Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 25

"Not sorry I have come here to claim you?"

"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."

"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!"

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.

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.

"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."

"Your enemies?"

"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 _going it_ too much--good-bye."

"Good-bye, father."

"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."

"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.

"Talk of 'em to-morrow," said Ann; "you've _gallied_ your brains enough for fifty fathers."

"I feel so much happier, Ann, with some one whom I shall have a right to love."

"Well, you've a right to love who you like, o' course."

"And I shan't love my faithful, gentle nurse the worse for it."

"G.o.d bless you!--what a gal you are!"

"Life seems beginning with me for the first time--opening new scenes, new faces, new affections. Yes, Ann, I am happy to-night."

"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 _such a rum un_!"

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.

CHAPTER IV.

"ONLY PITY."

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

But if he would only speak!--not proceed onwards so firmly, steadily saying, never a word to relieve the embarra.s.sment 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.

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.

"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?"

"Yes."

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.

"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?"

"He is not yet."

"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?"

"But----"

"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 _gentleman_ 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 circ.u.mstances, his companion?"

"He was a man I met at Mrs. Eveleigh's--he offered to escort me to the railway station."

"A stranger?"

"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."

"What is his name?"

"Darcy."

"You have not seen him since?"

"No--I hope that he and I will never meet again."

"Harriet, you loved this man!"

"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!"

"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."