A SUDDEN JOURNEY.
Harriet Wesden hurried away after her promise; Mattie, at the last moment, recalling to her notice the fact of the robbery, and reminding her of the way in which she ought to break the news to her father. Then the excited girl darted away to Camberwell, and it was like the stillness of the grave in the back parlour after her departure. Mattie went in for an instant to set the place to rights, and then returned to her watch in the shop, and to her many thoughts, born of that day's incidents. She was quite prepared for a visit from Mr. Wesden at a late hour, but Mr. Wesden's movements under excitement were not to be calculated upon; and we may say here that the knowledge of his loss did not bring him post-haste to Great Suffolk Street. Mattie was thinking of her loss, when the passage door opened, and the white head of Mr. Hinchford peered round and looked up at the clock, over the top shelf where the back stock was kept. The movement reminded Mattie of the time, and she glanced at the clock herself—half-past nine.
"I thought the clock had stopped up-stairs," he said, by way of explanation for his appearance.
"I had no idea it was so late," said Mattie.
"I had no idea it was so early," responded Mr. Hinchford; adding, after a pause, "though I can't think where the boy has got to; he said he would be home early, as he had some accounts to look through."
"It's not very late, sir, and if he has gone to Camberwell, not knowing Miss Harriet was here to-night——"
"He always comes home first—I never knew him go anywhere without coming home first to tell me. But," with another look at the clock, "it's not so very late, as you say, Mattie."
"He will be here in a minute."
"I hope so," said Mr. Hinchford, going to the shop door, and looking down the street, "for it's coming on to rain, and he has no umbrella. The boy will catch his death of cold."
After standing at the door for two or three minutes, the old gentleman turned to go up-stairs again.
"It'll be a thorough wet night—I'll tell Ann to keep plenty of water in the boiler—nothing like your feet in hot water to stave off a cold."
He retired. Half an hour afterwards he reappeared in the shop, excitable and fidgety.
"I can't make it out," he said, after another inspection of the clock; "there's something wrong."
"Perhaps he has gone to the play, sir."
"Pooh! he hates plays," was the contemptuous comment to this; "he wouldn't waste his time in a playhouse. No, Mattie there's something wrong."
"I don't think so," said Mattie, cheerfully. "I would not worry about his absence just yet, sir."
"I'll give him another hour, and then I'll go down to the office and ask after him."
"Or find him there, sir."
"No, they're not busy, I think. He can't be there. Mattie," he said suddenly. "Have you noticed a difference in him lately?"
"I—I fancy he seems, perhaps, a little graver; but then he's growing older and more manly every day."
"Ah! he grows a fine fellow—there isn't such another boy in the world—perhaps it's all a fancy of mine, after all."
Mattie knew that it was no fancy; that even Sidney's care and histrionic efforts could not disguise his trouble entirely from the father. But she played the part of consoler to Mr. Hinchford as well as she was able, and the old gentleman, less disturbed in mind, returned to his room for the second time.
But time stole on, and Mattie herself found a new anxiety added to those which had heretofore disturbed her. The wet night set in as Mr. Hinchford had prophesied; the boy came and put up the shutters; the clock ticked on towards eleven; all but the public-houses were closed in Great Suffolk Street, and there were few loiterers about.
Ann Packet brought in the supper, and was informed of the day's two features of interest—the robbery, and the absence of Mr. Sidney. Ann Packet, of slow ideas herself, and slower still in having other ideas instilled into her, thought that the missing parcel was connected with the missing lodger, and so conglomerated matters irremediably.
"You may depend upon it, Mattie, he'll bring the parcel back—it's one of his games—he was a rare boy for tricks when I knew him fust."
"Ann, you've been asleep," said Mattie, sharply.
"I couldn't help it," answered Ann, submissively; "it was very lonely down there, with no company but the beadles—and times ain't as they used to was, when you could read to me, and was more often down there."
"Ah! times are altering," sighed Mattie.
