Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 13

Sidney was not a young man to despair; he let no chance slip, and disappointment did not relax his efforts. He did not believe that the time would come and leave him wholly without "a berth." He had faith in his abilities, and he thought that they would work a way for him somewhere. And even a week or two "out of work" would not hurt him; he had saved money, and could pay his fair share towards the household expenses as well as his father, who kept his place longer than Sidney had ever believed he would.

His father was more solicitous than himself; every evening he asked very anxiously if Sidney had heard of anything in the City, and was not greatly exhilarated by Sid's careless "Not yet." Things were getting serious when there was only a week more to spend at the old desk, where bright hopes had been born and collapsed; Sidney was even becoming grave, although his company manners were put on before the father, to keep the old gentleman's mind at ease.

But Mr. Hinchford's mind was not likely to be at ease at that period; he was playing a part himself, and disguising his own troubles from his son, thereby causing a double game at disinterestedness between Sid and him.

Three weeks before the son's time had expired at his office, Mr.

Hinchford had received a week's notice to quit. His memory had again betrayed him, confused the accounts, and put the clerks out, and it was considered necessary to inform the old gentleman that his services were not likely to be required any longer. The notice came like a thunderbolt to Mr. Hinchford, whose belief in his own powers was still strong, and who had not had the remotest idea that long ago he had been tolerated by his employers, and set down for a troublesome, pompous, and disputatious old boy by the whipper-snappers round him. His salary had never been more than thirty-five s.h.i.+llings a week, and he had put up with it rather than been grateful for it, looking forward to the future rise of the Hinchfords above the paltry s.h.i.+llings and pence of every-day routine. He had not antic.i.p.ated being turned off--p.r.o.nounced worn-out in that service which a Hinchford had patronized.

The poor old fellow's pride was touched, and he took his adieux and his last week's salary with a lordly air, looking to the life the gentleman that he had been once. He expressed no regret at the summary dismissal, but marched out of the office with his white head thrown a little more back than usual, and it was only as he neared Chesterfield Terrace that his courage gave way, and he began to think of the future prospects of Sid and himself.

Sid was in trouble, and a little more bad news might be too much for him. He would try and keep his secret, until Sid had found a good berth for himself in the City. Affairs were looking desperate, and the revelation must come, but he could bear it himself, he thought--this weak old man with no faith in the strong son, whom an avalanche might affect, little else. Mr. Hinchford took Ann Packet into his confidence, and impressed her with the necessity of keeping Sid in the dark concerning the father's absence from business.

"Don't tell him, Ann, that I keep away from office after he's left--it's easy for me to make an excuse for an early return, if he come back before his time. I wouldn't have that boy worried for the world, just now."

Ann Packet, who took time to digest matters foreign to her ordinary business, was some days in comprehending the facts of the case, and then held counsel with herself as to whether it were expedient to keep Sidney in ignorance, considering how the old gentleman "went on" during his son's absence.

"He'll fret himself to death, and I shall be hanged for not stopping it, p'raps," she thought.

Once or twice she took the liberty of intruding into the parlour, and recommending Mr. Hinchford, senior, to try a walk, or a book, or a visit to Mr. Wesden; and, startled out of his maunderings, he would make an effort to follow one of the three counsels, seldom the last, because Mr.

Wesden was Harriet's father, and saw Sid very frequently.

He took many walks in search of a situation for himself, but the one refrain was, "Too old," and he began to see that he had overstepped the boundary, and was scarcely fit for a new place. He almost conceived an idea--just a foggy one, which, however, he never confessed to his dying day--that he _was_ a little forgetful at times; for Chesterfield Terrace lay in a net-work of newly-built streets at the back of the Camberwell New Road, and he was always taking the wrong turning, and losing himself. Still it was deep thought about Sid which led him in the wrong direction--presently his mind would be more composed; Sid would be in a good place, and he need not have one secret from him.

The last day came round; Sidney's services were over for good; he had had a painful parting with his old masters, who had been more than commonly attached to him, and he came home looking a little grave, despite the best face on the matter which he had put on at the front door.

"Anything new in the City, Sid?" asked the father.

"No, nothing new," he replied. "What makes you home so early to-day?"

Sid had turned in before the daylight was over, and found his father walking up and down the room with his hands behind him.

"Early?" repeated the old man. "Oh! they're not particularly busy just now in the Bridge Road. Very slack, I may say."

