MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED.
That is a grand trait of character in man, woman, or
child--unselfishness. It is a trait that scarcely exists, perhaps, in
its pure state; for we are selfish mortals, struggling to cut one
another's throats all our lives, and coveting our neighbour's goods with
a rare intensity. It is a selfish globe on which we are spinning, and it
is natural to think deeply--think altogether, perhaps--of _our_ loves,
_our_ successes, _our_ chances of fame, fortune, happiness, rather than
of other people's. For the reason that it has been our lot to drop upon
an exception to this rule--as near an exception as this rule _sans_
exception will allow--do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections,
and think her story--approaching its turbulent stage--worth the telling.
Springing from a low estate, and saved as by a miracle--this flower put
forth strange buds and blossoms after its transplanting. It outlived the
past, and turned quickly to the light, as though light had been its
craving from the first, and only a better chance, and a purer moral
atmosphere, were needed to wholly change it. Mattie passed from evil to
good swiftly, grateful to the hands that had been outstretched to save
her; the untaught childhood became swiftly the days of grateful
girlhood--and from girlhood to the gentle, honest womanhood, that
thought of others' happiness, and strove hard for happiness in those she
loved, was but another step, easily made and never repented of.
She did all for the best, and strove hard to make the best of
everything--_for others_. We know no better heroine than this, and I am
very doubtful if we care for one better educated or of higher origin.
And yet, heaven be thanked, not a model heroine, who was always in the
right!
Mattie removed to her father's apartments in Union Road, Brunswick
Street, New Kent Road. Brunswick Street is an artery that lets the wild
blood of Great Dover Street into the New Kent Road--a quiet street by
day, but subject to scared strangers at night in search of the medical
students who locate here in legions. Union Road is on the right of
Brunswick Street, and a near cut, if you are fortunate enough not to
lose yourself, to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, though what you may want
_there_ is more your business than ours. Mr. Gray rented the two top
rooms of a small house in Union Road, the sitting room provided with a
sofa bedstead, which was henceforth to be of service to Mattie, when the
day's duties were over, and Mr. Gray had finished his praying.
Here settled down the new-found father and child, and began "home" once
more. Here Mattie learned by degrees to understand her father, to
appreciate the many good qualities which he possessed, and to "make
allowance"--as she always made allowance--for the few bad ones, which he
possessed also, minister of the gospel as he termed himself.
They agreed very well together; there was little to disturb the even
tenor of their way; and it fortunately happened that Mr. Gray, who was
fond of argument, was blessed with a daughter who always shunned it,
when the topics did not directly affect her. Mr. Gray, on the whole, was
a little disappointed in his daughter--agreeably disappointed, we might
have said, had not the discomfiture been so apparent on his features for
a while. He was a man fond of making converts; it had been his
profession, and he had met with success therein. He had promised himself
the pleasure of saving his daughter from the dangers and temptations of
the world, and he had found one who was out of danger and as above
temptation as he was. From Mrs. Watts' account, subsequently from Mr.
Wesden's, he had been led to expect a very different daughter to this; a
girl who had run the streets for eleven years--who had been a friendless
stray upon those streets, a thief and beggar at intervals when honesty
did not _pay_--who had afterwards left her master's house under
suspicion of a grave character--was likely to be a wilful, vicious
specimen of womanhood, and worthy of his earnest efforts to subdue.
Though he would not have owned it to himself, yet the belief in Mattie
being unregenerate and defiant had added an intensity to his search for
her; since his own better life, he had been ever in search of a
thoroughly fine specimen of impenitence to practise upon, and now even
his own daughter had disappointed him!
He discovered that she was a regular attendant at chapel--not even at
church, to whose forms he had the true dissenter's objection--that she
read her Bible regularly, and took comfort from its pages--that she was
gentle, charitable, kind, unselfish, everything that he would have liked
to make her by his intense love and application, and which he had found
ready-made to hand.
He returned thanks for all this in his usual manner, but there was an
occasional blankness of expression on his countenance; he was truly glad
to have discovered his daughter, but he found that she was never to owe
him an immense debt of gratitude for her reformation, and he had built
upon that whenever they were thrown together, father and child, at last.
Beyond his home he must look once more for the obdurate specimen that he
could attack, follow up, analyze and dissect, with the gusto of a
surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"
But that home--in a very little time what a different place it was to
him! He found in Mattie all that he could have made of her, and after
awhile he was more than content. He was a man who made but little show
of earthly affection, and possibly deceived Mattie, who took his love
for duty more often than he wished, though it was his pride to abjure
all evidence of earthly affection, and to consider himself, as he termed
it, above it. He was a man who deceived himself by this--people have
that peculiar trait of character now and then, and place credence in
their own impossibilities.
