SIDNEY STATES HIS INTENTIONS.
Mr. Wesden, if not the first person up in the house, was at least the
first person who superintended business in the morning. For years that
little shop had been opened punctually at six A.M. When the boy had not
arrived to take down the shutters, Mr. Wesden lowered them himself.
Tradesfolk over the way, early mechanics sallying forth to work from the
back streets adjacent, the policeman on duty, the milkboy, and the woman
with the watercresses, knew when it was six o'clock in Great Suffolk
Street by the opening of Mr. Wesden's shop.
Mr. Wesden prided himself upon this punctuality, and not even to Mattie
would he entrust the duties of commencing the labours of the day,
despite the inflexibility of his back after a night's "_rest_."
Sidney Hinchford, who knew Mr. Wesden's habits, therefore found no
difficulty in meeting with that gentleman at five minutes past the early
hour mentioned.
"Good morning, Mr. Wesden."
"Good morning, Sidney."
Mr. Wesden was sitting behind his counter, in business position, ready
for customers; the morning papers had not come in from the agent--he had
given up of late years fetching them from the office himself--and there
was not much to distract him from full attention to all that Sidney had
to communicate.
"I thought I should find you handy for a serious bit of talk, sir."
Mr. Wesden looked at him, and his face assumed a degree of extra
gravity. Sidney Hinchford had got into debt with his tailor, and wished
to borrow a few pounds "on the quiet."
"I suppose Harriet told you last night what happened?"
"Not all that happened, I fancy."
"Then she waited for me, possibly," he said, a little taken aback
nevertheless, "or told her mother. Well, you see, to make a long story
short, Mr. Wesden, I have taken the liberty of falling in love with your
daughter, as was natural and to be expected, and I have come down early
this morning to tell you plainly that that's the state of my feelings,
and that if you have anything to say against it or me, why you can clap
on the extinguisher, and no one a bit the wiser."
Mr. Wesden was a man who never showed his surprise by anything more than
an intenser stare than usual; he sat looking stolidly at Sidney
Hinchford, who leaned over the counter with flushed cheeks and earnest
eyes, surveying him through his glasses.
Still Mr. Wesden was surprised--in fact, very much astonished. Only a
year or two ago, and the tall young man before him was a little boy
fresh from school, and a source of trouble to him when he got near the
tinsel drawer, and Skelt's Scenes and Characters--now he was talking of
love matters.
"You're the first customer this morning, Sidney, and you've asked for a
rum article," he said bluntly.
"Which you'll not refuse me, I hope, sir--which you'll give me a chance
of obtaining, at all events."
"What does Harriet say?"
"I've--I've only just said a few words to her--more than I ought to have
said perhaps, before I know her feelings towards me, or what your wishes
were, sir."
Sidney, very humble and deferential to pater-familias, after taking the
case in his own hands, like all young hypocrites who have this terrible
ordeal to pass, and are doubtful of the upshot.
Mr. Wesden listened and stared--clean over Sidney's head, rather than at
him. Had he not had a long experience of the stationer's ways, he would
have augured ill for his prospects from the stolidity with which his
news was received; but Mr. Wesden was always a grave and reserved man,
and his immobile features did not alarm the young suitor.
"Well, and what's to keep her and you--_my money_?"
"Not a farthing of it, sir, by your good leave," said Sidney, proudly;
"I wish to work on and wait for her. I have every hope of attaining to a
good position in my office--I think I see my way clearly--I won't ask
you to let her marry me till I can show you a home of my own, and a
little money in the bank, sir."
"Why didn't you wait till then?" was the dry question.
"Why, because a fellow wants a hope to live on--permission from you to
pay his addresses to Miss Harriet, and to ask her to give me a hope
too."
"I see."
Mr. Wesden fidgeted about his top drawers, folded some papers, looked in
his till, and then turned his little withered face to Sidney. The face
had altered, was brighter, even wore a smile, and Sidney's heart leaped
again.
"If you'd been like most young men, I should have said 'Not yet.' But
you haven't crept about the bush, and you've dealt fair, and I'll
promise all I can without tying the girl up too closely."
"Tying her up!"
"The home of your own hasn't turned up yet," shrewdly remarked the
stationer; "and though I believe that and the money will, we may as well
wait for some signs of them. And----"
"Well, well."
"Don't you be in a hurry, young man; breath don't come so fast as it
did, and I'm not used to long speeches."
"Take your time, sir--I beg pardon."
"And Harriet's very young, and may see some one else to like better."
"I hope not, sir."
"And _you_ are very young, and may see some one else too."
"Oh! Mr. Wesden."
"Ah! it's shocking to think of, but these awful events do occur," said
the old man, satirically; "and, besides, my old lady and I are ignorant
people in one way, and mayn't suit you when you get bigger and prouder."
"Mr. Wesden, you'll not fancy that, I know."
"You'll have to think whether, when you are a great man, you'll be able
to put up with the old lady and me coming to see our girl sometimes."
Sidney entered another protest--was prolific, even liberal in his
invitations, which he issued on the spot.
"Then if it's not an engagement, or what I call downright keeping
company just yet--say for another year at least, I shan't turn my back
upon you."
"Thank you, sir--you are more than generous."
He leaned across the counter and shook hands with Mr. Wesden; the
news-agent drove up in his pony-cart at the same moment, and directly
afterwards had flung a heavy bundle of the "early mornings" upon the
counter; the news-boy entered, and waited for orders for his first
round; a little girl came in for a penny postage stamp, change for
sixpence, and a piece of paper to wrap the lot in. Business was
beginning in Great Suffolk Street, and Sidney Hinchford getting in the
way. Sidney would have liked to add a little more, but Mr. Wesden
stopped him.
"Harriet's been down this half hour," he said; "I suppose you know
that."
"Indeed I did not, sir," exclaimed Sidney, with a wild glance towards
the parlour.
Harriet was there, busying herself with the breakfast cloth--a domestic
picture, fair and glowing. He dashed into the parlour, and Harriet,
prepared for him now, listened demurely, felt her heart plunging a
little, but did not rebuke him with any words similar to those of
yesternight. His despairing look of that period had kept her restless
all night; she could not bear to know that others were unhappy, and she
fancied that she should soon learn to love him, if she did not love him
already, for his manliness and frankness. So she listened, and Sidney
detailed his interview with her father, and her father's wish that it
should not be considered an engagement between them until at least
another year had passed.
"We are to go on just the same as if nothing had happened, but--but I
wish you to look forward to the end of that year like myself, to have
hope in me and my efforts, and to give me hopes of you."
"Am I worth hoping for, Sidney?" was the rejoinder; "you don't know half
the foolishness of which I have been guilty--what a weak, frivolous,
romantic girl I have been."
She thought of her Brighton romance, opened the book, and then shut it
hastily again. It was a story he had no right to know yet, and she had
not the courage to tell him just then--it belonged wholly to the past,
so rake the dead leaves over it and let it rest again!
Let it rest, then; there was no engagement. Both were free to change
their minds before the year was out in which the strength of their love
would be put to the test. For that year nothing more than friends, she
thought, or a something more than friends, and less than lovers.
The half bargain was concluded, and Sidney went on his way rejoicing.
There was rejoicing in the hearts of all in that house for a while. Mrs.
Wesden cried over her girl as though she was going away to-morrow, but
talked as if it were a settled engagement, and was glad that Sidney
Hinchford was to be her son-in-law some day. Mr. Hinchford and Mr.
Wesden smoked their pipes together that evening, and talked about it in
short disjointed sentences, amidst which Mr. Hinchford learned that Mr.
Wesden would retire from business before the year's probation had
expired, leaving Mattie, possibly, in charge. Mattie and Ann Packet in
the lower regions dwelt upon the same subject, free debatable ground,
which no one cared to hem round by restrictions.
Late in the evening, Mattie stole up to Harriet's bed-room, and knocked
softly at the panels of the door.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"To be sure, Mattie."
"I thought that you would be sitting here, thinking of it."
"Thinking of what, Mattie?"
"Ah! you don't tell me anything now--but I can guess--and Mr. Sidney did
not sit in the parlour all the evening for nothing!"
"No, Mattie; but it's not a downright engagement yet. I'm to try if I
can like Sidney first."
"That's the best way--didn't I say that this would happen some day, Miss
Harriet?"
"But it hasn't happened yet."
"Ah! but it will--I see it all now as plain as a book. I said only last
night that things were coming round nicely for us all. And they
are--they are!"
Harriet began to cry, and to beg Mattie to desist. For an instant the
sanguine assertion sounded like a vain prophecy, and jarred strangely on
her nerves, bringing forth tears and heavy sobs, and a fear of that
future which stretched forth radiantly beyond to Mattie's vision. After
all, Harriet was but a girl, and had not thought very deeply of all that
the contract implied between Sidney and herself. And after all, _were_
things coming round nicely?--or was the red glow in the sky lurid and
threatening to her, and more than her?
This is scarcely a quiet story, and we are not through our first volume.
What does the astute novel-reader think?
END OF BOOK THE SECOND.
BOOK III.
UNDER SUSPICION.
CHAPTER I.
AN OLD FRIEND.
Mr. Wesden retired from business. After thirty or forty years'
application to the arduous task of "keeping house and home together,"
after much hesitation as to whether it were safe and practicable and he
could afford it; after a struggle with his old habits of shop-keeping,
and a deliberate survey of his position from all points of the compass,
he migrated from Great Suffolk Street, and settled down in what he
considered country--a back street in the Camberwell New Road, commanding
views of a cabbage-field, a public house, and another back street in
course of formation by an enterprising builder.
This was country enough for Mr. Wesden; and handy for town, and Great
Suffolk Street. For he had scarcely retired from business, merely
withdrawn himself from the direct management, the sales over the
counter, and the worry of the news-boys. The name of Wesden was still
over the door, and Mattie remained general manager at the old shop,
which had been her refuge from the world in the hard times of her
girlhood.
Mr. and Mrs. Wesden then considered themselves in the country. They had
humble notions, and a little contented them. There was a back garden
with a grass plot, a gravel walk, two rows of box edging, and a few
flower-beds--surely that was country enough for anybody, they thought?
Then it was quite a mansion of a house--six rooms exclusive of kitchen;
and, thanks more to Harriet's taste than her parents', was neatly and
prettily furnished.
It was a change from Great Suffolk Street. Harriet Wesden had been
brought up with lady-like notions, and had never taken to the shop; it
was pleasant to live in a private house, practice her piano, assist her
mother in the gardening, and have a young man to come courting her "once
or twice a-week!" Mr. Wesden, with habits more formed for shop life, had
to struggle hard before he could accustom himself to the novelty of his
position; in his heart he never felt thoroughly at home, and was always
glad of an excuse to walk over to Great Suffolk Street. He could not sit
on the new chairs all day, and stare at the roses on the carpet; there
was nothing much to see out of window save the postman, pot-boy,
grocer's boy, and butcher, at regular intervals; gardening did not agree
with his back, and it was hard work to get through the day, unless he
went for a walk with the old lady.
The old lady aforesaid had taken quite a new lease of life--absence from
the close neighbourhood of Suffolk Street had given her back some of her
old strength; for twenty years she had solaced herself with the thought
of "retiring"--the one ambition of a tradesman's wife--and now it had
come, and she was all the better for the change. She made such good use
of her limbs at intervals, became so absorbed in training Sweet
Williams, and picking the snails off the white lilies, brightened up so
much in that small suburban retreat, that the old gentleman--always be
it remembered of a suspicious turn--doubted in his own mind if Mrs. W.
had not been "shamming Abraham" in Great Suffolk Street.
Harriet was not nineteen years of age yet, and business had not been
left in Mattie's charge three months, when Mr. Wesden's character began
to mould itself afresh. The change which had done mother and daughter
good, altered Mr. Wesden for the worse. He became irritable, at times a
little despondent; nothing to do, began seriously to affect his temper.
This is no common result in men who have been in harness all their
lives--steady, energetic shopkeepers, whose lives have been one bustle
for a quarter of a century and upwards, find retiring from business not
so fine a thing as it looked from the distance, when they were in debt
to the wholesale purveyors.
Mr. Wesden did not like it--if the truth must be spoken, though he kept
it to himself, for appearances sake, he absolutely hated it. He was not
intended for a gentleman, and he could _not_ waste time--it made his
head ache and gave him the heart-burn. If it had not been for the shop
in Great Suffolk Street, he would have gone melancholy mad, or taken to
drinking; that shop was his safety valve, and he was only his old self
when he was back in it, pottering over the stock.
