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Read Ebook: Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 3 of 3) by Robinson F W Frederick William
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Ebook has 1482 lines and 65367 words, and 30 pages
"Of course, must be!"
"Must be!" repeated Mr. Gray, looking in a dreamy manner at his daughter.
"I promised his father to think of him--to study him by all the means in my power. I see that no one understands him but me, and I hear that he is sinking away from all that made him good and noble. I will do my best for him, and there is no one who can stop me here."
"Your father!"
"--Is a new friend, who has been kind to me, and whom I love--but he hasn't the power to make me break my promise to the dead. That man is desolate, and heavily afflicted, and I will go to him!"
"Against MY wish?"
"Yes--against the wishes of all in the world--if they were uttered in opposition to me!" cried Mattie.
"Then," looking very firm and white, "you will choose between him and me. He will be a friend the more, and I a daughter the less."
"It cannot be helped."
"You never loved me, or you would never thus defy me. Girl, you are going into danger--the world will talk, and rob you of your good name."
"Let it," said Mattie, proudly. "It has spoken ill before of me, and I have lived it down. I shall not study it, when the interest and happiness of a dear friend are at stake. He is being killed by all you!" she cried, with a comprehensive gesture of her hand; "now let me try!"
"Mattie, you are mad--wrong--wicked!--I have no patience with you--I have done with you, if you defy me thus."
"I am doing right--you cannot stop me. I have done wrong to remain idle here so long; I will go at once."
"At once!--breaking up this home--you will, then?"
"If I remain here longer, you will set him against me--me, who would have him look upon me as his sister, his one friend left to pray for him, slave for him, and keep his enemies away!"
"I won't hear any more of this rhodomontade--this voice of the devil on the lips of my child," he said, snatching up his hat again. "Stay here till I return, or go away for ever."
Mr. Gray was in a passion, and, like most men in a passion, went the wrong way to work. He was jealous of this new rival to his daughter's love that had sprung up, and angered with Mattie's attempt to justify her new determination. He believed in Mattie's obedience, and his own power over her yet; and he was an obstinate man, whom it took a long while to subdue. He went out of the room wildly gesticulating, and Mattie sat panting for awhile, and trying to still the heaving of her bosom. She had gone beyond herself--perhaps betrayed herself--but she had expressed her intention, and nothing that had happened since had induced her to swerve. If it were a choice between her father and Sidney, why, it must be Sidney, if he would have her for his friend and companion in the future.
"I must go--I must go at once!" she whispered to herself; and then hurriedly put on her bonnet and shawl, and made for the staircase. She thought that she was doing right, and that good would come of it; and she did not hesitate. Before her, in the distance, sat the solitary figure of him she loved, friendless, alone, and benighted; and her woman's heart yearned to go to him, and forgot all else.
Thus forgetting, thus yearning to do good, Mattie made a false step, and turned her back upon her father's home.
MATTIE'S ADVISER.
Mattie reached Chesterfield Terrace as the clock was striking nine. Ann Packet almost shouted with alarm at the sight of the new visitor, and then looked intently over Mattie's shoulder.
"I have come instead. He will see me, I hope."
She did not wait to be announced, but turned the handle of the parlour-door and entered. Sidney Hinchford, in a harsh voice, cried out,
"Who's there?"
"Only Mattie. May I come in?"
"Mattie here at this hour! Come in, if you will. What is it?"
He was seated in the great leathern arm-chair, that had been his father's favourite seat, in the old attitude that Mattie knew so well now. She shuddered at the change in him--the wreck of manhood that one affliction had reduced him to, and the impulse that had brought her there was strengthened.
"Mr. Sidney," she said, approaching, "I have come to ask a favour of you."
"I am past dispensing favours, Mattie. Unless--unless it's to listen patiently to that horrible father of yours. Then I say No--for he drives me mad with his monotony."
"I have come to defend you from him, if he call again--to live here, and take care of you as a dear brother who requires care, and must not be left entirely to strangers."
"I am better by myself, Mattie--fit company only for myself."
"No, the worst of company for that."
"It must not be."
"Who--my father?" asked Sidney, wondering.
"Yes--he wished that I should come here, and I promised him. Oh! Mr. Sidney, for a little while, before you have become resigned to this great trouble, let me stay!"
He might have read the truth--the whole truth--in that urgent pleading, but he was shut away from light, and sceptical of any love for him abiding anywhere throughout the world.
"If he wished it, Mattie--stay. If your father says not No to this, why, stay until you tire of me, and the utter wretchedness of such a life as mine."
"Why utterly wretched?"
"I don't know--don't ask again."
"Others have been afflicted like you before, sir, and borne their heavy burden well."
"Why do you 'sir' me? That's new."
"I called your father sir,--you take your father's place," said Mattie, hastily.
"A strange reason--I wonder if it's true."
Mattie coloured, but he could not see her blushes, and whether true or false, mattered little to him then. A new suspicion seized him after awhile, when he had thought more deeply of Mattie's presence there.
"If this is a new trick of your father's to preach to me through you, I warn you, Mattie."
"I have told you why I am here."
"No other reason but that promise to my father?"
"Yes, one promise more--to myself. Mr. Hinchford," she said, noticing his sudden start, "I promised my heart, when I was very young--when I was a stray!--that it should never swerve from those who had befriended me. It will not--it beats the faster with the hope of doing service to all who helped me in my wilful girlhood."
"I told a lie, and said you did not steal my brooch!"
"That was not all, but that taught me gratitude. Say a lie, but it was a lie that saved me from the prison--from the new life, worse, a thousand times worse than the first."
"You are a strange girl--you were always strange. I am curious to know how soon you will tire of me, or I shall tire of you and this new freak. When I confess you weary me--you will go?"
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