During the visit to the linendraper’s, above spoken of, Miss Deveen bought a gown for Matilda. Feeling in her own heart sorry for the girl, thinking she had been somewhat hardly done by in her house, what with Hall and the rest of them, she wished to make her a present on leaving, as a token of her good-will. But the quantity of stuff bought proved not to be sufficient: Miss Deveen had doubted the point when it was cut off, and told Matilda to go herself and get two yards more. This it was, this simple incident, that led to the meeting with Owen. And I was present at it.
The money-order office of the district was situated amidst this colony of shops. In going down there one afternoon to cash an order, I overtook Matilda. She was on her way to buy the additional yards of stuff.
“I suppose I am going right, sir?” she said to me. “I don’t know much about this neighbourhood.”
“Not know much about it! What, after having lived in it more than a year!”
“I have hardly ever gone out; except to church on a Sunday,” she answered. “And what few articles I’ve wanted in the dress line, I have mostly bought at the little draper’s shop round the corner.”
Hardly had the words left her lips, when we came face to face with Thomas Owen. Matilda gave a sort of smothered cry, and stood still, gazing at him. What they said to one another in that first moment, I did not hear. Matilda had a frightened look, and was whiter than death. Presently we were all walking together towards Thomas Owen’s, he having invited Matilda to go and see his home.
But there was another encounter first. Standing at the grocer’s door was pretty Fanny Valentine. She and Matilda recognized each other, and clasped hands. It appeared to me that Matilda did it with reluctance, as though it gave her no pleasure to meet her relatives. She must have known how near they lived to Miss Deveen’s, and yet she had never sought them out. Perhaps the very fact of not wishing to see them had kept her from the spot.
They all sat down in the parlour behind the shop—a neat room. Mrs. Owen was out; her son produced some wine. I stood up by the bookcase, telling them I must be off the next minute to the post-office. But the minutes passed, and I stayed on.
How he led up to it, I hardly know; but, before I was prepared for anything of the kind, Thomas Owen had plunged wholesale into the subject of Jane Cross, recounting the history of that night, in all its minute details, to Fanny Valentine. Matilda, sitting back on the far side of the room in an armchair, looked terror-stricken: her face seemed to be turning into stone.
“Why do you begin about that, Thomas Owen?” she demanded, when words at length came to her. “It can have nothing to do with Fanny.”