THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
A LITTLE MATCH-SELLER.
She was a pathetic little figure for those who had eyes to spare for anybody so insignificant as a little street match-seller. She had been shivering just before in the chill February blast; but a dancing sunbeam had forced its way through the grey, hurrying clouds, and an answering smile seemed to light up the face of the child, as she watched it creeping nearer and nearer, till she could feel the warmth touch her bare feet like a caress.
Some boys not far off were playing marbles in the gutter, and the little girl was watching the play with great interest. She had a wholesome fear of boys, and seldom or never attempted to exchange remarks with them, shrinking away if they seemed disposed to address her; but she took a keen interest in their games for all that, and was very ardently on the side of a curly-headed urchin with carroty, unkempt locks, who was the happy possessor of a couple of very fine coloured marbles that quite put all the others into the shade.
Bright colour of any sort was the little girl’s delight. No matter whether it was the glow of the sky, the sunshine upon red chimney stacks, or the dresses of the passers-by, anything that was gaily coloured was such a joy to her that her little face would smile all over whilst the vision of colour flitted before her eyes.
It was a pathetic little face, with singularly delicate features for a child of the people; framed in a tangled mass of short, yellow hair, which if properly dressed and cared for would have been a real beauty. The blue eyes could sparkle with joy or swim in tears with equal readiness, just as the varying mood of childhood prompted. For the little one was singularly emotional for one of her hard bringing up, and was quickly moved to sorrow or pleasure by the passing events of daily life.
Just as the game of marbles came to an end, and the boys scampered away to their respective duties or amusements, a great church clock somewhere high overhead boomed out the hour of two. The little girl’s face instantly took upon it a rather eager expression, and seizing her matches in a firmer grip, she ran a few steps to a certain corner, and there stationing herself in a nook, to which she was evidently no stranger, she began looking intently and expectantly in a certain direction.
Crowds of business men were hurrying along, some to the train, others to the various omnibuses, which passed in endless succession at this busy junction of streets. The child held out her matches, and mechanically offered them for sale, but her eyes were always bent in one direction; and had anybody been watching her face, he could not have failed to note the sudden illumination which beamed out over it, as though kindled by some light from within.
Evidently somebody was coming for whom the little one was waiting with eager expectancy. The lips parted in a smile, the eyes began to sparkle and dance, a flush crept into the pale cheek. A moment or two later and another expression swept over the sensitive face, and the child said half aloud—
“Oh, he is not alone! He has a lady with him! Perhaps he will not notice me to-day.”
Evidently much hinged upon this vital point; for the colour came and went in the child’s face, and her eyes were fixed immovably upon a certain face belonging to somebody in that hurrying throng. Her lips were parted in intense absorption, and perhaps there was something magnetic in the fixed gaze, for the successful young barrister, Bertram Clayton, who was walking with his sister through the crowded thoroughfare, paused suddenly just as he drew near to the child, and looking about him said in a pleasant voice—
“Ah, here is little Allumette! I must have a box of matches if they are not too dear to-day!”
The child’s face was rippling all over now. At first his grave bargaining over her wares, and his way of shaking his head over their costliness, had half frightened her, and she had sometimes abated their price, thinking that she must be in the wrong. But now that she had learned by experience that the gentleman always gave her in the end double and treble their value, she was no longer abashed, and entered with a shy spirit into the game of bargains.
Almost always this tall, handsome gentleman was alone. Now and then he had a black-coated, grave-faced friend with him, in which case he seldom stopped to buy matches or speak to the child, but just gave her a passing nod if he caught sight of her wistful face and appealing blue eyes. Never before in her experiences had he been with a lady, and the child’s eyes lighted eagerly as they rested upon the soft fur and bright crimson cloth which composed the lady’s dress.
“What a duck of a child!” she exclaimed to her brother, “I must really give her something!”
The gentleman had finished his bargain and got his matches by this time, and the little girl was smiling over the pennies in her hand. Not that it was the pennies so freely given which made this customer more to her than all the rest put together: it was the kind smile beaming from his eyes, the tones of his voice, the undefined feeling she always had that he looked out for her, and sometimes thought of her when he was elsewhere. For had he not brought her now and then a bag of sweets, or some trifling toy, such as are hawked about in the streets?
By this time the lady had opened her purse, and now held up before the child’s astonished eyes a large piece of silver money that shone brilliantly in the gleam of sunshine.
“Little Allumette,” she said, using the name by which the gentleman always called her—she never could guess why, “do you know what this is?”
“It is money, ma’am; beautiful new money!”
“Have you ever had anything like it before?”
“Only bright pennies sometimes, ma’am; not beautiful silver money like that.”
“And what would you do with a whole silver crown if you had one of your very own?”
The child’s eyes sparkled, but no words came. The idea of being possessor of such fabulous wealth was too big a one to be grasped in a moment. The lady laughed at the expression upon the upturned face, and put the big silver coin into her hand.
“There, little Allumette, there is a keepsake for you. You have such a wise little face that I am sure you will make a good use of it. Come, Bertram, we must not miss our train.”
Before the child could find words in which to thank the lady the crowds had swallowed up both brother and sister, and she was left alone at her corner, grasping the wonderful piece of fairy silver (for such indeed it seemed to her) tightly in her hand, her heart beating thick and fast with the excitement of such a wonderful piece of fortune’s favour.
It was Saturday afternoon, and trade was brisk. She had soon sold all her matches, and was ready to turn her feet homewards, but first she must think what to do with this wonderful treasure-trove. That was her own—her very own. She scarcely dared to look at it as she walked the streets; she was afraid lest some passer-by might get a glimpse at the shining coin, and might set upon her and rob her of it.
Where could she put it to keep it safe? At home there was no nook or corner she could call her own. Poor little Allumette! Her life was a sad and shadowed one now, and yet once nobody would ever have guessed that she would come to selling matches in the streets.
Her father had been a clever and respectable artisan, and her mother a farmer’s daughter. But Allumette could not remember a mother’s care, for her mother had died whilst she was but a baby, and her father had married again a woman of a very different stamp. Moreover, misfortunes had come upon him, and he had lost his health and then his work. Three years before, when Allumette was only five, he had died, and the stepmother had almost at once married a widower with three children—she herself had four.
So that Allumette had now neither father nor mother, and though she was still permitted to live in the double attic where this heterogeneous family party made their home, she was nobody’s child, and nobody wanted her. She had to earn her own living in the streets, and though she met with no ill-treatment at home, she received no love or tenderness, and knew that her presence was felt to be a nuisance by the parents of the other children.
Moreover, some of the boys were of an age when teasing becomes a delight, and Allumette was always reckoned as fair game, for she had nobody to stand by her and take her part.
It was before the days of School Boards, and Allumette had no chance of learning except at a ragged school which she frequented as often as she could in the evenings. But if she had been unlucky with her matches by day, she was always sent out again to dispose of her stock later on, and then she was too late and too tired ever to think of learning anything.
And yet the child was not altogether unhappy in her life. She made interests for herself, and sometimes friends too. Had she not several customers who showed her kindness in a fitful way? and was there not, above all, “her gentleman,” as she called him, who was more to her than all the rest put together? And was there not the old cobbler and his wife at the end of the alley, who were always glad to see her when she came? She did not like to go too often, because Mrs. Gregg would give her bread and treacle, and she did not think they always had enough to eat themselves; but it was always pleasant to sit by their little fire and hear the old man’s stories; and to-day she bent her steps there with great eagerness, for she meant to spend her own two pennies (given by the gentleman) on some herrings for them, and then she would not mind sharing the frugal meal, and could tell them about her wonderful windfall, and ask their advice as to what she could do with her treasure.
Allumette’s home was up a number of rickety stairs in a narrow court, and when she arrived there she found her stepmother in the midst of a Saturday clean, and by no means prepared to welcome anybody. The child only paused to hand in her money, and then disappeared down the stairs with alacrity; for one of the most valued privileges which had been accorded her was that her time was her own when she had disposed of her stock of matches.
