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diff --git a/35291-h/35291-h.htm b/35291-h/35291-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a50822 --- /dev/null +++ b/35291-h/35291-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7454 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mattie:--a Stray, by F. W. ROBINSON. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i8 { + display: block; + margin-left: 8em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i30 { + display: block; + margin-left: 30em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 2 of 3), by +Frederick William Robinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 2 of 3) + +Author: Frederick William Robinson + +Release Date: February 15, 2011 [EBook #35291] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 2 OF 3) *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Davies, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>MATTIE:—A STRAY.</h1> + +<h2>BY F. W. ROBINSON</h2> + +<h3>THE AUTHOR OF "HIGH CHURCH," "NO CHURCH," "OWEN:-A WAIF," &c., &c.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"By bestowing blessings upon others, we entail them on ourselves."</span> +<span class="i30"><span class="smcap">Horace Smith.</span></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>IN THREE VOLUMES</h3> + +<h3>VOL. II.</h3> + +<h3>LONDON:<br /> +HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,<br /> +SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,<br /> +18, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br /> +1864.</h3> + +<h3><i>The right of Translation is reserved.</i></h3> + +<h3>LONDON:<br /> +PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE,<br /> +BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III. UNDER SUSPICION.—<span class="smcap">Continued</span>.</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IXB">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Clouds Thicken</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XB">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Mattie in Search</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIB">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Explanations</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIB">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">A Short Warning</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIB">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">Leave-takings</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_IV">BOOK IV. "WANT PLACES."</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IC">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">One and Twenty</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIC">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Sidney's Confession</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIC">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">A Flying Visit to number Thirty-four</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IVC">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">His Turn</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VC">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">The New Berth</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_V">BOOK V. STORM SIGNALS.</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_ID">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">Cast Down</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IID">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">In which several Discoveries come together</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIID">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Father and Daughter</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IVD">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Only Pity</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VD">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">An Unavailing Effort</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VID">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">Mr. Gray further Developed</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIID">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">A Dinner Party</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIID">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">Mattie's Confession</span></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_III" id="BOOK_III"></a>BOOK III.</h2> + +<h3>CONTINUED.</h3> + +<h3>UNDER SUSPICION.</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXB" id="CHAPTER_IXB"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>THE CLOUDS THICKEN.</h3> + + +<p>Mattie had fully anticipated a visit from Mr. Wesden on the day +following Sidney Hinchford's departure, but the master appeared not at +the little shop in Great Suffolk Street. It was not till the following +day that he arrived—at six in the morning, as the boy was taking down +the shutters. Mattie's heart began beating painfully fast; she had +become very nervous concerning Mr. Wesden, and his thoughts of her. +Appearances had been against her of late, and he was a man who did not +think so charitably as he acted sometimes.</p> + +<p>He gave a gruff good morning, and came behind the counter.</p> + +<p>"You can do what you like to-day," he said. "I'll mind the shop."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir. I—I suppose," she added, hastily, "Miss Harriet has +told you what happened the day before yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"I know all about it. I don't want to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"But I do, sir!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden stared over Mattie's head after his old fashion. His will had +been law so long, that disputing it rather took him aback.</p> + +<p>"I know that these losses put you out, Mr. Wesden," said Mattie, firmly; +"that they are due to my own carelessness—to having been taken off my +guard after all my watch here, all my interest in everything connected +with the business. I dream of the shop,—I would not neglect it for the +world,—and it <i>is</i> hard to be so unfortunate as I have been. Mr. +Wesden, you wouldn't let me repay back the money which was taken away +from the house; but I must pay the value of that parcel stolen from +before my very eyes."</p> + +<p>"It was large enough to see," he added, "and I expect you to pay for it, +Mattie."</p> + +<p>"What was it worth?"</p> + +<p>"You shall have the bill to settle, if you've saved as much—it will +come in next week. And now, just understand, once for all, that I don't +want to talk about it—that I object very much to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>The subject was dropped; Mattie felt herself in disgrace, and, intensely +sorrowful at heart, she went down-stairs to tell Ann Packet all that her +carelessness had brought upon her.</p> + +<p>"He's an old savage, my dear—don't mind him."</p> + +<p>"No, Ann—he's a dear old friend, and his anger is just enough. It was +all my fault!"</p> + +<p>"Well, he's not such a bad master as he might be, pr'aps; but he isn't +what he used to be before my ankles took to swelling, nothing like it."</p> + +<p>"It will soon blow over, I hope," said Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Bless your heart!—puffed away in a breath, it'll be."</p> + +<p>Mattie, ever ready to console others, received consolation in her turn; +and hoped for the best.</p> + +<p>Late in the evening, Mr. Wesden departed, and early next day, much to +Mattie's surprise, Harriet Wesden, with a box or two, arrived in a cab +to the house.</p> + +<p>Mattie watched the entrance of the boxes, and looked very closely into +the face of the young mistress. Harriet, with a smile that was well got +up for the occasion, advanced to her.</p> + +<p>"Think, Mattie, of my coming here to spend a week with you—of being +your companion. Why, it'll be the old times back again."</p> + +<p>"I should be more glad to see you if I thought there were no other +reason, Miss Harriet," said Mattie—"but there is!"</p> + +<p>"Why, what can there——"</p> + +<p>Mattie caught her by the sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Your father suspects that I am not honest—the past life has come a +little closer, and made him repent of all the past kindness—is not that +it?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, Mattie, dear—you must not think that!"</p> + +<p>"He has grown suspicious of me—I can see it in his looks, in his +altered manner; and, oh! I can do nothing to stop it—to show him that I +am as honest as the day."</p> + +<p>"Patience, Mattie, dear," said Harriet, "we will soon prove that to him, +if he require proof. If I have come at his wish, it was at my own, too, +and you are exaggerating the reasons that have brought me hither."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why I stop here now," said Mattie, thoughtfully. "I, who am a +young woman, and can get my own living. If he is tired of me, I have no +right to stop."</p> + +<p>"You will stop for the sake of those who love you, and who have trust in +you, Mattie; you will not think of going away."</p> + +<p>"Well, not yet awhile. I think," dashing a rebellious tear from her dark +eyes, "that I can bear more than this before I leave you all. And if +things <i>do</i> look a little dark just now, I shall live them down, with +God's help!"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing dark—it's three-fourths fancy. Think of my sorrows, +Mattie, and thank heaven that you have never been in love!"</p> + +<p>"Dreadful sorrows yours are, Miss Harriet, I must say!"</p> + +<p>"People never think much of other people's sorrows," remarked Harriet, +sententiously.</p> + +<p>Thus it came about that Harriet Wesden and Mattie were thrown into +closer companionship for awhile, and that Mattie began to think that the +constant presence of the girl she loved most in the world made ample +amends for the suspicions which had placed her there, for the absence of +Sidney Hinchford, and the mystery by which it had been characterized.</p> + +<p>"It's astonishing how I miss Mr. Sidney," Mattie said, confidently, to +Harriet, "though we did not say much more than 'good morning,' and 'good +evening,' from one week's end to another—but he has been so long here, +and become so long a part of home, that it does seem strange to have the +place without him."</p> + +<p>"And the letter—he never got the letter, after all," sighed Harriet.</p> + +<p>"There it is, on the drawing-room mantel-piece," said Mattie; "bad news +awaiting his return. I see it every morning there, and think of his +coming disappointment."</p> + +<p>"He'll soon get over it—men soon get over it," replied Harriet, "they +have so much to do in the world, and so many things therein to distract +them. It's not like us poor girls, who think of nothing else but whom it +is best to love, and who will love <i>us</i> best."</p> + +<p>"Speak for your own romantic self, Miss Harriet," said Mattie, laughing.</p> + +<p>"You never think of these things!—you, close on eighteen years of age!"</p> + +<p>"Never," said Mattie, fearlessly; "I seem a little out of the way of +it—it's not in my line. But—I understand it well enough."</p> + +<p>"Or you would have never taken my part against poor old Sid," said +Harriet.</p> + +<p>"And that reminds me that I am neglecting poor old Sid's father, and I +promised not."</p> + +<p>Sid's father required no small amount of attention Mattie very quickly +discovered; the absence of his son preyed upon the old gentleman, and +left him entirely alone. The place was a desert without "the boy;"—with +all his love for him, he could not have imagined that his absence would +have led to such a blank. He thought that he could have put up with it, +and jogged along in his old methodical way until Sid's return; but the +horrors seized him in the attempt, and it was more of a struggle to keep +time from killing him, than to kill the hoary enemy by distraction of +pursuits.</p> + +<p>He became absent over the account-books at the builder's office, and the +clerks laughed at him and his mistakes; whilst the employers, who had +found him slow in his movements for some time, thought he was getting +past work and becoming unendurable. These old-fashioned clerks will get +in the way, when the hand grows feeble, and the memory betrays them. +Commerce has no fine feelings, and must sweep them aside for better men +without compunction.</p> + +<p>Mattie, remembering her promise to Sidney, and favoured in the +performance of it by Harriet's extra service, played her cards well, and +helped to wile away many hours that would have weighed heavily with Mr. +Hinchford. An excuse to enter the room led to a remark concerning +Sidney, which rendered the old gentleman voluble—and the presence of +Harriet Wesden down-stairs, his son's future wife, formed a good excuse +to lure him into the parlour, and persuade him to smoke his pipe there. +Then Mattie began to think that she should like to know backgammon, and +Mr. Hinchford condescended to instruct her, as he had instructed her, +when she was younger, in orthography and syntax. And finally, when he +was becoming excited about Sidney's non-appearance, and resolved one +night to sit up for him, as he was positive of his return, Mattie +essayed that difficult and delicate task which Sidney had confided to +her—a task which Harriet was inclined to take upon herself—and +somewhat jealous of Mattie being entrusted with it in her stead.</p> + +<p>"He wrote to me the night he left—why didn't he ask me to console his +father, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>Mattie thought it was for the reason that consolation might be required +at any moment, and that Sidney was ignorant of Harriet's intention to +stay a few weeks at Great Suffolk Street—but Harriet Wesden on the +scene was no reason for Mattie to relinquish her rights. Besides, she +had confidence in her own powers of breaking the news—and the unopened +death-warrant on the mantel-piece was evidence of Harriet Wesden's +rights being at an end.</p> + +<p>The story was told by degrees then—what Mr. Sidney had said to Mattie +and wished her to do,—told with a gentleness and earnestness which did +credit to Mattie's powers, and proved what a thoughtful, gentle woman +she was becoming. Under the circumstances, also, she made the best of +it, and though Mr. Hinchford pulled at his stock, and ruffled his white +hair, and took a long while to understand it, yet it was a successful +revelation.</p> + +<p>"Always considerate, Mr. Sidney is," said Mattie, in conclusion; "most +sons would have spoken out the truth at once, and gone away, leaving +their fathers wholly miserable; he went at the subject like a daughter +almost—didn't he, sir?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford had felt inclined to believe himself treated childishly, +till Mattie put the question in this new light.</p> + +<p>"Ah! he did——" he burst forth with; "he's a dear lad! What a lucky +girl that Harriet Wesden is!"</p> + +<p>Time passed on, and no Sidney's return. The nights drew in closer yet, +and with their lengthier darkness deepened the shadows round the lives +of all our characters. Sidney had stated his intention to write no +letters, but they were expected nevertheless, and Harriet began to fancy +that it was a little strange—as strange as her interest in Sidney and +his movements, now that she had given him up for ever! A letter for +herself, from Miss Eveleigh, diverted her attention somewhat—it had +been sent to Camberwell and posted on by her father.</p> + +<p>"Miss Eveleigh is very anxious to see me for a few minutes," said +Harriet. "She and her mother think of getting up some private +theatricals at New-Cross, and they want my assistance and advice."</p> + +<p>"Private theatricals!—that's playing at being actors and actresses, +isn't it, Miss Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes. Such capital fun!"</p> + +<p>"For the people who come to see you as well?" asked Mattie, guessing by +intuition where the shoe must pinch.</p> + +<p>"To be sure," responded Harriet; "they wouldn't come if they did not +like, my dear; and the change will do me good, and I think I'll go."</p> + +<p>Mattie detected a heightened colour in Harriet's cheek.</p> + +<p>"You will see Mr. Darcy there?"</p> + +<p>"Well—perhaps I shall," said Harriet; "and I have a right to think +about him now, or let him think about me, if he will. Mattie, you don't +mind me going?"</p> + +<p>"Mind!—why have I a right to stop you?"</p> + +<p>"No; only I shall leave you all alone with that wearisome old man."</p> + +<p>"He'll not weary me. Old friends never do."</p> + +<p>"That sounds like a reproach, but you don't mean it, Mattie," said +Harriet; "and, after all, I shall not be very long away. I shall take +the train from London Bridge, and be there and back by eight o'clock."</p> + +<p>Harriet hurried away to dress for her expedition; she came down in a +flutter of high spirits, a very different being from the despondent, +lackadaisical girl of a few weeks since. She had made up her mind to +begin life and love afresh; uncertainty was over with her, and she was +as gay and bright as the sunshine. But hers was a nature fit only for +sunshine—the best and most loveable of girls when the shadows of +every-day life were not cast on her track.</p> + +<p>"By eight o'clock, Mattie; good-bye, my dear. Any advice?" she asked, +pausing, with a saucy look about her mouth.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Don't fall too deeply in love with Mr. Darcy, before you are sure +that he is falling in love with you!"</p> + +<p>"I can bring him to my feet with a look," she said; "bring him home here +with a chain round his neck, like an amiable terrier."</p> + +<p>"Let me have an opportunity of admiring your choice soon—we're all in +the dark at present."</p> + +<p>"Yes, father and mother too, until poor Sid," suddenly becoming grave, +"breaks the seal of that letter it gave me grey hairs to write. Upon my +word, Mattie, I found two in my head when I had finished it. I was <i>so</i> +dreadfully shocked!"</p> + +<p>"Well, the troubles are over."</p> + +<p>"I think so—I hope so. Good-bye, my dear. Tell father where I have +gone, if he should look in to-night. Home very early!"</p> + +<p>She fluttered away, pausing to look in at the window and laugh through +at Mattie once more.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it was as well she gave Sidney up," Mattie thought; "for she +has been happier since, and all her dear bright looks are back again. +What a wonderful man this Mr. Darcy must be! How I should like to see my +darling's choice—the man that she thinks good enough for her! He must +be a very good man, too; for with all her weakness, my Harriet despises +deceit in any form, and would only love that which was honourable and +true. But, then, why didn't she love Sidney Hinchford more; that's what +puzzles me so dreadfully!"</p> + +<p>She clutched her elbows with her hands, and bent herself into a Mother +Bunch-like figure in the seat behind the counter, and went off into +dream-land. Strange dream-land, belonging to the border-country of the +mists lying between the present and the future. A land of things beyond +the present, and yet which could never appertain to any future, map it +as she might in the brain that went to work so busily. Figures flitted +before her of Harriet and Mr. Darcy—of Sidney Hinchford in his +desolation, so strange a contrast to the happiness which he had +sought—of herself passing from one to the other and endeavouring to do +good and make others happy, the one ambition of this generous little +heart. And her sanguine nature wound up the story—if it were a +story—with the general happiness of all her characters, just as we +finish a story, if we wish to please our readers and win their +patronage. Even Mr. Wesden would sink his suspicions in the deep water, +and be the grave-faced, but kind-hearted patron again, in that border +country wherein her thoughts were wandering.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford came home early to give her a lesson in backgammon, and +was sadly disappointed to find Mattie on full duty in the shop that +evening. He wandered about the shop himself for a while, and then went +up-stairs early to bed, discontented with his lonely position in +society; and his place was taken by Ann Packet, who had got "the +creeps," and had a craving for "company." Ann Packet's ankles were very +bad again, and it was dull work mourning over their decadence in the +kitchen, with no one to pity her condition, or promise to call upon her, +when she was carried to "St. Tummas's." Even she went to bed early also; +for the customers came in frequently, and kept Mattie's attention +employed, and it was scarcely worth while sitting in a draught on the +shop steps, for the chance of getting in a word now and then, not to +mention the probability of Mr. Wesden turning up, and scolding her for +coming into the shop at all, an act he had never allowed in his time.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock, Mattie was left alone to superintend business; the +supper tray for her and Harriet was left upon the parlour table by Ann +Packet; in a few minutes Harriet would be back again.</p> + +<p>At half-past eight, Mattie went to the door to watch her coming up the +street, a habit with nervous people who would expedite the arrival of +the loved one by these means. The action reminded her of Mr. Hinchford, +when Sidney was late, and when a few rain drops were blown towards her +by a restless wind abroad that night, the remembrance of waiting for +Sidney Hinchford startled her. "Just such a night as this when we sat up +for him, and he came home at last, so wild and stern—when we had almost +given up the hope of coming home at all—what a strange coincidence!" +thought Mattie.</p> + +<p>When the rain came suddenly and heavily down, the coincidence was more +remarkable; and when the clock scored nine, then half-past, then ten, it +was the old suspense again.</p> + +<p>"What nonsense!" thought Mattie; "she's stopping up for the rain. It is +not very late, and I am only fanciful as usual. Nothing can be +wrong—it's not likely!"</p> + +<p>Those customers who strayed in still, wondered why she looked so often +at the clock, and stared so vacantly at them when they expressed their +verdict on the weather; and the policeman on duty outside observed her +frequent visits to the door, and her wild gaze down the street towards +the Borough. Yes, the old story over again—an absent friend, an anxious +watcher, a night of wind and rain in Suffolk Street. The boy came to +close the shop as usual, the door was shut <i>en regle</i>, and now it was +Harriet's time to come back, rain or no rain, mystery or no mystery with +her, and end the story <i>à la Sidney Hinchford</i>.</p> + +<p>Mattie consulted a Bradshaw from the window, and found that the New +Cross trains ran as late as twelve o'clock to London; this relieved her; +Harriet was only waiting for the rain to clear up after all. But even +midnight dragged its way towards her; and then the time passed in which +she should have returned, and still no Harriet.</p> + +<p>At one o'clock Mattie went to the door and looked out; the pavement was +glistening yet, but the rain had abated, and the clouds were breaking up +overhead. There had been nothing to stop her—even if Mattie had +believed for a moment that Harriet would have stayed away for the rain. +When she gave her up—when it was close on two o'clock—the stars were +shining brightly again, although the air felt damp and cold.</p> + +<p>"She'll never come back any more!" moaned Mattie; "she has met with +danger—I am sure of it! She has come to harm, and I am powerless to +help her. I should not feel like this, if something had not happened!"</p> + +<p>"Two," struck the clock of St. Georges, Southwark; in the stillness of +the streets it echoed towards her, and sounded like a death-bell. Mattie +covered her face with her hands, and prayed silently for help, for one +away from home. Then she sprung up again, piled some more coals on the +fire, stirred it, and sat down before it.</p> + +<p>"I'll not believe any of these horrible things yet a while. It will all +be explained—she'll be back presently, to laugh at me for this +foolishness!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XB" id="CHAPTER_XB"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>MATTIE IN SEARCH.</h3> + + +<p>How does the time contrive to steal away from us when we are sitting up, +feverish with fear for him, or her, who returns not? The dial that we +stare at so often, marks fresh hours, and still further alarms us; but +the night is long and tedious, and there's a stab in every tick of that +sepulchral clock on the landing. We disguise our alarm from the +servants, even from ourselves, and sit down patiently for the coming +one—nervous at the footfalls in the streets without, and feeling +heart-sick as they pass our door, and die away in the distance. We set +our books and newspapers aside at last, and <i>wait</i>—we give up +pretension to coolness, and watch with our hearts also.</p> + +<p>Mattie waited, tried to hope, then to pray again; gave up wholly after +three in the morning, and cried as for one lost to her for ever. There +was a reasonable hope in Harriet having missed the train, or in her +having been induced to stay the night at the Eveleighs'; a reasonable +fear—in these times of railway mismanagement and error—of an accident +having occurred to the up-train. But these hopes and fears were not +Mattie's; they flashed by her once or twice, but she felt that Harriet's +absence was not to be accounted for by them. At four in the morning she +took the big key from the lock, put on her bonnet and shawl, and then +paused on the stairs, hesitating in her mind whether to apprise Ann +Packet of her new intention or not.</p> + +<p>Ann Packet would hear a knock if Harriet returned, which was unlikely +now; she would not alarm Ann, or betray her friend unnecessarily. It +might be necessary, who knows, to keep this ever a secret—she could not +tell, all was mystery, dark and unfathomable.</p> + +<p>"It's not a runaway match, either," thought Mattie, "for there was no +occasion to run away, when Harriet and her lover could have married +quietly and without any opposition, at least on <i>their</i> side. Harriet +knows that, and is not a girl to be led away if she did not. Weak in +many ways, but not in that, I know."</p> + +<p>Mattie disliked mystery.</p> + +<p>"I'll follow this to the end!" she cried with a stamp of her foot—"to +the very end if possible."</p> + +<p>Mattie might have been spelling over a sensation novel, wherein the hero +or heroine—<i>i.e.</i> the villain catcher—goes through the last two +volumes on the detective principle; and it might have possibly struck +her that if the "catcher" had started earlier and gone a less roundabout +way to work—certainly a bad way for the volumes!—the matter might have +been more expeditiously arranged. She could always see to the end pretty +clearly—why not the 'cute-minded party in search?</p> + +<p>Mattie closed the street-door behind her, and went out into the cold +morning. The pavement was still wet and clammy; there was no +"drying-air" in the streets, although the stars looked bright and +aggravatingly frosty.</p> + +<p>Mattie turned to the left at the end of Great Suffolk Street, and +proceeded at a rapid pace towards the railway station; there were +stragglers still in the Borough—a broad thoroughfare, that never rests, +but is ever alive with sound. Life still at the great terminus; a train +hissing and fuming from its long journey, a handful of passengers by the +mail, a few cabmen still looking out for fares, guards full of bustle as +usual, one Kent Street gamin out on business, and dodging the policeman +behind a Patent Safety.</p> + +<p>Mattie went to business at once.</p> + +<p>"Has any accident happened on the line to-night, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Not any."</p> + +<p>"What is the next train from New Cross that will reach here?"</p> + +<p>"No train calls at New Cross till six in the morning."</p> + +<p>"What is the next train that will leave here and call at New Cross?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty minutes to six."</p> + +<p>"Oh! dear."</p> + +<p>A short spasmodic sigh, and then Mattie turned away and went back to +Great Suffolk Street, opened the door, and stole cautiously up-stairs to +the room wherein Harriet had been sleeping. Not there—still away from +home!</p> + +<p>"If anything has happened, I must be the first to find it out," thought +Mattie, descending the stairs, listening at the foot thereof, and then +passing out into the street again, closing the shop-door very cautiously +behind her.</p> + +<p>She had made up her mind to walk at once to New Cross, to seek out the +Eveleighs, whose address she thought that she remembered. She went on at +a rapid pace, with her veil thrown back, and her face full of +interest—not a woman in the streets, hurrying like herself on special +missions, or lurking at street corners, but Mattie glanced at for an +instant as she sped along. She was a quick walker and lost no time; +after all, New Cross was not a great distance away; she was not easily +tired, and once in action, her fears for Harriet went further into the +distance. She began to think, almost to hope, that Harriet would be at +the Eveleighs', and all would end with a wild fancy on her part, at +which Harriet and she would laugh later in the day. Down the Dover Road, +past the Bricklayer's Arms, and along the Old Kent Road, till the long +lines of closed shops ended in long lines of private houses, the railway +station and the Royal Naval School—that model of good management, by +which we recommend all directors of seedy institutions to profit.</p> + +<p>Near the railway station Mattie found a policeman, who directed her to +the particular terrace wherein the Eveleighs were located. It was nearly +half-past five when she read by the light of the street lamp the name of +Eveleigh on the brass plate affixed to the iron gate. With her hands +upon the gate, Mattie held a council of war with herself as to the best +method of procedure.</p> + +<p>Mattie had soon arranged her plan of action; hers was a mind that jumped +rapidly at conclusions—was quick to see the best way. Arousing the +house would create an alarm, and if Harriet were not there—of which in +her heart she was already assured—it would only set the people within +talking about her. That would be to cast the first stone at her poor +friend, and set the tongues of gossips wagging—that must not be! Mattie +resolved to wait till some signs about the Eveleigh window blinds +indicated a servant stirring in the house; she thought with a shudder of +the shop in Great Suffolk Street, and the customers waiting for their +papers; of Ann Packet's alarm, and Mr. Hinchford's perplexity; of the +food for scandal which her absence would afford to a few inquisitive +neighbours. Still all that might be easily explained, and it was only +she who would receive the blame, if all turned out better than she +dreamed; and if the worst were known, why, alas! her actions would +readily be guessed at.</p> + +<p>Fortune favoured Mattie in the most unromantic way that morning: the +Eveleighs had resolved upon having their kitchen chimney swept at +half-past five, and young Erebus, true to the minute, came round the +corner with his soot-bag, went up the fore-court towards the side gate, +rang the bell, and gave vent to his doleful cry. The maid-servant, +however, was not prompt in her responses, and Mattie stood and watched +in the distance, until the sweep, becoming impatient, rang again, and +rattled with his brush against the side of the door steps. From Mattie's +post of vigilance she could just make him out in the darkness—a shadowy +figure, that might have represented evil to her and hers.</p> + +<p>Presently the bolts of the side gate were withdrawn, and Mattie with +hasty steps, crossed the road and hurried up the path. The sweep was +being admitted at that time, and a red-eyed, white-faced, sulky-looking +servant-maid of not more than sixteen years of age, was closing the +door, when Mattie called to her to wait.</p> + +<p>Surprised at this strange apparition at so early an hour, the girl +waited and stared.</p> + +<p>Mattie's plan of action would have done credit to a detective policeman; +her questions seemed so wide of the mark, and kept suspicion back from +her whom she loved so well. Certainly they implicated another, and drew +attention to him in a marked manner; but he was a man, and could bear +it, thought Mattie, and if he were at the bottom of the mystery, there +was no need to study <i>him</i>—rather to track him out and come face to +face with him!</p> + +<p>"Will you tell Mr. Darcy that I wish to speak a few words with him +immediately?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Darcy don't live here," said the astonished servant.</p> + +<p>"He visits here—he stayed here last night."</p> + +<p>"No, he didn't," was the abrupt reply; "he went away at ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"With Miss Wesden, of course," was the apparently careless answer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, with Miss Wesden. He never stops here."</p> + +<p>"Where does he live?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—somewhere about here, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Ask his address of your mistress," cried Mattie, becoming excited as +the truth seemed to loom before her with all its horror; "I must see +him!"</p> + +<p>The servant-maid's eyes became rounder, and she gasped forth—</p> + +<p>"I'll—I'll wake missus."</p> + +<p>"Ask her to oblige me with Mr. Darcy's address—and please make haste."</p> + +<p>The servant withdrew, leaving Mattie standing in the draughty side +passage, dark and dense as the fate of her whom she loved appeared to be +from that day. She could hear the sweep bustling and bundling about the +kitchen noisily; it seemed an age before the servant's feet came +clumpeting down the stairs again.</p> + +<p>"It's number fourteen, St. Olave's Terrace, Old Kent Road."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>Mattie turned away, and ran down the fore court at a rapid pace.</p> + +<p>"Well—I <i>never</i>!" ejaculated the amazed domestic. "What's Mr. Darcy +gone and done, I wonder!"</p> + +<p>Mattie darted backward on her homeward route; her plans of action were +at sea now; she only wished to know the worst, and feel the strength to +face it for others' sakes, not for her own. There were an old man and an +old woman to comfort in their latter days, to become a daughter to in +the place of her who had been spirited away—give her strength to solace +them in the deep misery upon its way.</p> + +<p>People were stirring in the streets although the day was dark, and the +sky above still full of stars. Mattie made many inquiries, and at last +found St. Olave's Terrace, a row of large, gloomy houses, of red brick. +At No. 14 Mattie knocked long and vigorously, until a window was opened +in the first floor, and a boy's head protruded—the unkempt head of a +page.</p> + +<p>"What's the row down there?" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Darcy—is he at home?"</p> + +<p>"He ain't at home—he didn't come back last night."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?—are you quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I was," replied young Impudence. "Who shall I say +called—Walker?"</p> + +<p>"No matter—no matter."</p> + +<p>Mattie turned and hurried away again. Close upon six o'clock, and an +empty cab before a public-house door. Mattie ran into the public-house, +and found the cabman drinking neat gin at the bar, and bewailing the +hardness of the times to the barman, who was yawning fearfully.</p> + +<p>"Is your cab engaged?"</p> + +<p>"Where do you want to go, Miss?" asked the cabman. "If it's Greenwich +way, I've got a party to take up in five minutes time!"</p> + +<p>"Suffolk Street, Borough. I—I don't mind what I pay to get there +quickly."</p> + +<p>"Jump in, Miss—I'll drive you there in no time."</p> + +<p>Mattie entered the cab, the cabman mounted the box, and away they went +down the Old Kent Road. The cabman had been up all night, calling at +many night-houses in his route, and always taking gin with despatch and +gusto. He was reckless with his whip, unmerciful to his horse, and +disregardful of the cab, which he had out on hire. He was just +intoxicated enough to be confidential, mysterious, and sympathizing. He +lowered the glass window at his back, and looked through at Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said, +suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat +with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your +mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore—she was young herself +once, I daresay!"</p> + +<p>"Drive on, please!—drive on!"</p> + +<p>"I'm driving my hardest, my child—cutting off all the corners—that's +only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child—soon be home now. They +won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once +'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal—that's on'y another +kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the +bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now—don't cry any more—I +hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!"</p> + +<p>And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at +Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his +quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half +between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street.</p> + +<p>At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street; +she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The +shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door, +muffled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid +her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red +with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where <i>have</i> you been?—what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing much—don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?"</p> + +<p>"I overslept myself—oh! dear, dear, dear!—and just got up in a +fright—that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the +door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!—I found the shop all dark, and just let +him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are—oh! where +<i>have</i> you been?"</p> + +<p>"I'l tell you presently—let me think a bit—I'm not well, Ann."</p> + +<p>"You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to +you? You came back in a cab—you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be +so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your +mind, perhaps—for you always was a strange gal, and like nobody else, +wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"No, no—<i>not for the world</i>! Go down-stairs and make haste with the +coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped +Mattie, "but take the shutters down."</p> + +<p>Ann scuttled down-stairs, forgetful of her ankles, in her excitement at +the novel position of affairs; the boy took down the shutters and +disclosed the cabman still before the door, carefully examining his +horse, and rather evilly disposed towards himself for the damage he had +done the animal and cab in his excitement. Mattie went into the parlour, +where the gas burned still, and stood by the table reflecting on the +end—what was to be done now?—whether it were better to keep up the +mystery, to allege some reason for Harriet's absence, frame some white +lie that might keep Ann Packet and Mr. Hinchford appeased, and save +<i>her</i> name for a short while longer?</p> + +<p>When the boy came staggering in with the third shutter, a new thought—a +forlorn hope—suggested itself.</p> + +<p>"Wait here and mind the shop till I come down, William," she said.</p> + +<p>She went up-stairs in her bonnet and shawl, and pushed open the door of +Harriet Wesden's room. Empty and unoccupied, as she might have known, +and yet which, in defiance of possibilities, she had gone up to explore +again. The blind was undrawn, and the faint glimmer of the late dawning +was stealing into the room, and scaring the shadows back.</p> + +<p>Mattie gave way at the desolation of the place; and flung herself upon +her knees at the bed's foot.</p> + +<p>"Oh! my darling, God forgive you, and watch over you—oh! my darling, +whom I loved more than a sister, and who is for ever—for ever—lost to +me!"</p> + +<p>"<i>No</i>—<span class="smcap">NO</span>—Mattie!"</p> + +<p>Mattie leaped to her feet, and with a cry scarcely human, rushed towards +the speaker in the doorway—the speaker who, white and trembling, opened +her arms and received her on her throbbing breast. Harriet Wesden had +come back again!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIB" id="CHAPTER_XIB"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>EXPLANATIONS.