Mattie:-A Stray Volume I Part 32

"He's very late, then, for I'm late," looking at his watch; "I hope he hasn't been run over."

Mattie laughed at the expression of the father's fear.

"That's not likely, sir."

"People do get run over at times, especially in the City, and more especially near-sighted people. There's nothing to laugh at."

And rather offended at the manner in which his gloomy suggestion had been received, Mr. Hinchford senior pa.s.sed through the side door into the pa.s.sage. Mattie found Harriet at the desk again, picking out several sheets of paper saturated with ink, and arranging them of a row on the fender.

"More ink, dear--more ink!" she cried, impetuously; "I've thought of what to say. Don't keep me long without the ink."

Mattie replenished her ink-stand, and Harriet dashed into the subject with vigour, slackened after the first few lines, then came to a dead stop, and stared intently at the paper. Mattie went into the shop for fear of disturbing Harriet's train of ideas, remained there an hour attending to customers, and arranging stock, finally went back into the parlour.

The desk was closed once more; a heap of torn papers was on the floor.

Harriet, with her bonnet and shawl on, and her eyes red with weeping, was pacing up and down the room.

"No letter?" asked Mattie.

"I can't write a letter, and tell him what a wretch I am," she said, "and if I face him to-night, I shall drop at his feet. Girl," she cried, pa.s.sionately, "do you think it is so easy to act as I have done, and then avow it?"

"I should not be ashamed to own it," was Mattie's calm answer; "I should consider it my duty to tell him."

"And I will tell him all. G.o.d knows I would not deceive him for the world, Mattie, or leave him in ignorance of the true state of my heart.

But I cannot tell him now. I'm afraid!"

There was real fear in her looks--an intense excitement, that even alarmed Mattie. She saw, after all, that it was best to keep the secret back for that night.

"Then I would go home, Harriet, at once. To-morrow, when you are calmer, you may be able to write the letter."

"Yes, yes--to-morrow I will write it. I shall have all day before me, and can tear up as many sheets as I like. I will write it to-morrow, and post it from Camberwell. Mattie, as I'm a living woman, and as I pray to be free from this suspense and torture, I WILL write to him to-morrow!"

"One day is not very important," said Mattie, in reply, little dreaming of the difference that day would make. "Delays are dangerous--delays are dangerous"--she had written twenty times in her copy-book, and taken not to heart; and there _was_ danger on its way to those who had put off the truth, and to him for whom they feared it.

"Delays are dangerous!" Take it to heart, O reader, and remember it in the hour when you shrink from the truth, as from a hot iron that may sear you. Wise old admonitions of our copy-book times--we might do worse very often than laugh at ye!

CHAPTER VIII.

A SUDDEN JOURNEY.

Harriet Wesden hurried away after her promise; Mattie, at the last moment, recalling to her notice the fact of the robbery, and reminding her of the way in which she ought to break the news to her father. Then the excited girl darted away to Camberwell, and it was like the stillness of the grave in the back parlour after her departure. Mattie went in for an instant to set the place to rights, and then returned to her watch in the shop, and to her many thoughts, born of that day's incidents. She was quite prepared for a visit from Mr. Wesden at a late hour, but Mr. Wesden's movements under excitement were not to be calculated upon; and we may say here that the knowledge of his loss did not bring him post-haste to Great Suffolk Street. Mattie was thinking of her loss, when the pa.s.sage door opened, and the white head of Mr.

Hinchford peered round and looked up at the clock, over the top shelf where the back stock was kept. The movement reminded Mattie of the time, and she glanced at the clock herself--_half-past nine_.

"I thought the clock had stopped up-stairs," he said, by way of explanation for his appearance.

"I had no idea it was so late," said Mattie.

"I had no idea it was so early," responded Mr. Hinchford; adding, after a pause, "though I can't think where the boy has got to; he said he would be home early, as he had some accounts to look through."

"It's not very late, sir, and if he has gone to Camberwell, not knowing Miss Harriet was here to-night----"

"He always comes home first--I never knew him go anywhere without coming home first to tell me. But," with another look at the clock, "it's not so very late, as you say, Mattie."

"He will be here in a minute."

"I hope so," said Mr. Hinchford, going to the shop door, and looking down the street, "for it's coming on to rain, and he has no umbrella.

The boy will catch his death of cold."

After standing at the door for two or three minutes, the old gentleman turned to go up-stairs again.

"It'll be a thorough wet night--I'll tell Ann to keep plenty of water in the boiler--nothing like your feet in hot water to stave off a cold."

He retired. Half an hour afterwards he reappeared in the shop, excitable and fidgety.

"I can't make it out," he said, after another inspection of the clock; "there's something wrong."

"Perhaps he has gone to the play, sir."

"Pooh! he hates plays," was the contemptuous comment to this; "he wouldn't waste his time in a playhouse. No, Mattie there's something wrong."

"I don't think so," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I would not worry about his absence just yet, sir."

"I'll give him another hour, and then I'll go down to the office and ask after him."

"Or find him there, sir."

"No, they're not busy, I think. He can't be there. Mattie," he said suddenly. "Have you noticed a difference in him lately?"

"I--I fancy he seems, perhaps, a little graver; but then he's growing older and more manly every day."

"Ah! he grows a fine fellow--there isn't such another boy in the world--perhaps it's all a fancy of mine, after all."

Mattie knew that it was no fancy; that even Sidney's care and histrionic efforts could not disguise his trouble entirely from the father. But she played the part of consoler to Mr. Hinchford as well as she was able, and the old gentleman, less disturbed in mind, returned to his room for the second time.

But time stole on, and Mattie herself found a new anxiety added to those which had heretofore disturbed her. The wet night set in as Mr.

Hinchford had prophesied; the boy came and put up the shutters; the clock ticked on towards eleven; all but the public-houses were closed in Great Suffolk Street, and there were few loiterers about.

Ann Packet brought in the supper, and was informed of the day's two features of interest--the robbery, and the absence of Mr. Sidney. Ann Packet, of slow ideas herself, and slower still in having other ideas instilled into her, thought that the missing parcel was connected with the missing lodger, and so conglomerated matters irremediably.

"You may depend upon it, Mattie, he'll bring the parcel back--it's one of his games--he was a rare boy for tricks when I knew him fust."

"Ann, you've been asleep," said Mattie, sharply.

"I couldn't help it," answered Ann, submissively; "it was very lonely down there, with no company but the _beadles_--and times ain't as they used to was, when you could read to me, and was more often down there."

"Ah! times are altering," sighed Mattie.