for the studio, and all the
things that you have given me, they are, of course, yours again. Let
me restore what I can to you."

"No, Arnold, they are yours. Let me hear no more about things that are
your own. Of course, your business, as you call it, is exciting. But
as for this other thing, it is far more important. Something has
happened; something I always expected; something that I looked
forward to for years; although it has waited on the way so long, it
has actually come at last, when I had almost forgotten to look for it.
So true it is, Arnold, that good fortune and misfortune alike come
when we least expect them."

Arnold sat down. He knew his cousin too well to interrupt her. She had
her own way of telling a story, and it was a roundabout way.

"I cannot complain, after twenty years, can I? I have had plenty of
rope, as you would say. But still it has come at last. And naturally,
when it does come, it is a shock."

"Is it hereditary gout, Clara?"

"Gout! Nonsense, Arnold! When the will was read, I said to myself,
'Claude is certain to come back and claim his own. It is his right,
and I hope he will come. But for my own part, I have not the least
intention of calling upon the governess.' Then three or four years
passed away, and I heard--I do not remember how--that he was dead. And
then I waited for his heirs, his children, or their guardians. But
they did not come."

"And now they have really come? Oh, Clara, this is indeed a
misfortune."

"No, Arnold; call it a restitution, not a misfortune. I have been
living all these years on the money which belongs to Claude's heirs."

"There was a son, then. And now he has dropped upon us from the
clouds?"

"It is a daughter, not a son. But you shall hear. I received a letter
this morning from a person called Dr. Joseph Washington, stating that
he wrote to me on account of the only child and heiress of the late
Claude Deseret."

"Who is Dr. Joseph Washington?"

"He is a physician, he says, and an American."

"Yes; will you go on?"

"I do not mind it, Arnold; I really do not. I must give up my house
and put down my carriage, but it is for Claude's daughter. I rejoice
to think that he has left some one behind him. Arnold, that face upon
your canvas really has got eyes wonderfully like his, if it was not a
mere fancy, when I saw it yesterday. I am glad, I say, to give up
everything to the child of Claude."

"You think so kindly of him, Clara, who inflicted so much pain on
you."

"I can never think bitterly of Claude. We were brought up together; we
were like brother and sister; he never loved me in any other way. Oh,
I understood it all years ago. To begin with, I was never beautiful;
and it was his father's mistake. Well: this American followed up his
letter by a visit. In the letter he merely said he had come to London
with the heiress. But he called an hour ago, and brought me--oh,
Arnold, he brought me one more letter from Claude. It has been waiting
for me for eighteen years. After all that time, after eighteen years,
my poor dead Claude speaks to me again. My dear, when I thought he was
miserable on account of his marriage, I was wrong. His wife made him
happy, and he died because she died." The tears came into her eyes
again. "Poor boy! Poor Claude! The letter speaks of his child. It
says--" She opened and read the letter. "He says: 'Some day my child
will, I hope, come to you, and say: Cousin Clara, I am Iris
Deseret.'"

"Iris?" said Arnold.

"It is her name, Arnold. It was the child's grandmother's name."

"A strange coincidence," he said. "Pray go on."

"'She will say: Cousin Clara, I am Iris Deseret. Then you will be
kind to her, as you would to me, if I were to come home again.' I
cannot read any more, my dear, even to you."

"Did this American give you any other proof of what he asserts?"

"He gave me a portrait of Claude, taken years ago, when he was a boy
of sixteen, and showed me the certificate of marriage, and the child's
certificate of baptism, and letters from his wife. I suppose nothing
more can be wanted."

"I dare say it is all right, Clara. But why was not the child brought
over before?"

"Because--this is the really romantic part of the story--when her
father died, leaving the child, she was adopted by these charitable
Americans, and no one ever thought of examining the papers, which were
lying in a desk, until the other day."

"You have not seen the young lady."

"No; he is to bring her to-morrow."

"And what sort of a man is this American? Is he a gentleman?"

