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In Luck at Last, a novel by Walter Besant |
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Chapter 9. Dr. Washington |
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_ 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. _ |
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