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Updated: June 12, 2025
Wordley the horse seemed to crawl and the minutes to grow into days. He leapt out of the hansom, and actually ran into the hall. "You've a patient Ida Heron" he panted to the hall porter. The man turned to his book. "Yes, sir," he said. "Discharged yesterday." Mr. Wordley staggered against the glass partition of the porter's box and groaned. "Can you tell me ?" he began. "Has she left any address?
"And Jessie shall be the housekeeper and Jason the butler," said Ida, with a laugh of almost child-like enjoyment. "Oh, it all seems like a dream; and I feel that at any moment I may wake and find myself at Laburnum Villa. And, oh, Mr. Wordley, I shall want some more money at once.
Wordley I mean anything more than usual?" He did not answer, and she looked at him as if waiting for his reply. "I was thinking of what you just said: that you were a big girl. So you are, though you always seem to me like the little child I used to nurse. But the world rolls on and you have grown into a woman and I ought to tell you the truth," he said, at last.
Wordley was trying to recover command of himself, a slim black-clad figure came down the hall, and pausing before the large tin box provided for contributions, dropped something into it. Mr. Wordley watched her absently; she raised her head, and he sprang forward with "Miss Ida!" on his lips.
Wordley would have liked to have persuaded her to see some of the women who had hastened to comfort her; but he knew that any attempt at persuasion would have been in vain, that he would not have been able to break down the barrier of reserve which the girl had instinctively and reservedly erected between her suffering soul and the world.
"Five thousand, fifty thousand, my dear!" he responded, promptly, and with no little pride and satisfaction. "Five hundred will do for the present," she said a little nervously. "Perhaps the porter will let you draw it out." Still puzzled, Mr. Wordley went into the porter's box and took out his cheque-book. "Make it payable to the hospital and give it to me, please," said Ida, in a low voice.
"Have you any idea how many accidents there are in a day in London? I suppose not. You'd be surprised if I told you. What was the date she was missing?" Mr. Wordley told him, and he turned to a large red book like a ledger. "As I thought, sir," he said. "'Young lady knocked down by a light van in Goode Street, Minories. Dark hair, light eyes. Height, five feet nine. Age, about twenty-one or two.
Surely there is something I can do!" Her voice broke, she began to tremble, and the tears started to her eyes again. "Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt, my child!" said Mr. Wordley, whose own eyes were moist. "We will think about all that later on. You must go now and rest; you are tired."
"Something of my father's?" Mr. Wordley nodded impressively. "Yes, it was something of your father's. It was a large box, my dear, and it contained what do you think?" "Papers?" ventured Ida. "Securities, my dear Miss Ida, securities for a very large amount! The box was full of them; and a little farther off we found another tin case quite as full.
This at least she could do with the money which her father had so mysteriously made: restore it, the house he had loved so well well, to its old dignity and grandeur. The great architect, very much impressed not only by the Hall but its beautiful young mistress, left before Mr. Wordley, who wanted to talk over business with Ida.
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