</h3> + + +<p>Mattie shed many tears of joy at Harriet's return; she was a +strong-minded young woman in her way, but the tension of nerve, and the +reaction which followed it, had been too much for her, and she was, for +a short while, a child in strength and self-command. For awhile they had +changed places, Mattie and Harriet—Mattie becoming the agitated and +weak girl, Harriet remaining firm, and maintaining an equable demeanour.</p> + +<p>"Courage, Mattie!—what have you to give way at?" she said, at last.</p> + +<p>"There, I'm better now," said Mattie, looking up into Harriet's face, +and keeping her hands upon her shoulders; "and now, will you trust in +me?—tell me the whole truth—keep nothing back."</p> + +<p>"From you—nothing!"</p> + +<p>"And if he has been coward enough to lead you away by the snares of your +affection——"</p> + +<p>"Affection!" cried Harriet. "I hate him! Coward enough!—he is coward +enough for anything that would degrade me—and villain enough to spare +no pains to place me in his power. Oh! Mattie—Mattie—what had I done +to make him think so meanly of me?—to lead him on to plot against me in +so poor and miserable a fashion?"</p> + +<p>"You have escaped from him?"</p> + +<p>"Thank God, yes!"</p> + +<p>Mattie could have cried again with joy, but Harriet's excitement +recalled her to self-command—Harriet, who stood there with her whole +frame quivering with passion and outraged pride—a woman whom Mattie had +not seen till then.</p> + +<p>"Mattie," she said, "that man, Maurice Darcy, thought that if I were +weak enough to love him, I was weak enough to fly with him, forget my +woman's pride, my father, home, honour, and fling all away for his sake. +He did not know me, or understand me; my God! he did not think that +there were any good thoughts in me, or he would not have acted as he +did. I have been blind—I have been a fool until to-night!"</p> + +<p>She stamped her foot upon the floor until everything in the room +vibrated; she caught Mattie's inquiring, earnest looks towards her and +went on again—</p> + +<p>"You and I, Mattie, must keep this ever a secret between us; for my +sake, I am sure you will—for the sake of my good name, which that man's +trickery has tarnished, however completely I have baffled him and shamed +him. Mattie, he was at the Eveleighs' last night with his guilty plans +matured. I had every confidence in him and his affection for me. I was +off my guard, and believed that he was free from guile himself. At ten +o'clock—beyond my time—I left the Eveleighs'; he was my escort to the +railway station; he spoke of his love for me for the first time, and I +was agitated and blinded by his seeming fervour. I told him of my +promise to Sidney, and what I had done for his sake. I led him to +think—fool that I was—that he had won my love long since. At the +railway station he told me the story of his life—a lie from beginning +to end—of his father's pride, of the secrecy with which our future +marriage must be kept for awhile, away from that father—talking, +protesting, explaining, until the train came up and he had placed me in +the carriage."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Mattie.</p> + +<p>"He followed me at the last moment, stating that he had business in +London, and then the train moved on—<span class="smcap">for Dover</span>!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he <i>was</i> a villain and coward!" cried Mattie, setting her teeth +and clenching her hands spasmodically; "go on!"</p> + +<p>"In less then five minutes I was aware of the deception that had been +practised on me. I woke suddenly to the whole truth, to my own folly in +believing in this man. He would have feigned it to be a mistake at +first—a mistake on his own part—and for my own safety, alone with him +there, and the train shrieking along into the night, I professed to +believe him, and mourned over the clumsy blunder which was taking us +away from home; but I was on my guard, and my reserve, my alarm, kept +him cautious. I sat cowering from him in the extreme corner of the +carriage, and he sat maturing his plans, and marking out, as he thought, +his way. He confessed at last that it was a deeply-laid scheme to secure +what he called his happiness. He swore to be a brother to me, a faithful +friend in whom every trust might be put until we were married at Calais; +but the mask had dropped, and my heart, throbbing with my humiliation, +had turned utterly against him. I lowered the carriage window, and sat +watchful of him, knowing every word he uttered then to be a lie, and +feeling that he looked upon me as a girl easily to be led astray—a +shop-keeper's daughter, whose self-respect was quickly deadened, and +whose vanity was sufficient to lead her on to ruin. But I bade him keep +his seat away from me, and give me time to think of what he had +said—time to believe in him! We were silent the rest of the way to +Ashford. My throat was choking with the angry words which burned to leap +forth and denounce him for his knavery—he who sat smiling at the +success in store for him. At Ashford, thank God! the train stopped."</p> + +<p>"Thank God!" whispered Mattie also.</p> + +<p>"I opened the door suddenly, Mattie, and leaped forth like a madwoman; +he followed me to the platform, when I turned upon him like—like a +she-wolf!" she cried, vehemently, "and denounced him for the cowardly +wretch he had been to me. There were a few guards about, and one +gentleman, and they were my audience. I claimed their protection from +the man; I told them how I had been tricked into that train and led away +from home; I asked them if they had daughters whom they loved to protect +me and send me back again secure from him. Mattie, I shamed him to his +soul!"</p> + +<p>"Bravo!—bravo!" cried Mattie, giving two leaps in the air in her +excitement; "that's my own darling, whose heart was ever strong and true +enough!"</p> + +<p>"Only her head a little weak, and likely to be turned—eh, Mattie?" said +Harriet, in a less excited strain; "well, I am sobered now for ever—and +every scrap of romantic feeling has been torn to shreds. I must have +been under a spell, for it seems like an evil dream now that I could +ever have thought of loving that man."</p> + +<p>"And they took your part at the station?"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—and gave me advice, and were kind to me, and he who attempted to +deceive me skulked back into the carriage, muttering a hundred excuses, +which I did not hear. The gentleman who had listened to my story, and +been prepared to defend me, had it been necessary, followed Mr. Darcy to +the carriage, added a few stern words, and then returned to offer me +advice how to proceed. He was a strange, eccentric man, very harsh even +with me in his speech, and disposed to preach a sermon on the warning I +had had, as though I were not likely to take a lesson from my +over-confidence, after all that had happened. But he was very kind in +act, and meant all for my good, though he might have spared me just a +little more. He consulted the railway time-tables for me, made many +inquiries of the guards, whom he appeared to disbelieve, for he went +back to the time-tables again; finally told me that there was no train +till a quarter past five by which I could reach home. He showed me an +hotel adjacent to the station, and left me there, after again upbraiding +me for my want of judgment; and at a quarter past five—what an age it +seemed before that time came round!—I left Ashford once again for +home."</p> + +<p>"And are here safe from danger—to make my heart light again with the +sight of you. Well, my dear, we'll think it all an ugly dream—and shut +<i>him</i> away in it for ever."</p> + +<p>"And now—what will the world think of me?—how much of the story will +it believe, Mattie?" was the scornful answer.</p> + +<p>"What will the world know of it? You and I can keep the secret between +us. Mr. Darcy will not boast of his humiliation. The old people need not +be harassed and perplexed by all that has happened this night."</p> + +<p>"No, no—all an ugly dream, as you say, Mattie!" remarked Harriet; +"perhaps it is best, and a woman's fame is hard to establish, on her own +explanation of such a history as mine. Let it sink. I am verily ashamed +of it. My blood will boil at every chance allusion that associates +itself with last night. Oh! my poor, dear, truthful Sid, to think of +turning away from <i>you</i> and believing in a heartless villain."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Sidney!" exclaimed Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens—whatever the future may bring—that letter, Mattie, +must be destroyed. It is a false statement. We must secure it and +destroy it. With time before me, and the dark memory shut out, how I +will love that faithful heart!"</p> + +<p>"Trust the letter to me—trust—oh! the shop, the shop all this +while!—and I haven't told you my story."</p> + +<p>"Presently then, Mattie. I would go down now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will go down. I have been very neglectful of business in my joy +at seeing you again. It did not seem possible a few hours ago that all +would have ended fairly like this. I am so happy—so very happy now, +dear Harriet!"</p> + +<p>She shook Harriet by both hands, kissed her once more, and even cried a +little before she made a hasty dash from the room to the stairs. At the +second landing, outside Mr. Hinchford's apartments, she remembered the +letter—the evidence of Harriet's past romance in which Sidney Hinchford +played no part.</p> + +<p>Mattie pictured the future as very bright and glowing after this—the +two who had been ever kind to her, and helped so greatly towards her +better life, would come together after all, and make the best and truest +couple in the world!</p> + +<p>Mattie's training—moral training it may be called—was scarcely a +perfect one. She had been taught what was honest and truthful; she was +far away for ever from the old life; but the fine feelings—the +sensitiveness to the <i>minutiæ</i> of goodness—were wanting just then. The +means to the end were not particularly to be studied, so that the end +was good. Harriet had done no wrong, merely been duped by a specious +scamp for awhile; but keep the story dark for the sake of the suspicions +it cast on minds inclined to doubt good in anything—and for the sake of +general peace, make away with the letter—Sidney Hinchford's property as +much as the locket she stole from him when she was eleven years of age.</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden was silent from fear and shame; her nature was a timid +one, and shrank back from painful avowals; Mattie did not look at the +subject in the best light, and thought of promoting happiness by +secrecy, a dangerous experiment, that may tend at any moment to an +explosion. Mattie opened the drawing-room door softly and looked in. Mr. +Hinchford had not appeared yet, and she entered and went direct to the +mantel-piece, on which the letter had lain ever since its arrival. The +letter was gone!</p> + +<p>"Oh! dear!—oh! dear!—what's to be done now?" cried Mattie, looking +from the centre table to the side table on which was Sidney's desk, +unlocked. Mattie did not think of appearances when she opened the desk +and began turning over its contents with a hasty hand—a +suspicious-looking operation, in which she was discovered by Mr. +Hinchford, who entered the room suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Mattie," he said, sternly, "I should not have thought that you would +have been guilty of this meanness."</p> + +<p>Mattie, with her bonnet and shawl on, and awry from her past movements, +with her face pale and haggard from want of sleep, remained with her +hands in the desk, looking hard at the new comer. Her instinct was to +tell the truth—there was no harm in it.</p> + +<p>"I am looking for the letter which came for Mr. Sidney—I want it back."</p> + +<p>"Want it back!—what letter?"</p> + +<p>"The letter which has been on the mantel-piece all the week—it was Miss +Harriet's—she wishes to have it back, to put something else in it."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul!—very odd," said Mr. Hinchford; "I'll give it to Miss +Harriet myself—there's no occasion to rummage my boy's desk about. I +don't like it, Mattie—I am extremely displeased."</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," said Mattie, submissively; "I did not think what I +was doing. And you will give the letter to Miss Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"It's in the breast-pocket of my coat—I'll give it her."</p> + +<p>Mattie cowered before the flushed face, and the stern look thereon; this +man was a friend of hers, too—one of the rescuers!—whom she would +always bear in kind remembrance; she went softly across the room to the +door, veering suddenly round to lay her hands upon his arm.</p> + +<p>"I'm very sorry, Mr. Hinchford," she said; "it was all done without a +moment's thought. You, for the first time in your life, will not be +angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no, no," repeated the old gentleman, taken aback by this +appeal, and softening at once; "I don't suppose you meant anything +wrong, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>Mattie went down-stairs in a better frame of mind, and yet ashamed at +having been detected in a crooked action by a gentleman who always spoke +so much of straightforwardness, and had a son who excelled in that +difficult accomplishment. She was vexed at the impulse now—what would +any man less generous in his ideas have thought of her?</p> + +<p>"Never mind," was Mattie's consolation, "I meant no harm—I meant well. +And all will end well now, and everybody be so happy. What a change from +the terrible thoughts of only a few hours ago!"</p> + +<p>She could think of nothing but Harriet Wesden's safety, and her own +minor <i>escapade</i> was of little consequence. Thinking of Harriet again, +and rejoicing in the brighter thoughts which the last hours had brought +with it, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs and went at once +into the shop.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden was standing behind the counter, waiting upon a customer, as +though he had never left Great Suffolk Street, and retiring from +business had been only a dream.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIB" id="CHAPTER_XIIB"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>A SHORT WARNING.</h3> + + +<p>Mattie stood in her disordered walking-dress, gazing at the stationer, +for whose presence she could not account; Mr. Wesden looked across the +counter at her.</p> + +<p>"Will you go into the parlour, please?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>"In the parlour!—ye—es, sir."</p> + +<p>There was something wrong—radically and irretrievably wrong this time; +however greatly Mr. Wesden had changed, he had never looked so strangely +or spoken so harshly as he did at that time. Even the customer whom he +was serving, and who knew Mattie, turned round and glanced also in her +direction.</p> + +<p>"Robbery!—there—there's been no more robbery!" gasped Mattie, her +thoughts darting off at a tangent in the direction of her old trouble.</p> + +<p>"You can go into the parlour," he repeated, as harshly as before; "I'll +be with you in a minute."</p> + +<p>Mattie went into the parlour, took off the bonnet and shawl that, she +had so long forgotten, and which must have added to Mr. Wesden's +perplexity, and then sat down, with her face towards the shop, to await +her master's pleasure—and displeasure! There was trouble in store for +her—perhaps for Harriet—Mr. Wesden had discovered a great deal, and +she had to bear the first shock of the storm. She could see Mr. Wesden's +face from her position; even at that distance it seemed as if the +innumerable lines in it had been cut deeper since she had seen it last, +and the heavy grey brows shadowed more completely the eyes. He was not +his usual self either—the quick glance of the watcher noticed how his +hands shook as he served the customer, and that he fumbled with the +change in a manner very new and uncharacteristic for him. His habits, or +his caution, had even undergone a change; for, as the news-boy came in +at the street-door, he told him to go behind the counter and attend to +the customers till he returned. Then he entered the parlour, still +flushed and trembling, yet so stern, and leaned his two hands on the +table till it creaked beneath the pressure which he put upon it.</p> + +<p>"Mattie," he said at last, "I think it's quite time that you and I said +good-bye to one another!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! sir!—<i>what</i>?" Mattie could only ejaculate.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking it over for some time—putting it off—giving you +another trial—hoping that I was even mistaken in you—but things get +worse and worse, and this last news <i>is</i> a settler!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wesden, there must be some mistake."</p> + +<p>"No, there isn't—don't interrupt me—don't make any more excuses, for I +shan't believe 'em."</p> + +<p>"Go on, sir," said Mattie, impetuously, "I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"You need not fly in a passion, if you don't," he corrected.</p> + +<p>"I'm not in a passion, Mr. Wesden—you <i>will</i> think wrongly of me."</p> + +<p>"Just listen to this—just deny this if you can. You left my house in +the middle of the night—you have been up all night, and God knows +where—you did not come back to this house—you, who have no friends to +go to—until half-past six o'clock this morning."</p> + +<p>Mattie sat thunderstruck at this charge, so true in its assertion, and +yet the suspicions which it led to so easily refuted, or—she drew a +long breath and held her peace at the thought—so easily transferred!</p> + +<p>"You can't deny this," continued Mr. Wesden, in the same hard manner; +"how long it's been going on, or what bad company has led you astray, I +can't say. But you haven't acted like a young woman who meant +well—you've been getting worse and worse with every day."</p> + +<p>"It isn't true!" cried Mattie, indignantly; "I——"</p> + +<p>She paused again.</p> + +<p>"Ah! don't give me excuses," he said; "I'm an old man who knows the +world, and won't believe in them. I wouldn't believe in my own daughter, +if she acted as you have done, or was ever so ready at excuses. No +honest girl—I'm sorry to say it, Mattie—would ever, without a fair +reason, be walking the streets, friendless and alone, at such unnatural +hours."</p> + +<p>"Will you not believe me, when I tell you truly, without a blush in my +face, that as God's my judge, I went out with a motive of which even you +would approve."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"I—I cannot tell you that yet. Presently, perhaps—if you will only +give me time—not now."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Mattie," he replied, "it won't do! It isn't what I've been used to, and +I can't wait till you have invented a story and——"</p> + +<p>"Invented!" shrieked Mattie, leaping to her feet, "what more!—what more +have you to charge an innocent girl, who has thought of nothing but +serving you honestly from the time you took pity on her wretchedness? +You have turned against me; if you are tired of me, tell me so +plainly—but don't talk as if I were a liar and a thief still—I will +not have it!"</p> + +<p>"You put a bold face upon it, and that's a bad sign," said Mr. Wesden; +"where there's no shame, only <i>bounce</i>, it takes away all the pity of +the thing, and makes me firmer."</p> + +<p>The table creaked once more with the extra pressure of his hands; the +flush died away from the face, whereon settled an expression more steely +and invulnerable.</p> + +<p>"Oh! sir—how you have altered! What do you think that I have done!" +cried the perplexed Mattie.</p> + +<p>"See here," said Mr. Wesden; "I don't wish to rake up everything, but as +you put it to me, I'll just show you how foolish it is to brave it out +like this. I'm very sorry; I can't make it out, altering for the better +as you had—it's bad company, I suppose. First," he removed his hands +from the table, and began checking off the items on his fingers, +"there's money missing up-stairs—a cash-box opened, and only——"</p> + +<p>"My God!—has that thought rankled so long?" interrupted Mattie; "I +don't wonder at the rest, if you begin like that with me. I'll go +away—I'll go away!"</p> + +<p>"It didn't rankle—I gave you the benefit of the doubt," said Mr. +Wesden; "I wouldn't believe it, but I fancied that you were altering, +and that something was wrong somewhere. It looked at least as if you +were careless, and I thought the house might get robbed, or catch fire, +or anything after that—and it disturbed my mind much; I couldn't sleep +for thinking of you—and one night I came over here very late, and you +were up talking and laughing with a young man in the shop, in the dead +of night."</p> + +<p>"That, too!" cried Mattie; "do you suspect <i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I suspected <i>you</i>, that's enough to say just now."</p> + +<p>"More than enough!" was the bitter answer.</p> + +<p>"And then a parcel disappears, and there's a lame excuse for that—and a +policeman finds you in Kent Street at a receiver's house—the house of a +noted thief, that you must have known long ago——"</p> + +<p>"I went there—but no matter, you'll not believe me," said Mattie.</p> + +<p>"And so I was obliged to have you watched for my own protection's sake, +and you were seen to leave the house last night, and come back in a cab +after the shop was open. And if all that's not enough to drive a +business man wild, why, I never was a man fit for business at all."</p> + +<p>Mattie gathered up her bonnet and shawl from the chair on which they had +been placed, and proceeded to put them on again, keeping her dark eyes +fixed on Mr. Wesden's face.</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing which I'll agree with, sir," she said, her voice +faltering despite her effort to keep firm, "and that's the first speech +you made me. It's quite time that you and I said 'good-bye' to one +another!"</p> + +<p>"Well—it is!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you wish it or not—I don't care!—but I will go +away at once, trusting in Him whom your wife taught me first to pray to. +I will go away without anger in my heart against you—for oh! you have +been very good and kind to me, and I shall be grateful again when +to-day's hard words go further and further back. I will hope in the time +when you will know all, and be sorry that you lost your trust in me so +soon. Better to doubt me than—<i>others</i>?"</p> + +<p>She corrected herself in time; she remembered her promise to Harriet. +She saw how easy it was for a few errors, a few mistakes to make this +strange man forget all the good efforts of a life—deceived in Mr. +Wesden as she had been, she could not gauge in those excited moments the +depths of his affection for his daughter.</p> + +<p>In the avowal there would be danger to Harriet; so, for Harriet's sake, +let her take the blame and go away. Harriet could only have cleared up +the last mystery—the rest affected herself. She had had never more than +half a character—she rose from crime, and its antecedents rose again +with her at the first suspicion against her truthful conduct. It was +very hard to go away—but it was her only step, and he wished it +also—he, who had been almost a father to her until then.</p> + +<p>"I'll pack my box, and leave at once, sir—if you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"No," was the gloomy response.</p> + +<p>He was deceived in Mattie still; he had hoped that she would have +confessed to everything, to the new and awful temptations that had beset +her lately, and prayed for his mercy and forgiveness—begged for his +help and moral strength to lead her from the dark road she was pursuing. +He was disappointed by her defiance—by her assumption of an innocence +in which he could not believe; and he could only see that her plans were +too readily formed, and that she had already fixed upon her future +associates and home. He was amazed at her way of encountering his +charges; and as he had been only a business-man all his life, he could +not understand her.</p> + +<p>Mattie left the room, and he turned into his shop again, and dismissed +the news-boy from his post of promotion. The matter had worried him, and +was still worrying him. The <i>dénouement</i> was not satisfactory, and the +world was hardening very much, or becoming too complex in its machinery +for him. He had found Mattie out, and it had all ended just as he feared +it would; and still his head ached, and his thoughts perplexed him!</p> + +<p>He counted the arrears of Mattie's salary, and put it on the back shelf, +ready for her when she came down, knocking it all over the minute +afterwards, and sending two shillings under the shop-board, where the +shutters and gas-meter were. He made mistakes with the next customer in +his change, and would not believe it was his error, although he paid the +man rather than get into a fresh dispute at that instant; he rummaged +from a whole packet of printed notices he dealt in, a "<span class="smcap">THIS SHOP AND +BUSINESS TO BE DISPOSED OF</span>," and stuck it with wafers in the window, +upside down. He would retire from business in earnest, and not +make-believe any longer; he should be more composed in mind—more happy, +when all this was no longer a burden to him.</p> + +<p>He served his customers absently, and wondered—for he was a good and +just man at heart—whether he was acting for the best after all; whether +it was quite Christian-like to give up the child whom he had rescued +from the cruel streets, five years ago, come Christmas.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIB" id="CHAPTER_XIIIB"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>LEAVE-TAKINGS.</h3> + + +<p>Mattie went to her room and packed her box with trembling hands. She was +very agitated still; there were many conflicting thoughts to disturb her +natural equanimity. Regret at going away from the home wherein had begun +her better life; indignation at the false accusations that had been made +against her, and made in so hard and uncharitable a fashion; doubts of +the future stretching before her, impenetrable and dusky, and the life +to begin again in some way, to which she tried to give a thought, even +in those early moments, and failed in utterly.</p> + +<p>Over her box came honest Ann Packet to ask the latest news—to stare in +a vague idiotic way when told it.</p> + +<p>"I am going away, Ann—don't you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Going away?—no, I don't yet. Going where did you say, Mattie?"</p> + +<p>"Going away from here, where I am no longer wanted, where I am suspected +of being all that is vile and wrong. Going away for good!"</p> + +<p>"Oh I my gracious—not that! Because of last night—because of——"</p> + +<p>"Many things, Ann, which I dare not explain, and which, if explained, +perhaps would not be believed in by—<i>him</i>. But you, Ann—what will you +think of me when I'm gone, and they say behind my back how justly I was +served?"</p> + +<p>"I say?—I say?"</p> + +<p>"You'll hear <i>their</i> story, and I can't tell you mine. I can only say +that since I have been here, there's not a bad thought had a place in my +mind, and not a good one which I did not try, for <i>their</i> sakes as well +as my own, to cling to. I can only ask you, Ann—you who have always +thought well of me—to keep your faith strong, for poor Mattie's sake."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet gave vent to a howl at this—wrung her fat red hands +together, and then fell upon Mattie's box, as though our heroine had +shot her.</p> + +<p>"You shan't pack up no more!" she screamed; "you can speak to them as to +me, and they'll believe you, or they're made of stone. Why, it's a +drefful shame to turn you off like this, as though you'd been found out +in all that's bad."</p> + +<p>"Hush! you'll wake Miss Harriet, I daresay she—she's asleep still!—you +will go now, Ann, please. I'm not unhappy—why, here's one to begin with +who will always think the best of <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>"The very best—as you've been the very best and the goodest to me, who +used to snap you so at first, and feel jealous like, because they put +you over me—but you won't mind that now?"</p> + +<p>"No—no."</p> + +<p>"And, Mattie, you don't want to go away and see nobody any more—to be +quite alone and hear nothing of anybody? I may come and see you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—to be sure."</p> + +<p>"And you'll write and tell me directly where you are."</p> + +<p>"Ah! where I am. Yes, you shall know that first. And when I can prove to +him that I have always been honest and true, I'll see him and his again, +<i>not before</i>."</p> + +<p>"And I shall call and tell you all the news—listen at all the keyholes +to hear what they've got to talk about."</p> + +<p>"I hope not. But get up now, Ann, and go down-stairs, or they'll suspect +something. I'll send for the box presently, when I'm settled."</p> + +<p>Ann rose with clenched hands and swollen eyes.</p> + +<p>"If I had the settling of <i>him</i>! I—I almost feel to hate him. He's a +brute!"</p> + +<p>And before Mattie had time to reprove the faithful Ann for the outburst, +Miss Packet had left the room, and gone down-stairs to cry afresh over +the breakfast she had to prepare for Mr. Hinchford.</p> + +<p>Mattie passed into the other room, and found Harriet Wesden asleep, as +she had fancied. The toil of yesternight, the excitement and suspense, +had brought their reaction, and Harriet had flung herself, dressed as +she was, upon the bed, where she had dropped off into slumber.</p> + +<p>Mattie stood for a moment irresolute whether to wake her or no; had it +been simply to say "good-bye," she would have hesitated longer, though +she might have awakened her at last.</p> + +<p>"Harriet—Harriet!" she whispered, as she bent over her.</p> + +<p>The fair girl started up and looked at Mattie.</p> + +<p>"What's happened now, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing very important," said Mattie, who had determined how to +proceed. "I have been thinking of our next step together concerning last +night. Your father is down-stairs."</p> + +<p>"Oh! he must not know it—he must never know it!" exclaimed Harriet; "he +is weaker in mind—more excitable, suspicious—what would he think of +me, keeping the name of Maurice Darcy from him all my life?"</p> + +<p>"Harriet, promise me never to tell him—I am not frightened at the +truth, but of their perversion of it, destroying for ever your good +name—promise me!"</p> + +<p>"But why promise <i>you</i>, who——"</p> + +<p>"Promise it. I am very, very anxious, for your own sake and for mine."</p> + +<p>"I promise—I promise faithfully."</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—whatever happens!"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you why now. In the first place, I have found out that the +world will never accept <i>your</i> statement, but believe the very worst of +you."</p> + +<p>Harriet shuddered; her own trustfulness in others—her vanity, perhaps, +allied thereto—had led her to the verge of the abyss—and "miraculous +escapes" are only for penny-a-liners, and romancists. She thought that +Mattie was right in binding her solemnly to secrecy, and she repeated +her promise even more solemnly than before.</p> + +<p>"And in the second place——"</p> + +<p>Mattie paused; she recoiled from the explanation, the trial of another +parting with this girl for whose happiness she was about to sacrifice +herself, and the good name for which she had struggled. Harriet looked +ill and worn now, and she could not tell her all the news, her heart was +too full.</p> + +<p>"I would bathe my hands and face, and go down-stairs as soon as +possible. It will prevent suspicion, and you <i>must</i> stand up against the +fatigue for awhile."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I can do that."</p> + +<p>"Nothing can be helped now by confession; remember <i>that</i> when the truth +would leap to your lips in a generous impulse, of which hereafter you +would be sorry. Good-bye now."</p> + +<p>Mattie stooped and kissed her—the quivering lips, the tear-brimming +eyes, suggested a new trouble, and Harriet detected it at once.</p> + +<p>"There is something new, Mattie—don't deceive me!"</p> + +<p>"Very little—you will know all when you get down-stairs—be on your +guard—God bless you!"</p> + +<p>And Mattie, feeling her voice deserting her, hurried away. She went at +once to Mr. Hinchford's room. Mr. Hinchford was becoming fidgety about +his breakfast, and walking up and down discontentedly.</p> + +<p>"They'll tell me I'm late again," he was muttering, when Mattie, <i>sans +ceremonie</i>, made her appearance.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hinchford, will you let Miss Harriet have that letter at once? +She's waiting for it."</p> + +<p>"And I'm waiting for my breakfast, Mattie—it's really too bad!"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell Ann; and—and the letter?"</p> + +<p>"You're an odd girl; I'll get it you."</p> + +<p>He went into the next room, returning with a letter in his hand.</p> + +<p>"There!"</p> + +<p>Mattie dashed at it in her impatience, and tore it into twenty pieces, +which she thrust into the pocket of her dress, lest a fragment of the +news should remain as evidence of Harriet Wesden's want of judgment.</p> + +<p>"I say, my girl, that's not your letter, it's——"</p> + +<p>"It's better torn to pieces. Harriet wished it, sir."</p> + +<p>"She—she hasn't had a quarrel with my boy?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, to be sure not."</p> + +<p>"I wonder how much longer he will be; there's—there's nothing further +to break to an old man by degrees, Mattie?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing further. I have a little news to tell you about myself, that I +hope you'll be sorry to hear."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford's face assumed that perplexed look to which it had become +prone of late years. Still he was not likely to be very much +troubled—it was only about Mattie!</p> + +<p>"I am going away from here," Mattie explained in a hurried manner; "Mr. +Wesden will tell you the whole story, and it's not to my credit, looking +at it in his light. You'll believe it, perhaps?" she added wistfully.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wesden is not accustomed to exaggeration, Mattie; but I will not +believe anything that is wrong of you."</p> + +<p>"I hope you will not, however proof may seem to go against me," was the +sad remark; "he thinks I'm wrong, and I dare not explain part, and +cannot explain the rest, and so I'm going away this morning.</p> + +<p>"This morning!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford took a good haul of his stock at this.</p> + +<p>"He don't wish me to stop, and I would not if he did," said Mattie, +proudly, "so we are both of one mind about my going. And now, sir," +holding out both hands to him, "try and think the best of me—never mind +the desk this morning, that was nothing, remember—<i>do</i> think well of +one who will never forget you, and all the kindness you have shown me +since I have been here."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, let me go down, and see if I can't set all this straight," said +the old gentleman, moved by Mattie's appeal.</p> + +<p>"It could not be done, sir," said Mattie in reply; "you're very kind, +but I know how much better it is to go. Why, sir, I have a great hope +that they'll think better of me when I am gone!"</p> + +<p>"But—but——"</p> + +<p>"And so good-bye, sir."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman shook both her hands, stooped suddenly and kissed her +on the forehead.</p> + +<p>"I can't make it all out, but I'll believe the best, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you."</p> + +<p>The tears were blinding her, so she hastened to the door, pausing there +to add—</p> + +<p>"Tell Mr. Sidney—oh! tell him above all—to think of me, as I would +think of him, whatever the world said and whoever was against him. +Harriet will speak up for me when he has a doubt of my honesty, and he +will believe her. Don't let my past life stand between you all and your +better thoughts of me—good-bye."</p> + +<p>Mattie was gone; she had closed the door behind her, and shut in Mr. +Hinchford, who forgot his breakfast for awhile in the sudden news that +had been communicated. He was forgetful at times now; his memory, though +he did not care to own it, would betray him when he least expected it. +In the midst of his reverie, a flash of a new recollection took away his +breath, and brought his hand again to his inflexible stock.</p> + +<p>"Good heaven!—not that letter, I hope."</p> + +<p>He bustled into the back room, and searched nervously in the pockets of +coats, waistcoats, and trousers about there. A blank expression settled +on his countenance as he drew from the side-pocket of the great coat he +had worn yesternight, another letter—the letter which Mattie had +demanded, and he thought that he had given her.</p> + +<p>"God bless me! she's torn up the letter that was given me to post last +night!"</p> + +<p>He made a dash down-stairs, but Mattie had gone, and the double mistake +could not be rectified.</p> + +<p>Mattie had made her final leave-taking by that time. She had gone +straight from Mr. Hinchford's apartments into the shop, taking up her +position on the street-side of the counter facing Mr. Wesden.</p> + +<p>"I'm—I'm ready to go now, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Very well. I—I didn't mean you to go in such a hurry; but as you have +looked upon it in that light, why I can't stop you. There's your salary +up to the month."</p> + +<p>He took it from the little back-shelf and laid it on the counter; Mattie +hesitated for a moment; her face crimsoned, and there was an impulsive +movement to sweep the money to the floor, checked by a second and better +thought.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir."</p> + +<p>The money was dropped into her pocket; she looking steadily at Mr. +Wesden meanwhile.</p> + +<p>"I shall send for my box when I've found a home," she said. "Let the man +take it without being watched; some of you might like to know what has +become of me, and I don't wish that yet awhile."</p> + +<p>"Where do you think of going?"</p> + +<p>"Anywhere I can be trusted," was the unintentional retort. "I am not +particular, and I have a hope that God will send a friend to me. I think +of going from here to Camberwell to bid one friend good-bye, at +least—what do you think, sir?"</p> + +<p>"You had better not. She's ill."</p> + +<p>"You never said that before!" cried Mattie; "ill and alone!"</p> + +<p>"Harriet will return home when she gets up—she is just ill enough to be +kept very quiet."</p> + +<p>"I'll not go to her, then."</p> + +<p>Mattie still fixed her dark eyes on Mr. Wesden; that steady, unflinching +gaze was making the stationer feel uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that there is anything else to say," said Mattie, after a +long pause; "and I suppose—you've nothing else to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. Except," he added, after another pause on his part, "that I +hope you will take care of yourself—that this will be a lesson to you."</p> + +<p>Mattie coloured once more, and took time to reply.</p> + +<p>"I would part friends with <i>you</i>," she said at last. "I have been trying +hard to bear everything that you say, remembering past kindness. <i>You</i> +saved me at the eleventh hour, when I was going back to ruin—<i>you</i> +taught me what was good, and made this place my home; for <i>you</i> and +<i>yours</i> I would do anything in the world that lay in my power. <span class="smcap">But</span>!" she +cried, her face kindling and her eyes flashing, "if it had been any one +else who had spoken to me as you have done, who had cast such cruel +slander at me, and believed in nothing but my vileness, I—I think I +should have killed him!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden had never seen Mattie in a passion before; her frenzy alarmed +him, and he backed against the drawers behind him lest she should +attempt some mischief. His confidence in the righteousness of his cause +was more shaken also; but he did not know how to express it, having been +ever a man whose ideas came slowly.</p> + +<p>"Upstairs, a little while ago, Mr. Wesden," continued Mattie, "I thought +that we were quits with each other—that casting me back to the streets +made amends for the rescue from them years ago. I thought almost that I +could afford to hate you—but you must forgive me that—I was not myself +then! I know better now; and if I go back alone and friendless, still I +take with me all the good thoughts which the latter years have given me, +and no misfortune is likely to rob me of."</p> + +<p>"But—but——"</p> + +<p>"But this is strange talk in a woman who cannot account for missing +property, and keeps out all night," said Mattie; "you can't think any +better of me now—some day you will. Good-bye, sir—may I shake hands +with you?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't bear any malice, Mattie. I—I wish you well, girl," he +stammered, as he held forth his hand.