Mr. Gray was a lithographer by trade--a man who would have earned more
money had not his preaching interfered with his work, and had he not
been rather too particular for a business man upon what work he engaged
himself. A crotchety, irritable being, who brought his religion into his
business, and, therefore, occasionally muddled both. On one occasion he
had been horrified by the receipt of an order to lithograph several
scenes from the last new pantomime, to be exhibited on broadsheets
outside the theatre-doors, and in tobacconists' shops; and having
declined to be an agent in such a "Worke of the Beast," had been
dismissed from the staff of a firm which he had faithfully-served for
many years. He had lived hard after that, known what it was to be
penniless and fireless, and almost bootless, but those unpleasant
sensations had their comforts for him--they were evidences of his
sacrifice for his character's sake, and he had fought on doggedly till
other employment came, which brought his head above water. He was a man
who never gave way in his opinions, or sacrificed them for his personal
convenience--a disagreeable man more often than not, but a man respected
amongst his chapel-circle, and who, when once understood--that was not
often, however--was generally liked. A man who dealt in hard truths, and
had not invariably the gentlest method of distributing them; but a man
who loved to see justice done to all oppressed, and did his best after
his own way.
His first attempt to do justice, after Mattie's acquaintance with him,
was in Mattie's favour. He understood all the reasons for Mattie's
departure from Great Suffolk Street, and he saw where Mr. Wesden had
been deceived, and in what manner he had been led by degrees to form a
false estimate of Mattie's conduct.
He was a fidgety man, we have implied--more than that, he was an
excitable and restless man.
"I must see that Mr. Wesden again--we must both see him, Mattie," he
said one evening.
"Oh! I can never face him," said Mattie, in an alarmed manner, "after
all that he has thought of me. I could not bear to ask him to confess
that he was in the wrong, if he will not confess it of his own free
will."
"But he shall, my dear!"
"I can't explain the robberies--can't prove that I was innocent of all
implication in them. I was a thief once, and he will never forget that."
"Won't he?" said Mr. Gray, decisively; "we'll see about that. I'll rouse
him, my dear, depend upon it. The first opportunity I have, I'll call
upon that man, and--rouse him."
"I hope not."
Mattie was at work at the fireside; she had taken to dress-making again,
amongst a new connection of chapel-goers introduced by her father, and
Mr. Gray was busy at his lithography. He was working hard into the
night, doing extra work, in order that he might have all the next week
free for a preaching expedition amongst the colliers, and he did not
turn from his work to express his opinion; on the contrary, bent more
earnestly over it.
"It's no good hoping, my dear, I have made up my mind; he hasn't acted
fairly by you--he hasn't made atonement--I must talk to him presently."
Mattie was glad of the postponement, and hopeful that her father, in his
multiplicity of engagements, would forget his determination--a strange
hope, for Mr. Gray never forgot anything.
"What kind of man is this Mr. Wesden, Mattie?" he asked; "I have only
seen him once, for a few minutes. Hard, isn't he?"
"Sometimes. He has altered very much lately."
"A worldly man--fond of money--grasping, in fact. Such a man is hard to
impress. I'll have a try at him, though."
"He's a very good man, father," Mattie said; "you must remember that he
saved me from the streets, and that for years and years was very good
and kind to me."
"Yes, yes--I shall pay him back some day--but he must be worldly, I
should think, and in return for all his goodness I'll make a good man of
him--see if I don't! I suppose you used to open on Sundays in Great
Suffolk Street?"
"Never."
"Hum--that's well. Not so bad as I thought. Did he go to chapel of a
Sunday, now?"
"To church--St. George's."
"Hum--that's not so bad. Not much credit in making a better man of
_him_," he muttered; "but I'll--rouse him!"
The next day he neglected his work on purpose to attempt the experiment.
He was successful enough, for there was a rough eloquence inherent in
him, and he had a fair cause to plead; and the result was, that the
roused Mr. Wesden made his appearance arm in arm with Mr. Gray at
Mattie's home.
"I've got him!" said Mr. Gray, triumphantly; "here's Mr. Wesden, Mattie.
He has come to say how very sorry he was for all that parted you and
him--haven't you, sir?"
