"We have thought well," said Arnold. "Iris has faith in me."
"Then, young man, I have nothing to say. Iris will marry to please herself, and I pray that she may be happy. As for you, I like your face and manners, but I do not know who you are, nor what your means may be. Remember that I am poor--I am so poor--I can tell you all now, that to-morrow we shall--well, patience--to-morrow I shall most likely have my very stock seized and sold."
"Your stock sold? Oh, grandfather!" cried Iris; "and you did not tell me! And I have been so happy."
"Friend," said Lala, "was it well to hide this from me?"
"Foolish people," Mr. Emblem went on, "have spread reports that I am rich, and have saved money for Iris. It is not true, Mr. Arbuthnot. I am not rich. Iris will come to you empty-handed."
"And as for me, I have nothing," said Arnold, "except a pair of hands and all the time there is. So we have all to gain and nothing to lose."
"You have your profession," said Iris, "and I have mine. Grandfather, do not fear, even though we shall all four become poor together."
It seemed natural to include Lala Roy, who had been included with them for twenty years.
"As for Iris being empty-handed," said Arnold, "how can that ever be?
Why, she carries in her hands an inexhaustible cornucopia, full of precious things."
"My dear," said the old man, holding out his arms to her, "I could not keep you always. Some day I knew you would leave me; it is well that you should leave me when I am no longer able to keep a roof over your head."
"But we shall find a roof for you, grandfather, somewhere. We shall never part."
"The best of girls always," said Mr. Emblem; "the best of girls! Mr.
Arbuthnot, you are a happy man."
Then the Sage lifted up his voice and said solemnly:
"On her tongue dwelleth music; the sweetness of honey floweth from her lips; humility is like a crown of glory about her head; her eye speaketh softness and love; her husband putteth his heart in her bosom and findeth joy."
"Oh, you are all too good to me," murmured Iris.
"A friend of mine," said Mr. Emblem, "now, like nearly all my friends, beneath the sod, used to say that a good marriage was a happy blending of the finest Wallsend with the most delicate Silkstone. But he was in the coal trade. For my own part I have always thought that it is like the binding of two scarce volumes into one."
"Oh, not second-hand volumes, grandfather," said Iris.
"I don"t know. Certainly not new ones. Not volumes under one-and-twenty, if you please. Mr. Arbuthnot, I am glad; you will know why very soon. I am very glad that Iris made her choice before her twenty-first birthday. Whatever may happen now, no one can say that either of you was influenced by any expectations. You both think yourself paupers; well, I say nothing, because I know nothing. But, children, if a great thing happen to you, and that before four-and-twenty hours have pa.s.sed, be prepared--be prepared, I say--to receive it with moderate rejoicing."
"To-morrow?" Iris asked. "Why to-morrow? Why not to-night, if you have a secret to tell us?"
"Your father enjoined in his last letter to wait till you were twenty-one. The eve of your birthday, however, is the same thing as your birthday. We will open the papers to-night. What I have to tell you, Iris, shall be told in the presence of your lover, whatever it is--good or bad."
He led the way down-stairs into the back shop. Here he lit the gas, and began to open his case, slowly and cautiously.
"Eighteen years ago, Iris, my child, I received your father"s last letter, written on his death bed. This I have already told you. He set down, in that letter, several things which surprised me very much. We shall come to these things presently. He also laid down certain instructions for your bringing up, my dear. I was, first of all, to give you as good an education as I could afford; I was to keep you as much as possible separated from companions who might not be thought afterward fit to be the friends of a young lady. You have as good an education as Lala Roy and I could devise between us. From him you have learned mathematics, so as to steady your mind and make you exact; and you have learned the science of heraldry from me, so that you may at once step into your own place in the polite world, where, no doubt, it is a familiar and a necessary study. You have also learned music, because that is an accomplishment which every one should possess. What more can any girl want for any station? My dear, I am happy to think that a gentleman is your lover. Let him tell us, now--Lala Roy and me--to our very faces, if he thinks we have, between us, made you a lady."
Arnold stooped and kissed her hand.
"There is no more perfect lady," he said, "in all the land."
"Iris"s father, Mr. Arbuthnot, was a gentleman of honorable and ancient family, and I will tell you, presently, as soon as I find it out myself, his real name. As for his coat-of-arms, he bore Quarterly, first and fourth, two roses and a boar"s head erect; second and third, gules and fesse between--strange, now that I have forgotten what it was between. Everybody calls himself a gentleman nowadays; even Mr.
Chalker, who is going to sell me up, I suppose; but everybody, if you please, is not armiger. Iris, your father was armiger. I suppose I am a gentleman on Sundays, when I go to church with Iris, and wear a black coat. But your father, my dear, though he married my daughter, was a gentleman by birth. And one who knows heraldry respects a gentleman by birth." He laid his hand now on the handle of the safe, as if the time were nearly come for opening it, but not quite. "He sent me, with this last letter, a small parcel for you, my dear, not to be opened until you reached the age of twenty-one. As for the person who had succeeded to his inheritance, she was to be left in peaceable possession for a reason which he gave--quite a romantic story, which I will tell you presently--until you came of age. He was very urgent on this point. If, however, any disaster of sickness or misfortune fell upon me, I was to act in your interests at once, without waiting for time. Children," the old man added solemnly, "by the blessing of Heaven--I cannot take it as anything less--I have been spared in health and fortune until this day. Now let me depart in peace, for my trust is expired, and my child is safe, her inheritance secured, with a younger and better protector." He placed the key in the door of the safe. "I do not know, mind," he said, still hesitating to take the final step; "I do not know the nature of the inheritance; it may be little or maybe great. The letter does not inform me on this point. I do not even know the name of the testator, my son-in-law"s father. Nor do I know the name of my daughter"s husband. I do not even know your true name, Iris, my child. But it is not Aglen."