</p> + +<p>Mattie's declamation had cowed him, softened him. He was the man of the +past, who had faith in her, and whom late events had not changed so +much. He thought it might be a mistake just then—he did not know—he +understood nothing—his brain was in a whirl.</p> + +<p>Mattie shook hands with him, and then went away without another word. +Outside in the streets the traffic was thickening—it was Saturday +morning, when people sought the streets in greater numbers. Mattie's +slight form was soon lost in the surging stream of human life; Mr. +Wesden, who had followed her to the door, noticed how soon she was +submerged.</p> + +<p>Five years ago he had taken her from the streets—a stray. Again in her +womanhood, at his wish, he had cast her back to them a stray +still—nothing more!</p> + +<p>A stray whom no one would claim as child, sister, friend; who went away +characterless in a world ever ready to believe the worst. She had spoken +of her strength to do battle now alone, but she did not know with what +enemies she had to fight, or what deadly weapons to encounter; watching +her from that shop door, she looked little more than the child God had +once prompted him to save.</p> + +<p>He could have run after her again, as in the old times, and cried +"Stop!"—he could have taken her to his heart again, and began anew with +her, sinking the incomprehensible bygones for ever.</p> + +<p>But he moved not; and Mattie, the stray, drifted from his home, and went +away to seek her fortunes.</p> + + +<h3>END OF THE THIRD BOOK.</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_IV" id="BOOK_IV"></a>BOOK IV.</h2> + +<h3>"WANT PLACES."</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IC" id="CHAPTER_IC"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>"ONE AND TWENTY."</h3> + + +<p>Mattie's box was fetched away from Great Suffolk Street; the man who +called for it brought a note to Ann Packet, which she found a friend to +read for her later in the day. It did not furnish Ann Packet with her +address—"When I am settled, Ann," she promised, quoting her own words +on that morning of departure, "and I am very unsettled yet awhile."</p> + +<p>Poor Ann Packet, who had looked forward to paying sundry flying visits +to Mattie, and upon spending her holiday once a month with her, mourned +over this evasion of Mattie's—"won't she trust even in me, or think of +me a bit?" she said.</p> + +<p>In Mattie's letter was enclosed a smaller one to Harriet Wesden, who +understood the <i>coup d'étât</i> which had ensued by that time, and was +agitated and unhappy concerning it. This was Mattie's letter to Harriet +Wesden, <i>in extenso</i>:—</p> + +<p>"Keep your promise, dearest Harriet—never forget that your happiness, +and that of others, depend upon it. Do not think that I have taken the +blame, or am a victim—it is not only for my actions of that night that +I have gone away. Sooner or later, it must have come. God bless you!—I +hope to see you again soon. Your letter to Sidney is destroyed."</p> + +<p>Harriet pondered over this missive. For weeks she became more +thoughtful, and aroused fresh anxiety in her father—for weeks went on +an unknown and fierce struggle to break away from her promise and tell +all.</p> + +<p>She had been afraid of the revelation, and what would be said and +thought about it; she had seen her innocence construed as half-consent, +and herself set down as an accomplice in Mr. Darcy's plot; she had +feared losing the esteem and confidence of all who now respected her. +But when Mattie had been sent away for keeping out all night—and though +she had not heard the story, she guessed of whom Mattie had been in +search—her sense of justice, her love for Mattie, led her more than +once to the verge of the revelation. Keeping her own secret was one +thing, but the blame to rest on another was very different, and despite +her promise—into which she had been entrapped as it were—the avowal +was ever trembling on her lips.</p> + +<p>After, all it was but the truth to confess—her father and mother would +believe her; and if Sidney Hinchford turned away, why surely there was +nothing to grieve at in that—she could not have loved Sidney, or that +letter would never have been written to him! And yet let it be recorded +here, Harriet Wesden's main incentive to keep her secret close was for +Sidney Hinchford's sake. It tortured her to think that she should have +ever entertained one feeling of love or liking for the Mr. Darcy who had +sought her humiliation; the shock to her pride had not only turned her +utterly away from Mr. Darcy, but the very contrast he presented to young +Hinchford, had aroused the old, or given birth to a new affection for +the latter.</p> + +<p>She valued Sidney Hinchford at his just due at last; she understood his +patience, energy, and love; how he had been working for her from his +boyhood, and what would have been the effect to him of losing her. She +had made up her mind, when he returned, to give him all her heart, and +sustain him by her love against those secret cares which lately had been +shadowing him. She believed that her secret was for ever shut away from +the light—that keeping it under lock and key would be better for +Sidney, whose trust in her was so implicit. He had always believed in +her devotion to himself; why should she break in upon that dream, now +she felt that all girlish follies were over with her, and she had become +a staid woman, whose hope was to be his wife?</p> + +<p>She was consoled by Mattie's letter: "It is not only for my actions of +that night that I have gone away. Sooner or later it must have come."</p> + +<p>Mattie, ever a deep thinker, considered it best also—by her confession, +even Mattie would be unhappy; so Harriet kept her secret for everybody's +sake, and made her last mistake in life. Mattie and she had both +regarded the subject from a narrow point of view, and were wrong; the +best intentioned people are wrong sometimes, and from young women, with +their heads disturbed concerning young men, we do not anticipate the +judgment of Solomon.</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden felt secure—knowing not of the letter in Mr. Hinchford's +coat, of Mr. Hinchford's mistake and Mattie's. And yet the chances now +were against the revelation, thanks to the treacherous memory of the old +gentleman. He had mentioned his error in the counting-house to his +employers the same day, and met with a reprimand and a supercilious +shrug of the shoulders—"It was like old Hinchford," one partner had +muttered to another, and there the subject ended for a while. Mr. +Hinchford went home, resolving to restore the letter to Harriet Wesden, +took the letter from his pocket and put it on the bedroom mantel-piece, +to keep the matter in his remembrance until he saw Harriet again.</p> + +<p>There for two days the letter remained, till Ann Packet, in dusting the +room, knocked it on the floor, picked it up and placed it on the +dressing-glass, where Mr. Hinchford found it, and rather absently-shut +it in the looking-glass drawer, as a safe place; and then the letter +passed completely out of recollection, there being a great deal to +trouble his mind just then.</p> + +<p>For they were not kind to him at his business, expected too much from +him, and made no allowance for an old servant; and above all, and before +all, the boy's birthday was drawing near—it was three days before +Harriet Wesden's—and there was no sign of Sidney Hinchford on his way +towards him.</p> + +<p>By that time Mr. Wesden had found a customer for his business, which was +to change hands early in February; and in February what would become of +him, and whither should he go himself, thought Mr. Hinchford? Good +gracious! he would have to change his residence, and his son perhaps +never be able to find him! A horrid thought, which only lasted till he +thought of his son's business address, but <i>whilst</i> it lasted, a trying +one.</p> + +<p>When the birthday of Sidney Hinchford came round in January, the father +grew excited; talked of his son at business all day, and worried the +clerks about his son's accomplishments; returned in the evening to +harass Mr. Wesden, always at his post behind the counter, for the few +more days remaining of his business life.</p> + +<p>"I have brought a bottle of wine home with me in the hope of the lad's +return," said Mr. Hinchford, placing that luxury on the counter; "his +one and twentieth year must not pass without our wishing <i>bon voyage</i> to +his manhood. You and I, Mr. Wesden, will at least drink his health +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>"I'll come and keep you company, after tea, in the back parlour, Wesden, +and we'll have a long talk about my boy and your girl. There should have +been a formal betrothal to-night, with much rejoicing afterwards. To +think of his being one-and-twenty to-day, and away from us!"</p> + +<p>"It must seem odd to you. Perhaps he'll come back to-night."</p> + +<p>"That's what I have been thinking, Wesden. I fancy if he were near his +return journey he would make a push for it to-night, knowing the old +father's wishes. I fancy, do you know, that if I had been your +daughter——"</p> + +<p>"Well—what of her?"</p> + +<p>"If I had been Harriet, I should have remembered this day, and looked in +for a few moments."</p> + +<p>"Her mother don't grow stronger; she is fidgety when she is away, and +the servant we have is not of much use."</p> + +<p>"Then Harriet might have written, wishing him many happy returns of the +day, or have come to congratulate me upon having such a son grown to +man's estate."</p> + +<p>Having expressed this opinion, Mr. Hinchford went up-stairs to the tea +which Ann Packet had prepared for him—spent an hour after tea in +putting the room to rights, opening Sidney's desk and lighting the +table-lamp at the side thereof.</p> + +<p>"Now, if he come home, and there's work to be done—and if it's to be +done, his one-and-twentieth birthday will not stop it—there's +everything ready to begin!"</p> + +<p>He went down-stairs to join Mr. Wesden in the parlour—the news-boy was +perched on the chair in the shop, keeping guard over the goods that +night—and found Harriet Wesden seated at the fireside.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's all coming true," cried the old gentleman, seizing both hands +of Harriet, and shaking them up and down, "and he's coming home!"</p> + +<p>"Have you thought so, too?" asked Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Well, I have hoped so, at all events; and it seems as if we were +waiting for him now, and he <i>must</i> come. But don't talk too much about +that, please," he said, with his characteristic tug at his stock, "or I +shall feel as if something had happened when he keeps away. But we'll +drink the boy's health, at all events, God bless him! and we'll have a +game at whist, three and a dummy, and make quite a party of it in our +little way. Sid one-and-twenty, Wesden! by all that's glorious, it's a +fine thing to have a son come to maturity!"</p> + +<p>Wine-glasses were produced—even a pack of cards, a brand new pack from +the stock—and Sid's health was drunk very quietly, without any musical +honours, but very heartily, for all that.</p> + +<p>And five minutes after the health had been drunk, Sidney Hinchford, +portmanteau in hand, entered the shop, and walked straight into the +parlour.</p> + +<p>"I said he'd come!" exclaimed the father. "Many happy returns of the +day, you runaway! God bless you, my boy, and grant you health and +happiness!"</p> + +<p>He wound up his wishes by kissing him as though he had been a girl. +Sidney blushed, and laughed at his father's impulsiveness, and then +turned to his two remaining friends with whom he shook hands—we need +not add with whom the longer time.</p> + +<p>"Finish your game at whist," he said; "I must not spoil the harmony of +the evening. Here, shall I take dummy?"</p> + +<p>"If you like. But we want to know——"</p> + +<p>"Presently you shall know all—let us relapse into our old positions, +just as if I had never been away, for awhile. How's Mattie—where is +she?"</p> + +<p>All three looked somewhat blankly at him. Mattie's departure, and the +reasons which had actuated it, were more or less a mystery, and +difficult of explanation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden acted as spokesman.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say she has gone away under very disagreeable +circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Gone away!—Mattie!"</p> + +<p>"Your father can tell you all about it some other time," said Mr. +Wesden. "I don't think we need spoil the evening by a long, sad story."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but, dash it! disagreeable circumstances," said Sidney—"that's an +awkward phrase, and don't sound affectionate. But, until to-morrow, +we'll postpone all details. I'll take dummy, and be your partner, +Harriet."</p> + +<p>"Very well."</p> + +<p>He did not know whether it were better to be Harriet's partner, or to be +her father's, and sit by Harriet's side—that matter had always +perplexed him the few times he had played at whist with them. It seemed +somewhat strange his playing at whist at all that night—his arriving +from a long journey, tired and travel-worn, as evident from his looks, +and immediately sitting down to cards, as though there were an +infatuation in the game, which under no circumstances it was in his +power to resist. Harriet Wesden thought it strange at least, and now and +then furtively regarded him. He played whist well, as he did everything +well he undertook—but his heart was not in the game, and more than +once, as he held the cards, close to his glasses, in the old +near-sighted fashion, Harriet fancied that the face assumed a troubled +expression. The game at whist was over at last, and with it Sidney +Hinchford's power of endurance.</p> + +<p>"Now that is over, I think I'll tell you a story. I don't know three +people in the world so well entitled to have the first hearing of it. +I'll ask you, sir," turning to his father, "to give me courage, and see +that I do not give way?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford senior stared, as well he might, at this—it placed him in +a new position, and braced his nerves accordingly. Sidney had resolved +upon these tactics on his homeward route; there was no chance of +breaking <i>his</i> news gradually—the world would be talking of it ere the +morning.</p> + +<p>"I always hated dodging a truth," said Sidney, sturdily; "it's a bad +habit, and don't answer. It's sneaking—isn't it, Mr. Wesden?"</p> + +<p>"Well—yes."</p> + +<p>"If there's good luck coming, go to meet it—if there's disappointment +which you can't avoid, let it meet you, and not find you hiding away +from the inevitable. Why, that's like a baby!"</p> + +<p>"To be sure it is," said the father; "wait a moment—I'm not a bit +nervous about this—I'll see that you keep firm, my boy, but I'll just +unfasten this buckle behind my neck a moment. Now, then!"</p> + +<p>"When I was one-and-twenty, there seemed reason to believe in a +partnership in my masters' firm—my masters took a fancy to me when I +was a lad, and very much obliged to them I was for it. By that hope in +prospective," suddenly turning to Harriet Wesden, and leaning over the +table towards her with a very anxious look upon his face, "I was led, +Harriet, to think too much of you—to enter into a half-engagement, or a +whole one, or a something that kept me ever thinking of you, hoping for +you. When I was one-and-twenty, I was to come to your father, and say, +'I am in a good position of life—may I consider Harriet as my future +wife?'—he was to refer me to you if satisfied with my prospects, and +you were—well, I did hope very much that you were then to say, 'Yes' in +real earnest. All this, a pretty story, foolish for me to believe +in—but a story ended now in an ugly fashion. Mr. Wesden," veering +suddenly round to the stationer, "my prospects in life are infamously +bad; my employers are bankrupts, and my services will not be required +after this day month!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford flung himself back in his chair with a crash that brought +the top rail off,—Sidney turned at once to him, and laid his hand upon +his arm.</p> + +<p>"With my father to give me courage, I can bear this!"</p> + +<p>"That's—that's—that's well, my lad. Keep strong—oh! Lord have mercy +upon us!—keep strong, my boy!"</p> + +<p>"I have been fighting hard to get the firm straight—I have been abroad +to the foreign branch, working night and day there, my last chance and +my employer's. I had a hope once of success, till the markets fell +suddenly, and swamped everything—our weakness could not stand against +anything new and unforeseen, and so we—<i>smashed</i>! It will be all over +town to-morrow—but it was a good fight whilst it lasted."</p> + +<p>"It's very unfortunate news," said Mr. Wesden.</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid for myself," said Sidney, proudly; "I think that with +time, and health—ah! I must not forget that—I shall work my way +somewhere, and to something in good time. But I shan't climb to +greatness all of a sudden; and it may happen that at forty—even fifty +years of age—I may be no better off than I am now. That I'm +disappointed is natural enough, for I know money's value, and perhaps it +was a little too near my heart, and this is my lesson; but the +disappointment of losing you, Harriet—of giving up that chance, as any +honourable man should—is the one loss which staggers me, and will be +the hardest to surmount. I thought that I would make a clean breast of +it, and begin my one-and-twentieth year free, as land-agents say, of all +encumbrances."</p> + +<p>It was a poor attempt at <i>facetiæ</i>—a very weak effort to carry things +off with a high hand, like a Hinchford. But he played his part well; he +did not break down; he confessed his inability to keep a wife, or think +of a wife, and he spoke out like one who had reached man's estate, and +felt strong to bear man's troubles.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden stared at Sidney long after he had concluded, and a pause had +followed the outburst; Harriet Wesden, with a heightened colour, looked +down at her white hands so tightly clasped together in her lap, and +thought that it was a strange explanation—a strange hour for an +explanation which he might have chosen his time to give to her alone. +Surely she might have been offered an opportunity of giving an answer +also, and spared that embarrassment with which his thoughtlessness had +afflicted her. Could her father answer for <i>her</i>, as well as for +himself!</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden delivered his reply, after several moments' grave +deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sidney," said he, "I always did hate anything kept back, and +doubted the honesty of anybody keeping it. The truth, however hard it +may be to tell, will always bear the light upon it, I'm inclined to +think."</p> + +<p>Harriet winced.</p> + +<p>"And you've spoken fair," he continued, "and given her up like a man. +Now let her answer for herself; if she don't mind waiting till you're +able to keep her—till you're forty or fifty, as you say," he added +drily, "why, I shan't stand in opposition. The longer the engagement, +the longer she'll be my daughter. There, can I put it in a fairer light +than that that?"</p> + +<p>Sidney's harangue, or Sidney's father's port-wine, had rendered Mr. +Wesden magnanimous as well as loquacious that evening; or else, in +business, his better nature was developing anew.</p> + +<p>Now to such an answer as this, one can imagine Sidney Hinchford starting +to his feet and wringing Mr. Wesden's hand, or turning suddenly to +Harriet and looking earnestly, almost beseechingly, in her direction. On +the contrary, he remained silent and moody; Mr. Wesden's answer was +unprepared for, and his compliment to his straightforwardness brought a +colour to Sidney's cheek—for, after all, he was keeping something back!</p> + +<p>There was a painful silence, broken at last by a low and faltering +voice, the musical murmur of which drew Sidney's eyes towards her at +last.</p> + +<p>"Has Mr. Sidney the patience to wait for me, or care for a long +engagement, of which he may eventually tire?"</p> + +<p>"Patience!—care for an engagement!" he almost shouted.</p> + +<p>"Then when he asks me again," said Harriet, "I will give him my answer. +But," with an arch smile towards him, "I will wait till I am asked."</p> + +<p>"Bless you, my dear girl!" exclaimed old Hinchford, "I feel like a +father towards you already—as for waiting, every true boy and girl will +wait for each other—why shouldn't they, if they love one another, eh, +Sid?"</p> + +<p>His hand came heavily on Sid's shoulder, and knocked off his son's +glasses.</p> + +<p>"Ah! why shouldn't they, if they are sure of love lasting all the long +time between engagement and marriage. Harriet! dear Harriet!" he +exclaimed, "I will ask you presently."</p> + +<p>"When the old fogies are out of the way, and the courtship can be +carried on in the recondite style," cried his elated father; "a sly dog +this, who will not be embarrassed by witnesses—eh, Wesden?"</p> + +<p>Wesden gave a short laugh—a double-knock species of laugh, in which he +indulged when more than usually hilarious.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's it!" he said; "and as for waiting, why Mrs. Wesden and I are +an old couple, and mayn't keep you waiting so long as you fancy, Sidney. +It isn't much money, but——"</p> + +<p>"That will do, sir," said Sidney, hastily; "I must support my wife, not +let my wife support me. Harriet," turning to the daughter, with an +impetuosity almost akin to fierceness, "is it not time to return to +Camberwell?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! ho!—do you hear that, Wesden?" cried the father.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford had forgotten the downfall of his son's air-built castle, +in the happiness which he believed would make amends for it to Sidney. +And if Sidney were content—why, he was.</p> + +<p>Harriet was glad of an excuse to escape. Two old gentlemen talking of +love affairs—her love affairs—before the suitor, was scarcely fair, +and her position was not enviable. And besides that, Sidney Hinchford's +manner had not been comprehensible, and required explanation; she could +almost believe that he did not desire an engagement; there was so little +of the impassioned lover in his new demeanour. There was a mystery, and +she would be glad to have it dissipated.</p> + +<p>Harriet went away, escorted by her lover, and the two fathers drew their +chairs closer to the fire and drank the health of the happy couple as +they went out at the door.</p> + +<p>"This is a proud day for you and me—to have such children, and to see +them growing up fonder and fonder of each other every day—eh, Wesden?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have been uneasy about Harriet, and leaving her alone in the +world. She will be always happy with him, and have a good protector."</p> + +<p>"That she will. How the little girl would have clapped her hands at +this!"</p> + +<p>"What little girl?" asked Wesden.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mattie, to be sure. Mattie, who used to play the mother almost to +those two, her seniors, and be always as interested as a mother in +making a match between them."</p> + +<p>"Ah!—Mattie!—yes!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden looked about for his pipe and his pipe-lights on the +mantel-piece.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford drew his favourite meerschaum from his coat-pocket. The +two old men faced each other, and began to smoke vigorously.</p> + +<p>"I wonder where that girl has got to?" suggested Hinchford.</p> + +<p>"It's impossible to say. In good hands, I hope."</p> + +<p>"I'd lay a heavy wager that she knows whose birthday it is to-day," +commented Mr. Hinchford; "she was a girl who never forgot anything."</p> + +<p>"Ah—perhaps so!"</p> + +<p>"And I think she might have cleared up the fog, if you had waited a bit, +Wesden."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't she, if she could?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I promised to believe in her, and somehow I do."</p> + +<p>"Can anything in the world account for a girl her age being out all +night?" said Wesden.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that looks bad—I can't get over that!" said Mr. Hinchford, giving +his head one sorrowful shake.</p> + +<p>Poor Mattie!—poor stray! whose actions, the best and most unselfish, +were not to be accounted for, or done justice to in this world.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIC" id="CHAPTER_IIC"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>SIDNEY'S CONFESSION.</h3> + + +<p>Sidney Hinchford escorted Harriet Wesden home to Camberwell. A most +unromantic walk down the Newington Causeway—sacred to milliners and +counter-skippers—the Walworth Road, Camberwell Road, and streets +branching thence to melancholy suburbs—and yet a walk that was the +happiest in the lives of these two, though looked back upon in after +years through tear-dimmed eyes, and sighed for by hearts that had been +sorely wrung. Such a walk as most of us may have taken once in +life—seldom more than once—a walk away from sober realism into +fairy-land, where everything apart from love was a something to be +utterly despised, and where love first rose to fill our souls with +promise. What if the story ended abruptly, and the waking came, and one +or two of us fell heavily to earth—we did not die of the wounds, and we +see now that the fall was the best thing that could have happened for +us. We look back at the past, and regret not the sunshine that dazzled +us there.</p> + +<p>And yet there was a stern story to relate, and Sidney had escorted +Harriet Wesden home, believing in the darkness rather than the light +upon his way. He went forth regarding life literally, and he found +himself, after awhile, in the land of romance, wherein sober existence +had no dwelling-place.</p> + +<p>Let him tell the story in his own way.</p> + +<p>Harriet and Sidney had not proceeded a long distance together before he +began.</p> + +<p>"I think that I must have puzzled you very much, Harriet, by this +evening's behaviour—by the way in which I received your kindness—more +than kindness. There was a reason, and I am going to explain it."</p> + +<p>"Is it worth explanation?" asked Harriet.</p> + +<p>"I think so—you shall judge. It is an explanation that I cannot give my +father, for it would break his heart, I think, with the long suspense +which would follow it."</p> + +<p>"So serious an explanation as that, Sidney?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Is it not odd that, with my character for straightforwardness, I +should have been all my life keeping back the truth?"</p> + +<p>"From him—for his sake, only, Sidney?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps for my own—to save myself from a host of inquisitive +questions, and an attention that would irritate rather than soothe—I am +a very selfish man."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that yet awhile."</p> + +<p>"When I came home to-night, I had no other hope than that you and your +father would consider that I had not made good my claim to become a +favoured suitor, and that there was nothing left me but to make my +statement and withdraw my rash pretensions. You will pardon me, Harriet, +but it had never struck me that you were strong enough, or—pardon me +again—that you had ever loved me well enough to attempt a <i>sacrifice</i>.</p> + +<p>"I was a girl—very vain and frivolous—you were right."</p> + +<p>"I come back and find you altered very much, Harriet. I find the old +reserve that piqued my pride no longer there, and, instead, a something +newer and more frank, a something that says, 'Trust me.' Is that a true +reading?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I am vain enough to believe in the heart growing fonder during my +absence—though I have always fancied the experiment full of danger for +the absent one. Say that the heart has done so—or that I did not +understand you. Still the effect was the same, or I should not have the +courage to tell you the great secret of my life. If I believed that you +did not love me, or that you had ever loved any one else, I would not +venture to put you to <i>this</i> test."</p> + +<p>Harriet hung down her head, and her heart beat rapidly; the old story +was before her, and his very words seemed now to forbid its revelation. +His firm, self-reliant nature had never swerved from her, and he judged +others by himself. His was a love that had begun from boyhood, and grown +with his growth; should she raise the first suspicion against her by +telling him all, when it was in her power—and only in <i>her</i> power—to +make him happy, to make amends for all by her new love for him? Let him +test her how he liked now, she was a woman who looked at life seriously, +and the follies of her youth were over!</p> + +<p>They walked on silently for awhile; they went on together, playing their +love-dream out, and oblivious of the matter-of-fact world hustling them +in their progress.</p> + +<p>"This is the love test—and it must be a strange, pure love to exist +after I have told all," he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you doubt me, Sidney, already?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell. I cannot," he added, more passionately, "believe in any +affection strong and deep enough to last; but I can forgive, and +consider natural, any love that turns to pity at the truth. Do you +comprehend me?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely."</p> + +<p>"Well then—<i>I am going blind</i>!"</p> + +<p>An awful and unexpected revelation, which took her breath away, and +seemed for an instant to stop her heart beating.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Sidney—my poor Sidney—it cannot be!"</p> + +<p>"Sooner or later, Harriet, it must be; mine is a hopeless case," he +answered; "with care, and less night work, and quiet—that last means +absence from all mental excitement—I may go on for a few years more; +the last physician whom I have consulted even thinks he can give me ten +years' grace. Now in ten years, ten of the best years of a young man's +life, I ought to save, and I hope to save, sufficient to live upon. I +may be over-sanguine, but if I get a good foothold I will try. And now +where lives the girl who will accept a ten years' engagement, with the +chance of a beggar or a blind man at the end of it?"</p> + +<p>Harriet pressed his arm.</p> + +<p>"Here," she answered.</p> + +<p>"You will! There is the faith to wait, the courage to endure, and the +love to sustain me. You are not afraid?"</p> + +<p>"No—I have no fear," replied Harriet, warmly; "God knows that I <i>have</i> +changed very much, and only lately learned to understand myself. I do +not fear, Sidney, for I—I have learned to love you, and, by comparison, +to see how noble and high-principled you are. But oh! if I were but more +worthy of you, and your deep love for me!"</p> + +<p>"Worthy!" he echoed; "why, what have I done to deserve a life's devotion +to me, save to love you, which was the most natural thing in the world. +What have I ever done to deserve the happiness of winning your love—a +long legged, near-sighted gawky like me!—and such a love as shrinks not +from the dark prospect ahead, but will disperse it by its brightness, +and keep me from despairing. Why, in ten years time we shall not be an +old couple—I shall only be one-and-thirty, and you but nine-and-twenty. +When the light goes out," he added solemnly, "you will place your hand +in mine to make amends for it, and begin my new happiness by the wife's +companionship; shall I be so very much to be pitied then, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"I hope not, Sid."</p> + +<p>She had not called him by that name since he was a boy, and his heart +thrilled at it, and took fresh hope from it.</p> + +<p>"All this on my part, I know is very selfish," he said. "I have told you +already that I am a selfish man, to wish that your youth and beauty and +love should be sacrificed to my affliction. I did not think of gaining +them; I was content to pass away from you, and see you allied to one +more deserving, more fitting, than myself; even now, I will go away +resigned, thinking you are right to give me up, if but one doubt linger +at your heart."</p> + +<p>"Not one," was the firm answer.</p> + +<p>"I can bear all now—afterwards, a doubt would strike me down—remember +that."</p> + +<p>"Trust in me, Sid—ever."</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>The hand that had rested on his arm was held in his now, and they walked +on together, with their hearts as full of happiness as though blindness +were a trifling calamity, scarcely worth considering under the +circumstances.</p> + +<p>Sidney had pictured so dark a prospect ahead, that this sudden change +made all bright, and Harriet Wesden was happy in being able to prove +that her love was unselfish and strong. She did not believe that she had +ever loved any one else then—she knew that hers was a different and +more intense affection, something that felt like love, and that nothing +in the world could destroy. Mr. Darcy was but a phantom, far back in the +mists—his own dark efforts had utterly extinguished every ray of +romance, in the false light of which he had luridly shone. Strengthened +by her new love, she could have broken her promise to Mattie, and told +all then, trusting in him to see the truth, and believe in her +henceforth; but he had spoken of the danger of excitement to him, and +once again—once for all—went the story back, never to hover on the +brink of discovery again!</p> + +<p>It was a strange courtship—that of Sidney Hinchford and Harriet's—but +they were happy. The calamity was in the distance, and their hearts were +young and strong. Both had faith then—and of the chances and changes of +life, it was not natural to dwell upon, after the one avowal had been +uttered.</p> + +<p>"Then it <i>is</i> an engagement," he had asked hoarsely, and she had +answered "Yes," with his own frankness and boldness; and thus the path +ahead seemed bright enough.</p> + +<p>Outside the suburban retreat of the Wesdens', Sidney Hinchford had a +little struggle with duty and inclination—conquering inclination with +that strong will of his.</p> + +<p>"I'll go back to the old gentleman," he said at last; "he is scarcely +used to my reappearance yet, and a little makes him nervous. Good-bye, +love."</p> + +<p>A lovers parting at the iron gate, to the intense edification of the +potman coming up the street with the nine o'clock beer; and then Sidney +tore himself homewards, thinking what a happy fellow he was, and how the +business disappointments of life had been softened by the events that +had followed them. The future could not be dark with Harriet; before +this he had become resigned to his calamity, bent his strong mind to +regard it as inevitable; now there was to come happiness with it, and he +would be more than content, he thought.</p> + +<p>He was soon back in Suffolk Street. Mr. Wesden was in the shop talking +to a short, thin man with a sallow complexion, a hooked nose, bright +black eyes, and straight hair; a man dressed in black; with a rusty +satin stock of the same colour, secured by an old-fashioned brooch of +gold wire, in the shape of a heart.</p> + +<p>"And her name was Mattie, you say?"</p> + +<p>"That was the name she called herself, and went always by in this +house."</p> + +<p>"And you don't know her whereabouts?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't an idea."</p> + +<p>"But you think she has gone wrong, don't you?" the man asked with no +small eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope not; but I think so."</p> + +<p>"Who? Mattie!" cried Sidney, suddenly thrusting himself into the +conversation; "our Mattie—that be—<i>hanged</i>!"</p> + +<p>He checked himself in time to save scandalizing the ears of the +gentleman in black, who twirled round with a tee-to-tum velocity and +faced him.</p> + +<p>"What do you know of her, young man?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"What do you want to know for?" was the rejoinder.</p> + +<p>"I wish to find her—I am very anxious to find her."</p> + +<p>"I hope you may, if it's for her good."</p> + +<p>"Her moral and spiritual good, sir—without a doubt."</p> + +<p>"You can't improve her. There isn't a better or more unselfish girl in +the world!"</p> + +<p>"<i>What!</i>" screamed the man in black.</p> + +<p>"Not a better girl, I verily believe. I haven't heard the reasons for +her departure yet," he said, looking at Mr. Wesden; "but they're good +ones, or I was never more mistaken in my life."</p> + +<p>"You are mistaken," said Mr. Wesden; "I've tried to think the best of +Mattie, but I can't. There are no honest reasons for her conduct, or she +would have told me."</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford paused,</p> + +<p>"It must be very unreasonable conduct then," said Sidney, "and she must +have changed very much during my absence from this house. But, upon my +soul!" he exclaimed vehemently, "I shan't believe any harm in her, for +one!"</p> + +<p>The stranger regarded Sidney Hinchford attentively, then said—</p> + +<p>"You need not have brought your soul into question, sir. Pledge that in +God's service—nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Sidney, taken aback at the reproof.</p> + +<p>"You speak warmly; and somehow I've a hope of her not being very bad—of +reclaiming her by my own earnest efforts. Young man, I will thank you."</p> + +<p>He stretched forth an ungloved hand, which Sidney took—a hard hand, +that gripped Sid forcibly and made him wince a little.</p> + +<p>"You all seem in doubt, more or less," he said; "and that gives me hope. +Mr. Wesden and you don't agree in opinion, and that's something. Who's +that white-haired man I see in the parlour!"</p> + +<p>"That's my father, sir," said Sidney, smiling at the sudden curiosity +evinced.</p> + +<p>"Does he know anything about her?"</p> + +<p>"Not so much as myself," said Mr. Wesden.</p> + +<p>"Have you asked the servant—if you keep one?"</p> + +<p>"I have asked her everything, and she knows nothing," replied the +stationer.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll go. I think I shall find her yet, mind you," he said in an +excited manner. "I'm not a man to give up in a hurry, when I've taken an +idea in my head. I've been sixteen years looking for that girl!"</p> + +<p>"Are you a relation?" asked Sidney.</p> + +<p>"Her father."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>The stranger began hammering the counter with his hard hand, till the +money in the till underneath rattled again. He began to take small leaps +in the air, also, during the progress of his harangue.</p> + +<p>"Her father—a poor man reclaimed from error, and knowing what it is to +walk uprightly. A man who has, he trusts, done some good in his day—a +man who now sets himself the task of finding that daughter he neglected +once. And I'll find her and reclaim her—God will show me the way, I +think. And you shall see her again, a shining light in the midst of +ye—a brand from the burning, a credit to <i>me</i>! There's hope for her +yet. Good night."</p> + +<p>And very abruptly the gentleman in black leaped out of the shop and +disappeared.</p> + +<p>"That's an odd fish," remarked Sidney.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIC" id="CHAPTER_IIIC"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>A FLYING VISIT TO NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR.</h3> + + +<p>Before Mr. Wesden had finally disposed of his business in Great Suffolk +Street, he met with his greatest trouble in the loss of the companion, +helpmate, wife, who had struggled with him for many years from indigence +to moderate competence. Mrs. Wesden's health had been failing for some +time, but her loss was still as unprepared for, and the husband bent +lower and walked more feebly when his better half—his better self—was +taken from him in his latter days.</p> + +<p>"You have still me, remember," said Harriet, when the undemonstrative +nature gave way, and he sobbed like a child at his isolation; and he had +answered, "Ah! <i>you</i> mustn't desert me yet awhile—you must comfort me," +and refused to be comforted for many a long day. His character even +altered once more—as characters alter in all cases, except in novels; +and though the abruptness remained, and the silent fits were of longer +duration, he became less harsh in his judgments, and more easily +influenced for good. This was evident one day, when after an intense +study of the fire before which he sat, he burst forth with——</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I acted well by Mattie—poor Mattie, who would be so sorry +to hear all the sad news that has happened since she left us."