"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Mattie.
"He followed me at the last moment, stating that he had business in London, and then the train moved on--FOR DOVER!"
"Yes, he _was_ a villain and coward!" cried Mattie, setting her teeth and clenching her hands spasmodically; "go on!"
"In less then five minutes I was aware of the deception that had been practised on me. I woke suddenly to the whole truth, to my own folly in believing in this man. He would have feigned it to be a mistake at first--a mistake on his own part--and for my own safety, alone with him there, and the train shrieking along into the night, I professed to believe him, and mourned over the clumsy blunder which was taking us away from home; but I was on my guard, and my reserve, my alarm, kept him cautious. I sat cowering from him in the extreme corner of the carriage, and he sat maturing his plans, and marking out, as he thought, his way. He confessed at last that it was a deeply-laid scheme to secure what he called his happiness. He swore to be a brother to me, a faithful friend in whom every trust might be put until we were married at Calais; but the mask had dropped, and my heart, throbbing with my humiliation, had turned utterly against him. I lowered the carriage window, and sat watchful of him, knowing every word he uttered then to be a lie, and feeling that he looked upon me as a girl easily to be led astray--a shop-keeper"s daughter, whose self-respect was quickly deadened, and whose vanity was sufficient to lead her on to ruin. But I bade him keep his seat away from me, and give me time to think of what he had said--time to believe in him! We were silent the rest of the way to Ashford. My throat was choking with the angry words which burned to leap forth and denounce him for his knavery--he who sat smiling at the success in store for him. At Ashford, thank G.o.d! the train stopped."
"Thank G.o.d!" whispered Mattie also.
"I opened the door suddenly, Mattie, and leaped forth like a madwoman; he followed me to the platform, when I turned upon him like--like a she-wolf!" she cried, vehemently, "and denounced him for the cowardly wretch he had been to me. There were a few guards about, and one gentleman, and they were my audience. I claimed their protection from the man; I told them how I had been tricked into that train and led away from home; I asked them if they had daughters whom they loved to protect me and send me back again secure from him. Mattie, I shamed him to his soul!"
"Bravo!--bravo!" cried Mattie, giving two leaps in the air in her excitement; "that"s my own darling, whose heart was ever strong and true enough!"
"Only her head a little weak, and likely to be turned--eh, Mattie?" said Harriet, in a less excited strain; "well, I am sobered now for ever--and every sc.r.a.p of romantic feeling has been torn to shreds. I must have been under a spell, for it seems like an evil dream now that I could ever have thought of loving that man."
"And they took your part at the station?"
"Yes,--and gave me advice, and were kind to me, and he who attempted to deceive me skulked back into the carriage, muttering a hundred excuses, which I did not hear. The gentleman who had listened to my story, and been prepared to defend me, had it been necessary, followed Mr. Darcy to the carriage, added a few stern words, and then returned to offer me advice how to proceed. He was a strange, eccentric man, very harsh even with me in his speech, and disposed to preach a sermon on the warning I had had, as though I were not likely to take a lesson from my over-confidence, after all that had happened. But he was very kind in act, and meant all for my good, though he might have spared me just a little more. He consulted the railway time-tables for me, made many inquiries of the guards, whom he appeared to disbelieve, for he went back to the time-tables again; finally told me that there was no train till a quarter past five by which I could reach home. He showed me an hotel adjacent to the station, and left me there, after again upbraiding me for my want of judgment; and at a quarter past five--what an age it seemed before that time came round!--I left Ashford once again for home."
"And are here safe from danger--to make my heart light again with the sight of you. Well, my dear, we"ll think it all an ugly dream--and shut _him_ away in it for ever."
"And now--what will the world think of me?--how much of the story will it believe, Mattie?" was the scornful answer.
"What will the world know of it? You and I can keep the secret between us. Mr. Darcy will not boast of his humiliation. The old people need not be hara.s.sed and perplexed by all that has happened this night."
"No, no--all an ugly dream, as you say, Mattie!" remarked Harriet; "perhaps it is best, and a woman"s fame is hard to establish, on her own explanation of such a history as mine. Let it sink. I am verily ashamed of it. My blood will boil at every chance allusion that a.s.sociates itself with last night. Oh! my poor, dear, truthful Sid, to think of turning away from _you_ and believing in a heartless villain."
"Ah! Sidney!" exclaimed Mattie.
"Whatever happens--whatever the future may bring--that letter, Mattie, must be destroyed. It is a false statement. We must secure it and destroy it. With time before me, and the dark memory shut out, how I will love that faithful heart!"
"Trust the letter to me--trust--oh! the shop, the shop all this while!--and I haven"t told you my story."
"Presently then, Mattie. I would go down now."
