OUR CHARACTERS.
In our last chapter we have implied that life began early for Harriet
Wesden. Before her school-days were finished, and with that precocity
for which school-girls of the present era are unhappily distinguished,
she was thinking of her lover, and constituting herself the heroine of a
little romance, all the more dangerous for being unreal and out of the
common track. A tender-hearted girl, with a head not the most strong in
the world, is easily impressed by the sentiment, real or assumed, of the
first good-looking young fellow whom she may meet. In her own opinion
she is not too young to receive admiration, and the consciousness of
having impressed one of the opposite sex, arouses her vanity, changes
the current of her thoughts, makes the world for awhile a very different
place--bright, etherial and unreal. All this very dangerous ground to
tread, but the more delightful for its pitfalls; all this a something
that has occurred in a greater or less degree to most of us in our time,
though we have the good sense to say nothing about it, or to laugh at
the follies and the troubles we rashly sought in our nonage. Boys and
girls begin their courtships early in these latter days--there is not a
girl of sixteen who does not consider herself fit to love and be loved,
however demure she may appear, or however much she may be kept back by
detestable short frocks and frilled indescribables. And as for our boys,
why, they are men of the world immediately they leave school--men of a
world that is growing more rapid in its revolutions, and hardens its
inhabitants wonderfully fast. It is a singular fact in the history of
shop-keeping, that children's toys are becoming unfashionable. "Bless
you, sir, children don't buy toys now, they're much too old for those
amusements!" was the assertion of one of the trade to the writer of this
work. And how many little misses and masters can most of us call to mind
who are growing pale over their fancy work, their books, and their
"collections," children who will do anything but play, and have souls
above "Noah's Arks."
Therefore, in these precocious times, Harriet Wesden, seventeen next
month, was no exceptional creature; moreover, she had been to a
boarding-school, where she had met with many of her own age who were
twice as womanly and worldly--big girls, who were always talking about
"the chaps," as Mattie had inelegantly phrased it.
There is no occasion in this place to retrace the school-career of
Harriet Wesden, to see how much she has kept back or extenuated; her
story to Mattie was a truthful one, told with no drawbacks, but with a
half-pride in her achievements which her girlish sorrows were not
capable of concealing. There was something satisfactory in having loved
and having been loved; and though the love had vanished away, still the
reminiscence was not wholly painful, however much she might fancy so at
that period.
Mattie had listened to her story, and offered all the consolation in her
power; Mattie was a girl of hard, plain facts, and looked more soberly
at the world than her contemporaries. She had a dark knowledge of the
worst part of it, and her early years had aged her more than she was
aware of herself--aged her thoughts rather than her heart, for she was
always cheerful, and her spirits were never depressed; she went her way
in life quietly and earnestly, grateful for the great change by which
that life had been characterized; grateful to all who had helped to turn
it in a different channel. At this period, Mattie was happy; there was
nothing to trouble her; it was an important post to hold in that
stationer's shop; everybody had confidence in her, and had given her
kind words; she had learned to know right from wrong; they were
interested in her moral progress, both the shopkeeper and the lodgers on
the first floor; she was more than content with her position in
society--she was thankful for it.
The Hinchfords had maintained their interest in Mattie, from the day of
her attempt to explain her long search for the brooch. The father, a
student of human nature, as he termed himself, had persuaded her to
attend evening school, to study to improve in reading and writing at
home; and Master Hinchford, who wrote a capital hand, set her copies in
his leisure, and gave his verdict on her calligraphic performances.
Mattie snatched at the elements of her education in a fugitive manner;
Mr. Wesden did not object to her progress, but she was his servant,
afterwards his shop-woman, and he wanted his money's worth out of her,
like a man who understood business in all its branches. Mattie never
neglected work for her studies, and yet made rapid advancement; and,
by-and-bye, Mr. Hinchford, during one of his quiet interviews with the
stationer, had obtained for her more time to attend her evening
classes--and hence the improvement which we have seen in Mattie. So time
had gone on, till Miss Wesden's return for good--so far, then, had the
stationer's daughter and the stray made progress.