</p> + +<p>Harriet, who had always taken Mattie's part to the verge of her own +confession, answered warmly,</p> + +<p>"No, <i>we</i> all acted very badly—very cruelly. When she comes again, as +she will, I feel assured—I hope she will forgive us, father."</p> + +<p>"Forgive us?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden had not arrived to that pitch of kind consideration yet, but +Mattie's departure and long silence were troubles to him when he was +left to think of the past, and of the business from which he had at last +retired in earnest.</p> + +<p>The shop had changed proprietors, and the Hinchfords, father and son, +had removed their furniture from Mr. Wesden's first floor to a little +house Camberwell way, also. A very small domicile had this careful +couple decided upon for their suburban retreat—one of a row of houses +that we may designate Chesterfield Terrace, and the rents of which were +two-and-twenty pounds per annum.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford, we have already premised, had somewhat lofty notions, +which adversity had kept in check, rather than subdued. The removal to +Chesterfield Terrace was a blow to him. The rooms in Great Suffolk +Street had been only borne with, scarcely resigned to; but though he had +lived there many years, he had never considered himself as "settled +down"—merely resting by the way, before he marched off to independence +and the old Hinchford state. It had been a mythical dream, perhaps, +until Sidney's star rose in the ascendant, and then he had quickly built +his castles in the air, and bided his time more sanguinely. When that +vision faded in its turn, the old gentleman was sorely tried; only his +son's strategy in feigning to require consolation had turned him away +from his own regrets to thoughts of how to make them less light for—the +<span class="smcap">BOY</span>.</p> + +<p>But 34, Chesterfield Terrace, Chesterfield Road, Camberwell New Road, +was a blow to him. The air was fresher than in Great Suffolk Street, the +large market gardens at the back of his house were pleasant in all +seasons, except the cabbage season; there were three bed-rooms, two +parlours, a wash-house at the back, and a long strip of garden, +constituting a house and premises that were solely and wholly theirs, +and entitled them to the glorious privilege of electing a member for +incorruptible Lambeth; but the change was not all that Mr. Hinchford had +looked forward to for so many years, and he grew despondent, and fancied +that it could never be better now.</p> + +<p>The Hinchfords had taken into their service Ann Packet, of workhouse +origin, and undiscoverable parentage; she had pleaded to be constituted +their servant, at any wages, or no wages at all, rather than at her time +of life to be sent forth in search of fresh faces and new homes.</p> + +<p>At this period, Mr. Wesden had required a servant also, and Ann Packet +had begged Sidney Hinchford to engage her at once, before she should be +asked to continue in the old service.</p> + +<p>"What! tired of them?" Sidney had said with some surprise.</p> + +<p>"They gave me warning," replied Ann, somewhat sullenly, "and I accepts +the same. They turned poor Mattie away without warning at all, and I +never forgives 'em that, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ah! you are on Mattie's side, too, Ann?"</p> + +<p>"There never was a girl who thought so little of herself, and so much of +others!" cried Ann, "or who desarved less to be sent out into the +streets. I gave up the Wesdens after that, sir."</p> + +<p>"But Miss Harriet is Mattie's champion also, and will defend her to the +death, Ann."</p> + +<p>"And will she be a Wesden all her life, sir?" asked Ann Packet, with an +archness for which she was only that once remarkable.</p> + +<p>Ann Packet became domestic servant at 34, Chesterfield Terrace, then, +and congratulated herself on the kitchen being level with the parlours, +which was good for her ankles, and spared her breath considerably.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the shadows were stealing on towards the Hinchford +dwelling-place; Sidney's month in service with his old employers had +been extended to two months, after which the firm, utterly shattered by +adversity, was to dissolve itself into its component atoms, and be never +heard of more in the busy streets east of Temple Bar.</p> + +<p>Sidney, it need scarcely be said, had not sat idle during the time; he +had looked keenly round him for a change of clerkship. His employers had +interested themselves in a way not remarkable in employers, towards +securing him a foothold in other and more stable establishments, but +business was slack in the City, and there were no fresh hands wanted +just at present.</p> + +<p>Sidney was not a young man to despair; he let no chance slip, and +disappointment did not relax his efforts. He did not believe that the +time would come and leave him wholly without "a berth." He had faith in +his abilities, and he thought that they would work a way for him +somewhere. And even a week or two "out of work" would not hurt him; he +had saved money, and could pay his fair share towards the household +expenses as well as his father, who kept his place longer than Sidney +had ever believed he would.</p> + +<p>His father was more solicitous than himself; every evening he asked very +anxiously if Sidney had heard of anything in the City, and was not +greatly exhilarated by Sid's careless "Not yet." Things were getting +serious when there was only a week more to spend at the old desk, where +bright hopes had been born and collapsed; Sidney was even becoming +grave, although his company manners were put on before the father, to +keep the old gentleman's mind at ease.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Hinchford's mind was not likely to be at ease at that period; he +was playing a part himself, and disguising his own troubles from his +son, thereby causing a double game at disinterestedness between Sid and +him.</p> + +<p>Three weeks before the son's time had expired at his office, Mr. +Hinchford had received a week's notice to quit. His memory had again +betrayed him, confused the accounts, and put the clerks out, and it was +considered necessary to inform the old gentleman that his services were +not likely to be required any longer. The notice came like a thunderbolt +to Mr. Hinchford, whose belief in his own powers was still strong, and +who had not had the remotest idea that long ago he had been tolerated by +his employers, and set down for a troublesome, pompous, and disputatious +old boy by the whipper-snappers round him. His salary had never been +more than thirty-five shillings a week, and he had put up with it rather +than been grateful for it, looking forward to the future rise of the +Hinchfords above the paltry shillings and pence of every-day routine. He +had not anticipated being turned off—pronounced worn-out in that +service which a Hinchford had patronized.</p> + +<p>The poor old fellow's pride was touched, and he took his adieux and his +last week's salary with a lordly air, looking to the life the gentleman +that he had been once. He expressed no regret at the summary dismissal, +but marched out of the office with his white head thrown a little more +back than usual, and it was only as he neared Chesterfield Terrace that +his courage gave way, and he began to think of the future prospects of +Sid and himself.</p> + +<p>Sid was in trouble, and a little more bad news might be too much for +him. He would try and keep his secret, until Sid had found a good berth +for himself in the City. Affairs were looking desperate, and the +revelation must come, but he could bear it himself, he thought—this +weak old man with no faith in the strong son, whom an avalanche might +affect, little else. Mr. Hinchford took Ann Packet into his confidence, +and impressed her with the necessity of keeping Sid in the dark +concerning the father's absence from business.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell him, Ann, that I keep away from office after he's left—it's +easy for me to make an excuse for an early return, if he come back +before his time. I wouldn't have that boy worried for the world, just +now."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet, who took time to digest matters foreign to her ordinary +business, was some days in comprehending the facts of the case, and then +held counsel with herself as to whether it were expedient to keep Sidney +in ignorance, considering how the old gentleman "went on" during his +son's absence.</p> + +<p>"He'll fret himself to death, and I shall be hanged for not stopping it, +p'raps," she thought.</p> + +<p>Once or twice she took the liberty of intruding into the parlour, and +recommending Mr. Hinchford, senior, to try a walk, or a book, or a visit +to Mr. Wesden; and, startled out of his maunderings, he would make an +effort to follow one of the three counsels, seldom the last, because Mr. +Wesden was Harriet's father, and saw Sid very frequently.</p> + +<p>He took many walks in search of a situation for himself, but the one +refrain was, "Too old," and he began to see that he had overstepped the +boundary, and was scarcely fit for a new place. He almost conceived an +idea—just a foggy one, which, however, he never confessed to his dying +day—that he <i>was</i> a little forgetful at times; for Chesterfield Terrace +lay in a net-work of newly-built streets at the back of the Camberwell +New Road, and he was always taking the wrong turning, and losing +himself. Still it was deep thought about Sid which led him in the wrong +direction—presently his mind would be more composed; Sid would be in a +good place, and he need not have one secret from him.</p> + +<p>The last day came round; Sidney's services were over for good; he had +had a painful parting with his old masters, who had been more than +commonly attached to him, and he came home looking a little grave, +despite the best face on the matter which he had put on at the front +door.</p> + +<p>"Anything new in the City, Sid?" asked the father.</p> + +<p>"No, nothing new," he replied. "What makes you home so early to-day?"</p> + +<p>Sid had turned in before the daylight was over, and found his father +walking up and down the room with his hands behind him.</p> + +<p>"Early?" repeated the old man. "Oh! they're not particularly busy just +now in the Bridge Road. Very slack, I may say."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I suppose so," said Sid, absently.</p> + +<p>"And there's nothing new at all then, Sid?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"You'll keep a stout heart, my boy," said the father, with a cheering +voice, and yet with a lip that quivered in spite of him. "I suppose, +now, you don't feel very dull?"</p> + +<p>"Dull, with my wits about me, and a hundred chances, perhaps, waiting +for me in the City to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you'll have all day to-morrow—I had forgotten that," said Mr. +Hinchford; "to be sure, all day now!"</p> + +<p>Sidney saw that his father was perplexed, even disturbed in mind, but he +set down Mr. Hinchford's embarrassment to the same source as his own +thoughts; he did not know that he had only inherited his unselfishness +from his sire. Or rather, he did not remember, how an unselfish heart, +allied to an unthinking head, had been the cause of the downfall in old +times.</p> + +<p>On the morrow Sidney Hinchford had the day before him, but the result +was bad. He had visited many of the houses heretofore in connection with +the old firm, but luck was against him, and many objected to a clerk +from a house that had collapsed. It had been a fair bankruptcy; one of +those honourable "breaks up" which occur once or twice in a century, and +are more completely break ups from sheer honesty of purpose than cases +which make a "to do" in the Court, and march off with flying colours; +but Sidney represented one of a staff that had come to grief somehow, +and "there was nothing in his way, just at present."</p> + +<p>Three or four days passed like this, and matters were becoming serious +to the Hinchfords—father and son seemed settling down to misfortune, +although the son betrayed no anxiety, and the father's care were for the +hours when the son's back was turned. In fact, Sidney Hinchford was not +quickly dispirited; a little did not seriously affect him, and he went +on doggedly and persistently, making the round of all the great firms +that had had, once upon a time, dealings with his own; abashed seldom, +dispirited never, firmly and stolidly proceeding on his way, and calmly +waiting for the chance that would come in due time.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the father went down to zero immediately the door closed +behind Sidney. He felt that he was not acting fairly by keeping the +secret of his discharge from Sid; but he was waiting for good news, that +might counterbalance the bad which he had to communicate. He knew that +in a day or two, at the utmost, all must come out, but he put off the +evil day to the last—a characteristic weakness—weakness or good +policy, which was it?—that he had adopted ever since there had been +evil days to fret about.</p> + +<p>In the grey afternoon of an April day, he sat alone in his front +parlour, more utterly dispirited than he had been since his wife's +death, years ago. No good fortune had come either to father or son, and +he was inclined to regard things in the future lugubriously; workhouses +and parish funerals not being the least of his fancy sketches. He had +taken his head between his hands, and was brooding very deeply before +the scanty little fire-place, which he intended to heap up with coal a +few minutes before Sidney's expected return, when Ann Packet came into +the room, very confused, and speaking in a hoarse voice.</p> + +<p>"If you please, sir, here's a visitor!"</p> + +<p>"I can't see any visitors, Ann," he answered sharply, "unless—unless +it's any one from——"</p> + +<p>"It's only Mattie, sir; she's come to see you for a moment!"</p> + +<p>"Mattie! bless my soul, has she turned up again?"</p> + +<p>"She turned up at the front door only a minute ago. Lord bless her! You +might have knocked me down with a straw, sir!"</p> + +<p>"I'll see her—show her in."</p> + +<p>Mattie came in the instant afterwards; the hall of the Hinchfords was +not so spacious but that anything spoken in the front room would reach +the ears of one waiting in the passage. She heard the answer, and +entered at once.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mattie, how are you?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty well, I thank you, sir," was returned in the old brisk accents.</p> + +<p>Mattie was not looking pretty well; on the contrary, very pale and thin, +as though anxiety, or hard work, or both, had been her portion since she +had left Great Suffolk Street. She was dressed in black, very neatly +dressed, and possibly the dark trappings had some effect in increasing +the pallor of her countenance.</p> + +<p>"We thought that we had lost you for good, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Was it likely, sir, that I was going to lose sight of all those who had +been kind to me?"</p> + +<p>"You're not looking very well," he said.</p> + +<p>"Ah! we musn't judge by people's looks," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I'm +well enough, thank God! And you, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mattie, thank God, too!"</p> + +<p>"And Sidney, sir!"</p> + +<p>"As brave as ever. I wish he had been at home—he has been anxious to +see you, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"He is very kind," she said, in a low voice, adding, "and what does <i>he</i> +think?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford was not quick in catching a subject upon which Mattie had +brooded now for some months.</p> + +<p>"Think of what?"</p> + +<p>"Of me! Mr. Wesden has—hasn't turned him against me, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! no. He sticks up for you like a champion!"</p> + +<p>"I thought he would. He never spoke ill of any one in his life, and he +always took the part of those who were unfortunate. I was sure he would +not side against me!"</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Mattie, sit down!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, no, sir! I shall never sit down in the house of any one who +has heard ill news of me, until I can clear myself, or time clears me. I +shall never go near Mr. Wesden's, although I feel for all the sorrow +there."</p> + +<p>"You know what has happened, then?"</p> + +<p>"I have put on black, as for a lost mother. I was at the funeral, but +they did not see me. Oh! sir, I know all about you—what should I do +alone in the world, if I didn't think of those who <i>saved</i> me when I was +young?"</p> + +<p>"And what are you doing?"</p> + +<p>"Getting my living by needlework, by artificial flower making, or by +anything that's honest which falls in my way. I keep at work, and hunt +about for work, and there are some good people, I find, who take pity +upon those situated like myself. I'm not afraid, sir, of doing well!"</p> + +<p>"Glad to hear it, Mattie."</p> + +<p>Mattie motioned Ann Packet to retire. Ann, who had been standing in the +doorway all this time, open-mouthed and open-eared, withdrew at the +hint. Mattie advanced and laid her hand upon Mr. Hinchford's arm.</p> + +<p>"He goes there very often—they are engaged!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford, who had always one thought uppermost, understood this at +once—there was no necessity for any nominative cases—"Boy Sid" always +understood!</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But he don't go to business now—the business is over."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"I read it in the paper a lodger lends me sometimes. Mr. Sidney's out of +work!"</p> + +<p>"At present—for a day or two."</p> + +<p>"He has heard of something that will better him?"</p> + +<p>"He will—in a day or two."</p> + +<p>"And you—you're out of work too, sir?"</p> + +<p>"That confounded Ann has told you——"</p> + +<p>"Not a word, sir—but I have had a habit of looking for you, when you +passed the house where I lodged, twice a-day—and I couldn't settle +down, or feel comfortable, until you <i>had</i> passed. And when you did not +come, I knew what had happened."</p> + +<p>"Still full of curiosity, Mattie," said Mr. Hinchford, feeling the tears +in his eyes at this evidence of Mattie's interest in him.</p> + +<p>"Curious about all of you," she said, with a comprehensive gesture; "I +don't feel so far away when I know what has happened, or is happening. +And wanting to know the worst, or the best of everything, I come like an +inquisitive little body, as I have always been, to take you by surprise +like this!"</p> + +<p>"But—but, my good girl, I can't tell you that we're very lucky just +now. But Sid must not hear that I am getting very uncomfortable, and +becoming less able to bear up as I ought to do, just to keep him strong, +do you see? And if all goes on like this much longer, both out of work, +what will become of us? Oh! dear, dear, dear!—what a miserable old man +I've been to him and myself, and everybody! Oh! to be comfortably out of +the world, and a burden to no one!"</p> + +<p>"Sir," said Mattie, earnestly, "a blessing to some. Don't you remember +when you were stronger, being a blessing to me—you, my first friend! +And don't you know that you're a blessing to that good son of yours, and +that he thinks so, and loves you as he ought to do? You mustn't make him +unhappy by giving way at this time."</p> + +<p>"I don't give way before him, that's not likely. Strong as a rock, +child!"</p> + +<p>The rock shook and trembled from summit to base, but Mattie did not +smile at the contrast which his words suggested.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing for him now, sitting here, Mr. Hinchford, and trying +to <i>look</i> your best?"</p> + +<p>"Doing?—what can I do?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I have been thinking about, sir. When I'm at the +flower-making—which I'm learning in over-time, because it don't pay +just yet—I get, oh! such lots of time to think."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford always forgot disparity of age, and was content to be +taught by Mattie, and receive advice from her. He wondered at it +afterwards, but never when the spell of her presence was on him, when +her young vigorous mind overpowered his weak efforts to rebel.</p> + +<p>"Well, I have thought that Mr. Wesden, being a little—just a +little—suspicious, would soon object to the engagement, if Mr. Sidney +kept out of work too long. I can't say, for I don't perhaps understand +Mr. Wesden, but it has been my idea; and oh! sir, they are so suited to +each other, Harriet and he!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he said again, "I don't think that Mr. Wesden's likely to +object—but go on."</p> + +<p>"And when I heard that the firm had failed, I began to wonder what he +would do; for places are hard to get, even when one's clever now-a-days, +and <i>has</i> a character to back him. And I wanted to ask you if you had +thought of your brother, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Why—what do you know of my brother?"</p> + +<p>"He came one night to Great Suffolk Street to see you—don't you +remember? I knew him by his likeness to yourself, before I saw his name +upon his card."</p> + +<p>"My brother!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford gave a tug to his stock; it had not struck him before, and +its very absurdity rather amused him. His brother, who turned a deaf ear +to his own plaints, when misfortune was fresh upon him—when that +brother's help might have saved him, as he thought, from all the +troubles and adversities which had oppressed him since their bitter +quarrel.</p> + +<p>"And he's a rich man—I have been asking about him—he's a banker, sir, +and keeps a great many hands."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know," he said impatiently; "but it's no good. I wouldn't +ask a favour of him for the world. If it hadn't been for him, my old age +would not be like this!"</p> + +<p>"He's an old man—perhaps he's altered very much," suggested Mattie; "he +might know something that would suit Mr. Sidney."</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of him again," Mr. Hinchford said, with some severity.</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir," was the sad response; "then I'll go now."</p> + +<p>"Will you not wait till Sid comes back?—I'm sure he——"</p> + +<p>"No, no, sir—I would rather not see him—I am pressed for time, and +have a great deal to do when I get back. There's one thing more I came +for, sir."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to try and remember a letter which you gave me, when I went +away from Great Suffolk Street."</p> + +<p>"A letter—a letter—let me see!"</p> + +<p>The old gentleman evidently did not remember anything about a letter; no +letter had seen the light, or all had been explained between Harriet and +Sidney, and the course of true love was running smoothly to the end. So +much the better; it was as well to say no more about it, Mattie thought. +If the letter were lost, the old gentleman might only create suspicion +by alluding to it upon Sidney's return; Mattie did not know how far to +trust him.</p> + +<p>She went away a few minutes afterwards, stopping for awhile to exchange +greetings with Ann Packet, to whom she gave her address—a back street +in Southwark Bridge Road—after much adjuration.</p> + +<p>"You won't mind me, my dear," said Ann, "now you're settled down to +something—but, oh! dear, how thin you've got. You've been fretting all +the flesh off your precious bones."</p> + +<p>"I haven't fretted much, Ann," was Mattie's answer; "you know I never +liked to do anything but make the best of it. And I've not tried in +vain—all will come right again—I'm sure of it!"</p> + +<p>"And the worst is over—ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure, the very worst. And now don't tell my address to +anyone—not to Mr. Sidney or Miss Harriet especially."</p> + +<p>"But Miss Harriet——"</p> + +<p>"Will only offend her father by coming to see <i>me</i>—you, Ann, won't +offend any one very much."</p> + +<p>"Only a poor stray like yourself, Mattie—am I?"</p> + +<p>"And our hearts don't stray very far from those we have loved, Ann—and +never will."</p> + +<p>"Ah! she talks like a book almost—the sight of learning that that child +got hold on, and the deal of good she does a body," muttered Ann, +looking after Mattie through the misty twilight stealing up the street.</p> + +<p>"For every one her liked, and every one her loved," wrote Spenser, ages +ago, of his heroine—Ann Packet might have quoted the same words, +barring all thoughts of Mr. Wesden, whom the force of events had turned +aside from Mattie.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford liked Mattie; her presence had brightened him up, given a +shake to ideas that had been rusting of late.</p> + +<p>"She's a quick girl," he muttered, "but she has the most foolish and +out-of-the-way thoughts. How she disturbs one—I meant to have asked her +seriously, and yet kindly, why she stopped out all night, and offended +Mr. Wesden. Odd I should forget that—I don't generally let things slip +my memory in that ridiculous fashion. And about that man who called +himself her father—why, I forgot that, too!—God bless me! A curious +girl—my brother, indeed!—my hard-hearted and unsympathetic brother!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVC" id="CHAPTER_IVC"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>HIS TURN!</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Hinchford did not forget the foolish and out-of-the-way thought of +Mattie's. It has been already said that his memory was retentive enough +in all things that affected his son's welfare, and the new suggestion +kept his mind busy as the days stole on, and Sidney brought back his +cheerful face but no good news with him.</p> + +<p>The old man's pride had kept him aloof from the brother for many years; +he had been hurt by that brother's coldness, and he had resolved to show +that he was able to work his own way in life, without that assistance +which he had once solicited. He had kept his word; for his own sake it +had been easy, but, for his son's, there was a temptation he could +scarcely withstand. There might be a chance, there might not be; in his +heart, he thought the odds were against Sid. He did not set much value +upon the brother's visit to Great Suffolk Street; it might have been +curiosity, or a spasm of affection which had rendered him eccentric for +a day; he remembered his brother simply as a hard, inflexible being who, +having formed an opinion, closed upon it with a snap, and was ever after +that immovable. Still for Sidney's sake he thought at last that he would +try. It should not be said of him that he neglected one chance to +benefit his son, or that his pride stood in the way of Sid's +advancement—that queer girl, whom he could scarcely make out, should +not say that he had not done his best for Sidney.</p> + +<p>He dressed himself in his best suit one day, seized his stick, and +marched down to Camberwell Green, whence he took the omnibus to the +City. Sidney had again departed in quest of "something"—on a visit to +the news-rooms to search the papers there—and Mr. Hinchford was +following in his wake shortly afterwards.</p> + +<p>He had a nervous fear that he should meet Sidney in the City, at first, +but the crowd which surrounded him there assured him that that event was +not likely to ensue. He had not been in the City for many years and the +place alarmed him; he almost guessed how weak and nervous he had become +when he struggled with the mob of money-hunters in King William Street, +and found it hard to fight against.</p> + +<p>"All these hunting for places in one shape or another," he thought, +"looking but for the best chance, and greedy of any one who gets in the +way, and seems likely to deprive them of it, or add to their expenses. +Why, where's all the places that hold these men and keep my Sid doing +nothing?"</p> + +<p>He turned into the narrow lanes branching out of the great thoroughfare +leading to the Bank, and proceeded without any difficulty to the +banking-house of his brother Geoffry. His memory was not in fault here; +every short cut through the shady by-ways of the City he took by +instinct—he had banked with his brother in days gone by, and it was +like retracing his youthful steps to find himself once more in these old +streets.</p> + +<p>Before the swing glass doors of a quiet, old-fashioned banking-house he +paused, changed the stick from his right hand to his left, gave a little +tug to his stock, changed hands again with his stick, finally crossed +over the way, and set his back against the dingy wall opposite. The +pride which had held him aloof so long from his brother rose up again, +that ruling passion which a struggling life had circumscribed. He became +very red in the face, and looked almost fiercely at the banking-house in +front of him. He felt that his brother would say "No" again, and the +humiliation in store he should have courted by his own folly. But +Sidney?—possibly Sidney might be of service there, and room found for +him, if he asked; and if not; still, for Sidney's sake, he must attempt +it—courage and forward!</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford nerved himself to the task, crossed the road, and went up +the steps into the bank. They were busy before and behind the counters +there; money was being shovelled in and out of drawers; cheques were +flying across the counter; there was the stir and bustle of a +first-class banking-house before him; everybody was talking, whispering, +studying, and thinking of money; what room for any sentiment in that +place from nine till four?</p> + +<p>He took his place by the counter, waiting to address one of the clerks +at the first convenient opportunity that might present itself; he was in +no hurry; he wished to collect his thoughts, and arrange his plan of +action; and instead of arranging any plan, he looked at the clerks, and +thought Sidney Hinchford might as well have a place behind that counter +as not—and how well he would look there, and what a good place for him +it would be!</p> + +<p>He stood there for a considerable time, until his presence began to +oppress a bald-headed young man at the third desk, an energetic young +man of uncivil appearance—soured in life perhaps, by his hair coming +off so early—who, in the hurry of business, had taken little notice of +Mr. Hinchford until then.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford objected to abruptness, and felt it hard to be snubbed by +his brother's clerk to begin with. He reddened a little, and said that +he wished to see Mr. Hinchford directly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hinchford!" the clerk repeated; "oh! you can't see either of +<i>them</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Just ask, young man, and don't answer for your master!"</p> + +<p>"If it's anything about an account, Mr. Maurice will, if you've a proper +introduction, at——"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Maurice will not do, sir!" cried Mr. Hinchford; "go and tell my +brother directly that I wish to see him, if you please."</p> + +<p>There was some pride in claiming brotherhood with the banker, even under +the difficulties before him; the effect upon the uncivil bank clerk—why +are bank clerks uncivil in the aggregate?—was bewildering; he stared at +Mr. Hinchford, detected the likeness at once, and backed from the +counter on the instant. Mr. Hinchford saw no more of him—he was +beginning to think that his message had not been delivered after all, +when a young man behind touched him on the arm.</p> + +<p>"Will you please to step this way?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford turned, followed the usher to the end of the +counting-house, passed through a room, where two or three gentlemen were +busily writing, went through another door into a larger room, where one +old gentleman—very like himself—was seated in all the divinity that +doth hedge a principal.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, James," was the banker's first remark, nodding his head +familiarly in his brother's direction.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Geoffry."</p> + +<p>And then there was a pause; the two men who had parted in anger nearly +twenty-six years ago, and had not met since, looked at each other +somewhat curiously. It was a strange meeting, and a strange commencement +thereto, a little affected on the part of the banker, the senior by +eight years. In the same room together, the likeness between them was +singularly apparent—the height, figure, features, even the scanty crop +of white hair, were all identical; but in the senior's face there was +expressed a vigour and determination, which in Sid's father was wholly +wanting. Geoffry Hinchford was still the cool, calculating man of +business, who let no chance slip, and who fought for his chances, and +held his place with younger men.</p> + +<p>There was no sentiment in the meeting of the brothers, and yet each was +moved and touched by the changes time had made. They had parted in the +prime of life, stalwart, handsome men, and they came face to face in +their senility.</p> + +<p>"Take a seat," said Geoffry Hinchford, indicating one with the feather +of the quill pen he held in his hand.</p> + +<p>The brother took a chair with a grave inclination of the head, and then +crossed his hands upon his stick, and began to evidence a little of that +nervousness that had beset him before he entered the banking-house. +Geoffry Hinchford's keen eyes detected this, and he hastened to avoid +one of those scenes which he had confessed to his nephew he hated, when +he made his first and last call in Great Suffolk Street.</p> + +<p>"You have been walking fast, James; will you look at the <i>Times</i> a bit, +and compose yourself. <i>That's</i> the money article."</p> + +<p>He passed the paper over to his brother, and then began making a few +entries in a small pocket volume before him—a hybrid book, with a lock +and key. Mr. Hinchford turned the paper over in his hands, inspected the +money article upside down, and appeared interested in it from that point +of view—gave a furtive tug to his stock, which he was sure Sid, who +always buttoned it, had taken in a hole too much, and then mustered up +courage to begin the subject which had brought him thither.</p> + +<p>"Geoffry, it's six-and-twenty years or so since I sat in this very place +and asked a favour of you."</p> + +<p>"Ah! thereabouts," responded Geoffry from over his private volume.</p> + +<p>"Which was refused," added the old gentleman.</p> + +<p>"Of course it was."</p> + +<p>"Ahem."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford cleared his throat with some violence. He did not like +this method of receiving his first remarks; it warmed his blood after +the old fashion, and, what was better, it cleared off his nervousness.</p> + +<p>"One would think that I had got over asking favours of a brother who had +proved himself so hard——"</p> + +<p>"No," interrupted Geoffry, "not hard—but go on."</p> + +<p>"And yet I am here again to ask a second favour, and chance as curt a +denial."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I did hope, James, that you were here to say 'I was in the wrong to +take myself off in a huff, because my brother would not let me fling +some of his money after my own,' or, at least to say, 'Glad to see you, +Geoffry, and hope to see you more often after this,'—but <i>favours</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Not for myself, sir," said Mr. Hinchford, hastily; "don't mistake me—I +wouldn't ask a favour for myself to save my life."</p> + +<p>"I would to save a shilling; I often do."</p> + +<p>"That is the difference between us," Mr. Hinchford answered.</p> + +<p>"Exactly the difference. Pray proceed, Jem."</p> + +<p>The younger brother softened at the old appellative; he composed his +ruffled feathers, and went at it more submissively.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Geoffry, I ask a favour for my son. His firm has dissolved +partnership——"</p> + +<p>"What firm was it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford told him.</p> + +<p>"Smashed, you mean—bad management somewhere—go on."</p> + +<p>"And he, who would have been made partner in his twenty-first birthday, +has now to begin the world afresh. I thought that you might know of +something suitable for him, and would, remembering our common name, do +something for him."</p> + +<p>"He's a tetchy young gentleman—what I remember of him, in a flying +visit. Who the deuce can he take after, I wonder?" and the banker +appeared to cudgel his brains with his pen, as if lost in perplexity as +to any trait in the Hinchfords identical with "tetchiness." The father +did not detect the irony—perhaps would not at that juncture.</p> + +<p>"Well," said the banker, "what general abilities has he?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford burst forth at once. The wrongs of the past were +forgotten; the theme was a pleasant one; the abilities of his son were +manifold; he could testify to them for the next two hours, if a patient +listener were found him. He launched forth into a list of Sid's +accomplishments, and grew eloquent upon his son's genius for figures, +adaptability for commercial pursuits, his energy, and industry in all +things, at all times and seasons.</p> + +<p>"This lad ought to be governor of the Bank of England," Geoffry +Hinchford broke in with, "there's nothing suitable for such +extraordinary accomplishments here. I can only place him at the bottom +of the clerks, with a salary of a hundred and twenty to begin with."</p> + +<p>"Geoffry, you're very kind," ejaculated his brother; "you mean that—you +will really do something for us, after all?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you vexatious and frivolous old man," cried the banker, +exasperated at last, "I would have always helped you in my own way, if +you had not been so thoroughly set upon my helping you in yours. You +were hot-headed, and I was ill-tempered and <i>raspish</i>, and so we +quarrelled, and you—you, my only brother—sulked with me for six and +twenty years. For shame, sir!"</p> + +<p>The banker evinced a little excitement here; he tossed his pen aside and +beat his thin fingers on the book; he spoke his mind out, and amazed his +brother sitting at a little distance from him.</p> + +<p>"Geoffry—I—I didn't sulk exactly. But you were a rich man, and I was +left poor; and if you remember, when I came here last I——"</p> + +<p>"If I listen any more to that story, I'm damned!" cried the banker; +"it's dangerous ground, and if we get upon it, we shall begin sparring +again. Now, sir—look here."</p> + +<p>He stood up, and began laying down the law with the fingers of his right +hand in the palm of his left.</p> + +<p>"I swallowed my pride by coming to Great Suffolk Street in search of +you—that was my turn. We were to sink the past, and be friends, I +thought; we two foolish old septuagenarians, with nothing to quarrel +about. You swallowed your pride—a larger pill than mine, Jem, for it +nearly choked you in the attempt—by coming here, and now it's your +turn—eh?"</p> + +<p>He held forth both his hands suddenly towards his brother, who answered +the appeal by placing his own within them, and holding them in a nervous +trembling grasp.</p> + +<p>"Amen!" said the banker; and the younger and weaker man understood what +he meant, and felt the tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"And now, I have heard a great deal of your son—you shall see mine."</p> + +<p>He left his brother, touched a hand-bell, and a servant immediately +responded.</p> + +<p>"Ask Mr. Maurice to step here a moment."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Exit servant; enter very quickly a tall young man of about thirty years +of age, fresh-coloured, well formed, with curly brown hair, and a long +brown moustache, "making tracks," as the Americans say, for his +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Maurice, here's your obstinate uncle come to see us at last."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see <i>you</i>, sir—I think the difference has lasted long +enough."</p> + +<p>Uncle and nephew shook hands—Mr. Hinchford thought this nephew was a +fine young fellow enough—not like his Sid, but a very passable and +presentable young fellow notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>"We're going to try your cousin as a clerk, Maurice. Any objection?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least," was the ready answer.</p> + +<p>"We shall not claim relationship over the ledgers," intimated Geoffry +Hinchford; "if he's clever, he'll get on—if he's a fool, he'll get the +sack. And we don't expect him, after the general fashion of relations, +to cry out, 'See how my uncle and cousin are serving me, their own flesh +and blood, by not lifting me over the heads of the staff, and making my +fortune at once!'"</p> + +<p>"Sid wants no favours, sir," said Mr. Hinchford, sharply.