Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 29

"No--and it was very wrong--Mattie. And all will be right now--you and your father must come and see us very often."

"Yes."

She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography, bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had vanished.

"Father--you hear?"

"I don't care about much company--when we've nothing better to do than idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.

"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden, almost entreatingly.

"Mattie won't care about much company herself--and I very much doubt if--if that young person you allude to--is exactly fitting for my daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of what is truly womanly."

Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that night, and he perplexed her.

"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh.

She was in high spirits that night.

Mr. Gray softened.

"You are a very good girl, Mattie--a very good girl indeed; there are only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a chisel at his leisure.

"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think _any_ harm of me now! The robberies--the talk with Mr. Hinchford--" she added, with a faint blush.

"What was that?" asked Mr. Gray, with renewed alacrity.

"Foolishness--all foolishness on my part," said Wesden; "how could I have acted so? And yet, when it came to being out all night, the fancies turned to truths, it seemed. Ah! no matter now."

"No matter now. Oh! I am very happy. Will you sit down here for awhile, and tell me about Harriet and yourself--and _she_ who was always so kind to me?"

"And thought well of you to the last. We wrangled once or twice about that--the only thing we ever had to quarrel about, Mattie, in all our lives together."

"Sit down and tell me about her--my true mother! You will excuse my father--he is very busy."

"Certainly."

And after his old dreamy stare at Mr. Gray, who appeared to have suddenly and entirely lost all interest in Mr. Wesden, he sat down by the fireside and, talked of old times--the dear old times that Mattie loved to hear about. Mattie was happy that night; her heart was lighter; her character had been redeemed to him who had mistrusted her; he was sitting again by her side--all her love for him had come back as it were, and all his cruel thoughts of her had vanished away for ever.

Mr. Wesden talked more than he used, when one particular subject was dilated on; and to have Mattie full of interest in that better half of him that had gone from life on earth to life eternal, gave brightness to his eyes, vigour to his narrative, and rendered him oblivious to time, till a deep voice behind him broke in upon the dialogue.

"It's getting late."

"Ah! it must be," said Mr. Wesden, rising. "And you'll come now, Mattie?

You have forgiven me?"

"With all my heart--what there was to forgive!"

"And you'll let her come, Mr. Gray, now I have done her that justice?"

"When there's time."

Mr. Wesden departed; Mattie saw him down-stairs to the pa.s.sage door, and stood watching his figure, not so active as of yore, proceeding down the dimly lighted street. When she returned to the sitting-room, she found that her father had left his work, and was sitting with his feet on the fender, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly together. He did not look round when she came in; when she had taken her seat near him, he did not look up at her. There was a change in him, which Mattie remarked, and after a little while inquired the reason for.

"Mattie," he said, suddenly, "I didn't know that you were so fond of Mr.

Wesden, or I'd have never brought him here."

"Yes, I am fond of him--I am fond of all those who have been kind to me--who belong unto the past, of which he and I have been speaking to-night."

"You like him better than me?"

Mattie was too astonished to reply at once to this. She saw the reason for his sudden reserve to Mr. Wesden in a new light; she detected a new feature in him, that had heretofore been hidden. Years ago--like a far-away murmur--she could fancy that her mother spoke again of her husband's jealousy as one reason why home had been unhappy, and she had fled from it. Mr. Gray became excited. His eyes lit up, his face flushed a little, and his hands puckered up bits of cloth at his knees in a nervous, irritable way.

"I shouldn't like that man to be put ever before me in everything--to be liked better than myself--he has got a daughter of his own to love, and must not rob me of you. I can't have it--I won't have it! My life has been a very desolate one till now, and it is your duty to make amends for it, and be faithful to me in the latter days."

"You may trust me, father."

She laid her hand on his, and he turned and looked into her dark eyes, where truth and honesty were s.h.i.+ning. He brightened up at once.

"I think I may--you'll not forget me--you'll be like a daughter to me.

Yes, I _can_ trust you, Mattie!"