Mattie, with a judgment beyond her years, had perceived the evanescent
nature of Harriet Wesden's romance, and prophesied concerning it. She
did not believe in the depth or intensity of Harriet's sorrow; moreover,
she knew Harriet was not of a fretful disposition, and that new faces
and new pursuits would exercise their usual effect upon a nature
impressionable, and--just a little weak! Mattie was a judge of character
without being aware of it, and her own unimpressionability set her above
her fellows, and gave her a clear insight into events that were passing
around her. A girl of observation also, who let few things--serious or
trivial--escape her, but glanced at them in their revolutions, and
remembered them, if necessary. This acuteness had possibly been derived
from her hand-to-mouth existence in the old days; in her time of
affluence, the habit of storing up and taking mental notes of
everything, had not deserted her. Take her altogether, she was a sharp
girl, and suited Mr. Wesden's business admirably.
Quietly Mattie set herself to take stock of Harriet Wesden, after the
latter's confession, to note if the love to which she had confessed were
likely to be a permanency or not. Harriet and Mattie spoke but little
concerning the adventures at Brighton; Mattie shunned the subject, and
turned the conversation when Harriet felt prone to dilate upon her
melancholy sensations. Besides, Mattie knew her place, kept to the shop,
whither Harriet seldom followed her--that young lady having a soul above
the business, by which she had benefited. Mr. and Mrs. Wesden rather
admired this; they had saved money, and the business, to the latter at
least, was but a secondary consideration; they had paid a large sum to
make a lady of Harriet, and when they retired from business, Harriet
would go with them, and be their hope and comfort, with her lady-like
ways, in their little suburban residence. They were not slow in letting
Harriet know this; they spoke of a private life very frequently; when
Harriet was two years older, they would retire and live happily ever
afterwards! Or, Mr. Wesden thought more prudently, if they did not give
up the business for good, still they would live away from it, and leave
the management of it to some trustworthy personage--Mattie, for
instance, who would see after their interests, whilst they took their
ease in their old age.
Mr. Hinchford, senior, had listened to these flying remarks more than
once; he spoke of his own establishment in the future in _his_
turn--where and how he should live with that clever boy of his, who
would redeem the family credit by assuming the Hinchfords' legitimate
position.
"I kept my carriage once, Mr. Wesden--I hope to do it again. My boy's
very clever, very energetic--he has gained the esteem of his employers,
and I believe that they will make a partner of him some day."
What Sidney Hinchford believed, did not appear upon the surface. He was
a youth--say a young man--who kept a great many thoughts to himself, and
pushed on in life steadily and undemonstratively. His father was right;
Sidney had gained the esteem of his employers; he _was_ very clever at
figures, handy as a correspondent, never objected to over-work, did more
work than any one of the old hands; evinced an aptitude for business and
an interest in his employers' success--very remarkable in these
egotistical times. His employers were wholesale tea-dealers in Mincing
Lane--well-to-do men, without families of their own--men who had risen
from the ranks, after the fashion of City-men, who have a nice habit of
getting on in the world. Sidney Hinchford's manner pleased them, but
they kept their own counsel, and watched his progress--and Sidney's was
a remarkable progress, for a youth of his age.
Sidney, be it said here, was an ambitious youth in his heart. His father
had been a rich man; his father's family, from which they held
themselves aloof, were rich people, and his hope was in recovering the
ground which, by some means or other never satisfactorily explained to
him, the Suffolk Street lodgers had managed to lose. Young men brought
up in City counting-houses have a wonderful reverence for money; Sidney
saw its value early in life, and became just a trifle too careful; for
over-carefulness makes a man suspicious, and keeps the heart from
properly expanding with love and charity to those who need it. An
earnest and an honourable young man, as we hope to prove without
labelling our character at the outset, yet he stood too much upon what
was legal, what was a fair price, or a good bargain, and pushed his way
onwards without much thought for the condition of beings less lucky than
he. There was a prize ahead of him; he could see it above the crowd
which jostled him for bread, for fame, for other prizes worth the
winning, and by which he set no store, and he kept his eyes upon it
steadfastly and dreamed of it in his sleep. He became grave-faced and
stern before his time--he was a man at nineteen, with a man's thoughts,
and doing a man's work.
And then a something came to soften him and turn his thoughts a little
aside from the beaten track, and this is how it came about.