Unfortunately his _new_ self was never more highly developed than when
he had returned to Camberwell, and woe to the beggar or the brass band
that halted before his gates and worried him.
Meanwhile, the shop in Great Suffolk Street continued to do its steady
and safe business. Mattie was not far from eighteen years of age, proud
of her position of trust, the quickest and best of shopkeepers. On the
first floor still resided Mr. Hinchford and his son; the place was handy
for office yet, and they were biding their time to launch forth, and
assert their true position in society. The rent was moderate, and Sidney
was trying hard to save money out of his salary; there were incentives
to save, and at times he was even a trifle too economical for his
father's tastes. Still, he erred on the right side--his father was
becoming weaker, and his father's memory was not what it had been--his
employers had not spoken of the partnership lately, and there might be
rainy days ahead, which it was policy to prepare for--in a world of
changes, who could tell what might happen?
Mattie found it dull at first after the Wesdens' departure; the place
seemed full of echoes, and one bright face at least was hard to lose.
But the face came often to light up the old shop again, and on alternate
Sundays she went to dine at the fine house at Camberwell, leaving Ann
Packet in charge of the establishment.
Still she was soon "at home;" she was a dependant, and must expect
changes; she was a girl who always made the best of everything. There
was no time for her to regret the alterations; she was born for work,
and there was plenty to do in Mr. Wesden's business, not to mention a
watch upon Ann Packet at times, who, when "afflicted," was rather remiss
in her attentions upon the lodgers.
Life was not monotonous with her, for she took an interest in her work;
and if it had been, there were many gleams of sunshine athwart it; those
who knew her best, loved her and had confidence in her. Many in Suffolk
Street thought there wasn't such a young woman in the world; a butcher
over the way--a young man beginning business for himself, thought that
it would be a "good spec" to have such a young woman behind his counter
attending to the customers--those who knew her history, and there were
many in Suffolk Street who remembered her antecedents, wondered at her
progress; all was well until the autumn set in, and then the tide turned
in the affairs of Mattie, and on those good friends whom Mattie loved.
One afternoon in September, Mattie was busy in the shop as usual--she
kept to the shop all day, and never adopted the plan of hiding away from
customers in the back parlour--when a woman with a large basket, a key
on her little finger, a bonnet half off her head disclosing a broad,
sallow, wrinkled face, came shuffling into the shop.
Mattie looked at her across the counter, and waited for orders, looked
till her heart began beating unpleasantly fast. Back from the land
benighted came a rush of old memories at the sight of that dirty,
slip-shod woman, whom she had hoped never to see again.
"And so you recollects me, Mattie, arter all these years?"
"I--I think that I have seen you before."
"_I_ should think you just had, once or twice. And so you're minding
this shop for the Wesdens, whose turned gentlefolks?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well," putting her basket on the counter, and taking the one chair that
was placed for the convenience of customers, "wonders will never cease.
To think that you should find a place like this, and should have stuck
to it so long, and never gone traipsing about the streets again."
"Can I serve you with anything?" asked Mattie.
"No, you can't. I never deal here."
"Then what do you want?"
"Ah! that's another wonder which won't cease either, my dear," said the
old woman, assuming an insinuative manner, "and a bigger wonder than the
tother one."
"I don't want to hear it, I don't want anything to say to you. You must
go out of the shop, Mrs. Watts."
"Don't be afeard of me, my love; the Lord knows I haven't been a trouble
to you, though I've lived within a stone's throw, and could have dropped
in here at any moment. But no, I says, let her keep to her fine stuck up
people if she likes, and forget her oldest and best friends for 'em, and
do her wust, it's not the likes of me or mine who'll poke our noses into
her affairs. No, I says, let her keep a lady, and wear brown meriner
dresses, and smart black aprons, and white collars and cuffs, for me!"
Mrs. Watts had verged into the acrimonious vein, taken stock of Mattie's
general appearance at that juncture, and introduced it into her
conversation with an ease and fluency that was remarkable.
Mattie stood watching her. This was the evil genius of her early life,
and there was danger in her very presence. It was not safe to take her
eyes from her.
"What do you want?" she asked again.
"It's somethin' partickler--shall we come into the parler?"
"Oh! no."
"I'm not well dressed enuf, I spose?--I'm not fit society for sich a
nice young gal, I spose?--I'm to be turned off as if I was a beggar,
instead of the woman of property which I am, I spose?"
"What do you want?" repeated Mattie.
"And I was your poor mother's friend, and trusted her when nobody else
would, and gave her a bed to die on comforbly when there wasn't a mag to
be made out of her. And I was your friend, though that's something to
turn your nose up at, ain't it?"
"You were kind in your way, perhaps--I cannot say, I don't know; I don't
wish to remember the past any more. Will you tell me what you want, or
go away?"
"And you won't come into the parler?"
"No."
"It's the curiest story as you ever did hear. There's been a man asking
arter you down our court, and asking arter me, and finding me out at
last, and nearly coming to a bargain with me, when, cus my greediness, I
lost him."
"Asking after me?"
"Ah! you may well open those black eyes of yourn--he made me stare, I
can tell you. He walks one day into my house, as if it belonged to him,
and says, 'Are you Mrs. Watts?' 'Yes,' I says. 'Do you remember Mrs.
Gray?' he says. 'Not by name,' I says. 'She was a tramp,' he says, 'and
died here.' 'Oh!' I says, 'if it's her you mean, whose name I never
knowed or cared about, died here, she did.' 'And the child?' he says.
'Mattie you mean,' I says. 'Ah! Mattie,' he says. And then I says,
thinking it was a dodge, my dear, for the perlice are up to all manner
of tricks, and you mightn't have been going on the square, and been
wanted, then I says, 'And will you obleege me with your reasons for all
these questions of a 'spectable and hard-working woman?' I says. 'My
name's Gray,' he says, 'and I'm Mattie's father.'"
"Is this true?--oh! is it really true?"
"Hopemaydropdead, my dear, if it isn't," Mrs. Watts remarked, running
her words into each other in the volubility of her protestation;
"hopemayneverstiragainfromhere, if t'isn't, _Miss Gray_! 'Mattie's
father,' I says. 'Yes,' he says; 'is that so very wonderful?' And I
says, 'Yes it is, arter all this time ago.' And then he asks all manner
of questions, which I didn't see the good of answering, and so was werry
ignorant, my dear, until he said he'd give me a suverin to find you out.
I says, 'I'd try for a five pun note, for you was a long way off, and
it'd be a trouble to look arter you.' And he says, 'I'll take that
trouble,' and I didn't see the pull of that, knowing he was anxious
like, and fancying that five pounds wouldn't ruin him, so I held out.
And then he looked at his watch, and said he'd come again, which he
never did, as I'm an honest ooman."
"How long was this ago?"
"Two months."
"What kind of a man was he?"
"Oh! a little ugly bloke enough--not too well dressed. Your father won't
turn out to be a duke or markis, if he ever turns up agin and brings me
my five pounds."
"But you will not tell him where I live?--he may be a bad, cruel man--my
mother ran away from him because he treated her ill, I have heard her
say. Oh! don't tell him where I live--I am happy and contented here."
Mrs. Watts brightened up with a new idea. "You must make it a five pun
note, then, instead of him, and I'll tell him I can't find yer when he
comes back to take you home with him. You've saved money, I daresay, by
this time, and five pounds ain't much to stand."
Mattie recovered her composure when it came to the money test; there was
a motive for Mrs. Watts' appearance there, she thought; after all it was
an idle story, a foolish scheme to extort money, which Mattie saw
through now.
"I shall not give you any money--not five pence, Mrs. Watts."
"Leave it alone, then," was the sharp reply; "you can't leave here, and
I'll bring him to you, if he ever comes agin. I didn't come to get money
out of yer, but to keep my eye upon you for your father's sake. And
you'll never take a step away from this place, right or left, but what
I'll know it--there's too many on us about here for you to steal away."
"I do not intend to steal away," cried Mattie.
"And considerin' that I've come out of kindness, and to give you a piece
of news, you might have said thankee for it--bad luck to you, Mattie
Gray."
"Oh! bad luck will not come to me at your wish."
The old woman paused at the door, and shook her key at her.
"I never wished bad luck to any living soul, but what it came. Now think
of that!"
She went out of the shop and along Great Suffolk Street at a smart
pace--like a woman who had suddenly remembered something and started off
in a hurry after it. Mattie was perplexed at the interview; doubtful if
any truth had mixed itself with Mrs. Watts' statement, and at a loss to
reconcile all that she had heard with fabrication. Even from Mrs. Watts'
lips it sounded like truth; the woman seemed in earnest, her offer to
take five pounds for her silence an impromptu thought, originated by
Mattie's sudden fear.
"What can it mean?--what can it mean?" reiterated Mattie to herself;
"was it unfair to doubt her?--she thought so, or she would not have
wished me bad luck so evilly at the last?"
She sat down behind the counter to reflect upon the strangeness of the
incident, and was still revolving in her mind the facts or falsities
connected with it, when Ann Packet burst from the parlour door into the
shop, with eyes distended.
"Have you been up-stairs, Mattie?"
"Upstairs, Ann!--no."
"Have you been asleep?"
"No."
"Oh, lor!--quite sure--not a moment!"
"No--no--what has happened!"
"Somebody's been up-stairs into all the rooms, into yourn, too, where
the money's put for Mr. Wesden--and--and broken open the drawer."
"And the cash box that I keep there?"
"Open, and EMPTY!"
Mattie dropped again into the chair from which she had risen at the
appearance of Ann Packet, and struggled with a sense of faintness which
came over her. The bad luck that Mrs. Watts had wished had soon stolen
on its way towards her.
CHAPTER II.
STRANGE VISITORS TO GREAT SUFFOLK STREET.
Mattie guessed the plan by which the robbery had been effected, and at
which Mrs. Watts had connived. Her attention had been distracted by the
story that had been fabricated for the purpose, and then the accomplice,
on his hands and knees, had stolen snake-like towards the door opening
on the stairs, and made short work with everything of value to be found
in the upper floors. What was to be done?--what would Mr. Wesden say, he
who had never had a robbery committed on his premises during all the
long years of his business life, thanks to his carefulness and
watchfulness? What would he think of her? Would he believe that she had
paid common attention to the shop he had left in trust to her, to be
robbed in the broad noonday? What should she do? wait till the shop was
closed and then set forth for Camberwell with the bad news, or start at
once, leaving Ann Packet in charge, or wait till Mr. Hinchford came
home, and ask him to be the mediator?
Whilst revolving these plans of action in her mind, the proprietor of
the establishment, wearied of his country retirement, walked into the
shop.
"Oh! sir, something has happened very dreadful!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Wesden began to stare over her head at this salutation.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Some one has been up-stairs this afternoon, broken open the drawers,
and the cash-box, and taken the money, eight pounds, nine shillings and
sixpence, sir."
Mr. Wesden sat down in the chair formerly occupied by Mrs. Watts and
tried to arrange his ideas; he stared over Mattie's head harder than
ever; he held his own head between his hands, taking off his hat
especially for that purpose, and placing it on the counter.
"Money taken out of _this_ house?"
"Yes."
"At _this_ time of day--where were you, Mattie?"
"In the shop, sitting here, I believe."
"Then they came in at the back, I suppose?"
"No, in the front, whilst Mrs. Watts was talking to me."
"What Mrs. Watts?--not the woman----"
"Yes, yes, the woman who would have tempted me to evil, years ago; she
came into the shop this afternoon, and said that my father--as if I'd
ever had one, sir!--had been inquiring for me in Kent Street."
"This is a curious story," muttered Mr. Wesden.
He put on his hat and went up-stairs; it was half an hour, or an hour
before he reappeared, looking very grave and stern.
"They didn't come in at the back of the house--I can't make it
out--eight pounds nine and sixpence is a heavy loss--I'll speak to the
policeman."
Mr. Wesden went in search of a policeman, and presently returned with
two members of the official force, with whom he went up-stairs, and with
whom he remained some time. After a while Mr. Hinchford, senior, came
home, heard the tidings, went into his room, and discovered a little
money missing also, besides a watch-chain which he had left at home that
day for security's sake, a link having snapped, and repairs being
necessary.
Mr. Wesden and the policemen came down stairs and put many questions to
Mattie and Ann Packet; finally the policemen departed, and Mr. Wesden
very gravely walked about the shop, and paid but little attention to
Mattie's expressions of regret.
"It's my carelessness, sir, and I hope you'll let me make it up. I've
been saving money, sir, lately, thanks to you."
"Well, you can't say fairer than that, Mattie," he responded to this
suggestion; "I'll think about that, and let you know to-morrow."
