A GIRL'S ROMANCE.
Miss Wesden continued to rock herself to and fro and moan at frequent
intervals, after Mattie had intruded so unceremoniously upon her
sorrows. She had reached the hysterical stage, and there was no stopping
the tears and the little windy sobs by which they were varied--and
Harriet Wesden in tears, the girl whom Mattie had reverenced so long,
was too much for our small heroine.
"Oh! dear--what has happened?--shall I run and tell your father and
mother?"
"Oh! for goodness sake, don't think of anything of the kind!" cried the
startled Harriet; "I--I--I shall be better in a minute. It's only a
spasm or something--it's nothing that any one--can--help me--with!"
"I know what it is," remarked Mattie, after a moment's reflection.
"You--_you_ do, Mattie!"
"It's the wind," was the matter-of-fact reply; "you've been eating a
heap of nasty buns, and then come up here without your supper--and it's
brought on spasms, as you say."
"How ridiculous you are, child!" said this woman of seventeen, parting
her fair hair back from her face, and making an effort to subdue her
agitation; "don't you see that I am very, very miserable!"
"In earnest?"
"Are people ever really, truly miserable in fun, Mattie?" was the sharp
rejoinder.
"Not truly miserable, I should fancy. But you--oh! Miss Harriet, you
miserable, at your age!"
"Yes--it's a fact."
"Perhaps you have been robbed," suggested the curious Mattie; "I know
that they used to send them out from Kent Street to hang about the
railway stations. Never mind, Miss Harriet, I have been earning money,
lately; and if you don't want your father to know how careless you have
been----"
"Always unselfish--always thinking of doing some absurd action, that
shall benefit any one of the name of Wesden. No, no, Mattie, it's not
money, it's not that--that vulgar complaint you mentioned just now. Oh!
to have one friend in the world in whom I could trust--in whom I could
confide my misery!"
"And haven't you _one_?" was the soft answer.
Harriet looked up at the wistful face--so full of love and pity.
"Ah! there's _you_--you mean. But you are a child still, and would never
understand me. _You_ would never have sympathy with all that I have
suffered, or keep my secret if you had."
"What I could understand, I cannot say--I'm still hard at work, in
over-time, at my lessons--but you may be sure of my sympathy, and of my
silence. It's not that I'm so curious, Miss Harriet--but that I hope,
when I know all, to be a comfort to you."
Harriet shook her head despondently, and beat her tiny foot impatiently
upon the carpet. Any one in the world to be a comfort to her, was a
foolish idea, that only irritated her to allude to.
"I'm living here to be a comfort to you all," said Mattie, in a low
voice; "I've set myself to be that, if ever I can. Every one in this
house helped in a way to take me from the streets; every one has been
more kind to me than I deserved--helped me on--given me good
advice--done so much for me! I--I have often thought that perhaps my
time might come some day to your family, or the Hinchfords; but if to
you, my darling, whom I love before the whole of them--who has been more
than kind--whom I loved when I was a little ragged girl in the dark
streets outside--how happy I shall be!"
"Happy to see me miserable, Mattie--that's what _that_ amounts to."
"I didn't mean that," answered Mattie, half-aggrieved.
"No, I'm sure you did not," was the reply. "Lock the door, my dear, and
let me take you into my confidence--I _do_ want some one to talk to
about it terribly!"
Mattie locked the door, and, full of wonder, sat down by Harriet
Wesden's side. The stationer's daughter had always treated Mattie as a
companion rather than as a servant; she had but seen her in her holidays
of late years--her father had trusted Mattie and made a shop-woman of
her--she had found Mattie constituted after a while one of the
family--Mattie was only a year her junior, and Mattie's love, almost her
idolatry for her, had won upon a nature which, though far from
faultless, was at least susceptible to kindness, ever touched by
affection, and ever ready to return both.
"You must know, Mattie, then--and pray never breathe a syllable of this
to mortal soul again--that I'm in love."
"_Lor!_" gasped Mattie.
"Dreadfully and desperately in love."
"Oh! hasn't it come early--and oh! _ain't_ I dreadfully sorry."
"Hush, Mattie, not so loud. They'll be coming up to bed in the next room
presently, and if they were to find it out, I should die."
"They wouldn't mind, after they had once got used to it," said Mattie;
"and if it has really come to love in earnest--there's a good deal of
sham love I've been told--why, I don't think there's anything to cry
about. I should dance for joy myself."
"You're too young to know what you're talking about, Mattie," reproved
Harriet.
"No, I'm not," was the quick answer; "I should feel very happy to know
that there was some one to love me better than anybody in the world--to
think of me first--pray about me before he went to bed at night--dream
of me till the daytime--keep me always in his head. Why, shouldn't I be
happy to know this, I who never remember what love was from anybody?"
"Yes, yes, I understand you, Mattie," said Harriet; "that's part of
love--not all."
