This dialogue occurred in the back parlour, whilst Mrs. Wesden was up-stairs, and Mr. Wesden in Paternoster Row in search of the December "monthlies"--and in the middle of it the devil in his French hat, stepped, with his usual cool imperturbability, into the shop.
This procedure always annoyed Mattie; she saw through the pretence, and, though it brought custom to the establishment, still it aggravated her.
It was playing at shop, and "making-believe" to want something; and shop with our humble heroine was an important matter, and not to be lightly trifled with. She had her revenge in her way by selling the prowler the driest, hardest, and most undrawable of cigars, giving him the penny Pickwicks for the mild Havannahs; she sold him fusees that she knew had been left in a damp place, and the outside periodicals, which had become torn and soiled--could she have discovered a bad sixpence in the till, I believe, in her peculiar ideas of retaliation, she would not have hesitated an instant in presenting it, with his change.
The gentleman of energy entered the shop then, rolled his eyes over the parlour blind towards Harriet, who sat at fancy-work by the fireside, finally looked at Mattie, who stood stolidly surveying him. Now energy without a result had considerably damped the ardour of our prowler, and he had resolved to push a little forward in the sapping and mining way.
He was a man who had made feminine pursuit a study; he knew human weakness, and the power of the money he carried in his pockets. He was well up in Ovid and in the old comedies of a dissolute age, where the Abigail is always tempted before the mistress--and Mattie was only a servant of a lower order, easily to be worked upon, he had not the slightest doubt. There was a servant who did the scrubbing of the stones before the door, and sat half out of window polishing the panes, till she curdled his blood, but she was a red-faced, stupid girl, and as there was a choice, he preferred that shop-girl, "with the artful black eyes," as he termed them.
"Good morning, Miss."
"Good morning."
"Have you any--any more of those exceedingly nice cigars, Miss?"
"Plenty more of them."
"I"ll take a shilling"s-worth."
Mattie, always anxious to get him out of the shop, rolled up his cigars in paper, and pa.s.sed them rapidly across the counter. The prowler, not at all anxious, unrolled the paper, drew forth his cigar-case, and proceeded to place the "Havannahs" very carefully one by one in their proper receptacles, talking about the weather and the business, and even complimenting Mattie upon her good looks that particular morning, till Mattie"s blood began to simmer.
"You haven"t paid me yet, sir," she said, rather sharply.
"No, Miss--in one moment, if you will allow me."
After awhile, during which Mattie moved from one foot to another in her impatience, he drew forth a sovereign and laid it on the counter.
"We"re short of change, sir--if you have anything smaller----"
"Nothing smaller, I am compelled to say, Miss."
Mattie hesitated. Under other circ.u.mstances, she would have left her shop, ran into the pork-butcher"s next door, and procured change, after a hint to Harriet to look to the business; but she detected the _ruse_ of the prowler, and was not to be outwitted. She opened her till again, and found fourteen shillings in silver--represented by a preponderance of threepenny pieces, but that was of no consequence, save that it took him longer to count--and from a lower drawer she drew forth one of many five-shilling packets of coppers, which p.a.w.nbrokers and publicans on Sat.u.r.day nights were glad to give Mr. Wesden silver for, and laid it down with a heavy dab on the counter.
"What--what"s that?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"That"s ha"pence--that"s all the change we"ve got--and I can"t leave the shop," said Mattie, briskly. "You can give me my cigars back and get change for yourself, if you don"t like it."
"Thank you," was the suave answer, "I was not thinking much about the change. If you will buy yourself a new bonnet with it, you will be conferring a favour upon me."
"And what favour will you want back?" asked Mattie, quickly.
"Oh! I will leave that to time and your kindness--come, will you take it and be friends with me? I want a friend in this quarter very much."
He pushed the silver and the c.u.mbrous packet of coppers towards her. He was inclined to be liberal. He remembered how many he had dazzled in his time by his profuse munificence. Money he had never studied in his life, and by the strange rule of contraries, he had had plenty of it.