He never let Mattie know his determination, or seemed inclined to dwell
upon the subject again; the robbery became a forbidden topic, and
drifted slowly away from the present. But it was an event that saddened
Mattie; for she could read that Mr. Wesden had formed his own ideas of
its occurrence, and she tortured herself with the fear that he might
suspect her. She had gained his confidence only to lose it; her
antecedents were dark enough, and if he did not believe all that she had
told him, then he must doubt if she were the proper person to manage the
place in his absence.
He said nothing; he suggested no alteration; but he came more frequently
to business; and he _was_ altered in his manner towards her.
Mattie was right--he suspected her; he thought he kept his suspicions to
himself, for amidst the new distrust rose ever before him the past
struggles of the girl in her faithful service to him, and he was not an
uncharitable man. But the police had seconded his doubts--the story was
an unlikely one, Mattie had been a bad character, and, above all, Mrs.
Watts, upon inquiry, had not lived in Kent Street or parts adjacent for
the last three years. However, his better nature would not misjudge
implicitly, although a shadow of distrust was between him and Mattie
from that day forth. He said nothing to Harriet or his wife, but he
seldom asked Mattie to his house at Camberwell now; he came more
frequently for his money, and looked more closely after his stock; he
had a habit of turning into the shop at unseasonable hours and taking
her by surprise there.
Mattie bore with this for a while--for two or three months, perhaps,
then her out-spoken nature faced Mr. Wesden one evening.
"You've got a bad thought in your head against me, sir."
Thus taxed, Mr. Wesden answered in the negative. Looking at her fearless
face, and her bright eyes that so steadily met his, he had not the heart
or the courage to confess it.
"I'd rather go away than you should think that; go away and leave you
all for ever. I know," she added, very sorrowfully and humbly, "that my
past life isn't a fair prospect to look back upon, and that it stands
between you and your trust in me at this time."
"No, Mattie."
"If you doubt me----"
"If I believed that you were not acting fairly by me, I should not have
you here an hour," he said.
He was carried away by Mattie's earnestness; he forgot his new
harshness, which he had inherited with his change of life; before him
stood the girl who had nursed his wife through a long illness, and he
could not believe in her ingratitude towards him. After that charge and
refutation, Mattie and Mr. Wesden were on better terms with each
other--the robbery, the visit of Mrs. Watts, appeared all parts of a bad
dream, difficult to shake off, but in the reality of which it was hard
to believe. And yet it was all a terrible truth, too, and the story,
true or false, of Mrs. Watts, late of Kent Street, had left its
impression on Mattie, deep and ineffaceable; she could almost believe
that from the shadowy past some stranger, cruel and villainous, would
step forth to claim her.
Meantime the course of Sidney Hinchford's true love flowed on
peacefully; he was happy enough now--with the hope of Harriet Wesden for
a wife he became more energetic than ever in business; possibly even a
young man less abrupt to his companions in office; for the tender
passion softens the heart wonderfully. He was more kind and less brusque
in his manner. To Mattie he had been always kind, but she fancied that
even she could detect a different and more gentle way with him.
When he returned from Camberwell--Mr. Wesden always shut him out at
early hours--he generally brought some message from Harriet to the old
half-friend and confidante, and at times would loiter about the shop
talking of Harriet to Mattie, and sure of her sympathy with all that he
said and did.
On one of the latter occasions, about six in the evening, he remarked,
"When Harriet and I are grand enough to have a large house of our
own--for we can't tell what may happen--I shall ask you to be our
housekeeper, Mattie."
Mattie's face brightened up; it had been rather a sad face of late, and
Sidney Hinchford had observed it, and been puzzled at the reason. The
story of the robbery had not affected him much.
"Oh! then I'll pray night and day for the big house, Mr. Sidney," she
said, with her usual readiness of reply.
"Why, Mattie, are you tired of shop-keeping?"
"At times I am," she answered. "I don't know why. I don't see how to get
on and feel happy. It's rather lonely here."
"You dissatisfied, Mattie! Why, I have always regarded you as the very
picture of content."
"I'm not dissatisfied exactly; don't tell any one that, or they'll think
I'm ungrateful for all the kindness that has been shown me, and all the
confidence that has been placed in me. You, Mr. Hinchford, must not
think I'm ungrateful or discontented."
"Perhaps you're ambitious, Mattie," he said, jestingly, "now you've
mastered all the lessons which I used to set you, and can read and write
as well as most of us."
"I don't exactly understand the true meaning of ambition," said Mattie.
"I'm no scholar, you know. Is it a wish to get on in the world?"
"Partly."
"I'm not ambitious. I wouldn't be a lady for the world. I would rather
be of service to someone I love, than see those I love working and
toiling for my sake. But then they must love me, and have faith in me,
or I'm--I'm done for!"
Mattie had dropped, as was her habit when excited, into one of her old
phrases; but its meaning was apparent, and Sidney Hinchford understood
it.
"Something's on your mind, Mattie. Can I punch anybody's head for you?"
"No, thank you. But you can remember the promise about the housekeeper
when you're a rich man."
Like Sidney's father, she accepted Sidney's coming greatness as a thing
of course, concerning which no doubts need be entertained.
He laughed.
"It's a promise, mind. Good night, Mattie."
"Good night."
That night was to be marked by another variation of the day's
monotony--by more than one. It was striking seven from St. George's
Church, Southwark, when a stately carriage and pair dashed up Great
Suffolk Street, and drew up at the stationer's door. A few moments
afterwards a tall, white-haired old gentleman entered the shop leaning
upon the arm of a good-looking young man, and advanced towards the
counter.
The likeness of the elder man was so apparent to that of old Mr.
Hinchford up-stairs, that Mattie fancied it was he for an instant, until
her rapid observation detected that the gentleman before her was much
thinner, wore higher shirt collars, had a voluminous frill to his shirt,
and a double gold eye-glass in his hand.
"Thank you, that will do. I won't trouble you any further."
"Shall I wait here?"
"No, my boy--don't let me keep you from your club engagements. If you
are behind time take the carriage."
"No, no--not so selfish as that, sir. Good night."
"Good night."
The good-looking young man did not wait to see the result of his
father's mission; he glanced for a moment at Mattie, and then took his
departure, leaving the stately old gentleman confronting her at the
counter.
"This is Mr. Wesden's, stationer, I believe?" he asked, surveying Mattie
through his glasses.
"Yes, sir."
"A Mr. Hinchford lives here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is he within?"
"Not the old gentleman, I believe, sir."
"As I have not come hither to base my hopes of an interview on the
belief of a black-eyed shop-girl, will you be kind enough to inquire?"
The old gentleman sat down and loosened the gilt clasp of a long cloak
which he wore--an old-fashioned, oddly cut black cloak, with a cape to
it.
Mattie forgot the likeness which this gentleman bore to the lodger
up-stairs; lost her impression of the carriage at the door, and thought
of Mrs. Watts and the hundred tricks of London thieves. She began
thumping with her heels on the floor, until she quite shook up the old
gentleman on the other side of the counter.
"What's that for, my child?" he asked.
"That'll bring up the servant--I never leave the shop."
The gentleman closed his glasses, and rapped upon the counter with them,
in rather an amused manner.
"By Jupiter Tonans, that's amusing! She thinks I am going to make off
with the stationery," he said, more to himself than Mattie.
Ann Packet, round eyed and wondering as usual, looked over the parlour
blind. Mattie beckoned to her, and she opened the parlour door.
"Run up and tell Mr. Sidney that a gentleman wishes to see his father.
Is he to wait, or to call again?"
"I think I might answer that question better myself--stay."
The slim old gentleman very slowly and deliberately searched for his
card-case, produced it and drew forth a card.
"Present that to Mr. Sidney, and say that the bearer is desirous of an
interview."
Ann Packet took the card in her great red hand, turned it over, looked
from it to the owner, gave vent to an idiotic "Lor!" and then trudged
up-stairs with the card. Mattie and the old gentleman, meanwhile,
continued to regard each other--the suspicions of the former not
perfectly allayed yet.
Ann Packet returned, appearing by the staircase door this time.
"Mr. Sidney Hinchford will see you, sir--if your business is of
importance, he says."
The gentleman addressed compressed his lips--very thin lips they became
on the instant--but deigned no reply. He rose from his chair, and
followed Ann through the door, up-stairs towards Mr. Hinchford's room,
leaving his hat on the counter, where he had very politely placed it
upon entering the shop.
Mattie put it behind her, and then scowled down a lack-a-daisical
footman, who was simpering at her between a _Family Herald_ and a
portrait of T. P. Cooke.
The stranger followed Ann Packet up-stairs, and entered the room on the
first floor, glancing sharply round him through his glasses, and taking
a survey of everything which it contained on the instant. There was a
fire burning in the grate that autumn night; the gas was lighted; the
tea-things ready on the table; at a smaller table by the window, working
by the light of a table-lamp adorned with a green shade, and with
another green shade tied across his forehead by way of extra protection
for the eyes he worked so mercilessly, sat Sidney Hinchford, the only
occupant of the room.
Sidney rose, bowed slightly, pointed to a chair with the feather of his
pen, then sat down again, and looked at his visitor from under the ugly
shade, which cast his face into shadow.
The gentleman bowed also, and took the seat indicated, keeping his
gold-rimmed glasses on his nose.
"You are my brother James's son, I presume?"
"The same, sir."
"You are surprised to see me here?"
"Yes, sir--now."
"Why now?" was the quick question that followed like the snap of a
trigger.
"Years and years ago, when I was a lad, I fancied that you might visit
here, and make an effort to bridge over an ugly gulf, sir."
"Years and years ago, young man, I had too much upon my mind, and, it
was just possible, more pride in my heart than to make the first
advances."
"You were the richer man--and you had done the wrong."
"Wrong, sir!" replied the other; "there was no wrong done that I am
aware of. I was a man careful of my money, and your father was a man
improvident with his. Was it wrong to object to an alliance?"
"I have but a dim knowledge of the story, sir. My father does not care
to dwell upon it."
"I will tell it you."
The old gentleman drew his chair nearer to Sidney; the young man held up
his hand.
"Pardon me, but I have no desire to hear it. Were I to press my father,
I could learn it from his own lips. Please state the object of your
coming hither."
"To make the first advances in the latter days that have come to him and
me," he said; "can I say more? To help him if he be in distress--and to
assist his son if he find the world hard to cope with. It is a romantic
appearance, a romantic penitence if you will, for not allowing your
father to spend my money as well as his own," he added, with a slight
curl of the lip, which turned Sidney suddenly against him; "but it is an
effort to bridge over the gulf to which you have recently alluded."
"I fear my father will not thank you for the effort," was the cold
reply; "and for the help which you would offer now, I can answer for his
refusal."
"Ah! he was always a proud fellow, and blind to his own interest," was
the quiet observation here; "his friends laughed at his pride, and
traded in his weakness before you were born."
"He has one friend living who respects them now, sir."
"His son, I presume?"
"His son, sir."
"I am glad that his son is so high-spirited; but he will find that
amiable feeling rather in the way of his advancement."
"No, sir--I think not."
Mr. Hinchford regarded Sidney very closely; he did not appear put out by
the young man's retorts, and he was pleased at the effect that his own
satire had upon him.
"Well," he said at last, "I have not come to quarrel with my nephew--I
am here as a peace-maker, and, lo! the son starts up with all the
father's old obstinacies. Your name is Sidney, I believe."
"Yes, sir."
"Sidney Hinchford, then," said he, "if you be a man of the world--which
I fancy you are--you will not turn your back on your own interests for
the sake of the grudge which my unforgiving brother may owe me. That's
not the way of the world, unless it's the world of silly novel-writers
and poets."
"Sir, this sudden interest in my father and myself is somewhat
unaccountable."
"Granted," was the cool response.
"Still, let me for my father and myself thank you," said Sidney, with a
graceful dignity that set well upon him, "thank you for this sudden
offer, which I, for both, must unhesitatingly decline."
"Indeed!"
"We are not rich, you can see," Sidney said with a comprehensive sweep
of his hand, "but we have managed to exist without getting into debt,
and I believe that the worst struggle is over with us both."
"Upon what supposition do you base this theory?"
"No matter, Mr. Hinchford, my belief is strong, and I would not deprive
myself of the pleasure of saying that I worked on with my father to the
higher ground without the help of those rich relations who would at the
eleventh hour have taken the credit to themselves."
"You are a remarkable young man."