"Very sorry," said Mr. Wesden, looking at Mattie askance; "I've been
thinking of it a long while--yes, Mattie, very sorry!"
He held out both hands to her, and Mattie ran to him, clasped them in
her own, shook them heartily, and then burst out crying on his shoulder.
"Oh! my first father!--I didn't think that you would believe wrong of me
all your life!"
"No--and it was very wrong--Mattie. And all will be right now--you and
your father must come and see us very often."
"Yes."
She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography,
bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this
reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had
vanished.
"Father--you hear?"
"I don't care about much company--when we've nothing better to do than
idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.
"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden,
almost entreatingly.
"Mattie won't care about much company herself--and I very much doubt
if--if that young person you allude to--is exactly fitting for my
daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of
what is truly womanly."
Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that
night, and he perplexed her.
"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh.
She was in high spirits that night.
Mr. Gray softened.
"You are a very good girl, Mattie--a very good girl indeed; there are
only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was
speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a
chisel at his leisure.
"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think
_any_ harm of me now! The robberies--the talk with Mr. Hinchford--" she
added, with a faint blush.
"What was that?" asked Mr. Gray, with renewed alacrity.
"Foolishness--all foolishness on my part," said Wesden; "how could I
have acted so? And yet, when it came to being out all night, the fancies
turned to truths, it seemed. Ah! no matter now."
"No matter now. Oh! I am very happy. Will you sit down here for awhile,
and tell me about Harriet and yourself--and _she_ who was always so kind
to me?"
"And thought well of you to the last. We wrangled once or twice about
that--the only thing we ever had to quarrel about, Mattie, in all our
lives together."
"Sit down and tell me about her--my true mother! You will excuse my
father--he is very busy."
"Certainly."
And after his old dreamy stare at Mr. Gray, who appeared to have
suddenly and entirely lost all interest in Mr. Wesden, he sat down by
the fireside and, talked of old times--the dear old times that Mattie
loved to hear about. Mattie was happy that night; her heart was lighter;
her character had been redeemed to him who had mistrusted her; he was
sitting again by her side--all her love for him had come back as it
were, and all his cruel thoughts of her had vanished away for ever.
Mr. Wesden talked more than he used, when one particular subject was
dilated on; and to have Mattie full of interest in that better half of
him that had gone from life on earth to life eternal, gave brightness to
his eyes, vigour to his narrative, and rendered him oblivious to time,
till a deep voice behind him broke in upon the dialogue.
"It's getting late."
"Ah! it must be," said Mr. Wesden, rising. "And you'll come now, Mattie?
You have forgiven me?"
"With all my heart--what there was to forgive!"
"And you'll let her come, Mr. Gray, now I have done her that justice?"
"When there's time."
Mr. Wesden departed; Mattie saw him down-stairs to the passage door, and
stood watching his figure, not so active as of yore, proceeding down the
dimly lighted street. When she returned to the sitting-room, she found
that her father had left his work, and was sitting with his feet on the
fender, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly together. He did not look
round when she came in; when she had taken her seat near him, he did not
look up at her. There was a change in him, which Mattie remarked, and
after a little while inquired the reason for.
"Mattie," he said, suddenly, "I didn't know that you were so fond of Mr.
Wesden, or I'd have never brought him here."
"Yes, I am fond of him--I am fond of all those who have been kind to
me--who belong unto the past, of which he and I have been speaking
to-night."
"You like him better than me?"
Mattie was too astonished to reply at once to this. She saw the reason
for his sudden reserve to Mr. Wesden in a new light; she detected a new
feature in him, that had heretofore been hidden. Years ago--like a
far-away murmur--she could fancy that her mother spoke again of her
husband's jealousy as one reason why home had been unhappy, and she had
fled from it. Mr. Gray became excited. His eyes lit up, his face flushed
a little, and his hands puckered up bits of cloth at his knees in a
nervous, irritable way.
"I shouldn't like that man to be put ever before me in everything--to be
liked better than myself--he has got a daughter of his own to love, and
must not rob me of you. I can't have it--I won't have it! My life has
been a very desolate one till now, and it is your duty to make amends
for it, and be faithful to me in the latter days."
"You may trust me, father."
She laid her hand on his, and he turned and looked into her dark eyes,
where truth and honesty were shining. He brightened up at once.
"I think I may--you'll not forget me--you'll be like a daughter to me.
Yes, I _can_ trust you, Mattie!"
This fugitive cloud was wafted away on the instant; Mattie almost forgot
the occurrence, and all was well again.