The first act of Mr. Blight was to deluge his wife with the contents of a carafe of water which happened to be at hand. Then bending over her and chafing her hands, he adjured her to tell him what was the matter, and if the children were all killed.
“You—you beast!” gasped the wife, with the tones and breathing of a drowning woman. “You’ve ruined my new dress, and it cost fifteen shillings a yard, if it cost a penny! The dear knows where I am to get another. I expect to find myself in the union by this time next year, on account of that treacherous viper that I warmed in my bosom! Oh, my poor children—my poor ruined lambs!”
“What do you mean, Laura?” demanded her husband impatiently. “Don’t be a fool, if you can help it, for once. What has happened?”
“Everything has happened!” wailed Mrs. Blight. “We are wretched, good-for-nothing beggars. The old wretch up stairs has gone and left all her money to that jade of a governess—”
“Speak sense, if you can. What do you mean, I ask again? How can Aunt Wroat have ‘gone and left all her money’ to Miss Bird? Is your mind wandering?”
“No, I wish it was. I’d rather be a wild maniac of Bedlam than what I am at this moment,” moaned the unhappy lawyer’s wife. “My governess, Miss Bird, you know, is hob-nobbing with Aunt Wroat; and who do you think the artful minx has turned out to be? Why, she says she’s the daughter of Clara Percy, who married a corn-chandler—the very girl that Aunt Wroat has been looking for for over a year. And Aunt Wroat has adopted her, and says the girl is to inherit every penny of her fifty thousand pounds, except money enough to buy you and me each a penny whistle, or some such thing. And the girl is to have all of Aunt Wroat’s splendid diamonds. O dear! O dear! What is life but a trial? Why was I born?”
“But this is infamous!” gasped the lawyer. “It’s preposterous. The girl’s an impostor. Why didn’t you tell Aunt Wroat so?”
“I did—I did. But she sneered at me—she did, indeed. And here is the five pounds I advanced the girl, and Aunt Wroat paid it back to me. And here is twenty pounds for the expenses we’ve been put to on Aunt Wroat’s account. They made me take it. But what can pay us for our blighted hopes? The girl ought to be arrested. If I were only a judge I’d send her to Botany Bay!”
“Serves you right for taking the jade in! And so she’s the daughter of Clara Percy. I thought her name seemed familiar,” said the lawyer. “Aunt Wroat was always uttering that name on her visit to us last year. What fatality!”
“Must we give up in this way?” sobbed Mrs. Blight. “Is there nothing we can do?”