</p> + +<p>"After office hours we shall remember that he's a Hinchford, perhaps," +said the banker. "Send him when you like, James."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, Geoffry, if you will."</p> + +<p>"He's sure to come, I suppose?" asked his brother. "Is he aware of your +visit here to-day?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Ah! then it's doubtful, I think. By Gad! I shan't forget in a hurry his +sermon to me, and his flourish of trumpets over his own independence."</p> + +<p>"He will come, sir, I think."</p> + +<p>"Out of place makes a difference," remarked the banker; "we shall see. +And now, what can I do for you, James?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! nothing, nothing," he said hastily; "I ask no favours for +myself—I'm doing well, thank you—very well indeed! Where's my stick +and hat? I—I think I'll bid you good morning now, Geoffry."</p> + +<p>"I shall see you again, I daresay—I can always send a message to you by +your son, who will be here to-morrow, perhaps. Good-bye, old +fellow—Maurice, see to your uncle."</p> + +<p>Maurice Hinchford, noticing the feeble steps of the new relation, +offered his arm, which was declined by a hasty shake of the head.</p> + +<p>"I'm strong enough, sir—but the meeting has upset me just a little. +Geoffry," turning back to address his brother, "we won't say anything +more about that old affair—I think you meant well, after all."</p> + +<p>"I hope I did. Good day."</p> + +<p>"Good day, brother."</p> + +<p>Maurice closed the door behind his uncle.</p> + +<p>"He's getting quite the old man," said Mr. Hinchford to his nephew; "he +had an iron nerve once. He seems very feeble to me—does he enjoy good +health?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! first rate health—he's a strong man for his age, Mr. Hinchford. +Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he is. You can't expect him like myself, eight years younger +than he."</p> + +<p>"Well, no," said the nephew, drily.</p> + +<p>"He ought not to worry himself about business at his age—why, I have +given it up myself," he added.</p> + +<p>"Oh! indeed!"</p> + +<p>Business had given him up; but the old man did not think of it that +moment. He was anxious to show the Hinchfords in the best light +possible, lest Sid should be looked down upon too much when he came to +his new berth.</p> + +<p>"And your father must feel the cares of business a little?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said Maurice; "he wouldn't be happy out of the bank! He's +strong and well, thank God, and one of the best-hearted men and fathers +in the world. Too good a father, by half, for that matter!"</p> + +<p>"How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! it's difficult to explain," was the answer of the nephew, whose +cheeks flushed a little at the question; "you'll excuse me now, uncle. +Through here and straight across the office—good day."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with Mr. Hinchford, and left him at the door of the inner +office which the old gentleman had passed through half an hour since, +less hopeful of good fortune in store for the Boy!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VC" id="CHAPTER_VC"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>"THE NEW BERTH."</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Hinchford scarcely maintained an equable demeanour until Sidney's +return; the burden of good news was almost too much for him, and just to +wile away the time, and experience the blessed privilege of telling a +good story twice, he found out Ann Packet and enlightened her as to the +new chance that was presented to Sid.</p> + +<p>When Sidney returned, and informed his father that there was no news, +Mr. Hinchford bade him not despair, for good luck was sure to turn up in +one direction or another.</p> + +<p>"Despair!" cried Sidney, cheerfully; "why, I haven't dreamed of +despairing yet! Is it likely?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you some bad news, Sid?"</p> + +<p>"Out with it!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford detailed his dismissal from service at the builder's +office. Sidney looked a little discomfited at first, but clapped his +father on the shoulder heartily.</p> + +<p>"We can bear it—you and I together. You'll be better away from +business, and have your health better. I shall be strong enough for the +two of us, sir."</p> + +<p>"Good lad—but if nothing turns up."</p> + +<p>"Oh! but it will!"</p> + +<p>"And, oh! but it has!" cried the father; "now for the good news, Sid, +which I have been keeping back till it has nearly burst me."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hinchford exploded with his confession, and Sidney listened not +unmoved at it. In his heart he had grown dispirited, though not +despondent, and the news was grateful to him, and took a load therefrom +which had seemed to become a little heavier every day. He would have +preferred a clerkship away from his relation's office; but his pride was +not so great as his common sense, and he saw the advantages which might +accrue to him from an earnest application to business. He remembered, +with a slight feeling of discomfort, his past hauteur to the man from +whom he now accepted service; but he had had a fall since then, and the +hopes of that time—with one bright exception—had been bubble-blown, +and met the fate of bubbles. He had been too sanguine; now he was +matter-of-fact, and must proceed coolly to work. He had ten years to +work in—what would be the end of them? His heart had sunk a little; +upon cool reflection he began to doubt whether he had acted well in +confiscating the affections of one to whom he might never be able to +offer a home.</p> + +<p>Still he judged Harriet Wesden by himself, and judged her rightly. If +she loved him for himself, she would not care what money he brought her; +and if his affection were selfish, knowing what an end to a love story +his life must be, he had concealed nothing from her, and the truth had +only drawn her closer to him. He felt that that was his one hope, and he +could not be magnanimous enough to insist upon its dissolution, and of +the unfitness of his prospects to her own. When the time came round and +left him penniless; or when he saw, three or four years hence, that +there was no chance of saving money, and he remained still the clerk +with an income that increased not, it would be time to resign her—not +now, when she loved him, and he was happy in her smiles, and understood +her, as he thought, so well.</p> + +<p>He entered upon his novitiate at his uncle's banking-house; his father +had not reiterated the hint which Geoffry Hinchford had given him about +relationship, but Sid was a young man who knew his place, and who kept +it, and rather shunned his relations than forced himself upon them.</p> + +<p>Uncle and nephew proved themselves very different beings to what Sidney +had imagined; they were kind to him in their way—they were even anxious +he should do the family name credit; they watched his progress, and were +quick enough to see that he would prove a valuable and energetic +auxiliary.</p> + +<p>Geoffry Hinchford was pleased at his nephew's reticence, and took note +of it as he had taken note of most things during his earthly pilgrimage. +He even condescended to give him a little advice in the shape of a +warning one day.</p> + +<p>"Sidney," he said, when chance brought them together in that bank back +parlour, "how do you like your cousin Maurice for a master?"</p> + +<p>"He is very kind to me."</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's it—that's his fault. When I'm gone, I have a fear that he +will make a muddle of the bank with his easiness. He's the best son that +ever lived, I think, but he's too easy."</p> + +<p>Sidney did not consider himself warranted in replying to this.</p> + +<p>"So take my advice, Sidney, and steer clear of him as much as you can," +he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't think that the advice is needed, sir. Our position—"</p> + +<p>"Fiddle-de-dee—he never cared for position, and, unfortunately, he's +taken a fancy to you. The scamp wanted to double your salary yesterday, +without any rhyme or reason, only relationship. Foolish, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't deserve any increase of salary yet, sir—it has not been +fairly earned," was the frank answer.</p> + +<p>"Exactly—now listen to me. I think it is just possible that Mr. Maurice +may forget that your salary is small, and that you have a father to +keep. Let me tell you that he is an expensive acquaintance, and a little +removed from your sphere."</p> + +<p>"I know it, sir."</p> + +<p>"Some day it may be different—we can't tell what may happen, but take +care of him for awhile. A noble young fellow, a good business man in +business hours, but not calculated to improve your mercantile abilities +by a closer acquaintance."</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford considered the warning somewhat of a strange one, and +even for awhile did his uncle the half-injustice to believe that he +spoke more in fear of Maurice "lowering" himself, than on account of his +nephew forming expensive acquaintances. But Sid soon found the warning +worth attending to. It happened, at times, that Sidney Hinchford had +extra work after the bank was closed, and the majority of clerks had +departed. His cousin Maurice, who always remained long after his father +had gone—he rented apartments in London, whilst his father went off by +train every afternoon to Red-Hill—did occasionally, in the early days +of their acquaintance, come to Sid's desk and watch his labours for a +few minutes, very intently.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with yourself to-night, Sidney?"</p> + +<p>"I am going home, Mr. Maurice."</p> + +<p>"Come and dine with me at my club, and take pity upon my loneliness."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—but my father will be expecting me home."</p> + +<p>"Oh! the governor can't expect you, at your age, to be always turning up +to five o'clock teas."</p> + +<p>"You must excuse me, if you please."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you'll give me one plain answer to the next question, I won't +press it."</p> + +<p>"I'll give it you."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there a young lady your way, as well as the governor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the quick answer.</p> + +<p>"By Jove! if I didn't think so. Ah! you're a gay deceiver, Sidney, after +the bank doors have closed upon you."</p> + +<p>On another occasion, and under similar circumstances, he said, in a +quick, abrupt way, that almost bordered on embarrassment—</p> + +<p>"Has your father any property of his own?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Your salary supports yourself and him entirely?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and leaves something to spare."</p> + +<p>Maurice whistled, took up a lead pencil on Sidney's desk, and began +scribbling with it on his finger nails. Suddenly he laid the pencil +down, saying—</p> + +<p>"Oh! that's a thundering sight too bad, old fellow!—we're all +Hinchfords, and must alter that. How are you going to marry?—and when?"</p> + +<p>"In the usual fashion—and in ten years' time."</p> + +<p>"That's an engagement that will never come to anything, then."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Because long engagements seldom do—and no man, to my fancy, has a +right to tie a girl down to such horrible agreements."</p> + +<p>"It can't be helped, Maurice," said Sid, a little sadly.</p> + +<p>"I'd start in some business. Are you too proud for trade?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care about retail—selling ha'porths of something across the +counter, wearing white aprons, and so on," replied Sidney; "it's very +wrong of me, but it's the Hinchford pride that bars the way, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Try wholesale on a small scale, as a start—the old tea business, for +instance."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think that I am fit for this, Mr. Maurice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it takes time to rise, and you mean marrying. Now, to my +fancy, you are a man who would do better in commerce."</p> + +<p>"Ah! but then there's capital to sink by way of a beginning."</p> + +<p>"I can lend you a thousand pounds—a couple of thousands. I'm a very +saving man, Sidney—I'm as certain that you would pay me back again as +that I'm standing here."</p> + +<p>"You're very kind," murmured Sidney, taken aback by this liberal offer; +"but—but, it can't be done."</p> + +<p>"Borrow it from my father and me—as your bankers, if you will. My +father will not say no to it, I fancy—and if he does, why, there's the +other resource just alluded to."</p> + +<p>Sidney was still bewildered, and at a loss to account for the offer. For +an instant he was even tempted; there rose before him the one chance of +his life, the happiness of his life with Harriet, forestalled by +years—and then he put his hands out, as though to push all dangerous +thoughts away.</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you—" he said; "but when I speculate, it must be with +my own money. I will not start in life burdened by a heavy debt. You're +very kind—far too kind to me, sir."</p> + +<p>"A Hinchford—I never forget that. You don't know how proud I am of my +family, and all its belongings. And, joking apart, Sidney, we really are +a fine family, every one of us! And you'll not—well, subject postponed, +<i>sine die</i>; the bank isn't such a bad place, and we shall give a lift to +your salary when you deserve it. Not before, mind," he added, with a +seriousness that made Sidney smile, who remembered the anecdote related +by the senior partner.</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford was touched by his rich cousin's efforts to promote his +interests, by his frankness, his <i>bonhomie</i>. Though he held himself +aloof from him, yet he respected, even admired him. There was not a man +in the banking-office who did not admire Mr. Maurice Hinchford; he had a +good word for even the porter; he treated his servants liberally; he was +always ready to promote their interests; the cares of money-making, and +taking care of other people's money, had never soured his temper, or +brought a dark look to his face.</p> + +<p>This was the father's anxiety, that Maurice was too easy—that nothing +put him out of temper, or chased away the smiles from his good-looking +countenance; the banker was glad to see his son happy, but he did wish +now and then that Maurice had looked at life less frivolously, and been +more staid and sober in his ways. The banker was glad to see him +generous—although, if the fit seized him, Maurice was a trifle too +liberal with his cheques, for natural wants, bequests, and monuments; +but he was not a spendthrift, and even put money by, from the princely +share of the profits which he received twice a year.</p> + +<p>Certainly it would have been difficult for a single man to run through +it without sheer gambling at green tables, or on green turfs; and +Maurice Hinchford never betted on the red and black, and hated horsy +people. He spent all the money a man <i>could</i> honestly get through; he +fared sumptuously every day, and dressed figuratively in purple and fine +linen; it was his boast that he had the best of everything around him, +and anything second-rate had been his abomination from a child; he was a +Sybarite, to whom luck had been wafted, and he enjoyed life, and cared +not for the morrow, on the true Sybarite principle. But he was not a +proud man; he was fastidious in a few things—young ladies of his circle +generally, and the mothers of those young ladies especially, thought him +<i>much</i> too fastidious—but he was a man whom men and women of all +classes liked, and whom his servants idolized.</p> + +<p>It was no wonder that his pleasant manners had their effect upon Sidney, +who had found few of his own sex to admire in the world, and who knew +that the man of whose energy everyone spoke well was of his own kith and +kin. He held himself aloof, knowing that his ways were not Maurice's +ways. When the rich cousin once asked why he so rigidly refused every +offer to join him at his club, to make one of a little party at the +opera, sharing his box with him, and put to no expense save a dress-coat +and white choker, he confessed the reason in his old straightforward +manner.</p> + +<p>"You're too well-off for me—I can't be your companion, and I'll not be +patronized and play the toady. It looks bad in business here, and it +will look worse apart from it."</p> + +<p>"You're a regular stoic!"</p> + +<p>After awhile Mr. Geoffry Hinchford again asked his nephew what he +thought of Maurice.</p> + +<p>"A warm-hearted and a generous man, whom I am proud to think is a cousin +of mine."</p> + +<p>"Yes—just as you say. And very proud I am, too, to think that this +dashing handsome young fellow is a son of mine. He has all the virtues +except one, under heaven, Sidney."</p> + +<p>"We're not all perfect, sir," said Sidney, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but you are, according to my brother James—he won't see even a +flaw in your armour," said the old banker, acrimoniously; "but then he +always was aggravating me with something or other—and now it's you."</p> + +<p>"I hope not, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, only in one sense of the word. And Maurice has, after all, +but a little foible, which the world—the real, material world—always +makes allowance for. He will grow out of it. Good evening."</p> + +<p>Sidney did not inquire concerning Maurice Hinchford's foibles, little or +otherwise—he knew that foibles were common to humanity, and that +humanity is lenient respecting them. He did not believe that there was +any great wrong likely to affect the brilliancy of Maurice Hinchford's +character—he would be content to resemble his cousin, he thought, if he +were ever a rich man like unto him, an honest, amiable English +gentleman.</p> + +<p>Sidney did not covet his cousin's riches, however; he knew that fortune +was not reserved for him, and if he were scarcely content with his lot +in life, he was at least thankful for all mercies that had been +vouchsafed to him, though he kept his thanks to himself for the greater +part.</p> + +<p>"If he were scarcely content!" we have said, for Sidney was ambitious of +rising by his own merits in the world; a laudable ambition, for which we +need not upbraid him. He was careful of his money, a characteristic from +his boyhood, a trait that his father, who had been never careful, took +great pains to develop. He sank his pride completely for the sake of +saving money, and he did save a little, despite the small income, the +housekeeping expenditure, and his father to support. On Saturday nights +he toiled home from the cheapest market with a huge bag of groceries, to +the disgust of the suburban tea-dealer—who wanted a hundred per cent. +profit on an indifferent article—and walked with his head rather higher +in the air than usual when heavily laden.</p> + +<p>"When I can afford it, the goods shall be brought to my door," he said, +when his father once urged a faint remonstrance; "but I can't study +appearances on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Those fellow-clerks of +mine can drop my acquaintance on a Saturday night, and pass by on the +other side, if they are inclined. I shall carry my big parcels and exult +in my independence all the same."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the look of the thing, Sid."</p> + +<p>"We'll study that some day, if we have the chance. <i>We must keep our +eyes open</i>, till the chance comes."</p> + +<p>"I did think once that you had all the Hinchford pride in you, Sid."</p> + +<p>"I have a fair share, sir," was the answer, "and I never feel prouder +than when I am carrying my plethoric bag under my arm. Proud of myself, +and of the property I have invested in."</p> + +<p>"Then I don't see why I should complain."</p> + +<p>"You—to be sure not. Put on your hat, and let us go round to Mr. +Wesden's, and make up our whist party."</p> + +<p>And in this quiet way—winding up the evenings with whist-playing and +love-making—the time stole on.</p> + + +<h3>END OF BOOK THE FOURTH.</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_V" id="BOOK_V"></a>BOOK V.</h2> + +<h3>STORM SIGNALS.</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_ID" id="CHAPTER_ID"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>CAST DOWN.</h3> + + +<p>Meanwhile Mattie, the stray, must absorb our attention for awhile. In +following the fortunes of the Hinchfords, we have omitted to watch +closely the progress of our heroine. Yes, our heroine—if we have not +called attention to that fact before—and with many first-class +"heroinical" qualities, which would do credit to the high-born damsels +of our old-fashioned novels. She had been heroine enough to make a +sacrifice for Harriet Wesden; to take an unfair share of blame for +Harriet's sake, and, therefore, she ranks as "first-lady" in this +romance of business-life. She had made the sacrifice of her good +name—for it amounted to that—with a sharp struggle; but then she would +have given up her life for those to whom her better nature had taught +her to be grateful. The girl's love for all who had rescued her from the +evil of the past was ever intense, led her to strange actions, kept her +hovering in the distance round the friends she had had once. Hers was a +nature strangely susceptible to affection, and that affection was not +uprooted because ill-report set its stigma upon her. Hers was a +forgiving nature, also, and she thought even kindly of Mr. Wesden when +the first shock was over, and she had judged him by that true character +which she understood so well.</p> + +<p>In her new estate Mattie was not happy; she was alone in the world, and +we know that she was partial to society, and not always disinclined to +hear the sound of her own musical voice. But she was not disconsolate; +she made the best of her bad bargain, and set to work, in her humble +way, with something of that doggedness of purpose, for which her friend +Sidney was remarkable. She had struggled hard for a living, but had +never given way. She had met obstacles in her path, which would have +crushed the energy out of most women, but which she surmounted, not +without wounds and loss of strength, and even health, and then went on +again. She was matter-of-fact and honest, and those who had doubted her +at first—for she had chosen her dwelling-place but a very little way +from Great Suffolk Street, and the rumours of a lying tongue followed +her, and set her neighbours and fellow-lodgers against her—soon +understood her, for the poor are great observers and good judges of +character.</p> + +<p>In the poor neighbourhood wherein she had settled down, she asked for +advice as to the best method of leading an honest life, and received it +from her landlady. She turned dress-maker, and when customers came not +with a grand rush to Tenchester Street, she asked if she might learn her +landlady's business, artificial flower-making, and offered her services +gratuitously, until it pleased her mistress to see that she was the +handiest "help" she possessed. Then her health failed, for she worked +hard, lived hard, and had hard thoughts to contend with; and when the +doctor told her sedentary pursuits would not agree with her, she went a +step lower for awhile, and even sold play-bills at the doors of a minor +theatre to keep the wolf from <i>her</i> door.</p> + +<p>Mattie had one fear of seeing her money melt away to the last farthing, +and being left in the world penniless and friendless, as in the days of +her desolate childhood. She had no fear of temptation besetting her in +her poverty—for ever she was above that—but she did not wish to die +poor, to seek the workhouse, or to be reminded in any way of her past +estate. She <i>would</i> be above that; she was ever hoping to show Mr. +Wesden that she was honest and respected, she struggled vehemently +against the tide, and earned her own living at least, varying the mode +very often as her quick wits suggested; but never idle, and rising or +sinking with the seasons, as they proved fair or sharp ones with the +working classes.</p> + +<p>It had been a fair season when she called on Mr. Hinchford last, and she +had even found courage to give Ann Packet her address; the sharp season +set in after that, and, though Ann Packet in her monthly visits was +deceived by Mattie's manner, yet it became another struggle for bread +with our heroine. For the season was not only sharp, but Mattie gave way +in health over her work for a rascally waistcoat-maker, who drove hard +bargains, and did not believe in Charity covering a multitude of sins. +And with an opposition clothier over the way, who sported a glass +chandelier, and sold fancy vests for three and sixpence, it was hard to +believe in anything.</p> + +<p>Mattie gave way more than she intended to acknowledge to Ann Packet, had +not that indefatigable young woman made her appearance unexpectedly, and +found Mattie in bed at six in the evening.</p> + +<p>"Good lor! what's this?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Ann—only a little cold, which I have been recommended to +nurse for a-day," said Mattie; "don't look so scared!"</p> + +<p>"But why wasn't I to know it?—I might have brought in something good +for you," bemoaned Ann; "if I'm to be kep in the dark, who's to take +care of you, my gal?"</p> + +<p>"I am taking very good care of myself, Ann."</p> + +<p>"What <i>are</i> you taking?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! all manner of things—won't you believe me?"</p> + +<p>"No—I won't."</p> + +<p>And Ann proceeded to inspect mantel-pieces, open cupboards and drawers, +to Mattie's dismay.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see just how it be," she said, after her search had resulted in +nothing satisfactory. "You're working yourself to death, and starving +yourself to death, without saying anything to anybody. And that's +gratitude for all my love for you—you who want to leave me alone in the +world, with not no one to love."</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear Ann, I'm not going to die."</p> + +<p>"You're trying all you can—oh! you ungrateful gal!"</p> + +<p>Mattie defended herself, and maintained that it was only one "lay up," +but Ann Packet did not like the red spot on each cheek, the unnatural +brightness of the eyes, and secretly doubted her assertion.</p> + +<p>"I must go back now. I shall come to-morrow, first thing."</p> + +<p>"I shall be well enough to-morrow, Ann."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet kissed her and departed; half-an-hour afterwards, to Mattie's +astonishment, she made her reappearance, accompanied by a tall, slim +gentleman.</p> + +<p>"There's the gal, sir. Now, please tell me what's the matter, and don't +mind <i>her</i> a bit."</p> + +<p>Mattie saw that it was too late to offer a resistance, and refrained, +like a wise young woman, from "making a scene." The doctor felt her +pulse, looked at her tongue, took the light from the table and held it +close to Mattie's face.</p> + +<p>"Well—what's the matter, sir?" was Mattie's question.</p> + +<p>"Humph! don't know that I can tell exactly, yet. I'll look in +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"No, don't do that," said Mattie, alarmed at the expense.</p> + +<p>"Yes, do," cried Ann Packet, "your money's safe, sir. Look to me at 34 +Chesterfield Terrace, Camberwell, for it. I'm a respectable +maid-of-all-work, with money in the bank."</p> + +<p>"It's of no consequence," muttered the doctor; but he entered the +address in his note-book, like a man of business as he was.</p> + +<p>"Shan't I be well to-morrow, sir?" asked Mattie, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Humph!—scarcely to-morrow, I think."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you say what it is?—do you think I'm likely to be frightened +at it, even if it's death, sir? Why, I've lived down all fright at +anything long ago."</p> + +<p>"It's a little attack of scarlatina, I think," he answered, thus +adjured.</p> + +<p>"You only think?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"She's had it afore, you know," Ann Packet suggested, "when she was a +child. I thought people couldn't have these nasty things twice."</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes."</p> + +<p>"That's enough, then," said Ann Packet, taking off her bonnet and shawl, +and putting them on the table as centre ornaments; "here I sticks till +you're better."</p> + +<p>"Ann—Ann Packet!" cried Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Ah! you may say what you like, I shan't move. When this gentleman's +gone, we'll quarrel about it—not afore."</p> + +<p>The gentleman alluded to took his departure, promising to send round +some medicine in a few minutes. Mattie looked imploringly at the +obdurate Ann.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> go home, Ann."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Ann; "I have knowed you for too long a +time to leave you in the lurch like this, for all the places in the +world. And it isn't that I haven't knowed the Hinchfords long enough, to +think they'll mind."</p> + +<p>Mattie sighed.</p> + +<p>"But you keep quiet, my dear, and fancy I'm your mother taking care on +you—which I wish I was. And I'll send a boy to Camberwell to tell 'em +why I ain't a coming back just yet."</p> + +<p>"Let me write a——"</p> + +<p>"Let you keep yourself quiet, and don't worry me. I'm going to manage +you through this."</p> + +<p>"You're very good, Ann," said Mattie; "but if you catch the fever of +me!"</p> + +<p>"Lor bless you! I shan't catch no fever—I'm too old for changing +colour, my dear. You might as well expect buff-leather to catch fevers. +But don't you remember how skeered I was once when you came in piping +hot with it from Kent Street? Ah! I was vain of my good looks then, and +afraid they might be spiled."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet had been a girl with a bat-catching-against-wall kind of +countenance all her life, but distance lent enchantment to the view of +the merry days when she was young. And Ann Packet's will was absolute, +and carried all before it. Mattie was bowed down by it; she felt weaker +than usual, and too ill to assert supremacy in her own house. Giving up, +she thought that it was comfortable to have a friend at her side, and to +feel that the loneliness of a few hours since was hers no longer.</p> + +<p>Ann Packet went down-stairs, and found a boy prepared—for twopence down +and twopence when he came back—to deliver any message within a radius +of fifty miles from Tenchester Street. The messenger departed, +returning, in due course, with a favourable, even a kind reply. Ann +Packet was to take her own time, and a girl would be found to assist +until Mattie was better. Mattie read the note to Ann.</p> + +<p>"There, didn't I say so?"</p> + +<p>"It's in Mr. Sidney's handwriting," said Mattie, putting the letter +under her pillow; "he's always kind and thoughtful."</p> + +<p>"Ah! he is."</p> + +<p>"As kind and thoughtful as ever, I suppose, Ann?"</p> + +<p>"Lor bless you!—yes."</p> + +<p>"What a long while it seems since——"</p> + +<p>"Since you've held <i>your</i> tongue," added Ann. "Yes, it does. I'd keep +quiet a bit now, if I was you."</p> + +<p>Thus adjured, Mattie relapsed into silence, and Ann Packet, thinking her +charge was asleep, stole out of the room a short while afterwards, and +went into the streets marketing. In the night the fever gained apace +with our heroine; the next day the doctor pronounced her worse—enjoined +strict quietness and care.</p> + +<p>"He seems afraid of me," said Mattie, after he had gone, "as if there +were anything to be alarmed at, even if I did die. Why, what could be +better for me, Ann?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't—oh! don't."</p> + +<p>"Not that I am going to die—I don't feel like it," said Mattie. "I can +see myself getting strong again, and fighting," she added, with a little +shudder, "my battles again. There, Ann, you need not look so scared; I +won't die to please you."</p> + +<p>It was a forced air of cheerfulness, put on to raise the spirits of her +nurse; and succeeded to a certain extent in its object, although Ann +told her not to go on like that—it wasn't proper.</p> + +<p>Mattie lay and thought of the chances for and against her that day; what +if that burning fever and increasing restlessness gained the mastery, +who would be the worse for her loss, and might not she, with God's help, +be the better? She was scarcely a religious woman; but the elements of +true religion were within her, and only biding their time. She was +honest, pure-minded, anxious to do good for others, bore no one malice, +and forgave all trespasses against her—she went to chapel every +Sunday—and she did not feel so far off from heaven on that sick bed. +She thought once or twice that she would be glad to die, if she were +sure of the future happiness of those for whom she had lived. She would +like to know the end of the story, and then—<i>rest</i>. She could not die +without seeing the old faces, though, and therefore she must make an +effort to exist for her own sake.</p> + +<p>In the evening, Ann Packet, looking a little scared, said—</p> + +<p>"Here's a gentleman come to see you. It's not quite right for him to +come up, I'm thinking."</p> + +<p>"Who is it?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hinchford."</p> + +<p>"<i>Old</i> Mr. Hinchford?"</p> + +<p>"No, the young one."</p> + +<p>Mattie, even with the scarlatina, could blush more vividly.</p> + +<p>"Mr.—Mr. Sidney!" she gasped. "Oh! he mustn't come in here."</p> + +<p>"Mustn't he, though!" said the deep voice of Sidney, from the other side +of the room. "Oh! he's not at all bashful, Mattie."</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford came into the room and walked straight to the bed where +Mattie was lying—where Mattie was crying just then.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mattie!—in tears!"</p> + +<p>"Only for a moment, Mr. Sidney. It is very kind of you to come and see +me—and you have taken me by surprise, that's all."</p> + +<p>"She's to be kept quiet, sir," said Ann.</p> + +<p>"I'll not make much noise," he answered.</p> + +<p>He stood by the bed-side, looking down at the stricken girl. The change +in her, the thin face, the haggard looks, increased as they were by +illness, had been a shock to Sidney Hinchford, though he did his best to +disguise all evidence from her.</p> + +<p>"Go and sit there for the little while you must remain in this room," +said Mattie, indicating a chair by the window, at some distance. "You +were rash to come into this place."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid of fever, Mattie, and I was not going to lose a chance +of seeing you—the first chance I have had."</p> + +<p>"And you don't think that I have been wrong, Mr. Sidney?" asked Mattie; +"you haven't let all that Mr. Wesden has said, turn you against me? I'm +so glad!"</p> + +<p>"Mattie, there's a little mystery, but I daresay you can clear it—and I +swear still by the old friend and adviser of Great Suffolk Street. And +as for Mr. Wesden—why, I'm inclined to think that that old gentleman is +growing ashamed of himself."</p> + +<p>"You say nothing of Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"She is the champion of <i>all</i> absent friends—the best girl in the +world. When I tell her that you——"</p> + +<p>"You must not tell her where to find me—you will not act fairly by her, +if you thrust her into danger, sir. I rely upon you to keep her away."</p> + +<p>"Well, you women do catch things very rapidly," said he; "I—I think +that perhaps it will be as well not to let her know of your illness."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you."</p> + +<p>"But when you are well again, I shall bring her myself to see you. We'll +have no more games at hide and seek, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Why—not yet?" was the quick answer.</p> + +<p>"I am no fit companion for her—her father thinks. So it must not be. I +have seen her—watched for her several times."</p> + +<p>"Ah!—I suppose so. You know that we are engaged, Mattie?" he said; +"that was an old wish of yours, Harriet tells me."</p> + +<p>"Yes—when are you to be married?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! when I can afford to keep a wife. Shall I tell you how I am getting +on now?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to hear it," said Mattie, "but you mustn't stop here very +long. For there <i>is</i> danger."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said he, laughing; "besides, my father has +furnished me with a lump of camphor as big as my head, which I've been +sitting on the last five minutes. Now, Mattie, let me tell you where I +am, and what I am doing."</p> + +<p>In a few words, Sidney sketched the particulars of his present mode of +life, spoke of his prospects <i>in futuro</i>, and of the kindness which he +received at all hands. He was an agreeable companion, and brought some +of his vigour and good spirits into that little room with him. He spoke +cheerfully and heartily, and the pleasant ring of his voice sounded like +old times to Mattie. She lay and listened, and thought it was all very +comfortable—she even forgot her fever for awhile, till she remembered +the length of time that he had remained with her.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will go now," she said, rather suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Am I wearying you?—I beg pardon, Mattie. Some of these days when you +are better, I intend a longer stay than this."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"I shall try my own powers of persuasion, in order that Harriet and I +may fight your battles better for you," he said; "we must clear up that +mystery—I hate mystery."</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>"Upon my honour, I would as soon have a sister maligned as you!" cried +Sidney; "we are such old friends, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—go now, please. And keep Harriet away, for her own sake, and +yours."</p> + +<p>Sidney promised that, and then shook hands with her.</p> + +<p>"You must not be very shocked at my stalking in here—fancy it is your +brother, Mattie. I shall make Harriet a clean confession when I get +back—not to-night, though."</p> + +<p>He went from the room, followed by Ann Packet. Outside, the cheerful +look upon his face suddenly vanished, and he became so grave that Ann +Packet stared aghast at him.</p> + +<p>"Who's her doctor?"</p> + +<p>Ann told him.</p> + +<p>"I'll send some one myself to see if he's treating her correctly."</p> + +<p>"Don't you—don't you think that she's so well?"</p> + +<p>"I think that she's very ill—worse than she is aware of herself. Take +care of her, Ann, she's an old friend!"</p> + +<p>He went down-stairs hastily, and Ann returned to the room to find Mattie +in a high fever, sitting up in bed with a wild look in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Ann, Ann—he must never come again! I—I can't bear to see him now."</p> + +<p>"Patience, my darling. Keep quiet—why not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I don't know—but he makes my heart ache—and, and, he is coming +into danger here. Oh! Sidney! Sidney!"</p> + +<p>She flung herself back in her bed, and sobbed and tossed there till the +fever grew upon her more and more, and robbed her of her senses. And in +the delirium which followed, Ann Packet learned the secret of Mattie's +life, and wrung her hands, and cried over it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IID" id="CHAPTER_IID"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH SEVERAL DISCOVERIES COME TOGETHER.</h3> + + +<p>When Sidney Hinchford called the next morning at Tenchester Street, to +inquire after Mattie's health, Ann Packet met him at the door, and +informed him that the invalid was worse, and on no account to be +disturbed. In the course of the day a new doctor arrived, commissioned +by Sidney; and being a man not inclined to pooh-pooh every system but +his own, gave his opinion that Mattie was being treated correctly, and +he saw nothing to improve upon. So the doctor was not changed; and being +a poor man struggling for a living in a little shop round the corner, I +hope he was sufficiently grateful, especially as Ann Packet did not +require a twelvemonth's credit, but settled his bill every Saturday +night with the washerwoman's.</p> + +<p>And three Saturday nights went by before Mattie was considered out of +danger of the fever's return, and in rather more imminent danger of the +exhaustion which that fever had occasioned. Sidney Hinchford had taken +Tenchester Street and Southwark Bridge in his new route to the City, and +called every morning for the latest news—Ann Packet had brought it down +to him, with Mattie's kind regards and compliments, and he had not been +permitted to see her since that night referred to in our last chapter.