Mattie:-A Stray Volume I Part 21

"But it hasn't happened yet."

"Ah! but it will--I see it all now as plain as a book. I said only last night that things were coming round nicely for us all. And they are--they are!"

Harriet began to cry, and to beg Mattie to desist. For an instant the sanguine a.s.sertion sounded like a vain prophecy, and jarred strangely on her nerves, bringing forth tears and heavy sobs, and a fear of that future which stretched forth radiantly beyond to Mattie's vision. After all, Harriet was but a girl, and had not thought very deeply of all that the contract implied between Sidney and herself. And after all, _were_ things coming round nicely?--or was the red glow in the sky lurid and threatening to her, and more than her?

This is scarcely a quiet story, and we are not through our first volume.

What does the astute novel-reader think?

END OF BOOK THE SECOND.

BOOK III.

UNDER SUSPICION.

CHAPTER I.

AN OLD FRIEND.

Mr. Wesden retired from business. After thirty or forty years'

application to the arduous task of "keeping house and home together,"

after much hesitation as to whether it were safe and practicable and he could afford it; after a struggle with his old habits of shop-keeping, and a deliberate survey of his position from all points of the compa.s.s, he migrated from Great Suffolk Street, and settled down in what he considered country--a back street in the Camberwell New Road, commanding views of a cabbage-field, a public house, and another back street in course of formation by an enterprising builder.

This was country enough for Mr. Wesden; and handy for town, and Great Suffolk Street. For he had scarcely retired from business, merely withdrawn himself from the direct management, the sales over the counter, and the worry of the news-boys. The name of Wesden was still over the door, and Mattie remained general manager at the old shop, which had been her refuge from the world in the hard times of her girlhood.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesden then considered themselves in the country. They had humble notions, and a little contented them. There was a back garden with a gra.s.s plot, a gravel walk, two rows of box edging, and a few flower-beds--surely that was country enough for anybody, they thought?

Then it was quite a mansion of a house--six rooms exclusive of kitchen; and, thanks more to Harriet's taste than her parents', was neatly and prettily furnished.

It was a change from Great Suffolk Street. Harriet Wesden had been brought up with lady-like notions, and had never taken to the shop; it was pleasant to live in a private house, practice her piano, a.s.sist her mother in the gardening, and have a young man to come courting her "once or twice a-week!" Mr. Wesden, with habits more formed for shop life, had to struggle hard before he could accustom himself to the novelty of his position; in his heart he never felt thoroughly at home, and was always glad of an excuse to walk over to Great Suffolk Street. He could not sit on the new chairs all day, and stare at the roses on the carpet; there was nothing much to see out of window save the postman, pot-boy, grocer's boy, and butcher, at regular intervals; gardening did not agree with his back, and it was hard work to get through the day, unless he went for a walk with the old lady.

The old lady aforesaid had taken quite a new lease of life--absence from the close neighbourhood of Suffolk Street had given her back some of her old strength; for twenty years she had solaced herself with the thought of "retiring"--the one ambition of a tradesman's wife--and now it had come, and she was all the better for the change. She made such good use of her limbs at intervals, became so absorbed in training Sweet Williams, and picking the snails off the white lilies, brightened up so much in that small suburban retreat, that the old gentleman--always be it remembered of a suspicious turn--doubted in his own mind if Mrs. W.

had not been "shamming Abraham" in Great Suffolk Street.

Harriet was not nineteen years of age yet, and business had not been left in Mattie's charge three months, when Mr. Wesden's character began to mould itself afresh. The change which had done mother and daughter good, altered Mr. Wesden for the worse. He became irritable, at times a little despondent; nothing to do, began seriously to affect his temper.

This is no common result in men who have been in harness all their lives--steady, energetic shopkeepers, whose lives have been one bustle for a quarter of a century and upwards, find retiring from business not so fine a thing as it looked from the distance, when they were in debt to the wholesale purveyors.

Mr. Wesden did not like it--if the truth must be spoken, though he kept it to himself, for appearances sake, he absolutely hated it. He was not intended for a gentleman, and he could _not_ waste time--it made his head ache and gave him the heart-burn. If it had not been for the shop in Great Suffolk Street, he would have gone melancholy mad, or taken to drinking; that shop was his safety valve, and he was only his old self when he was back in it, pottering over the stock.

Unfortunately his _new_ self was never more highly developed than when he had returned to Camberwell, and woe to the beggar or the bra.s.s band that halted before his gates and worried him.

