Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 28

"The letter!--oh! the letter!"

"You knew it?--_you_ helped to deceive me, too!"

"Not deceit--all was done for your own good, Mr. Sidney--she did not know her own mind when that letter was written; she----"

"She will never know it--she is a weak woman--G.o.d help her! She was never fit for me!"

"Yes," was the quick denial.

"No, I say. A thousand times no!"

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.

"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?"

CHAPTER VI.

MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED.

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 _our_ loves, _our_ successes, _our_ 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 _sans_ exception will allow--do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections, and think her story--approaching its turbulent stage--worth the telling.

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 pa.s.sed 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.

She did all for the best, and strove hard to make the best of everything--_for others_. 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!

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 _there_ 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.

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.

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 _pay_--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!

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.

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 grat.i.tude 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, a.n.a.lyze and dissect, with the gusto of a surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"

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.

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.

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.

He was a fidgety man, we have implied--more than that, he was an excitable and restless man.

"I must see that Mr. Wesden again--we must both see him, Mattie," he said one evening.

"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."

"But he shall, my dear!"

"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."

"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."

"I hope not."

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.

"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."

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.

"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?"

"Sometimes. He has altered very much lately."

"A worldly man--fond of money--grasping, in fact. Such a man is hard to impress. I'll have a try at him, though."

"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."

"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?"

"Never."

"Hum--that's well. Not so bad as I thought. Did he go to chapel of a Sunday, now?"

"To church--St. George's."

"Hum--that's not so bad. Not much credit in making a better man of _him_," he muttered; "but I'll--rouse him!"

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.

"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?"

"Very sorry," said Mr. Wesden, looking at Mattie askance; "I've been thinking of it a long while--yes, Mattie, very sorry!"

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.

"Oh! my first father!--I didn't think that you would believe wrong of me all your life!"