Her bare feet went pattering up the alley, which grew darker and narrower towards the end. At the end stood a tall, grim-looking house, let out in rooms to a poor class of tenants, the lowest floor, comprising two rooms and a tiny kitchen beyond, being rented to the cobbler, whose front room was a sort of workshop where he was always to be seen cobbling and patching old boots, many of which seemed almost past the skill of even his dexterous fingers.
Sometimes Allumette picked up old boots in rubbish heaps and brought them to him, and often she found bits of leather which were useful to him in patching. The little girl was fond of the old couple, and they of her. It was always a treat to her to go and sit in the quiet of their room.
The herrings were bought at a shop in the alley, where they were to be had cheaper than anywhere else; and with her odorous burden she hastened to the little house at the end, where her old friends received her with smiles and kind words.
It was a slack afternoon with the cobbler, as he had taken home his last batch of work, and had not much in hand until fresh orders arrived. So he sat holding the child’s hand while she poured into his ears her wonderful tale, and displayed before his astonished eyes her wonderful shining coin.
Mrs. Gregg came up to look and admire and wonder, and eager was the discussion which followed.
“No, I shan’t spend it—I shall keep it,” said Allumette. “The lady said it was a sort of keepsake. I shall keep it and look at it sometimes; only I don’t know where it will be safe.”
“I’ll make you a little leather bag for it, ducky,” said the old man, “and then I’ll make a little hole in the crown itself, if you like, and you can hang it round your neck, bag and all. It’ll be safest so, as you might lose it out of the bag if ’twasn’t bored through itself; but we’ll make it all safe for you!”
Allumette was delighted. She watched the whole process with eager interest, and when the coin was wrapped in its covering and hung about her neck, her little face beamed all over with joy.
“It feels as if it would bring me good luck!” she cried, with dancing eyes.
“Perhaps it will for sure!” said the old couple fondly.
A happy child was Allumette that night when she fell asleep, though she little dreamt of the golden hours that were in store for her.
CHAPTER II.
IN THE STUDIO.
“It is provoking!” exclaimed Cora Clayton.
“What is the matter now?” asked bright-faced Madge, who had strolled into her sister’s studio from the garden, her hands full of snowdrops and aconites from the shrubbery borders.
“Why, little Muriel Ellerton has just sickened with measles, and you know I was depending upon her as a model for my Academy picture. It is so difficult to get a really picturesque-looking child; and Muriel would have done beautifully. I really haven’t any time to lose; and here I am at a perfect deadlock!”
“What a pity!” said Madge, who took great interest in her talented sister’s drawing. Cora Clayton had achieved a rather considerable success for an amateur, and for two years past had exhibited a small picture in the Royal Academy. During the winter months just past she had been away from home with her brother’s delicate wife, who had been ordered to the south of France, so that she had not been able to do much painting. Now that she was home again she was eager to get forward, and it was provoking to be disappointed of her model just upon the very morning when she had reckoned to start work.
“Is there no other child who would do?” asked a voice from the couch beside the fire. Young Mrs. Clayton, the barrister’s delicate wife, had established herself in Cora’s studio, as she was fond of doing. The sisters were greatly attached to their brother’s wife, and the family lived happily together in perfect harmony in their old-fashioned semi-country house at Hampstead.
“I can’t think of one that just suits my ideas,” answered Cora. “Muriel would just have done, with her cloud of fair curls and blue eyes with a sort of pathetic wistfulness behind their brightness. It was just the face for my subject. It is provoking! You know I am not like some artists; I know what I want to paint, but imagination doesn’t do everything for me. I must have the model, and the right model, and I’m sure I don’t know where to turn to next!”
“I wonder if little Allumette would do!” suddenly exclaimed Madge. “She had the sweetest little face, and just such eyes and hair as Muriel; only I think she is prettier.”
“Allumette! What do you mean? I never heard such a name!”
“Oh, that is Bertram’s nickname. She is a little match-seller in the City. I saw her the other day when I was in town with him. Evidently she is often on his beat, for he had given her that cognomen, and one could see that she quite adored him. I daresay he has been kind to her often.”
Cora and Eva were both interested, and when Madge had described the child, Cora declared she really had a good mind to go and have a look at her.
“It would really be easier in some ways than Muriel,” she said, “for if I paid her I suppose her relations would be glad enough to let me have her over here; and they would keep her for me at the gardener’s cottage for a week or two, so that I could have her backwards and forwards as I wanted, instead of being fettered by lesson hours and other things as I should be with Muriel. One does see very pretty children often in the streets; only, as a rule, it would not be practicable to get hold of them.”
“We will ask Bertram about little Allumette when he comes home,” said Eva, “and if he thinks it a good plan we could have her over here whilst your picture was being painted, Cora.”
“Little Allumette,” said the young barrister when appealed to at dinner that evening, “why, I should think you could get her, and that she would think herself in the seventh heaven to come! Oh, yes, I have asked her about herself sometimes. Her relationships are rather complicated. Her own father and mother are dead, and she lives with a stepmother who has married again. I like the little puss! She has always a smile and a bit of arch fun. Sometimes she brings me a button-hole when times are good. We are great friends in our way, little Allumette and I.”
“Then I will come into town with you to-morrow, Bertram, and see if she will do for me, and what arrangements I can make.”
“I’ll come too,” added Madge gaily; “I will give my valuable assistance in the matter, since it was my idea to start with.”
Brother and sisters went up to town together the following day, and sure enough there was little Allumette with her tray of matches at the accustomed corner, eagerly scanning the faces of the passing crowd, to see if her gentleman was amongst them.
Cora was delighted with the little bright, sensitive face, and when the child caught sight not only of Bertram himself, but of the lady who had made her that wonderful present, she was at once resolved to get the little one for her model, and soon Allumette was overwhelmed with shy delight, because the gentleman and two beautiful ladies had stopped in front of her.
“Allumette,” said her friend with a twinkle in his eye, “do you know how to sit or stand very still?”
“Please, sir, I think so. I sit still with baby very often.”
“And what do you get for sitting still with baby?”
“I don’t get anything, sir, unless baby wakes up, and then I sometimes get a clout on the head.”
Cora and Madge both laughed, whilst Bertram went on gravely—
“Then do you think that for sixpence an hour and your keep you could stand very still for this lady to draw? Did you ever see anybody draw pictures?”
“Please, sir, they draw them on the blackboard at school; and there’s a man comes ’long here sometimes that draws them beautifully on the pavement, all red and blue and yellow. Ah! I could watch him all day, I could! It’s real beautiful!”
Bertram looked at his sisters smilingly.
“Well, I must be getting on; you’d better finish settling the matter. It’s a long way for her to go backwards and forwards. If you do have her, I should put her up at the cottage for a week or so, and make what use you want of her at the time. I don’t suppose she makes much by her matches; but of course you must pay her people a fair equivalent.”
He moved off, and then Cora and Madge tried to explain to the bewildered and blushing Allumette what it was they wanted.
It was all like part of a wonderful dream to the child. She showed the ladies the way to her home; she heard them talk to her stepmother, and vaguely knew that something very strange and wonderful was about to happen; and then she was rather summarily hustled into the best clothes she possessed, which was not saying much, and was bidden to run and ask Mrs. Gregg if she could take her up to Hampstead at once, as the overworked woman with a large number of children to look after could not possibly do so.
Mrs. Gregg came and took the directions from the ladies, and promised to bring the little girl at once. She was given the railway fare, and Allumette stood by, dancing from one foot to the other with keenest excitement. She could not believe that this thing could really be true, and kept asking Mrs. Gregg if she was sure she knew how to get to the place, and whether she really thought the ladies meant it.
“Bless the child, yes! Why should they have taken all that trouble else?” was the reassuring answer. “I’ve heerd tell before of fine folks getting others to come and sit for them. They call them models. It may be a good thing for you, ducky. It’s poor work selling matches in the street. Perhaps the ladies will find you something better to do by-and-by.”