"Well, I do not quite know. Perhaps Americans are different from
Englishmen. If he was an Englishman, I should say without any
hesitation that he is not a gentleman, as we count good breeding and
good manners. He is a big man, handsome and burly, and he seems
good-tempered. When I told him what was the full amount of Iris's
inheritance--"

"Iris's inheritance!" Arnold repeated. "I beg your pardon, Clara; pray
go on; but it seems like a dream."

"He only laughed, and said he was glad she would have so much. The
utmost they hoped, he said, was that it might be a farm, or a house or
two, or a few hundreds in the stocks. He is to bring her to-morrow,
and of course I shall make her stay with me. As for himself, he says
that he is only anxious to get back home to his wife and his
practice."

"He wants nothing for himself, then? That seems a good sign."

"I asked him that question, and he said that he could not possibly
take money for what he and his family had done for Iris; that is to
say, her education and maintenance. This was very generous of him.
Perhaps he is really a gentleman by birth, but has provincial manners.
He said, however, that he had no objection to receiving the small
amount of money spent on the voyage and on Iris's outfit, because they
were not rich people, and it was a serious thing to fit out a young
lady suitably. So of course I gave him what he suggested, a check for
two hundred pounds. No one, he added with true feeling, would grudge a
single dollar that had been spent upon the education of the dear girl;
and this went to my heart."

"She is well educated, then?"

"She sings well," he says, "and has had a good plain education. He
said I might rest assured that she was ladylike, because she had been
brought up among his own friends."

"That is a very safe guarantee," said Arnold, laughing. "I wonder if
she is pretty?"

"I asked him that question too, and he replied very oddly that she had
a most splendid figure, which fetched everybody. Is not that rather a
vulgar expression?"

"It is, in England. Perhaps in America it belongs to the first
circles, and is a survival of the Pilgrim Fathers. So you gave him a
check for two hundred pounds?"

"Yes; surely I was not wrong, Arnold. Consider the circumstances, the
outfit and the voyage, and the man's reluctance and delicacy of
feeling."

"I dare say you were quite right, but--well, I think I should have
seen the young lady first. Remember, you have given the money to a
stranger, on his bare word."

"Oh, Arnold, this man is perfectly honest. I would answer for his
truth and honesty. He has frank, honest eyes. Besides, he brought me
all those letters. Well, dear, you are not going to desert me because
you are engaged, are you, Arnold? I want you to be present when she
comes to-morrow morning."

"Certainly I will be present, with the greatest--no, not the greatest
pleasure. But I will be present--I will come to luncheon, Clara."

When she was gone he thought again of the strange coincidence, both of
the man and of the inheritance. Yet what had his Iris in common with a
girl who had been brought up in America? Besides, she had lost her
inheritance, and this other Iris had crossed the ocean to receive
hers. Yet a very strange coincidence. It was so strange that he told
it to Iris and to Lala Roy. Iris laughed, and said she did not know
she had a single namesake. Lala did not laugh; but he sat thinking in
silence. There was no chess for him that night; instead of playing his
usual game, Mr. Emblem, in his chair, laughed and chuckled in rather a
ghastly way.




CHAPTER X.

"IT IS MY COUSIN."


"Well, Joe," said his wife, "and how is it going to finish? It looks
to me as if there was a prison-van and a police-court at the end.
Don't you think we had better back out of it while there is time?"

"You're a fool!" her husband replied--it was the morning after his
visit to Clara; "you know nothing about it. Now listen."

"I do nothing but listen; you've told me the story till I know it by
heart. Do you think anybody in the world will be so green as to
believe such a clumsy plan as that?"

"Now look here, Lotty; if there's another word said--mind, now--you
shall have nothing more to do with the business at all. I'll give it
to a girl I know--a clever girl, who will carry it through with flying
colors."

She set her lips hard, and drummed her fingers on the table. He knew
how to rule his wife.

"Go on," she said, "since we can't be honest."

"Be reasonable, then; that's all I ask you. Honest! who is honest?
Ain't we every one engaged in getting round our neighbors? Isn't the
whole game, all the world over, lying and deceit? Honest! you might as
well go on the boards without faking up your face, as try to live
honest. Hold your tongue, then." He growled and swore, and after his
fashion called on the Heavens to witness and express their
astonishment.