</p> + +<p>Mattie was getting better when the fourth week was over—learning to be +strong, anxious about the expenses that had been incurred, solicitous +even about her little dress-making connection, which would have flown to +the four winds of heaven had scarlatina thought of taking its measure.</p> + +<p>Mattie had found strength to leave her bed and sit up for a while in the +chair by the fireside, when the second visitor astonished Tenchester +Street by her arrival. No less a visitor than Harriet Wesden +herself—who, having learned Mattie's address by degrees from the +unfaithful Sidney, had made an unlooked-for <i>raid</i> upon the premises.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry—don't speak—don't say anything for ever so long!" she said, +with one gloved finger to her pretty mouth; "if there's anything to get +over—get over it without any fuss, my dear."</p> + +<p>Mattie was silent for a while—she turned her head away and looked at +the red coals. This was a meeting that she thought would come some day; +that in her heart she did not blame Sidney Hinchford for promoting, +although the danger of it rendered her uneasy.</p> + +<p>"Farther away, Harriet," she murmured at last.</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid," said Harriet; "I don't believe that I'm of a feverish +sort, or that there's any danger. If there were, I should have come all +the same, and stopped just as long, after wheedling the address from +Sid."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet fidgeted about the room; she was jealous of her charge, +fearful of Mattie becoming excited, and of Harriet Wesden talking too +much to her. Harriet Wesden saw this.</p> + +<p>"You may trust me with her, Ann—I will be very careful."</p> + +<p>"I hope you will—I shouldn't like the doctor to say I'd let you chatter +her off into a fever again. You'll take care, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ann."</p> + +<p>At the door she paused again.</p> + +<p>"You allus were such a gal to talk when once set a going, Mattie—now +doee be as careful as you can! When I come back from marketing, I'll +hope it's all done atween you two."</p> + +<p>Ann Packet withdrew; the two girls—we may say, despite the difference +of position between them, the two friends—looked at each other for a +short while longer. Mattie was the first to speak.</p> + +<p>"Now you have come, Harriet, you must tell me all that has happened +since we parted—every scrap of news that affects you is always welcome +to me."</p> + +<p>"Shall I sum it up in three words, that will content you, Mattie—I am +happy."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad—so very glad! Harriet," she added more eagerly, "you do +love him? It isn't a fancy, like—like the others?"</p> + +<p>"Mattie, I love him with my whole heart—I never loved before—I feel +that the past was all romantic folly. You don't know what a noble fellow +he is—how kind and thoughtful!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—I do."</p> + +<p>"Ah! but you don't know him as I know him; the truth of his inner self, +the nobleness of his character, the earnestness of his nature. Mattie, I +feel that I have deceived him—that I should have told him all about Mr. +Darcy, and trusted in his generosity, in his knowledge of me, to believe +it. It was a cruel promise that you wrung from me."</p> + +<p>"Harriet, I was thinking of your own good name, and of the story that +the world would make from yours. I think I was right."</p> + +<p>We wiser people, with principles so much higher, think Mattie was wrong, +as she thought herself, in the days that were ahead of her.</p> + +<p>"And this Mr. Darcy, Harriet, have you seen or heard from him since?"</p> + +<p>"I received one letter. I returned it to its writer unopened."</p> + +<p>"That was right. And the Eveleighs, what do they know, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Then we must be safe."</p> + +<p>"We?" echoed Harriet; "when you are bearing the stigma of my +indiscretion! Mattie, you went out that night in search of me."</p> + +<p>"No matter," responded Mattie; "I must not talk too much. Let me hear +you speak of all old friends—it's like the old times back again to have +you here."</p> + +<p>"And they will come back."</p> + +<p>"<i>Never!</i>" was the solemn reply.</p> + +<p>"Not that tiresome shop, perhaps," said Harriet, "but the times like +unto the old, and all the better for the difference. You know what a +weak and sanguine woman I was."</p> + +<p>"Well—yes."</p> + +<p>"I am a strong and sanguine woman now, and there are good times I brood +upon, and look forward to still. Shall I sketch you the picture?"</p> + +<p>"If you will."</p> + +<p>Mattie listened very anxiously; Harriet, with her bonnet in her lap, and +her golden hair falling about her shoulders, sat steadfastly looking at +our heroine.</p> + +<p>"A little cottage somewhere in the country—a long, long way off from +this London, which I dislike so much. Sid and I together, and you our +faithful friend and housekeeper. Oh! that <i>will</i> come true!"</p> + +<p>Mattie shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I think not."</p> + +<p>"Why, you will not desert us!"</p> + +<p>"When the time comes round for the cottage, I will give my answer. I +think that—I—should—like to come some day—when you have children, +perhaps, to take care of <i>them</i>. But it is a long, long while to look +forward to—almost wicked to build upon, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see where the wickedness lies."</p> + +<p>"And as for the country—why in the country, Harriet, when Sidney will +have to work in London?"</p> + +<p>"He may make his fortune and retire," she said, after a pause.</p> + +<p>The secret of Sidney's life was sacred, even from Mattie. Harriet could +not dwell upon it without arousing a suspicion.</p> + +<p>"I feel that we shall all be together some day—and now, before that day +comes, let us speak of something else."</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden hastened to disburthen herself of all the thoughts which +she had had concerning Mattie's future mode of living; if it were +dress-making, how Harriet could help her to increase the +connection—and, whatever it was, how she, Harriet Wesden, must do her +best for Mattie.</p> + +<p>All this was very pleasant to our heroine, though it troubled her, and +almost mastered her at times. Pleasant to witness the evidence of the +old love, of no new love having ousted her from a place in Harriet's +heart. With the exception of honest Ann Packet, Mattie had earned no +affection for herself, and had stood even isolated from it, until +Harriet turned to her as her friend, trusted in her, and—did she ever +dream it in the days when she ran barefooted through the London +streets?—sought advice from her. And then, from that hour, Mattie +studied Harriet, saw her weaknesses, and did her best to counteract +them; moulded her—though neither knew it, or would have guessed +it—anew, and helped to make the true woman which she was at that hour.</p> + +<p>Mattie felt glad that she had been ill, now; her illness had brought +Harriet to her side, and proved that she had lived in all her thoughts.</p> + +<p>They were still talking together in the gloaming when the doctor called, +bowed to Miss Wesden, and then paid attention to his patient.</p> + +<p>"It's very dark," said he, after an ineffectual attempt to see Mattie's +tongue; "but you're better, I perceive. Keep still, don't trouble +yourself about a light, Miss Gray,"—Mattie, for some reason she could +have scarcely explained to herself, had assumed the title which Mrs. +Watts, in their last meeting, had bestowed upon her—"I have brought a +friend to see you to-day, not knowing that you were engaged."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" Mattie inquired.</p> + +<p>"A gentleman connected with the chapel—our chapel."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"He helps us with the district business when he's in town—and he has +been very anxious to see you for the last fortnight, but the young woman +who waits upon you said—very rudely, I fear—that she wouldn't have you +worried for fifty parsons. May he come in?"</p> + +<p>Before Mattie had made up her mind, he came in without permission. It +was difficult to distinguish him in the shadowy room, save that he was +short and thin, and moved about with extraordinary celerity.</p> + +<p>"When the sinner is too weak to go forth in search of the Word, it +should be brought to her by all men earnest for sinners' redemption," he +said, in a high, hard voice, very unsuitable for an invalid's chamber; +"and I trust that Miss Gray will not consider me out of place in coming +hither to teach her to be grateful for her recovery."</p> + +<p>"She is scarcely recovered yet, sir," Harriet ventured to suggest.</p> + +<p>"What does Miss Gray say?" he said, as though Miss Wesden's word was to +be doubted.</p> + +<p>"That it is very kind of you to come—but that I am a little weak just +at present."</p> + +<p>"I called on the doctor—he's not of your opinion—he ought to know +best."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the doctor, "but you promised only a few words."</p> + +<p>"I am a man of my word," was the brisk answer.</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon, I never said that you were not," said the doctor; "but we +must be gentle with our patient yet awhile—and she has already been +receiving visitors to-day."</p> + +<p>"If Miss Gray objects, I will go."</p> + +<p>Mattie said that she did not object, and, without further ceremony, the +stranger began to pray for her, lowering his voice when he found that he +need not shout at the top of his lungs to be heard in that little room, +and even praying with some degree of eloquence, and a more than common +degree of earnestness, which was some little apology—if not quite +enough—for his unwarrantable intrusion.</p> + +<p>It was a long prayer, and spared no one. The doctor, after waiting five +minutes, and finding thanksgivings for recovery, and for shortening his +bill, not in his line, took his departure on tiptoe; Mattie listened +reverently, with her hands clasped in her lap; Harriet, who had not +forgiven the intrusion, thought of Sidney more than the preacher, and +threw the latter out in his extempore oration by suddenly poking the +fire, and then dropping the poker with a crash into the fire-place. Ann +Packet returned from marketing, and found the preacher in the middle of +the room on his knees, and disgusted with his tactics, after the many +times she had denied him admittance, proceeded to arrange the tea-tray +and light the candle, with a noisy demonstrativeness that was perfectly +unnecessary.</p> + +<p>"Amen" sounded at last, and the little man rose to his feet, over which +Ann Packet had twice stumbled, buttoned his black dress-coat across his +chest, picked up his hat, and proceeded to retire without further words, +like a man of business, who, having done his work, was in a hurry to get +home. Suddenly he paused and regarded Harriet Wesden attentively. The +light in the room was feeble, and might deceive him, he thought, for, +with a quick hand, he caught up the candlestick and held it nearer to +her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Wesden—surely?"</p> + +<p>Harriet saw nothing to recognize in the wiry-haired, high-cheek-boned +preacher. He was a stranger to her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"It's not a common name, but I presume not connected with the +stationer's in Great Suffolk Street?"</p> + +<p>"It was once, before my father left the shop."</p> + +<p>"The coincidence never struck me before—that's rather odd, for I'm not +generally so dull. You don't remember me?"</p> + +<p>"I have never met you before."</p> + +<p>"Oh! yes—at the Ashford railway station, in the middle of the +night—you claimed my protection from a cruel snare that had been laid +to entrap you."</p> + +<p>"Hush, sir!—yes, sir," said Harriet, with a glance at Ann Packet, who, +however, was still busy with the tea-things; "I remember you now; you +were very kind to me, and took pains to relieve me from a great +anxiety."</p> + +<p>"And what has become of——"</p> + +<p>"I have never seen him," Harriet interrupted.</p> + +<p>"And he hasn't sought you out, and——"</p> + +<p>"No, he hasn't. Please say no more about it!" she cried to the +inquisitive man; "I have forgotten the story. Mattie, ask him to be +quiet."</p> + +<p>"How's that possible? How can a—<i>Mattie</i>!" he ejaculated, suddenly +struck by that name, dropping his hat and then putting his foot upon it +in his excitement; "your name Mattie, and acquainted with a Miss Wesden, +who lived once in Suffolk Street! And Miss Gray, too!—my name!—Mattie +Gray, why, it must be!"</p> + +<p>"Must be—what!" gasped Mattie, rising in her chair.</p> + +<p>"Keep quiet—you're to be kept quiet—the doctor said so," he stammered, +fighting wildly in the air with both hands; "don't alarm yourself—try +and guess who I am for the next hour and a half. I'll be back by that +time—where's my hat?—good evening."</p> + +<p>He turned to dart out of the room, and ran against Sidney Hinchford, who +had been standing there an amazed listener—<i>for how long</i>?</p> + +<p>"Break it to her by degrees before I come," he said to Sidney; "I'm her +father—I have been looking for her all over the kingdom. Do me this +good turn?"</p> + +<p>"One moment—I am going your way. Mattie understands it already."</p> + +<p>"Sidney!" cried Harriet.</p> + +<p>"I shall be back in a few minutes," he said, and then the local preacher +and the banker's clerk went out together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIID" id="CHAPTER_IIID"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>FATHER AND DAUGHTER.</h3> + + +<p>The three women left behind in that little room remained silent from the +shock. They were amazed, perplexed. The sudden excitement of the +preacher; the strange questions he had asked Harriet Wesden before the +name of Mattie had changed the topic of conversation; the presence of +Sidney Hinchford as a witness to all this; his abrupt departure with the +preacher—all tended to create doubt, and suggest to one, at least, the +presence of danger.</p> + +<p>Mattie had not given much thought to Sidney Hinchford's appearance; the +preacher's excitement, the return of a far-off thought to her, had +rendered all that had followed vague and indistinct—the scene had been +even too much for her, and she began to slowly close her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I think she has been talked and worried to death too much," cried Ann +running to her; "Miss Harriet, I'd go now, if I were you."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I have remained too long," said Harriet, rising.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mattie, feebly, "I have been surprised by all that has just +happened. You are not the cause."</p> + +<p>"I think I would lie on the bed a little while, Mattie," said Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Don't go till I feel better."</p> + +<p>Mattie lay on the bed as directed; Harriet did not resume her seat, but +stood with one arm on the mantel-piece, looking thoughtfully before her, +where no fancy pictures lingered now. There was a long silence. Ann +Packet placed some smelling salts in Mattie's hand, and then sat at a +little distance, watching her. Harriet retained her position until +Mattie drew the bed-curtain further back and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"I am better now. You will wait till Sidney comes back to fetch you +home, Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"It is very late. He may not come back."</p> + +<p>"He is sure to come," said Mattie; "pray sit down again, and Ann shall +make us tea. Harriet, that man is my father."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think so?"</p> + +<p>"It was all a truth that that horrible woman told me on the day the +house was robbed; he has been in search of me; he has found me at +last—I shall not be alone in the world ever again!"</p> + +<p>"You are glad then, Mattie?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I not be?" asked our heroine; "I think that he is a good +man—I think that he must have cared for me a little, to have taken so +much trouble in his search for me—he will come back soon, and then we +shall know all."</p> + +<p>"He comes back to your gain and my loss," Harriet was on the point of +saying, but checked herself; Mattie was excited enough without the cares +of her friend to be added to her own.</p> + +<p>It was a silent, thoughtful meal; Ann Packet, absorbed in gloomy +reverie, took her tea with stony apathy. She could see that changes were +coming towards her also, and the shape that they might assume was hard +to guess at. She should lose Mattie perhaps, and that was sufficient to +disturb <i>her</i>.</p> + +<p>Tea was over, and Mattie had returned to her easy-chair, when a faint +rapping was heard at the outer-door. Ann Packet went to the door, and +found the preacher there, as she had anticipated.</p> + +<p>"Is she prepared—has she guessed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Can I come in?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't for the likes of me to say you can't;" and with this evasive +reply, Ann Packet opened wide the door and admitted him.</p> + +<p>He came in on tiptoe, in a manner strangely at variance with his former +brusque entrance; he turned to Harriet Wesden first, and spoke in a low +whisper to her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hinchford bade me say, Miss Wesden, that he was waiting for you, +down-stairs."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—is he——?"</p> + +<p>Harriet did not know how to finish her sentence, and left it in its +embryo condition. Her face was pale, and her heart was beating violently +as she stooped and kissed Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, dear—I must go now—Sidney is waiting."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye—are you not well?" asked Mattie, suddenly.</p> + +<p>She was as quick an observer as of yore, and the new expression on +Harriet's face suggested the new fear.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—a little upset by what has happened to-day, that's all. +Good-bye." And Harriet Wesden departed hastily.</p> + +<p>The preacher put his hat on the floor, silently drew a chair towards +Mattie, and then sat down close to her side. Ann Packet, from the +distance watched them both—saw in an instant the likeness between them, +as they sat thus. Both had sharp black eyes, dark hair, thin noses; the +general expression of features was the same, harsher and more prominent +in the man; and, therefore, rendering him far from a being whose good +looks were apparent.</p> + +<p>"Your name is Mattie?—you were at Mr. Wesden's for some years?—he +adopted you—he took you from the streets?—previous to his kindness, +you were living, off and on, at a Mrs. Watts' of Kent Street, Southwark, +where your mother died?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Mattie.</p> + +<p>"The woman who died in Kent Street, Southwark, was my wife. She and I +started in life together happily enough, till she took to drink—oh! the +drink! the drink!—and then home became a misery, and we quarrelled very +much, and I took to drink myself. I lost my place through drink, and +laid the fault to her—we quarrelled worse than ever, as we became +poorer and more wretched; I struck her, fought with her, acted the brute +until she ran away from me, taking you with her, then but a year old. I +did not seek to find her out—I let her go to ruin, and went my own way +to ruin myself, until rescued by a miracle—by a good man, whom God sent +in my way to amend my life, and teach me all the truths which I had +neglected. He found me work again; he raised me from the brute into the +man; he altered me body and soul, and when he died, it struck me that I +might follow in his steps, and do good unto others, after his example. I +was not an unlearned man in all respects; I fancied that I might do good +by an effort—there is no doing good without one—and I made the +attempt. When I was rewarded by my first convert, Mattie, that was my +encouragement," he said, rising with the earnestness of his topic, +sitting down again, and flinging his arms wildly about; "that was my +incentive to go on, to save fresh souls from the danger, to struggle in +the by-ways of life, for the light which the evil one would for ever +shut from us. And I was rewarded for the effort; I have done good; I +have spent the last sixteen years of my life in the good cause!"</p> + +<p>"You are a minister."</p> + +<p>"A local preacher—wandering from place to place, as my employers +dictate—occasionally proceeding on my own route; for ever astir, and +letting not the sun go down upon my idleness. And all this, while I have +been in search of you—tracking your mother at last to Kent Street, and +following on your track, until I am rewarded thus!"</p> + +<p>He held forth his hand, and Mattie placed hers within it.</p> + +<p>"I think that you are my father," she said; "I am glad to find some one +to care for me at last."</p> + +<p>"And you will care for <i>me</i>?—for I have been a lonely man in the world +for many years, and would make atonement for the evil act which cast you +to the streets! But Mattie, look at me!"</p> + +<p>Mattie regarded him long and steadfastly. It was a strange, +hard-featured face, on which was impressed firmness, or obduracy, and +little else; but she felt that he was to be trusted and believed.</p> + +<p>"You see a very stubborn man, one who has made few friends in life, and +who has met with much tribulation in his journey," said he; "you see a +man who will do his duty by you, but will not be a gentle father—a man +who will never win a daughter's love, and will not let the daughter take +the first place in his heart, lest she should wean him too much from the +pursuit of sin, and slacken his zeal in the good cause. A man who is +poor—who cannot offer you a home much better than this—a man +disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate—is he worth calling father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Thank God you say so; it is very horrible to feel alone in the world."</p> + +<p>The disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate man, shook Mattie by both +hands, kissed her suddenly on the forehead, drew forth a cotton +handkerchief, and wiped his eyes and blew his nose vigorously; finished +by producing a shabby leather purse, and taking some silver therefrom, +which he placed on the mantel-piece.</p> + +<p>"My child!—at my expense all future housekeeping. Young woman," to Ann +Packet, "you'll draw from that small amount for the future."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I shan't!"</p> + +<p>"Eh!—what?"</p> + +<p>"I've taken care of her, and been a mother to her for the last four +weeks, and you're not a-coming in here all at once, and stealing every +bit of comfort away from me!"</p> + +<p>"Who is this?" he asked of Mattie.</p> + +<p>"A faithful friend, without whom I might have died."</p> + +<p>"Then she must be a friend of mine—young woman, you hear that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! I hear," said the stolid Ann.</p> + +<p>"And who knows but that you, Mattie, in the better days in store for you +and me, may become a worker in the vineyard also?"</p> + +<p>"She's not going to work in any yard yet awhile, if I know it!" said +Ann.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gray rose and picked up his hat again, without paying heed to this +allusion.</p> + +<p>"I have work to do at home," he said; "I am a mechanic by trade, and +have to labour to get my own living; when you are well enough, you must +come to my home and make it a different place. I have much to ask you +when you are better—I have been troubled about stories that have been +told me of you—I am unhappy until I know the truth. You will keep +nothing from me?"</p> + +<p>Mattie did not reply; that was a matter for future consideration.</p> + +<p>"I never allow anything to be kept from me," he said sharply; "I shall +be a hard father, rely upon it. I allow nothing for prevarication, and I +spare no sin or weakness, however plausible may be the excuse which the +sinner offers. I—how dreadfully askew everything is on this +mantel-piece!" he added suddenly, putting the few ornaments thereon at +regular distances from each other; "I shall not be a kind father—I know +I shan't! The mountains are not harder to move than I am—you're not +frightened at me, Mattie?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Not sorry I have come here to claim you?"</p> + +<p>"No—glad," said Mattie; "I think I shall be able to trust you, and to +understand you in a little while. And the world will never be entirely +desolate again."</p> + +<p>"Neither for you nor for me—though I have had my pursuits, and been +working hard for my master on earth—my Master in heaven. Amen. He has +been very kind to me to reward me thus for the little which I have done +of late years!"</p> + +<p>He was down on his knees in the old place, and praying again; offering a +thanksgiving for his daughter's restoration to him. He was a man who +cared not for appearances—who doubtless rendered himself extremely +ridiculous and objectionable at times—and yet a man so thoroughly in +earnest, that it was hard to laugh at him. At first sight it was +difficult to understand him, although Mattie already felt confidence in +him, and saw a brighter life in store for her; he was a man whose +character was hard to define at a first interview.</p> + +<p>The time was inappropriate; the prayer out of place; he might have +waited till he had got home, thought Ann; but after a while the deep +voice arrested attention, and Mattie listened and was impressed by the +man's fervour and rugged eloquence. It was not a long prayer; he was on +his feet again, and looking at his daughter once more.</p> + +<p>"I shall come to-morrow—next week perhaps we shall be living together, +father and child! Dear me, how odd that sounds now! With you at my side, +I feel I can confront my enemies better."</p> + +<p>"Your enemies?"</p> + +<p>"Such as they are—I'm not afraid of them—I rather like them," he +added; "they laugh at me, and mimic my ways—shrug their shoulders, and +tell one another what a hypocrite I am. It's the easiest thing in the +world to say a man is a hypocrite, and the very hardest for that man to +prove that he is not. But we'll talk about that, and about everything +else when you're better. I—I hope I haven't been <i>going it</i> too +much—good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, father."</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's very good of you," he said; "but you must not be too +credulous. I'll bring my marriage certificate to-morrow, and we'll +proceed in a more business-like fashion. Good-bye—good evening, young +woman."</p> + +<p>"Good evening, sir," said Ann, evidently inclined to be more civil to +him. When he had gone, Ann Packet insisted upon putting Mattie to bed at +once; she was inclined to keep her place, and talk of the extraordinary +incidents of that day.</p> + +<p>"Talk of 'em to-morrow," said Ann; "you've <i>gallied</i> your brains enough +for fifty fathers."</p> + +<p>"I feel so much happier, Ann, with some one whom I shall have a right to +love."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've a right to love who you like, o' course."</p> + +<p>"And I shan't love my faithful, gentle nurse the worse for it."</p> + +<p>"God bless you!—what a gal you are!"</p> + +<p>"Life seems beginning with me for the first time—opening new scenes, +new faces, new affections. Yes, Ann, I am happy to-night."</p> + +<p>"Then I'm glad he's come—I think he's turned up for the best; +although," she muttered to herself, "I shouldn't be very proud of +another father like him for myself. He's <i>such a rum un</i>!"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Harriet Wesden—what had followed the coming of this "rum un" +to her? Was her happiness fading away, as Mattie Gray's advanced? Let us +see.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVD" id="CHAPTER_IVD"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>"ONLY PITY."</h3> + + +<p>A cold frosty air in the streets that night—a chilling welcome to +Harriet Wesden as she emerged from the hot room into Tenchester Street. +Sidney was waiting for her, staid, silent, and statuesque; he offered +her his arm, which she took, and together they proceeded along the +narrow street into the Southwark Bridge Road—thence past the old house +in Great Suffolk Street towards the Borough.</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden felt that she would have given worlds, had she possessed +them, to have broken the silence, and ventured on some topic which might +have tested the truth or the folly of her fears; but all thought seemed +to have deserted her.</p> + +<p>These sudden vacuums are difficult things to account for—most of us +suffer from them more or less at some period or other of our lives. Who +cannot remember the sudden hiatus with the friend—male or female—whom +we intended particularly to impress with the force of our eloquence; or +the collapse in the grand speech with which we wished to return thanks +for the handsome manner in which our health had been drunk at that +dinner party, or the vote of confidence placed in us at that +extraordinary general meeting?</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden was dumb; there was not one thought at which she could +clutch, even the coldness of that night did not suggest itself till it +was too late to speak, and the idea began to impress her that it would +be more unnatural to say a few commonplace words than to keep silence.</p> + +<p>She guessed that Sidney knew her secret, or the greater part of her +secret, the instant that she had emerged into the street; and to attempt +a commonplace discourse with a great sorrow overshadowing him would, +after all, have been a mockery, unworthy of herself and him.</p> + +<p>But if he would only speak!—not proceed onwards so firmly, steadily +saying, never a word to relieve the embarrassment of her position. +Sidney Hinchford maintained a rigid silence for almost a similar reason +to Harriet's; he was at loss how to begin, and break the spell which had +enchained him since his engagement. He was walking in darkness, and +there was no light ahead of him. All was vanity and vexation of spirit.</p> + +<p>At last the silence was broken. They had left behind them the long rows +of lighted shops, and come to private houses, and long dreary front +gardens, with interminable rows of iron railings; there were a few late +office-clerks—a shadowy woman or two—hastening homewards; the roar of +London was growing fainter in the distance.</p> + +<p>"Harriet," he began, in a deep voice, wherein all excitement was pent up +and constrained, "I have heard a strange story to-night from that man +claiming to be Mattie's father—is it true?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She did not ask what he had heard, or attempt any defence; the sound of +his voice, deep and resonant after the long silence, had set her heart +beating, and rendered her answer a matter of difficulty.</p> + +<p>"It is a strange story, and I have been hoping it might have been +explained away by some means not only unnatural—I can almost believe +that it is all a dream, and no cruel waking is to follow it. Harriet, +may I ask if your father is aware of this?"</p> + +<p>"He is not yet."</p> + +<p>"You were travelling alone with a gentleman—I will call him a gentleman +for the sake of argument—in the middle of the night by the Dover mail +train; at Ashford you leave the carriage abruptly, and demand protection +from him—speak of a trap into which he had led you, and seek counsel of +that man we met at Mattie's house to-night?"</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"But do not misunderstand me, Harriet—I can read the story for myself; +I can see that you were deceived in this man, and had no consciousness +of the snare prepared for you, until the hour was too late. I can +believe that your sense of right was outraged, and the <i>gentleman</i> +merited all the scorn which he received—but who was this man to whom +you could trust yourself at that hour, and by what right were you, under +any circumstances, his companion?"</p> + +<p>"He was a man I met at Mrs. Eveleigh's—he offered to escort me to the +railway station."</p> + +<p>"A stranger?"</p> + +<p>"No—I had met him at Brighton, before then, when I was a school-girl. +He—he paid me attentions there which flattered my girlish vanity; +and—and then I met him again at Mrs. Eveleigh's."</p> + +<p>"What is his name?"</p> + +<p>"Darcy."</p> + +<p>"You have not seen him since?"</p> + +<p>"No—I hope that he and I will never meet again."</p> + +<p>"Harriet, you loved this man!"</p> + +<p>"No," was the fearless answer; "I cannot believe that now. I might have +fancied so at the time—for oh! I was bewildered by many thoughts, and +my heart was troubled, Sid—but I never loved him, on my honour!"</p> + +<p>"It is easy to think that now," said Sidney in reply; "the idol has +fallen from the pedestal, never to be replaced again—a ruin, in which +no interest remains. But you loved him, or believed you loved him at +that time—it is a nice distinction—and there was no thought of me and +my hopes."</p> + +<p>"Sidney, I wrote—I—"</p> + +<p>"Harriet, there is no need for us to say one word in anger about this," +he interrupted; "I will ask no further explanation—I do not wish it. I +can see now where I have been wrong, and whither my folly was leading +me—and there's an end of it," he added.</p> + +<p>"An end of—what?"</p> + +<p>"Of the one hope that I have had. I see, now, how much better it is for +you and me, and what a foolish couple we have been."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence; they had walked on some distance before +Harriet said, suddenly and sharply—</p> + +<p>"What do you mean—what am I to understand?"</p> + +<p>"That our engagement is at an end, and that it is better for us both to +forget the romantic nonsense which we talked of lately. I will not ask +you to forget me; I will not try for a single moment to forget <i>you</i>. I +will prefer, if you will allow me, Harriet, to remain your +friend—something of the old boy-friend I was to you, before the dream +came."</p> + +<p>"Unjust—unkind!" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"No, you will not think that presently," he answered; "you will judge me +more fairly, and see for yourself how it could not have ended otherwise +for either of us. You have been more than kind to me—you have offered +me the sacrifice of your best wishes, even your brightest prospects, out +of pity, and I cannot have it."</p> + +<p>"Pity!" she repeated.</p> + +<p>Harriet was unnerved at his earnestness, at the deep sorrow which +betrayed itself in every word, and which he thought that he disguised so +well; but her pride was wounded also at his resignation of her, and she +could see that there was no defence to urge which, by the laws of +probability, had power to affect him. Between her and him that cruel +past, which she had hidden from him; that proof of love or fancy for +another, when he was building on her lore for him; that evidence against +her, which for ever robbed him of his confidence and trust. No, there +was no defence, and the scornful echo of his last words were more like +defiance than regret.</p> + +<p>"Yes, pity!" he reiterated—"only pity! Harriet," he said, for an +instant pressing her hand upon his arm with the old affection, "it was +kind and noble of you, but it was not love. It was a sacrifice; I was a +poor man; there was a great affliction in store for me, and you felt +that you alone could lighten it in the present—and in the future, when +it faced me and shut me in with it. You saw that you were my one hope, +and you took pity on me. It was a mistake—I see the gigantic error that +it was now!"</p> + +<p>"You will see the truth—you will judge me fairer yet, Sidney."</p> + +<p>"This past engagement between us, Harriet, has been a trouble to me +lately," he continued; "my selfishness has scared me before this, and I +have felt that I had no right to bind you to me for a term of years, +ending in calamity at the last. I was wrong—I retract—I am very sorry +for the error—I am glad of this excuse to rectify it."</p> + +<p>"You say that!" cried Harriet; "you are glad to break with me—to +believe that I did not love you, Sidney?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am glad. I can see that it was all for the best; and though I +could have wished that there had been a different reason for the +parting, still it takes a weight from my conscience—it is a relief!"</p> + +<p>It was a struggle to say so, but he said it without bitterness, and in +good faith. By some ingenious method of word-twisting, which Harriet +could not follow, he had stopped all effort to explain more fully, and +turned the blame of the engagement on himself. There was no answering; +she saw that his heart was wrung with the agony of the dissolution, but +she read upon that pale, stern face, to which she glanced but once, an +inflexible resolve, that nothing could alter. He upbraided her not; he +uttered not one sarcasm upon the folly of her past passion for Mr. +Darcy, or the mistakes to which it had led; he expressed a wish to be +her friend still, but he gave her up, and with all her love for him—and +she knew how truly it was love then—she could not ask him to reconsider +his verdict and spare her a parting as bitter for her as him. She read +in that hasty glance at his face, <i>incredulity</i> of her affection for +him; and no protestation on her part could have altered that. Yes, it +was ended between them—perhaps for the best, God knew; she could not +think of it then—she was ashamed, miserable, utterly cast down!</p> + +<p>"Let me get home," she murmured; "what a long way it is to home."</p> + +<p>"I will say no more, Harriet—I have been unkind to say so much," he +said, in answer to that cry, in which he might have read the truth, had +not his heart been for ever closed to it from that night.</p> + +<p>So, in the same silent way as they had begun that inauspicious walk, the +two concluded it, reaching the little house of Mr. Wesden shortly +afterwards. Colder and more grim the night there; beyond the lighted +London streets, in melancholy suburban districts like to this, there +seemed to lurk a greater desolation.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he said; "don't think that we part in anger, or that I am +hurt in any way at what has happened—or that I am less your friend than +ever, Harriet."</p> + +<p>"Good night," was all her answer.</p> + +<p>He lingered still, as though he had more to say, or was endeavouring to +think of something more to render the disruption less abrupt and harsh; +but he relinquished the attempt, and left her, walking away rapidly as +though at the last—the very last—he feared to trust himself.</p> + +<p>He did not go straight home, but walked for awhile up and down the +street wherein his home was, at the same rapid pace, with his breath +held somewhat, and his hands clenched.</p> + +<p>He had acted for the best—it <i>was</i> for the best, he thought!—but the +result was not satisfactory, and the future beyond was the grey density +at which he had recoiled, when crossing the Channel on the day he came +to man's estate.</p> + +<p>If he had died on that day, or the ship had gone down with him, how much +better he thought then; better for her, for him—even for his father, +perhaps, he could not tell at that time!</p> + +<p>He went indoors at last, feigned for awhile the old demeanour, and +failed at a task beyond his strength for once. He gave it up, and, +looking vacantly at his amazed father, said,</p> + +<p>"I'm not well to-night. I think I'll go to my room."</p> + +<p>"Not well!—you not well, Sid?" exclaimed the father, as though the +assertion were the most improbable to make in the world.</p> + +<p>"Not very well—a head-ache."</p> + +<p>"Ah! too much book-work. Be careful, Sid, don't overtask yourself."</p> + +<p>"I shall be well enough to-morrow. Good night."</p> + +<p>He left the room abruptly, and turned the key in his own apartment a few +minutes afterwards. In his own room, he hunted for a few letters which +she had written to him during their brief engagement, and proceeded to +burn them in the empty fire-grate.</p> + +<p>"So much the best," he muttered, "so much the best!" as though they were +charmed words, that kept him strong.</p> + +<p>He missed something else, and was uneasy about it. He went to the +looking-glass drawer, and turned out the whole contents upon the +toilet-table—staring at a letter soiled, crumpled and torn, but still +<i>sealed</i>, which rewarded his search, and lay at the bottom.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" he muttered.</p> + +<p>He drew a chair nearer the drawers on which the light was placed, +examined the post-mark, the superscription, the seal, then opened the +letter, dated on the day he went away on special service.