FAREWELL.
There followed a time of perfect happiness for Meg, during which, for a
few weeks, she sat by her friend's fireside, watched him at his writing,
listened to his reading, ruled over the meals that he took at home, and
questioned him concerning those that he took abroad.
On a memorable afternoon they celebrated together, with much pomp, over
a banquet of jam puffs and lemonade at a confectioner's shop in the
Tottenham Court Road, the redemption from pawn of his father's gold
watch and chain. Meg again played the part of _Deus ex machina_ in the
transaction, and personally paid the ransom of the precious pledge. In
honor of the event, Mr. Standish presented her with a copy of
Goldsmith's "Animated Nature," with "Meg" printed in gold letters on the
cover. The sight of her name thus honored overcame the child. He
explained to her, when she appeared inclined to rebuke him for
extravagance that the political squib, the jokes which used to have a
depressing effect upon her, had brought him the unlooked-for cash.
Shortly after this festivity Mr. Standish's movements once more became
erratic. Meg could discover no signs, however, of the symptoms that she
feared. He seemed mysteriously elated and full of business, yet he wrote
less. He admitted when she questioned him that something was absorbing
his time, but his answers were evasive concerning the nature of this new
interest. He promised that she would know what it was shortly.
One day Mr. Standish had a long talk with Mrs. Browne over a bottle of
sherry, after which he went out and returned late. The landlady was
maudlinly effusive over Meg that evening, puzzled the child with her
ramblingly affectionate talk, and filled her with vague apprehension.
Mr. Standish's answers to Meg's queries were also unsatisfactory.
A few days later a dandified elderly gentleman wearing a frilled shirt
visited the journalist. As he was leaving Mr. Standish called Meg in,
and introduced her to the visitor as "the child I spoke to you about."
The elderly gentleman looked at her peeringly, with his head on one
side. He chuckled, patted her cheek, and told her if she were a good
girl something wonderful might happen to her. The announcement, far
from cheering Meg, deepened the foreboding in her heart.
That evening she softly entered Mr. Standish's room. A confused dread
seized her when she saw the floor littered with books and papers lying
about in parcels. The journalist was sitting by the fire, abstractedly
poking the embers.
Meg touched his elbow. "Are you not going to write to-night?" she asked
in a low voice.
"Not to-night, Meg. I am going to talk to you instead."
She remained motionless by his chair, questioning him with her glance
only.
Still he did not speak. After a moment or two he said abruptly, "Meg
would you like to go to school?"
"I go to school every day. What do you mean?" she asked, looking at him
with quick suspicion.
"I mean quite another sort of school--one kept by ladies, and where your
schoolfellows would be ladies; where you would make lots of nice
friends; and where you will sleep at night instead of----"
"You mean go away from here--quite?" interrupted Meg, growing pale to
the lips.
"Yes," he answered.
"What do you want me to go away for?" she demanded, a flash of anger in
her eyes.
"Because I do not like to leave you with no one but Mrs. Browne to look
after you; and I am going away."
"When?" she asked tremulously.
"To-morrow."
She gave an exclamation that sounded like a cry.
He drew her to him.
"Listen, Meg. It will make me very unhappy if I think you are fretting
when I am gone. I want my little friend to be brave; she must not fret."
"Where are you going?" she faltered, mastering her emotion.
"I am going to travel and write accounts of what I see, for a newspaper
that will pay me very well. It is a great lift for me, Meg, and I want
you to have your lift also."
She did not speak, but kept her eyes fixed upon his face. He then gently
and guardedly told her that he had got from Mrs. Browne the name of the
family solicitor who paid for her keep. He had gone to see him to speak
of Meg. The elderly gentleman with the frilled shirt, who had patted her
on the head, was the solicitor in question. His name was Mr. Fullbloom.
The young man did not tell the child that he had found out how
shamefully misapplied by the landlady was the allowance she received,
nor did he tell her that he had made in writing a vivid statement of
her forlorn and neglected condition in the boarding-house.
He laid as light stress as he could on the refusal of the solicitor to
give up the name of the child's mysterious patron.
"Some one takes a great interest in you, Meg," he said in conclusion;
"and Mr. Fullbloom came to assure me from that person that you would now
be placed in a first-rate school, where you will have plenty of comrades
of your own age, teachers who will care for you; and you will grow up to
be a little lady, like your mother in the picture."
Meg listened cold and silent to the end.
"Won't you be glad to go to school to be educated?"
"No," she answered, stiffening herself and jerking out her words,
relapsing in her excitement into her old pronunciation. "I will hate
going. I don't want to be edicated. What do I want to be edicated for?
And if you cared for me you would not wish me to go away, you would
not."
Tears stood in her eyes, but anger kept them from falling.
"Do you wish to remain here when I am gone Meg?" he asked.
"No," she replied faintly, as if her heart failed her at the suggestion.
"Why can't I go where you go? Who'll light your fire for you, who'll
look after you? You want somebody to look after you."
"I know it, Meg, and no one would look after me as you would."
"I'd not want much to eat or drink," Meg went on, alive to the
economical side of the question; "and once you said you felt lonely
without me."
"So I will, Meg," he answered, drawing her nearer and keeping his arm
about her. "And it is just because I care for you that I want you to go
to school, that I want you to learn all that can be taught you. I want
your little hands to grow soft, that now are hard with housework for
me."
The child's face worked, but she controlled the rising sob.
"Listen, Meg. It may be in five years, it may be in six years, it may be
when you are a tall, accomplished young girl of eighteen, I shall come
to the school where you are, and--" He paused.
"Take me home to be your housekeeper?" said Meg.
A laugh drifted to his face.
"Better than that. We will be friends, close friends, such friends as
never were, if you go to this school," he said.
"You promise?" said the child, holding him with her eyes.
He nodded. "I promise, Meg."
"Then I will go to that school," she said submissively, putting her hand
into his.
Until eight o'clock, when she usually said good-night, Meg helped Mr.
Standish to pack up. She asked to be allowed to remain up a little
longer, but he refused the petition.
"It is not good-by, Meg; it is good-night only," he said cheerily,
stroking her head; then stooping, he kissed the child's forehead. "God
bless you, little Meg!"
Meg did not go to bed. She made no pretense to undress. She lay on the
floor of her attic all night, letting the solitude of the coming years
pass in anticipation over her heart. In the gray of the morning some
furtive sounds reached her ears, and she sprang up listening. A few
moments after, Mr. Standish, portmanteau in hand, emerged from his room.
A gray little figure stood waiting for him in the dim dawn, as it had
waited for him once before. It was Meg, pressing something to her heart.
"My child, I had hoped, I had planned to avoid this for you," he said.
"I hoped you would be asleep."
[Illustration: MEG PRESENTS THE OLD FASHION-PLATE TO HER FRIEND.--Page
61.]
The child's lips moved, but she did not speak. Abruptly stretching out
the hand that she had held pressed against her bosom she put
something into his. It was the fashion-plate that had been to her as her
mother's portrait.
"Is that for me, Meg?" he asked.
She nodded.
"I'll keep it safe. I'll give it back to you, Meg, when we meet again,"
he replied, tenderly folding the battered print and laying it inside his
pocket-book.
The child kept a stern silence.
"We'll meet again, Meg; I promise you that. Poor little Meg!" he said
feelingly. "It is hard for you; but I will write to you--I will write.
No one will ever care for me as you have cared."
He kissed her, and as still she preserved the stern silence of repressed
grief he turned quickly away. As he ran down he looked back and saw the
child watching him, with her face thrust through the banisters.
He waved his hand to her and smiled. The next moment the hall door
clapped below, and from above there came the sound of sobbing in the
darkness.