The girl bent her head, and made no reply for a space. She was cowed
and afraid. Presently she looked up and laughed, but with a forced
laugh.

"Don't be cross, Joe; I'll do whatever you want me to do, and
cheerfully, too, if it will do you any good. What is a woman good for
but to help her husband? Only don't be cross, Joe."

She knew what her husband was by this time--a false and unscrupulous
man. Yet she loved him. The case is not rare by any means, so that
there is hope for all of us, from the meanest and most wriggling worm
among us to the most hectoring ruffian.

"Why there, Lotty," he said, "that is what I like. Now listen. The old
lady is a cake--do you understand? She is a sponge, she swallows
everything, and is ready to fall on your neck and cry over you for
joy. As for doubt or suspicion, not a word. I don't think there will
be a single question asked. No, it's all 'My poor dear Claude'--that's
your father, Lotty--and 'My poor dear Iris'--that's you, Lotty."

"All right, Joe, go on. I am Iris--I am anybody you like. Go on."

"The more I think about it, the more I'm certain we shall do the
trick. Only keep cool over the job and forget the music-hall. You are
Iris Deseret, and you are the daughter of Claude Deseret, deceased. I
am Dr. Washington, one of the American family who brought you up.
You're grateful, mind. Nothing can be more lively than your gratitude.
We've been brother and sister, you and me, and I've got a wife and
young family and a rising practice at home in the State of Maine, and
I am only come over here to see you into your rights at great personal
expense. Paid a substitute. Yes, actually paid a substitute. We only
found the papers the other day, which is the reason why we did not
come over before, and I am going home again directly."

"You are not really going away, Joe, are you?"

"No, I am going to stay here; but I shall pretend to go away. Now
remember, we've got no suspicion ourselves, and we don't expect to
meet any. If there is any, we are surprised and sorry. We don't come
to the lady with a lawyer or a blunderbuss; we come as friends, and we
shall arrange this little business between ourselves. Oh, never you
fear, we shall arrange it quite comfortably, without lawyers."

"How much do you think we shall get out of it, Joe?"

"Listen, and open your eyes. There's nearly a hundred and twenty
thousand pounds and a small estate in the country. Don't let us
trouble about the estate more than we can help. Estates mean lawyers.
Money doesn't."

He spoke as if small sums like a hundred thousand pounds are carried
about in the pocket.

"Good gracious! And you've got two hundred of it already, haven't
you?"

"Yes, but what is two hundred out of a hundred and twenty thousand? A
hundred and twenty thousand! There's spending in it, isn't there,
Lotty? Gad, we'll make the money spin, I calculate! It may be a few
weeks before the old lady transfers the money--I don't quite know
where it is, but in stocks or something--to your name. As soon as it
is in your name I've got a plan. We'll remember that you've got a
sweetheart or something in America, and you'll break your heart for
wanting to see him. And then nothing will do but you must run across
for a trip. Oh, I'll manage, and we'll make the money fly."

He was always adding new details to his story, finding something to
embellish it and heighten the effect, and now having succeeded in
getting the false Iris into the house, he began already to devise
schemes to get her out again.

"A hundred thousand pounds? Why, Joe, it is a terrible great sum of
money. Good gracious! What shall we do with it, when we get it?"

"I'll show you what to do with it, my girl."

"And you said, Joe--you declared that it is your own by rights."

"Certainly it is my own. It would have been bequeathed to me by my own
cousin. But she didn't know it. And she died without knowing it, and I
am her heir."

Lotty wondered vaguely and rather sadly how much of this statement was
true. But she did not dare to ask. She had promised her assistance.
Every night she woke with a dreadful dream of a policeman knocking at
the door; whenever she saw a man in blue she trembled; and she knew
perfectly well that, if the plot failed, it was she herself, in all
probability, and not her husband at all, who would be put in the dock.
She did not believe a word about the cousin; she knew she was going to
do a vile and dreadful wickedness, but she was ready to go through
with it, or with anything else, to pleasure a husband who already, the
honeymoon hardly finished, showed the propensities of a rover.

