rose. Then she turned again. 'Oh, I had actually forgotten. Won't you tell the man – or the woman – who gave you that money for me, that I thank him from my very heart? It isn't that I think so much about money, but oh! the dreadful trouble that there has been at home because George has none – and this will do something to reconcile my mother. Don't you think it will make all the difference?'
'I hope that before the evening you will find that all opposition has been removed,' said her guardian cautiously.
She walked away in a dream. She found herself in Lincoln's Inn Fields: she walked all round that great square, also in a dream. The spectre of poverty had vanished. She was rich: she was rich: she had five hundred pounds a year. Between them they would have seven hundred pounds a year. It seemed enormous. Seven hundred pounds a year! Seven – seven – seven hundred pounds a year!
She got out into the street called Holborn, and she took the modest omnibus, this heiress of untold wealth. How much was it? Thirteen millions? or thirteen thousand? One seemed as much as the other. Twelve thousand: with accumulations: with accumulations – ations – ations. The wheels of the vehicle groaned out these musical words all the way. It was in the morning when the Bayswater omnibus is full of girls going home to lunch after shopping or looking at the shops. Elsie looked at these girls as they sat along the narrow benches. 'My dears,' she longed to say, but did not, 'I hope you have every one got a brave lover, and that you have all got twelve thousand pounds apiece – with accumulations – twelve thousand pounds – with accumulations – ations – ations – realising four hundred and eighty pounds a year, and perhaps a little more. With accumulations – ations – ations – accumulations.'
She ran into the house and up the stairs singing. At the sound of her voice her mother, engaged in calculations of the greatest difficulty, paused wondering. When she understood that it was the voice of her child and not an organ-grinder, she became angry. What right had the girl to run about singing? Was it insolent bravado?
Elsie opened the door of the drawing-room and ran in. Her mother's cold face repelled her. She was going to tell the joyful news – but she stopped.
'You have seen Mr. Dering?' asked her mother.
'Yes; I have seen him.'
'If he has brought you to reason – '
'Oh! He has – he has. I am entirely reasonable.'
Mrs. Arundel was astonished. The girl was flushed of face and bright of eye; her breath was thick; her lips were parted. She looked entirely happy.
'My dear mother,' she went on, 'I am to dine with him to-night. Hilda is to dine with him to-night. You are to dine with him to-night. It is to be a family party. He will bring us all to reason – to a bag full of reasons.'
'Elsie, this seems to me to be mirth misplaced.'
'No – no – in its right place – reasons all in a row and on three shelves, labelled and arranged and classified.'
'You talk in enigmas.'
'My dear mother' – yet that morning the dear mother would not speak to the dear daughter – 'I talk in enigmas and I sing in conundrums. I feel like an oracle or a Delphic old woman for dark sayings.'
She ran away, slamming the door after her. Her mother heard her singing in her studio all to herself. 'Can she be in her right mind?' she asked anxiously. 'To marry a Pauper – to receive the admonition of her guardian – and such a guardian – and to come home singing. 'Twould be better to lock her up than let her marry.'
CHAPTER VII
SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS
Mr. Dering lay back in his chair, gazing at the door – the unromantic office door – through which Elsie had just passed. I suppose that even the driest of old bachelors and lawyers may be touched by the sight of a young girl made suddenly and unexpectedly happy. Perhaps the mere apparition of a lovely girl, dainty and delicate and sweet, daintily and delicately apparelled, so as to look like a goddess or a wood-nymph rather than a creature of clay, may have awakened old and long-forgotten thoughts before the instincts of youth were stifled by piles of parchment. It is the peculiar and undisputed privilege of the historian to read thoughts, but it is not always necessary to write them down.
He sat up and sighed. 'I have not told her all,' he murmured. 'She shall be happier still.' He touched his hand-bell. 'Checkley,' he said, 'ask Mr. Austin kindly to step this way. – A day of surprise – of joyful surprise – for both.'
It was indeed to be a day of good fortune, as you shall see.
He opened a drawer and took out a document rolled and tied, which he laid upon the table before him.
George obeyed the summons, not without misgiving, for Elsie, he knew, must by this time have had the dreaded interview, and the call might have some reference to his own share in the great contumacy. To incur the displeasure of his employer in connection with that event might lead to serious consequences.
Astonishing thing! Mr. Dering received him with a countenance that seemed transformed. He smiled benevolently upon him. He even laughed. He smiled when George opened the door: he laughed when, in obedience to a gesture of invitation, George took a chair. He actually laughed: not weakly or foolishly, but as a strong man laughs.
'I want ten minutes with you, George Austin' – he actually used the Christian name – 'ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, or perhaps half an hour.' He laughed again. 'Now, then' – his face assumed its usual judicial expression, but his lips broke into unaccustomed smiles – 'Now then, sir, I have just seen my ward – my former ward, for she is now of age – and have heard – well – everything there was to hear.'
'I have no doubt, sir, that what you heard from Elsie was the exact truth.'
'I believe so. The questions which I put to her I also put to you. How do you propose to live? On your salary? You have been engaged to my late ward without asking the permission of her guardians – that is, her mother and myself.'
'That is not quite the case. We found that her mother opposed the engagement, and therefore it was not necessary to ask your permission. We agreed to let the matter rest until she should be of age. Meanwhile, we openly corresponded and saw each other.'
'It is a distinction without a difference. Perhaps what you would call a legal distinction. You now propose to marry. Elsie Arundel is no longer my ward; but, as a friend, I venture to ask you how you propose to live? A wife and a house cost money. Shall you keep house and wife on your salary alone? Have you any other resources?'
There are several ways of putting these awkward questions. There is especially the way of accusation, by which you charge the guilty young man of being by his own fault one of a very huge family – of having no money and no expectations – nothing at all, unless he can make it for himself. It is the manner generally adopted by parents and guardians. Mr. Dering, however, when he put the question smiled genially and rubbed his hands – a thing so unusual as to be terrifying in itself – as if he was uttering a joke – a thing he never had done in his life. The question, however, even when put in this, the kindest way, is one most awkward for any young man, and especially to a young man in either branch of the law, and most especially to a young man beginning the ascent of the lower branch.
Consider, of all the professions, crowded as they are, there is none so crowded as this branch of the law. 'What,' asks anxious Quiverful Père, 'shall I do with this boy of mine? I will spend a thousand pounds upon him and make him a solicitor. Once he has passed, the way is clear for him.'