"Sir, you come too late here," said Sidney, with no small amount of
energy; "we bear you no ill-will, but we will not have your help now. If
you and yours forgot my father in his adversity, if you made no sign
when he was troubled by my mother's death, if you held aloof when
assistance and sympathy would have made amends for the old breach
between you, if you turned your backs upon him and shut him from your
thoughts then, now we repudiate your service, and prefer to work our way
alone!"
"Well, well, be it so," said his uncle; "it is heroic, but it is bad
policy, more especially in you, a young man who will have to fight hard
for a competence. You will excuse this whim of mine."
"I have already thanked you for the good intention."
"I did not anticipate encountering so hard and dogmatic a disposition as
your own, but I do not regret the visit."
Sidney looked at his watch, fidgeted with the feather of his pen, but
made no remark to this.
"We will say it was a whim--you will please to inform your father that
this was simply a whim of mine--the impulse of a moment, after an extra
glass of port wine with my dessert."
"I will think so, if you wish it."
"You perceive that I am an old man--your father's senior by eight
years--and old people _do_ get whimsical and childish, when the iron in
their nerves melts, by some unaccountable process, away from them.
Possibly this is not the first time that it has struck me that my
brother James and I might easily arrive at a better appreciation of each
other's character, if we sat down quietly face to face, two old men as
we have become. The sarcasm that wounded him, and the passionate impulse
that irritated me, would have grown less with our white hairs, I think.
I don't know for certain--I cannot answer for a man who always would
take the wrong side of an argument, and stick to it. By Gad! how tightly
he would stick to it!"
The old gentleman rapped his gold-headed cane on the floor, and indulged
in a little sharp laugh, not unpleasant to hear. Sidney repressed a
smile, and looked significantly at his watch again.
"You wish me gone, young sir," said his uncle.
"Candidly, I see no good result to arise from your stay. My father is of
an excitable disposition, and, I am sorry to say, neither so strong nor
so well as I could wish. I fear the shock would be too much for him."
"I will take the hint," he said, rising; "I hate scenes, and if there is
likely to be a second edition of those covert reproaches with which you
have favoured me, why, it is best to withdraw as gracefully as possible,
under the circumstances. You will tell him that I have called?"
"Yes, sir."
"You will tell him also--bear this in mind instead of sucking your pen,
will you?--that if he owe me no ill-will, he will call on me next--that
it is _his_ turn! I never ask a man twice for anything--except for the
money he may owe me," he added, drily.
"I will deliver your message, Mr. Hinchford."
"Then I have the honour, sir, to apologize for this intrusion, and to
wish you a good evening."
He crossed the room and held out a thin white hand to Sidney, looking
very strangely, very intently at him meanwhile. Sidney placed his own
within it, almost instinctively, and the two Hinchfords shook hands.
They parted; Sidney thought that he had finally taken his departure,
when the door opened, and he reappeared.
"Do you mind showing me a light?--it's a corkscrew staircase, leading to
the bottomless pit, to all appearances."
Sidney seized the table-lamp, and proceeded to the top of the stairs,
which his uncle descended in a slow and gingerly manner. At the first
landing he looked up, and said:
"That will do, thank you--remember, _his_ turn next--good evening."
Sidney went back to the room, and shortly afterwards Mr. Hinchford, the
great banker, the owner of princely estates in three counties, was
whirled away westward in his carriage.
CHAPTER III.
SIDNEY'S SUGGESTION.
When Mr. Hinchford returned home, Sidney related the particulars of the
strange visit that he had received; and from the effect which the news
produced on his father, was grateful for the thought which had prompted
him to request his uncle's departure. Sidney had noticed with sadness,
lately, that his father was easily disturbed, easily affected, and it
was satisfactory to know that it had been judicious on his part to
advise his uncle's retirement.
Mr. Hinchford tugged at his stock, held his temples, passed his hands
through his scanty hair, puffed and blowed, dropped his first cup of tea
over his knees, and did not subside into a moderate state of calmness
for at least a quarter of an hour after the story had been told.
"And so brother Geoffry turns up at last!--well, I thought he would."
Sidney looked with amazement at his father.
"He would have turned up years ago, I daresay, if it hadn't been for his
wife--she and I never agreed; but old steady, quiet Geoffry, why, when
we were boys, we were the best of friends."
"You certainly surprise me, father. Perhaps I have done wrong in
persuading him to depart. But I always understood that it had been a
desperate quarrel between you, and that you had almost taken an oath
never to speak to him again."
"That's all true enough, and it was a desperate quarrel, and he was
tight-fisted just then, and let me drift into bankruptcy, rather than
help me. It wasn't brotherly, and I'll never forgive him--never. How was
the rascal looking, Sid?"
"Like a spare likeness of yourself, sir."
"He's taller than I am by a good two inches. We used to cut notches in
the sides of all the doors, when we were boys; comparing notes, we
called it. I suppose he's very much altered?"
"Well, never having seen him before, it is difficult to say. But I have
no doubt that there's a difference in him since you met last."
"Let me see--it's five-and-twenty years ago, come next February.
Twenty-five years to nurse a quarrel, and bear enmity in one's heart
against him. What a time!"
"He was anxious to tell me the story of that quarrel, sir, but I
declined to listen to it."
"I hope you weren't rude."
"Oh! no, sir."
"You have a most unpleasant habit of blurting out anything that comes
uppermost. That's your great failing, Sid."
"I like to speak out, sir."
"And after all, perhaps if we had spoken out less--he and I--we should
not have been all these years at arm's length, and you might have been
the better for that. There's no telling, things turn out so strangely.
And it wasn't so much his refusal to lend me, his only brother, ten
thousand pounds--ten drops of water to him--but the way in which he
refused, the bitterness of his words, the gall and wormwood instead of
brotherly sympathy. I was half mad with my losses, and he stung me with
his cool and insolent taunts, and cast me off to beggary--Sid, would you
forgive that?"
Mr. Hinchford had realized the scene again; through the mists of
five-and-twenty years, it shone forth vividly; his cheek flushed, and
his hand smote the table heavily, and made the tea things jump again.
Sidney cooled him by a few words.
"He has been cautious with his money, and you might have shown signs of
being reckless with yours, at that time. Possibly you both were heated,
and said more than you intended. It don't appear to me to have been a
very serious affair, after all."
"Did he ever seek me out again, or care whether I was alive or dead,
until to-day?--was that kind?"
"Did you ever seek _him_ out!"
"He was the rich man, and I the poor, Sid."
"Ah! that makes a difference!"
"What would you have done?" he asked anxiously.
"Kept away; not because it was right or politic, but because I inherit
my father's pride."
"It's an odd legacy, Sid," remarked the father, mournfully.
"I told him to-night we did not care about his patronage, and could work
our way in the world--that at so late an hour, when the worst was over,
we would prefer to thank ourselves for the result. I don't say that I
was right, father," he added; "but there was a satisfaction in saying
so, and in showing that we did not jump at any favour he might think it
friendly to concede."
"You're a brave lad," remarked the father, relapsing into thought again;
"and perhaps it is as well to show we don't care for him. He talked
about my turn next, you say?"
"Yes."
"That means, that he'll never come here again, or make another effort to
be friends. Oh! he's as hard as iron when he says a thing, Sid."
"Shall I tell you what I have thought, sir?--it goes against the foolish
oath you took, but I think you'll be forgiven for it."
"What have you thought?" he asked with eagerness.
"That it shall be our turn some day--some early day, I hope--to visit
him, and say:--'We are in a good position in life, and above all help,
shall we be friends again?'"
"To walk into his counting-house, and surprise him?" cried the father;
"for me to say:--'I owe all to my son's energy and cleverness, and can
afford to face you, without being suspected of wanting your money.'
Well, we ought to bear and forbear; I don't think it would be so very
hard to make it up with him!"
It was a subject that discomposed Mr. Hinchford--that kept him restless
and disturbed. His son detected this, and brushed all the papers into a
heap, thrust them into the recesses of his desk, and began hunting about
for the backgammon-board. The past had been ever a subject kept in the
background, and of late years his father had not seemed capable of
hearing any news, good or bad, with a fair semblance of composure. The
change in him had been a matter of regret with Sidney; far off in the
distance, perhaps, there might loom a great trouble for him--he almost
fancied so at times. Meanwhile, there were troubles nearer than that
fancied one--man is born unto them, as the sparks fly upwards.
CHAPTER IV.
PERPLEXITY.
Harriet Wesden had spoken more than once to Mattie of the Eveleighs, a
family which plays no part in these pages, although, from Harriet's
knowledge of it, every after page of this story will be influenced. A
Miss Eveleigh, an only daughter, and a spoiled one, had been a
schoolfellow of Harriet's; an intimacy had existed between them in the
old days, and when school days were ended for good, a correspondence was
kept up, which resulted, eventually, in flying visits to each other's
houses--the house in Camberwell, and Miss Eveleigh's residence at New
Cross.
Harriet, during the last week or two, had been spending her time at New
Cross with the Eveleighs, much to the desolateness of the Camberwell
domicile, and the dulness of Master Sidney Hinchford. But the visit was
at an end on the morning of the day alluded to in our last chapter, and
had it not been for his father's excitability, Sidney, who had mapped
his plans out, would have abandoned the backgammon board and a-wooing
gone.
It was as well that he did not, for Harriet Wesden at half-past seven in
the evening entered the stationer's shop, and surprised Mattie by her
late visit.
"Good gracious!" was Mattie's truly feminine ejaculation, "who would
have thought of seeing you to-night? How well you are looking--how glad
I am that you have come back--what a colour you have got!"
"Have I?" she said; "ah! it's the sharp frost that's in the streets
to-night. Let me deliver father's message, and hurry back before he gets
fidgety about me."
Harriet Wesden and Mattie went into the parlour, Mattie taking up her
position by the door, so as to command the approach from the street,
Harriet sitting by the fire with her head against the chimney-piece. The
message was delivered, sundry little account books were wanted at once,
and Harriet was to take them back with her; Mattie had to find them in
the shop, and make them up into a little parcel for our heroine.
When she returned, Harriet was in the same position, staring very
intently at the fire.
"Is anything the matter?" asked our heroine.
"Oh! no--what should be the matter, dear?"
"You're very thoughtful, and it's not exactly your look, Miss Harriet."
"Fancies again, Mattie," remarked Harriet; "I'm only a little tired,
having walked from Camberwell."
"I hope you'll not walk back--it's getting late. Unless," she added,
archly, "Mr. Sidney up-stairs is to see you safely home. That must be
one of the nicest parts of courtship, to go arm-in-arm together about
the streets--to feel yourself safe with _him_ at your side."
Harriet's thoughtful demeanour vanished; she gave a merry laugh at the
gravity with which Mattie delivered this statement, taunted Mattie with
having thoughts of a lover running in her head, darted from that subject
to the pleasant fortnight she had been spending with the Eveleighs at
New Cross, detailed the particulars of her visit, the people to whom she
had been introduced, and lively little incidents connected with
them--finally caught up her parcel and bade Mattie good night.
"Ah! you'll wait till I call down Mr. Sidney, I'm sure."
"He'll think that I have called for him. No, I'm going home alone
to-night."
"Why, what will he say?"
"Tell him that I was in a hurry, going home by omnibus to save time, and
appease father's nervousness about me. I will not have any danglers in
my train to-night. I'm in a bad temper--nervous, irritable and
excitable--I shall only offend him."
"Then something has----"
"Good night, Mattie--oh! I had nearly forgotten to ask you to dine with
us on Sunday; you'll be sure to come early?"
"Who told you to say that?"
"Why, my father, to be sure."
"I'm glad of it--I'm glad he thinks better of me," Mattie cried; "oh!
Miss Harriet, you don't know how miserable I have been in my heart, lest
he--lest he has thought differently of me lately!"
"More fancies! I have always said that they were fancies, Mattie."
"Ah! I guess pretty near to the truth sometimes."
"And tease yourself with a false idea more often--why, you will imagine
that _I_ shall think differently of you presently."
"No--I don't think you will."
"Never, Mattie."
"God bless you for that!--if ever I'm in trouble I shall look to you to
defend me."
"And in my trouble, Mattie?" was the half-laughing rejoinder.
"I'll think of you only, fight for you against all your enemies--die for
you, if it will do any good. Oh! Miss Harriet, you are growing up a lady
very far above me, getting out of my reach like, you won't forget the
little girl you were kind to, and shut her wholly from your heart?"
Harriet Wesden was touched; ever a sensitive girl, the sight of
another's sorrow struck home. She went back a step or two into the
parlour.
"This isn't like the old Mattie," she said, "the Mattie who always
looked at the brightest side of life, and made the best of every
difficulty. Is that silly affair of the robbery still preying on your
mind?"
"On your father's perhaps--not on mine."