"Very well, Lotty; we are going there at once. You need take nothing
with you, but you won't come back here for a good spell. In fact, I
think I shall have to give up these lodgings, for fear of accidents. I
shall leave you with your cousin."

"Yes; and I'm to be quiet, and behave pretty, I suppose?"

"You'll be just as quiet and demure as you used to be when you were
serving in the music shop. No loud laughing, no capers, no comic
songs, and no dancing."

"And am I to begin at once by asking for the money to be--what do you
call it, transferred?"

"No; you are not on any account to say a word about the money; you are
to go on living there without hinting at the money--without showing
any desire to discuss the subject--perhaps for months, until there
can't be the shadow of a doubt that you are the old woman's cousin.
You are to make much of her, flatter her, cocker her up, find out all
the family secrets, and get the length of her foot; but you are not
to say one single word about the money. As for your manners, I'm not
afraid of them, because when you like, you can look and talk like a
countess."

"I know now." She got up and changed her face so that it became at
once subdued and quiet, like a quiet serving-girl behind a counter.
"So, is that modest enough, Joe? And as for singing, I shall sing for
her, but not music-hall trash. This kind of thing. Listen."

There was a piano in the room, and she sat down and sang to her own
accompaniment, with a sweet, low voice, one of the soft, sad German
songs.

"That'll do," cried Joe. "Hang me! what a clever girl you are, Lotty!
That's the kind of thing the swells like. As for me, give me ten
minutes of Jolly Nash. But you know how to pull 'em in, Lotty."

It was approaching twelve, the hour when they were due. Lotty retired
and arrayed herself in her quietest and most sober dress, a costume in
some brown stuff, with a bonnet to match. She put on her best gloves
and boots, having herself felt the inferiority of the shop-girl to the
lady in those minor points, and she modified and mitigated her fringe,
which, she knew, was rather more exaggerated than young ladies in
society generally wear.

"You're not afraid, Lotty?" said Joe, when at last she was ready to
start.

"Afraid? Not I, Joe. Come along. I couldn't look quieter, not if I was
to make up as I do in the evening as a Quakeress. Come along. Oh, Joe,
it will be awful dull! Don't forget to send word to the hall that I am
ill. Afraid? Not I!" She laughed, but rather hysterically.

There would be, however, she secretly considered, some excitement when
it came to the finding out, which would happen, she was convinced, in
a very few hours. In fact, she had no faith at all in the story being
accepted and believed by anybody; to be sure, she herself had been
trained, as ladies in shops generally are, to mistrust all mankind,
and she could not understand at all the kind of confidence which comes
of having the very thing presented to you which you ardently desire.
When they arrived in Chester Square, she found waiting for her a lady,
who was certainly not beautiful, but she had kind eyes, which looked
eagerly at the strange face, and with an expression of disappointment.

"It can't be the fringe," thought Lotty.

"Cousin Clara," she said softly and sweetly, as her husband had taught
her, "I am Iris Deseret, the daughter of your old playfellow, Claude."

"Oh, my dear, my dear," cried Clara with enthusiasm, "come to my arms!
Welcome home again!"

She kissed and embraced her. Then she held her by both hands, and
looked at her face again.

"My dear," she said, "you have been a long time coming. I had almost
given up hoping that Claude had any children. But you are welcome,
after all--very welcome. You are in your own house, remember, my dear.
This house is yours, and the plate, and furniture, and everything, and
I am only your tenant."

"Oh!" said Lotty, overwhelmed. Why, she had actually been taken on her
word, or rather the word of Joe.

"Let me kiss you again. Your face does not remind me as yet, in any
single feature, of your father's. But I dare say I shall find
resemblance presently. And indeed, your voice does remind me of him
already. He had a singularly sweet and delicate voice."

"Iris has a remarkably sweet and delicate voice," said Joe, softly.
"No doubt she got it from her father. You will hear her sing
presently."

Lotty hardly knew her husband. His face was preternaturally solemn,
and he looked as if he was engaged in the most serious business of his
life.

"All her father's ways were gentle and delicate," said Clara.

"Just like hers," said Joe. "When all of us--American boys and girls,
pretty rough at times--were playing and larking about, Iris would be
just sittin' out like a cat on a carpet, quiet and demure. I suppose
she got that way, too, from her father."