"And Mr. Wesden don't like me here till after the shop's shut—because he can't trust me, or I talk too much, I s'pose," she said; "but now, dear, sit down and tell me all about everything, to keep my sperits up."
Ann Packet and Mattie always supped together after the shop was closed—Ann Packet lived for supper time now, looked forward all the day to a "nice bit of talk" with the girl who had won upon those affections which three-fourths of her life had rusted from disuse.
"It's uncommon funny that I never had anybody to care about afore I knowed you, Mattie," she said regularly, once or twice a-week; "no father, mother, sisters, anybody, till you turned up like the ace in spekkilation. And now, let me hear you talk, my dear—I don't fancy that your tongue runs on quite so fast as it did."
Ann Packet curled herself in her chair, hazarded one little complaint about her ankles, which were setting in badly again with the Christmas season, and then prepared to make herself comfortable, when once more Mr. Hinchford appeared, with his hat, stick, and great cloak this time.
"Mattie, I can't stand it any longer—I'm off to the office in the City."
Mattie did not like the look of his excited face.
"I'd wait a little while longer, sir."
"No—something has happened to the boy."
"Shall I go with you, sir?"
"God bless the girl!—what for?"
"For company's sake—it's late for you to be alone, sir."
"Don't you think I can take care of myself?—am I so old, feeble, and drivelling as that? Are they right at the office, after all?" he added in a lower tone.
"I shouldn't like to be left here all alone," murmured Ann Packet; "particularly after there's been robberies, and——"
There was the rattle of cab-wheels in the street, coming nearer and nearer towards the house.
"Hark!" said Mattie and Mr. Hinchford in one breath.
The rattling ceased before the door, the cab stopped, Mr. Hinchford pointed to the door, and gasped, and gesticulated.
"Open, o—open the door!—he has met with an accident!"
"No, no, he has only taken a cab to get here earlier, and escape the wet," said Mattie, opening the door with a beating heart, nevertheless.
Sidney Hinchford, safe and sound, was already out of the cab and close to the door. Mattie met him with a bright smile of welcome, to which his sombre face did not respond. He came into the shop, stern and silent, and then looked towards his father.
"I thought you might have gone to bed, father," he said.
"Bed!" ejaculated Mr. Hinchford, in disgust; "what has—what has——"
"Come up-stairs, I wish to speak to you."
Father and son went up-stairs to their room, leaving Mattie at the open door. The cab still remained drawn up there; the cabman stood by the horse's head, stolid as a judge in his manifold capes.
"Are you waiting for anything?" asked Mattie.
"For the gemman, to be sure."
"Going back again?"
"He says so—I spose it's all right," he added dubiously; "you've no back door which he can slip out of?"
"Slip out of!" cried the disgusted Mattie, slamming the front door in his face for his impudent assertion.
Meanwhile Sidney Hinchford was facing his father in the drawing-room.
"Sit down and take the news coolly, sir," he said; "there's nothing gained by putting yourself in a flurry."
"N—no, no, my boy, n—no."
"I have no time to spare, and I wish to leave you all right before I go."
"Go!"
"I am going for a day or two, very likely for a week, on a special mission for my employers—that is all that I can tell you without breaking the confidence placed in me—I must go at once."
"Bless my soul! what—what can I possibly do without you. Can't I go with you? Can't I—"
"You can do nothing but wait patiently for my return, believing that I am safe, and taking care of myself. Why, what are a few days?"
"Well, not much after all," said the father, wiping his forehead with his silk-handkerchief, "and there's no danger, of course?"
"Not any."
"And you are only going——"
"A journey of a few days. Try and calm yourself whilst I pack a few things in my portmanteau. There, that's well!"
Sidney passed into the other room, leaving his father still struggling with the effects of his astonishment. The portmanteau must have been filled without any regard for neatness, for Sidney in a few minutes returned with it in his hands.
"Why, you should be proud of this journey of mine," he said with a forced lightness that could only have deceived his father; "think what it is to be chosen out of the whole office to undertake this business."
"It's a good sign. Yes, I see that now."