"Then I'll fight the battle for you to begin with--if there be really
one doubt in my father's heart, I'll charge it from its hiding-place
to-night. Perhaps I have been wrapped up too much lately in my own
selfish thoughts when I might have helped you, Mattie. Will you forgive
me?"
She stooped and kissed Mattie, whose arms closed round her for a minute
with a loving clasp.
"I'm better now," said Mattie, "it was fancy, perhaps, a fancy that you,
too, were going further away from me--perhaps thinking ill of me. For
you were cold and distant when you came here first to-night."
"No, no."
"Well, that was my fancy, too, it's very likely. I'll say good night
now, for it's getting late."
"Good night, then."
At the door she paused and returned.
"Mattie, put on your bonnet and come with me to the end of the street
where the omnibus passes. I'm nervous to-night--I don't care to walk
alone about these streets again."
"Let me call Mr. Sid----"
"No, no; you--not him!" she interrupted.
"I never leave the shop, Miss Harriet; it's my trust, and your father
would not like it. Shall Ann----"
"Oh! it does not matter much; you have only made me nervous. I'm very
wrong to seek to take you from the business, and father so particular
and fidgety. I daresay no one will fly away with me. Good night, my
dear."
She went away with a bright smile at her own nervousness. That was the
last gleam of brightness there for awhile!
After that there settled on her face a confused expression, often a sad,
always a thoughtful one, with a long look ahead, as it were from the
depths of her blue eyes. From that night there was a change in her;
Mattie, quick of observation, was the first to detect it. It was a face
of trouble, and Mattie, seeing it now and then, could note the shadows
deepen. Sidney observed it next, detected with a lover's jealous
scrutiny a difference in her manner towards him, a something new which
was colder and less friendly, and yet not demonstrative enough for him
to murmur against, even if his half engagement had permitted him.
He asked her once if he had offended her, and she replied in the
negative, and was kinder towards him for that night; but the reserve,
indifference, coldness, or whatever it was, came back, and perplexed
Sidney Hinchford more than he cared to own. The year of his novitiate
was approaching to an end, and he thought that he could afford to wait
till then; she was not tiring of him and his attentions, he had too good
an opinion of himself to believe that; at times he solaced himself with
the idea that she was reflecting on the gravity of the next step, that
formal engagement to be married in the future to him.
Mattie and Sidney were both observers of some power, for after all they
saw through the bright side--the forced side--of her. For the father and
mother was reserved Harriet Wesden with her mask off.
Fathers and mothers are strangely blind to the causes of their
daughters' ailments--this humble pair formed no exception to the rule.
They were perplexed with her fits of brooding, her forced efforts to
rally when taxed with them, her pallor, loss of appetite, red eyes and
restless looks in the morning. Mr. Wesden, a suspicious man to the world
in general, was the most trustful and simple as regarded his daughter;
he did not know the depth of his love for her until she began to look
ill, and then he almost worried her into a real illness by his
suggestions and anxiety.
Mr. and Mrs. Wesden had many secret confabulations concerning the change
in Harriet; pottering over a hundred fusty ideas, with never a thought
as to the true one.
Was Camberwell disagreeing with her?--was the house damp, or her room
badly situated?--had not the dear girl change enough, society
enough?--what _was_ the matter? Mr. Wesden set it down for "a low
way"--an unaccountable complaint from which people suffer at times, and
for which change of scene is good.
So he set to work studying the matter, originating small excursions for
the day, submitting her to the healthy excitement of the winter course
of lectures at the infant schools in the vicinity--lectures on
artificial memory, on hydrostatics with experiments, on the poets with
experiments also, and unaccountable ones they were--even once ventured
into a box of the Surrey Theatre, and began to flatter himself and wife
that at last Harriet was rapidly improving.
But Harriet Wesden was only learning rapidly to disguise that
"something" which was perplexing her more and more with every day;
learning to subdue her parents' anxiety, and sinking a little deeper all
the new thoughts. But the whirl of events brought the secret uppermost,
and betrayed her--she was forced to make a confidante, and she thought
of Mattie, who had always loved her, and stood her friend--Mattie, in
whom she was sure was the only one she could trust.
The confidence was placed suddenly, and at a time when Mattie was
scarcely prepared for it--Mattie who yet, by some strange instinct, had
been patiently waiting for it.
"I believe when that girl's in trouble, she will come to me," Mattie
thought, "for she knows I would do anything to serve her. Have I any one
to love except her in the world?--is there any one who requires so much
love to keep her, what I call, strong?"
Mattie had seen that Harriet Wesden was not strong--that she was
tender-hearted, affectionate, and weak--that there were times when she
might give way without a strong heart and a stout hand to assist her.
She had been a weak, impulsive, passionate child--she had grown up a
woman very different to Mattie, whose firmness, and even hardness, had
made Harriet wonder more than once. And Mattie had often wondered at
Harriet in her turn--at her vanity and romantic ideas, and made excuses
for her, as we all do, for those we love very dearly. She had even
feared for her, until the half engagement with Sidney Hinchford had
taken place, and then she had noticed that Harriet had become more staid
and womanly, and was glad in her heart that it had happened thus.
Then finally and suddenly the last change swept over the surface of
things--all the worse for our characters perhaps, but infinitely better
for our story, which takes a new lease of life from this page.
CHAPTER V.
MR. WESDEN TURNS ECCENTRIC.
The nights "drew in" more and more; and nearer and nearer with the
shortest day approached the end of Sidney Hinchford's probation. Only a
week or two between the final explanations of Sid's position--of his
chances in the future perhaps--everything very quiet and still at
Suffolk Street and Camberwell--a deceptive calm before the storm that
was brewing.
Harriet Wesden called more frequently at the stationer's shop; she was
glad to escape from the long evenings at home, and the watchful, ever
anxious eyes of her father, and it was easy to frame an excuse to repair
to Great Suffolk Street. Occasionally Sidney Hinchford knew of her
propinquity, and escorted her home--more often missed his chances of a
_tete-a-tete_--three or four times, and greatly to his annoyance,
crossed her in the journey, and reached Camberwell to spend the evening
with a fidgety old man and his invalid spouse.
At this time it also happened that Sidney Hinchford fell into a dreamy
absent way, for which there appeared no valid reasons, unless he had
become alive to the doubts of Harriet's affection for him; an absence of
mind, and even an irritability, which was disguised well enough from the
father--before whom Sidney was more or less an actor--but which Mattie,
ever on the watch, was quick as usual to detect.
She had become puzzled by Harriet's abstraction, and had looked for its
reflex at once in Sidney Hinchford's face--finding it there, as she
thought, after a while.
Mattie, left in the dark as to the truth, and every day becoming more of
a young woman, who knew her place, and felt the distance between her
master's daughter, her master's lodgers, and herself, could but draw her
own conclusions, and frame a story from them.
Harriet and Sidney had quarrelled, and were keeping their quarrel a
secret from the good folk at Camberwell; something had happened to cast
a gloom on the way that Mattie thought would be ever bright and rosy,
and each day they who should have been lovers seemed drifting further
apart. She would have liked to play the part of mediator between
them--to see them friends again--but her position held her back, and she
had not the courage of a year ago. Those two young lovers had been the
bright figures in her past--her life had somehow become blended with
them, and she felt that her interest was of a cumulative character, and
not likely to die out with her riper womanhood. She could not
disassociate her mind away from them; at every turn in her career they
were before her--they haunted her thoughts, and harassed her with their
seeming inconsistencies of conduct. She did not understand them, for the
clue to the inner life was absent from her; she could not see why
Harriet was not a girl to love this young man with all her heart, as she
was loved--she felt that there was an assimilation between the strength
of one, and the weakness that needed support in the other; and that
Sidney's earnest love should have more deeply impressed a heart
naturally susceptible to anything that was honest and true.
And yet Harriet grew paler, and looked disturbed in mind, and Sidney
Hinchford came home from business every day with a deeper shade of
thought upon his face. He went less often to Camberwell also--she took
notice of that--and stayed up late at night in the drawing-room, after
having deluded his father into the belief that he should be only a few
moments after him. All was mystery in Suffolk Street, denser than the
fogs which crept thither so often in the winter time.
Mr. Wesden, before retiring from business, had left strict orders with
Mattie to be the last to go round the house, and see, in particular, to
the gas burners, and the bolts which Ann Packet was continually leaving
unfastened, and had once received warning for in Mr. Wesden's time.
Mattie had injunctions to see to the drawing-room burners as well; to
wait to an hour however late for the Hinchford exit.
This waiting up became a serious matter when Sidney Hinchford remained
in the drawing-room till the small hours of the morning, and brooded
over his papers, with which one table or another was invariably strewn.
Mattie, a young woman of business, who did a fair day's work, and rose
early, ventured to remonstrate at last; it was intrenching beyond her
province, but she made the plunge in a manner very nervous and new to
her--in a manner that even confused herself a little.
He brought the remonstrance upon himself by coming down into the shop to
hunt for some writing paper, which he intended to pay for in the
morning, and was a little surprised to find Mattie sewing briskly in the
back parlour.
"Up still, Mattie!--late hours for you," he said.
"Ah! and for you, too, sir."
"Men can do with little rest, and I never leave one day's work for the
next," said he, in that quick manner which had become habitual to him,
and which appeared, to strangers, tinged with more abruptness than was
really intended. "I was thinking of robbing your stationery drawer,
Mattie, and lo the thief is detected in the act."
"Oh! I hope you do not intend any more work to-night, sir."
"Why not?" he asked, his eyes expressing a mild sort of surprise through
his spectacles.
"I'm waiting to see the gas out in that table-lamp."
"Can't I see to it myself?"
"I thought so until I found the tap in the india-rubber pipe turned full
on last night."
"Did you sit up last night, too?"
"Mr. Wesden has always wished that I should make sure everything was
safe."
"But I'm busy just now; you mustn't be a slave as well as myself."
"I hope you're not a slave, Mr. Sidney," said Mattie, assuming that
half-familiar style of conversation which was natural to her with her
two old friends, and which always escaped in spite of of her, "or that
you will not keep one much longer, for it's not improving your looks, I
can tell you."
"_You_ can tell me," said Sidney; "well, what's the matter with my
looks, Mattie?"
Mattie looked steadily at him.
"You're paler than you used to be," she said after a while; "you're not
like yourself; you've something on your mind."
Sidney frowned, rubbed his hair up the wrong way, after his father's
fashion, cleared off suddenly and then laughed.
"Who hasn't?" was his reply.
"There's nothing which can't easily be got over, or my name isn't
Mattie," said our heroine, with great firmness.
She was full of her one reason for all this thought on his side, and the
confusion and perplexity on Harriet's, and she delivered her hint
emphatically.
"I don't despair of getting over most things," he said, with a forced
lightness that did not deceive his observer; "there's only one thing in
the way that bothers me."
He said it more to himself than Mattie, who cried, instinctively--
"What's that, sir?"
"Why, that's my secret," he responded, shutting up on the instant; "and
I shall keep it till the last."
He had turned very stern and rigid; Mattie felt that she had crossed the
line of demarcation, and withdrew into herself and her needlework with a
sigh.
Sidney Hinchford shook himself away from that dark thought instanter.
"You're as curious as ever, Mattie--you'll be a true woman. I would not
be your husband for the world."
Mattie felt herself crimson on the instant, and a strange wild commotion
in her heart ensued, more unaccountable than the mystery which had
deepened around her. They were light, idle words of his, but they made
her cheeks flush and her bosom heave; he spoke in jest, almost in
sarcasm, but the words rang in her ears as though he had thundered them
forth with all the power of his lungs.
When all this Suffolk Street life was over; when she and he, when she
and they whom she loved had gone their separate ways, when she was an
old woman, she remembered Sidney Hinchford's words.
Still she flashed back the jesting reply--or whatever it was--with a
quickness that was startling.
"You'll wait till you're asked," she said.
At this moment some one knocked at the outer-door.
"Hollo!--a late customer like me," said Sidney, opening the door as he
was nearer to it, and then staring with surprise at the person who had
arrived--no less a person than Mr. Wesden himself.
"Hollo!" he said again; "nothing wrong, sir, I hope?"
"Not at home," was the dry response. "Is anything wrong here?"
"Oh! no."
He entered, took the door-handle from Sidney, and closed the door
himself, turned the key in the lock, and drew the bolts to. Sidney
Hinchford thought Mr. Wesden looked very nervous that evening--very
different from his usual stolid way.
"You're quite sure--quite sure that it's all right, sir?" asked Sidney,
his thoughts flashing to Harriet again.