It was all like a dream to Allumette. She had not to be at her destination till the afternoon; but Mrs. Gregg took her a wonderful walk upon the Heath first. The child had never seen such a place before, and although the wind blew cold the sun shone, and the child held her breath in awe and wonder at the great expanse of sky and the green sweep of broken ground, the shining water, the budding trees.
“Will heaven be like this, do you think, Mrs. Gregg?” she asked in a low voice.
Allumette was very hazy as to what heaven was, but she had an idea that it was a very beautiful place where the sun always shone, and she had never seen anything so beautiful before as the scene upon which her eyes now rested.
Later on, with a feeling of great awe, mingled with that of joy, she stood at the back door of a big house within sheltering walls, holding very fast to Mrs. Gregg’s hand, and almost disposed to cry and run away when told that she must leave her friend, and follow the servant into the house.
“Don’t be frightened, ducky, they’ll be kind to you,” said Mrs. Gregg, kissing her; “and I’m to have a cup of tea in the kitchen, they say; so maybe I’ll see you again before I leave.”
There was consolation in that thought, and Allumette rallied her courage. The servant smiled kindly at her as she went on in front, and although everything seemed to swim before the child’s eyes as she walked, and she could not see clearly where she was going, she knew that she was taken down a long passage, and then a door was opened at the end, a curtain was drawn back, and she heard her guide say—
“Here is the little girl, ma’am!”
Allumette stood just within the threshold of this most wonderful place. She thought she had got into a fairy palace, and she rubbed her eyes and gasped in her astonishment.
It was a great square room with all the windows overhead; and wherever she looked she saw beautiful things, rich colours, pictures, hangings, ornaments—things of whose names and uses she had no idea, but the very sight of which filled her soul with awe and rapture, they were so wonderful and beautiful.
“Come, little Allumette; come to the fire!” said a kind voice. “You shall have a mug of hot tea and a piece of cake here, and we will see how to dress you up as a little model!”
It was the lady who spoke—the first lady—Miss Madge, as Allumette came to call her later on, and she came forward dressed in that lovely red dress with the soft grey fur upon it, in which the child had first seen her. And when Allumette had timidly advanced a few steps, and could see the room better, she saw that the other lady was there too, standing before an easel which held a picture, whilst upon a sofa near the fire a third lady lay, who had put down her book, and was now looking straight at the little girl, with a kind smile in her eyes.
“So you are little Allumette, are you? My husband has told me about you. He says you sell very good matches. Come and sit on that little stool here, and you shall tell me all about yourself. Madge, bring the mite some tea and cake. I’m sure she looks as though she wanted it!”
Allumette sat down where she was bidden, and soon a great wedge of delicious cake was put into her hands. But although she was so strangely happy in this beautiful place, she was almost too shy and excited to feel hungry; and as she nibbled at the unwonted dainty, she answered the questions of the ladies about herself and her life, gradually losing her fear of them, and beginning to smile and even to laugh at the funny remarks of Miss Madge, or the questions of young Mrs. Clayton.
Meantime the artist studied the face of the little one, and dashed off a few little pencil sketches with great satisfaction to herself. Yes, it was just such a face as she wanted—wistful without being sad, bright and sunny, yet pathetic withal. Eva Clayton had a knack with children which she was exercising now for Cora’s benefit, and before half an hour had passed she was fully satisfied that she had got the right model for her picture.
It was a wonderful life that began for little Allumette. No more early rising in the dark and cold to do her household tasks, and lay in her store of matches for the day. No standing about at street corners in the cold wind and driving rain; no more hunger and uncertainty of the day’s earnings; no harsh words and unkind teasing from boys either at home or in the streets.
Here everything was beautiful and happy. She lived with a kind couple who soon treated her almost as if she had been their child, and the greater part of her day was spent in that wonderful studio, where all that was asked of her was to stand still in a pretty frock whilst the tall lady painted her; and Miss Madge generally came in and out or sat still by the fire with a book, and often amused them by her play with the dog, or with her merry chatter, or else by teaching Allumette out of some simple primer.
“She’s a dear little thing,” Madge said to her brother a day or two after the commencement of the experiment. “I’ve often wanted an object for my benevolence, and an object on which to expend my superfluous energy in the matter of good works. I think I shall take up Allumette and make her my special charge. You needn’t look so grave, sir! Wouldn’t it be a very deserving object?”
“Perhaps; but take care, Madge, take care. You know how often you have failed from lack of perseverance. Don’t unfit the child for her old life, or buoy her up with false hopes, only to forget her and disappoint her later on. It is always a serious matter taking the destinies of another human being as it were into our hands. Don’t do anything rash; don’t give the child cause to regret in days to come that she has ever known us!”
“Gracious! what a lecture!” cried Madge gaily. “I thought you’d be pleased at my desiring to do a good work; and, behold, I get a scolding!”
CHAPTER III.
WONDERFUL DAYS.
The growth of that picture was a source of endless wonder and delight to little Allumette. Her naïve remarks amused the ladies vastly, and the child became, perhaps, more of a pet with them all than was quite advisable, considering the circumstances of the case.
To live in an atmosphere of warmth and colour; to be spoken to kindly and gently; to hear and see only pleasant things from morning till night, all this was a perfect delight to the little one, and she throve and blossomed out in the genial influence in a way that was wonderful to watch.
She was not admitted to the house itself, only to the studio by the little garden door; and she had that sense of native refinement which hindered her from taking liberties, or trading upon the kindness of the ladies.
To watch them with their books or needlework, to hear Miss Madge sing and play upon the studio piano, or to sit on a little stool beside one or the other, learning little lessons which they would teach her, constituted such pleasure that she never desired anything more; and even the sitting still for the picture was no trouble to the child. There was always something pretty to look at, and Miss Madge was often practising her music, and that always filled the child’s whole soul with delight.
Her horizon was widening every day. Madge had discovered that she was very anxious to be able to read nicely, and thought she could not do better than devote some of her leisure in teaching her. And she got big-print fairy stories, which entranced Allumette and lured her along the path of learning faster than her teacher had dared to hope; and when left alone in the studio, the child would pore over one of these charming volumes, till she began to read the letterpress quite easily. Then young Mrs. Clayton had lessons to give her of a different sort.
“The poor mite is almost a little heathen,” she had said to her husband a few days after the experiment of the little model had begun. “She seems to know nothing of religion, except what she has picked up from an old cobbler and his wife, who read the Bible in her hearing sometimes, and tell her a few elementary truths, which she has got jumbled up in a very odd way. I must try and teach her a little better. Don’t you think it would be a good plan, Bertram?”
“Yes, I think that kind of knowledge never comes except as a blessing,” answered her husband gravely; “but have a care, Eva, and keep an eye over the sisters, that they do not spoil the poor little thing, making her life harder to her when she goes back to it. I am not quite sure that the experiment is not rather a dangerous one to Allumette. She will be so happy here, and the life of the streets will come so hardly afterwards!”
“Perhaps we could think of something better for her afterwards,” said Eva.
“Possibly; but those things are more easily said than done. However, we must see what turns up. Only be careful all of you with the child. Too much petting and softness will not be really good for her. But teach her all you can; learning will never come amiss to her wherever her future lot may be cast.”
And so Eva Clayton began giving the little waif of the streets simple Bible lessons every day, in which the child came to apprehend the mystery of Christ’s redeeming love, and to believe that He loved her and was taking care of her, and wanted her to be a faithful little follower of His, that some day she might live with Him in His beautiful kingdom for ever and ever.
It was easy for Allumette to believe in this love and care now. She would look up at Mrs. Clayton with shining eyes and say—
“I think it must have been Jesus who sent me here. I shall always love Him for that.”