"Then, have I been going under a false name all my life?"
"It was the name your father chose to bear for reasons which seemed good and sufficient to him, and these are part of the story which I shall have to tell you. Will you have this story first, or shall we first open the safe and read the contents of the parcel?"
"First," said Arnold, "let us sit down and look in each other"s faces."
It was a practical suggestion. But, as it proved, it was an unlucky one, because it deprived them of the story.
"Iris," he said, while they waited, "this is truly wonderful!"
"Oh, Arnold! What am I to do with an inheritance?"
"That depends on what it is. Perhaps it is a landed estate; in which case we shall not be much better off, and can go on with our work; perhaps there will be houses; perhaps it will be thousands of pounds, and perhaps hundreds. Shall we build a castle in the air to suit our inheritance?"
"Yes; let us pretend. Oh, grandfather, stop one moment! Our castle, Arnold, shall be, first of all, the most beautiful studio in the world for you. You shall have tapestry, blue china, armor, lovely gla.s.s, soft carpets, carved doors and painted panels, a tall mantelshelf, old wooden cabinets, silver cups, and everything else what one ought to like, and you shall choose everything for yourself, and never get tired of it. But you must go on painting; you must never stop working, because we must be proud of you as well that you like. Oh, but I have not done yet. My grandfather is to have two rooms for himself, which he can fill with the books he will spend his time in collecting; Lala Roy will have two more rooms, quite separate, where he can sit by himself whenever he does not choose to sit with me; I shall have my own study to myself, where I shall go on reading mathematics; and we shall all have, between us, the most beautiful dining-room and drawing-room that you ever saw; and a garden and a fountain, and--yes--money to give to people who are not so fortunate as ourselves. Will that do, Arnold?"
"Yes, but you have almost forgotten yourself, dear. There must be carriages for you, and jewels, and dainty things all your own, and a boudoir, and n.o.body shall think of doing or saying anything in the house at all, except for your pleasure; will that do, Iris?"
"I suppose we shall have to give parties of some kind, and to go to them. Perhaps one may get to like society. You will teach me lawn-tennis, Arnold; and I should like, I think, to learn dancing. I suppose I must leave off making my own dresses, though I know that I shall never be so well dressed if I do. And about the cakes and puddings--but, oh, there is enough pretending."
"It is difficult," said Lala Roy, "to bear adversity. But to be temperate in prosperity is the height of wisdom."
"And now suppose, Iris," said Arnold "that the inheritance, instead of being thousands a year, is only a few hundreds."
"Ah, then, Arnold, it will be ever so much simpler. We shall have something to live upon until you begin to make money for us all."
"Yes; that is very simple. But suppose, again, that the inheritance is nothing but a small sum of money."
"Why, then," said Iris, "we will give it all to grandfather, who will pay off his creditor, and we will go on as if nothing had happened."
"Child!" said Mr. Emblem, "do you think that I would take your little all?"
"And suppose, again," Arnold went on, "that the inheritance turns out a delusion, and that there is nothing at all?"
"That cannot be supposed," said Mr. Emblem quickly; "that is absurd!"
"If it were," said Iris, "we shall only be, to-morrow, just exactly what we are to-day. I am a teacher by correspondence, with five pupils. Arnold is looking for art-work, which will pay; and between us, my dear grandfather and Lala Roy, we are going to see that you want nothing."
Always Lala Roy with her grandfather, as if their interests were identical, and, indeed, he had lived so long with them that Iris could not separate the two old men.
"We will all live together," Iris continued, "and when our fortune is made we will all live in a palace. And now, grandfather, that we have relieved our feelings, shall we have the story and the opening of the papers in the safe?"
"Which will you have first?" Mr. Emblem asked again.
"Oh, the safe," said Arnold. "The story can wait. Let us examine the contents of the safe."
"The story," said Mr. Emblem, "is nearly all told in your father"s letter, my dear. But there is a little that I would tell you first, before I read that letter. You know, Iris, that I have never been rich; my shop has kept me up till now, but I have never been able to put by money. Well--my daughter Alice, your poor mother, my dear, who was as good and clever as you are, was determined to earn her own living, and so she went out as a governess. And one day she came home with her husband; she had been married the day before, and she told me they had very little money, and her husband was a scholar and a gentleman, and wanted to get work by writing. He got some, but not enough, and they were always in a poor way, until one day he got a letter from America--it was while the Civil War was raging--from an old Oxford friend, inviting him to emigrate and try fortune as a journalist out there. He went, and his wife was to join him. But she died, my dear; your mother died, and a year later I had your father"s last letter, which I am now going to read to you."