by Berta Ruck
CHAPTER V
MILLION LEAVES HER PLACE
MILLION has gone!
She has left us, our little cheerful, and bonnie, and capablemaid-of-all-work who has become a millionaire pork-butcher's heiress!
Never again will her trim, aproned figure busy itself about our smalland shockingly inconvenient kitchen at No. 45. Never again will she haveto struggle with the vagaries of its range. Never again will she "doout" our drawing-room with its disgraceful old carpet and its gracefulold cabinet. Never again will she quail under the withering rebuke withwhich my Aunt Anastasia was wont to greet her if she returned half aminute late from her evening out. Never again will she entertain mewith her stream of artless comments on life and love and her ownambition--"Oh, Miss, dear, I should like to marry a gentleman!"
Well, I suppose there's every probability now that this ambition may begratified. Plenty of hard-up young men about, even of the Lovelaceclass, "our" class, who would be only too pleased to provide forthemselves by marrying a Million, in both senses of the word.
Laburnum Grove, Putney, S.W., will know her no more. And I, BeatriceLovelace, who was born in the same month of the same year as this othermore-favoured girl--I feel as if I'd lost my only friend.
I also feel as if it were at least a couple of years since it allhappened. Yet it is only three days since Million and I went down toChancery Lane together to interview the old lawyer person on the subjectof her new riches. I shall never forget that interview. I shall never beable to forget the radiant little face of Million at the end of it all,when the kind old gentleman offered to advance her some of her own money"down on the nail," and did advance her five pounds in cash--fivegolden, gleaming, solid sovereigns!
"My godfathers!" breathed Million, as she tucked the coins into the palmof her brown-thread glove.
She'd never had so much money at once before in the whole course of hertwenty-three years of life. (I've _never_ had it, of course!) And thetangible presence of those heavy coins in her hand seemed to bring ithome to Million that she was rich, more than all the explanations of herold lawyer about investments and capital.
I saw him look, half-amusedly, half-anxiously, at the little heiress'sflushed face and the gesture with which she clenched that fist full ofgold. And it was then that he began to urge upon us that "Miss Million"must find some responsible older person or persons, some ladies withwhom she might live while she made her plans respecting therearrangement of her existence.
To cut a long story short, it was he, the old lawyer, who suggested andarranged for "Miss Million's" next step. It appears that he has sisters"of a reasonable age" (I suppose that means about a hundred andthirty-eight) who are on the committee of a hostelry for gentlewomen ofindependent means, somewhere in Kensington.
Sure to be a "pussery" of some sort! "Gentlewomen" living togethergenerally relapse into spitefulness and feuds, and "means" can often bepronounced "mean"!
Still, as Million's old lawyer said, the place would provide a haven_pro tem_.
Our millionairess went off there this morning. She wouldn't take a taxi.
"What's the use o' wasting all that fare from here to Kensington, goodgracious?" said Million. "There's no hurry about me getting there longbefore lunch, after all, Miss Beatrice. And as for me things, they cancome by Carter Paterson a bit later. I'll put the card up now, if MissLovelace don't mind. There's only that tin trunk that I've had eversince the Orphanage, and me straw basket with the strap round----"
Such luggage for an heiress! I couldn't help smiling at it as it waitedin the kitchen entrance. And then the smile turned to a lump in mythroat as Million, in her hat and jacket, stumped down the wooden backstairs to say good-bye to me.
"I said good-bye to your Aunt Nastur--to Miss Lovelace, before she wentout, Miss." (My aunt is lunching at the hotel of one of her fewremaining old friends who is passing through London.)
"Can't say I shall breck my heart missin' her, Miss Beatrice," announcedthe candid Million. "Why, at the last she shook 'ands--hands as if Iwas all over black-lead and she was afraid of it coming off on her! Butyou--you've always been so different, as I say. You always seemed to goon as if"--Million's funny little voice quivered--"as if Gord had madeus both----"
"Don't, Million," I said chokily. "I shall cry if you go on like this.And tears are so unlucky to christen a new venture with."
"Is that what they say, Miss?" rejoined the superstitious Million,winking back the fat, shiny drops that were gathering in her own greyeyes. "Aw right, then, I won't. 'Keep smiling,' eh? Always merry andbright, and cetrer. Good-bye, Miss. Oh, lor'! I wish you was comingalong with me to this place, instead of me going off alone to face allthese strange females----"
"I wish I were; only I shall have to stay and keep the house until myaunt comes back----"
"Drat 'er! I mean----Excuse me, Miss Beatrice. I wish you hadn't a-gotto live with her. Thrown away on her, you are. It's you that ought to beclearing out of this place, not just me. You ought to have some sort ofa big bust-up and then bunk!"
"Where to, Million?"
"Anywheres! Couldn't you come where I was? Anyways, Miss, will you dropme a line sometimes to say how you're keeping? And, Miss, would you beoffended if I said good-bye sort of properly. I know it's like my sorce,but----"
"Oh, Million, dear!" I cried.
I threw both my arms round her sturdy little jacketed figure. We kissedas heartily as if we had been twin sisters instead of ex-mistress andex-maid.
Then Million--Miss Million, the heiress--trotted off down Laburnum Grovetowards the stopping-place of the electric trams. And I, BeatriceLovelace, the pauper, the come-down-in-the-world, turned back into No.45, feeling as if what laughter there had been in my life had gone outof it for ever!
I suppose I'd better have lunch--Million's laid it ready for me for thelast time!--then sit in the drawing-room, finishing my darning, andwaiting for my aunt's return. If Million had been here I could havespent the afternoon with her in the kitchen. Million gone! I feel lostwithout her.
Nothing else will happen to-day.
There's a ring at the bell. How unlike Aunt Anastasia to forget her key!I must go....
(Later.)
I went. But it was not Aunt Anastatia's herring-slim figure that stoodon the doorstep which Million insisted on whitening for the last timethis morning. It was the tall, broad-shouldered, active andmanly-looking figure of the young man from next door.