MR. HINCHFORD'S EXPERIMENT.
The middle of March; six weeks since the robbery of Master Hinchfords' gold heart; a wet night in lieu of a foggy one; a cold wind sweeping down the street and dashing the rain all manner of ways; pattens and clogs clicking and shuffling about the pavement of Great Suffolk Street; the stationery shop open, and Mr. Wesden at seven o'clock sitting behind the counter waiting patiently for customers.
Being a wet night, and customers likely to be scarce in consequence, Mr. Wesden had carefully turned out one gas burner and lowered the two others in the window to imperceptible glimmers of a despondent character, and then taken his seat behind the counter ready for any amount of business that might turn up between seven and half-past nine p.m. The gas was burning more brightly in the back parlour, through the closed glass door of which Mrs. Wesden was cutting out shirts, and Miss Wesden learning, or feigning to learn, her school lessons for the morrow.
Mr. Wesden was devoting his mind purely to business; in his shop he never read a book, or looked at a newspaper, but waited for customers, always in one position, with his head slightly bent forwards, and his hands clutching his knees. In that position the largest order had not the power to stagger him—the smallest order could not take him off his guard. He bent his mind to business—he was "on duty" for the evening.
Mr. Wesden was a short, spare man, with a narrow chest, a wrinkled face, a sharp nose, and a sandy head of hair—a man whose clothes were shabby, and ill fitted him, the latter not to be wondered at, Mrs. Wesden being the tailor, and making everything at home. This saved money, and satisfied Mr. Wesden, who cared not for appearances, had a soul above the fashion, and a faith in his wife's judgment. In the old days Mrs. Wesden was forced to turn tailor and trouser-maker, or see her husband without trousers at all; tailoring had become a habit since then, and agreed with her—it saved money still, and economy was ever a virtue with this frugal pair.
Mr. Wesden in his shop-suit then—that was his shabbiest suit, and exceedingly shabby it was—sat and waited for customers. He waited patiently; to those who strayed in for sheets of note-paper, books to read, shirt-buttons, tapes, or beads, he was very attentive, settling the demands with promptitude and despatch, saying little save "a wet evening," and not to be led into a divergence about a hundred matters foreign to business, until the articles were paid for, and the money in his till. Then, if a few loquacious customers would gossip about the times, he condescended to listen, regarding them from his meaningless grey eyes, and responding in monosyllables, when occasion or politeness required some kind of answer. But he was always glad to see their faces turned towards the door—they wearied him very much, these people, and it was odd they could not take away the articles they had purchased, and go home in quietness.
To people in the streets who, caught by some attraction in his window, stopped and looked thereat, he was watchful from behind his counter—speculating as to whether they were probable purchasers, or had felonious designs. He was a suspicious man to a certain extent as well as a careful one, and no one lingered at his window without becoming an object of interest from behind the tobacco-jars and penny numbers. On this evening a haggard white face—whether a girl or woman's he could not make out for the mist on the window-panes—had appeared several times before the shop-window, and looked in, over the beads, and tapes, and through packets of paper, at him. Not interested at anything for sale, but keeping an eye on him, he felt assured.
He had a bill in the window—"A Boy Wanted"—and if it had been a boy's face flitting about in the rain there, he should not have been so full of doubts as to the object with which he was watched; but there was a battered bonnet on the head of the watcher, and therefore no room for speculation concerning sex, at least.
After an hour's fugitive dodging, Mattie—for it was she—came at a slow rate into the shop. She walked forwards very feebly, and took a firm grip of the counter to steady herself.
Mr. Wesden critically surveyed her from his post of observation; she did not speak, but she kept her black eyes directed to the face in front of her.
"Well—what do you want, Mattie?" asked Mr. Wesden, finally.
"Nothin'—that is to buy."
"Ah! then we've nothing to give away for you any more."
"I want to speak to Master Hinchford," said Mattie; "I've come about the brooch."
"Not brought it back!" exclaimed Mr. Wesden, roused out of his apathetic demeanour by this assertion.
"I wish I had—no, I on'y want to see him."
Mr. Wesden called to his wife, and delivered Mattie's request through the glass, keeping one eye on the new comer all the while. Mrs. Wesden sent her daughter up-stairs with the message, and presently from a side door opening into the shop Miss Wesden made her appearance.
"If you please, will you walk up-stairs?"
Harriet Wesden spoke very kindly, and edged away from Mattie as she advanced—Mattie was the girl who had stolen the brooch, a strange creature from an uncivilized world, and the stationer's little daughter was afraid of her old pensioner.