"What else is there?"
Mattie was evidently extremely curious concerning all phases of "the
heart complaint."
"It's too complicated, Mattie; when you're a woman, you'll be able to
find out for yourself. It's better not to trouble your head about it yet
awhile."
"I wish you hadn't, Miss Harriet. It's not the likes of me that is going
to think about it; and if you had left it till you were really a
woman--I don't know much about the matter yet--but I'm thinking it would
be all the better for you, too, my dear."
"It came all of a rush like--I wasn't thinking of it. There were two
young men at first, who used to watch our school, and laugh at the
biggest of us, and kiss their hands--just as young men _will_ do,
Mattie."
"Like their impudence, I think."
Mattie's matter-of-fact views were coming uppermost again. She had seen
much of the world in her youth, experienced much hardship, worked hard
for a living, and there was no romance in her disposition--only
affection, which had developed of late years, thanks to her new
training.
"But there's always a little fun amongst the big girls, Mattie."
"What is the governess about?"
"She's looking out--but, bless you, she may look!"
"Ah! I suppose so. Well?"
"And then one young man went away, and only one was left--the handsomer
of the two--and he fell in love _with me_!"
"Really and truly?"
"Why, of course he did. Is it so wonderful?" and the boarding-school
girl looked steadily at her companion.
Mattie looked at her. She _was_ a beautiful girl, and perhaps it was not
so wonderful, after all. But then Mattie still looked at Harriet Wesden
as a child--even as a child younger than she whom the world had aged
very early--rendered "old-fashioned," as the phrase runs, in many
things.
"Not wonderful, perhaps--but wasn't it wrong?" asked Mattie.
"I don't think so--I never thought of that--he was very fond of me, and
used to send me letters by the servant, and I--I did get very fond of
him. He was a gentleman's son, and oh! _so_ handsome, Mattie, and _so_
tall, and _so_ clever!"
"About your age, I suppose?"
"No, four-and-twenty, or more, perhaps. I don't know."
"Well?--oh! dear, how _did_ it end?" asked Mattie; "it's like the
story-books in the shop--isn't it?"
"Wait awhile, dear. The misery of the human heart is to be unfolded now.
He's a gentleman's son, and there's an estate or something in West India
or East India, or in some dreadful hot place over the water somewhere,
where the natives hook themselves in the small of their backs, and swing
about and say their prayers."
"How nasty!"
"And--and he--was to go there," her sobs beginning again at the
reminiscence, "and live there, and," dropping her voice to a whisper,
"he asked me if I'd run away with him, and be married to him over
there."
Mattie clenched her fist spasmodically. She saw through the flimsy veil
of romance, with a suddenness for which she was unprepared herself. She
was a woman of the world, with a knowledge of the evil in it, on the
instant.
"Oh! that man was a big scamp, I'm sure of it--I know it!"
"What makes you think that?" asked Harriet, imperiously.
"Couldn't he have come to Suffolk Street, and told your father all about
it like a--like a man?"
"Yes, but _his_ father--his father is a gentleman, and would never let
him marry a poor, deplorable stationer's daughter."
"Ah! his father does not know you, and his father didn't have the chance
of trying, I'm inclined to think," was the shrewd comment here.
"Never mind that," said Harriet, "I don't see that that's anything to do
with the matter just now. I wouldn't run away; I was very frightened; I
loved father and mother, and I knew how they loved me. And when I cried,
he said he had only done it to try me, and then--and then--he went away
next day for ever!"
"And a good riddance," muttered Mattie.
"Oh! Mattie, you cruel, _cruel_ girl, is this the sympathy you talked
about a little while ago?"
"I've every sympathy with you, my own dear young lady," said Mattie;
"I'm sorry to see how this is troubling you--you so young!--just now.
But I don't think _he_ acted very properly, Miss Harriet, or that you
were quite so careful of yourself as--as you might have been."
"I'm a wretched, wretched woman!"
"Does he know where you live?"
"Ye--es," she sobbed.
"And where did he live before he went to India?"
"Surrey."
"That's a large place, I think. I haven't turned to geography lately,
but I fancy it's a double map. If that's all the address, it's a good
big one. May I ask his name?"
"Never," was the melodramatic answer.
"Ah! it does not matter much. I hope, for the sake of all down-stairs,
you will try and forget it. It's no credit; you were much too young, and
he too old in everything. Oh! Miss Harriet, you and the other young
ladies must have been going it down at Brighton!"
"It all happened suddenly, Mattie; I'm not a forward girl; they're all
of my age--oh! and ever so much bolder."
"A very nice school that must be, I should think," said Mattie, leaving
the bed for the box, which she proceeded to uncord; "if I ever hear of
anybody wanting to send their daughters to a finishing akkademy," Mattie
was not thoroughly up in pure English yet, "I'll just recommend that
one!"