This fugitive cloud was wafted away on the instant; Mattie almost forgot the occurrence, and all was well again.

CHAPTER VII.

A DINNER PARTY.

Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford had mapped his course out for the future; he had been ever fond of planning out his paths in life, as though no greater planner than he were near to thwart him. That they were turned from their course or broken short, at times, taught no lesson; he gave up his progress upon them, but he sketched at once the new course for his adoption, and began afresh his journey.

He had parted with Harriet Wesden for ever; so be it--it belonged to the irreparable, and he must look it sternly in the face and live it down as best he might. It had been all a fallacy, and he the slave of a delusion--if, in the waking, he had suffered much, was in his heart still suffering, let him keep an unmoved front before the world, that should never guess at the keenness and bitterness of this disappointment. He had his duties to pursue; he had his father to deceive by his demeanour--he must not let the shadow of his distress darken the little light remaining for that old man, whom he loved so well, and who looked upon him as the only one left to love, or was worth living for.

He told his father that the engagement was at an end; that Harriet and he had both, by mutual consent, released each other from the contract, and considered it better to be friends--simply friends, who could esteem each other, and wish each other well in life. There had been no quarrelling, he was anxious to impress on Mr. Hinchford: he had himself suggested the separation, feeling, in the first place, that Harriet Wesden was scarcely suited to be his wife; and in the second, that he had been selfish and unjust to bind her to an engagement extending over a period of years, with all uncertainty beyond.

The old gentleman scarcely comprehended the details; he understood the result, and as it did not appear to seriously affect his son, he could imagine that Sid had acted honourably, and for the very best. _He_ did not want Sid to marry, and perhaps live apart from him; he knew that much of his own happiness would vanish away at the altar, where Sid would take some one for better, for worse, and he could not regret in his heart anything that retained his boy at his side. In that heart he had often thought that Harriet Wesden was scarcely fit for his son's wife, scarcely deserving of that dear boy--there was time enough for Sid to marry a dozen years hence--he had married late in life himself, and why should not his son follow his example!

Sidney Hinchford heard a little of this reasoning in his turn, but whether he admired his father's remarks or not, did not appear from the unmoved aspect of his countenance. He was always anxious to turn the conversation into other channels; partial in those long evenings to backgammon with his father--a game which absorbed Mr. Hinchford's attention, and rendered him less loquacious. Still Sidney was a fair companion, and disguised the evidence of his disappointment well; he had set himself the task of making the latter days of that old gentleman free from care if possible, and he played his part well, and would have deceived keener eyes than his father's. That father was becoming weaker in body and mind, Sid could see; he was more feeble than his elder brother now--success in life had tested his nervous system more--possibly worn him out before his time. Like his son, he had had ever a habit of keeping his chief troubles to himself, and preserving a fair front to society. He had had a nervous wife to study, afterwards a son to encourage by his stanch demeanour. He had been an actor throughout the days of his tribulation, and such acting is the wear and tear of body and mind, and produces its natural fruit at a later season.

Sidney Hinchford saw the change in him, and knew that their parting must come, sooner than the father dreamed of. Mr. Hinchford had a knowledge of his own defects, but not of their extent. He was ignorant how weak he had become, as he seldom stirred from home now; and his memory, which played him traitor, also helped him to forget its defects! He pictured Sidney and him together for many years yet--the Hinchfords were a long-lived race, and he did not dream of himself being an exception to the rule.

But Sidney noted every change, and became anxious. He noted also that the powers of mind seemed waning faster than the body, and that there were times when his father almost forgot their poor estate, and talked more like the rich man he had been once. He brought a doctor to see him once, sat him down by his father's side, in the light of an office friend, and then waited anxiously for the verdict delivered an hour afterwards, in the pa.s.sage.

"Keep him from all excitement if you can--let him have his own way as much as possible--and there is not a great deal to fear."

Sidney cautioned Ann Packet, who was partial to a way of her own, and then went to office more contented in mind. Over the office books, he was sterner and graver than he used to be, and more inclined than ever to repel the advances of his cousin.