A MYSTERIOUS VISIT.
A few days after, in the early afternoon, as Meg was sitting on the
floor in her attic with the bundle of articles given her by Mr. Standish
spread out on her lap, the books he had given her on the floor around
her, the door opened and Mrs. Browne entered.
Meg had been silent and repellent since her friend's departure. She had
lived alone, communing with her grief.
The landlady sat down on the child's bed and began rocking herself
backward and forward, uttering faint moans.
Meg looked at her gravely and apparently unmoved.
"What are you crying for?" she asked at last, when Mrs. Browne's moans
became too emphatic to be passed over in silence.
"I am going to lose you, Meg--after all these years--There's a
gentleman downstairs--waiting to take you away. Oh! oh! oh!" moaned Mrs.
Browne.
"A gentleman--what gentleman?" asked Meg with trembling eagerness, a
light springing to her eyes, for her thoughts had flown to her only
friend.
"A kind gentleman--Mr. Fullbloom--You must remember, Meg, as I always
said--Mr. Fullbloom--pays for you regular--regular as quarter-day comes,
he pays. Remember, as I always said it--And now he's come to take you
away from me--who loves you as a mother."
"Is he coming to take me away to that school?" asked Meg, sitting up
straight, speaking in curt and business-like tones.
"Yes, you're to go to a school--a grander school--a ladies' school--and
you'll forget me, who loved you like a mother."
Meg did not answer. She began to prepare rapidly for her departure. She
was going to the school; and this was the first step toward rejoining
Mr. Standish in the future.
She paid no heed to Mrs. Browne's feeble grieving over the shabbiness of
her wardrobe, her unmended boots, and to the landlady's repeated
injunctions to "speak up for me who has been good to you as a mother to
the gentleman." Every week, Mrs. Browne protested, she had meant to buy
Meg a pretty dress and hat.
"What do I want with a fine dress at school for? I am going to
learn--that's what I am going to do. I am going to be a lady," said Meg
severely, locking the writing-case, a present from Mr. Standish, in
which she had deposited her bundle of articles, and wrapping her books
in brown paper.
"The gentleman says you're to take nothing with you except just what
will go in a little bag," said Mrs. Browne; "and I've brought you my
best hand-bag."
"I'll not go away without these things," said Meg ardently. "I'll not go
to school or nowhere without them."
Mrs. Browne shook her head; but Meg was not to be moved.
A few minutes' later, attired in her Sunday garments, her feet shod in
worn boots, Meg, carrying her parcel, went downstairs, followed by Mrs.
Browne. In the best parlor stood the gentleman she had once seen in Mr.
Standish's room, and to whom she had been introduced as the "little girl
I spoke to you of."
He still wore a frilled shirt and tapped a silver snuffbox, and he
looked at Meg with his head very much on one side.
"Ready to go--ready to go!" he said in a quick chirping voice. "Not
crying, eh? not crying?"
Meg disengaged her hand to take the one proffered to her.
"Can't take that parcel," said Mr. Fullbloom, shaking his head. "Can't
take it."
"Then I won't go away--I won't go to the school without it," said Meg
with fierce decision.
"Tut, tut, tut!" said the lawyer. "What's inside it? Lollipops, eh?
lollipops?"
"No," said Meg, pale with eagerness; "it's books and things--keepsakes.
I'll never part with them--never!"
"Oh, hoity-toity!" said Mr. Fullbloom, then impressed with the child's
resolute look. "Well, well," he added, jerking his head to the other
side, "perhaps we'll find a place for it in the carriage."
Then once more Mrs. Browne lifted up her voice, and weeping embraced
Meg, who submitted to her caress with a certain stiff-backed
irresponsiveness. It is probable that if Meg had been called under other
circumstances to leave the gloomy old boarding-house and the boozy
landlady, about whom clustered all the associations of her childhood,
she would have felt the pang of the uprooting; but an absorbing
affection now filled her little heart, and with it had come new hopes
and ambition.
