Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 27

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.

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 _was_ 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 pa.s.sed, 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.

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 s.h.i.+ft 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.

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.

"Am I so altered that you should think anything had happened, Mattie?"

"There is not the look I like to see _there_," said Mattie, pointing to Harriet Wesden's face.

"It's not a happy look, is it?" she asked, with a little sigh.

"Not very."

"Sit down here beside me, and let me tell you why the happy looks have gone for ever."

"For ever! Oh! I'll not believe that."

"You'll never guess what I am going to tell you?"

"Sidney and you have quarrelled."

"Yes--no--not exactly quarrelled--what a girl you are to guess things!

Sidney and I, by mutual consent, have cancelled our engagement."

"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--"

"Never!--never!"

"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."

"There will never be an engagement between him and me again," said Harriet; "over for once and all, Mattie."

"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."

"Mattie, you don't know Sidney, after all."

"Tell me the story--I am very anxious."

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.

"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.

"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."

"Yes--yes--you will forgive me--I am always offending some one with my hasty words. This is how the quarrel came about."

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.

"Perhaps it serves _us_ right," said Mattie, pluralizing the case after her old fas.h.i.+on; "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?"

"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."

"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."

"Sidney suspect that of me! Oh! no, no--not so bad as that!"

"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."

"Slight trouble!" exclaimed Harriet. "Oh! Mattie, if you only understood what love was like, you would guess my--my sense of desolation."

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.

"I will try and guess," she said, in a low voice. "It must be desolate; I--I may know better some day!"

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.

"I broke the promise--there was nothing to keep back, when I had my own story to relate."

"He knows all this," said Mattie, "and he----"

"He is very sorry for all that harshness which drove you from us--I am sure of it."

"Why, it is brightening all round," said Mattie; "we shall have no secret in the midst of us, and all will be well now!"

Both had forgotten the letter, wherein absence of all true affection was a.s.serted; 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.

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 wors.h.i.+p still.

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 gra.s.s 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.

"I am sorry to hear the last news, Mr. Hinchford."

"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.

"Not to be expected, you mean, Mr. Sidney," she said; "for she and you, who have been together all your lives, should----"

"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----"

"But----"

"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!"

"Oh! sir," cried Mattie, dismayed at this a.s.sertion, "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!"

"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."