"Robbery!--there--there"s been no more robbery!" gasped Mattie, her thoughts darting off at a tangent in the direction of her old trouble.
"You can go into the parlour," he repeated, as harshly as before; "I"ll be with you in a minute."
Mattie went into the parlour, took off the bonnet and shawl that, she had so long forgotten, and which must have added to Mr. Wesden"s perplexity, and then sat down, with her face towards the shop, to await her master"s pleasure--and displeasure! There was trouble in store for her--perhaps for Harriet--Mr. Wesden had discovered a great deal, and she had to bear the first shock of the storm. She could see Mr. Wesden"s face from her position; even at that distance it seemed as if the innumerable lines in it had been cut deeper since she had seen it last, and the heavy grey brows shadowed more completely the eyes. He was not his usual self either--the quick glance of the watcher noticed how his hands shook as he served the customer, and that he fumbled with the change in a manner very new and uncharacteristic for him. His habits, or his caution, had even undergone a change; for, as the news-boy came in at the street-door, he told him to go behind the counter and attend to the customers till he returned. Then he entered the parlour, still flushed and trembling, yet so stern, and leaned his two hands on the table till it creaked beneath the pressure which he put upon it.
"Mattie," he said at last, "I think it"s quite time that you and I said good-bye to one another!"
"Oh! sir!--_what_?" Mattie could only e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e.
"I"ve been thinking it over for some time--putting it off--giving you another trial--hoping that I was even mistaken in you--but things get worse and worse, and this last news _is_ a settler!"
"Mr. Wesden, there must be some mistake."
"No, there isn"t--don"t interrupt me--don"t make any more excuses, for I shan"t believe "em."
"Go on, sir," said Mattie, impetuously, "I don"t understand."
"You need not fly in a pa.s.sion, if you don"t," he corrected.
"I"m not in a pa.s.sion, Mr. Wesden--you _will_ think wrongly of me."
"Just listen to this--just deny this if you can. You left my house in the middle of the night--you have been up all night, and G.o.d knows where--you did not come back to this house--you, who have no friends to go to--until half-past six o"clock this morning."
Mattie sat thunderstruck at this charge, so true in its a.s.sertion, and yet the suspicions which it led to so easily refuted, or--she drew a long breath and held her peace at the thought--so easily transferred!
"You can"t deny this," continued Mr. Wesden, in the same hard manner; "how long it"s been going on, or what bad company has led you astray, I can"t say. But you haven"t acted like a young woman who meant well--you"ve been getting worse and worse with every day."
"It isn"t true!" cried Mattie, indignantly; "I----"
She paused again.
"Ah! don"t give me excuses," he said; "I"m an old man who knows the world, and won"t believe in them. I wouldn"t believe in my own daughter, if she acted as you have done, or was ever so ready at excuses. No honest girl--I"m sorry to say it, Mattie--would ever, without a fair reason, be walking the streets, friendless and alone, at such unnatural hours."
"Will you not believe me, when I tell you truly, without a blush in my face, that as G.o.d"s my judge, I went out with a motive of which even you would approve."
"What was it?"
"I--I cannot tell you that yet. Presently, perhaps--if you will only give me time--not now."
Mr. Wesden shook his head.
"Mattie," he replied, "it won"t do! It isn"t what I"ve been used to, and I can"t wait till you have invented a story and----"
"Invented!" shrieked Mattie, leaping to her feet, "what more!--what more have you to charge an innocent girl, who has thought of nothing but serving you honestly from the time you took pity on her wretchedness?
You have turned against me; if you are tired of me, tell me so plainly--but don"t talk as if I were a liar and a thief still--I will not have it!"
"You put a bold face upon it, and that"s a bad sign," said Mr. Wesden; "where there"s no shame, only _bounce_, it takes away all the pity of the thing, and makes me firmer."
The table creaked once more with the extra pressure of his hands; the flush died away from the face, whereon settled an expression more steely and invulnerable.
"Oh! sir--how you have altered! What do you think that I have done!"
cried the perplexed Mattie.
"See here," said Mr. Wesden; "I don"t wish to rake up everything, but as you put it to me, I"ll just show you how foolish it is to brave it out like this. I"m very sorry; I can"t make it out, altering for the better as you had--it"s bad company, I suppose. First," he removed his hands from the table, and began checking off the items on his fingers, "there"s money missing up-stairs--a cash-box opened, and only----"
"My G.o.d!--has that thought rankled so long?" interrupted Mattie; "I don"t wonder at the rest, if you begin like that with me. I"ll go away--I"ll go away!"