A brougham was waiting at the door. Into it she stepped, and after her,
Mr. Fullbloom. The next moment she was driving swiftly and silently
along. It was all very strange; yet Meg did not feel surprised. Grief
had lifted her unconsciously to a higher level of expectation; all
unknowingly her attitude toward life was changed.
She was vaguely aware that she was the object of her companion's amused
and attentive observation. For all his waggish ways and darting
movements Mr. Fullbloom had a shrewd and observant mind. He was a
lawyer, accustomed to note with discriminating eye external signs that
gave him the clew to the personality of those with whom he came in
contact. It had grown to be a second nature with him to take note of
appearances. This little maid's imperturbable demeanor before the tears
of Mrs. Browne, her quick, fearless trust in him, her determined
attitude toward the bundle covered with brown paper, piqued his
curiosity, and moved a deeper interest in her than that which he usually
accorded to children. The clear-cut little profile, he acknowledged, had
a character of its own. Meg's attitude, as she sat upright and somewhat
stiffly, partook of the same individuality. Mr. Fullbloom noted every
detail of the child's dress--the well-worn turban hat crowning the
brown crop of hair, the shabby velveteen dress, the weather-beaten
jacket with its border of mangy fur, the old boots, the darned worsted
gloves covering the hands that clasped the parcel.
"I think I know a little girl who is not very sorry to leave the old
house--not sorry," he said at last, stooping forward and cocking his
head with that bird-like swiftness.
"I want to go to that school. Are we going there now?" inquired Meg.
"Perhaps we are--perhaps we are not--perhaps we are going to a fairy
palace," replied Mr. Fullbloom with a suggestive sidelong glance.
Meg looked at him smilelessly.
"There are no fairies," she said curtly. "Am I going to that school?"
"Before I tell I want to know who gave you those keepsakes--who was it?
The clever young gentleman who took such an interest in little Miss Meg,
and who had set his heart so much upon her going to school--was it?"
said Mr. Fullbloom facetiously, laying his hand upon the bundle.
"Mr. Standish," answered Meg softly; and the lawyer was astonished at
the emotion perceptible on the child's face. It seemed to quiver like
the chords of a harp upon which a hand is laid.
The silence was broken, and the lawyer began to question. Meg was
guarded and reticent in her monosyllabic replies; but by a few leading
questions the lawyer got from her what he wished to know.
He became satisfied that the picture Mr. Standish had drawn of her
isolation, neglect, and half-servile position in the boarding-house was
unexaggerated. His veiled cross-examination was scarcely concluded
before the brougham drew up before a large house overlooking a square,
in which tall trees cast their shade athwart the smoothly shaven turf.
"Was this grand house the lady's school?" thought Meg.
A solemn man in black opened the door; an imposing being in a
gold-buttoned coat, plush breeches, and silk stockings came forward, and
Meg by a dexterous move just rescued her parcel from his officious
clutches.
Mr. Fullbloom led her into a side room, saying as he left her that he
would be back immediately. The firelight glowed upon frames and mirrors,
delicate porcelains, and blue satin hangings. For a few moments the
little Cinderella figure remained standing immobile amid these
surroundings, lost in wonder, then the lawyer returned, and taking her
by the hand conducted her upstairs.
Who was she going to see now? Was she about to be brought before the
master or mistress of this fairy palace?
Meg was aware of passing through a room larger and more splendid than
the one she had just left. Then Mr. Fullbloom pushed open a door and
ushered her into another room furnished with bookcases filled with
books, a long table, and dark leather chairs.
An old gentleman was sitting there. His chair was against the window, so
that his face was in shadow, but his white hair shone. He was leaning
back; there was something rigid in his attitude; his long white hands
grasped the arms of the chair.
"Here is the little girl," said Mr. Fullbloom.
