Miss Million's Maid Part 3

"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 for enlisting. I heard he was in America, gettin' on well----"

"That cla.s.s," 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 and took 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. Everything you 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 had been precipitated into the monotonous landscape of our daily lives--I accompanied Million to the lawyer's office, where she was to hear further particulars of her unexpected, her breath-taking, her epic legacy.

A million dollars! Two hundred thousand pounds! And all for the little grey-eyed, black-haired daughter of a sergeant in a line regiment, brought up in a soldiers' orphanage to domestic service at 20 a year!

To think of it!

I could see my Aunt Anastasia thinking of it--with bitterness, with envy.

It was she who ought to have taken Million to that office in Chancery Lane.

But she--the mistress of the house--excused herself by saying it was her morning for doing the silver.

We left her in the kitchen surrounded by what I am irreverent enough to call the relics of our family's grandeur--the Queen Anne tea service, the Early Georgian forks and spoons that have been worn and polished fragile and thin. Indeed, one teaspoon is broken. Aunt Anastasia took to her bed on the day of that accident. And the maid we had before Million scoured my grandfather's Crimean medal so heartily that soon there would have been nothing left to see on it. Since then my aunt has tended the relics with her own hands.

We left her brooding darkly over the injustice that had brought fortune to a wretched little maid-of-all-work and poverty to our family; we hailed the big white motor-'bus at the top of the road by the subscription library, and dashed up the steps to the front seat.

"There! Bit of all right, this, ain't it, Miss Beatrice!" gasped Million ecstatically.

Stars of delight shone in each grey eye as she settled herself down on the tilted seat. I thought that this change of expression was because she had thought over her marvellous good fortune during the night, and because 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 wave of 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 polis.h.i.+ng the knocker, the bell-handles, and the bra.s.s plate of the doctor's abode.

"And here am I, as large as life, a-ridin' on a 'bus the first thing in the morning!" enlarged Million, clenching her fists and sitting bolt upright. "At half-past nine o'clock, if you please--first time I've ever done such a thing! I've often wondered what it was like, top of a 'bus on a fine summer's morning! I'll know now!"

"You won't ever have to know again," I laughed as I sat there beside her. "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, of course," 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 always thought in pennies----"

"What? Three pounds for a thrupenny ride to the Bank, d'you mean, miss?"

cried Million, with a little shriek. "Oh, my G.o.dfathers!"

At that excited little squeal of hers another pa.s.senger on the 'bus had turned to glance at her across the gangway.

I met his eyes; the clear, blue, boyish eyes of the young man from next door.

He looked away again immediately. There was an expression on his face that seemed meant to emphasise, to underline, the announcement that he had never seen me before. No. Apparently he had never set eyes on the small, chestnut-haired girl (myself) in the shabby blue serge coat and skirt and the straw hat that had been white last summer, and that was now home-dyed--rather unsuccessfully--to something that called itself black. So evidently Aunt Anastasia had been rude to him about yesterday evening. Possibly she had forbidden him to speak to her niece and her dear brother's child, and Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter ever again. This made my blood boil. Why must she make us look so ridiculous?

Such--such futile sn.o.bs? Without any apparent excuse for keeping ourselves so aloof, either! To put on "select" airs without any circ.u.mstances to carry them off with is like walking about in a motor-coat and goggles when you haven't got any motor, when you never will 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. I cleared my throat. I turned towards him. In quite a determined sort of voice 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 I think I surprised a far-away twinkle. How awful! Possibly he was thinking, "H'm! So the dragon of an aunt doesn't let the girl out now without a maid as a chaperon to protect her! Is she afraid that somebody may 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 to Chancery Lane.

Here we got off.

We walked half-way up the little busy, narrow thoroughfare, and in at a big, cool, cave-like entrance to some offices.

"Chesterton, Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Third Floor," I read from the notice-board. "No lift. Come along, Million."

The stars had faded out of Million's eyes again. She looked scared. She clutched 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 being made game of," said Million, pitifully, half-way up the stairs. "This Mr. Chesterton--he won't half laugh!"

"Why should he laugh?"

"At me, bein' supposed to have come in for all those dollars of me uncle's. Do I look like an heiress?"

She didn't, bless her honest, self-conscious little heart. From her brown hat, wreathed with forget-me-nots, past the pin-on blue velvet tie, past the brown cloth costume, down to the quite new shoes that creaked a little, our Million looked the very type of what she was--a nice little servant-girl taking a day off.

But I laughed at her, encouraging her for all I was worth, until we reached the third floor and the clerk's outer office of Messrs.

Chesterton, Brown, Jones, and Robinson.