Mattie was impulsive--even pa.s.sionate, and the effort to corrupt her allegiance to the Wesdens fired her blood to a degree that she even wondered at herself shortly afterwards.
"Take yourself out of this shop, you bad man," she cried, "and your trumpery change too! Be off with you before I call a policeman, or throw something at you--you great big coward, to be always coming here insulting us!"
With her impatient hands she swept the money off the counter, five-shilling packet of coppers and all, which fell with a crash, and disgorged its contents on the floor.
"What--what do you mean?" stammered the prowler.
"I mean that it"s no good you"re coming here, and that n.o.body wants to see you here again, and that I"ll set the policeman on you next time you give me any of your impudence. Get out with you, you coward!"
Mattie thought her one threat of a policeman sufficient; she had still a great reverence for that official personage, and believed that his very name must strike terror to guilty hearts. The effect upon her auditor led her to believe that she had been successful; but he was only alarmed at Mattie"s loud voice, and the stoppage of two boys and a woman at the door.
"I--I don"t know what you mean--you"re mad," he muttered, and then slunk out of the shop, leaving his c.u.mbrous change for a sovereign spread over the stationer"s floor. Mattie went round the counter and collected the _debris_ of mammon, minus one threepenny piece which she could not discern anywhere, but which Mr. Wesden, toiling under his monthly parcel, detected in one corner immediately upon his entrance.
"Why, Mattie, what"s this?--MONEY--_on the floor_!"
"A gentleman dropped his change, sir."
"Put it on the shelf, he"ll be back for it presently."
"No, I don"t think he will," was Mattie"s dry response.
CHAPTER V.
PERSEVERANCE.
Mattie in her self-conceit imagined that she had frightened the prowler from Great Suffolk Street; in lieu thereof, she had only deterred him from entering a second appearance on the premises. He had made a false move, and reaped the bitter consequence. He must be more wary, if he built upon making an impression on Harriet Wesden"s heart--more cautious, more of a strategist. So he continued to prowl at a distance, and to watch his opportunity from the same point of view. Presently it would come, and with the advantage of his winning tongue, which could roll off elegant phrases by the yard, he trusted to make an impression on a shopkeeper"s daughter.
For a moment, and after his rebuff, he had hesitated as to the expediency of continuing the siege; but his pride was aroused; it was an unpleasant end to his plans, and the chance had not presented itself yet of trying his fortune with Miss Wesden herself. Presently the hour would come; he did not despair yet; he bided his time with great patience.
The time came a fortnight after that little incident in the Suffolk Street shop. Harriet Wesden was coming down the Borough towards home one wet night when he accosted her. It was getting late for one thing, and rainy for another, and Harriet was making all the haste home that she could, when he made her heart leap into her throat by his sudden "Good evening, Miss."
One glance at him, the nipping of a little scream in the bud, and then she increased her pace, the prowler keeping step with her.
"Will you favour me by accepting half my umbrella, Miss Wesden--for one instant then, whilst I venture to explain what may seem conduct the reverse of gentlemanly to you?"
"No, sir, I wish to hear nothing--I wish to be left alone."
"I have been very rude--I will ask your pardon, Miss Wesden, very humbly. But let me beg of you to listen to this explanation of my conduct."
"There is nothing to explain, sir."
"Pardon me, but there is. Pardon me, but this is not the way you would have treated Mr. Darcy had he been in my place."
Harriet gasped for breath. Mr. Darcy, the hero of her Brighton folly, the name which she had never confessed to a living soul, the only man in the world who she thought could have taunted her with indiscretion, and of being weak and frivolous rather than a rude and forward girl! Harriet did not reply; she looked at him closely, almost tremblingly, and then continued her hurried progress homewards; the prowler, seeing his advantage, maintained his position by her side, keeping the umbrella over her.
"Mr. Darcy was an intimate friend of mine before he went to India; we were together at Brighton, Miss Wesden--more than once he has mentioned your name to me."
"Indeed," she murmured.
"You would like to hear that he is well, perhaps."