"And I shall be back sooner than you expect, perhaps. Why, you and I must not part like two silly girls, to whom the journey of a few miles is the event of a life. Now, good-bye, sir—God keep you strong and well till I come back again!"
"And you, my lad, and you, too."
"Amen. God grant it."
There was a strange earnestness in the son's voice, but the father was still too much excited to take heed.
"And now good-bye again," shaking his father's hands; "you'll stay here, sir, you'll not come down any more to-night."
"Yes, I will."
"You must try and keep calm; I will beg you as a favour to remain here, father."
"Well, well, if you wish it—but I'm not a child."
Sidney released his father's hands, caught up his portmanteau, and marched down stairs. Mattie, pale with suppressed excitement, met him in the shop. He put down his burden, caught her by the wrist, and drew her into the parlour. Seeing Ann Packet there, he bade her go down stairs somewhat abruptly, released his grip of Mattie, and waited for Ann's withdrawal, beating his foot impatiently upon the carpet.
Mattie looked nervously towards him, and thought that she had never seen him look more stern and hard. His face was deathly white, and his eyes burned like coals behind the glasses that he wore.
"Mattie," he said, "you and I, my father and you, are old friends."
"Yes, sir."
"I will ask a favour of you before I go. Take care of him! Ask him to come down here to smoke his pipe with you, and keep him as light-hearted as you can till I return."
"Who?—I, sir?"
"You have the way with you; you are quick to observe, and it will not take much pains to keep him pleased, I think. When he begins to wonder why I haven't returned, break to him by degrees that I have deceived him, fearing the shock too sudden for his strength."
"Oh! sir, how can you leave all this to me?"
"I have faith in no one else, Mattie, to do me this service. You are always cool, and will know the best way to proceed. Cheer up the old gentleman all you can, too;—you were a quaint girl once—don't let him miss me if you can help it."
"And you'll be gone——"
"Six weeks or two months."
"It's not a very happy journey, sir."
"How do you know that?" was the quick rejoinder.
"You're not looking happy—there's trouble in your face, Mr. Sidney."
"Well, there is room for it, and I am going, as I fear, to face trouble, and bring back with me disappointment. We can't have it all our own way in this world, Mattie."
"No, sir, that's not likely."
"And if there be more troubles than one ahead, why we must fight against them till we beat them back, or they—crush us under foot. Good-bye."
He shook hands with her long and heartily, adding, "You will remember your trust—you will break the news to him like a daughter?"
"I'll do my best, sir."
"He knows that I cannot send him any letters."
"And, and—letters for you?"
She thought of the letter which Harriet Wesden, in her sleepless bed, might be pondering upon then. Of the new trouble which he seemed to guess not; for immediately afterwards he said—
"Keep the letters till I come back—and give my love to Harriet; tell her I shall think of her every hour of the day and night. I wrote to her the last thing this evening. Now, good-bye, old girl, and wish me luck."
"The best of luck, Mr. Sidney—with all my heart!"
"Luck in the distance—luck when I come back again, and see it shining in my Harriet's eyes. Ah! it won't do!" he added, with a stamp of his foot.
"I'll pray for it sir," cried Mattie; "we can't tell what may happen for the best, or what is for the best, however it may trouble us at first."
"Spoken like the parson at the corner shop," he said, a little irreverently. "Bravo, Mattie—honest believer!"
He passed from the shop into his cab, glancing at the up-stairs windows, and waving his hand for a moment towards his father, waiting anxiously there to see the last of him.
The cab rattled away the moment afterwards, and Sidney Hinchford was borne on his unknown journey.
On the evening of the next day, a letter, in Harriet Wesden's hand-writing, was received. The postman and Mr. Hinchford, senior, came into the shop together.
"Sidney Hinchford, Esq.," said the postman.
"Thank you—I'll post it to him when he sends me his address," said Mr. Hinchford. "By Jove!" looking at the superscription, "the ladies miss him already."
Harriet Wesden had kept her promise, and found courage to write her story out.