"Yes, I will go down. I have been very neglectful of business in my joy at seeing you again. It did not seem possible a few hours ago that all would have ended fairly like this. I am so happy--so very happy now, dear Harriet!"
She shook Harriet by both hands, kissed her once more, and even cried a little before she made a hasty dash from the room to the stairs. At the second landing, outside Mr. Hinchford"s apartments, she remembered the letter--the evidence of Harriet"s past romance in which Sidney Hinchford played no part.
Mattie pictured the future as very bright and glowing after this--the two who had been ever kind to her, and helped so greatly towards her better life, would come together after all, and make the best and truest couple in the world!
Mattie"s training--moral training it may be called--was scarcely a perfect one. She had been taught what was honest and truthful; she was far away for ever from the old life; but the fine feelings--the sensitiveness to the _minutiae_ of goodness--were wanting just then. The means to the end were not particularly to be studied, so that the end was good. Harriet had done no wrong, merely been duped by a specious scamp for awhile; but keep the story dark for the sake of the suspicions it cast on minds inclined to doubt good in anything--and for the sake of general peace, make away with the letter--Sidney Hinchford"s property as much as the locket she stole from him when she was eleven years of age.
Harriet Wesden was silent from fear and shame; her nature was a timid one, and shrank back from painful avowals; Mattie did not look at the subject in the best light, and thought of promoting happiness by secrecy, a dangerous experiment, that may tend at any moment to an explosion. Mattie opened the drawing-room door softly and looked in. Mr.
Hinchford had not appeared yet, and she entered and went direct to the mantel-piece, on which the letter had lain ever since its arrival. The letter was gone!
"Oh! dear!--oh! dear!--what"s to be done now?" cried Mattie, looking from the centre table to the side table on which was Sidney"s desk, unlocked. Mattie did not think of appearances when she opened the desk and began turning over its contents with a hasty hand--a suspicious-looking operation, in which she was discovered by Mr.
Hinchford, who entered the room suddenly.
"Mattie," he said, sternly, "I should not have thought that you would have been guilty of this meanness."
Mattie, with her bonnet and shawl on, and awry from her past movements, with her face pale and haggard from want of sleep, remained with her hands in the desk, looking hard at the new comer. Her instinct was to tell the truth--there was no harm in it.
"I am looking for the letter which came for Mr. Sidney--I want it back."
"Want it back!--what letter?"
"The letter which has been on the mantel-piece all the week--it was Miss Harriet"s--she wishes to have it back, to put something else in it."
"Bless my soul!--very odd," said Mr. Hinchford; "I"ll give it to Miss Harriet myself--there"s no occasion to rummage my boy"s desk about. I don"t like it, Mattie--I am extremely displeased."
"I am very sorry," said Mattie, submissively; "I did not think what I was doing. And you will give the letter to Miss Harriet?"
"It"s in the breast-pocket of my coat--I"ll give it her."
Mattie cowered before the flushed face, and the stern look thereon; this man was a friend of hers, too--one of the rescuers!--whom she would always bear in kind remembrance; she went softly across the room to the door, veering suddenly round to lay her hands upon his arm.
"I"m very sorry, Mr. Hinchford," she said; "it was all done without a moment"s thought. You, for the first time in your life, will not be angry with me?"
"No, no, no, no," repeated the old gentleman, taken aback by this appeal, and softening at once; "I don"t suppose you meant anything wrong, Mattie."
"Thank you."
Mattie went down-stairs in a better frame of mind, and yet ashamed at having been detected in a crooked action by a gentleman who always spoke so much of straightforwardness, and had a son who excelled in that difficult accomplishment. She was vexed at the impulse now--what would any man less generous in his ideas have thought of her?
"Never mind," was Mattie"s consolation, "I meant no harm--I meant well.
And all will end well now, and everybody be so happy. What a change from the terrible thoughts of only a few hours ago!"
She could think of nothing but Harriet Wesden"s safety, and her own minor _escapade_ was of little consequence. Thinking of Harriet again, and rejoicing in the brighter thoughts which the last hours had brought with it, she opened the door at the foot of the stairs and went at once into the shop.
Mr. Wesden was standing behind the counter, waiting upon a customer, as though he had never left Great Suffolk Street, and retiring from business had been only a dream.
CHAPTER XII.
A SHORT WARNING.
Mattie stood in her disordered walking-dress, gazing at the stationer, for whose presence she could not account; Mr. Wesden looked across the counter at her.
"Will you go into the parlour, please?" he said at last.
"In the parlour!--ye--es, sir."
There was something wrong--radically and irretrievably wrong this time; however greatly Mr. Wesden had changed, he had never looked so strangely or spoken so harshly as he did at that time. Even the customer whom he was serving, and who knew Mattie, turned round and glanced also in her direction.