Mattie:-A Stray Volume II Part 9

"Well--what of her?"

"If I had been Harriet, I should have remembered this day, and looked in for a few moments."

"Her mother don't grow stronger; she is fidgety when she is away, and the servant we have is not of much use."

"Then Harriet might have written, wis.h.i.+ng him many happy returns of the day, or have come to congratulate me upon having such a son grown to man's estate."

Having expressed this opinion, Mr. Hinchford went up-stairs to the tea which Ann Packet had prepared for him--spent an hour after tea in putting the room to rights, opening Sidney's desk and lighting the table-lamp at the side thereof.

"Now, if he come home, and there's work to be done--and if it's to be done, his one-and-twentieth birthday will not stop it--there's everything ready to begin!"

He went down-stairs to join Mr. Wesden in the parlour--the news-boy was perched on the chair in the shop, keeping guard over the goods that night--and found Harriet Wesden seated at the fireside.

"Why, it's all coming true," cried the old gentleman, seizing both hands of Harriet, and shaking them up and down, "and he's coming home!"

"Have you thought so, too?" asked Harriet.

"Well, I have hoped so, at all events; and it seems as if we were waiting for him now, and he _must_ come. But don't talk too much about that, please," he said, with his characteristic tug at his stock, "or I shall feel as if something had happened when he keeps away. But we'll drink the boy's health, at all events, G.o.d bless him! and we'll have a game at whist, three and a dummy, and make quite a party of it in our little way. Sid one-and-twenty, Wesden! by all that's glorious, it's a fine thing to have a son come to maturity!"

Wine-gla.s.ses were produced--even a pack of cards, a brand new pack from the stock--and Sid's health was drunk very quietly, without any musical honours, but very heartily, for all that.

And five minutes after the health had been drunk, Sidney Hinchford, portmanteau in hand, entered the shop, and walked straight into the parlour.

"I said he'd come!" exclaimed the father. "Many happy returns of the day, you runaway! G.o.d bless you, my boy, and grant you health and happiness!"

He wound up his wishes by kissing him as though he had been a girl.

Sidney blushed, and laughed at his father's impulsiveness, and then turned to his two remaining friends with whom he shook hands--we need not add with whom the longer time.

"Finish your game at whist," he said; "I must not spoil the harmony of the evening. Here, shall I take dummy?"

"If you like. But we want to know----"

"Presently you shall know all--let us relapse into our old positions, just as if I had never been away, for awhile. How's Mattie--where is she?"

All three looked somewhat blankly at him. Mattie's departure, and the reasons which had actuated it, were more or less a mystery, and difficult of explanation.

Mr. Wesden acted as spokesman.

"I'm sorry to say she has gone away under very disagreeable circ.u.mstances."

"Gone away!--Mattie!"

"Your father can tell you all about it some other time," said Mr.

Wesden. "I don't think we need spoil the evening by a long, sad story."

"Yes, but, dash it! disagreeable circ.u.mstances," said Sidney--"that's an awkward phrase, and don't sound affectionate. But, until to-morrow, we'll postpone all details. I'll take dummy, and be your partner, Harriet."

"Very well."

He did not know whether it were better to be Harriet's partner, or to be her father's, and sit by Harriet's side--that matter had always perplexed him the few times he had played at whist with them. It seemed somewhat strange his playing at whist at all that night--his arriving from a long journey, tired and travel-worn, as evident from his looks, and immediately sitting down to cards, as though there were an infatuation in the game, which under no circ.u.mstances it was in his power to resist. Harriet Wesden thought it strange at least, and now and then furtively regarded him. He played whist well, as he did everything well he undertook--but his heart was not in the game, and more than once, as he held the cards, close to his gla.s.ses, in the old near-sighted fas.h.i.+on, Harriet fancied that the face a.s.sumed a troubled expression. The game at whist was over at last, and with it Sidney Hinchford's power of endurance.

"Now that is over, I think I'll tell you a story. I don't know three people in the world so well ent.i.tled to have the first hearing of it.

I'll ask you, sir," turning to his father, "to give me courage, and see that I do not give way?"

Mr. Hinchford senior stared, as well he might, at this--it placed him in a new position, and braced his nerves accordingly. Sidney had resolved upon these tactics on his homeward route; there was no chance of breaking _his_ news gradually--the world would be talking of it ere the morning.

"I always hated dodging a truth," said Sidney, st.u.r.dily; "it's a bad habit, and don't answer. It's sneaking--isn't it, Mr. Wesden?"

"Well--yes."