"Ah! I suppose so," said Sid, absently.

"And there's nothing new at all then, Sid?"

"Nothing."

"You'll keep a stout heart, my boy," said the father, with a cheering voice, and yet with a lip that quivered in spite of him. "I suppose, now, you don't feel very dull?"

"Dull, with my wits about me, and a hundred chances, perhaps, waiting for me in the City to-morrow!"

"Yes, you'll have all day to-morrow--I had forgotten that," said Mr.

Hinchford; "to be sure, all day now!"

Sidney saw that his father was perplexed, even disturbed in mind, but he set down Mr. Hinchford's embarra.s.sment to the same source as his own thoughts; he did not know that he had only inherited his unselfishness from his sire. Or rather, he did not remember, how an unselfish heart, allied to an unthinking head, had been the cause of the downfall in old times.

On the morrow Sidney Hinchford had the day before him, but the result was bad. He had visited many of the houses heretofore in connection with the old firm, but luck was against him, and many objected to a clerk from a house that had collapsed. It had been a fair bankruptcy; one of those honourable "breaks up" which occur once or twice in a century, and are more completely break ups from sheer honesty of purpose than cases which make a "to do" in the Court, and march off with flying colours; but Sidney represented one of a staff that had come to grief somehow, and "there was nothing in his way, just at present."

Three or four days pa.s.sed like this, and matters were becoming serious to the Hinchfords--father and son seemed settling down to misfortune, although the son betrayed no anxiety, and the father's care were for the hours when the son's back was turned. In fact, Sidney Hinchford was not quickly dispirited; a little did not seriously affect him, and he went on doggedly and persistently, making the round of all the great firms that had had, once upon a time, dealings with his own; abashed seldom, dispirited never, firmly and stolidly proceeding on his way, and calmly waiting for the chance that would come in due time.

Meanwhile the father went down to zero immediately the door closed behind Sidney. He felt that he was not acting fairly by keeping the secret of his discharge from Sid; but he was waiting for good news, that might counterbalance the bad which he had to communicate. He knew that in a day or two, at the utmost, all must come out, but he put off the evil day to the last--a characteristic weakness--weakness or good policy, which was it?--that he had adopted ever since there had been evil days to fret about.

In the grey afternoon of an April day, he sat alone in his front parlour, more utterly dispirited than he had been since his wife's death, years ago. No good fortune had come either to father or son, and he was inclined to regard things in the future lugubriously; workhouses and parish funerals not being the least of his fancy sketches. He had taken his head between his hands, and was brooding very deeply before the scanty little fire-place, which he intended to heap up with coal a few minutes before Sidney's expected return, when Ann Packet came into the room, very confused, and speaking in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"If you please, sir, here's a visitor!"

"I can't see any visitors, Ann," he answered sharply, "unless--unless it's any one from----"

"It's only Mattie, sir; she's come to see you for a moment!"

"Mattie! bless my soul, has she turned up again?"

"She turned up at the front door only a minute ago. Lord bless her! You might have knocked me down with a straw, sir!"

"I'll see her--show her in."

Mattie came in the instant afterwards; the hall of the Hinchfords was not so s.p.a.cious but that anything spoken in the front room would reach the ears of one waiting in the pa.s.sage. She heard the answer, and entered at once.

"Well, Mattie, how are you?"

"Pretty well, I thank you, sir," was returned in the old brisk accents.

Mattie was not looking pretty well; on the contrary, very pale and thin, as though anxiety, or hard work, or both, had been her portion since she had left Great Suffolk Street. She was dressed in black, very neatly dressed, and possibly the dark trappings had some effect in increasing the pallor of her countenance.

"We thought that we had lost you for good, Mattie."

"Was it likely, sir, that I was going to lose sight of all those who had been kind to me?"

"You're not looking very well," he said.

"Ah! we musn't judge by people's looks," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I'm well enough, thank G.o.d! And you, sir?"

"Well, Mattie, thank G.o.d, too!"

"And Sidney, sir!"

"As brave as ever. I wish he had been at home--he has been anxious to see you, Mattie."

"He is very kind," she said, in a low voice, adding, "and what does _he_ think?"

Mr. Hinchford was not quick in catching a subject upon which Mattie had brooded now for some months.

"Think of what?"

"Of me! Mr. Wesden has--hasn't turned him against me, sir?"