The white-haired gentleman made no sign of greeting, and did not speak
for a moment; but a close observer might have noticed, even in that
half-light, a slight twitch of the old hand.
"You are the little girl who spent all your life in Mrs. Browne's
boarding-house?" he said at last, abruptly.
"Yes, sir," said Meg with a quiver in her voice.
In her heart she thought the elderly gentleman was not to be compared in
appearance with the glittering footman; but his chill stare seemed to
freeze her.
"You remember no other place? You have never been to another?" he asked.
"I remember other places, but I have never lived in another place," said
Meg with her usual accuracy.
"What is your name?"
"Meg."
"Meg what?"
"Browne," said Meg.
"No, that is not your name. Beecham is your name. Don't
forget--Beecham."
"Beecham?" repeated Meg, amazed.
"Take off your hat!" said her interlocutor.
Meg lifted her left hand to obey, but the elastic caught in her hair,
and she put her precious parcel down to free her right hand.
"You were to take nothing out of that house," said the old gentleman
sternly.
"I won't give them up--I won't!" cried Meg with kindling countenance,
and with hands outstretched to protect her parcel.
"You won't!" repeated the old gentleman with frozen severity. Mr.
Fullbloom bent over his chair. There was a whispered colloquy. Then the
old gentleman said in a voice that might have been that of an audible
icicle: "You may keep those things if you do not ask for anything
else."
"I do not want anything else," said Meg with energy.
"Turn to the light."
Meg, all rebellion smoothed from her countenance, turned, obedient as a
light-haunting flower, toward the gleam of sunshine filtering through
the heavy curtains. The light fell caressingly on the spirited little
face in its renewed quietude.
"That will do," said the old gentleman; and he fell into a brooding
silence.
"This little girl wants to grow up a learned little lady--a learned
little lady," put in Mr. Fullbloom cheerily after a pause.
"Yes, that is what I want to be," answered Meg with an eager nod.
"If you are sent to school," resumed the stranger sternly, bending on
the child a glance that seemed to her to be one of aversion, "you must
promise never to speak of that time spent in the boarding-house. You are
to forget everything that happened there, and everybody you met there."
"I'll not forget every one. There is one person I will never
forget--never," replied Meg with energy.
"Mr. Standish, the young man who was her friend. Can't ask her to forget
him yet--can't do that," put in Mr. Fullbloom in a tone of jaunty
conciliation, shaking his head. "I feel sure Meg will not speak about
him."
"I don't want to talk about him," said Meg, her voice instinct with the
sacredness of her affection.
"Do you know how to read?" asked the old gentleman.
"Yes," replied Meg briefly.
Her mysterious questioner opened a volume, turned rapidly over the pages
until he came to one where a chapter ended. He passed his forefinger
over the page with a heaviness that widened the delicate nail.
"When a chapter is done, it is done--you turn the page." He suited the
action to the words and brought his palm down upon the book. "You
understand?" Meg nodded. "You begin another chapter--the first chapter
of your life is finished--you understand?" Again Meg nodded. "It was an
ugly chapter--it remains with you to make the next chapter a better and
a finer one."
"I will not talk of anybody or of anything; but I will always think of
one person," persisted Meg, intent upon making the conditions of the
bargain clear between her and this stranger.
"I cannot dictate to your thoughts," he replied. "I want you to promise
not to speak about the past. What will you say when you are questioned
concerning it by teachers, schoolfellows, or servants?"
"I'll tell them it's none of their business, that's what I will tell
them," said Meg, with spirit and a relapse into a pronunciation that
savored more of Mrs. Browne's than of Mr. Standish's influence.
Mr. Fullbloom chuckled, but the old man remained smileless.
"I have nothing more to add; take the child away," he said.
Mr. Fullbloom put out his hand to Meg. She hesitated, looking toward the
old gentleman to say good-by.
Once more the child encountered a glance that seemed to freeze her with
its mysterious dislike and she went out in silence.