"I said so; I never tell an untruth, Sidney. Good night"
"Good night, sir. Oh!" turning back, "the letter-paper, Mattie--I had
forgotten."
Mr. Wesden watched the transfer of the writing paper from the drawer to
Sidney Hinchford's hands, glanced furtively from Sidney to Mattie,
gradually unwinding a woolen comforter from his neck meanwhile.
When Sidney had withdrawn, very much perplexed, but too dignified to ask
any more questions, Mr. Wesden turned to Mattie.
"What's he doing down here at this time of night, Mattie?"
"He came for writing paper--he's very busy."
"What are _you_ sitting up for?"
"To see to the gas-burners in the drawing-room."
"Turn the gas off at the meter, and leave him in the dark next time,"
said Mr. Wesden. "You can go to bed now. I'll sit up for a little while;
I'm going to sleep here to-night."
"Indeed, sir! Oh! sir, I hope that nothing serious _has_ happened?"
"Nothing at all. It's not so very wonderful that I should come to my own
house, I suppose, Mattie?"
"N--no," she answered, hesitating; "but it's past one o'clock."
"I couldn't sleep--and Harriet was at home with the good lady," he said,
as if by way of excuse; adding very sulkily, a moment afterwards, "I
never could sleep in that Camberwell place--I wish I'd never left the
shop!"
Mr. Wesden hazarded no further reason for his eccentric arrival, and
Mattie went up-stairs to lay it with the rest of her stock of mysteries
daily accumulating round her. Mr. Wesden remained down-stairs, fidgeting
with shop drawers, counting the money left in the till, and wandering up
and down in a reckless, hypochondriacal fashion, very remarkable in a
man of his phlegmatic temperament, and which it was as well for Mattie
not to have seen.
Finally he groped his way down-stairs into the kitchen, and the
coal-cellar where the gas-meter was placed, and with a wrench cut off
the supply of gas for that night, casting Sidney Hinchford so suddenly
into darkness, that he leaped up with an exclamation far from
appropriate to his character.
"What the devil next?"
The next thing for Sidney was to knock over the chair he had been
sitting upon, which came down on the drawing-room floor with a bumping
noise that shook the house, and woke up his father, who shouted forth
his name.
"Coming, coming,'' said Sidney, walking into the double-bedded room, and
giving up further study or brooding for that night.
"What's the matter, Sid, my boy?" asked the father, from the corner;
"haven't you been in bed yet?"
"Must have fallen asleep in the next room, I think."
"And a terrible row you've made in waking, Sid. Good night, my boy--God
bless you!"
The old gentleman turned on his side, and was soon indulging in the
snores of the just again. There was a night-light burning there, and
Sidney took it from its saucer of water and held it above his head,
looking down at that old, world-worn, yet handsome face of the father.
"God bless _you_!" he said, re-echoing his father's benediction; "how
will you bear it when the time comes, I wonder?"
CHAPTER VI.
A BURST OF CONFIDENCE.
Yes, Mr. Wesden, late of Suffolk Street, had become nervous and
eccentric in his old age--many people do, besides stationers. He had
retired from business too late to enjoy the relaxation from business
cares; he had better have died in harness than have given up the shop,
for isolation therefrom began to work its evil.
He had not had much to worry him in his middle age; his youth had been a
struggle, but he had been young and strong to bear with it, blest by a
homely and affectionate wife, who struggled with him and consoled him;
then had followed for more years than we care to reckon just now, the
everyday life of a London shopkeeper--a life of business-making and
money-making, plodding on in one groove, with little change to distract
his attention, or trouble his brain. All quiet and monotonous, but
possessing for John Wesden peace of mind, which, if not exactly
happiness, was akin to it. And now in his old age, when every habit had
been burned into him as it were, business was over, and idleness became
a sore trial to him. And then after idleness came his daughter to worry
him, not to mention Mattie, who worried him most of all, for reasons
which we shall more closely particularize a chapter or two hence.
So with these troubles bearing all at once upon a mind that had been at
its ease in its stronger days, Mr. Wesden turned eccentric. Want of
method rendered him fidgety, the mysteries in _his_ path, as well as
Mattie's, perplexed him; he was verging upon hypochondriacism without
being aware of it himself; and that suspicious nature which had been
born with him, began to develop itself more, and give promise of bearing
forth bitter fruit. Possibly before his concern for his daughter's
health, was his concern for the shop in Great Suffolk Street, which he
considered that he had neglected in leaving to the charge of a girl not
eighteen years of age, and which, since the robbery, was an oppression
that weighed heavily upon him. He was full of fancies concerning that
shop; his mind--which unfortunately was fed by fancies at that
time--began to give way somewhat when he took it in his head to think
something had happened, at twelve o'clock at night, and start at once
for Great Suffolk Street, as we have noticed in our preceding chapter.
The ice once broken, the eccentricities of Mr. Wesden did not diminish;
he had his old bed-room seen to in the house again, and surprised Mattie
more than once after this by sudden appearances at untimely hours. He
had a right to look after his business--did _people_ think that he had
lost his interest in the shop, because he lived away from it?--did
_people_ think that he was not sharp enough for business still? With
these changes he became more nervous, more irritable, and less
considerate; yet brightening up sometimes for weeks together, and
becoming his old stolid self again, to the relief of his wife and
daughter. That daughter detected the change in her father also, woke up
at last to the fact that her own thoughtfulness had tended to unsettle
him, and became more like her old self also--or rather, more of an
actress, with the power to impersonate that self from which she had
seceded.
Everything was going wrong with our characters, when Harriet Wesden
broke through the ice one night with that impulsiveness which she had
not lived down or grown out of. It was strange that she always broke
down in Mattie's presence; that only in the company of the stray did she
feel the wish to avow all, and seek counsel in return. To Harriet Wesden
the impulse was incomprehensible, but it was beyond her strength, at
times, and carried her away. She loved Mattie; she saw in her the
faithful friend rather than the servant; she knew that the child's
passionate love for her had grown with Mattie's growth, and absorbed her
being. But love was but half the reason with Harriet, and she would not
own--which was the secret--that the weak and timid nature sought relief
from a mind that had grown strong and practical in a rough school.
A need of sympathy, a perplexity becoming greater every day, allied to a
love for the confidante, brought about the truth, which escaped in the
old fashion.
She had been paying her visit--an afternoon one in this instance--to
Mattie at the shop; it was a dull season, and no business stirring; the
December gloom preyed upon the spirits of most people abroad that day;
it affected Harriet more than usual, or the pressure of the old thoughts
reduced her to subjection at last. The two girls were sitting by the
fireside, Mattie with her face turned to the shop door, when Harriet
Wesden laid both her hands suddenly on our heroine's.
"Mattie," she cried, "look me in the face a moment!"
"Come round to the little light there is left, then."
"There!"
Harriet Wesden set her pretty face, pale and anxious then, more into the
light required. Mattie regarded it attentively.
"Isn't it a false face?" asked Harriet, in an excited manner--"the face
of one who brings sorrow and wrong to all who know her?"
"I hope not."
"It is!" she asserted. "Oh! Mattie, I am in distress, and terrible
doubt--I have been foolish, and acted inconsiderately--I am in a maze,
that becomes more tangled with every step I take--tell me what to do!"
"You ought to know best, dear--you should not have any troubles which
you are afraid to confess to your father and mother, and--and Mr.
Hinchford."
"Yes, yes, but not to them first of all," she cried. "Oh! Mattie, I am
not a wicked girl, God knows--I have never had a thought of
wickedness--I would like everybody in the world to be as happy as I was
once myself."
"Once!" repeated Mattie. "Oh! I won't have that."
"I don't think," she added, very thoughtfully regarding the fire, "that
I shall be ever happy again. Now, Mattie dear, I'm going to swear you to
secrecy, and then ask what you would do in my place."
"You're very kind to trust in me--but is there no one else?--Miss
Eveleigh, for instance."
"She's a worse silly than I am!"
"Your mother."
"I should frighten her to death--she and father are both weak, and
altering very much. Oh! Mattie, if they should die and leave me alone in
the world!"
"Need you get nervous about that just now?"
"I'm nervous about everything--I'm unsettled--Mattie, I have acted very
treacherously to _him_."
"To Mr. Sidney!--not to Mr. Sidney?"
"Yes," was the answer.
Mattie became excited. How had it occurred?--who had done it?--who had
stolen her thoughts away from him?
"I have been trying very hard to love him--sometimes I think I do love
him better than the--the _other_--just for a while, when he is very
happy sitting near me, and very full of the future, that can never,
never come."
"Go on please," said the curious Mattie.
"Mattie, you remember Mr. Darcy?" she asked, spasmodically.
"Mr. Darcy--no," said the puzzled Mattie.
"The gentleman who--who fell in love with me when I was a child," she
explained, very rapidly, and with still greater excitement, "whom I
thought I had forgotten, and who had forgotten me, until I met him
again."
"Oh! this _is_ wrong!" exclaimed Mattie.
"I know it--I have owned it!" cried Harriet; "let me tell the story out.
I met him, parted coldly from him, met him again, all by accident on my
part; met him for a third time at the Eveleighs, with whom he had got on
visiting terms; met him day after day, evening after evening there,
until the spell was on me which overpowered me, and robbed me of my
peace--until I loved him, Mattie!"
"And he knows----"
"He knows nothing, save that I am engaged to be another's--and that I
dare scarcely think of him."
"He knows too much, _I_ know," said Mattie, reflectively; "and he has
found a way to turn you against Mr. Sidney. What a wonder he must be!"
"Poor Sidney!"
"And to think it's all over between you and him," added Mattie--"him who
thinks so much of you, and is growing old to my eyes, with the fear upon
him which I understand now, and which is now so natural!"
"What fear!"
"Of losing you."
"I am so sorry--_so_ very sorry for him. And I am ashamed to think that
I have led him on to build his hopes upon me, and now must dash them
down."
"Yes--to-night," said Mattie, thoughtfully.
"Tonight!" exclaimed Harriet, in alarm.
"I don't know much about these things--I never understood what love for
a young man was, having had too much to do," she added, with a little
laugh that echoed strangely in that shadowy room, "but it don't seem
quite the thing to keep the two on, or both of them in suspense about
you."
"Do you think I would?" asked Harriet, proudly.
"It seems to me that if I were in your place, I should take a pattern
from Mr. Sidney, and speak out at once--go straight at it, as he calls
it--and tell him everything."
"But----"
Mattie became excited in her turn.
"It isn't right--it isn't fair to let a man keep thinking of you, when
you've turned against him," she cried; "it's cowardly and base to hide
the truth from him, or be afraid of telling it. It won't kill him,
Harriet, for he's a proud spirit, that will bear up through it all,
bitterly as he will feel it for a while."
"I'm not afraid--it is not that," said Harriet; "I only wish to know
what you would think the best method of telling him all, and yet sparing
him pain. I have been fancying that if _you_ hinted to him at first the
truth----"
"_I_ hint!" exclaimed Mattie, "not for the world. I'm only a servant
here, and you might as well ask poor Ann Packet to hint the truth as me.
I'm sorry--you will never know how sorry I am--that you two are going to
break it off forever; but I should be more sorry still if you let
to-night go by, and not try hard to face him."
"Mattie, I will face him," said Harriet, with her lips compressed; "I
will tell him all. After all, it was not an engagement, and I was as
free as he to make my choice elsewhere if I preferred. I am not in the
wrong to tell him that my girlish fancy was a mistake."
"No--only in the wrong to keep the truth back."
"You will not think that I have intentionally attempted to deceive poor
Sidney, will you?"
"God forbid, my dear."
"Vain--frivolous, and weak--anything but cruel. Yes, I will tell him all
when he comes back to-night. There is no use in delay."
"Only danger," added Mattie, remembering her copy-book admonition; a
copy which Sidney Hinchford had set her himself in the old days, when
she was deep in text-hand.
"And then when it is all told, and he knows that I am free, happiness
will come again, I suppose. Heigho! I was very happy once."
"Happiness will come again," said Mattie, more cheerfully, "to be sure."
"Mattie, I have been trying very hard to think of Mr. Sidney, first of
all; it is that trying which has made me ill. I know he loves me very
much, and will never think of anybody else; and it is--it is hard upon
him now!"
"You must be very fond of this other one," said Mattie. "Is he
handsome?"
"Very."
"And very fond of you, of course?"
"Yes; but it is a struggle to keep his love back--I am cold to him--and
I--I will _not_ listen to him, and so drive him to despair. Oh! I am a
miserable wretch! I make everybody unhappy whom I meet."