On Sundays she was taken to church by the gardener’s wife, who had made her a neat little frock and had soon taught her to wear the shoes and stockings provided by the ladies. Truth to tell, Allumette preferred running barefoot, as she was used to in the streets, although she had some old shoes and had put them on to come down here. But the footgear provided for her was so much more comfortable than what she had been used to that she soon grew reconciled to it, and she realised that it would not be at all proper to go about barefoot here.
She did not understand the services on Sunday, but she loved the sound of the organ and the glow of light through the painted windows. Her behaviour was irreproachable, and afterwards Mrs. Clayton would try and explain to her the meaning of what she had heard and seen, so that the child had food for much thought and reflection.
On Sundays too she always saw her “gentleman,” as she always called Mr. Clayton in her thoughts. He would come into the studio and ask her what she had been learning in the week, and soon Allumette had a little bit of poetry or a few verses from the Bible ready to repeat to him. He generally had some little gift for her in return, and these were the red-letter days in her calendar above all others.
The picture was finished in due course; and when the tea-party was given in the studio, and all the artist’s friends were asked to come and see it, Allumette was permitted to be present, to hand round cakes and bread and butter; and people patted her head and asked if she were a little model, and one lady took a great deal of notice of her, and presently got Cora into a corner and began eagerly talking to her.
“If you would only do me some illustrations for the book I am writing, and use that child as the model for my little heroine, I should like it so much! I could easily arrange with the editor about the illustrations; and she has exactly the face I want. Do you think you could manage it for me, Cora?”
The girl’s face lighted eagerly.
“Oh, Mrs. Maberley—I should love it! I have often longed to do illustrating; and to illustrate one of your books would be delightful! I will keep the child a few more weeks, and you shall tell me just what you would like each picture to be. She is a dear little model, and I shall like keeping her. I have quite a number of studies I have taken when she has been having lessons from Eva and Madge. I will get my portfolio and show you.”
The pencil sketches, dashed off impromptu, delighted Mrs. Maberley. There was Allumette sitting beside Eva’s couch with her eyes fixed on the lady’s face in eager attention; Allumette curled up in a corner with a book, her curls falling over her face; Allumette standing beside the piano, with a rapt expression of wonder and pleasure.
“It will be charming!” cried Mrs. Maberley, delighted. “I shall bring the story to read to you one day, and we will settle on the pictures. Some of these would almost do as they stand. You have quite a gift for drawing children, Cora.”
Allumette heard nothing of all this, which was passing in one corner of the studio; but she was deeply interested in another little scene going on elsewhere. She had noticed a little while before that Mr. Clayton, when he came in to show himself at his sister’s reception, brought with him two gentlemen (there were not many gentlemen in the room as compared with the number of the ladies), and the quick eyes of the child observed that Miss Madge’s face flushed a rosy red at the sight of them, and that almost at once one of the strangers came over towards where she stood at the tea-table, and seemed disposed to remain there.
She had made him useful, handing cups about for a time, after which he had come back to her side, and they were talking eagerly together.
Allumette had been dipping deep into fairy lore, and knew all about what princes and princesses did; and how the prince came and told the lady that he loved her, and that by-and-by they went off together and lived happily ever afterwards. Miss Madge had told her that in a different sort of way people did that still. Indeed Allumette had watched with the keenest excitement a wedding party from the next house, in which Miss Madge had played the part of bridesmaid. It had given Allumette quite a different idea about marriage from any she had had before, and she had heard the servants talking and saying that they supposed soon they would lose one of their young ladies, and wondering whether it would be Miss Cora or Miss Madge who would be first to go.
Somehow all this came back to the child’s mind as she saw the gentleman standing beside Miss Madge and talking to her.
“You know you have promised, Madge,” he said, in a rather louder tone. “You will not disappoint us?”
And Madge laughed as she made answer—
“Oh, yes, we will be as good as our word; we will pay a visit to Brooklands by-and-by. We shall all be glad of a change when the hot weather comes; for Hampstead is after all only a make-believe at country—and one likes the real thing sometimes.”
“I hope the country is not all the attraction!” said the young man, bending an intent look upon Madge’s blushing face.
“Don’t fish for compliments, sir,” she replied, in her bright, saucy way. “You won’t get change of that sort out of me!”
“I don’t want compliments,” said the young man in a very low voice; “you know very well what I do want, Madge.”
Later on little Allumette heard from the gardener’s wife who the gentleman was.
“His name is Mr. Arthur Brook, and he’s the only son of a baronet, and they have a beautiful place in the country, where the young ladies sometimes stay. He and Mr. Clayton were at college together, and have always been great friends; and we all think that he wants Miss Madge for his wife. And a bonny one she will make him, if she ever decides to have him; and I think he is worthy of her, which I wouldn’t say for many!”
It was all very interesting to little Allumette, who henceforth regarded Madge even more as a fairy princess, who would one day be carried off to live in a grand house or castle of her own.
Mr. Brook came rather often to the house during the next weeks whilst Allumette remained to serve as a model for the set of illustrations; and one day Madge came into the studio half laughing and half crying, and flinging herself on her knees beside Cora she cried out——
“Kiss me, darling, and tell me you don’t mind! I have given Arthur my promise at last!”
And then Cora threw down her brush, and the sisters clung rather close together; for they were deeply attached, and though both had felt that the separation would come, it seemed rather strange to both when the thing had finally been settled.
However, Miss Madge was very happy during the next days, Allumette thought, though both the sisters were a little preoccupied; and the drawings were relegated to a secondary place.
Besides, there was commotion in the house of another sort, for young Mrs. Clayton was taken ill, and the doctors advised that she should be taken into the country as soon as possible; and so there was a great deal of discussion and talk; and by-and-by Allumette heard that the three ladies were going to stay near Brooklands, which was the home of Mr. Arthur Brook, who was to marry Miss Madge some time during the year.
“I must finish my drawings quickly, little Allumette,” said Cora, next time the child was called in for a sitting, “for I shall be going away very soon; and we have let the house to some friends, who want it very much.”
And then it suddenly came into the child’s mind that this beautiful holiday was over. She would have to go back to her match-selling in the streets; and for a time there would not be even her gentleman coming and going, for Mr. Clayton had been called away on some important business latterly, and though he had come home for a few days when his wife was ill, he had gone away again, and might be detained some little while.
Great tears gathered slowly in the child’s eyes. She tried to keep furtively brushing them away, but they would not be altogether hidden, and when Madge came dancing in she saw them there and guessed their source.
“But we won’t forget you, little Allumette,” she said kindly, “I have thought sometimes about you. I’ve got some plans in my head. Allumette, have you ever seen the country—the real country, where the fields are full of buttercups and daisies, and there are woods and birds and cows and farms?”—and Madge plunged into a description of the sights and sounds of rural country life, whilst Allumette listened with a rapt expression that was instantly caught and transferred to paper by the delighted Cora.
“Well, Allumette, if you have not seen such things, you shall some day. I shall look out for a nice farmhouse or cottage, where the woman will take you in for a few weeks, and some day I shall send for you, and you shall come down in the train and have a real good holiday, and go on cultivating those roses in your cheeks which we are teaching to bloom there now. Will that make up to you for going back to the streets for a little while?”
The child’s face was answer enough. With such a prospect in view she dreaded nothing, could bear with courage and equanimity the life of the dusty streets. So through the last days she kept a brave face, and when she saw the beautiful picture-books and the clothes she had had given her made up into a parcel for her to take home, it seemed like an earnest of those joys that were to come.
Tears swam in her eyes as she said good-bye, and was led away by the gardener’s wife who was to take her back; but she held them bravely in check, saying to herself—
“I shall see them again, I shall see them again. Miss Madge said she would not forget.”
CHAPTER IV.
AT BROOKLANDS.
“And you like your future home, my dear one? You think you can be happy here?”
“Oh, Arthur! it is beautiful, beautiful! I think I never knew before quite how exquisite everything was! I am only afraid of being too happy!”