"Mattie," reproved Harriet, "you've got at all that you wanted to know,
and now you're full of bitter sarcasm."
"I'm full of bitter nothing, Miss," was the reply; "and oh!--you don't
know how sorry I feel that it has all happened, making you so old and
womanly, before your time--filling your head with rubbish about--the
chaps!"
Harriet said nothing--she sat and watched with dreamy eyes the process
of uncording; only, when Mattie attempted to turn the box on its side,
did she spring up and help to assist without a word.
"There, that'll do," she said peevishly; "let me only unlock the box,
and get at my night-things, that's all I want. Mattie, for goodness
sake, don't keep so in the way!"
Mattie stood aside, and Harriet Wesden, with an impatient hand, unlocked
the box, and raised the heavy oaken lid. Mattie's eyes, sharp as
needles, detected a small roll of written papers, neatly tied.
"Are these the letters, Miss Harriet?"
"Good gracious me, how curious and prying you are!" said Harriet,
snatching the packet from her hand. "I wish I had never told you a
syllable--I wish you'd leave my things alone!"
"I beg your pardon--I only asked. It _was_ wrong."
"Well, there, I forgive you; but you are so tiresome, and old-fashioned.
I can't make you out--I never shall--you're not like other girls."
"Was I brought up like other girls, you know?" was the sad question.
"No, no--I forgot that--I beg your pardon, Mattie; I didn't mean it for
a taunt."
"God bless you, I know that. What are you doing?"
"Getting rid of these," thrusting the letters in the candle flame as she
spoke. "I can trust you, but not them, Mattie."
"I'd hold them over the fire-place, then. If they drop on the
toilet-table, we shall have the house a-fire."
Harriet took the advice proffered, and removed her combustibles to the
place recommended. Mattie, on her knees by the box, watched the process.
"And there's an end of _them_," Harriet said at last, in a decisive
tone.
"And of him--say of him?"
"We parted for ever--but I shall always think of him--think, too, that
perhaps I _was_ very young and thoughtless and vain, to lead him on, or
to be led on. But oh! Mattie, he did love me--he wouldn't have harmed me
for the world!"
"He hasn't spoken of writing--you haven't promised to write any more."
"No--it was a parting for _ever_. Haven't I said so, over and over
again?"
"Then you'll soon forget him, Miss Harriet--try and forget him, for your
own sake--you can't tell whether he wasn't making game of you, for
certain; he didn't act well, for he wasn't a boy, was he? And now go to
sleep, and wake up in the morning your old self, Miss."
"I'll try--I must try!"
"I don't think that this fine gentleman will ever turn up again; if he
does, you'll be older to take your own part. Oh! dear, how contrary
things do go, to be sure."
"What's the matter now?"
"I did think I knew whom you were to marry."
"Who was it?" said Harriet, with evident interest in her question.
"Well, I thought, Miss Harriet, that you'd grow up, and grow up to be a
young woman, and that Master Sidney underneath, would grow up, and grow
up to be a young man, and you'd fall naturally in love with one
another--marry, and be oh! so happy. When I'm hard at work at the
lessons he or his father writes out for me sometimes, I catch myself
forgetting all about them, and thinking of you and him together--and I
your servant, perhaps, or little housekeeper. I've always thought that
that would come to pass some day, and that he'd grow rich, and make a
lady of you--and it made me happy to think that the two, who'd been
perhaps the kindest in all the world to me, would marry some fine day.
I've pictered it--pictured it," she corrected, "many and many a time,
until I fancied at last it must come true."
"Master Sidney, indeed!" was the disparaging comment.
"When you know him, you won't talk like that," said Mattie; "he's a
gentleman--growing like one fast--and I don't think, young as he is,
that he would have acted like that other one you've been silly enough to
think about."
"Silly!--oh! Mattie, Mattie, that isn't sympathy with me--I don't know
whether you're a child, or an old woman--you talk like both of them, and
in one breath. Why did I tell you!--why did I tell you!"
"Because I was in earnest, and begged hard--because I was afraid, and
you could not keep such a secret from me as that; and if you had wanted
help--how I would have stood by you!"
Harriet noted the kindling eyes, and her heart warmed to the
nondescript.
"Thank you, Mattie--one friend at least now."
"Always,--don't you think so?"
"Yes, I do."
Mattie was at the door, when Harriet called her back.
"Mattie, never a word about this again. I daresay I shall soon forget
it, for I am very young; and though it was LOVE, yet I won't let it
break my heart. I'm very wretched now. I shall be glad," she added with
a yawn, "to lie down and think of all my sorrows."
"And sleep them away."
"Oh! I shall not close an eye to-night. Good night, Mattie."
Miss Harriet Wesden, a young lady who had begun life early, was sleeping
soundly three minutes after Mattie's departure from the room.