"It didn"t rankle--I gave you the benefit of the doubt," said Mr.
Wesden; "I wouldn"t believe it, but I fancied that you were altering, and that something was wrong somewhere. It looked at least as if you were careless, and I thought the house might get robbed, or catch fire, or anything after that--and it disturbed my mind much; I couldn"t sleep for thinking of you--and one night I came over here very late, and you were up talking and laughing with a young man in the shop, in the dead of night."
"That, too!" cried Mattie; "do you suspect _him_?"
"I suspected _you_, that"s enough to say just now."
"More than enough!" was the bitter answer.
"And then a parcel disappears, and there"s a lame excuse for that--and a policeman finds you in Kent Street at a receiver"s house--the house of a noted thief, that you must have known long ago----"
"I went there--but no matter, you"ll not believe me," said Mattie.
"And so I was obliged to have you watched for my own protection"s sake, and you were seen to leave the house last night, and come back in a cab after the shop was open. And if all that"s not enough to drive a business man wild, why, I never was a man fit for business at all."
Mattie gathered up her bonnet and shawl from the chair on which they had been placed, and proceeded to put them on again, keeping her dark eyes fixed on Mr. Wesden"s face.
"There"s only one thing which I"ll agree with, sir," she said, her voice faltering despite her effort to keep firm, "and that"s the first speech you made me. It"s quite time that you and I said "good-bye" to one another!"
"Well--it is!"
"I don"t know whether you wish it or not--I don"t care!--but I will go away at once, trusting in Him whom your wife taught me first to pray to.
I will go away without anger in my heart against you--for oh! you have been very good and kind to me, and I shall be grateful again when to-day"s hard words go further and further back. I will hope in the time when you will know all, and be sorry that you lost your trust in me so soon. Better to doubt me than--_others_?"
She corrected herself in time; she remembered her promise to Harriet.
She saw how easy it was for a few errors, a few mistakes to make this strange man forget all the good efforts of a life--deceived in Mr.
Wesden as she had been, she could not gauge in those excited moments the depths of his affection for his daughter.
In the avowal there would be danger to Harriet; so, for Harriet"s sake, let her take the blame and go away. Harriet could only have cleared up the last mystery--the rest affected herself. She had had never more than half a character--she rose from crime, and its antecedents rose again with her at the first suspicion against her truthful conduct. It was very hard to go away--but it was her only step, and he wished it also--he, who had been almost a father to her until then.
"I"ll pack my box, and leave at once, sir--if you don"t mind."
"No," was the gloomy response.
He was deceived in Mattie still; he had hoped that she would have confessed to everything, to the new and awful temptations that had beset her lately, and prayed for his mercy and forgiveness--begged for his help and moral strength to lead her from the dark road she was pursuing.
He was disappointed by her defiance--by her a.s.sumption of an innocence in which he could not believe; and he could only see that her plans were too readily formed, and that she had already fixed upon her future a.s.sociates and home. He was amazed at her way of encountering his charges; and as he had been only a business-man all his life, he could not understand her.
Mattie left the room, and he turned into his shop again, and dismissed the news-boy from his post of promotion. The matter had worried him, and was still worrying him. The _denouement_ was not satisfactory, and the world was hardening very much, or becoming too complex in its machinery for him. He had found Mattie out, and it had all ended just as he feared it would; and still his head ached, and his thoughts perplexed him!
He counted the arrears of Mattie"s salary, and put it on the back shelf, ready for her when she came down, knocking it all over the minute afterwards, and sending two shillings under the shop-board, where the shutters and gas-meter were. He made mistakes with the next customer in his change, and would not believe it was his error, although he paid the man rather than get into a fresh dispute at that instant; he rummaged from a whole packet of printed notices he dealt in, a "THIS SHOP AND BUSINESS TO BE DISPOSED OF," and stuck it with wafers in the window, upside down. He would retire from business in earnest, and not make-believe any longer; he should be more composed in mind--more happy, when all this was no longer a burden to him.
He served his customers absently, and wondered--for he was a good and just man at heart--whether he was acting for the best after all; whether it was quite Christian-like to give up the child whom he had rescued from the cruel streets, five years ago, come Christmas.