“That is an ailment we do not often suffer from in this world, Madge,” he answered smilingly; “but I intend my wife to be the happiest woman in the country. She shall not know an ungratified wish if I can help it.”
“What a selfish creature she will become!” cried Madge with a soft laugh, and an arch upward glance into her lover’s face; “I wonder how soon you will grow tired of your bargain!”
“Try me,” he replied, taking her two hands in his; “I am ready to be put to the proof as quickly as you will.”
The colour flooded her face, for she knew that he meant he wanted her as soon as she could be persuaded to come to him, and so far she had not actually fixed the date of the wedding, although she had said it should be “soon.”
She had been a month in the neighbourhood of Brooklands now, and Eva Clayton was much better, and was to be taken by Cora to the sea to complete her restoration. Madge had intended to be one of the party, but Lady Brook had persuaded her to come and be her guest at the fine old baronial hall, as she was anxious to make more intimate acquaintance with the betrothed wife of her idolised son. She had known Madge for several years, but not very intimately. Now she was anxious to become the friend and mother of the bright, loving girl. She did not grudge the love her son lavished upon the woman of his choice; she only desired that Madge should learn to love her too, and be willing to be a daughter to her and her husband.
Madge was a warm-hearted girl, and was ready to love and be loved. She had consented to the proposed arrangement, after a little hesitation about leaving Cora before the time. But Cora said it would be right for her to accept the invitation, and had said that she must learn to do without her sister’s constant presence, and the matter was now settled to Arthur’s satisfaction.
“We shall have so much to think of and to plan,” continued Arthur, “for you know what they have set their hearts upon—my father and mother? That we shall live at Brooklands, using the great west wing as our very own, having our own servants and establishment, but being all under one roof. My mother spoke of it to you, did she not, Madge? You will not think that a difficult arrangement?”
“Oh, no,” answered the girl eagerly; “I think Brooklands is charming, and the west wing has lovely rooms, and I have never cared for being shut up alone. People said that when Bertram was married Cora and I would find it so difficult to go on living with him, but we never did. If your father and mother will let me, I want to be a daughter to them; and your mother will tell me how to do everything, for I never lived in a grand house before, and I don’t know the ways of country people,” and Madge made a little whimsical grimace.
“My Madge’s ways will be good enough for me,” answered Arthur with a smile, as he took her willing hands in his; “only tell me how soon you will come to me, Madge. I don’t want to wait long. What have we to wait for?”
“There is the trousseau,” said Madge, blushing and laughing; but her lover swept away all such trivial objections with masculine logic. In the end Madge promised that early in September she would come to him for good and all. As May was now well advanced, and another week would see June upon them, the young man could not complain that she was keeping him over long.
But the idea that the thing was definitely settled turned Madge’s mood into something graver. The lovers were walking through a shady woodland glade, carpeted with wild flowers, and full of sweet sounds and scents. Madge suddenly paused and exclaimed—
“But we must not be selfish, Arthur, we must not be selfish! We must try and do some good in the world. If we are happy ourselves, we must make other people happy too.”
“With all my heart,” he answered gaily: “you shall be as philanthropic as you like, Madge, and I will learn of you.”
“I wonder what we could do,” mused Madge, looking round her. “Arthur, shall we be rich?”
“Well, sweetheart, that depends upon what you call riches. We shall not be millionaires, but I have an income sufficient for all our needs, and a margin over. I suppose that will do?”
“Oh, yes; I am not thinking about ourselves. Arthur, you know I have a little money myself. I have three hundred a year of my own. Do you think we shall want that when we are living at Brooklands?”
He smiled an amused, indulgent smile.
“I think we can do without it. Do you want to keep your private fortune to yourself? You know married women have no property. I shall be able to despoil you of your fortune, unless you tie it up very tightly!”
“Don’t tease, Arthur,” she answered; “do be serious, for I am really in earnest. I don’t want the money for myself. I would rather take everything from you. But I want to do some good with it. I should like to use it for some special purpose.”
“What sort of purpose, dearest?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I must think. I want to make people happy. Some have such sad lives always. It hardly seems fair. Oh, I know what I should like best!—to take a dear little cottage, and have a nice woman there to look after things, and to bring poor children down from London for a month at a time, to give them a real holiday and outing. Oh, yes, that would be lovely! and little Allumette should be the first. Do you remember that pretty little model Cora had for her picture? She was a dear little thing, and I told her she should come into the country one day. I would have her for the first of the children. Don’t you think it would be a delightful plan?”
“It might; but some of those delightful plans sound better than they work out. No, no, don’t look so crestfallen, my Madge; I am not throwing cold water. On the contrary, I will help you all I can. And, by-the-by, not far from here is a very pleasant and roomy old farmhouse, which is going to be empty at Michaelmas. It is only a small one for a farm, but it might serve your purpose, and I daresay you could coax my father to let you have it rent free. He wants to take the land and throw it into the home farm which it adjoins, as small farms don’t pay now, and the tenant is giving up. The house might do very well for some purpose of that sort. Would you like to go and see it?”
Madge was eager to do so, and was delighted with the place when she got there. It was a small farmstead, picturesque and overgrown with creepers, with a tumble-down old barn that would make an ideal playroom for children on wet days, and a tangled orchard full of gnarled old apple trees just going out of bloom, a duck pond, a nut walk, and fields and copses all round.
The house was quaint and fairly roomy, and Madge was enchanted with the flagged kitchen, the dormer windows, and the little odd stairs up and down at every turn.
“Oh, Arthur!—it would be a sweet place for them to come to—poor little darlings! I should like to see little Allumette’s face when she was set down at the gate. Michaelmas, did you say? That will be after we are married, and if I had arranged about a woman, we could have a few little things down in October, could we not? The nuts would be ripe then, and you know how lovely the trees are through October. And on wet days there would be the old barn. It would be delightful, would it not, Arthur? And for little children from London no doing up of the house would be needed. It would be better not too spick and span. Just a few beds and chairs and tables. Oh, I could see to everything like that, and tell little Allumette that she should be the first visitor. Perhaps I would let her introduce me to some friends of hers, and bring them all down together.”
Madge was so full of delight with her new scheme that she could talk of nothing else all the evening with Eva and Cora.
They were both quite pleased and interested in the plan.
“But I thought you half promised little Allumette a country holiday this summer,” said Cora. “Won’t she get rather tired of waiting if you put it off till the autumn?”
“Oh, but this will be worth waiting for; and I haven’t had time to think about the other. I did speak to one or two women in the cottages, but they had children of their own, and didn’t seem to like the idea of a strange London child. One can’t wonder at it. People fancy London children bring dirt and disease and other unpleasantnesses. It will be far better to work it oneself on a regular footing.”
“Yes, in some ways it will be better. I was only thinking that the child might be disappointed.”
“Ah, well, she shall have it made up to her if she is; and she had a nice long happy time at Hampstead which seemed to her quite like a country holiday. I didn’t forget her, but things aren’t just as easy to arrange as one thinks they will be. Besides, I shouldn’t have time here to look after her as I should like. Arthur wants so much of me, and he might not quite care for me to be running off to see little Allumette in a cottage. Men don’t understand that sort of thing!”
So Madge dismissed the thought of any immediate summons of the little match-seller, and busied herself with eager plans as to the management of her little institution when it should be organised. Sir John and Lady Brook were quite ready to interest themselves in it. The house was to be given rent free for the purpose, and Lady Brook said that she should pay the salary of a capable matron. Madge’s little fortune could go to the working of the scheme, paying the fares to and fro, and the keep of the little inmates. The girl made numerous calculations, and amused her lover not a little by the results thereof at different times. But in spite of blunders, Madge had plenty of shrewdness, and Lady Brook was pleased to note her interest in domestic details, as well as her desire after a sphere of usefulness.
“You are quite right, my dear, to resolve not to live too much for yourself alone, or even for that joint life which you will lead with Arthur. We are not put here in the world just to pass our lives as pleasantly as we can. We shall have one day to give an account, and it often seems to me that to us, to whom God’s gifts have been lavishly furnished, He will look to give a good account of the use we have made of them.”