"If there's good luck coming, go to meet it--if there's disappointment which you can't avoid, let it meet you, and not find you hiding away from the inevitable. Why, that's like a baby!"

"To be sure it is," said the father; "wait a moment--I'm not a bit nervous about this--I'll see that you keep firm, my boy, but I'll just unfasten this buckle behind my neck a moment. Now, then!"

"When I was one-and-twenty, there seemed reason to believe in a partners.h.i.+p in my masters' firm--my masters took a fancy to me when I was a lad, and very much obliged to them I was for it. By that hope in prospective," suddenly turning to Harriet Wesden, and leaning over the table towards her with a very anxious look upon his face, "I was led, Harriet, to think too much of you--to enter into a half-engagement, or a whole one, or a something that kept me ever thinking of you, hoping for you. When I was one-and-twenty, I was to come to your father, and say, 'I am in a good position of life--may I consider Harriet as my future wife?'--he was to refer me to you if satisfied with my prospects, and you were--well, I did hope very much that you were then to say, 'Yes' in real earnest. All this, a pretty story, foolish for me to believe in--but a story ended now in an ugly fas.h.i.+on. Mr. Wesden," veering suddenly round to the stationer, "my prospects in life are infamously bad; my employers are bankrupts, and my services will not be required after this day month!"

Mr. Hinchford flung himself back in his chair with a crash that brought the top rail off,--Sidney turned at once to him, and laid his hand upon his arm.

"With my father to give me courage, I can bear this!"

"That's--that's--that's well, my lad. Keep strong--oh! Lord have mercy upon us!--keep strong, my boy!"

"I have been fighting hard to get the firm straight--I have been abroad to the foreign branch, working night and day there, my last chance and my employer's. I had a hope once of success, till the markets fell suddenly, and swamped everything--our weakness could not stand against anything new and unforeseen, and so we--_smashed_! It will be all over town to-morrow--but it was a good fight whilst it lasted."

"It's very unfortunate news," said Mr. Wesden.

"I'm not afraid for myself," said Sidney, proudly; "I think that with time, and health--ah! I must not forget that--I shall work my way somewhere, and to something in good time. But I shan't climb to greatness all of a sudden; and it may happen that at forty--even fifty years of age--I may be no better off than I am now. That I'm disappointed is natural enough, for I know money's value, and perhaps it was a little too near my heart, and this is my lesson; but the disappointment of losing you, Harriet--of giving up that chance, as any honourable man should--is the one loss which staggers me, and will be the hardest to surmount. I thought that I would make a clean breast of it, and begin my one-and-twentieth year free, as land-agents say, of all enc.u.mbrances."

It was a poor attempt at _facetiae_--a very weak effort to carry things off with a high hand, like a Hinchford. But he played his part well; he did not break down; he confessed his inability to keep a wife, or think of a wife, and he spoke out like one who had reached man's estate, and felt strong to bear man's troubles.

Mr. Wesden stared at Sidney long after he had concluded, and a pause had followed the outburst; Harriet Wesden, with a heightened colour, looked down at her white hands so tightly clasped together in her lap, and thought that it was a strange explanation--a strange hour for an explanation which he might have chosen his time to give to her alone.

Surely she might have been offered an opportunity of giving an answer also, and spared that embarra.s.sment with which his thoughtlessness had afflicted her. Could her father answer for _her_, as well as for himself!

Mr. Wesden delivered his reply, after several moments' grave deliberation.

"Mr. Sidney," said he, "I always did hate anything kept back, and doubted the honesty of anybody keeping it. The truth, however hard it may be to tell, will always bear the light upon it, I'm inclined to think."

Harriet winced.

"And you've spoken fair," he continued, "and given her up like a man.

Now let her answer for herself; if she don't mind waiting till you're able to keep her--till you're forty or fifty, as you say," he added drily, "why, I shan't stand in opposition. The longer the engagement, the longer she'll be my daughter. There, can I put it in a fairer light than that that?"

Sidney's harangue, or Sidney's father's port-wine, had rendered Mr.

Wesden magnanimous as well as loquacious that evening; or else, in business, his better nature was developing anew.

Now to such an answer as this, one can imagine Sidney Hinchford starting to his feet and wringing Mr. Wesden's hand, or turning suddenly to Harriet and looking earnestly, almost beseechingly, in her direction. On the contrary, he remained silent and moody; Mr. Wesden's answer was unprepared for, and his compliment to his straightforwardness brought a colour to Sidney's cheek--for, after all, he was keeping something back!

There was a painful silence, broken at last by a low and faltering voice, the musical murmur of which drew Sidney's eyes towards her at last.