_ 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!"
Clara did as she was asked readily and eagerly. Then Joe departed, promising to call and say farewell before he left England, and resolving that in his next visit--his last visit--there should be another check. But he had made one mistake; he had parted with the papers. No one in any situation of life should ever give up the power, until he has secured the substance. But it is human to err.
"And now, my dear," said Clara warmly, "sit down and let us talk. Arnold is coming to lunch with us, and to make your acquaintance."
When Arnold came a few minutes later, he was astonished to find his cousin already on the most affectionate terms with the newly-arrived Iris Deseret. She was walking about the room showing her the pictures of her grandfather and other ancestors, and they were hand-in-hand.
"Arnold," said Clara, "this is Iris, and I hope you will both be great friends; Iris, this is my cousin, but he is not yours."
"I don't pretend to know how that may be," said the young lady. "But then I am glad to know all your cousins, whether they are mine or not; only don't bother me with questions, because I don't remember anything, and I don't know anything. Why, until the other day I did not even know that I was an English lady, not until they found those papers."
A strange accent for an American! and she certainly said "laidy" for "lady," and "paipper" for "paper," like a cockney. Alas! This comes of London Music Halls even to country-bred damsels!
Arnold made a mental observation that the new-comer might be called anything in the world, but could not be called a lady. She was handsome, certainly, but how could Claude Deseret's daughter have grown into so common a type of beauty? Where was the delicacy of feature and manner which Clara had never ceased to commend in speaking of her lost cousin?
"Iris," said Clara, "is our little savage from the American Forest. She is Queen Pocahontas, who has come over to conquer England and to win all our hearts. My dear, my Cousin Arnold will help me to make you an English girl."
She spoke as in the State of Maine was still the hunting-ground of Sioux and Iroquois.
Arnold thought that a less American-looking girl he had never seen; that she did not speak or look like a lady was to be expected, perhaps, if she had, as was probable, been brought up by rough and unpolished people. But he had no doubt, any more than Clara herself, as to the identity of the girl. Nobody ever doubts a claimant. Every impostor, from Demetrius downward, has gained his supporters and partisans by simply living among them and keeping up the imposition. It is so easy, in fact, to be a claimant, that it is wonderful there are not more of them.
Then luncheon was served, and the young lady not only showed a noble appetite, but to Arnold's astonishment, confessed to an ardent love for bottled stout.
"Most American ladies," he said impertinently, "only drink water, do they not?"
Lotty perceived that she had made a mistake.
"I only drink stout," she said, "when the doctor tells me. But I like it all the same."
She certainly had no American accent. But she would not talk much; she was, perhaps, shy. After luncheon, however, Clara asked her if she would sing, and she complied, showing considerable skill with her accompaniment, and singing a simple song in good taste and with a sweet voice. Arnold observed, however, that there was some weakness about the letter "h," less common among Americans than among the English. Presently he went away, and the girl, who had been aware that he was watching her, breathed more easily.
"Who is your Cousin Arnold?" she asked.
"My dear, he is my cousin but not yours. You will not see him often, because he is going to be married, I am sorry to say, and to be married beneath him--oh, it is dreadful! to some tradesman's girl, my dear."
"Dreadful!" said Iris with a queer look in her eyes. "Well, cousin, I don't want to see much of him. He's a good-looking chap, too, though rather too finicking for my taste. I like a man who looks as if he could knock another man down. Besides, he looks at me as if I was a riddle, and he wanted to find out the answer."
In the evening Arnold found that no change had come over the old man. He was, however, perfectly happy, so that, considering the ruin of his worldly prospects, it was, perhaps, as well that he had parted, for a time, at least, with his wits. Some worldly misfortunes there are which should always produce this effect.
"You told me," said Lala Roy, "that another Iris had just come from America to claim an inheritance of your cousin."
"Yes; it is a very strange coincidence."
"Very strange. Two Englishmen die in America at the same time, each having a daughter named Iris, and each daughter entitled to some kind of inheritance."
Lala Roy spoke slowly, and with meaning.
"Oh!" cried Arnold. "It is more than strange. Do you think--is it possible--"
He could not for the moment clothe his thoughts in words.
"Do you know if any one has brought this girl to England?"
"Yes; she was brought over by a young American physician, one of the family who adopted and brought her up."
"What is he like--the young American physician?"
"I have not seen him."
"Go, my young friend, to-morrow morning, and ask your cousin if this photograph resembles the American physician."
It was the photograph of a handsome young fellow, with strongly marked features, apparently tall and well-set-up.
"Lala, you don't really suspect anything--you don't think--"
"Hush! I know who has stolen the papers. Perhaps the same man has produced the heiress."
"And you think--you suspect that the man who stole the papers is connected with--But then those papers must be--oh, it cannot be! For then Iris would be Clara's cousin--Clara's cousin--and the other an impostor."
"Even so; everything is possible. But silence. Do not speak a word, even to Iris. If the papers are lost, they are lost. Say nothing to her yet; but go--go, and find out if that photograph resembles the American physician. The river wanders here and there, but the sea swallows it at last." _