Madge’s face was full of eager assent.
“That is just how I feel about it. I have had such a happy life! Except the death of our parents, Cora and I have had no troubles, and we lost our father before we were either of us old enough to feel it very keenly. I think I should not really enjoy my happiness if I could not do things for other people. At home I often felt that I wanted to do more, but I seemed to have no work there. I did try one or two things, but somehow they did not succeed. I daresay it was my fault, but I do like the idea of a thing like this. It will be always there, and even if I have not quite as much time myself as I should like, it will always be going on.”
Madge had plenty to think of just now besides her scheme of benevolence. She had innumerable preparations to make for her coming marriage, involving a great deal of correspondence with dressmaker and milliner, the selection and discussion of patterns, and a great deal of correspondence with private friends, whose congratulations still continued to arrive, and whose presents began to follow.
Cora and Eva betook themselves off to the sea, but Madge remained at Brooklands week after week. The house at Hampstead was let, the tenant wanted to keep it on. Bertram was well off, in comfortable rooms, running down each week to spend Sunday with his wife. London was said to be unbearably hot and stuffy, and none too healthy this season. The Brooks urged Madge to stay on with them, and she was nothing loth. It was most interesting to see how her new home was being transmogrified to receive her. It seemed to her that she had only to express a wish to see it instantly gratified. Again and again she had to remonstrate with Arthur for “spoiling her so dreadfully.” But it was a very delightful experience and she was as happy as the day was long.
Her brother wrote to her from time to time, sometimes on business matters, sometimes just a little brotherly note. There was a letter from him one morning which contained a sentence which puzzled Madge a good deal.
“I am glad you have remembered your promise to little Allumette at last. The poor little child has been looking very white and thin of late, but the country air will pull her up again. How happy she will be when she sees all the beautiful things about her. I have been sometimes afraid that those weeks at Hampstead rather unfitted her for the sharper battle of life she has to fight at home.”
“What can he mean?” said Madge, half aloud. And when she read the passage in the letter aloud, Lady Brook said—
“I suppose somebody else has given the child an outing, and your brother thinks it is you.”
“Oh, I suppose that is it,” answered Madge; “but I will ask Bertram when I write.”
Nevertheless, the letter was never written. For a moment Madge’s conscience had been uneasy, but the press of things crowding into her life quickly drove all thoughts of little Allumette out of it.
CHAPTER V.
DARK DAYS.
“Why, little Allumette! Where have all your roses gone? I thought you had learnt to grow them in Hampstead! What have you done with them now?”
The child’s face had been pinched and wan the moment before, but at the sound of that well-remembered voice the blood came rushing back, and the light sprang into the wistful eyes.
“Oh, sir, you have come back!” she exclaimed, as though the sunshine itself had returned with him.
“Yes, I have come back. Did you think I had gone for good? I shall be going away again by-and-by; but I am here for a few weeks. What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you last? Sitting for any more pictures?”
“No, sir, I’ve only been selling matches.”
“Which do you like best?”
Bertram was almost sorry he had put the question, for sudden tears sprang to the child’s eyes, and he saw that she could not reply. Some chord of memory had been struck. Plainly she could not think of those happy days at Hampstead without suffering the pangs of longing and regret.
“There, there,” he said kindly, “perhaps there will be some more sitting for pictures to do by-and-by, but the ladies are in the country still. We are not living at Hampstead just now.”
“No, sir, I know. And are the ladies quite well?”
“Yes, quite. I hear from them often. They are in a very pretty place.”
The child’s face lighted and beamed all over.
“Yes, sir, Miss Madge told me so, and I am going there soon!”
“Are you? That is right! You look as if you would be the better for a holiday.”
“I didn’t ought to want it; I had such a beautiful one up at your house. But the streets do get so hot, and I just think and think and think about what Miss Madge told me of the place I was to go to. Mother says I’m a lucky girl, and I think I am too! I can think about it all day, and then when it’s night I often dream about it too. I wonder if it’ll be like the dreams when it comes? They’re so beautiful, they are!”
“Miss Madge will keep her promise—you needn’t be afraid!” said Bertram, as he put a shilling into the child’s hand and passed on. He was very busy just then, but he found time to feel a real sense of pleasure that his sister should remember their little protégée, and arrange a country outing for her. He had been a little afraid that the experiment of transplanting her for a time had not been entirely successful. And the child’s appearance when first he saw her had been a shock to him, she had looked so frail and white.
“But I will tell Madge to keep her for a really good outing when she does get her,” he said to himself as he went on his way. “The child looks as though she needed it. She is not of the stuff of the average street waif. I will bear the expense of some extra weeks. Perhaps when Madge settles at Brooklands she might find a nook for the little one somewhere.”
Bertram was exceedingly busy just at this juncture, having been away on professional business for some time, and having his own holiday in view not far ahead. Moreover, his daily road did not now lead by Allumette’s corner, and he only saw her by chance once or twice during the week that followed.
Each time he thought she looked more white and wan than the last, and it was with real relief he observed one day that she was missing from her corner at the very hour she was always there to look out for him coming from the Law Courts.
“Ah, then Madge has got her!” he thought with a sense of satisfaction. “She is revelling in the joys of the country. I should like to see her little face light up as she gets out of the smoke of town. I will take care that she does not come back too soon. I will run down to Brooklands one of these days, when I can make time, and see Madge and the Brooks and little Allumette.”
Yet at the very time when Bertram was picturing the child happy in the midst of wild flowers, scented hay, and the glories of summertide in the country, and Madge was busy with her preparations for receiving her later on when the woods should be scarlet and the nuts hanging ripe from the bough, little Allumette was sitting, languid and suffering, pent up in a close and reeking attic with three sick children, all prostrated by a sort of low fever which had broken out in the locality, and which was carrying off little victims by the dozen.
It was not a regularly infectious fever, and it was practically impossible to isolate or remove the sick. Many children recovered after a few days’ prostration, and seemed little the worse, but some died, and others lay helpless and weak for a considerable time, and though the overworked doctor did his best to cope with it, he was able to do but little except offer a few hints as to feeding and treatment, which too often could not be carried out.
The children in Allumette’s home had sickened rather early. One little boy had died, whilst the rest were struggling back to convalescence, their recovery greatly retarded by the heat of the attic, and the bad air they constantly breathed.
Allumette had gone to her match-selling as usual for some considerable time. It was a relief to get out of the unwholesome place, and even the hot streets seemed almost fresh by comparison.
Yet never had the life of the streets seemed so hard or so uncongenial to little Allumette as they did upon her return from the gardener’s cottage at Hampstead.
She shrank from the rough words and rough ways of the boys and girls plying a like calling with herself as she had never shrunk from it before. They jeered at her, too, in her neater clothes, and made game of her when she spoke of what she had been doing in her absence. Her gentleman was not in London, and the days seemed so long and dreary. She could not eat the coarse food with the old relish, and the uncleanly odours of the court and of the attics where she lived, which before she had taken as a matter of course, now turned her sick.
She still snatched a few happy minutes when she could go and pay a visit to the old cobbler and his wife. Here she was doubly happy in being away from all that was foul and disagreeable, and in being able to talk freely to the old people of all the joys of those wonderful weeks in the studio.
She was never tired of telling, and they were never tired of hearing about them; and Allumette had left in their charge the picture-books Miss Madge had given her, and the Bible which had been young Mrs. Clayton’s parting gift. Allumette shared with her old friends all the knowledge she had come by during her stay in that wonderful house, and it comforted her to talk of Jesus and His love, and to try and believe that He saw and cared for her, just as much as He had done when she had been so happy and cared for. Moreover, old Gregg and his wife were always cheering her up by telling her that very soon she would be sent for into the country for a beautiful holiday.