</p> + +<p>A long, confused epistle, written with difficulty and under much +agitation, but telling one truth, at which he had guessed—which he had +spoken of that night.</p> + +<p>"I knew it before!" he cried; but the news daunted him, and unmanned him +notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>It was the climax, and he gave way utterly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VD" id="CHAPTER_VD"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>AN UNAVAILING EFFORT.</h3> + + +<p>The dry, matter-of-fact world, with its face to business and its back to +romance, is still interested in love-matters, and passingly agitated by +the sudden disruption of any love-engagement. It shows an interest in +the latest news, and turns from its account-books for awhile to know how +it came about that Damon and Phyllis could not agree upon "proprieties," +and thought that it was better to part, for good and aye, than to settle +down for good as man and wife. Having learned the news, remarked upon +the pity that it was, or the best thing that could happen for <i>her</i> or +for <i>him</i>, the world goes upon its course again, and the story is as old +as the hills before the leading characters have got over their first +heart-pangs.</p> + +<p>It was not a large world that was interested in the disruption of Sidney +Hinchford's love engagement; two old men at Camberwell, and a +needlewoman, might almost constitute it in this instance. We say almost, +for a reason that will appear presently; a cautious writer should always +speak with a reserve.</p> + +<p>The two old men were interested in the news, but not profoundly +affected; such is the selfishness of humanity, when matters do not +seriously affect its own comfort.</p> + +<p>Harriet Wesden told the news on the following day to her father, and he, +after a stare over her head in the old fashion, thought, perhaps, that +it was all for the best. Harriet told him the whole story of the past +that had led to the parting, and he took stock of the principal +features, and thought it was an odd affair, and that he might have been +told of this Mr. Darcy a little earlier. After awhile he fancied that it +was more comfortable to know that Harriet was to be always with him, to +attend to his small ailments, and study his eccentricities. Of late he +had harassed himself somewhat with the idea that there would be an early +marriage, and that he should be left entirely alone in the world;—with +that house and new furniture, that wash-house where the chimney always +smoked, and that back-garden where groundsel grew vigorously in the +garden paths. The news of the quarrel came with something like a relief +to him. Harriet always at home; no one calling to distract attention +away from him—well, it <i>was</i> for the best, though in his unselfish +moments, and he had many of them, Harriet alone in the world after he +was gone, was a picture that affected him.</p> + +<p>There was something else to trouble him now; Harriet's story had cleared +up the mystery of Mattie's actions, that last mystery which had led to +an act of injustice on his part. That he had been unjust, and cast +Mattie back to the streets, troubled him far more than the broken +love-pledge between Harriet and Sidney; for the first time in his life +he had done a wrong, a palpable and cruel one, which might have +submerged a soul, and he was sorry, very sorry, for all that had led to +it. It did not matter that Mattie had been rescued from utter loneliness +by the appearance of her father upon the scene; his hasty judgment had +only brought about the wrong, and he had tried to walk uprightly all his +life, and do his best according to his powers.</p> + +<p>Harriet, his daughter, kept her troubles to herself; she had met with +the first shock that falls to the share of many a young life, and she +had not made up her mind as to the best method of bearing up against it. +Two years ago this would not have been a great trouble to her; but two +years had wondrously sobered her, and her eyes had only been opened to +the true estimate of Sidney's character at the time when he spoke of the +necessity of ending all engagement between them. He had not blamed her, +or she might have defended herself; he had spoken of his own +consciousness of having done wrong to bind her by a promise made in an +impulsive moment, he had intimated that it was a relief to him to give +her up, and in the face of the cold, unpitying world, she was powerless +to act. Still she was hopeful amidst it all; it was no serious quarrel; +he had spoken of his wish to remain her friend, and by one of the many +chances of life, it would not be difficult for him to discover that it +<i>was</i> love which drew her to him, and not the pity which is akin to it. +It might all be explained when the right moment came round; but as the +days passed, and no Sidney appeared, her heart sank more, and she read +the future in store for her through a medium less highly coloured by her +fancy.</p> + +<p>A week after the explanation between Sidney and her, she went in search +of Mattie. Always in trouble thinking of Mattie—seeking from her that +consolation which her own thoughts denied her. Mattie was still in +Tenchester Street, although Ann Packet had gone back to the Hinchford +service. Mattie was strong enough to shift for herself again—to set +about packing her scanty wardrobe for removal to her fathers home; she +was alone and busy with her preparations for departure, when Harriet +Wesden came into the room.</p> + +<p>After the first salutations had been exchanged—and flying remarks upon +Mattie's better health and brighter looks had been made—our heroine +looked steadily at Harriet, and asked what was the matter.</p> + +<p>"Am I so altered that you should think anything had happened, Mattie?"</p> + +<p>"There is not the look I like to see <i>there</i>," said Mattie, pointing to +Harriet Wesden's face.</p> + +<p>"It's not a happy look, is it?" she asked, with a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"Not very."</p> + +<p>"Sit down here beside me, and let me tell you why the happy looks have +gone for ever."</p> + +<p>"For ever! Oh! I'll not believe that."</p> + +<p>"You'll never guess what I am going to tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Sidney and you have quarrelled."</p> + +<p>"Yes—no—not exactly quarrelled—what a girl you are to guess things! +Sidney and I, by mutual consent, have cancelled our engagement."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," said Mattie, after a moment's silence; "sorry, not that +the engagement has been broken for awhile, for it will be renewed +again—"</p> + +<p>"Never!—never!"</p> + +<p>"But that any difference should have arisen between you two. As for not +making it up again," said Mattie, cheerfully, "oh! we can't believe +that, we two who understand Sidney Hinchford so well."</p> + +<p>"There will never be an engagement between him and me again," said +Harriet; "over for once and all, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"I say there will be," said Mattie, in an equally decisive manner. "Have +I lived so long to see it all ended thus? I say it shall be!" cried +Mattie, in an excited manner, that surprised even Harriet, who knew +Mattie's character so well; "and we shall see, in good time, which is +the true prophetess."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, you don't know Sidney, after all."</p> + +<p>"Tell me the story—I am very anxious."</p> + +<p>And with a woman's keen interest in love matters—her own, or anybody +else's, as the case might be—Mattie clasped her hands together, and +bent forward, all eagerness for Harriet's narrative.</p> + +<p>"It's all through your father—that father of yours, who comes upon the +scene, and brings misery with him at once!" said Harriet, a little +petulantly.</p> + +<p>"Hush, Harriet!—remember that he is my father, now!" said Mattie, who +had found one more to defend in life, and to live for, "and I am +learning to love him, and to understand him better every day."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes—you will forgive me—I am always offending some one with my +hasty words. This is how the quarrel came about."</p> + +<p>Harriet launched into her story at once; in a torrent of hurried +explanations the details were poured forth, and Mattie, in a short +while, knew as much as Harriet Wesden, which was not all however, as we, +who are behind the scenes of this little drama, are aware.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it serves <i>us</i> right," said Mattie, pluralizing the case after +her old fashion; "we kept something back, and Sidney is straightforward +in everything, and hates deceit, even innocent deceit like ours, +practised for your good name's sake. Did you tell him that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I told him," answered Harriet, sadly. "I said +nothing—I was found guilty, and there was no answer left me."</p> + +<p>"We shall live this down, I think," said Mattie, confidently. "After +all, there's nothing very serious about it—if he don't suspect us of +behaving wrongly on that night."</p> + +<p>"Sidney suspect that of me! Oh! no, no—not so bad as that!"</p> + +<p>"Then it will all come right in time," cried Mattie. "He has loved us +all his life, and will not fling himself from us in his pride and anger, +as—as other men would do, more selfish and unjust than he. I see the +future brightening—we will wait patiently, and not be cast down by this +slight trouble."</p> + +<p>"Slight trouble!" exclaimed Harriet. "Oh! Mattie, if you only understood +what love was like, you would guess my—my sense of desolation."</p> + +<p>Harriet flung herself on the bosom of the old faithful friend, whose +face, over her shoulder, became suddenly, and for an instant only, very +white and lined.</p> + +<p>"I will try and guess," she said, in a low voice. "It must be desolate; +I—I may know better some day!"</p> + +<p>Then Mattie set herself the task of comforting this child—a child +still, she thought, in her impulsiveness, and in that weakness which +gave way like a child at the first trouble, and sought help and comfort +from others, rather than from her own heart. And Mattie, who had the +gift—that rare rich gift above all price—of comforting those who are +afflicted, succeeded in putting the facts of the case in their best and +less distorted light, and was rewarded before the interview was +over—and when Harriet remembered it—by the new fact of how one +revelation had brought about another, and cleared up the mystery of +Mattie's absence from home to the man who had suspected her.</p> + +<p>"I broke the promise—there was nothing to keep back, when I had my own +story to relate."</p> + +<p>"He knows all this," said Mattie, "and he——"</p> + +<p>"He is very sorry for all that harshness which drove you from us—I am +sure of it."</p> + +<p>"Why, it is brightening all round," said Mattie; "we shall have no +secret in the midst of us, and all will be well now!"</p> + +<p>Both had forgotten the letter, wherein absence of all true affection was +asserted; Harriet believed it destroyed, and Mattie did not think to +remind her of the danger—in her heart believed it even far removed from +her.</p> + +<p>They parted hopefully; Mattie made the best of the position, and was +really trustful in a good result. Sidney Hinchford loved Harriet, and +she could not understand a man loving on, and yet holding aloof from the +idol he would fain worship still.</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford, a few days afterwards, came to make his last inquiries +concerning Mattie's health—had he waited another day he would have +found empty rooms and a desolate hearth—and Mattie seized that +opportunity to say a word. The grass never grew under the feet of Mattie +Gray, and the dark look—new to his face in its intensity of +sternness—did not deter her.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear the last news, Mr. Hinchford."</p> + +<p>"It was to be expected," he replied shortly. He would have hastened away +from a subject that distressed him, but Mattie was not deterred by his +harsh voice.</p> + +<p>"Not to be expected, you mean, Mr. Sidney," she said; "for she and you, +who have been together all your lives, should——"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Mattie," he interrupted, decisively; "I cannot bear a third +person's interference in this matter. It lies between her and me, and +both she and I have thought it better to part, without reproach or +ill-will. She has made up her mind——"</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"And had she not," he said, catching at Mattie's wrist and holding it +firmly with his hand, as though to stay her defence by that means, "I +have made up mine, and there is nothing on earth, or in heaven, to alter +it, I swear!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! sir," cried Mattie, dismayed at this assertion, "you will think of +this again—of her you have known from a little child, and should be +able to trust. There's not a truer, kinder heart, in all the world!"</p> + +<p>"She is true and kind—she would even have sacrificed her happiness for +my sake—but she never loved me. I have her written evidence to that."</p> + +<p>"The letter!—oh! the letter!"</p> + +<p>"You knew it?—<i>you</i> helped to deceive me, too!"</p> + +<p>"Not deceit—all was done for your own good, Mr. Sidney—she did not +know her own mind when that letter was written; she——"</p> + +<p>"She will never know it—she is a weak woman—God help her! She was +never fit for me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," was the quick denial.</p> + +<p>"No, I say. A thousand times no!"</p> + +<p>He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then turned away, sterner and +darker in his looks than ever. Mattie's heart sank then—for she read in +his face a resolve that love could not soften, or time ameliorate. She +lost hope herself from that day.</p> + +<p>"I must make up for him as well as I can," said Mattie, after he had +gone; "she must not break down, because he turns away. She is young and +will get over it—let me see, now, how shall I teach my darling to +forget all this?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VID" id="CHAPTER_VID"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED.</h3> + + +<p>That is a grand trait of character in man, woman, or +child—unselfishness. It is a trait that scarcely exists, perhaps, in +its pure state; for we are selfish mortals, struggling to cut one +another's throats all our lives, and coveting our neighbour's goods with +a rare intensity. It is a selfish globe on which we are spinning, and it +is natural to think deeply—think altogether, perhaps—of <i>our</i> loves, +<i>our</i> successes, <i>our</i> chances of fame, fortune, happiness, rather than +of other people's. For the reason that it has been our lot to drop upon +an exception to this rule—as near an exception as this rule <i>sans</i> +exception will allow—do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections, +and think her story—approaching its turbulent stage—worth the telling.</p> + +<p>Springing from a low estate, and saved as by a miracle—this flower put +forth strange buds and blossoms after its transplanting. It outlived the +past, and turned quickly to the light, as though light had been its +craving from the first, and only a better chance, and a purer moral +atmosphere, were needed to wholly change it. Mattie passed from evil to +good swiftly, grateful to the hands that had been outstretched to save +her; the untaught childhood became swiftly the days of grateful +girlhood—and from girlhood to the gentle, honest womanhood, that +thought of others' happiness, and strove hard for happiness in those she +loved, was but another step, easily made and never repented of.</p> + +<p>She did all for the best, and strove hard to make the best of +everything—<i>for others</i>. We know no better heroine than this, and I am +very doubtful if we care for one better educated or of higher origin. +And yet, heaven be thanked, not a model heroine, who was always in the +right!</p> + +<p>Mattie removed to her father's apartments in Union Road, Brunswick +Street, New Kent Road. Brunswick Street is an artery that lets the wild +blood of Great Dover Street into the New Kent Road—a quiet street by +day, but subject to scared strangers at night in search of the medical +students who locate here in legions. Union Road is on the right of +Brunswick Street, and a near cut, if you are fortunate enough not to +lose yourself, to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, though what you may want +<i>there</i> is more your business than ours. Mr. Gray rented the two top +rooms of a small house in Union Road, the sitting room provided with a +sofa bedstead, which was henceforth to be of service to Mattie, when the +day's duties were over, and Mr. Gray had finished his praying.</p> + +<p>Here settled down the new-found father and child, and began "home" once +more. Here Mattie learned by degrees to understand her father, to +appreciate the many good qualities which he possessed, and to "make +allowance"—as she always made allowance—for the few bad ones, which he +possessed also, minister of the gospel as he termed himself.</p> + +<p>They agreed very well together; there was little to disturb the even +tenor of their way; and it fortunately happened that Mr. Gray, who was +fond of argument, was blessed with a daughter who always shunned it, +when the topics did not directly affect her. Mr. Gray, on the whole, was +a little disappointed in his daughter—agreeably disappointed, we might +have said, had not the discomfiture been so apparent on his features for +a while. He was a man fond of making converts; it had been his +profession, and he had met with success therein. He had promised himself +the pleasure of saving his daughter from the dangers and temptations of +the world, and he had found one who was out of danger and as above +temptation as he was. From Mrs. Watts' account, subsequently from Mr. +Wesden's, he had been led to expect a very different daughter to this; a +girl who had run the streets for eleven years—who had been a friendless +stray upon those streets, a thief and beggar at intervals when honesty +did not <i>pay</i>—who had afterwards left her master's house under +suspicion of a grave character—was likely to be a wilful, vicious +specimen of womanhood, and worthy of his earnest efforts to subdue. +Though he would not have owned it to himself, yet the belief in Mattie +being unregenerate and defiant had added an intensity to his search for +her; since his own better life, he had been ever in search of a +thoroughly fine specimen of impenitence to practise upon, and now even +his own daughter had disappointed him!</p> + +<p>He discovered that she was a regular attendant at chapel—not even at +church, to whose forms he had the true dissenter's objection—that she +read her Bible regularly, and took comfort from its pages—that she was +gentle, charitable, kind, unselfish, everything that he would have liked +to make her by his intense love and application, and which he had found +ready-made to hand.</p> + +<p>He returned thanks for all this in his usual manner, but there was an +occasional blankness of expression on his countenance; he was truly glad +to have discovered his daughter, but he found that she was never to owe +him an immense debt of gratitude for her reformation, and he had built +upon that whenever they were thrown together, father and child, at last. +Beyond his home he must look once more for the obdurate specimen that he +could attack, follow up, analyze and dissect, with the gusto of a +surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"</p> + +<p>But that home—in a very little time what a different place it was to +him! He found in Mattie all that he could have made of her, and after +awhile he was more than content. He was a man who made but little show +of earthly affection, and possibly deceived Mattie, who took his love +for duty more often than he wished, though it was his pride to abjure +all evidence of earthly affection, and to consider himself, as he termed +it, above it. He was a man who deceived himself by this—people have +that peculiar trait of character now and then, and place credence in +their own impossibilities.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gray was a lithographer by trade—a man who would have earned more +money had not his preaching interfered with his work, and had he not +been rather too particular for a business man upon what work he engaged +himself. A crotchety, irritable being, who brought his religion into his +business, and, therefore, occasionally muddled both. On one occasion he +had been horrified by the receipt of an order to lithograph several +scenes from the last new pantomime, to be exhibited on broadsheets +outside the theatre-doors, and in tobacconists' shops; and having +declined to be an agent in such a "Worke of the Beast," had been +dismissed from the staff of a firm which he had faithfully-served for +many years. He had lived hard after that, known what it was to be +penniless and fireless, and almost bootless, but those unpleasant +sensations had their comforts for him—they were evidences of his +sacrifice for his character's sake, and he had fought on doggedly till +other employment came, which brought his head above water. He was a man +who never gave way in his opinions, or sacrificed them for his personal +convenience—a disagreeable man more often than not, but a man respected +amongst his chapel-circle, and who, when once understood—that was not +often, however—was generally liked. A man who dealt in hard truths, and +had not invariably the gentlest method of distributing them; but a man +who loved to see justice done to all oppressed, and did his best after +his own way.</p> + +<p>His first attempt to do justice, after Mattie's acquaintance with him, +was in Mattie's favour. He understood all the reasons for Mattie's +departure from Great Suffolk Street, and he saw where Mr. Wesden had +been deceived, and in what manner he had been led by degrees to form a +false estimate of Mattie's conduct.</p> + +<p>He was a fidgety man, we have implied—more than that, he was an +excitable and restless man.</p> + +<p>"I must see that Mr. Wesden again—we must both see him, Mattie," he +said one evening.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I can never face him," said Mattie, in an alarmed manner, "after +all that he has thought of me. I could not bear to ask him to confess +that he was in the wrong, if he will not confess it of his own free +will."</p> + +<p>"But he shall, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"I can't explain the robberies—can't prove that I was innocent of all +implication in them. I was a thief once, and he will never forget that."</p> + +<p>"Won't he?" said Mr. Gray, decisively; "we'll see about that. I'll rouse +him, my dear, depend upon it. The first opportunity I have, I'll call +upon that man, and—rouse him."</p> + +<p>"I hope not."</p> + +<p>Mattie was at work at the fireside; she had taken to dress-making again, +amongst a new connection of chapel-goers introduced by her father, and +Mr. Gray was busy at his lithography. He was working hard into the +night, doing extra work, in order that he might have all the next week +free for a preaching expedition amongst the colliers, and he did not +turn from his work to express his opinion; on the contrary, bent more +earnestly over it.</p> + +<p>"It's no good hoping, my dear, I have made up my mind; he hasn't acted +fairly by you—he hasn't made atonement—I must talk to him presently."</p> + +<p>Mattie was glad of the postponement, and hopeful that her father, in his +multiplicity of engagements, would forget his determination—a strange +hope, for Mr. Gray never forgot anything.</p> + +<p>"What kind of man is this Mr. Wesden, Mattie?" he asked; "I have only +seen him once, for a few minutes. Hard, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. He has altered very much lately."</p> + +<p>"A worldly man—fond of money—grasping, in fact. Such a man is hard to +impress. I'll have a try at him, though."</p> + +<p>"He's a very good man, father," Mattie said; "you must remember that he +saved me from the streets, and that for years and years was very good +and kind to me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—I shall pay him back some day—but he must be worldly, I +should think, and in return for all his goodness I'll make a good man of +him—see if I don't! I suppose you used to open on Sundays in Great +Suffolk Street?"</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>"Hum—that's well. Not so bad as I thought. Did he go to chapel of a +Sunday, now?"</p> + +<p>"To church—St. George's."</p> + +<p>"Hum—that's not so bad. Not much credit in making a better man of +<i>him</i>," he muttered; "but I'll—rouse him!"</p> + +<p>The next day he neglected his work on purpose to attempt the experiment. +He was successful enough, for there was a rough eloquence inherent in +him, and he had a fair cause to plead; and the result was, that the +roused Mr. Wesden made his appearance arm in arm with Mr. Gray at +Mattie's home.</p> + +<p>"I've got him!" said Mr. Gray, triumphantly; "here's Mr. Wesden, Mattie. +He has come to say how very sorry he was for all that parted you and +him—haven't you, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Very sorry," said Mr. Wesden, looking at Mattie askance; "I've been +thinking of it a long while—yes, Mattie, very sorry!"</p> + +<p>He held out both hands to her, and Mattie ran to him, clasped them in +her own, shook them heartily, and then burst out crying on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh! my first father!—I didn't think that you would believe wrong of me +all your life!"</p> + +<p>"No—and it was very wrong—Mattie. And all will be right now—you and +your father must come and see us very often."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography, +bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this +reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had +vanished.</p> + +<p>"Father—you hear?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care about much company—when we've nothing better to do than +idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.</p> + +<p>"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden, +almost entreatingly.</p> + +<p>"Mattie won't care about much company herself—and I very much doubt +if—if that young person you allude to—is exactly fitting for my +daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of +what is truly womanly."</p> + +<p>Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that +night, and he perplexed her.</p> + +<p>"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh. +She was in high spirits that night.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gray softened.</p> + +<p>"You are a very good girl, Mattie—a very good girl indeed; there are +only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was +speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a +chisel at his leisure.</p> + +<p>"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think +<i>any</i> harm of me now! The robberies—the talk with Mr. Hinchford—" she +added, with a faint blush.</p> + +<p>"What was that?" asked Mr. Gray, with renewed alacrity.</p> + +<p>"Foolishness—all foolishness on my part," said Wesden; "how could I +have acted so? And yet, when it came to being out all night, the fancies +turned to truths, it seemed. Ah! no matter now."</p> + +<p>"No matter now. Oh! I am very happy. Will you sit down here for awhile, +and tell me about Harriet and yourself—and <i>she</i> who was always so kind +to me?"</p> + +<p>"And thought well of you to the last. We wrangled once or twice about +that—the only thing we ever had to quarrel about, Mattie, in all our +lives together."</p> + +<p>"Sit down and tell me about her—my true mother! You will excuse my +father—he is very busy."</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>And after his old dreamy stare at Mr. Gray, who appeared to have +suddenly and entirely lost all interest in Mr. Wesden, he sat down by +the fireside and, talked of old times—the dear old times that Mattie +loved to hear about. Mattie was happy that night; her heart was lighter; +her character had been redeemed to him who had mistrusted her; he was +sitting again by her side—all her love for him had come back as it +were, and all his cruel thoughts of her had vanished away for ever.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden talked more than he used, when one particular subject was +dilated on; and to have Mattie full of interest in that better half of +him that had gone from life on earth to life eternal, gave brightness to +his eyes, vigour to his narrative, and rendered him oblivious to time, +till a deep voice behind him broke in upon the dialogue.</p> + +<p>"It's getting late."</p> + +<p>"Ah! it must be," said Mr. Wesden, rising. "And you'll come now, Mattie? +You have forgiven me?"</p> + +<p>"With all my heart—what there was to forgive!"</p> + +<p>"And you'll let her come, Mr. Gray, now I have done her that justice?"</p> + +<p>"When there's time."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wesden departed; Mattie saw him down-stairs to the passage door, and +stood watching his figure, not so active as of yore, proceeding down the +dimly lighted street. When she returned to the sitting-room, she found +that her father had left his work, and was sitting with his feet on the +fender, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly together. He did not look +round when she came in; when she had taken her seat near him, he did not +look up at her. There was a change in him, which Mattie remarked, and +after a little while inquired the reason for.</p> + +<p>"Mattie," he said, suddenly, "I didn't know that you were so fond of Mr. +Wesden, or I'd have never brought him here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am fond of him—I am fond of all those who have been kind to +me—who belong unto the past, of which he and I have been speaking +to-night."</p> + +<p>"You like him better than me?"</p> + +<p>Mattie was too astonished to reply at once to this. She saw the reason +for his sudden reserve to Mr. Wesden in a new light; she detected a new +feature in him, that had heretofore been hidden. Years ago—like a +far-away murmur—she could fancy that her mother spoke again of her +husband's jealousy as one reason why home had been unhappy, and she had +fled from it. Mr. Gray became excited. His eyes lit up, his face flushed +a little, and his hands puckered up bits of cloth at his knees in a +nervous, irritable way.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't like that man to be put ever before me in everything—to be +liked better than myself—he has got a daughter of his own to love, and +must not rob me of you. I can't have it—I won't have it! My life has +been a very desolate one till now, and it is your duty to make amends +for it, and be faithful to me in the latter days."</p> + +<p>"You may trust me, father."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on his, and he turned and looked into her dark eyes, +where truth and honesty were shining. He brightened up at once.</p> + +<p>"I think I may—you'll not forget me—you'll be like a daughter to me. +Yes, I <i>can</i> trust you, Mattie!"</p> + +<p>This fugitive cloud was wafted away on the instant; Mattie almost forgot +the occurrence, and all was well again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIID" id="CHAPTER_VIID"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>A DINNER PARTY.</h3> + + +<p>Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford had mapped his course out for the future; he +had been ever fond of planning out his paths in life, as though no +greater planner than he were near to thwart him. That they were turned +from their course or broken short, at times, taught no lesson; he gave +up his progress upon them, but he sketched at once the new course for +his adoption, and began afresh his journey.</p> + +<p>He had parted with Harriet Wesden for ever; so be it—it belonged to the +irreparable, and he must look it sternly in the face and live it down as +best he might. It had been all a fallacy, and he the slave of a +delusion—if, in the waking, he had suffered much, was in his heart +still suffering, let him keep an unmoved front before the world, that +should never guess at the keenness and bitterness of this +disappointment. He had his duties to pursue; he had his father to +deceive by his demeanour—he must not let the shadow of his distress +darken the little light remaining for that old man, whom he loved so +well, and who looked upon him as the only one left to love, or was worth +living for.</p> + +<p>He told his father that the engagement was at an end; that Harriet and +he had both, by mutual consent, released each other from the contract, +and considered it better to be friends—simply friends, who could esteem +each other, and wish each other well in life. There had been no +quarrelling, he was anxious to impress on Mr. Hinchford: he had himself +suggested the separation, feeling, in the first place, that Harriet +Wesden was scarcely suited to be his wife; and in the second, that he +had been selfish and unjust to bind her to an engagement extending over +a period of years, with all uncertainty beyond.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman scarcely comprehended the details; he understood the +result, and as it did not appear to seriously affect his son, he could +imagine that Sid had acted honourably, and for the very best. <i>He</i> did +not want Sid to marry, and perhaps live apart from him; he knew that +much of his own happiness would vanish away at the altar, where Sid +would take some one for better, for worse, and he could not regret in +his heart anything that retained his boy at his side. In that heart he +had often thought that Harriet Wesden was scarcely fit for his son's +wife, scarcely deserving of that dear boy—there was time enough for Sid +to marry a dozen years hence—he had married late in life himself, and +why should not his son follow his example!</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford heard a little of this reasoning in his turn, but +whether he admired his father's remarks or not, did not appear from the +unmoved aspect of his countenance. He was always anxious to turn the +conversation into other channels; partial in those long evenings to +backgammon with his father—a game which absorbed Mr. Hinchford's +attention, and rendered him less loquacious. Still Sidney was a fair +companion, and disguised the evidence of his disappointment well; he had +set himself the task of making the latter days of that old gentleman +free from care if possible, and he played his part well, and would have +deceived keener eyes than his father's. That father was becoming weaker +in body and mind, Sid could see; he was more feeble than his elder +brother now—success in life had tested his nervous system +more—possibly worn him out before his time. Like his son, he had had +ever a habit of keeping his chief troubles to himself, and preserving a +fair front to society. He had had a nervous wife to study, afterwards a +son to encourage by his stanch demeanour. He had been an actor +throughout the days of his tribulation, and such acting is the wear and +tear of body and mind, and produces its natural fruit at a later season.</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford saw the change in him, and knew that their parting must +come, sooner than the father dreamed of. Mr. Hinchford had a knowledge +of his own defects, but not of their extent. He was ignorant how weak he +had become, as he seldom stirred from home now; and his memory, which +played him traitor, also helped him to forget its defects! He pictured +Sidney and him together for many years yet—the Hinchfords were a +long-lived race, and he did not dream of himself being an exception to +the rule.</p> + +<p>But Sidney noted every change, and became anxious. He noted also that +the powers of mind seemed waning faster than the body, and that there +were times when his father almost forgot their poor estate, and talked +more like the rich man he had been once. He brought a doctor to see him +once, sat him down by his father's side, in the light of an office +friend, and then waited anxiously for the verdict delivered an hour +afterwards, in the passage.</p> + +<p>"Keep him from all excitement if you can—let him have his own way as +much as possible—and there is not a great deal to fear."</p> + +<p>Sidney cautioned Ann Packet, who was partial to a way of her own, and +then went to office more contented in mind. Over the office books, he +was sterner and graver than he used to be, and more inclined than ever +to repel the advances of his cousin.</p> + +<p>His salary had been raised by that time; he had distinguished himself as +a good and faithful servant, and he took the wages that were due to him, +with thanks for his promotion.</p> + +<p>One day, his uncle sent for him into the inner chamber, to speak of +matters foreign to the business of a banking house.</p> + +<p>"Sidney, I have troubled you more than once with advice concerning my +son Maurice."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He is about to offer you and your father an invitation to dine with him +next week."</p> + +<p>"I know what to answer, sir," said Sidney, somewhat stiffly. He objected +to this advice-gratis principle, and thought that Mr. Geoffry Hinchford +might have left him to his own judgment.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't, and that's why I sent for you. Maurice will be +thirty-one next week—it's a little family affair, almost exclusively +confined to members of the family, and I hope that you will both come."</p> + +<p>"Sir—I——"</p> + +<p>"Bygones are bygones; we do not make a mere pretence of having forgotten +the past—<i>we</i> Hinchfords," said his uncle. "Sidney, I will ask it as a +favour?"</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir. But my father is not well, and I fear not able to bear +any extra fatigue."</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid of old Jemmy's consent," said the banker. "There, go to +your desk, and don't waste valuable time in prolixity."</p> + +<p>Late that day Maurice Hinchford addressed his cousin. Sidney was going +down the bank steps homewards, when his cousin followed him, and passed +his arm through his.</p> + +<p>"Sidney—you'll find two letters of mine at home. They are for you and +your father. I shall call it deuced unkind to say No to their contents!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose we say Yes, then!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you. The governor and I want you and your governor down at our +place next week. No excuses. Even Mr. Geoffry Hinchford will not have +them this time; that stern paterfamilias, who thinks familiarity with me +will breed the usual contempt."</p> + +<p>"For the business—not for you, Maurice!"</p> + +<p>"He's very anxious to make a model clerk of you; and very much afraid +that I shall spoil you. As if I were so dangerous a friend, relative, or +acquaintance! Upon my honour, I can't make it out exactly. I've had an +idea that I should be just the friend for you. Perhaps the governor is +coming round to my way of thinking, at last."</p> + +<p>Sidney repeated his past assertions that their positions did not, and +could never correspond. Maurice laughed at this as usual.</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you fifty times that I don't care a fig for position, +and that a Hinchford is always a Hinchford—<i>i.e.</i>, a gentleman? Sidney, +you are an incomprehensibility; when you marry that lady to whose +attractions you have confessed yourself susceptible, perhaps I shall +make you out more clearly."</p> + +<p>Sidney's countenance changed a little—he became grave, and his cousin +noticed the difference.</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong?" was the quick question here.</p> + +<p>Sidney was annoyed that he had betrayed himself—he who prided himself +upon mastering all emotion when the occasion was necessary.</p> + +<p>"Oh! no; everything right, Maurice!" he said with a forced lightness of +demeanour; "the folly of an engagement that could end in nothing, +discovered in good time, and two romantic beings sobered for their +good!"</p> + +<p>"Why could it end in nothing?—I don't see."</p> + +<p>"Oh! it's a long story," replied Sidney, "and you would not feel +interested in it. I was selfish to seek to bind her to a long +engagement, and we both thought so, after mature deliberation. I turn +off here—Good night!"</p> + +<p>"Good night!"</p> + +<p>Sidney found the invitations awaiting him at home. Mr. Hinchford had +opened his own letter, and spent the greater part of the afternoon in +perusing and reperusing it.</p> + +<p>"What—what do you think of this, Sid?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me what <i>you</i> think of it."</p> + +<p>"Well—I think, just for once, we might as well go—show them that we +know how to behave ourselves, poor as we are, Sidney."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Sidney, somewhat wearily; "we'll go!"