Meanwhile, the shop in Great Suffolk Street continued to do its steady and safe business. Mattie was not far from eighteen years of age, proud of her position of trust, the quickest and best of shopkeepers. On the first floor still resided Mr. Hinchford and his son; the place was handy for office yet, and they were biding their time to launch forth, and a.s.sert their true position in society. The rent was moderate, and Sidney was trying hard to save money out of his salary; there were incentives to save, and at times he was even a trifle too economical for his father's tastes. Still, he erred on the right side--his father was becoming weaker, and his father's memory was not what it had been--his employers had not spoken of the partners.h.i.+p lately, and there might be rainy days ahead, which it was policy to prepare for--in a world of changes, who could tell what might happen?

Mattie found it dull at first after the Wesdens' departure; the place seemed full of echoes, and one bright face at least was hard to lose.

But the face came often to light up the old shop again, and on alternate Sundays she went to dine at the fine house at Camberwell, leaving Ann Packet in charge of the establishment.

Still she was soon "at home;" she was a dependant, and must expect changes; she was a girl who always made the best of everything. There was no time for her to regret the alterations; she was born for work, and there was plenty to do in Mr. Wesden's business, not to mention a watch upon Ann Packet at times, who, when "afflicted," was rather remiss in her attentions upon the lodgers.

Life was not monotonous with her, for she took an interest in her work; and if it had been, there were many gleams of suns.h.i.+ne athwart it; those who knew her best, loved her and had confidence in her. Many in Suffolk Street thought there wasn't such a young woman in the world; a butcher over the way--a young man beginning business for himself, thought that it would be a "good spec" to have such a young woman behind his counter attending to the customers--those who knew her history, and there were many in Suffolk Street who remembered her antecedents, wondered at her progress; all was well until the autumn set in, and then the tide turned in the affairs of Mattie, and on those good friends whom Mattie loved.

One afternoon in September, Mattie was busy in the shop as usual--she kept to the shop all day, and never adopted the plan of hiding away from customers in the back parlour--when a woman with a large basket, a key on her little finger, a bonnet half off her head disclosing a broad, sallow, wrinkled face, came shuffling into the shop.

Mattie looked at her across the counter, and waited for orders, looked till her heart began beating unpleasantly fast. Back from the land benighted came a rush of old memories at the sight of that dirty, slip-shod woman, whom she had hoped never to see again.

"And so you recollects me, Mattie, arter all these years?"

"I--I think that I have seen you before."

"_I_ should think you just had, once or twice. And so you're minding this shop for the Wesdens, whose turned gentlefolks?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well," putting her basket on the counter, and taking the one chair that was placed for the convenience of customers, "wonders will never cease.

To think that you should find a place like this, and should have stuck to it so long, and never gone traipsing about the streets again."

"Can I serve you with anything?" asked Mattie.

"No, you can't. I never deal here."

"Then what do you want?"

"Ah! that's another wonder which won't cease either, my dear," said the old woman, a.s.suming an insinuative manner, "and a bigger wonder than the tother one."

"I don't want to hear it, I don't want anything to say to you. You must go out of the shop, Mrs. Watts."

"Don't be afeard of me, my love; the Lord knows I haven't been a trouble to you, though I've lived within a stone's throw, and could have dropped in here at any moment. But no, I says, let her keep to her fine stuck up people if she likes, and forget her oldest and best friends for 'em, and do her wust, it's not the likes of me or mine who'll poke our noses into her affairs. No, I says, let her keep a lady, and wear brown meriner dresses, and smart black ap.r.o.ns, and white collars and cuffs, for me!"

Mrs. Watts had verged into the acrimonious vein, taken stock of Mattie's general appearance at that juncture, and introduced it into her conversation with an ease and fluency that was remarkable.

Mattie stood watching her. This was the evil genius of her early life, and there was danger in her very presence. It was not safe to take her eyes from her.

"What do you want?" she asked again.

"It's somethin' partickler--shall we come into the parler?"

"Oh! no."

"I'm not well dressed enuf, I spose?--I'm not fit society for sich a nice young gal, I spose?--I'm to be turned off as if I was a beggar, instead of the woman of property which I am, I spose?"

"What do you want?" repeated Mattie.

"And I was your poor mother's friend, and trusted her when n.o.body else would, and gave her a bed to die on comforbly when there wasn't a mag to be made out of her. And I was your friend, though that's something to turn your nose up at, ain't it?"

"You were kind in your way, perhaps--I cannot say, I don't know; I don't wish to remember the past any more. Will you tell me what you want, or go away?"