“It’s not till the middle of July as folks begins to think much about holidays for children,” they would say. “August is the real month for it, but it begins before that sometimes. The young lady won’t forget, don’t you be afraid, little one. You’ll get a letter or a message one of these days, and then you’ll have fine times!”
So Allumette lived on in hope, and in spite of increasing languor and weakness kept a brave heart, and never forgot morning and night to say the little prayer taught her by Mrs. Clayton, always adding, “and please let Miss Madge remember about me!”
The sight of her gentleman’s face in the streets again had come like a ray of sunlight, and his kindness had warmed her heart. She thought, perhaps, he would say something to Miss Madge to remind her if she had forgotten. But Allumette did not believe Miss Madge would forget, only she did hope she would remember soon, for every day life seemed harder and work more burdensome, and at last she hardly knew how to drag her weary limbs over the hot pavements to her accustomed corner.
Then came the day when she dropped down in a giddy fit, just as she was going out as usual, and her stepmother said with a sort of kindly impatience—
“There, child, just you stop at home and mind the little ones. You’re not fit for the streets. You’ve got a touch of the fever yourself. I’ve got a day’s charing, and I’ll be glad to leave you at home with the children. Keep them as quiet as you can, and I’ll ask Mrs. Gregg to look in upon you whilst I’m away. I daresay she’ll cheer you up a bit.”
For tears of weakness and depression were running down little Allumette’s face. It had come into her mind that if she really had the fever the summons to the country would arrive too late. They would not let a sick child go lest she should do harm to the others. She had been fighting and fighting against the fear that she too was sickening—fighting against it for a whole long week. Now she could not fight any longer, and whilst Bertram Clayton was picturing her revelling in the delights of rural life she lay upon the wretched bed with the other sick children, parched with thirst, wasted by fever, talking in low, soft tones of happy days which seemed present to her again in a dream, but by no means always conscious of her surroundings, or certain who was with her.
At the beginning of August the tenant of the Hampstead house gave it up, and the Claytons came back to make preparations for Madge’s wedding, which was now little more than a month distant.
Blooming and radiant was Madge after her happy time at her future home, Eva was almost strong again from her visit to foreign baths, and Bertram and Cora looked quite brown after their climbs amid the surrounding hills.
They had so much to say that first evening that it was only just last thing before they parted at night that Bertram suddenly exclaimed—
“Ah, by-the-by! did you get my letter, about little Allumette? I can’t remember when or how I posted it; but I daresay it reached you all right.”
“What letter?” asked Madge, and seemed about to say more, only he spoke again quickly—
“Oh, the one telling you to keep her longer—to let her have August too down there. But I daresay you would not want prompting about that.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Madge. “I never got that letter at all. The only time you mentioned Allumette to me was once when you said you were glad she had got away into the country. I meant to ask you who had taken her. I am going to have her down to my new home (I’ll tell you all about that some other time) as soon as it’s ready, but that won’t be before October. But we’ll make up to her for the waiting when we get her.”
Bertram looked a little puzzled.
“I thought she had gone to you when she disappeared. She told me you had promised, and I said that if you had promised you would not forget, and a day or two afterwards she disappeared from her corner. I made sure you had sent for her, and that is what I meant in my letter.”
Madge’s face was rather hot. This was not the first time in her life that Bertram had had occasion to show her how she had let fall the chance of doing some small kindness through her eagerness to do something bigger by-and-by.
“Did you promise the poor child a country holiday, Madge?” asked Eva half-reproachfully. “I wish I had known. I would have taken care that she was not disappointed.”
“It wasn’t exactly a promise—at least I don’t think so, Cora, was it? I said something, I know, and I meant to be better than my word, only it wasn’t convenient just then, and I thought this would be so much better.”
Madge’s face was glowing, and her heart was beating rather fast. She felt as though whilst planning an act of rather munificent charity (which after all would cost her no self-denial) she had shirked the little present trouble of seeking an asylum for one little waif, half afraid that Arthur would think her absurd over the child, and that the cottagers might not like it. She knew it was little half-formed thoughts like these which had hindered her, and she felt a qualm of shame and self-contempt.
“I did not hear exactly,” answered Cora. “I was drawing at the time, but I certainly thought you had spoken of the summer, and I was surprised when you put it off till October.”
“And you might have written and told her,” said Bertram. “It would have cheered her to know herself remembered, and she would have had a definite hope to look forward to, instead of suffering the pain of feeling herself forgotten.”
“I was so busy, and I didn’t know how to write to a street child, and I had forgotten the address,” said Madge. “Oh, don’t all scold me! I have been very selfish. But I hope somebody else has taken her away, and to-morrow I’ll go and see about it!”
“Do,” said Bertram rather gravely, “for I begin to be afraid that instead of a country holiday it is illness which is keeping the child from her post. She was looking very white and thin when I saw her last. You know what the saying is about hope deferred, and it is especially hard for children.”
“Oh, I will go to-morrow! I will go to-morrow!” cried Madge, springing up. “I will make up to her for everything that has gone before!”
CHAPTER VI.
CONCLUSION.
“I shall go with you, Madge,” said Bertram; “I do not like your visiting such places alone. My work is quite slack now, since the vacation has commenced. It matters little enough whether I appear at chambers or not.”
So brother and sister went into town together, and soon found the steamy, airless court which was the home of little Allumette. Madge gave a little shudder as she passed into it.
“Oh, Bertram,” she exclaimed suddenly, “I shall never forgive myself if harm has come to her from my neglect! I had been here before. I ought to have remembered what it would be like after taking her out of it for so many weeks.”
“It made her very happy; but perhaps it was a mistake. It is difficult to judge in some cases. One of the lessons we have to learn in life is that there is an element of danger in intermeddling too much with the lives of others, unless we can do something permanent and substantial. We must not rush into responsibilities which are not given us to bear without due thought and consideration; but then we must not, on the other hand, hold back from any effort, lest we should not be quite successful.”
“I rushed my attempt at benevolence!” cried Madge. “When Allumette was with us I was always teaching her and making much of her, and I was quick to promise another holiday, without thinking whether I could be as good as my word. And when I was down there so busy and happy I let it go out of my mind, and could not take any trouble over it. I always put it off till I could carry out my big scheme. Oh, Bertram, I feel as though I were not worthy to attempt anything!”
“Cheer up, Madge! though perhaps that is a better frame of mind than to feel able to attempt anything and everything. There is a worthy old soul signalling to you over there. She seems to know you.”
“It is Mrs. Gregg!” cried Madge eagerly; “she will tell us about little Allumette!”
“Oh, thank God you have come, missie!” cried the woman, hastening up. “I was just saying to Gregg that I would go off to try to find you. Though he did say as fine folks was never at home this time of year. The poor lamb keeps calling and calling for Miss Madge, till it’s pitiful to hear. It don’t seem as though she could go quiet till she’s seen you again!”
“Do you mean little Allumette?” cried Madge breathlessly. “Is she ill?”
“I’m afeard she’s dying, miss. She’s had the fever on her a long while now, but she wouldn’t give way. She kept saying as Miss Madge was a-goin’ to send for her into the country, and she fought and fought against it, till she could fight no more. If she could only ha’ bin got away a week or two earlier—ah! that would ha’ made all the difference. But maybe the Lord knows best. ’Tis a hard world we live in. The tender lambs are best in His keeping maybe!”
Madge felt as though a cold hand were clutching at her heart.
“Can I see the child?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes, miss, for sure; the fever ain’t one of the catching kind—not to folks as don’t live down about here. The children get it, but grown-up folks take no harm from them. There’s abin a many little one die down here this summer, and the poor lambie up there will be the next!”
They went into that wretched attic, and stood beside the child’s bed. She was the only sick one there now, the other children having either died or recovered.
Madge felt the hot tears rising in her eyes as she saw the white, wasted face, and saw the restless, fever-stricken tossings of the child she had always seen before with a laugh in her eyes and a bright responsive smile upon her lips. She would have spoken her name as she bent over her, but no voice came. The dim eyes were roving round and round in the listlessness of fever. Words began to form upon the parched lips.
