Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 3

Mattie darted backward on her homeward route; her plans of action were at sea now; she only wished to know the worst, and feel the strength to face it for others' sakes, not for her own. There were an old man and an old woman to comfort in their latter days, to become a daughter to in the place of her who had been spirited away--give her strength to solace them in the deep misery upon its way.

People were stirring in the streets although the day was dark, and the sky above still full of stars. Mattie made many inquiries, and at last found St. Olave's Terrace, a row of large, gloomy houses, of red brick.

At No. 14 Mattie knocked long and vigorously, until a window was opened in the first floor, and a boy's head protruded--the unkempt head of a page.

"What's the row down there?" he shouted.

"Mr. Darcy--is he at home?"

"He ain't at home--he didn't come back last night."

"Are you sure?--are you quite sure?"

"I should think I was," replied young Impudence. "Who shall I say called--Walker?"

"No matter--no matter."

Mattie turned and hurried away again. Close upon six o'clock, and an empty cab before a public-house door. Mattie ran into the public-house, and found the cabman drinking neat gin at the bar, and bewailing the hardness of the times to the barman, who was yawning fearfully.

"Is your cab engaged?"

"Where do you want to go, Miss?" asked the cabman. "If it's Greenwich way, I've got a party to take up in five minutes time!"

"Suffolk Street, Borough. I--I don't mind what I pay to get there quickly."

"Jump in, Miss--I'll drive you there in no time."

Mattie entered the cab, the cabman mounted the box, and away they went down the Old Kent Road. The cabman had been up all night, calling at many night-houses in his route, and always taking gin with despatch and gusto. He was reckless with his whip, unmerciful to his horse, and disregardful of the cab, which he had out on hire. He was just intoxicated enough to be confidential, mysterious, and sympathizing. He lowered the gla.s.s window at his back, and looked through at Mattie.

"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said, suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore--she was young herself once, I daresay!"

"Drive on, please!--drive on!"

"I'm driving my hardest, my child--cutting off all the corners--that's only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child--soon be home now. They won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once 'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal--that's on'y another kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now--don't cry any more--I hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!"

And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street.

At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street; she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door, m.u.f.fled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her.

"Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where _have_ you been?--what's the matter?"

"Nothing much--don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?"

"I overslept myself--oh! dear, dear, dear!--and just got up in a fright--that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!--I found the shop all dark, and just let him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are--oh! where _have_ you been?"

"I'l tell you presently--let me think a bit--I'm not well, Ann."

"You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to you? You came back in a cab--you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your mind, perhaps--for you always was a strange gal, and like n.o.body else, wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?"

"No, no--_not for the world_! Go down-stairs and make haste with the coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped Mattie, "but take the shutters down."

Ann scuttled down-stairs, forgetful of her ankles, in her excitement at the novel position of affairs; the boy took down the shutters and disclosed the cabman still before the door, carefully examining his horse, and rather evilly disposed towards himself for the damage he had done the animal and cab in his excitement. Mattie went into the parlour, where the gas burned still, and stood by the table reflecting on the end--what was to be done now?--whether it were better to keep up the mystery, to allege some reason for Harriet's absence, frame some white lie that might keep Ann Packet and Mr. Hinchford appeased, and save _her_ name for a short while longer?

When the boy came staggering in with the third shutter, a new thought--a forlorn hope--suggested itself.

"Wait here and mind the shop till I come down, William," she said.

She went up-stairs in her bonnet and shawl, and pushed open the door of Harriet Wesden's room. Empty and unoccupied, as she might have known, and yet which, in defiance of possibilities, she had gone up to explore again. The blind was undrawn, and the faint glimmer of the late dawning was stealing into the room, and scaring the shadows back.

Mattie gave way at the desolation of the place; and flung herself upon her knees at the bed's foot.

"Oh! my darling, G.o.d forgive you, and watch over you--oh! my darling, whom I loved more than a sister, and who is for ever--for ever--lost to me!"

"_No_--NO--Mattie!"

Mattie leaped to her feet, and with a cry scarcely human, rushed towards the speaker in the doorway--the speaker who, white and trembling, opened her arms and received her on her throbbing breast. Harriet Wesden had come back again!

CHAPTER XI.

EXPLANATIONS.

Mattie shed many tears of joy at Harriet's return; she was a strong-minded young woman in her way, but the tension of nerve, and the reaction which followed it, had been too much for her, and she was, for a short while, a child in strength and self-command. For awhile they had changed places, Mattie and Harriet--Mattie becoming the agitated and weak girl, Harriet remaining firm, and maintaining an equable demeanour.

"Courage, Mattie!--what have you to give way at?" she said, at last.

"There, I'm better now," said Mattie, looking up into Harriet's face, and keeping her hands upon her shoulders; "and now, will you trust in me?--tell me the whole truth--keep nothing back."

"From you--nothing!"

"And if he has been coward enough to lead you away by the snares of your affection----"

"Affection!" cried Harriet. "I hate him! Coward enough!--he is coward enough for anything that would degrade me--and villain enough to spare no pains to place me in his power. Oh! Mattie--Mattie--what had I done to make him think so meanly of me?--to lead him on to plot against me in so poor and miserable a fas.h.i.+on?"

"You have escaped from him?"

"Thank G.o.d, yes!"

Mattie could have cried again with joy, but Harriet's excitement recalled her to self-command--Harriet, who stood there with her whole frame quivering with pa.s.sion and outraged pride--a woman whom Mattie had not seen till then.

"Mattie," she said, "that man, Maurice Darcy, thought that if I were weak enough to love him, I was weak enough to fly with him, forget my woman's pride, my father, home, honour, and fling all away for his sake.

He did not know me, or understand me; my G.o.d! he did not think that there were any good thoughts in me, or he would not have acted as he did. I have been blind--I have been a fool until to-night!"

She stamped her foot upon the floor until everything in the room vibrated; she caught Mattie's inquiring, earnest looks towards her and went on again--

"You and I, Mattie, must keep this ever a secret between us; for my sake, I am sure you will--for the sake of my good name, which that man's trickery has tarnished, however completely I have baffled him and shamed him. Mattie, he was at the Eveleighs' last night with his guilty plans matured. I had every confidence in him and his affection for me. I was off my guard, and believed that he was free from guile himself. At ten o'clock--beyond my time--I left the Eveleighs'; he was my escort to the railway station; he spoke of his love for me for the first time, and I was agitated and blinded by his seeming fervour. I told him of my promise to Sidney, and what I had done for his sake. I led him to think--fool that I was--that he had won my love long since. At the railway station he told me the story of his life--a lie from beginning to end--of his father's pride, of the secrecy with which our future marriage must be kept for awhile, away from that father--talking, protesting, explaining, until the train came up and he had placed me in the carriage."