The girl from the streets stared at Harriet Wesden in her turn, looked very intently at her warm dress and white pinafore, and then looked back at Mr. Wesden.
"May I go up, sir?"
"I don't see why they can't come down here," he grumbled, "but you must go up if they want to see you. Stop here, Harriet, and call Ann—you might catch something, girl."
Ann was called, and presently a broad-faced, red-armed girl made her appearance.
"Show a light to this girl up-stairs, Ann."
"This girl—here?"
"Yes—that girl there."
"Oh! lawks—so you've turned up agin."
Mattie did not answer—she seemed very weak and ill, and not inclined to waste words foreign to her motive in appearing there. She followed the servant up-stairs, pausing on the first landing to take breath.
"What's the matter with you—ain't you well?" asked the servant-maid.
"No, I ain't—I'm just the tother thing."
"Been ill?"
"Scarlet fever—that's all."
"Oh! lor a mussy on us!—keep further off! I can't bide fevers. We shall all be as red as lobsters in the morning."
"It ain't catching now—Mother Watts didn't catch it—I wish she had!"
"Will you go up-stairs now?"
"Let's get a breath—I ain't so strong as I used to be—now then."
Up the next flight, to the door of the first-floor front, where Sidney Hinchford, pale with suspense, was standing.
"Have you got it?—have you got it, Mattie?"
"No—I ain't got nothin'."
"'Cept a fever, Master Sidney—tell your father to look out."
A thin, large-veined hand protruded from the door, and dragged Master Hinchford suddenly backwards into the room; a tall, military-looking old gentleman, with white hair and white moustache, the instant afterwards occupied the place, and looked down sternly at the small intruder.
"Keep where you are—I didn't know you had a fever, girl. Ann Packet, put the light on the bracket. That will do."
Ann Packet set the chamber candlestick on a little bracket outside the drawing-room, drew her clothes tightly round her limbs, and keeping close to the wall, scuttled past the girl, whom fever had sorely stricken lately. Mattie dropped on to the stairs, placed her elbows on her knees, took her chin between her claw-like hands, and stared up at Mr. Hinchford.
"I don't think you can catch anythin' from me, guv'nor."
Governor looked down at Mattie, and reddened a little.
"I'm not afraid of fever—it's only the boy I'm thinking about. Sidney," he called.
"Yes, pa."
"You can hear, if I leave the door open. Now, girl," addressing the diminutive figure on the stairs, "if you haven't brought the brooch, what was the good of coming here?"
"To let you know I tried—that's all. I thought that all you might think that I'd stuck to it, you see. But I did try my hardest to get it back—because the young gent let me off when the bobbies would have walked me to quod. Lor bless you, sir, I'm not a reg'lar!"
"A what?"
"A reg'lar thief, sir. They've been trying hard to make me—Mother Watts and old Simes, and the rest—but it don't do. I was locked up once afore mother died, and mother was sorry—awful sorry, for her—you should have just heard her go on, when I come out agin. Oh! no, I'm not a reg'lar—I sings about the street for ha'pence, and goes to fairs, and begs—and so on, but I don't take things werry often. I'm a stray, sir!"
"Ah!—God help you!" murmured the old gentleman.
"I never had no father—and mother's dead now. I'm 'bliged to shift for myself. And oh! I just was hard up when I tooked the brooch."
"And what became of it?"
"Old Simes stuck to it, sir. I went to him on the werry night after I had seen Master Hinchford, and he said he'd sold it for tenpence, but he'd try and get it back for me, which he never did, sir—never."
"No—I suppose not," was the dry response.
"And the next day I caught the fever, and got in the workus, somehow; and when I came back to Kent Street, last week that was, old Simes had seen nothin' more of the brooch, and Mother Watts had forgot all about it—so she said!" was the disparaging comment.
"And you came hither to tell us all this?"
"Yes—I thought you'd like to know I did try, and that they were too deep for me. My eye! they just are deep, those two!"
"Why didn't you stay in the workhouse?"
"Can't bide the workus, sir—they drop upon you too much. It's the wust place going, sir, and no one takes to it."
"You're an odd girl."
