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قراءة كتاب Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 2 of 3)

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‏اللغة: English
Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 2 of 3)

Mattie:—A Stray (Vol 2 of 3)

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 5

have done credit to a detective policeman; her questions seemed so wide of the mark, and kept suspicion back from her whom she loved so well. Certainly they implicated another, and drew attention to him in a marked manner; but he was a man, and could bear it, thought Mattie, and if he were at the bottom of the mystery, there was no need to study him—rather to track him out and come face to face with him!

"Will you tell Mr. Darcy that I wish to speak a few words with him immediately?"

"Mr. Darcy don't live here," said the astonished servant.

"He visits here—he stayed here last night."

"No, he didn't," was the abrupt reply; "he went away at ten o'clock."

"With Miss Wesden, of course," was the apparently careless answer.

"Yes, with Miss Wesden. He never stops here."

"Where does he live?"

"I don't know—somewhere about here, I believe."

"Ask his address of your mistress," cried Mattie, becoming excited as the truth seemed to loom before her with all its horror; "I must see him!"

The servant-maid's eyes became rounder, and she gasped forth—

"I'll—I'll wake missus."

"Ask her to oblige me with Mr. Darcy's address—and please make haste."

The servant withdrew, leaving Mattie standing in the draughty side passage, dark and dense as the fate of her whom she loved appeared to be from that day. She could hear the sweep bustling and bundling about the kitchen noisily; it seemed an age before the servant's feet came clumpeting down the stairs again.

"It's number fourteen, St. Olave's Terrace, Old Kent Road."

"Thank you."

Mattie turned away, and ran down the fore court at a rapid pace.

"Well—I never!" ejaculated the amazed domestic. "What's Mr. Darcy gone and done, I wonder!"

Mattie darted backward on her homeward route; her plans of action were at sea now; she only wished to know the worst, and feel the strength to face it for others' sakes, not for her own. There were an old man and an old woman to comfort in their latter days, to become a daughter to in the place of her who had been spirited away—give her strength to solace them in the deep misery upon its way.

People were stirring in the streets although the day was dark, and the sky above still full of stars. Mattie made many inquiries, and at last found St. Olave's Terrace, a row of large, gloomy houses, of red brick. At No. 14 Mattie knocked long and vigorously, until a window was opened in the first floor, and a boy's head protruded—the unkempt head of a page.

"What's the row down there?" he shouted.

"Mr. Darcy—is he at home?"

"He ain't at home—he didn't come back last night."

"Are you sure?—are you quite sure?"

"I should think I was," replied young Impudence. "Who shall I say called—Walker?"

"No matter—no matter."

Mattie turned and hurried away again. Close upon six o'clock, and an empty cab before a public-house door. Mattie ran into the public-house, and found the cabman drinking neat gin at the bar, and bewailing the hardness of the times to the barman, who was yawning fearfully.

"Is your cab engaged?"

"Where do you want to go, Miss?" asked the cabman. "If it's Greenwich way, I've got a party to take up in five minutes time!"

"Suffolk Street, Borough. I—I don't mind what I pay to get there quickly."

"Jump in, Miss—I'll drive you there in no time."

Mattie entered the cab, the cabman mounted the box, and away they went down the Old Kent Road. The cabman had been up all night, calling at many night-houses in his route, and always taking gin with despatch and gusto. He was reckless with his whip, unmerciful to his horse, and disregardful of the cab, which he had out on hire. He was just intoxicated enough to be confidential, mysterious, and sympathizing. He lowered the glass window at his back, and looked through at Mattie.

"Lor bless you! I wouldn't cry about a bit of a spree," he said, suddenly, so close to Mattie's ear, that she jumped to the other seat with affright; "if you've kep it up late, tell your missus, or your mother, that they wouldn't let you leave afore—she was young herself once, I daresay!"

"Drive on, please!—drive on!"

"I'm driving my hardest, my child—cutting off all the corners—that's only a kub-stone, don't be frightened, m'child—soon be home now. They won't say much to you, if you'll on'y tell 'em that they was young once 'emselves, and shouldn't be too hard upon a gal—that's on'y another kub-stone," he explained again, as a sudden jolting nearly brought the bottom out of the cab; "we shan't be long now—don't cry any more—I hope this here'll be a blessed warning to you!"

And suddenly becoming stern and full of reproof, he shook his head at Mattie, drew up the window, and directed his whole attention to his quadruped, which he had evidently made up his mind to cut in half between Old Kent Road and Great Suffolk Street.

At half-past six Mattie was turning the corner of the well-known street; she looked from the cab window towards the stationer's shop. The shutters were closed still, but the news-boy was at the open door, muffled to the nose in his worsted comforter. Mattie sprung out, paid her fare, and ran into the shop, where Ann Packet, with her eyes red with weeping, rushed at her at once, and began to cry and shake her.

"Oh! Mattie, Mattie, where have you been?—what's the matter?"

"Nothing much—don't ask me just yet. How long have you been up?"

"I overslept myself—oh! dear, dear, dear!—and just got up in a fright—that boy skeering me so with the heels of his boots aginst the door. And oh! dear, dear, dear!—I found the shop all dark, and just let him in, and was going up to call you, when here you are—oh! where have you been?"

"I'l tell you presently—let me think a bit—I'm not well, Ann."

"You've been to a doctor's. Oh! my dear, my dear, what has happened to you? You came back in a cab—you've hurt yourself somehow, and I to be so unfeeling and wicked as to think that, that you'd gone out of your mind, perhaps—for you always was a strange gal, and like nobody else, wasn't you? Shall I run up-stairs and wake Miss Harriet?"

"No, no—not for the world! Go down-stairs and make haste with the coffee, Ann, please. And you boy, don't stare like that," snapped Mattie, "but take the shutters down."

Ann scuttled down-stairs, forgetful of her ankles, in her excitement at the novel position of affairs; the boy took down the shutters and disclosed the cabman still before the door, carefully examining his horse, and rather evilly disposed towards himself for the damage he had done the animal and cab in his excitement. Mattie went into the parlour, where the gas burned still, and stood by the table reflecting on the end—what was to be done now?—whether it were better to keep up the mystery, to allege some reason for Harriet's absence, frame some white lie that might keep Ann Packet and Mr. Hinchford appeased, and save her name for a short while longer?

When the boy came staggering in with the third shutter, a new thought—a forlorn hope—suggested itself.

"Wait here and mind the shop till I come down, William," she said.

She went up-stairs in her bonnet and shawl, and pushed open the door of Harriet Wesden's room. Empty and unoccupied, as she might have known, and yet which, in defiance of possibilities, she had gone up to explore again. The blind was undrawn, and the faint glimmer of the late dawning was stealing into the room, and scaring the shadows back.

Mattie gave way at the desolation of the place; and flung herself upon her knees at the bed's foot.

"Oh! my darling, God forgive you, and watch over you—oh! my darling, whom I loved more than a sister, and who is for ever—for ever—lost to me!"

"NoNO—Mattie!"

Mattie leaped to her feet, and with a cry scarcely human, rushed

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