“Please, dear Lord Jesus, let Miss Madge remember! Please let her remember. I do try to be patient; but I am so tired! If I could go where she said I should be able to rest. Please help her to remember!”
“Allumette! Allumette!” cried Madge, with a note of almost passionate entreaty in her voice. “Little Allumette, don’t you know me?”
The voice seemed to penetrate the child’s dimmed understanding. Something like the shadow of the old smile crept over the pinched face; the little transparent hands made a groping movement as though trying to stretch themselves out.
“Miss Madge! Miss Madge!” she gasped feebly. “Miss Madge has come! Oh, Mrs. Gregg, are you there? You see you were right. You said Jesus always heard, and that He would answer by-and-by!”
She spoke the words in feeble gasps, trying to raise herself up; but the excitement and exertion were too much, and she fell back in a state of unconsciousness.
“Ah, poor lamb! she’s going! But she’s got her wish. She is happy now!” breathed Mrs. Gregg, drawing Madge away from the bedside. The girl turned to her brother, and caught his arm almost fiercely.
“Bertram, we must save her! we must save her!” she cried. “Don’t tell me she is dying! I won’t—I can’t believe it!”
“Not actually dying, I think,” he answered gravely, “but in a very critical condition. If she remains here she will certainly die. We must bestir ourselves if we are to save her.”
“Oh, tell me what to do! What can be done? Bertram, you will help me! You will not let me have this burden to carry about with me!”
She was growing painfully excited. He led her away, promising Mrs. Gregg that they would make speedy arrangements for the removal of the little patient to some better place, and asking the good woman to have her ready for the bearers when they should come.
“You must not give way, Madge,” he said, when they were in the street. “It has been rather a sad experience for you; but we will still hope for a happy ending. I trust and hope we may save this little life, and make it a happier one in the future. But think of the thousands of children who are growing up in dens like that! It almost crushes the life out of one to think of it!”
“I won’t think of it!” cried Madge, clenching her teeth to choke back the wave of emotion which threatened to overcome her. “I will think of the individual little ones whom I shall be able to help and cheer and make happy for a little while in their small lives. I must be careful, I see. I must not unfit them for the battle of life. I must not promise or attempt more than I can perform, or make pets and playthings of the little ones. All their surroundings must be plain and homely. But they shall have their fill of fresh air and sunshine and liberty. Oh, Bertram, my heart bleeds for them! You will not think that I ought to give up my scheme because I have been so foolish once. I have had such a lesson. And there I shall have wiser heads to counsel me.”
“I would never give up anything planned for the help and benefit of our suffering brethren—least of all of suffering children,” answered Bertram gravely, “and I think you are building on a better foundation now, Madge! The less we trust in ourselves, the more we ask help where it is to be found, the firmer our building will be, and more abiding will be the results.”
Madge nipped her brother’s arm fast. She understood much that was implied in that speech. He was not a man to speak readily of his deeper feelings; but Madge knew that they were there, and that they had been deeply stirred to-day.
“Now for some hospital where they will take the child,” he said in a different tone after a long silence. “I think I know one place where they will take a case in which I am specially interested, and make a nook for the little one somewhere, whether they are full or not.”
“St. Luke’s summer, my lamb! Just the day for Miss Madge to come home! But we mustn’t call her Miss Madge any longer. We must learn to say Mrs. Brook; and one day it will be Lady Brook, when the old gentleman is gone; but he’s wonderful hale and hearty still!”
Mrs. Gregg was bustling about the cheerful kitchen of the old-fashioned farmhouse, of which mention has been made before, and Allumette was sitting curled up on an antique oak settle in the ingle-nook, with a book open beside her. She was still a little white, frail bit of humanity—“a bag of bones,” Mrs. Gregg had called her when first she appeared at the farm, just after her own installation there as caretaker of the infant experiment. She had picked up a little flesh since then, but was still very weak and wan; only the light was coming back into the wistful eyes, and the lips were ready to smile with pure happiness and joy of life.
Life had indeed become a very wonderful thing for little Allumette since her awakening to the consciousness of her surroundings in the cheerful hospital ward. Everything since then had been so beautiful—so wonderful! Nothing but kindness had been her portion; and to crown all had come Miss Madge’s visits, upon the last of which she had heard that the cobbler and his wife—her best friends—had been sent down to live in a farmhouse close to the lady’s future home, and that Allumette herself was to go there as soon as she was well enough to leave the hospital, to live in the country always with her old friends, and by-and-by to be trained for service in Miss Madge’s own house, with the prospect of becoming her little maid in the future.
Miss Madge had told her all this just before she was to be married; and since then the child had not seen her. For, when she reached this delightful place, Mr. and Mrs. Brook were away upon their wedding trip, and only to-day were they to return.
“Hark to the bells!” cried Mrs. Gregg suddenly. “That means that the carriage is in sight of the village. Run, ducky! It will pass the place I showed you this morning. Take your posy and run and see them go by!”
A huge and very tasteful arrangement in brightly-tinted autumn leaves and flowers, tied with a white riband, lay upon the table. Little Allumette started up, tied on her hat, seized her bouquet, and started off like an arrow from a bow. She was strong enough to run a short distance now, and she knew just where the carriage would pass.
“They be a-coomin’, ducky!” cried the old cobbler, who was now working busily in the garden, rejoicing in the sort of toil to which he had been brought up, and which seemed to infuse new vigour into his bent frame. He and his wife both appeared to have taken a new lease of life since coming down into the country. It had been one of their unfulfilled dreams to save enough to leave the cruel city and make a little home in some quiet country place such as both remembered in their youth. But they had long given up hoping for it, when the unexpected offer from Miss Madge brought about its realisation.
The child ran swiftly down the sloping meadow to the stile at the end. The road ran along just below, and from that vantage ground she would see the carriage pass, and be able to throw her posy into Miss Madge’s lap. She could not yet think of her as anything but Miss Madge, though she practised the new name conscientiously with Mrs. Gregg.
But hardly had she reached the stile before she uttered a little exclamation of rapture, for there was a tall familiar figure standing beside it, his face turned away, watching for the arrival of the carriage.
At the sound of the pattering feet he turned and smiled.
“Little Allumette!” he exclaimed; and, lifting her up, he set her upon the stile, where she could see everything to the greatest advantage.
“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed in a sort of ecstacy; and he laughed as he said—
“I had to come down on business. I was in the down train, and walked up. I thought I should get to Brooklands before the bridal party arrived. But I heard the bells begin, and decided to let them pass me. So you are down here for good, are you, little Allumette? But we shall have to find a new name for you now. Matches don’t belong to you any longer.”
“No, sir,” she answered shyly; “but I shall always like the name you gave me better than any other!”
The roll of the carriage wheels began to be heard.
“They are coming!” said Bertram Clayton, and stood the child up on the broad ledge of the stile, holding her with one strong arm. Two or three mounted tenants trotted past on horseback, and then the carriage dashed into sight round the bend.
Allumette was quivering all over with excitement and a sort of vague fear lest Mrs. Brook might not be quite the same person as Miss Madge had been; but when she saw the smiling face in the carriage all fear left her, and, holding up her posy, she waved it in the air and threw it deftly into the lady’s lap.
But Madge had already seen the pair, and was signalling to the coachman to stop.
“Bertram, this is too delightful! Get into the carriage, and tell me all the news at home!”
But though she spoke first to her brother her eyes were on the child too, and when he led her up to the carriage she held out her hands, and bending down, kissed the little quivering upturned face.
“Little Allumette!” she said softly, and there was a sparkle of tears of thankfulness in her eyes.
The carriage drove off; the child stood looking after it. Happiness was written on every line of her face. Her lady had seen her, had spoken to her, had kissed her. It was more than enough for little Allumette.
THE END.