"No doubt; and as for your face, my dear, I dare say I shall find a
likeness presently. But just now I see none. Will you take off your
bonnet?"

When the girl's bonnet was off, Clara looked at her again, curiously,
but kindly.

"I suppose I can't help looking for a likeness, my dear. But you must
take after your mother, whom I never saw. Your father's eyes were full
and limpid; yours are large, and clear, and bright; very good eyes, my
dear, but they are not limpid. His mouth was flexible and mobile, but
yours is firm. Your hair, however, reminds me somewhat of his, which
was much your light shade of brown when he was young. And now,
sir"--she addressed Joe--"now that you have brought this dear girl all
the way across the Atlantic, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I don't exactly know that there's anything to keep me," said
Joe. "You see, I've got my practice to look after at home--I am a
physician, as I told you--and my wife and children; and the sooner I
get back the better, now that I can leave Iris with her friends, safe
and comfortable. Stay," he added, "there are all those papers which I
promised you--the certificates, and the rest of them. You had better
take them all, miss, and keep them for Iris."

"Thank you," said Clara, touched by this confidence; "Iris will be
safe with me. It is very natural that you should want to go home
again. And you will be content to stay with me, my dear, won't you?
You need not be afraid, sir; I assure you that her interests will not
in any way suffer. Tell her to write and let you know exactly what is
done. Let her, however, since she is an English girl, remain with
English friends, and get to know her cousins and relations. You can
safely trust her with me, Dr. Washington."

"Thank you," said Joe. "You know that when one has known a girl all
her life, one is naturally anxious about her happiness. We are almost
brother and sister."

"I know; and I am sure, Mr. Washington, we ought to be most grateful
to you. As for the money you have expended upon her, let me once more
beg of you--"

Joe waved his hand majestically.

"As for that," he said, "the money is spent. Iris is welcome to it, if
it were ten times as much. Now, madam, you trusted me, the very first
day that you saw me, with two hundred pounds sterling. Only an English
lady would have done that. You trusted me without asking me who or
what I was, or doubting my word. I assure you, madam, I felt that
kindness, and that trust, very much indeed, and in return, I have
brought you Iris herself. After all expenses paid of coming over and
getting back, buying a few things for Iris, if I find that there's
anything over, I shall ask you to take back the balance. Madam, I
thank you for the money, but I am sure I have repaid you--with Iris."

This was a very clever speech. If there had been a shadow of doubt
before it in Clara's heart (which there was not), it would vanish now.
She cordially and joyfully accepted her newly-found cousin.

"And now, Iris," he said with a manly tremor in his voice, "I do not
know if I shall see you again before I go away. If not, I shall take
your fond love to all of them at home--Tom, and Dick, and Harry, and
Harriet, and Prissy, and all of them"--Joe really was carrying the
thing through splendidly--"and perhaps, my dear, when you are a grand
lady in England, you will give a thought--a thought now and again--to
your old friends across the water."

"Oh, Joe!" cried Lotty, really carried away with admiration, and
ashamed of her skeptical spirit. "Oh," she whispered, "ain't you
splendid!"

"But you must not go, Dr. Washington," said Clara, "without coming
again to say farewell. Will you not dine with us to-night? Will you
stay and have lunch?"

"No, madam, I thank you. It will be best for me to leave Iris alone
with you. The sooner she learns your English ways and forgets American
ways, the better."

"But you are not going to start away for Liverpool at once? You will
stay a day or two in London--"

The American physician said that perhaps he might stay a week longer
for scientific purposes.

"Have you got enough money, Joe?" asked the new Iris thoughtfully.

Joe gave her a glance of infinite admiration.

"Well," he said, "the fact is that I should like to buy a few books
and things. Perhaps--"

"Cousin," said Lotty eagerly, "please give him a check for a hundred
pounds. Make it a hundred. You said everything was mine. No, Joe, I
won't hear a word about repayment, as if a little thing like fifty
pounds, or a hundred pounds, should want to be repaid! As if you and I
could ever talk about repayment!"

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