Mr. Hinchford leaned his back against the door-post, and surveyed the ragged and forlorn girl on the lower stair. He was perplexed with this child, and her wistful eyes—keen and glittering as steel—made him feel uncomfortable. Here was a mystery—a something unaccountable, and he could not probe to its depths, or tell which was false and which was genuine in the character of this motherless girl before him. He had prided himself all his life in being a judge of character—a man of observation, who saw the flaw in the diamond—the real face behind the paint, varnish, and pasteboard. He had judged his own brother in times past—he had mixed much with the world, and gleaned much from hard experience thereof, and yet a child like this disturbed him. He fancied that he could read a struggle for something better and more pure in Mattie's life, and that Fate was against her and drawing her back to the shadows from which she, as if by a noble instinct, was endeavouring to emerge.
He felt curious concerning her.
"What do you intend to do now?"
"Lor, sir, I don't know. It depends upon what turns up."
"You will not thieve any more?"
"Not if I can help it—but if I can't help it, sir, I must go to school at Simes's. He teaches lots of gals to get a living!"
Mr. Hinchford shuddered. There was a pause, during which the head of Master Hinchford peered through the door to note how affairs were progressing. The father detected the movement, and when the head was hastily withdrawn, he drew the door still closer, and retained a grip of the handle for precaution's sake.
"You don't know what your next step will be? You'll try to live honestly, you say?"
"I'll try the ingun dodge. You get's through a heap of inguns at a ha'penny a lot, if the perlice will ony let you be."
"And your stock in trade?"
"What's that?"
"How will you begin? Where are the onions to come from?"
"I shall sing for them to-morrow—my woice is comin' round a bit, Mother Watts says."
Mr. Hinchford pulled at his long white moustache—the girl's confidence and coolness induced him to linger there—something in his own heart led him to continue the conversation. He was a philosopher, a student of human nature, and this was a singular specimen before him.
"What could you live and keep honest upon?"
"Tuppence a day in summer—fourpence in winter. Summer a gal can sleep anywhere—there's some prime places in the Borough Market, and lots o' railway arches, Dockhead way; but it nips you awful hard when the frost's on."
"Well—here's sixpence to set up in business with, Mattie—and as long as you can show me an honest front, and can come here every Saturday night and say, 'I've been honest all the week,' why, I'll stand the same amount."
Mattie's eyes sparkled at this rise in life.
"I'll borrow a basket, and buy some inguns to-morrow. P'raps you buy inguns sometimes, and old—Mr. Wesden down-stairs, too. Yes, sir, it's the connexion that budges one up!" she said, with the gravity of an old woman.
"I see. I'll speak to Mr. Wesden about his custom, Mattie. You can go now."
"Thankee, sir."
She rose to her feet, went a few steps down-stairs, paused, and looked back.
"What is it, Mattie?"
"I hope the young gen'leman isn't a fretting much about his broach."
"Here, young gentleman," called the father, "do you hear that?"
Master Hinchford laughed from within.
"Oh, no!—I don't fret."
"P'raps some day I shall have saved up enuf to pay him back. That's a rum idea, isn't it, sir?"
"Not a bad one, Mattie. Think it over."
"Yes, sir."
Mattie departed, and Mr. Hinchford returned to the sitting-room. Master Hinchford, buried in books, was sitting at the centre table.
"Are you going at figures to-night?"
"Just for a little while, I think."
"You'll ruin your eyes—I've said so fifty times."
"Better have weak eyes than weak brains, sir."
"Not the general idea, lad."
After a while, and when Master Hinchford was scratching away with his pen, the father said—
"You don't say anything about Mattie."
"I think it was very kind of you," said the youth; "and I think—somehow—that Mattie will be grateful."
"Pooh! pooh!" remarked the father, "you'll never make a first-rate city man, if you believe in gratitude. Look at the world sternly, boy. Put not your trust in anything turning out the real and genuine article—work everything by figures."
Master Hinchford looked at his sire, as though he scarcely understood him.
"I must bring you up to understand human nature, Sid—what a bad article it is—plated with a material that soon wears off, if rubbed smartly. Human nature is everywhere the same, and if you be only on your guard, you may take advantage of it, instead of letting it take advantage of you. Now, this girl is a specimen, which, at my own expense, we will experimentalize upon. In that stray, my boy, you shall see the natural baseness of mankind—or girl-kind."
"Don't you think that she'll come again?"
"For the sixpence, to be sure! Every Saturday night, with a long story of how honest she has been all the week. Here we shall see a girl, who, by her own statement, and with a struggle, can keep honest now—note the effect of indiscriminate alms-giving."
"Of rewarding a girl for stealing my brooch, pa."
"Ah!—exactly. Some people who didn't understand me, would set me down for a weak-minded old fool. In studying human nature, one must act oddly with odd specimens. And this girl—who came to tell us she had not brought the brooch back—I am just a little—curious—concerning!"