Miss Million's Maid Part 4

I knocked. Million drew a breath that made the pin-on tie surge up and down upon the breast of her j.a.p silk blouse. She was pulling herself together, 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 him in a sudden, loud, aggressive voice that I had never heard from her before; the voice of nervousness risen to panic. "I've come about that money 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 a seat in here."

He went into the inner office. I sat down. Million, far too nervous to sit down, wandered about the waiting-room.

"My, it doesn't half want cleaning in here," she remarked in a flurried whisper, looking about her. "Why, the boy hasn't even taken down yesterday's teacups. I wonder how often they get a woman in. Look at those cobwebs! A shaving-mirror--well, I never!" She breathed on it, polis.h.i.+ng it with her black moirette reticule. "Some notice here about 'Courts,' Miss Beatrice. Don't it make you feel as if you was in the dock? 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.

CHAPTER IV

THE LAWYER'S DILEMMA

"STEP this way, please," he said. With an imploring "You go first, Miss," from the heiress we "stepped" into the inner office. It was a big, handsomely carpeted room, with leather chairs. Around the walls were shelves with black-j.a.panned deed-boxes bearing white-lettered names. I saw little Million's eyes fly to these boxes. I know what she was wildly thinking--that one must be hers and must contain the million dollars of her new fortune. Beside the large cleared desk there was standing a fatherly looking old gentleman. He had white hair, a shrewd, humorous, clean-shaven face, and gold-rimmed gla.s.ses. He turned, with a very pleasant smile, to me.

"Good morning, Miss Million," he said. "I am very glad to have the----"

"This is Miss Million," I told him, putting my hand on her brown sleeve and giving her arm a little, heartening pat.

Million moistened her lips and drew another long breath as the fatherly old gentleman turned the eyes and their gold-rimmed gla.s.ses upon her small, diffident self.

"Ah! M'm--really! Of course! How do you do, Miss Million?"

"Nicely--nicely, thanks!" breathed Million huskily.

"Won't you sit down, ladies? Yes. Now, Miss Million----"

And Mr. Chesterton began some sort of a congratulatory speech, while Million smiled in a frightened sort of way, breathing hard. She was full of surprises to me that morning; and, I gathered, to her lawyer also.

"Thank you, I'm sure. Thank you, sir," she said. Then suddenly to me, "We didn't ought to--to--to keep this gentleman, did we, Miss?" Then to Mr. Chesterton again, "D'you mind me asking, sir, if we 'adn't better have a cab?"

"A cab?" the lawyer repeated, in a startled tone. "What for?"

"To take away the money, sir," explained little Million gravely. "That money o' mine from me uncle. What I've called about."

"Ah--to take away----" began the lawyer. Then he suddenly laughed outright. I laughed. But together we caught sight of little Million's face, blus.h.i.+ng and hurt, sensitive of ridicule. We stopped laughing at once.

And then the old lawyer, looking and speaking as kindly as possible, began to explain matters to this ingenuous little heiress, as painstakingly as if he were making things clear to a child.

"The capital of one million dollars, or of two hundred thousand pounds of English money, is at present not here; it is where it was--invested in the late Mr. Samuel Million's sausage and ham-curing factory in Chicago, U. S. A."

Here Million's face fell.

"Not here. Somehow, Miss," turning to me, "I thought it never sounded as if it could be true. I thought there'd be some kind of a 'have,' sort of!"

"And, subject to your approval always, I should be inclined to allow that capital to remain where it is," continued the old lawyer in his polished accent. "There remains, of course, the income from the capital.

This amounts, at present, to ten thousand pounds a year in English money----"

"What is that," breathed the new heiress, "what is that a quarter, sir?

It seems more natural like that."

"Two thousand five hundred pounds, Miss Million."

"Lor'!" breathed the owner of this wealth. "And me that's been getting five pounds a quarter. That other's mine?"

"After a few necessary formalities, from which I antic.i.p.ate no difficulties," said the old gentleman.

Some discussion of these formalities followed. In the midst of it I saw Million begin to fidget even more restlessly.

I frowned at her. This drew the attention of the old gentleman upon me.

Million was murmuring something about, "Very sorry. Got to get back soon, Miss. Lunch to lay----"

Absurd Million! As if she would ever have to lay lunch again as long as she lived! Couldn't she realise the upheaval in her world? I gazed reproachfully at her.

The lawyer said to me quite pleasantly: "May I ask if you are a relation of Miss Million?"

Hereupon Miss Million shot at him a glance of outrage. "A relation?

HER?" she cried. "The ideear!" Little Million's sense of "caste,"

fostered at the Soldiers' Orphanage, is nearly as strong as my Aunt Anastasia's. No matter if her secret day-dream has always been "to marry a gentleman." She was genuinely shocked that her old lawyer had not realised the relations between her little hard-working self and our family.

So she announced with simple dignity: "This is Miss Lovelace, the young lady where I am in service."

"Were in service," I corrected her.

Million took me up sharply. "I haven't given notice, Miss. I'm not leaving."

"But, you absurd Million, of course you are," I said. "You can't go on living in Laburnum Grove now. You're a rich man's heiress----"

"Will that stop me living where I want? I'm all alone in the world,"

faltered Million, suddenly looking small and forlorn as she sat there by the big desk. "You're the only real friend I got in the world, Miss Beatrice. I always liked you. You always talked to me as if you was no more a young lady than what I was. D'you think----" Her voice shook. She seemed to have forgotten the presence of old Mr. Chesterton. "D'you think I'd a-stopped so long with your Aunt Nasturtium if it hadn't been for not wantin' to leave where you was? I'd be lost without you. I shouldn't know where to put myself, Miss. Oh, Miss!" There was a sob in her voice. "Don't say I got to go away from you! What am I to do with myself and all that money?" There was a perplexed silence.

Million's lawyer glanced at me over his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, and I glanced back above Million's forget-me-not-wreathed hat.

It is a problem.