</p> + +<p>"Let me see; what have I done with that dress coat of mine?" said the +father; "how long is it since I wore it, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>Twenty-five years, or thereabouts, since Mr. Hinchford had worn a +dress-coat, consequently a little behind the fashion just then. Sidney +Hinchford thought with a sigh of the fresh expenses incurred by the +acceptance of his cousin's invitation; he who was saving money for the +rainy days ahead of him. How long ahead now, he thought, were the years +still to intervene and leave him in God's sunlight? He could not tell; +but there was a cruel doubt, which kept him restless. Give him his sight +whilst his father lived, at least, and spare the white head further care +in this life! Afterwards, when he was alone, he thought, a little +misanthropically, it did not matter. His own trouble he could bear, and +there would be no one else—no one in all the world!—to grieve about +<i>him</i>. A few expressions of commonplace condolence for his affliction, +and then—for ever alone!</p> + +<p>Sidney Hinchford and his father went down by railway to Redhill. The +dinner-party was for five <span class="smcap">P.M.</span>—an early hour, to admit of London +friends return by the eleven o'clock train. At the station, Mr. Geoffry +Hinchford's carriage waited for father and son, and whirled them away to +the family mansion, whilst the less favoured, who had arrived by the +same train, sought hired conveyances.</p> + +<p>"He treats us well—just as we deserve to be treated—just as I would +have treated him, Sid. He was always a good sort—old Jef!"</p> + +<p>Sidney did not take heed of his father's change of opinion—the world +had been full of changes, and here was nothing to astonish him. He was +prepared for anything remarkable now, he thought—he could believe in +any transformations.</p> + +<p>Father and son reached their relative's mansion exactly as the clock in +the turret roof of the stable-house was striking five—there were +carriages winding their way down the avenue before them, the hired flys +with their hungry occupants were bringing up the rear. Sid looked from +the carriage window, and almost repented that he had brought his father +to the festivities. But Mr. Hinchford was cool and self-possessed; it +was a return to the old life, and he seemed brighter and better for the +change.</p> + +<p>Maurice Hinchford received them in the hall; the first face in the large +ante-room was that of Uncle Geoffry. There was no doubt of the +genuineness of their reception—it was an honest and a hearty welcome.</p> + +<p>Sidney had mixed but little in society—few young men at his age had +seen less of men and manners, yet few men, old or young, could have been +more composed and stately. He was not anxious to look his best, or +fearful of betraying his want of knowledge; he had graver thoughts at +his heart, and being indifferent as to the effect he produced, was cool +and unmoved by the crowd of guests into which he had been suddenly +thrust. He had accepted that invitation to oblige his cousin, not +himself; and there he was, by his father's side, for Maurice's guests to +think the best or worst of him—which they pleased, he cared not.</p> + +<p>Poor Sid at this time was inclined to be misanthropical; he looked at +all things through a distorting medium, and he had lost his natural +lightness of heart. His lip curled at the stateliness and frigidity of +his uncle's guests, and he was disposed to see a stand-offishness in +some of them which did not exist, and was only the natural ante-dinner +iciness that pervades a conglomeration of diners-out, unknown to each +other. Still it steeled Sidney somewhat; he was the poor relation, he +fancied, and some of these starchy beings scented his poverty by +instinct! Maurice introduced him to his mother and sisters—people with +whom we shall have little to do, and therefore need not dilate upon. The +greeting was a little stiff from the maternal quarter—Sidney remembered +on the instant his father's previous verdicts on the brother's +wife—cordial and cousinly enough from the sisters, two pretty girls, +the junior of Maurice, and three buxom ladies, the senior of their +brother—two married, with Maurices of their own.</p> + +<p>Sidney endeavoured to act his best; he had not come there to look +disagreeable, though he felt so, in the first early moments of meeting; +when the signal was given to pass into the dining-room, he offered his +arm to his youngest cousin, at Maurice's suggestion, and thawed a little +at her frankness, and at the brightness of her happy looking face.</p> + +<p>There might have been one little pang at the evidence of wealth and +position which that dining-room afforded him—for he was a Hinchford +also, and his father had been a rich man in past days—but the feeling +was evanescent, if it existed, and after one glance at his father, as +cool and collected as himself, he devoted himself to the cousin, whom he +had met for the first time in his life.</p> + +<p>A grand dinner-party, given in grand style, as befitted a man well to do +in the world. No gardeners and stablemen turned into waiters for the +nonce, and still unmistakably gardeners and stablemen for all their limp +white neckcloths—no hired waiters from remote quarters of the world, +and looking more like undertaker's men than lacqueys—no flustered +maid-servants and nurserymaids, pressed into the service, and suffering +from nervous trepidation—this array of footmen at the back, the staff +always on hand in that palatial residence, which a lucky turn of the +wheel had reared for Geoffry Hinchford.</p> + +<p>Sidney's cousin sang the praises of her brother all dinner-time; what a +good-tempered, good-hearted fellow he was, and how universally liked by +all with whom he came in contact. She was anxious to know what Sidney +thought of him, and whether he had been impressed by Maurice's +demeanour; and Sidney sang in a minor key to the praises of his cousin +also, not forgetting in his peculiar pride to regret that difference of +position which set Maurice apart from him.</p> + +<p>Miss Hinchford did not see that, and was sure that Maurice would scoff +at the idea—she was sure, also, that everyone would be glad to see +Sidney at their house as often as he liked to call there. Sidney thawed +more and more; a naturally good-tempered man, with a pleasant companion +at his side, it was not in his power to preserve a gloomy aspect; he +became conversational and agreeable; he had only one care, and that was +concerning his father, to whom he glanced now and then, and whom he +always found looking the high-bred gentleman, perfectly at his ease—and +very different to the old man, whose mental infirmities had kept him +anxious lately. Mr. James Hinchford had gone back to a past in which he +had been ever at home; his pliant memory had abjured all the long +interim of poverty, lodgings in Great Suffolk Street, and a post at a +builder's desk; he remembered nothing of them that night, and was the +old Hinchford that his brother had known. To the amazement of his son, +he rose after dinner to propose the toast of the evening—somewhat out +of place, being a relation and yet a stranger almost—and spoke at +length, and with a fluency and volubility which Sidney had not remarked +before. He assumed his right to propose the toast as the oldest friend +of the family, and he did it well and gracefully enough, utterly +confounding the family physician, who had been two days compiling a long +and elaborate speech which "that white-headed gentleman opposite" had +taken completely out of his mouth.</p> + +<p>That white-headed gentleman sat down amidst hearty plaudits, and +Maurice's health was drunk with due honours; and then Maurice—"dear old +Morry!" as his sister impetuously exclaimed—responded to the toast.</p> + +<p>A long speech in his turn, delivered with much energy and rapidity, his +flushed and good-looking face turning to right and left of that long +array of guests around him. Sidney's heart thrilled to hear one +expression of Maurice's—an allusion to the gentleman who had proposed +his health, "his dear uncle, whose presence there tended so much to the +pleasurable feelings of that night."</p> + +<p>"Well—he is a good fellow," said Sidney, heartily; "I wish I had a +brother like him to stand by me in life."</p> + +<p>His cousin looked her gratitude at him for the outburst, and no one +hammered the table more lustily than Sidney at the conclusion of his +cousin's speech.</p> + +<p>There were a few more toasts before the ladies retired at the signal +given by the hostess; there was a rustle of silk and muslin through the +broad doorway, and then the gentlemen left to themselves, and many of +them breathing freer in consequence.</p> + +<p>There remained some twenty or twenty-five gentlemen to do honour to the +wine which shone from the array of decanters on the table; Sidney drew +his chair closer to his neighbour's, and looked round him again. His +father, perfectly at home—happy and equable—sparing with the wine, +too, as Sidney had wished, and yet had not thought filial to hint to his +sire. His father almost faced him, and Sidney, whose powerful glasses +brought him within range of vision, could return the smile bestowed in +his direction now and then. The old man, who had forgotten his poverty, +kept in remembrance the son who had shared that poverty with him.</p> + +<p>There was more speech-making after the ladies had retired; deeper +drinking, and a wider scope of subjects. One gentleman near his father, +in a lackadaisical strain, rose to propose the health of the family +physician, who had been balked of his speech early in the evening; and +Sidney, startled somewhat by the tone of a voice that he fancied he had +heard before, peered through his glasses, and tried to make the speaker +out.</p> + +<p>He had seen that man before, or heard that strange drawl—where or in +what company he was at fault—the man's features were indistinct at that +distance. He edged his chair nearer—even in his intense curiosity, for +which he was scarcely able to account, changed his place, and went a few +seats from the foot of the table, where Maurice was now sitting in his +mother's vacated place.</p> + +<p>Then Sidney recognized the man—suddenly and swiftly the truth darted +upon him—he had met that man in the Borough; he had stood between him +and his offensive persecution of Harriet Wesden; he was the "prowler" of +old days—the man from whom he had extorted an apology in the public +streets, and from whom a generous and unwashed public would accept no +apology.</p> + +<p>The old antagonism seemed to revive on the instant; he felt the man's +presence there an insult to himself; his blood warmed, and his ears +tingled; he wondered what reason had brought that man there, and whose +friend he could possibly be?</p> + +<p>"What man is that?" he asked almost imperiously of Maurice, who, taken +aback by the question, stared at Sidney with amazement.</p> + +<p>"A friend of mine," he answered at last; "do you know him?"</p> + +<p>"N—no."</p> + +<p>Sidney relapsed into silence and mastered his excitement. This was not a +time or place to mention how he had met that man, or in what +questionable pursuit; there was danger to Maurice, from so evil an +acquaintance; and in his own honesty of purpose, Sid could not +understand that the man had any right at that table, an honoured guest +there. He knew but little of polite society; did not understand that +polite society requires no reference as to the morals of its guests, and +is quite satisfied if the name be good, and the status unquestionable. +Polite society cannot trouble itself about the morals of its male +members.</p> + +<p>Sidney sat and watched the prowler, and, in his confusion, drank more +port wine than was perhaps good for him. He fancied that his cousin +Maurice had implied a rebuke for his harsh interrogative; and he was +considering <i>that</i>, too, in his mind, and wishing, for the first time, +that he had not presented himself at his cousin's dinner-table.</p> + +<p>The toast was drunk and responded to by the family physician, who very +ingeniously dove-tailed the remarks upon Maurice's natal day into his +own expression of thanks for the honour accorded him. Sidney omitted to +drink the stranger's health, and made no attempt to applaud the fine +words by which it had been succeeded. He sat discomfited by the +prowler's presence there—but for that man he might never have been +engaged to Harriet Wesden, and, therefore, have never experienced the +disappointment—the cruel reaction—which had followed the folly of that +betrothal.</p> + +<p>"Sid," called his father across the table at him, "aren't you well, +lad?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! very well," was the reply; "what is there to ail me in such +pleasant company?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the gentleman is sighing for lady's society; if he will move an +adjournment, I'll second the motion," said the prowler, sauve and bland, +totally forgetful of that dark face which had glowered at him once in +London streets.</p> + +<p>"I shall propose nothing," said Sid, curtly.</p> + +<p>Those who heard the uncivil reply, looked towards the speaker somewhat +curiously. When the wine's in, the wit's out—had Sidney Hinchford +drowned his courtesy in his uncle's decanters? The prowler—he is a +fugitive character, whose name we need not parade at this late stage to +our readers—stared at our hero with the rest, but was not affected by +it, or understood good breeding sufficiently well to disguise all +evidence at his friend's table. He turned to Maurice with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Hinchford, old fellow, I leave the proposition in your hands. You who +were always a lady's man."</p> + +<p>"Not I."</p> + +<p>"But I say you were—I say that you are. Do you think that I have +forgotten all the <i>aventures amoureuses</i> of Maurice Darcy—I, his sworn +brother-in-arms—his pupil?"</p> + +<p>"Steady, Frank, steady!" cried Maurice.</p> + +<p>But the guests were noisy, and the subject was a pleasant one to +gentlemen over their wine, with the door closed on skirts and flounces. +There were shouts of laughter at the prowler's charge—Maurice shook his +head, blushed and laughed, but appeared rather to like the accusation +than otherwise—Maurice's father, at home and at his ease, laughed with +the rest. "A young dog—a young scapegrace!" he chuckled. Even Sidney's +father laughed also—young men will be young men, he thought, and the +prowler was pleasant company, and made the time fly. It is this +after-dinner-talk, when the ladies have retired, and the bottle is not +allowed to stand still, which pleases diners-out the most. This is the +"fun of the fair," where the Merry-Andrew deals forth his jokes, and the +wine-bibber appreciates the double-entendre all the more for the singing +in his ears and the thick mist by which he is surrounded.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that I have forgotten the stationer's daughter—by George! +that was a leaf from romance, and virtuous indignation in the ascendant. +Tell us the story, Maurice, we are all friends here; and though the +joke's against you——"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, I propose that we join the ladies," said Maurice, rising, +with some confusion.</p> + +<p>The guests laughed again noisily at this—it was so palpable an attempt +to retreat, that the dining-room rang again with peals of +laughter—Sidney Hinchford, sterner and grimmer than ever, alone sat +unmoved, until Maurice had dropped into his seat in despair, and then he +rose and looked across at his father.</p> + +<p>"Are you ready?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly—Sid—quite ready!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! the ladies have a hundred topics to dwell upon over their coffee, +Sidney," said his uncle; "we must have no rebellion this side of the +house."</p> + +<p>"I am going home, sir—you must excuse me—I cannot stay here any +longer. Come, father!"</p> + +<p>"Home!"</p> + +<p>"I have business at home—I am pressed for time—I will <i>not</i> stay!" he +almost shouted.</p> + +<p>Sidney's father, in mild bewilderment, rose and tottered after him. This +was an unpleasant wind-up to a social evening, and Sid's strange +demeanour perplexed him. But the boy's will was law, and he succumbed to +it; the boy always knew what was best—his son, Sid, was never at +fault—never!</p> + +<p>The guests were too amazed to comprehend the movement; some of them were +inclined to consider it a joke of Sid's—an excuse to retreat to the +drawing-room; the mystery was too much for their wine-benumbed faculties +just then.</p> + +<p>Sidney and his father were in the broad marble-paved hall; the footmen +lingering about there noted their presence—one made a skip towards the +drawing-room facing them.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" said Sid. His memory was good, and his organ of locality better. +He walked with a steady step towards a small room at the end of the +hall—a withdrawing-room, where the hats and coats had been placed early +in the evening. He returned in a few moments with his great-coat on, his +father's coat across his arm, and two hats in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Then—then we're really going, Sid?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sick of this life; it is not fit for us. Why did we come?" he +asked, angrily, as he assisted his perplexed father into his great-coat.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know, Sid," stammered the father. "I thought that we were +spending quite a pleasant evening. Has anyone said anything?"</p> + +<p>"Let us be off!"</p> + +<p>Maurice Hinchford came from the dining-room towards them with a quick +step. There was excitement, even an evidence of concern upon his +handsome face.</p> + +<p>"Sidney," he said, holding out his hand towards him, "I understand all +this; I can explain all this at a more befitting time. Don't go now—it +looks bad. It isn't quite fair to us or yourself."</p> + +<p>"You are Maurice Darcy!" said Sid, sternly.</p> + +<p>"It was a fool's trick, of which I have heartily repented. It——"</p> + +<p>"You were the man who deliberately sought the ruin of an innocent girl +to whom I was engaged—you sought my disgrace and hers, and you ask me +to your house, and insult me through your friends thus shamelessly. You +make a jest——"</p> + +<p>"On my honour, no, sir!"</p> + +<p>"No matter—I see to whom I have been indebted; perhaps the motive which +led to past preferment—I am ashamed and mortified—I have done with you +and yours for ever. I would curse the folly that led me hither to-night, +were it not for the light in which it has placed my enemies!"</p> + +<p>"You are rash, Sidney. To-morrow you will think better of me."</p> + +<p>"When my cooler judgment steps in and shows me what I must sacrifice for +my position—<i>my place</i>," he replied. "Sir, you are a Hinchford—you +should know that we are a proud family by this time. I say that we have +done with you—judge me at your worst, as I judge you!—if I fail to +keep my word."</p> + +<p>He passed his arm through his father's and led the bewildered old man +down the steps into the night air; he had been insulted, he thought, and +thus, spurning appearances, he had resented it. He could not play longer +his part of guest in that house; his old straightforward habits led him +at once to show his resentment and retire. So he shook the dust of the +house from his feet, and turned his back upon his patrons.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIID" id="CHAPTER_VIIID"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>MATTIE'S CONFESSION.</h3> + + +<p>Sidney Hinchford kept his word. He returned not to service in his +uncle's bank. He gave up his chances of distinction in that quarter, +rather than be indebted to a villain, as he considered his cousin to be, +for his success in life. It was an exaggeration of virtuous indignation, +perhaps, but it was like Sidney Hinchford. He considered his cousin as +the main cause of his separation from Harriet Wesden; that man had met +her after the little Brighton romance, of which faint inklings had been +communicated to Sid by Harriet herself, and had played the lover too +well—speciously coaxing her from that which was true, unto that which +was false and dangerous, and from which her own defence had but saved +her. Evidently a deep, designing man, who had sought the ruin of the +woman Sidney had loved best in the world—Sid could not hold service +under him now the mask had dropped.</p> + +<p>"Father, I shall leave our rich relations to themselves," he had said, +the next morning. "I am not afraid of obtaining work in other quarters. +I have done with them."</p> + +<p>"You know best, Sid," said the father, with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you the story—it is no secret now. You shall tell me how you +would have acted in my place."</p> + +<p>Sid related the particulars of his love-engagement to his father—why it +had been broken off, and by whose means, and Mr. Hinchford listened +attentively, and exclaimed, when the narrative was ended—</p> + +<p>"That nephew was a scamp of the first water, and we are well rid of +him."</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid of getting other employment," said Sidney, unremindful +of his past attempts. "If I were, I think I would prefer starving to +service in that bank."</p> + +<p>"Both of us would," added Mr. Hinchford.</p> + +<p>Sidney thought of his father, and went out again in the old search for a +place. It was beginning life again; he was once more at the bottom of +the hill, and all the past labour was to be begun afresh. No matter, he +did not despair; he was young and strong yet; he had saved money; +upwards of a hundred pounds were put by for the rainy day, and he could +afford to wait awhile; if fortune went against him at this new outset, +his was not a nature to flinch at the first obstacle. He had always +fought his way.</p> + +<p>But luck went with him, as it seemed to Sidney. That day he heard of the +starting of a new bank on the limited liability principle, and he sought +out the manager, stated his antecedents, offered his services, and was +engaged. He came home rejoicing to his father with the news, and after +all had been communicated, his father tendered him a letter that had +been awaiting his arrival.</p> + +<p>Sidney looked at the letter; in the left corner of the envelope was +written "Maurice Hinchford," and Sid's first impulse was to drop it +quietly in the fire, and pay no heed to its contents. But he changed his +mind, broke the seal, and read, in a few hasty lines, Maurice's desire +for an interview with his cousin. Maurice confessed to being the Darcy +of that past evil story, and expressed a wish to enter into a little +explanation of his conduct, weak and erring as it was, but not so black +as Sidney might imagine. Sidney tore up the letter and penned his +reply—unyielding and unforgiving. He could find no valid excuse for his +cousin's conduct; he was sure there was not any, and he saw no reason +why they two should ever meet again. This, the substance of Sidney +Hinchford's reply, which was despatched, and then the curtain fell +between these two young men, and Sidney alone in the world, more grim, +more business-like, even more misanthropical than ever.</p> + +<p>He had soon commenced work in the new bank. Before its start in the +world with the usual flourish of trumpets, he had found himself taken +into confidence, and his advice on matters monetary and commercial +followed on more than one occasion; he was, in his heart, sanguine of +success in this undertaking; he saw the road to his own honourable +advancement; his employers had been pleased with the character which +they had received from Messrs. Hinchford and Son, bankers, to whom +Sidney had referred them, with a little reluctance; before him all might +yet be bright enough.</p> + +<p>Then came the check to his aspirations—the check which he had feared, +which he had seen advancing to rob him of the one tie that had bound him +to home. His father gave way more in body if not in mind, and became +very feeble in his gait; he had reached the end of his journey, and was +tired, dispirited, and broken down. He gave up, and took to his bed. +Sidney, returning one day from office, found him in his own room, a +poor, weak, trembling old man, set apart for ever from the toil and wear +of daily life.</p> + +<p>His mind seemed brighter in those latter days, to have cleared for +awhile before the darkness set in.</p> + +<p>"Sidney," he said, reaching out his thin hand to his son as he entered, +"you must not mind my giving up. I have been trying hard to keep strong, +for your sake, but the effort has tired me out, boy."</p> + +<p>"Courage! I shall see you hale and hearty yet."</p> + +<p>"No, Sid, it's a break up for ever. What a miserable, selfish old fellow +I have been all my life! You will get on better in the world without +me—only yourself to think of and care for then."</p> + +<p>"Only myself!" echoed Sidney, gloomily.</p> + +<p>The poor old gentleman would have offered more of this sort of +consolation had not Sidney stopped him. It was a cruel philosophy, +against which the son's heart protested. Sid was a man to attempt +consolation, but not capable of receiving it. His austerity had placed +him, as he thought, beyond it, and his father's efforts only stabbed him +more keenly to the quick.</p> + +<p>Sidney tried to believe that his father's deliberate preparation was a +whim occasioned by some passing weakness, but the truth forced its way +despite him, sat down before him, haunted his dreams, would not be +thought away. The doctor gave no hopes; the physician whom he called in +only confirmed the doctor's verdict; it was a truth from which there was +no escape.</p> + +<p>When he gave up reasoning against his own convictions, Sidney gave up +his clerkship, as suddenly, and with as little warning as he had vacated +his stool in his uncle's counting-house.</p> + +<p>There was a choice to make between hard work day and night at the new +banking scheme—isolated completely from his dying father—and +attendance, close and unremitting, to that father who had loved him +truly and well, and Sidney did not hesitate.</p> + +<p>"Afterwards, I can think of myself," he said; "let me brighten the days +that are left you, to the best of my power."</p> + +<p>"Ah! but the future?" said the father, anxious concerning his son's +position in life.</p> + +<p>"I do not care for it, or my position in it now."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that, Sid."</p> + +<p>"Father, I was working for you, and for your comfort in the future—now +let all thoughts of the world go away for awhile, and leave you and me +together—thus!"</p> + +<p>He laid his hand upon the father's, which clutched his nervously.</p> + +<p>"Oh! but what <i>is</i> to become of you?"</p> + +<p>"Do <i>you</i> fear my getting on, with the long years before me wherein I +can work?"</p> + +<p>"No, you are sure to rise, Sid."</p> + +<p>Sidney did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Unless you grow despondent at the difficulties in the way, or let some +secret trouble weigh you down. Sid, my dear son, there's nothing on your +mind?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! no—nothing. Don't think that," was the quick response—the white +lie, for which Sidney Hinchford deserved forgiveness. He would keep his +sorrows to himself, and not distress that deathbed by his own vain +complainings against any affliction in store for <i>him</i>!</p> + +<p>When the father grew weaker, he expressed a wish to see his brother +Geoffry again.</p> + +<p>"We don't bear each other any malice—Geoffry and I, now. If you don't +mind, Sid," he said, wistfully, "I should like to shake hands with him, +and bid him good-bye."</p> + +<p>"I will write at once, sir."</p> + +<p>Sidney despatched his letter, and the rich banker came in his carriage +to the humble dwelling-place of his younger brother. Sidney did not see +his uncle; he bore him no malice; he was even grateful to him for past +kindnesses, but he could not face him in his bitter grief, and listen, +perhaps, to explanations which he cared nothing for in that hour. With +this new care staring him in the face, the other seemed to fade away, +and with it much of his past bitterness of spirit. Leave him to himself, +and trouble him no more!</p> + +<p>When the interview was over, and his uncle was gone, Sidney returned to +his post by his father's bed-side.</p> + +<p>"He has been talking about you, Sid," said the father; "he seemed +anxious to see you."</p> + +<p>"I am not fit for company."</p> + +<p>"Maurice is abroad, he tells me."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>Sidney changed the subject, read to his father, talked to him of the old +days when the mother and wife were living—a subject on which Mr. +Hinchford loved to dilate just then. But in the long, restless nights, +when Sidney slept in the arm-chair by the fire-place—he left not his +father day or night, and would have no hired watcher—the father, who +had feigned sleep for his son's sake, lay and thought of the son's +future, and was perplexed about it. His perceptive faculties had become +wondrously acute, and he could see that Sidney Hinchford was +unhappy—had been unhappy before the illness which had cast its shadow +in that little household. There was something wrong; something which he +should never know, he felt assured. Who could help him?—who could +assist him to discover it?—who would think of Sid in the desolation +which was to be that boy's legacy, and do his, or her, best for him?</p> + +<p>Early the next morning, when he was very weak, he said:—</p> + +<p>"I wonder the Wesdens haven't been to see me."</p> + +<p>"I thought they would weary you. They are scarcely friends of ours now. +I have not told them that you are ill. If you wish——"</p> + +<p>"No, no, and they would weary you, too, my boy, and things <i>have</i> +altered very much between you. Sidney, you are sorry that they have +altered, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"No—glad—very glad!"</p> + +<p>"I should like to see Mattie," he said, after a pause; "why does <i>she</i> +keep away?"</p> + +<p>"I thought that she might disturb you, sir," was the reply; "we are +better by ourselves, and without our friend's sympathy. We are above +it!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Sid—that's pride!"</p> + +<p>"Call it precaution, sir, or jealousy of anyone taking my place, between +you and me, old stanch friends as we are."</p> + +<p>His father said no more upon the question; he had been ever influenced +by his son, and borne down by his strong will. He thought now that it +was better to see no one but Sid, and the good clergyman who called +every day—better for all! Sid knew best; he had always known best +through life!</p> + +<p>But later that day, Sidney altered his mind. He had been sitting in the +arm-chair apart from his father, revolving many things in that mind, and +maintaining a silence which his father even began to think was +strange—he whose thoughts were few and far between now—when he said +suddenly to Ann Packet, who was entering on tiptoe with a candle:—</p> + +<p>"Ann, fetch Mattie here at once."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, Master Sidney?—to be sure I will," she added, with alacrity; +"I've been thinking about that, oh! ever so long!"</p> + +<p>"Be quick!—don't stop! Leave a message, if she's away. Here's money, +hire a cab there and back. Take the key with you, and let yourself in!"</p> + +<p>"What's that for, Sid!" asked the father.</p> + +<p>"I think she should be here—I think all should be here who have ever +known you, and whom you have expressed a wish to see. I am selfish and +cruel!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho!—we don't believe that, boy!" said the father, "we know +better—oh! much better than that!"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't the Wesdens come?—they are old friends—they were kind +to you and me in the old days."</p> + +<p>"Yes, very kind. You're quite right, Sid; but if they trouble you in the +least, Sid, keep them away. I don't care about seeing anybody very much, +now."</p> + +<p>"Father, you are worse," said Sidney, leaping to his feet.</p> + +<p>"No, boy—better. A spasm or two through here," laying his hand upon his +chest, "which will go off presently."</p> + +<p>"That's well."</p> + +<p>Sidney sat down again in his old place, muttering, "I wish she would +come," and the father lay quiet and thoughtful in his bed once more.</p> + +<p>Presently the father went off to sleep, and Sidney sat and listened, +with his face turned towards the bed, all the long, long time, until the +cab, containing Ann Packet and Mattie, drew up before the house.</p> + +<p>They entered the house and came up-stairs together, Mattie and Ann. Sid +made no effort to stop them, though his father was in a restless sleep, +from which a step would waken him—he still sat there, gloomy and +apathetic. They entered the room, and Mr. Hinchford woke up at the +opening of the door.</p> + +<p>"Where's Sid?" he called.</p> + +<p>"Here," said the son, "and here's Mattie—the old friend, adviser, +comforter at last!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! why haven't I been told this before?—why have you all kept me so +long in the dark?" said Mattie. "Oh! my dear old friend, my first kind +friend of all of them!" she cried, turning to the sick bed where Mr. +Hinchford was watching her.</p> + +<p>"Tell him, Mattie, that I shall not be entirely alone or friendless when +the parting comes," said Sidney; "it troubles him—I see it. Ann, don't +go—one minute."</p> + +<p>He crossed to her, laid his hand upon her arm, and went out whispering +to her, leaving Mattie and Mr. Hinchford in the room together.</p> + +<p>"Don't let him go away—the boy mustn't leave me now!" he said, in a +terrified whisper. "Mattie—I'm worse! I have been keeping it back from +the boy till the last, but I'm awfully worse."</p> + +<p>Mattie glanced at him, and then ran to the door and called Sidney.</p> + +<p>"I am coming back," said he, in reply; "speak to him, Mattie, for +awhile. I am wanted here."</p> + +<p>Mattie returned to the bed-side.</p> + +<p>"He is wanted down-stairs, he says."</p> + +<p>"Ah! don't call him up, then, Mattie—some one has heard of his +cleverness, and come after him to secure him. Well, it will be a +distraction to him—when—I'm gone."</p> + +<p>"And you so ill—and I to be kept in the dark!" said Mattie, dropping +into the chair at the bed's head, and looking anxiously into the haggard +face.</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking of you, Mattie," he said, in a low voice; +"thinking that you might be—of use—to him in the—future."</p> + +<p>Mattie shook her head sadly.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" was his eager question.</p> + +<p>"He is strong, and young, and knows the world better than I. How could I +ever be of use to him?"</p> + +<p>"He is weak—low-spirited—not like his old self now—never again, +perhaps, like his old—self! Mattie, I—seem—to think so!"</p> + +<p>"Courage, dear friend. He will be always strong; his is not a weak +nature."</p> + +<p>"Mattie, I think he should have married Harriet Wesden, after all," said +he; "he loved her very dearly. She loved him, and understood how good, +and honourable he was, at last. What separated them? I—I forget."</p> + +<p>And he passed his hand over his forehead, in the old vacant way.</p> + +<p>"No matter now, perhaps. They are parted—perhaps only for a time. I +have hoped so more than once."</p> + +<p>"You have? You who guess—at the truth—so well. Why, Mattie, I—have +hope, then, too—that it will not be—always dark like this."</p> + +<p>"That's not likely."</p> + +<p>"And if the chance comes—to bring those two together—you will do it? +Oh! Mattie, you promise this—for me?"</p> + +<p>"I promise."</p> + +<p>"But," with a new fear visible on his face, "you will lose sight of him +before the chance—of happiness—comes to the boy. You, ever apart from +him—may not know——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I shall know—always!"</p> + +<p>"He always stood your friend, remember, Mattie," said the old man, as if +endeavouring to win over Mattie heart and soul to the new cause, by all +the force of reasoning left in him. "He wasn't like—me, and +Wesden—ever inclined to waver in his thoughts of you. He believed—in +you ever—to be good and true—and you will think of this?"</p> + +<p>"I will," was the faint reply.</p> + +<p>Mattie had bowed her head, and it was almost hidden in the bed-clothes. +The old man's hand rested for an instant on the girl's raven hair.</p> + +<p>"I have—a hope—that from you, and through your means, Sid—poor old +Sid!—may find peace and comfort at last. I was thinking—of your liking +for us all—this very night."</p> + +<p>"Were you? It was kind to think of me," with a low murmur.</p> + +<p>"And I—somehow—built my hopes in you. Do you remember how you—and +I—used to talk of Sid—in that old room, in Suffolk—Street?"</p> + +<p>"Well."</p> + +<p>"Keep me in his memory, when he's very sad, remind him—of me—and how I +loved him, Mattie," in a low, excited whisper. "I'm sure that he's in +trouble—that he keeps something—back from—me!"'</p> + +<p>"A fancy, perhaps. What should he hide from you?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell; it may be fancy, but it—it worries me to think of. Oh! +Mattie, you'll forget him, if that trouble—should come to him! You'll +forget—all this—and turn to that new father of yours! And I had hope +in you."</p> + +<p>"Hope in me ever. I will not betray your trust in me. Before +all—myself, father, friends—<i>your son</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Mattie!"</p> + +<p>The father looked with a new surprise at our heroine. He had grown very +weak, but her hasty, impetuous voice, seemed for an instant to give new +life unto him.</p> + +<p>"Hush! don't betray me. Never to living soul before have I dared to +tell, to breathe this! God forgive me, if I have failed to break away +from all my folly, and have thought of him too much, as I, a stray from +the streets, had never a right to think of one so well-born, honourable, +and true. You forgive me—you, his father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You know all now. How, without one ambitious thought of linking his +name with mine, I will love him ever, and be ever, if he need it, his +true friend, and sister. I will die for him, when the time comes, and +the secret will die with me, and not shame us both. Judge me, if I am +likely to forget him, sir."</p> + +<p>"No—no—I see all now."</p> + +<p>"Don't mistake me; don't think at the last that I would scheme for him, +or ever marry him, to disgrace a family like yours. Don't think anything +but that I love Harriet Wesden, also, before myself, but not before him, +though I have tried so hard to live him down! and that I will do my +best—always my very best—to bring about the happiness of both of +them!"</p> + +<p>"And there—may—be only one way, Mattie."</p> + +<p>"Only one way, I hope."</p> + +<p>"I trust you—God bless you!—you were always a good girl. Call the +boy—my poor boy, Sid!"</p> + +<p>Mattie did as requested. At a slow, almost a painfully slow pace, Sidney +re-entered, his hand still on Ann Packet's arm.</p> + +<p>"Sid—I—I think I'll say good-bye, now!"</p> + +<p>Sidney sprung forward and caught his hands.</p> + +<p>"Not yet—not good-bye yet, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Why not? I don't fear to say it Sid—I'm strong at—heart—still; it's +a brave—a brave parting! No regrets—no sense of duty—neg—lected! A +kind father, I hope—a—a good son—I know! God bless you, boy!—peace +and happiness to yours—in life. Mattie—think—of him!"</p> + +<p>Mattie bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>"Sidney—help her, too—if she's in trouble—ever an old friend."</p> + +<p>"A true one!"</p> + +<p>"True as steel—I know it. Good-bye, Sid—keep strong +for—the—old—father's sake. Will—you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"<i>That's well!</i>"</p> + +<p>Sid bent over him and kissed him—kissed the calm face, so awfully calm +and still now!—and then turned to Mattie.</p> + +<p>"Take me away, Mattie. I can bear no more now. He was spared one +trouble, thank God! In all his life he never guessed the end of this."</p> + +<p>Mattie turned round, with a new fear possessing her.</p> + +<p>"Sidney—Mr. Sidney!"</p> + +<p>"Here—Mattie," he said, stretching forth his hand, and grasping, as it +were, furtively for hers. "I shall need friends now to help me."</p> + +<p>"Not—oh! my God, not blind?"</p> + +<p>"I have been blind all day!"</p> + + +<h3>END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mattie:--A Stray (Vol 2 of 3), by +Frederick William Robinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATTIE:--A STRAY (VOL 2 OF 3) *** + +***** This file should be named 35291-h.htm or 35291-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/2/9/35291/ + +Produced by Louise Davies, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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