The weak girl burst into tears, and rocked herself to and fro on the
chair before the fire. Mattie passed her arms round her neck and drew
the pretty agitated face to her bosom, soothing it there as though she
had been a mother troubled with love-sick daughters of her own.
"It will soon be over now," Mattie said, when Harriet was more composed.
"Try and be calm; think of what you shall say to poor Sidney, while I
attend to the shop a bit."
Mattie went into the shop, leaving Harriet Wesden with her chin clutched
in both hands, looking dreamily at the fire. She was more composed now
the whole truth had escaped her; she felt that she should be happy in
time, after Sidney Hinchford had been told all, and that terrible ordeal
of telling it had been gone through. One more scene, which had made her
shudder to forestall by sober thought, and then the new life, brighter
and rosier from that day!
Poor Sidney, what should she say to him, to soften the look which would
rise to his dark eyes and transfix her? What was best to say and do, to
keep him from thinking ill of her, and despising her for vacillation?
Mattie came in, looking white and scared; but Harriet, possessed by a
new thought which had suddenly dashed in upon her, failed to observe the
change.
"Mattie, dear," she cried, "if he should think I give him up because
he's poorer than Mr. Darcy--that it is for the sake of money that I turn
away from him!"
"Money's a troublesome thing," said Mattie, snatching up her bonnet from
the sideboard, and putting it on her head with trembling hands; "if you
take your eyes from it for an instant, it's gone."
"But, Mr. Darcy----"
"Oh! bother Mr. Darcy," was the half-peevish exclamation. "I have been
listening to you, and they've robbed the shop again. Everything's
against me just now! Mind the place till I come back, please."
CHAPTER VII.
THE PLAN FRUSTRATED.
Yes, the house in Great Suffolk Street had been again visited by "the
dangerous classes." It was a house well watched, or a house that was
doomed to be unfortunate in its latter days. A house left in charge of a
girl of seventeen, therefore likely to have its weak points, and
considered worth watching in the dark hours. This was Mattie's idea upon
awakening to the conviction of a second successful attempt upon Mr.
Wesden's property; but Mattie was wrong.
The robbery was the result of accident and neglect, as most robberies
are in this world. A youth had entered the shop to make a small
purchase, and hammered honestly on the counter with the edge of his
penny piece--a youth of no principle, certainly, brought up ragged,
dirty, ignorant, and saucy--a Borough boy. Fate and the devil contrived
that Mattie should be absorbed in the love-story of Harriet Wesden at
the time, and the boy finding no attention paid to his summons, looked
over the shop blind, saw the rapt position of the parlour occupants,
dropped upon his hands and knees like a lad brought up to the
"profession," and slid insidiously towards the till, which he found
locked and keyless. Fortune being against his possession of any current
coin of the realm, the young vagabond turned his attention to stock, and
in less time than it takes to sum up his defalcations, had appropriated
and made off with a very large parcel underneath the counter--a parcel
that Wiggins, wholesale stationers of Cannon Street, had just forwarded
by London Parcels' Delivery Company to order of John Wesden, Esq., and
which parcel had been found almost too large to decamp with.
Mattie thought no more of Harriet Wesden's troubles; here was a second
instance of her carelessness--of her incapacity for business. What would
Mr. Wesden think now; he who had been so cold and strange to her after
the last robbery? And what did she deserve?--she who had had a trust
committed to her and abused it.
Mattie did not give way to any ebullition of tears; she was a girl with
considerable self-command, and only betrayed her agitation by her whiter
face. She did all that lay in her power to remedy the great error,
leaving Harriet Wesden in charge of the shop whilst she ran down Great
Suffolk Street and towards the Borough, hoping to overtake the robber.
Straight to Kent Street went Mattie; thieves would be sure to make for
Kent Street--all the years of her honest life faded away like a dream,
and she ran at once to the house of a receiver of stolen goods, a house
that she had known herself in the old guilty past.
Her hand was on the latch of the door, when a policeman touched her on
the arm,
"Do you want anything here?"
"I've been robbed of a large parcel--I thought they must have brought it
here."
"Why here?"
"This is Simes's--this used to be Simes's--surely."
"Yes, and it's Simes's still; but nobody's been here with a parcel. You
haven't been and left nobody in Mr. Wesden's shop?" was his inelegant
query.
Mattie did not remark that the policeman knew her then; she was too
excited by her loss.
"Mr. Wesden's daughter's there."
"Then you had better come round to the police-station, and state your
loss, Miss."
Mattie thought so too; she went to the police station, mentioned the
facts of the robbery, the nature of the parcel stolen, &c, and then
returned very grave and disconsolate to Great Suffolk Street, to find
three customers waiting to be served, Harriet turning over drawer after
drawer in search of the goods required, and one woman waiting for
change, which Harriet, having mislaid her own purse, and found the till
locked, was unable to give her.
Mattie turned to business again, attended to the customers, and then
re-entered the parlour.
"It cannot be helped, and I must make the best of it," said Mattie; "I
don't mind the loss it is to me, who'll pay for it out of my own
earnings, as I do the vexation it will be to your father."
"Leave it to me, Mattie," said Harriet; "when I go home this evening, I
will tell him exactly how it occurred, and how it was not your fault but
mine. And, Mattie, I intend to pay for it myself, and not have your hard
earnings entrenched upon."
"You're not in trust here," said Mattie, somewhat shortly; "if I don't
pay for it, I shall be unhappy all my life."
"Then it's over and done with, and I wouldn't fret about it," said
Harriet, suddenly finding herself in the novel position of comforter.
"I never fret--and I said that I would make the best of it," replied
Mattie, placing her chair at the parlour door, half within the room and
half in the shop; "and if I'm ever tricked again whilst I remain here,
it's very odd to me."
Harriet Wesden, not much impressed by so matter-of-fact event as a
robbery, was anxious to return to the subject which more closely
affected herself; the parcel, after all, was of no great value; the
police were doubtless looking for the thief; let the matter be passed
over for the present, and the great distress of her unsettled mind be
once more gravely dwelt upon! This was scarcely selfishness--for Harriet
Wesden was not a selfish girl--it was rather an intense craving for
support in the hard task of shattering another's hopes.
They had tea together in that little back parlour, and Harriet found it
difficult work to keep Mattie's thoughts directed to the subject upon
which advice had been given before the theft.
"You will not think of me," she said at last, reproachfully; "and what
does it matter about that rubbishing parcel?"
"What can I do for you, more?" asked Mattie, wearily. Her head ached
very much with all the excitement of that day, and she was inwardly
praying for the time to pass, and the boy to put the shutters up. The
robbery was _not_ of great importance, and she wondered why it troubled
her so much, and rendered her anxiety for others, just for a while, of
secondary interest. Did she see looming before her the shadow of her
coming trial; was there foreknowledge of all in store for her, stealing
in upon her that dark December's night? She was superstitions enough to
think so afterwards, when the end had come and life had wholly changed
with her!
After tea, Mattie's impression became less vivid, for Harriet's
nervousness was on the increase. The stern business of life gave way to
the romance--stern enough also at that time--of Harriet Wesden. It was
close on seven o'clock, and every minute might bring the well-known form
and figure home.
"I shan't know what to say," said Harriet; "it seems out of place to ask
him in here, and coolly begin at once to tell him not to think of me any
more, just as he comes home from business, tired and weary, too, poor
Sid! Shall I write to him?--I'll begin the letter now, and leave it here
for you to give him. Oh! I can't face him--I shall never be able to face
him, and tell him how fickle-minded I am!"
"Write to him if you wish then, Harriet; perhaps it is best, and will
spare you both some pain."
"Yes, yes, I'll write," said Harriet, opening Mattie's desk instantly,
and sending its neatly arranged contents flying right and left; "it _is_
much the better way--why make a scene of it?--I hate scenes! And I'm not
fickle-minded, Mattie," suddenly reverting to her self-accusation of a
moment since; "for I had a right to think for myself, and choose for
myself--we were not to be engaged till next month; and I did like him
once--I do now, somehow! If _he_ will only think well of me afterwards,
and not despise me, poor fellow, and believe that I had a right to turn
away from him, if my heart said that I was not suitable for him at the
last. If he--Mattie, _where_ do you keep your pens?"
Mattie remarked that she had turned the box full amongst the
letter-paper. Harriet sat herself down to write the letter after much
preparation and agitation; Mattie looked at her, sitting there, in the
full light of the gas above her head, and thought how pretty a _child_
she looked--how unfit to cope with the world's harshness--how lucky for
her that she was the only child of parents who had made money for her,
and so smoothed one road in life at least. Yes, more a child than a
woman even then; captious, excitable, easily influenced, swayed by a
passing gust of passion like a leaf, trembling at the present, at the
future, always unresolved, and yet always, by her trust and confidence
in others, even by her sympathy for others, to be loved.
Mattie went into the shop, leaving Harriet to compose her epistle; after
a while, and when she was brooding on the parcel again, and wondering if
Mrs. Watts were at the bottom of the robbery, Harriet called her. She
took her place again on the neutral ground, between parlour and shop,
and found Harriet very much discomfited; her face flushed, her fair hair
ruffled about her ears, her blue eyes full of tears.
"I don't know what to say--I can't think of anything that's kind enough,
and good enough for _him_. What would you say, Mattie?"
"And you that have had so much money spent on your education to ask
me--still a poor, ignorant, half-taught girl, Miss Harriet!"
"I'm too flurried to collect my thoughts--I _can't_ think of the right
words," she said; "I can't tell him of Mr. Darcy before Mr. Darcy has
spoken to me--and I--I don't like to write down that I--I don't love
him--never did love him--it looks so spiteful, dear! Mattie, what would
you say?"
"I should simply tell him the story which you told me."
"He might show the letter to father and mother, who are anxious--oh!
much more anxious than you fancy--to marry me to Sidney."
"They know his value, Harriet."
"And then it will all come at once to trouble them, instead of breaking
it by degrees. Well, it's my fate. I must not keep it from them."
"No. How much have you written?"
"'Dear Sidney'--and--and the day of the month, of course. Oh! dear--here
he is!"
Away went paper and pens into the desk again, and the desk cleared from
the table, and turned topsy-turvy on to a chair.
"Oh! the top of the ink-stand's out--look here!--oh! what a mess
there'll be!" cried Mattie.
Harriet reversed the desk.
"Perhaps it's not all spilt--I'm very sorry to have made such a mess of
it, and--and it's only Sidney's father, after all. Don't tell him I'm
here."
The old gentleman came into the shop, and nodded towards Mattie standing
in the doorway.
"Has my boy come home?" he asked.
"Not yet, sir."
The father's countenance assumed a doleful expression on the
instant--life without his boy was scarcely worth having.
"He's very late, then, for I'm late," looking at his watch; "I hope he
hasn't been run over."
Mattie laughed at the expression of the father's fear.
"That's not likely, sir."
"People do get run over at times, especially in the City, and more
especially near-sighted people. There's nothing to laugh at."
And rather offended at the manner in which his gloomy suggestion had
been received, Mr. Hinchford senior passed through the side door into
the passage. Mattie found Harriet at the desk again, picking out several
sheets of paper saturated with ink, and arranging them of a row on the
fender.
"More ink, dear--more ink!" she cried, impetuously; "I've thought of
what to say. Don't keep me long without the ink."
Mattie replenished her ink-stand, and Harriet dashed into the subject
with vigour, slackened after the first few lines, then came to a dead
stop, and stared intently at the paper. Mattie went into the shop for
fear of disturbing Harriet's train of ideas, remained there an hour
attending to customers, and arranging stock, finally went back into the
parlour.
The desk was closed once more; a heap of torn papers was on the floor.
Harriet, with her bonnet and shawl on, and her eyes red with weeping,
was pacing up and down the room.
"No letter?" asked Mattie.
"I can't write a letter, and tell him what a wretch I am," she said,
"and if I face him to-night, I shall drop at his feet. Girl," she cried,
passionately, "do you think it is so easy to act as I have done, and
then avow it?"
"I should not be ashamed to own it," was Mattie's calm answer; "I should
consider it my duty to tell him."
"And I will tell him all. God knows I would not deceive him for the
world, Mattie, or leave him in ignorance of the true state of my heart.
But I cannot tell him now. I'm afraid!"
There was real fear in her looks--an intense excitement, that even
alarmed Mattie. She saw, after all, that it was best to keep the secret
back for that night.
"Then I would go home, Harriet, at once. To-morrow, when you are calmer,
you may be able to write the letter."
"Yes, yes--to-morrow I will write it. I shall have all day before me,
and can tear up as many sheets as I like. I will write it to-morrow, and
post it from Camberwell. Mattie, as I'm a living woman, and as I pray to
be free from this suspense and torture, I WILL write to him to-morrow!"
"One day is not very important," said Mattie, in reply, little dreaming
of the difference that day would make. "Delays are dangerous--delays are
dangerous"--she had written twenty times in her copy-book, and taken not
to heart; and there _was_ danger on its way to those who had put off the
truth, and to him for whom they feared it.
"Delays are dangerous!" Take it to heart, O reader, and remember it in
the hour when you shrink from the truth, as from a hot iron that may
sear you. Wise old admonitions of our copy-book times--we might do worse
very often than laugh at ye!
CHAPTER VIII.
A SUDDEN JOURNEY.
Harriet Wesden hurried away after her promise; Mattie, at the last
moment, recalling to her notice the fact of the robbery, and reminding
her of the way in which she ought to break the news to her father. Then
the excited girl darted away to Camberwell, and it was like the
stillness of the grave in the back parlour after her departure. Mattie
went in for an instant to set the place to rights, and then returned to
her watch in the shop, and to her many thoughts, born of that day's
incidents. She was quite prepared for a visit from Mr. Wesden at a late
hour, but Mr. Wesden's movements under excitement were not to be
calculated upon; and we may say here that the knowledge of his loss did
not bring him post-haste to Great Suffolk Street. Mattie was thinking of
her loss, when the passage door opened, and the white head of Mr.
Hinchford peered round and looked up at the clock, over the top shelf
where the back stock was kept. The movement reminded Mattie of the time,
and she glanced at the clock herself--_half-past nine_.
"I thought the clock had stopped up-stairs," he said, by way of
explanation for his appearance.
"I had no idea it was so late," said Mattie.
"I had no idea it was so early," responded Mr. Hinchford; adding, after
a pause, "though I can't think where the boy has got to; he said he
would be home early, as he had some accounts to look through."
"It's not very late, sir, and if he has gone to Camberwell, not knowing
Miss Harriet was here to-night----"
"He always comes home first--I never knew him go anywhere without coming
home first to tell me. But," with another look at the clock, "it's not
so very late, as you say, Mattie."
"He will be here in a minute."
"I hope so," said Mr. Hinchford, going to the shop door, and looking
down the street, "for it's coming on to rain, and he has no umbrella.
The boy will catch his death of cold."
After standing at the door for two or three minutes, the old gentleman
turned to go up-stairs again.
"It'll be a thorough wet night--I'll tell Ann to keep plenty of water in
the boiler--nothing like your feet in hot water to stave off a cold."
He retired. Half an hour afterwards he reappeared in the shop, excitable
and fidgety.
"I can't make it out," he said, after another inspection of the clock;
"there's something wrong."
"Perhaps he has gone to the play, sir."
"Pooh! he hates plays," was the contemptuous comment to this; "he
wouldn't waste his time in a playhouse. No, Mattie there's something
wrong."
"I don't think so," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I would not worry about
his absence just yet, sir."
"I'll give him another hour, and then I'll go down to the office and ask
after him."
"Or find him there, sir."
"No, they're not busy, I think. He can't be there. Mattie," he said
suddenly. "Have you noticed a difference in him lately?"
"I--I fancy he seems, perhaps, a little graver; but then he's growing
older and more manly every day."
"Ah! he grows a fine fellow--there isn't such another boy in the
world--perhaps it's all a fancy of mine, after all."
Mattie knew that it was no fancy; that even Sidney's care and histrionic
efforts could not disguise his trouble entirely from the father. But she
played the part of consoler to Mr. Hinchford as well as she was able,
and the old gentleman, less disturbed in mind, returned to his room for
the second time.
But time stole on, and Mattie herself found a new anxiety added to those
which had heretofore disturbed her. The wet night set in as Mr.
Hinchford had prophesied; the boy came and put up the shutters; the
clock ticked on towards eleven; all but the public-houses were closed in
Great Suffolk Street, and there were few loiterers about.
Ann Packet brought in the supper, and was informed of the day's two
features of interest--the robbery, and the absence of Mr. Sidney. Ann
Packet, of slow ideas herself, and slower still in having other ideas
instilled into her, thought that the missing parcel was connected with
the missing lodger, and so conglomerated matters irremediably.
"You may depend upon it, Mattie, he'll bring the parcel back--it's one
of his games--he was a rare boy for tricks when I knew him fust."
"Ann, you've been asleep," said Mattie, sharply.
"I couldn't help it," answered Ann, submissively; "it was very lonely
down there, with no company but the _beadles_--and times ain't as they
used to was, when you could read to me, and was more often down there."
"Ah! times are altering," sighed Mattie.
"And Mr. Wesden don't like me here till after the shop's shut--because
he can't trust me, or I talk too much, I s'pose," she said; "but now,
dear, sit down and tell me all about everything, to keep my sperits up."
Ann Packet and Mattie always supped together after the shop was
closed--Ann Packet lived for supper time now, looked forward all the day
to a "nice bit of talk" with the girl who had won upon those affections
which three-fourths of her life had rusted from disuse.
"It's uncommon funny that I never had anybody to care about afore I
knowed you, Mattie," she said regularly, once or twice a-week; "no
father, mother, sisters, anybody, till you turned up like the ace in
spekkilation. And now, let me hear you talk, my dear--I don't fancy that
your tongue runs on quite so fast as it did."
Ann Packet curled herself in her chair, hazarded one little complaint
about her ankles, which were setting in badly again with the Christmas
season, and then prepared to make herself comfortable, when once more
Mr. Hinchford appeared, with his hat, stick, and great cloak this time.
"Mattie, I can't stand it any longer--I'm off to the office in the
City."
Mattie did not like the look of his excited face.
"I'd wait a little while longer, sir."
"No--something has happened to the boy."
"Shall I go with you, sir?"
"God bless the girl!--what for?"
"For company's sake--it's late for you to be alone, sir."
"Don't you think I can take care of myself?--am I so old, feeble, and
drivelling as that? Are they right at the office, after all?" he added
in a lower tone.
"I shouldn't like to be left here all alone," murmured Ann Packet;
"particularly after there's been robberies, and----"
There was the rattle of cab-wheels in the street, coming nearer and
nearer towards the house.
"Hark!" said Mattie and Mr. Hinchford in one breath.
The rattling ceased before the door, the cab stopped, Mr. Hinchford
pointed to the door, and gasped, and gesticulated.
"Open, o--open the door!--he has met with an accident!"
"No, no, he has only taken a cab to get here earlier, and escape the
wet," said Mattie, opening the door with a beating heart, nevertheless.
Sidney Hinchford, safe and sound, was already out of the cab and close
to the door. Mattie met him with a bright smile of welcome, to which his
sombre face did not respond. He came into the shop, stern and silent,
and then looked towards his father.
"I thought you might have gone to bed, father," he said.
"Bed!" ejaculated Mr. Hinchford, in disgust; "what has--what has----"
"Come up-stairs, I wish to speak to you."
Father and son went up-stairs to their room, leaving Mattie at the open
door. The cab still remained drawn up there; the cabman stood by the
horse's head, stolid as a judge in his manifold capes.
"Are you waiting for anything?" asked Mattie.
"For the gemman, to be sure."
"Going back again?"
"He says so--I spose it's all right," he added dubiously; "you've no
back door which he can slip out of?"
"Slip out of!" cried the disgusted Mattie, slamming the front door in
his face for his impudent assertion.
Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford was facing his father in the drawing-room.
"Sit down and take the news coolly, sir," he said; "there's nothing
gained by putting yourself in a flurry."
"N--no, no, my boy, n--no."
"I have no time to spare, and I wish to leave you all right before I
go."
"Go!"
"I am going for a day or two, very likely for a week, on a special
mission for my employers--that is all that I can tell you without
breaking the confidence placed in me--I must go at once."
"Bless my soul! what--what can I possibly do without you. Can't I go
with you? Can't I--"
"You can do nothing but wait patiently for my return, believing that I
am safe, and taking care of myself. Why, what are a few days?"
"Well, not much after all," said the father, wiping his forehead with
his silk-handkerchief, "and there's no danger, of course?"
"Not any."
"And you are only going----"
"A journey of a few days. Try and calm yourself whilst I pack a few
things in my portmanteau. There, that's well!"
Sidney passed into the other room, leaving his father still struggling
with the effects of his astonishment. The portmanteau must have been
filled without any regard for neatness, for Sidney in a few minutes
returned with it in his hands.
"Why, you should be proud of this journey of mine," he said with a
forced lightness that could only have deceived his father; "think what
it is to be chosen out of the whole office to undertake this business."
"It's a good sign. Yes, I see that now."
"And I shall be back sooner than you expect, perhaps. Why, you and I
must not part like two silly girls, to whom the journey of a few miles
is the event of a life. Now, good-bye, sir--God keep you strong and well
till I come back again!"
"And you, my lad, and you, too."
"Amen. God grant it."
There was a strange earnestness in the son's voice, but the father was
still too much excited to take heed.
"And now good-bye again," shaking his father's hands; "you'll stay here,
sir, you'll not come down any more to-night."
"Yes, I will."
"You must try and keep calm; I will beg you as a favour to remain here,
father."
"Well, well, if you wish it--but I'm not a child."
Sidney released his father's hands, caught up his portmanteau, and
marched down stairs. Mattie, pale with suppressed excitement, met him in
the shop. He put down his burden, caught her by the wrist, and drew her
into the parlour. Seeing Ann Packet there, he bade her go down stairs
somewhat abruptly, released his grip of Mattie, and waited for Ann's
withdrawal, beating his foot impatiently upon the carpet.
Mattie looked nervously towards him, and thought that she had never seen
him look more stern and hard. His face was deathly white, and his eyes
burned like coals behind the glasses that he wore.
"Mattie," he said, "you and I, my father and you, are old friends."
"Yes, sir."
"I will ask a favour of you before I go. Take care of him! Ask him to
come down here to smoke his pipe with you, and keep him as light-hearted
as you can till I return."
"Who?--I, sir?"
"You have the way with you; you are quick to observe, and it will not
take much pains to keep him pleased, I think. When he begins to wonder
why I haven't returned, break to him by degrees that I have deceived
him, fearing the shock too sudden for his strength."
"Oh! sir, how can you leave all this to me?"
"I have faith in no one else, Mattie, to do me this service. You are
always cool, and will know the best way to proceed. Cheer up the old
gentleman all you can, too;--you were a quaint girl once--don't let him
miss me if you can help it."
"And you'll be gone----"
"Six weeks or two months."
"It's not a very happy journey, sir."
"How do you know that?" was the quick rejoinder.
"You're not looking happy--there's trouble in your face, Mr. Sidney."
"Well, there is room for it, and I am going, as I fear, to face trouble,
and bring back with me disappointment. We can't have it all our own way
in this world, Mattie."
"No, sir, that's not likely."
"And if there be more troubles than one ahead, why we must fight against
them till we beat them back, or they--crush us under foot. Good-bye."
He shook hands with her long and heartily, adding, "You will remember
your trust--you will break the news to him like a daughter?"
"I'll do my best, sir."
"He knows that I cannot send him any letters."
"And, and--letters for you?"
She thought of the letter which Harriet Wesden, in her sleepless bed,
might be pondering upon then. Of the new trouble which he seemed to
guess not; for immediately afterwards he said--
"Keep the letters till I come back--and give my love to Harriet; tell
her I shall think of her every hour of the day and night. I wrote to her
the last thing this evening. Now, good-bye, old girl, and wish me luck."
"The best of luck, Mr. Sidney--with all my heart!"
"Luck in the distance--luck when I come back again, and see it shining
in my Harriet's eyes. Ah! _it won't do!_" he added, with a stamp of his
foot.
"I'll pray for it sir," cried Mattie; "we can't tell what may happen for
the best, or what _is_ for the best, however it may trouble us at
first."
"Spoken like the parson at the corner shop," he said, a little
irreverently. "Bravo, Mattie--honest believer!"
He passed from the shop into his cab, glancing at the up-stairs windows,
and waving his hand for a moment towards his father, waiting anxiously
there to see the last of him.
The cab rattled away the moment afterwards, and Sidney Hinchford was
borne on his unknown journey.
* * * * *
On the evening of the next day, a letter, in Harriet Wesden's
hand-writing, was received. The postman and Mr. Hinchford, senior, came
into the shop together.
"Sidney Hinchford, Esq.," said the postman.
"Thank you--I'll post it to him when he sends me his address," said Mr.
Hinchford. "By Jove!" looking at the superscription, "the ladies miss
him already."
Harriet Wesden had kept her promise, and found courage to write her
story out.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.